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In the lands of long ago when the worlds was still in its beginning stages of creation, the actions of the early creatures paved the way for creatures to come. This was a land of plenty, and a land of adventures. Animals did what they had to do, and enjoyed it to its fullest extent. They never thought of one species of animal or another species of animal; they felt that they were all part of some great magical event that occurred hundreds of eons ago that no one could remember because it was so long ago. The elders of the land could not even remember that far back without the use of magic and the use of the ancient wisdom of the Animal Kingdom. Some animals had to work to survive while other basically had things given to them on a silver platter. Flak the beaver was one of those animals that had to work for a living, but he loved what he did. He built bridges, he built homes on water for the rest of the beaver clans, and he did it all out of the goodness of his heart.

One day, he waddled over to his latest project -- a dam -- and noticed that the main log was coming loose. If that log escaped from the muddy confines of the other logs and branches, the land surrounding it would become flooded and soggy, and people would become very upset with him. He decided that he must find a nice sturdy tree to replace it quickly before the homes within the pond that the dam created, including the presence of his own home, fell apart. He quickly waddled away from his project and into the forest on the periphery of the pond.

Princess Jasmine of the Mallard Clan was waddling through the forest one day. The sky was as blue as a topaz, and the air smelled of fresh flowers and the other wonderful scents of springtime. Jasmine loved to wander through the forest by herself without the accompaniment of her guards. This time to herself allowed her to think about the future, her future, and where it was going for her. Right now, her father wanted her to view the suitors that were coming in from all over the land. He just did not understand that she would never marry any of them. She did not want to marry for the sake of the government; she wanted to marry for love, but he father would not listen to her. He told her that he and her mother had met through an arrangement by their parents, and Jasmine threw in his face that they were always arguing.

"You and mother have absolutely nothing in common, except that you are both royalty!" she had shouted at him one day. "If I have to, I will marry a commoner who has no more in common with me than the sun has in common with the moon! I will marry for love, father, or I will die alone and childless." Then she stormed out of her father's parlor room in tears. Sighing, Jasmine stretched her wings to loosen her stiff muscles.

Flak look at the first tree he encountered, giving it adequate examination before he decided that it was just too small. He moved on to the next tree and found that the branches were sickly-looking, and the bark was too brittle. Moving on to the next tree, he found that it was way too large for his small self to cart the whole distance back to the pond. It would probably take him a whole month to chew through the trunk, and another couple of weeks to chew it down to the right size so he waddled further into the forest to find another tree. The next tree he saw was perfect! The branches were strong-looking and straight, the bark was sturdy, and the trunk was just the right width for his beaver's teeth to gnaw through in now time flat. He set to work right away to chew the delicious tree down.

Humming to herself, Jasmine wove in and out of the small and medium-sized trees in the forest, dancing to the sounds of Nature all around her. It was such a glorious day! Why could there never be days like this day everyday! With a smile, she flapped her wings a bit to lift her a little ways off of the ground and then she settled back down into a soft-looking batch of moss that grew near the edge of a pond. It was so soft and it smelled so heavenly, that she had to sit down in it. It was so comfortable in fact, that she fell asleep and only awoke when she heard a loud voice yell, "TIMMMMMBERRRRRRR!!"

As the tree fell, Flak heard the loudest, most horrified scream he had ever heard in his life. As the tree landed with a tremendous splash in the pond, he saw something brown floating near it. Once the tree landed, he saw nothing. Without a thought, he dived into the water. Beneath the half light, and half dark of the pond water, he saw a small body of a bird he had never seen before in this part of the forest floating lifeless. Grabbing the creature gently by its neck, the beaver dragged it to his house only a short swim away. When he arrived there, he pushed the bird onto the dry surface, and then pulled himself up into the warm as well. Lighting a bit of a fire in the hearth, he ran to his cupboards to find spare blankets to make the creature warm and comfortable. When he looked down at it, he noticed how strangely beautiful it was with its webbed feet and flat beak. Then he covered it with a blanket.

For about a day, Flak stayed with the strangely-billed bird, keeping it warm and feeding it when it woke up for a short time until one day, when he returned from his routine hunt for better logs to make new dams and homes, and for repairing others, he found the bird sitting up and looking around with amazement. It gasped when it saw him enter.

"Oh, you are finally awake, beautiful one!" Flak gasped as he waddled towards her.

"Please, sir," she began. "Where am I?" Her voice was a little rough, but otherwise it was a heavenly sound to Flak's ears.

"You are in my home, dear lady. On yester-morning, I was preparing a wee tree to repair damage done to one of my dams her in the pond. I'm afraid that when I felled the tree, I did not know of your whereabouts, or even that you had been anywhere near. I feared that I may have killed you in my incompetence," he explained sadly.

Jasmine stood up on her shaky, webbed feet and looked at the creature who stood before her in such a manner. His head was bowed, and he dared not look up at her for fear that she may yell at him for being so careless. Waddling slowly over to him, she spread one soft wing and placed it beneath his chin. "I thank you for saving my life, young sir." She smiled down at him.

"Call me, Flak, milady," he said softly. "For it is my name."

Blushing slightly, she examined him for a short while before asking, "What manner of creature are you, Flak?"

"I am a mammal of the Beaver Clan." He bowed, his flat, paddle-like tail raising off of the ground for a short time before he straightened himself upright. "What manner of bird are you, if I may be so bold as to ask?"

"I am a duck of the Clan Mallard. My name is Jasmine."

Flak frowned. Why did that name sound so familiar to him? He scratched his head a bit. "Oh, my!" he exclaimed suddenly.

Jasmine looked up into his small, dark eyes curiously. "Why, what is the matter, Flak?"

"You are the princess!" he gasped. "We must leave here! Guards have been looking for you for a day now! I will be in so much trouble if I do not return you to your home!" He grabbed her wing and dived into the water, pulling her behind him. They popped up onto the surface of the water, and swam to the beach. "Please, Princess Jasmine. You must return home to your father and tell him of your where-a-bouts! I swear on my life that I never meant any harm to you!"

Jasmine shook herself off and stared at Flak. The poor beaver-man, while he was nursing her back to health, had had no idea who she was, and now that he did, he feared for his life. "Come with me, Flak."

He shook his head rapidly. "I could not! I shall not risk the wrath of your father!" Then he dived back into the pond and disappeared beneath the surface. When she looked at the pond to see if she could remember which of the little log homes was his, she could not tell the difference. Sighing sadly, because she felt as though something wonderful had just swam out of her life, she began the waddle back home.

"Jasmine, my child! Where have you been!" cried her mother as she entered their castle.

"I have been in the forest, mother, and I met the most wonderful of creatures!" she sighed.

"For an entire day, my daughter? Do you realize how worried both I and your father have been? We thought you had been kidnapped by marauders!"

Jasmine sighed again and shook her head. "It was nothing like that mother. A beaver-man, he saved my life yester-morn. He saved my life and I am so very grateful to him for doing such an honest feat!" She bowed her head sadly and looked off into the garden.

"What is wrong, Jasmine?" her mother questioned her.

"I think that I have found love, mother." She shook her head sadly.

"Love?! With a beaver?! That is so unheard of! And in one day, too!" Jasmine's mother sputtered angrily at her daughter for what seemed like an eternity before she stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind her. Tears of loss flowed down Jasmine's facial feathers as she thought about the dark eyes, the brown fur, and the beautiful tail of the beaver who had saved her life.

For days and weeks, Jasmine spoke to no one, she ate nothing, and she did not leave her room. She was so broken-hearted. She had no idea if she would ever see Flak again, and she did not know that if she ever did see him again, if he would be happy to see her. He had nursed her back to health in a day, and then he set her free, but somehow, his kindness, his beauty had captured her heart in the short while that she had known him. How could this happen? She was so confused. While these thoughts and more whirled around in her mind, her bedroom door slowly opened, and her father waddled in.

"Jasmine, my daughter. For days now, you have sat in your room, locking life out because of your lost love. You have not eaten and you have not spoken. You waste away before me, and I don't know what I can do to appease the loneliness of your heart." He sat down next to her on the bench at her window.

"Let me see Flak, father. I have to find him and let him know how I feel about him," she said softly with tears in her eyes. "And if I find that he has feelings for me as well, I want to marry him, father. But if he does not love me as I so love him, then I will return here, and marry a suitor of your choosing. I will give you a grandson, and then I will die unhappy."

Nodding, Jasmine's father agreed to her request. With hope in her heart, Jasmine ran out of the castle and made her way to the forest where she first encountered Flak. She wove in and out of trees as she'd done so many weeks ago, but she did not do it with happiness and joy as she had done before, but she did it with nervousness and anxiety. Her entire future's happiness rested on the feelings of a beaver whom she had only known for a few moments. When she found the spot where the pond used to be, she was horrified to discover that the dam had been torn down, and the pond had been made into a river. Flak was gone! With despair weighing heavily on her heart, Jasmine returned to her father's castle and told him that she could not find Flak, and that her life's hopes had died. She would marry a suitor of his choosing.

The next few weeks were hives of activity. Jasmine's father had chosen a suitor for her and they had set a wedding date to be on the first day of summer. Though Jasmine was infinitely unhappy, she knew that she had to show a brave face for her mother and father, and marry the individual whom her father had chosen to be her husband. When the day of the ceremony arrived, a smile did not pass over Jasmine's beak at all. She wore a flowing gown of the finest mallard green, and her veil was as white as the purest of roses. Her father waited outside of her door, ready to lead her down the aisle into her new life as the Queen of some far off land she could not remember the name of. Sighing, she stood and walked over to her father.

"You will be happy, my child." There was a glow of happiness in his eyes, but Jasmine just could not be happy ever again. Flak was gone, and now she was getting married to someone she did not know. He offered her his wing, and she rested hers there. "Come, your husband awaits."

Jasmine and her father made their way down the long corridor of the hallway, down the golden, spiral staircase, and into the ballroom where the wedding was being held. Music immediately started up as the stepped into the room. The King Mallard kept his head up as she looked around at his loyal subjects who had come from all lands to attend this glorious event. He knew that the world would change because of the union between his daughter and the individual he had chosen to be her husband. With that, he averted his attention to the bride-groom and smiled. When he and Jasmine made it to his side, the king looked down at his daughter with such love in his eyes before he removed her wing from his, and placed it on the royal blue sleeve of the prince she was about to marry. Sighing, Jasmine looked up and found herself staring into the small, dark brown eyes of Flak!

"Flak!" she gasped. "What -- what are you doing here?!" Jasmine looked back at her father who smiled down at her. All Flak did was smile down at her, and the ceremony was begun.

Later, Jasmine found out from Flak that the reason why he had left the little pond in the woods was because his father, the King of the Clan Beaver had died, making it necessary for Flak to return to his rightful spot as Prince Flak of the Clan Beaver to take his father's place as King.

"And all this time, I thought that you were this gloriously well-mannered commoner who saved my life." She smiled at him.

About a year later, Jasmine had her first children. She had three of them, and right at the start, everyone noticed how odd they looked. They did not look like a duck and they did not look like a beaver. They had the beak of a duck and the feet of a duck, but they had the hands, body, fur, and tail of a beaver.

"What kind of creature are we going to call them, my love?" Flak asked Jasmine while they watched their children sleep.

"It has to be something very special, because they are very special," she replied as she ran one delicate wing feather over the bill of one of her children. "How about duckbilled flat tailed beavers?"

Flak shook his head. "That is entirely too long, my dear. How about beaver-tailed ducks?"

Jasmine shook her head. "Not very creative I'm afraid." She sighed. "They have to be called something. They are an entirely new species of animal, and their children will most likely look like them for some time. They have to be called something special." She pondered silently to herself while Flak sounded a few names out loud.

"Duckbilled plated-tails. No... Beaver-tailed duck-pusses. Definitely not!" He scratched his head. "Tail like a plate and bill like a duck. Hmm."

"I've got it!!" Jasmine exclaimed. Flak looked up at her, and her children woke up at the sound of their mother's excited voice. "We can call them Duckbilled Platypuses!"

"That sounds wonderful!" They looked down at their children who seemed to be smiling up at them. "I think they like it, too. Now, what about common names, my love." He smiled into her beautiful eyes.

From that day forth, duckbilled platypuses waddled awkwardly over the land, and swam like mermaids in the sea. As the centuries passed by, these new creatures began to mate with their own kind to produce the same kind of animal that they were. Ducks and beavers still remained, but they no longer mated outside of their species. Thus, the secret to their related heritage died along with the foremother and the forefather: Flak and Jasmine.