Once Upon a…
~~~
Yeah yeah you know the phrase.
Our story begins in the wake of destruction. A brother lost, a sister driven by grief and rage at the one she blames responsible, and a lover in fear of her two surviving eggs being stolen from her.
This lover learned that the only way to keep her power was to prevent her children from falling in love and only then she would gain enough power to retrieve her love’s soul from beyond. Her children would grow, her oldest becoming an embodiment of Chaos and Disharmony, and her youngest? She would become the Fairest of them All.
This lover was the Witch, Mizrabel. But this is not her tale.
This is the story of her youngest, Minima. Or as she prefers.
Faye De Spell.
~~~
The tower was all she’d known since she was small.
Walls high above ending in a dramatic point and foliage growing evergreen within the cracks. The floors were worn down by her constant pacing back and forth, and books lined the shelves and piled high on the floor in stacks taller than herself. Splatters of paint droplets in vibrant colors of greens and blues and whites littered beneath her newest canvas as she made another stroke of white near the edge of the curl.
“There. Exactly how the vision showed me.” She said to herself, as she tended to talk out loud due to being alone in a rather large lonely tower.
It was a duck, like her, except with white feathers and brown eyes, a blue jacket and a sword. He looked, kind. And heroic. Dashing and suave, like a prince. A hero.
“Perhaps today is the day I…” She sighed, setting her paintbrush down into its cup. “Who are you, Mystery Boy? And what does my vision hold for you?”
She opened her box and placed her paints inside, the round jars lined by color and size, with a few empty jars signaling that she’d likely need to ask her mother to obtain more when she visits-
“MINIMA!!!”
Faye jolts up, nearly dropping her box as her blood runs cold. Her mother cannot know about this vision! So she races around to cover up her most recent painting.
“Minima!” The single window of her tower was filled with the shadow of her mother. A scraggly old woman with green eyes, a black cloak that covered most of her frame, and a green brooch that sat at her collarbone. She wasn’t a duck like Faye, but that didn’t stop Faye from seeing that this woman was her mother.
Mizrabel.
“Mother! You’re back! I thought you wouldn’t be here until later today?” Faye asks, brushing her black feathered bangs back from her golden eyes. Her mother always said she looked more like her father, despite Faye having never met him.
“Oh I could never stay away from my little FruitBat for too long! Now, come to Mother! Let me look at you!” She spread her arms out, and Faye stepped forward as her mother’s long white hair glistened in the sunlight.
Faye forced a smile as her mother stepped through the window in a swirl of dark fabric and faint green mist.
Mizrabel never used doors.
The air in the tower shifted the moment she arrived—growing colder, heavier, like the walls themselves were holding their breath. Faye clasped her hands together to keep them from shaking.
“Mother,” she repeated, trying to sound cheerful instead of terrified. “Welcome home.”
Mizrabel drifted toward her, long white hair spilling over her shoulders, her cloak trailing like smoke. Those bright, piercing green eyes swept across the room, taking in every detail.
The books.
The paints.
The covered canvas in the corner.
Faye subtly stepped in front of it.
“My little FruitBat,” Mizrabel crooned, reaching out to cup Faye’s face in her claw-like hands. “You’ve grown again since I last saw you. Sixteen years old already… how quickly time flies.”
Faye gave a nervous laugh. “Yes, well… I’ve had plenty of time to grow. Here. Inside.”
The emphasis was gentle, but intentional.
Mizrabel’s smile thinned.
“Inside is safe,” she replied smoothly. “The world beyond these walls is cruel and unkind. You know that.”
Faye swallowed, summoning every ounce of courage she had practiced in the mirror.
“I do know that,” she said carefully. “But Mother… I’m not a child anymore. I’ve learned all my lessons. I’ve studied every book, practiced every spell you’ve allowed me to, and I’ve done everything you asked.”
She straightened her posture.
“I think I’m ready to see the outside world.”
The temperature in the room seemed to drop another ten degrees.
Mizrabel turned away from her, slowly pacing across the stone floor. Her fingers trailed along the shelves, tapping against the spines of Faye’s books.
“The outside world,” she echoed softly. “Full of thieves and liars. Hunters and heroes. Creatures who would steal you away from me the moment you set foot beyond this tower.”
Faye clenched her hands.
“I could be careful,” she insisted. “I wouldn’t go far! Just to the forest, or the meadow, or—”
“Absolutely not.”
The words snapped through the air like a whip.
Faye flinched.
Mizrabel whirled around, cloak flaring dramatically.
“You are far too precious,” she said, voice suddenly sharp. “Far too important to risk on childish whims. The mists protect you for a reason. I protect you for a reason.”
Faye felt frustration bubbling up beneath her fear.
“But I’m always alone,” she whispered. “Every day, it’s just me and these walls. I’ve never even met another person. Don’t you trust me at all?”
Mizrabel’s expression softened for a fraction of a second.
“Oh, my dear Minima,” she said, stepping closer. “It isn’t you I don’t trust.”
Her eyes flicked to the covered painting again.
“It’s everyone else.”
Faye’s heart pounded.
She thought of the duck in her vision—the brave one with the sword and the kind eyes. The boy she had painted only moments ago.
Someone from the outside.
Someone real.
“Mother,” she tried again, voice small, “please. Just one day. For my birthday. That’s all I ask.”
Mizrabel studied her in silence.
Then she smiled.
A cold, practiced, dangerous smile.
“Perhaps,” she said slowly, “when you are older. Wiser. When you understand why I keep you safe.”
She reached out and patted Faye’s cheek.
“Until then… be patient.”
Faye felt her hope crumble.
“Yes, Mother,” she whispered.
“Good girl.”
With that, Mizrabel turned back toward the window, her visit already ending as abruptly as it had begun.
“And Minima?” she added, glancing over her shoulder.
Faye froze.
“Yes?”
“No more foolish talk about leaving the tower.”
The unspoken threat hung heavy in the air.
Then, in a swirl of shadows and wind, Mizrabel was gone.
Faye stood alone in the silence she knew so well.
Her shoulders sagged.
“So much for asking nicely,” she muttered.
Her eyes drifted back to the hidden canvas.
To the painted duck with the sword.
She uncovered it slowly, studying his cheerful, heroic face.
“Well,” she whispered, a tiny spark of rebellion flickering to life, “if I can’t leave the tower…”
Her gaze lifted to the single window.
“…maybe the outside world can come to me.”
Somewhere far below, completely unaware, a certain adventurous blue duck was about to make a very interesting wrong turn.
~~~
Dewey Duck had made a lot of questionable decisions in his life.
Climbing cursed mountains.
Touching obviously haunted artifacts.
Challenging beings far older and scarier than him to arm-wrestling contests.
But yelling “HEY KARNAGE, NICE HAIR—DID YOU STEAL IT FROM A MOP?!” at the captain of the Sky Pirates while standing on the wing of a moving plane?
Yeah. That one was climbing the ranks pretty fast.
“GET BACK HERE, YOU LITTLE BLUE-COATED MENACE!” Don Karnage’s voice echoed through the forest behind him, followed by the distant roar of pirates crashing through branches.
Dewey sprinted between trees, sword clutched in one hand, grappling hook bouncing against his belt.
“Okay, okay, okay,” he panted to himself. “New rule, Dewford: less taunting unhinged sky criminals. Or at least taunt them from farther away!”
An explosion rattled the ground somewhere to his left.
“Noted!”
He ducked behind a massive gnarled tree, skidded down a mossy slope, and suddenly found himself facing what looked like a sheer wall of rock and vines.
“Great,” he muttered. “Dead end. Love those.”
He glanced back over his shoulder. The sound of Karnage and his crew was getting closer.
“Well, dead end beats getting skewered,” he decided, pushing forward into the thick foliage.
To his surprise, the vines parted.
Not into more forest—but into something else entirely.
A narrow path.
Dewey slowed, blinking.
The air felt… different here. Quieter. Colder. Like the forest itself was holding its breath.
He followed the hidden trail, brushing aside leaves and branches, until the trees opened up into a small, shadowed clearing.
And there it was.
A tower.
Tall and thin, built from grayish-purple stones that looked older than Scrooge’s favorite coin. Dark green vines crawled up every inch of it, flowers blooming in impossible places, as if the whole structure had grown straight out of the earth.
Dewey tilted his head back.
“Whoa,” he breathed.
It stretched up and up and up, ending in a pointed roof and a single round window near the top.
“Okay,” he whispered. “That is officially the coolest hiding spot I have ever seen.”
Another pirate yell rang out in the distance.
Right. No time to admire spooky architecture.
He reached for his belt.
“Good thing I never leave home without you,” he said to his grappling hook.
With practiced ease, he swung it in a wide circle and launched it upward. It caught against the stone ledge just beneath the window with a satisfying clink.
Dewey gave the rope a firm tug.
“Solid. Alright, let’s get climbing.”
He planted his boots against the tower wall and began to haul himself upward.
His trusty adventuring boots—complete with extra thick soles and reinforced heels—gave him just a little extra height and leverage.
Not that he needed the height, of course.
Totally unrelated to any potential short-duck insecurities.
Halfway up, he paused, glancing down.
“Okay, wow, higher than it looked.”
He shook it off and kept climbing.
“Just a quick hideout,” he told himself. “In and out. No pirates, no problems.”
Finally, he reached the window.
He hoisted himself up onto the ledge and peered inside.
And froze.
Because standing in the middle of a sunlit tower room, surrounded by paintings and books and splatters of bright color…
Was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.
Black feathers, golden eyes, paintbrush in her hand, staring straight at him like he had just stepped out of a dream.
For a long moment, neither of them moved.
Then Dewey, still clinging to the windowframe, gave a sheepish grin.
“Uh… hi?”
Inside the tower, Faye De Spell dropped her paintbrush.
