For my good pal AutumnDynasty – Happy 20th Birthday!
You get Tutu-ness in the absence of a real gift. Nyah ha ha.
(The title comes from the name of a collection of five short gothic stories published in 1878 by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu - the vampire story Carmilla was one of them. Not that that really has anything to do with this - I just like the title and thus borrowed it...)
In A Glass Darkly
(V)
The most beautiful thing that he had ever created, Drosselmeyer considered, was the prince.
He didn't like to boast about it, particularly, but he thought that he, more so than any other character he had ever written, was as perfect as it was possible for a character to be.
The story, too, befitted him, and polished his charm. Drosselmeyer had taken care in writing him, assembling him as carefully as a doll, making sure that he had no faults and was everything that a fairytale prince should be.
So he gave him kindness and beauty, skill and intelligence, power and grace. He wrote him as wise and brave, gave him a sword and then pitted him against the monster raven, not knowing – gleefully, it must be said – who would win.
When Drosselmeyer died, the victor of the battle was yet undecided; but the old storyteller was overjoyed when first the raven escaped from the story, closely pursued by the prince.
It was exactly what he had been hoping for.
He wasn't surprised when the prince cut out his own heart to seal the raven. He wasn't surprised at all. It was, after all, how he had written him to be – selflessly heroic.
And now that his most perfect character wandered aimlessly, without a heart and without a page to confine him, Drosselmeyer confessed that he liked this story better:
The one in which his perfect prince ruined the lives of his imperfect support characters.
(IV)
The knight amused Drosselmeyer because he was afraid of his ending.
He was not as complete as the prince. He was not as well-written. And he seemed to know it.
Long before Princess Tutu appeared to make the prince smile again, Fakir grasped him by the shoulders and shook him. It was aggressive, but it was desperate also, angry and despairing all at once.
"You have to stop doing such stupid things," Fakir spat at him. "It's all pointless."
"I'm sorry, Fakir."
"If you don't do what I tell you, how can I protect you?"
"I'm sorry, Fakir."
Fakir gave a disgusted snort, but put his arms around him, holding him tighter; the prince did not move, but stood clutched limply, obediently, in his grasp.
"I'm the only one who gives a damn about you, you idiot," Fakir said in a low voice, his mouth next to his ear. "I'm the only one who loves you."
"I know, Fakir."
—
Later the prince lay on his back on the bed, in a school uniform instead of royal attire, and looked up at the window above him. He was completely still, and had been lying that way for quite some time.
Fakir sat at the desk and wrote, ignoring him.
"Fakir," the prince said at length. "Have you wanted to die?"
Fakir stopped. He didn't answer, but he put down his pen.
"Fakir?"
"Why would you ask me that?" Fakir responded coldly, not looking at him.
The prince shifted on the bed, getting more comfortable.
"I just wonder," he replied quietly, not really talking to the dark-haired boy anymore, "…what it's like."
Fakir picked up his pen again and went back to work in steely silence.
The prince smiled.
(And so did Drosselmeyer.)
(III)
After he called the little duck into the story and gave to her the role of the doomed dancing princess, Drosselmeyer felt that finally he had something worth watching.
And so watch he did, through the gaps in the gears, as the displaced prince wound them all tighter and tighter – those three characters that he, their creator, cared less for. The knight who was afraid to die. The princess who nobody wanted. The duck who became a girl who became a princess who became nothing at all.
And the prince who they all loved.
Through the glass that separated a dead author from his creation, the old man watched them dance.
He watched the prince dance with Princess Tutu, who longed to confess her love but couldn't.
He watched the prince dance with the unwanted raven-princess, who loved him so much that she hurt him as cruelly as she could.
He most enjoyed watching the prince dance with the knight, because they danced with their swords drawn. By now raven's blood ran freely through the pure prince's veins, which Drosselmeyer acknowledged as a turn of events he hadn't been expecting, but it delighted him nonetheless. To him, the prince was no less his most wonderful creation. He admired the way, indeed, the prince mocked the knight for his cowardice and tried to punish him for it.
He couldn't have agreed more.
(II)
What he hadn't counted on was that the knight would throw down his sword.
He crossed through the glass and came upon Fakir himself, who paid him no heed and wrote the story anyway.
So Drosselmeyer went back to his gears and watched the prince, with the help of the knight and the duck, and for the sake of the cast-aside princess, defeat the raven at long last.
It was not the prince's victory that so disturbed him – he had, after all, been the one to write him with the qualities which had enabled him to win against his enemy.
No, it was the knight – Fakir, who cried "The story is ending!" before throwing down his pen (but not for good).
It was because he had to agree with that, too.
(I)
When the prince came back into the story, Drosselmeyer was waiting for him.
"It was a good story," the old man said. "Not as I'd have liked, you understand, but a good story nonetheless."
The prince looked at him sidelong, an amused glint in his amber eyes.
"Of course you would say that," he replied.
"Don't you agree?" Drosselmeyer grinned. "But then, I suppose you were the only one who didn't change. You regained your heart… but you didn't do anything that you weren't supposed to. Not like the others – the knight and the duck and the raven's daughter. How kind of you to leave them behind to rot."
The prince smiled.
"Are you so disappointed, Herr Drosselmeyer?"
"No, no. You're my most perfect character. You did exactly what you were supposed to."
The prince drew his sword, swinging it level and halting it, tip hovering between the old man's eyes.
"Is that so?" he asked lightly.
Drosselmeyer faltered; then stepped back and bowed to his creation, motioning him past.
"Go with your princess, then," he said, keeping his head low. "Have your happily ever after, Siegfried."
"How kind of you." The prince replaced his sword and stepped past him. "But Drosselmeyer…" He glanced back at the old man, looking at him over his shoulder. "…I'll dance no more for you."
Drosselmeyer only looked up with a wicked grin.
"Ah," he said, "but others will."
END
…So. Yeah. It was mostly about Mytho. Again. Not that I mentioned him as "Mytho" at all during the fic. O.o
I'm not sure if I would say that Mytho is my favourite Princess Tutu character, exactly. I DO like him, but I also want to hit him in the face with a brick at times… I dunno, I guess I like all of Princess Tutu's four principle characters…
BUT I find Mytho the most interesting to write about, because he is the driving point of the story, and Ahiru, Fakir and Rue are all pretty obsessed with him in one way or another…
Also, I wanted to write Drosselmeyer interacting with him, since it doesn't happen in the series, even though he's technically Drosselmeyer's most important character, being one of half of the titular The Prince and the Raven/Prinz und Rabë.
So, yeah… AutumnDynasty, I know you love FakirxAhiru (I do too!), but you get Mytho-ness instead.
Happy birthday, mon ami!
RR xXx