their heart grew cold they let their wings down

Nagito Komaeda from Super Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair

"The funny insane guy, truly an icon." "God he sucks so fucking badly" "happy fingers in his ass sunday to those who celebrate"

refseek.com

www.worldcat.org/

link.springer.com

http://bioline.org.br/

repec.org

science.gov

All of this means that one of the standard female roles in Arthurian romance is “quest-giver”. And in some texts, this can drift from “these are damsels in distress and the knights must help them in various ways” to “it kind of seems like the women are the ones who actually know what’s going on & the knights are just being led along to wherever they’re supposed to be”.

"Sir Knight," she said, dismounting and retrieving something from her saddlebag, "I have a job for you." She tossed a severed head onto my desk.

I peered at the severed head. It had noble features, and had managed to land exactly on top of one of the stains left by previous severed heads. "How did you find me?" I asked. "I swapped my red shield for a blue one; the disguise should be impenetrable."

"The hermit told me where you'd be", she answered in a voice like the bells on a horse's harness before battle.

That tracks. Those hermits are always poking their noses into my business. "How may I serve you, fair lady?" I asked. "I'd kneel, but my armor's gone a bit rusty in the legs."

"The Baron D'Iverjoure has slain my lover," she said, gesturing at the head, the rings on her fingers clinking like manacles in a wicked king's dungeon. "I need you to avenge him."

"I have no quarrel with the Baron D'Iverjoure," I said, knowing as the words echoed in my helmet that I was saying them just for the form of it and I'd end up taking this quest regardless. "I have heard he is an honorable man."

"That may be," said the damsel, in tones as lovely as a reliquary and just as filled with death, "but you took an oath to obey the next lady to ask you a favor, and I'm calling it in."

I silently cursed my habit of swearing rash vows. They always get me in trouble. But you know how that goes. "Your wish is my command, milady."

She nodded and remounted her horse with the help of her two servants who I hadn't bothered to mention before now. "I will listen for news of your success," she said as she left.

The Power Punk Girls!

And…

The Rowdy Right Boys!

Closest match: Nyctalus leisleri genome assembly, chromosome: 8 Common name: Lesser Noctule

And a thing that's missed, while kid's abridged adaptations miss out on the rest of the point, is that the Ugly Duckling decides he can't live like this and leaves the farmyard; he goes into the wild himself. In the various passages in which people try to keep him as a pet, or a duck, it's hammered home again and again that this does not make a good pet. there is nothing in him that suits being a domestic animal.

one of the particular parts that makes you go "sweet jesus, hans christian andersen" is where the wild geese rock up and are nice to the young swan, not quite recognising him as a swan but saying they're pretty into whatever weird vibe he has (is this a sort of queer recognition thing? we are told, explicitly, that the wild geese are both male, and they definitely say "you're so ugly it's hot - come with us" - given HCA, it might be) and then they're, you know, instantly shot dead. Because that's what happens to wild geese. They like your vibe and try to take you with them, and even offer to teach you how to flirt - and then you see exactly what happens to them. And then every encounter from there, from the old woman who attempts to keep him - a very satirical and funny passage - to the young family who genuinely attempt to save his life (but he's too fundamentally panicked and awkward to reciprocate their kindness, and explodes out of their house in a social catastrophe) the story hammers in: not only are you a terrible duck, but you just aren't MEANT to live with people. You're closer to the things they kill than the things they keep.

but yeah, adaptations miss this often: you have to go out into the wild to save your own life. you may die in the wild, and you WILL die where you are. nobody comes to save you - and nobody really could have, when you were younger - but ultimately, mate, you just aren't a very good pet. Of the list of "attributes of a domestic animal" you really suck, in detail, at all of them.

so it's very telling to me that the good ending is the one where he is a wild animal - but more importantly, a WILD SWAN.

Not killed. (like a wild goose).

Not kept. (like a duck).

but a secret third thing, that swans - of few creatures - get. they get admired and they get paid and they get LEFT ALONE. they have a position in relation to humanity, and it is BEING A LOVELY SWAN OVER THERE.