Chapter Text
The Cloudslayer lurched in midair, slamming Donald backwards into his seat. He looked at his sister Della, whose face was looking considerably paler than usual. She was squeezing the steering column in front of her with a much firmer grip than seemed necessary.
Scrooge’s voice drifted up from the cargo hold, “Everything all right up there, Della?”
“It’s fine. Just… a little turbulence is all,” her voice sounded tense. Donald stared at her- he could have sworn he had seen Della start to tremble moments before the plane lurched.
“Are you sure you’re ok, sis?” he asked.
She gritted her teeth and kept her gaze firmly out the front window. “I’m fine. It’s just, um, lady problems.”
“Ah.” Donald sat back in his seat, feeling a bit awkward. “Hey, would you like me to see if we’ve got a hot water bottle somewhere? Or…” he thought for a moment. “Wait a minute. You don’t normally have an egg cycle in the springtime, do you?”
Della glanced at him, surprised. “How would you know when my cycles are?”
Donald snickered. “We’re twins, Della. You really think that after all these years, I haven’t noticed there are always certain times of the year that you’re particularly insistent I stay out of your room?”
Della gave him a weak smile, then focused on the plane’s instruments. “Yeah, I guess my schedule’s a little off. It happens sometimes… ah!” she squeezed her eyes closed and tightened her grip on the steering column again. The plane faltered, but she quickly steadied it. “Just a cramp.”
“I could go find you some painkillers?” Donald offered.
“I’ll be all right. It’s less than twenty minutes until we land.”
The landing was one of the roughest Donald had ever experienced. They could hear Scrooge swearing from his seat in the cargo hold, and when the plane finally rolled to a halt in the hangar outside the Money Bin, he appeared on the flight deck, looking extremely cross.
“How did we have that much turbulence, Della? The weather was completely clear all the way from-” He paused, taking note of Della’s pale face and clenched jaw. “Are you all right, lass?”
“Just a cramp,” Della repeated, rising from her seat. She gasped and swayed on the spot, grabbing onto her uncle’s elbow for support. Donald rushed in and took her other arm and they steered her through the plane’s hatch and down the stairs. There were two other people in the hangar- Bentina Beakley and Gyro Gearloose. Gyro’s hair was slightly burned and his clothes were covered in grease, while Mrs. Beakley looked annoyed. They were standing next to Beakley’s car, and appeared to be arguing. The McDuck family began to hear them as they approached, Della still walking unsteadily, clinging to her uncle and brother for support.
“I only wanted an oil change, Gyro! Not any ‘fancy upgrades!’”
“You’ll like them as soon as I show you how to work them all, look at the-”
Gyro was interrupted by a retching sound, as Della broke free of Scrooge and Donald so she could vomit into a nearby trashcan. Mrs. Beakley was at her side in an instant, pushing her hair out of her face, and pulling a tissue out of her purse. Della took it gratefully and wiped her mouth.
“Airsickness? Bad food somewhere?” Mrs. Beakley asked. The first seemed unlikely. Della had been a pilot for years and never had trouble with motion sickness before.
Della shook her head, still leaning against the trash can. “No. It feels like, well,” she looked up at Mrs. Beakley, “It feels almost like an egg-cycle. But the timing is wrong, and it’s never been this painful.”
“Sit down.” Mrs. Beakley guided Della over to a bench by the wall. “And go get her some water!” she barked over her shoulder at Donald, who scurried off.
Mrs. Beakley knelt down and took one of Della’s hands in hers. She spoke quietly, so that none of the men would overhear. “Della, I know this is an awkward question, but is there any chance you might have fertilized eggs?”
Della laughed, despite the pain. “I’m a lesbian, Mrs. B. So no.”
“It’s not actually impossible. There’s been some new research into gene transfusions. And-”
“Not helpful, Gyro.” Mrs. Beakley glared over her shoulder at him, and he sheepishly took a step back, but he continued to hover nearby like a curious oversized insect. Della was too tired to care.
“May I?” Mrs. Beakley placed her hand over Della’s abdomen and Della nodded. She clenched her teeth and breathed deeply. The pressure didn’t hurt, but it was oddly uncomfortable.
“You do feel a bit swollen. But nothing too out of the ordinary, that I can tell. Could it have been something you ate or drank while you were traveling?”
“We all ate the same things- if it were food poisoning, Scrooge or Donald would be sick too, wouldn’t they?”
“Probably.”
Donald returned with a bottle of water. He opened it and handed it to Della, who sipped it gratefully. Mrs. Beakley looked back at him and Gyro. “Why don’t you two go make yourselves useful by unloading the cargo? And bring a first-aid kit over here while you’re at it.”
The two young men glanced at each other, nodded awkwardly, and began walking back towards the Cloudslayer.
“Do you know what’s wrong with her?” Donald asked, glancing back at his sister.
“Why would I know? I’m not that kind of doctor,” Gyro began. “But Mrs. Beakley suspects that she might be pregnant.”
A flush of red appeared at Donald’s ears and quickly spread over his entire face. “WHAT?” Gyro jumped out of range of Donald’s fists, as Donald began squawking loudly and incomprehisbly. Gyro could only understand a few snatches of words-
“My sister…”
“Who would…”
“Wait a minute.” Donald stood upright again, the bright flush leaving his face as suddenly as it appeared. “Della’s a lesbian. How would she get pregnant?”
“Well, there has been some new research into gene transfusion that uses the nucleus from a donor ovum and…” Gyro paused. “It's difficult and expensive, though. Can't have happened by accident. I suppose there’s always the possibility of parthenogenesis, but there’s never been a documented case in a duck.”
“Partho-what?” Donald opened the hatch of the Cloudslayer and began unloading crates of cargo from their last adventure.
“Parthenogenesis. Reproduction from an unfertilized ovum. A single female organism may reproduce via recombination of chromosomes and the spontaneous conversion of a haploid gamete to a diploid zygote.”
“I only understood about half of those words.” Donald admitted, moving another crate to reveal the tail of a giant golden statue, that had been the main artifact they were searching for.
Gyro paused and tapped his fingers against his leg as he attempted to re-word his sentence. “Fatherless offspring, but not direct clones of the mother. It’s unusual in vertebrates. Never in mammals, but occasionally happens to avians. More common in certain lizards, such as geckos and… Komodo… dragons…?” Gyro stammered and his eyes widened as Donald shifted the last box and pulled out the large golden statue. It looked just like a Komodo dragon, nearly six feet long, with glittering emerald eyes.
“Donald? Where did you say you were just travelling?”
“The Temple of the Monitor Lizard King. On the southernmost island in Indonesia.”
“Monitor lizards? Um, I’m not an expert on magic, but… Is there any chance that statue was cursed?” Gyro asked, stepping away from the plane, nervously pushing his glasses up the bridge of his bill.
“Scrooge thought there might be, but that it just as likely had dissipated years ago. Several other adventurers had attempted to recover it. Though,” Donald paused. “The eyes were glowing before. I think they went out when Della picked it up, but then nothing happened until just now. It's been a few days…”
Donald trailed off. He looked from Gyro, to the statue, to Della, and back to Gyro.
“Ah, phooey.”