Put down the ducky! (Lucien)

 “How dare you insult Sir Ducky McQuacks, honorable lord of the bathtub!” The relatively new addition to the Falkreath sanctuary, Isabelle Belet, looks at me silent and somewhat confused while her two friends who I now know to be Olivia, a student at the college of Winterhold and Abigail, a mostly petty thief, badly try to hide their laughter. “Put down the ducky.” Somewhat dejected, the amateur assassin reluctantly places the duck on a rock. Taking back the prized possession and storing it safely in one of the bags Shadowmere carries, I turn back to the trio who still stand looking at me curiously. “If you’re essentially a ghost, what’s so important about that?” The mage asks and while she is mostly correct with her terminology, I have a few skills most ghosts don’t, and she seems to lack understanding regarding the fact some people didn’t grow up with or otherwise don’t have many special things just for them- and so the little things become that much more important. In my case, a seemingly indestructible horse, a rubber duck, and one or two other things from my previously living state. Hence the reason for Isabelle's question of “aren’t you too old for that?” felt ever so slightly insulting, you’re never too old for a nice hot bath and never too old to play. With further explanation regarding the origins and importance of Sir Ducky the matter is settled and we part ways, I may be able to be summoned against my will from time to time, but I can get myself anywhere I wish with ease, time to return to Cheydinhal and see what Issy has been up to.

Opening a portal for myself is quite easy, doing one for Shadowmere is not, but in the end the two of us safely return to Fort Farragut all pieces of otherworldly material intact. Giving Shadow some feed and water I leave her to rest and head down to the little flat, I’m glad that Issy has kept the place intact and relatively unchanged even after all these years, and I find her poisoning a batch of apples in the same spot they’ve always been stored in for the past two centuries. “You’ll never believe what happened.” I tell her as I climb down the ladder “Oh really? Let me guess, somebody random found the spell to summon a spectre and used it again?” Well, yes, that did in fact happen, but not what I was hoping to discuss. “Yes, somebody from the Falkreath sanctuary actually, but worse, they had the audacity to insult Sir Ducky!” Getting to the bottom of the ladder I retrieve the toy from one of the pockets of my robes, one perk of being not quite living but not totally spirit, I can hold stuff. “No…the lord of the bathtub?!” Issy looks up from her work with a note of shock in her voice that I can’t quite tell if it’s real or joking. “The same.” Thankfully the matter was resolved and I think the trio learned a lesson or two to not insult people's personal and private things no matter how trivial, and hopefully to pass on to Astrid that things will not end well should she take my horse again. Tonight though, alls well and Sir Ducky McQuacks is returned to his rightful place. Issy eventually decides to sleep and I end up deciding I might as well do my equivalent and go back to The Void, I’ll still exist in a semiconscious state of course, but I’ll have some sort of rest.

“Where did he go?!” Anxiety rushes through my nonexistent veins, somebody has stolen my damn duck. “Where did you last see it?” Issy asks me and together we retrace our recent steps, I had brought it along to the imperial city as Valan was visiting along with the Sero siblings and Xu, as little kids love strange animals. Then we went to Skingrad, and Chorral, and now in the formerly haunted house in Anvil he’s gone. Before last night nothing had been amiss, things had been dropped on a table and nearby chest of drawers and Issy had gone to sleep while I stayed awake a little longer before deciding I’d had enough of a corporeal form for the night. Now that the sun is up again there’s not a rubber aquatic knight in sight. If we don’t find him I can and will start killing people, it’s my job and in life I was very good at it.

Unfortunately the guards are useless per usual, the thieves guild fences didn’t see much of anything or are lying, and there’s not many assassins around to ask. Time for some amateur mystery solving I suppose: the case of the missing duck. The lock to the house we found was still intact, but a window that had been previously shut and locked was now only the former, a thief- that was obvious. With a combination of magic, persuasion, and a threat or two some information comes out that there was a stranger in town the past few days who’d been asking about the house and its owner. The next stop is the innkeeper, who mentions a woman who’d been in recently and left this morning, and never mentioned her business for being in town. Time to take a route back in the direction we came, if the thief has already fled perhaps we’ll catch her on the road.

Chorrol comes up empty, as does Skingrad, outside of getting rid of a few suspects who had other open contracts on them anyways, the chase continues as the trail of bodies begins to pile up too. By the end of the trip back to Cheydinhal we’ve looked in every crack and crevice of the places we’d been and come out of it with relatively little information, but at least with more money. Still, one of my few prized possessions being lost makes me feel like crying, if I still could cry. Then one day a strange note comes delivered by courier, and a Nordic one at that, it’s a ransom note of sorts. Telling me to appear in Falkreath near the Jarl's longhouse tomorrow at midnight, and to bring a full batch of poisoned apples. Hmm, I have my theories now of the thief, perhaps it’s all an elaborate joke from Isabelle and her two friends, and I can always get more apples. The day passes slowly as I wait and wait anxiously, until after what seems like an eternity it’s time.

Teleporting myself to the spot I was told at the time I was told I look around the empty town, other than a few guards who seem like they’ve seen stranger things than a semi transparent blue and slightly glowing figure pop out of nowhere I don’t notice anyone. “I see you got my note, good, I was wondering how they’d find you.” A voice in the darkness says and the thief reveals herself, Astrid, the current person in charge of the Falkreath sanctuary and occupier of a place on my top ten least favorite people list. The question is, what was the point of all this? “Do you have them?” She asks, holding out her hand “Do you have what you stole for no obvious reason?” She laughs and informs me that yes in fact she does, and the reason was to simply show me how easily it is to control me, I’m dead after all. My nonexistent blood boils at her words, but her arrogance will lead to her downfall if not by my hand or another’s than by her own. The trade is completed in the end, the ducky put down on one side and the apples on the other as we pass each other. It’s a strange thing to ask for really, a bag of apples for a prized possession, but I digress. Returning to Cyrodiil I once again place Sir Ducky McQuacks, honorable lord of the bathtub in his correct place, and how I wish I could take a hot bath, even just one more time. Pushing the duck around in the tub of warm water now that Issy has gone to bed I have a mock conversation “Astrid’s a real idiot isn’t she Sir Ducky?” “Quack! Quack! Oh absolutely, perhaps the most idiotic person I know besides that one fan at the Arena.” “Ah, that guy, I know who you mean.” “Quack! Though he’s almost endearing in a way…Astrid is not, and her sanctuary needs quite significant renovations.” Ducky is right, that place is a mess compared to Cheydinhal, or even the abandoned sanctuary up in Dawnstar. I continue this into the quiet hours of the morning, slowly moving my hand around in the water and having a conversation which I voice both parts of, it’s strangely calming, and always has been. Besides, Sir Ducky makes some good points…Quack!