Work Text:
Mateo very carefully took a sample out of a glass bottle. Right now he was holding in his hands one of the most powerful magical plants in the whole of Everrealm and he could afford even the smallest mistake. After all, Grotto Metamo grew only in Vallestrella and if he accidentally destroys this little sample he has, he won’t be able to get one for a long time.
He gently laid the piece in his hand and started to study it, making notes with the other hand. He glanced over to his Compendium of Magical Plants and pondered. I wonder if it can be used to change the forms of other people only, because if a self-shapeshifting is possible, it can completely…”
Suddenly a wham of his entrance door and a voice pulled him out of his thoughts.
“Hi Mateo, I’m ready for our lesson!”
Mateo turned to his apprentice and was just about to scold her for bursting in without knocking when he noticed a much bigger problem. A high pile of books he was stashing next to his doors (sure, he could put them on the shelf, but what if he’s going to need them right after he does that?) was wobbling dangerously and threatening to collapse at any second. And it looked like this was the second.
“Olivia, duck!”
A loud crash and clouds of dust filled his room, causing him to lose sight of his apprentice. He immediately dropped the magical root and hurried to her.
“Olivia, are you alri-?!”
“Mateo?! Are you here?!” shouted Olivia, who luckily jumped away from the books at the last moment. She looked around the study, at the table, the fishbowl, and the bookcase but still couldn’t see her teacher anywhere.
“What do you mean, I am here!” Mateo waved to her.. and realized that something was not right. Had he fallen when running to save Olivia, and just didn’t feel anything because of adrenaline? The floor was definitely too close to his face than he’d like. But no, there was something wrong with his hands too…
“Oh, and what are you doing here, little buddy?” Olivia asked, crouching right next to him. “You should know that Mateo doesn't let animals into his study.”
And then, to Mateo’s even bigger surprise, Olivia PICKED HIM UP and started carrying out of his chamber. Before they walked out, Mateo caught a glimpse of his reflection in the fishbowl.
Magic fishbowls can also project holographic images, right?” he asked himself, looking at the russet-brown duck he saw in the mirror. I mean, why would Olivia bring here A DUCK? And why is this duck… me?”
And then it hit him. He must’ve accidentally turn himself into a duck when he was still holding the piece of Grotto Metamo’s roots. He has to tell Olivia somehow!
He spoke up but quickly realized that all Olivia hears are the quacks of a normal duck. So he started to wriggle, trying to free himself, but that only brought the opposite effect.
“Calm down little friend” Olivia whispered, clasping his wings to his back. “I’ll let you out soon.”
Let out? No, I have to get back to my study!” Mateo looked around and realized that there was only one staircase left until the main door of the palace. If he is put outside, he’ll never get back to turn himself human again!
He tried to wriggle once more and once more to no effect. The door was getting closer. Finally, in a rush of desperation, he bit Olivia in her finger. Olivia screamed and dropped him.
Mateo shook himself off, the ground was further than he remembered. But he quickly got up and started running back to his workshop.
“No, come back!” Olivia was yelling after him, but he didn’t even turn around.
He jumped on the first step. Then on the second. But on the third, the floor turned out to be too slippery for his duck feet and he fell back to the ground. He groaned, feeling like a blockheaded figurine again. Luckily, this time his wings cushioned his fall.
Wings! That’s it! He started slowly and steadily flapping his wings, just like when he was a jaquin… but nothing happened. He tried to move his wings in a more horizontal way and even jump, but the gravitation stubbornly kept him at the ground level.
Then he heard Olivia’s steps behind him.
He started running away, still flapping his wings, he was not going to get caught and then suddenly he realized… he was flying! He made a few circles around the chandelier, quacking happily. Somewhere from below, he heard Olivia yelling at him, but he calmly made another circle and headed to his study.
He flew above the stairs without any problem and turned into one of the corridors. But is it the right one? Everything from this perspective looks different…
He stopped and made a small circle, trying to figure out where to go next. Just as he picked to go along the corridor on the far right, he heard the sound of a drum. He immediately pulled his wings and fall to the ground. Right after that, he heard “Llevaluq!” and a chandelier, which was right before him just a moment before, lit up with orange light.
Not caring about flying anymore, he started to run away, tripping over the carpet and his own feet. He turned his head around and saw that Olivia had already caught up with him and was about to cast another spell. He sped up even more but his ducky feet have betrayed him! He tripped and started to roll uncontrollably. Finally, he hit something and landed on his head, with his feeties up in the air. Though he was so dizzy, he wasn’t exactly sure where up was.
Somewhere behind him, he heard Olivia gasp.
“Your highness! I’m so sorry, I was going to take this duck out of the palace but it had bitten me and started to run, and I tried to use a spell on it, but it somehow evaded them and-”
“Calm down, Olivia, it’s ok” Elena calmed her and picked the Mateo-duck up. “But what is a duck even doing in the palace?”
“I have no idea,” Olivia shrugged. “I’ve come to Mateo’s workshop, as usual, for our lesson, and when I came in I barely avoided being crushed to death with a mountain of books! But anyway, I couldn’t find Mateo anywhere and then I noticed this duck. Animals aren’t allowed into a wizard’s workshop, I’ve learned it myself, Sr Whiskers have caused me lots of troubles already… so I wanted to take it out right away, but it seems like it really wanted to stay and, well…”
Elena hummed and started to thoughtfully stroke Mateo-duck’s feathers.
“So you say you couldn’t find Mateo anywhere? It’s like he just geesed to exist?”
Olivia groaned hearing the terrible pun but Mateo couldn’t hold himself back and burst into laughter. He was laughing so hard, he didn’t even notice that Elena had stopped playing with his feathers and was now holding him at her arm's length, staring at him with disbelief. Finally, he calmed down and looked between his friend’s and his apprentice’s equally surprised faces.
“Did… it sound like a laugh to you too?”
Elena nodded, still staring at Mateo-duck with wide eyes.
“But that would mean that it understood your joke, that it understands human speech…”
“You said that you came to Mateo’s workshop but you couldn’t find him anywhere, right?”
This time Olivia nodded. They exchanged looks.
“Mateo...:?” risked Elena, rising the duck to her eye level.
Yes! Yes, it’s me! Mateo flapped his wings and quacked happily.
“Woah, woah, calm down!” Elena dodged his wing. “What happened? Why are you a duck?!”
Mateo started to frantically tell his tale, which to Elena and Olivia sounded like a very chaotic quacking.
“It’s pointless,” Elena interrupted. “We won’t understand you anyway.”
Mateo-duck sighed and looked at them with the most miserable look on his beak.
“Maybe charades?” suggested Oliviabut Elena started to shake her head before she even finished.
“Bad idea, Mateo is terrible at charades even as a human.”
Mateo shot her a ducky glare and tried to fold his wings to look offended. They all thought for a while more until Olivia spoke up again.
“I know! How about yes or no questions?”
“Great idea! Mateo, did someone turn you into a duck?”
Mateo shook his head.
“Did YOU turn yourself into a duck?”
Mateo nodded.
“Did you do it on purpose?”
Mateo looked a little embarrassed as he shook his head and Elena could swear his feathers turned into a more pink shade of orange.
“Do you know how to undo it?”
Mateo thought for a while and finally slowly nodded.
“Great!” both girls cheered.
“Can you do it here?” Elena asked right away.
Mateo sadly shook his head.
“Oh, do you need something from your workshop?” realized Olivia. “That’s why you wanted to get back there so bad?”
Mateo nodded and started to waddle towards his study.
“I’ll carry you, it will be faster,” suggested Elena and picked him up.
All three of them run into Mateo’s workshop, avoided the book mountain, now a messy pile on the floor, and stopped in the middle of the room.
“So what now?”
Mateo jumped from Elena’s hands and ran to his desk. He flew on the chair and grabbed the piece of Grotto Metamo’s root with his beak. Elena crouched down and took it from him. She looked closely at the piece.
“Wait, I'm pretty sure I’ve already seen this thing somewhere…” She looked at Mate-duck who had now come back to his desk and was pointing at a page in the Compendium of Magical Plants.
“Grotto Metamo…” read Elena out loud. “Of course! So that’s how you turned into a duck. But… how am I supposed to turn you back? Can’t only the person who turned you into something turn you back? And you’re a duck now, you can’t say that you want to turn into a human now, are you going to stay a duck forever?!”
Mateo started to gustily shake his head. He pointed at something again, this time at a piece of paper with a handwritten note on it.
“Wait what’s that?” Elena read for a while in silence. “It’s some kind of potion I think? Olivia, I think this is a thing for you more than me.”
Olivia quickly read the note and lightened up.
“Of course! If you distillate the root and conjugate it with the Andaganis Mertilis potion you can easily turn it into a Panderus Anqua type of potion, that’s genius!”
Elena stared at her blankly.
“Um and in Avaloran please?”
“I can turn him back.” Olivia grinned widely.
Another half an hour and a few mini-explosions later the potion was ready. Mateo-duck was standing in the middle of the room and Olivia was holding the potion above his head. She took a deep breath.
“Okay, it’s now or never.”
Olivia poured the shiny blue liquid at Mateo-duck and… nothing happened.
“Oh no…” Olivia didn't finish, because suddenly the Mateo-duck started to grow. When it was about the size of a shepherd dog it started to straighten itself and then its duck feet turned into normal, human feet in black boots. Next were the feathers that fell off and showed his usual master wizard robe, then the wings turned into hands and at last, the beak disappeared and Mateo was his normal, human self again.
“Wooohoo!” Elena immediately jumped to hug him. “I’m so glad you’re not a duck anymore.”
“Me too.” Mateo laughed. Then he turned to Olivia and hugged her too.
“Thank you so much, Olivia! You made this potion perfectly, if not you, I’d probably stay a duck forever.”
Olivia blushed a little at the praise. “You’re welcome. Sorry I tried to take you out of the palace.”
“It’s not your fault, I WAS an animal in a wizard’s workshop, after all, you did the right thing. Sorry, we didn’t have a lesson today.”
“Are you kidding? I got to make a Panderus Anqua potion from the Grotto Metamo tree as the first person in the whole Everrealm! It’s way better than any lesson.” Olivia quickly realized what she said and tried to correct herself, but Mateo dismissed it with a laugh.
“Yeah, I understand. And now if you’ll excuse me,” Mateo said to both of them. “But being a duck is much more tiring than it looks, I’m going to bed right away.”
Elena smiled and they all said their goodbyes and goodnights. Right before they went through the door Mateo stopped them.
“Wait, I have to ask you one more question. How did you know that duck was me? I mean, not only I have been turned into an animal in the past years, it could’ve been anyone.”
“Oh no, it had to be you,” Olivia explained. “Only you two have such a bad taste of humor.”