Kilyin Saravine

“Where are my clothes?” Donald asked his host. Kilyin looked back at him.

“When my hunting party found you, they were ripped and burning,” she said as they began ascending to the floor above. Much to Donald’s displeasure, the next floor up looked a lot like the floor they had just left, but Kilyin did not stop on this floor; another set of stairs led them further up. “I spoke with Maiyonuk, who makes clothes for his trade, and he does not believe the clothes possible to save even with great magic.”

“My hat?” It was disappointing, but Donald could live without his uniform. His hat, though...

“I am unsure. You were wearing nothing more than that shirt when you were found.”

So his hat was probably gone. Great.

“The vehicle I was in?” he kept prodding, glancing around as they finally seemed to enter sunlight. He nearly stumbled over himself at the sight.

It was completely different from the lower floors. The ceiling was high (though a grand set of stairs leading upwards told Donald it was more than just a ceiling) and large windows were set at different levels around the walls, allowing sunlight to stream straight in, seeming to scatter as it hit the floor. The slant of the walls, and the way the sun hit the building, clued Donald in that he was in a pyramid of some type-

(which in itself was strange, as almost every pyramid he had seen in different cultures was a tomb or served a religious purpose)

-and it was big. But this floor was very open, with large pillars of stone holding up the ceiling, wooden beams crisscrossing to offer more support, and a few pillars even had spiral stairs going to the floor above.

Scanning the positioning of these stairwells- undoubtedly this culture’s equivalent of servant entrances- he imagined the layout of the floor above. Right off the bat he knew there were at least three rooms- and the chamber they were currently in, with its wide open space and its sentries posted on the raised platforms beneath the windows, told Donald this room did not serve much function at all, so the floor above would be his guess as to where the kitchens (if they had any) and other such living rooms were.

What was the purpose of this floor?

He couldn’t figure it out.

“Vehicle?” Kilyin repeated, tilting her head slightly as she turned to look at him. Even walking backwards, the young queen didn’t break stride and Donald briefly envied her ability to not immediately trip over herself.

“Yeah. The...” How to describe it? “The... metal contraption I was in.”

Understanding lit up her eyes. “Oh! Yes, the flying cart.”

Not quite, but good enough?

“When it passed through the perimeter of Athlin Forest, it fell.”

What? Actually- yes, Donald remembered that. He was cut off from Uno... and then the jet began to fall.

“Why?” he asked, looking at her intently. She paused, hands falling to her side.

“Because the technology of the Outside does not work in Athlin,” she told him, no trace of deception in her face. “Athlin is full of magic. Surely you feel it, sorcerer?” He flinched, suddenly remembering that yes, he had made that connection already.

Magic and technology didn’t mix at the best of times, and this place was saturated with magic. He could feel it emanating from the stone, from the beads, from the metals and jewels and from the people around him.

If he focused hard enough, he could feel the young queen’s magic core burning hotly next to her soul. It was a core unlike any he’d felt before- the gentle waves of Dewey’s water, the flickering warmth of Huey’s fire, the soothing shift of Louie’s flora, the faint, but present, swirl of Della’s air, the expansive reach of Gladstone’s luck....

But this was wild, this burned with abandon, uncontained and freely interacting with the magic around- and he could feel similar cores in the people standing in the chamber with them, from elementals to mages to witches to sorcerers, every single one of them had a core.

None of them were contained, none of them were gentle or tightly guarded or controlled. Perhaps living in a magic society rid them of the need to have gentle, inconspicuous cores?

The magic around him was wild and overwhelming, feeling so natural yet it didn’t feel like anything he was truly, intimately familiar with.

Of course the PK Jet failed.

It had hit a solid wall of energy that it could not reconcile.

Uno had said the signal was scrambled. This was why, he suddenly knew.

Kilyin said the forest wouldn’t let him go. Maybe she had meant that literally. Magic was a force to be reckoned with.

But... that wall of magic...

“When I hit that barrier,” Donald started slowly, watching as Kilyin’s brows raised slightly, “I was cut off from my partner and my jet crashed. This place is practically a... a... bowl of magic. Yet somehow- somehow it doesn’t spread. A barrier- there has to be a barrier that keeps the magic from escaping... and I hit the barrier... I was flying over the forest, with lots of interference, and-”

“It matters not,” Kilyin cut him off, turning around. “The forest keeps its secrets. We simply live. Come, I will show you my city. Perhaps one day you can feel comfortable calling it yours, as well.”

A swell of frustration rose up in Donald, mixed with dread. He sped up, reaching out to grab Kilyin’s shoulder. “Listen, I can’t! I have a family-”

He didn’t get a chance to finish. A pitch black hand clamped tightly around his wrist, yanking him away from the queen, and Kilyin turned around as Donald looked up at the person who grabbed him.

“Don’t,” she hissed dangerously, grip on his wrist tightening, “threaten the queen.”

The scarlet macaw was tall, with black marks swirling through her red feathers in what almost looked like symbols, or even runes. She was scowling, sharp eyes narrowed, and he couldn’t quite see any separation between pupil and iris- her eyes were coal, unnaturally black, and her core flared up dangerously, almost violently, and he knew that he was dealing with a witch who, by all rights, should have long since been a sorceress by now.

She would have been, if not for the limitations of her soul.

Donald instinctively pulled his arm away, stumbling backwards. The macaw stood up straight, her full height nearly a foot taller than the already-tall queen, and dropped her hands to her side. Golden sleeves fell over her black hands- hands that should have been blue- and Donald already knew what she was.

The symbols tracing through her feathers, the unnatural eyes, the lashing core and the limited soul-

He was horrified.

Slowly, he pushed himself off the... bed? Was that what it was? It was the closest thing he could think to compare it to. He looked around, noticing for the first time the heavy drapes on the wall. The doorway had beaded strings dangling in it, obscuring his view of whatever was outside, but he could see that there was a door- two halves of a door that swung into the room, sitting open as wide as they could. Large silver metal- some form of hinge, Donald presumed- fastened the door to the wall. The door looked heavy, thick dark wood and nearly tall enough to reach the high ceiling. A torch was set right above the door, and after a moment or two he noticed the room had eight torches in all.

One above the door and one on each side of the doorway, one above the bed, and two evenly spaced on the remaining walls. They cast dark shadows, yet it was still light enough that Donald could clearly see the fur set on the stone floor.

It was cold in the room.

He stepped down the steps onto the floor below, gazing around. Where was he?

“I see you are awake.”

He almost jumped, attention snapping to the door. He hadn’t even heard anyone approach, and as he took in the sight of the young girl- hardly more than a child, if he had to guess- he quickly caught why.

She was taller than Donald by several inches, and she wore a green and yellow dress-like garment that fell about her knees. A cape was settled on her shoulders, gold and a green gemmed clasp holding it in place, and a golden belt that was definitely more for aesthetic than functionality was fastened around her waist. Pale yellow sleeves hung loosely from golden armbands, and silver beads- they looked like pearls but Donald knew without a doubt that they were not- were woven on golden string through her black hair.

The soft cloth shoes on her feet told Donald why he didn’t hear her approach.

The bird had blue and almost-magenta feathers -a cotinga, he realized- and green eyes. Very green eyes. She stood tall, posture straight, hands folded in front of her- Donald knew she was important.

Yet her gaze was soft, her eyes kind and not the sort of look he would have expected from such a severe stance.

The queen will meet with you.

Surely, Donald thought, this child wasn’t the queen.

“Ah- y-yes,” Donald answered, the unfamiliar words escaping him. “Where... am I?”

“Tharin Athlin,” the girl answered, neither word translating. Donald could only assume that that was the name of where he was. “In the forest Athlin.”

Near the Amazon, he remembered Uno saying.

“I- how do I get back to Duckburg?”

The cotinga looked at him. “Duck... burg?”

“Duckburg. Calisota. United States. You know...” But he could tell by her eyes that she didn’t.

She simply shook her head. “I am sorry. I know nothing of the world Outside.”

Isolated locals, he surmised. He’d dealt with them on previous adventures... but they had typically been hostile. This girl didn’t seem hostile.

They had healed his wounds.

Maybe they had saved his life.

“I am Kilyin Asveya Saravine,” the girl said after a few moments. “Queen of Tharin Athlin and one of the Nine Chiefs of the forest.” Not that Donald knew what the Nine Chiefs was.

“D... Donald Duck,” Donald said, shaking his head. “I- I need to go home. My family-”

“I’m sorry. You cannot go home.”

“What?” Maybe she wasn’t so kind after all.

But Kilyin looked at him, such a sad look in her eyes, and it didn’t feel like a threat. Just a fact of life.

“The forest keeps what it takes. Once you have come, you cannot leave. The forest would never allow it.”

If there was one thing Uno hated more than Scrooge McDuck, it was when technology failed him.

Every drone he sent- cut off. Lost contact. Only a brief surge, fractured data that he could make no sense of, before all connection broke and he could only assume the drone failed, just like the PK Jet.

And the most frustrating part was, if the PK Jet and all of the drones- every single one- failed as soon as it hit that perimeter, that strange, unreadable energy field...

That meant he would too.

He sat down, head in his hands as he tried to figure something- anything- out. He couldn’t send a car to get Donald. He couldn’t go in and get Donald himself. He didn’t even know where Donald was- the signal became so scrambled, there was no telling just where the jet went down.

Even trying to map it by hand was incredibly difficult, as the map spread out on the table in front of him showed. Blue marks to dictate the paths that he could only estimate that his drones took- yellow marks to show the last known location before the signal was lost... and red to show the predicted path. But they were only estimates. He wasn’t even sure if the drones could have kept to his directions, with the interference.

He stared at the map- at the red perimeter where he could only estimate his drones failed. It was like a wobbly dome- not at all even, yet roughly circular, with a clear center somewhere in the southern Amazon region. It was a fraction of the forest- probably less than ten percent- yet a large enough space that, even if he could go inside that perimeter, he would not likely find Donald in time.

Several days had already passed.

It was already a miracle if Donald was even alive- the PK Jet, failing right above an unknown part of the Amazon Forest? He was bound to have crashed. Who knew how bad it was?

Clenching his jaw, Uno dropped his hands and grabbed his phone. He had to hurry, before this rescue became a recovery mission.

He couldn’t go into the forest, inside that perimeter, but he knew someone who could.

“His phone must have died,” Uno excused, grateful that he could keep his voice so even despite the panic he was feeling. “He went to the store. He was quite appalled at the state of my refrigerator. But I can relay any message you need, I know you have a flight to catch.”

He could practically hear the internal debate McDuck was having. It was no secret McDuck didn’t like Uno, no more than Uno liked McDuck, and Uno suspected the old duck didn’t like Uno being around Donald so much.

The old duck knew something was off about Uno. But it was none of McDuck’s business.

“Fine,” the old duck bit out, “let him know we’ll be back a little later than we planned. I’d say two weeks, rather than one.”

“He won’t be happy but I’ll let him know,” Uno agreed, despite having no way of getting in contact with Donald. Hopefully, ideally, he’d find Donald before they got back. That gave him an extra week.

He could only hope Donald could hold on until he found him.

There was a strange silence surrounding Donald, contrasting greatly with the laughter he was so used to waking up to. Yet it wasn’t the silence of Uno’s tower- no whirring of machines, no soft buzz of electricity through the walls...

Donald latched onto consciousness and tried to pull himself up. He couldn’t figure out where he was- there was no movement beneath him, so he wasn’t on the houseboat. No sound of running feet, no laughter or dart guns or the breaking of some expensive vase- not in the mansion. No sound of machines, no footsteps as his friend walked around doing things Donald couldn’t even hope to understand- not in the tower....

He shifted and tried to push himself up. Searing pain blazed through his chest and he hissed, falling back down against what felt strangely like fur. A hand touched his shoulder- soft, not Uno’s, and gentle, not Mrs. Beakley’s.

An unfamiliar hand.

Forcing his eyes open, Donald looked up at the person leaning over him. It was an unfamiliar lady- he couldn’t, for the life of him, figure out what kind of bird she was. Her feathers were pale tan, and her hair was a strange pale gold colour that he could hardly describe.

She was older, he could tell- late forties, early fifties. Not old. But older. Looking at her he could tell she was even older than she looked, though- her face was gentle, her eyes knowing. Those were old eyes- eyes like his uncle’s.

The necklace she wore was strange- gold plates around her neck, open in the front with white pearl-like beads hanging between the gold. It was something, he couldn’t help but think, that Uncle Scrooge would be interested in.

She lifted her hand, saying something he couldn’t understand. There was a brief cool sensation before he felt himself going numb, the pain buried beneath it.

His gaze slid past the woman to the ceiling high above. There was stone being held up by thick wooden rafters. He realized he was on an elevated stone slab- a mat placed over it, and a fur blanket over that, made it soft. Something under his head, like a pillow- he didn’t know how to describe it. It was firm, but not painful.

“Can you understand me?”

Donald looked back at the strange bird leaning over him, realizing suddenly that she had a hand on his forehead. When had she done that, he wondered?

“Y.... yes,” he said, though it took him a moment to realize she hadn’t spoken English.

Neither had he.

What was going on?

Around them a strange energy swirled. He barely recognized it- it was like magic, but... not. How could he describe it? It was unlike Magica’s corruption, unlike his own quiet sorcery, unlike anything he’d felt before.

Yet he felt so sure it was magic.

Oh. That must have been why the PK Jet went into critical failure.

The PK Jet.

Uno.

The crash.

He shot up, suddenly remembering. “I- Uno- I have to- to let him know I’m safe-” he started babbling, but the lady gently took him by the shoulders and laid him back down again.

“I’m not sure that will be possible,” she said kindly, and Donald looked at her, feeling almost lost. “Your signals will not get through to your friend. Sleep and rest now- you must recover. The queen will meet with you once you have healed more, and she will explain everything then.”

Donald didn’t want to sleep. He needed to call Uno- he was wanting to be home to see his uncle and nephews off for Africa. He needed to let Uno know he was safe- to give Scrooge the bedtime lecture again- to make sure his kids knew he loved them.

A heaviness fell over him, though, and his eyes began to close of their own accord.