The Quackless Duck

"Gather round, friends, for I have a tale to share; one that has traveled across generations. It is said to be written by the legendary Lexus the Pure, a storyteller whose words were as clear and enduring as the stars themselves. Though many of his works have been lost to time, this one remains. A tale that shows prejudice can be defeated through understanding."

— Oriric Cherrybottle, Bard Extraordinaire

There once stood a farm at the edge of a small village, bordered by marsh and meadow, where reeds whispered at dusk and cattle grazed beneath a wide and patient sky. Many beasts dwelt there - cows and goats and pigs and horses - yet none were held in greater esteem than the flock of ducks that gathered each day upon the clear pond at the farm’s heart.

You seem the master of that land, an old man of gentle temper and steadfast habit, was deeply superstitious. As it had been in his father’s time, and in his father’s before him, he believed that the quacking of ducks was no small matter, but a safeguard. Their voices, loud and unceasing, were thought to hold misfortune at bay. So long as their clamor rose from the water and yard, no fox would cross the boundary unchallenged, no lurking ill would dare advance beyond the fence.

And life, in its quiet proofs, had confirmed this belief more often than it denied it.

Thus the ducks were tended with particular care. They were fed well, their pond kept clean, their number counted and guarded. Their worth lay neither in feather nor egg, but in the sound of their beaks. When fox or weasel stirred in the reeds, the flock would lift such a thunder of quacking that the farmer came running with lantern and staff, and danger fled before firelight and shouting. In that space, the ducks prospered, and so did the yard beneath their noise.

Then came a spring time, in which a new brood hatched. As always, the farmer marked the day with satisfaction, and even the other animals seemed to draw comfort from the sight of downy life joining the vigilant flock. Yet that spring was not as others.

Of the three ducklings born, one was smaller and weaker than its siblings. The others came into the world crying boldly, their small throats already eager with sound. But when this one opened its beak, no cry followed.

It tried once. And then again. And then it tried once more, but nothing. Only a silence, heavy and strange as the air before a storm, settled where its booming voice should have been.

From that day forward, life on the farm was not gentle to the soundless duckling. The other ducks mocked it and named it “Hollow-Beak.” The horses turned their heads from it. The goats kept their distance. Even the barn cats regarded it with uneasy eyes, as though its silence thinned the unseen shield they trusted. The old farmer, though kind at heart, did not care much for the poor duckling either. He did not cast it out, yet neither did he value it.

For what use is a duck, if it cannot quack?

So the Quackless Duck grew at the edges of the yard, wandering where it would not be jostled, keeping to the margins of pond and farm alike.

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The farm had many enemies that came from the woods. Weasels and snakes crept through the grass, and most cunning of all was the lean, fiery-red fox. Countless times they had tried to slip into the yard, and countless times they had been driven back by the rising uproar of the ducks, followed swiftly by the farmer’s lantern and his rusted iron rake. Rarely did a predator return after such failure.

But the fox was stubborn and patient.

Cunning as she was, she began to watch from a distance that did not stir the flock. She circled the farm again and again, patient as winter, until she found what she sought. Just behind the old coop, where the fence leaned into the shadow of the forest, there was a plank softened by rot and time.

In her sharp mind, the plan formed whole: If she broke through the weakened wood, she could leap straight into the coop and seize her prey before the ducks ever saw her. And so, night after night, while the yard lay still and the moon drifted slow above the marsh, the fox crept to that hidden place and gnawed.

Tooth against timber.

Splinter by splinter.

The flock slept at their pond and saw nothing, but not all were unaware. The Quackless Duck, who kept apart from the others and slept nearer the fence than the water, heard the faint scraping in the dark. It crept close and saw the wood thinning, the narrow gap widening with each passing night. Again and again it ran to the flock, flapping its wings in alarm, opening its beak wide in a silent, desperate warning.

Yet the flock mocked it as before. They turned it away, laughing at the foolish panic of “Hollow-Beak,” unwilling to rise for a danger they could not see.

Still, the fox returned. Night after night she gnawed, until at last, on an evening when the sky burned low and red, the weakened plank gave way beneath her weight. She burst through the broken fence and from there, the coop was but a single leap away.

When the flock saw red fur and gleaming eyes within the yard, their quacking rose as loud as ever, but it was already too late.

The fox was inside the gate.

Yet one among them had long known this moment would come. When the fox leapt toward the coop, she found not hen nor chicken waiting in terror, but the Quackless Duck standing in the doorway, wings spread wide. It struck at her eyes. It tangled itself in her fur. It beat against her face with all the strength its small body held, forcing her backward from the threshold. The fox struck in fury, claws raking, teeth snapping. Blood marked the duck’s beak, yet still it did not yield.

Soon lantern-light flared at the farmhouse door. The farmer came running, fire in hand and rake raised high. At the sight of flame and shouting, the fox tore free and fled once more into the dark woods.

Silence fell over the yard.

The farmer knelt in the mud beside the broken fence, laying his hand upon the boards where tooth had met wood for so many nights unseen. Then he gathered the wounded duck gently in his arms and carried it into his home. He bound its wings. He cleaned its torn beak. He wept as he worked, for he had failed to see his dear duckling's worth.

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Before dawn, the fence was mended with thick new timber and the next morning, he gathered every beast of the farm by the pond. There, upon the water that had so long echoed with clamor, he set the small, weary duck afloat.

All the animals bowed their heads; the proud ducks of the flock among them.

The farmer looked upon them and spoke only this: “Mock not the watcher. You may yet owe him your dawn.”

From that day forward, no voice ever rose in scorn against the Quackless Duck, and none called it Hollow-Beak again.

For all had learned what they had once failed to see: The loud may guard the fields, but it is the silent one who holds the gate.