#THIS TOOK ME SO LONG TO FIND THE MOTIVATION TO DO HELP ASKJDASJ

[stargaze-sunflower]

Lena and Louie hanging out. They hive me a lot of haos sibilings vibes

“Okay, hear me out,” Louie said, leaning forward from where he was sitting crossed legged on a rock, looking up at Lena with mischievous eyes. “For no particular reason – just, you know, theoretically – would you be able to like, summon gold? With your magic.”

Lena let out a laugh that was more just a huff of air, turning to give him a deadpan look, pointedly gesturing behind her.

“We’re kinda supposed to be on lookout duty here, Green,” Lena said dryly, staring down at her best friend’s brother, who was making no actual effort to cover up that he didn’t want to be there. “But theoretically, no. I can’t.”

She turned back to look down at the sprawling field of waist-high grass that was spread out below where they stood, on a cliff overlooking the valley where the rest of the McDuck clan was currently getting into who knew what kinds of trouble. The others had gone into a cave opposite where Lena and Louie were standing about an hour ago, and Louie had long since given up keeping watch in favor of sitting and asking the occasional odd question. He couldn’t quite hide his anxiety about the well-being of his family, no matter much he pretended to be perfectly relaxed.

“Have you ever tried?” Louie asked, letting his chin fall into his hand as he lazily swept his eyes across the field below.

“I’ve had a lot going on in my life, and making gold out of thin air was never on my list of priorities,” Lena said, finally giving in to exhaustion and boredom as she sat on the ground, her back against a tree. “And I don’t need to try it to know it’s impossible. You can’t make something from nothing.”

“But you can make nothing from something?”

“I dunno,” Lena said, shrugging. “I think that’s just called ‘destroying things’.”

Louie just hummed in response to that, and they fell back into a temporary silence as they looked out at the landscape. The only reason they even needed a look out on this adventure was because there were rumors of a large group of bandits in the area, and Scrooge hadn’t wanted to get stuck in the caves with them. Once it became clear that someone would have to stay behind to keep an eye on things, Louie had immediately volunteered, and somehow Lena had ended up there as well.

Sighing, she turned away from the field and rested her head on her knees, rolling her eyes when Louie raised an eyebrow.

“Even I get tired of staring at nothing after a while,” Lena explained flatly.

“Especially since you can’t make something out of it,” Louie said, something teasing in his voice, and Lena cracked a smile.

“It’s your turn to be lookout anyway,” she said. “I’m on break.”

Louie snorted, glancing down at the valley before looking back at her with a mischievous grin. “I don’t listen to people who can’t make it rain gold from the sky.”

“Gold is heavy, y’know. You’d probably end up with a concussion.”

“And it would be worth it.”

Lena laughed.

“Have you actually had a concussion before?” she asked, partially curious and partially looking for a distraction from being bored out of her mind.

“More times than I’m comfortable with, honestly,” Louie said, huffing in irritation. “To be clear, I’d rather the number was zero, but that’s impossible with this family.”

“Yeah, I can’t say I’m surprised,” Lena said, hoping that she’d never have the misfortune of getting hit in the head that hard. “Your family combined has got to have had enough concussions to scare a doctor into retiring.”

“Dewey’s definitely winning,” Louie said offhandedly, obviously exasperated and concerned. “He’s proud of it, too.”

“The fact that any of you are still alive is a miracle.”

“We’re McDucks.” Louie shrugged, not quite able to hide the furrow between his brow or the tired anxiety in his eyes. “We make our living on miracles, no matter what Uncle Scrooge says about hard work.”

Lena didn’t really know what to say to that, so she just gave a comforting sort of smile and said, “I guess you really don’t listen to anyone who can’t make it rain gold.”

“Uncle Scrooge comes the closest, but he refuses to do it,” Louie said, the heaviness gone from his voice as if it had never been there. Lena knew a thing or two about dwelling on things that wouldn’t change, and figured that Louie had learned the same things that she had. Both of them were well-versed in pushing away their feelings, it seemed. Both of them practiced at making nothing out of something.

“Well, if I ever figure out how to do it,” Lena said, letting her voice get a bit softer, “you’ll be the first to know.”

Louie rolled his eyes, but he was smiling. “I’ll hold you to that.”

“I’m sure you will.”

They sat in silence for a few more minutes, staring out at the field below and sighing every now and then as they debated at what point they should start a search and rescue operation.

Eventually, they saw the distant figures of their family making their way out of the cave, waving at them excitedly. The issue was that the bandits had decided to make an appearance shortly after, riding in on horses and quickly surrounding the recently returned adventurers. Atop the cliff, Louie sighed, and Lena was inclined to agree.

“They really have the worst timing,” Louie said. “What are we supposed to do?”

Before either of them could come with a plan of action, Louie’s phone pinged in his pocket, and he took it out to look at it, raising an eyebrow immediately after.

“What is it?” Lena asked, torn between watching Louie and watching the chaos beneath them.

“Dewey texted me,” Louie said, a mixture of fondness and exhaustion tangling into his voice. “He wants us to cause a distraction.”

“What? Why?”

“Only he knows, I guess.”

“Okay, well, what are we supposed to do? Yell?”

“Dewey can yell louder than both of us combined. I don’t know how much that would help.”

“True enough.”

They looked around the surrounding area for a moment, casting about for anything that they could use. Louie was the one who saw it.

“Hey, Lena?” Louie asked, and Lena hummed in response, glancing over at him. “You see that cliff over there?”

She followed his line of sight until she saw it, and her brow furrowed in slight confusion. “Yeah?”

Louie turned back to her with a slow smile growing on his face. She narrowed her eyes.

“It seems pretty unstable to me,” he said, and Lena’s eyes widened.

“You’re kidding,” she said.

“Nope.”

“You’re out of your mind.”

“Probably.”

“…Let’s do it.”

Louie grinned.

The resulting landslide was as much of a distraction as it was destruction, and Dewey made sure to tell them exactly how cool he thought it had been, even as he was in bed recovering from his latest concussion.