The duck quacked angrily at Bert.

It was a very beautiful duck with glossy green and brown feathers, and impressive set of breast and strong feet. The Asian DNA in Bert’s blood wondered what it tasted like.

Fat and healthy, with sharp gleaming eyes. It would be delicious roasted, or turned into a soup, no, no, braising would be best, with chestnuts and orange peel and sliced mushrooms-

The duck pecked at his eye.

Luckily, Bert ducked.

…Ahem, he… avoided the beak with quick movements.

Anyway, the duck was angry, and called his duck friends to attack Bert en masse. One duck was a lovely thing, 20 ducks a dreadful nightmare. Bert hitched up his black robes, and ran for his life.

Luckily, Erik Moonblood was a fairly modern vampire who favoured sturdy clothes and black running shoes. The black running shoes was a special quirk of his that had gained Lucinda Mavis’ interest in this supporting male character when she encountered vampires for the first time in her life.

Specifically, she had been tripped by a mean young vampire and was treated to the sight of a pair of rubber soled running shoes with a small broadsword logo favoured by a store that catered mostly to vampire slayers. At that time, Lucinda had been a young travelling singer with her family of entertainers.

The amount of Twee Light trivia in his head astounded Bert, maybe he could get through this world safely after all.

At any rate, he was thankful for the running shoes. If he had to run in the woods with pointy leather shoes, he would have been the saddest transmigrator to ever transmigrated in transmigrator history. Death by multiple duck attack.

He dashed through the woods, leapt over logs and tree roots.

He ducked under hanging branches.

Bert was not particularly athletic, but the art of avoiding fans was something he had carefully cultivated. Also, he loved to eat, and nap in the sun. If he did these two things consecutively for too long, his clothes would get too tight. Roberta would get angry if he put on weight and could not fit into the handmade clothes she so lovingly created.

Worse, he would have to go shopping. Which meant talking to shop people who sells clothes. A thing he would rather die, or run a mile a day to avoid. 10 miles a day. Okay, maybe two and a half miles a day.

Bert hated the idea of paying membership for a gym to lose weight. Why would anyone pay good money to be tortured was beyond him. Instead, he had dusted off his sports shoes, which he had gotten at a bargain store but never wore, and had taken up running.

He would have gotten away from those fat ducks if the land had not suddenly given up and turned into a lake just 50 meters ahead. There was nothing but tall grass all around, and a tree.

Bert climbed the tree.

Normally, if he had time to think about it, climbing trees to avoid ducks would be the stupidest thing to do. These are birds after all, and birds could fly, what’s to stop them from flying up and pecking poor, forcefully transmigrated and ignorant Bert to death?

Apparently, he was saved by their fat butts. As in, the ducks were so large and heavy that flying was near impossible.

Angry ducks surrounded the tree, quacking and pecking all around. A few more enthusiastic ones rushed at the tree with flapping wings and managed to get airborne for about three seconds before flopping to the ground.

Quack! Quack! Quack!

Whack! Whack! Whack!

Whack! Quack! Whack!

He did not like the sound of that particular discussion.

He stared at the ducks. Black beady eyes glared up at him. One of the ducks opened its beak and hissed.

Finally, Bert looked up at the sky. It was a clear day, not a cloud to be seen. The branch he was sitting on seemed fairly sturdy. Giving the ducks another look, he took off his dramatic black coat, rolled it up and used it as a pillow as he arranged himself as comfortably as he could in the tree.

There was nothing he could do about the ducks, the transmigration or the parking ticket he had in his pocket. There were other things to think about, food, shelter, clothing, weather, other predators besides, duck, whether the water in the lake was potable, other people.

All the lions, tigers and bears, oh my.

Whatever.

Bert had been up all night and socializing all day, he’d be damned if he spend his last hours quivering with terror on all the doubts, questions and problems in this world. He would either live or die. Be enslaved by a passing vampire or eaten by a werewolf.

After sending a mental apology to Roberta for making her pay the fine for ‘Loss of Parking Ticket’, Bert settled down on his makeshift pillow and closed his eyes for some serious snoozing. He’d find a way to get down the tree safely. If he was lucky, the ducks would have left and he could trying fishing in the lake.

Mmm… fish, grilled fish, tomato soup fish, fish pie…