Ahiru's Song: A New Chapter of Princess Tutu
Story By: John Meadows
Characters By: Ikuko Itoh
Warning: Slight Adult Language Inside
Chapter 1
"Who am I…? What am I…? Am I… human? Or duck? Or Princess Tutu?" All these thoughts were racing through Ahiru's head after she gives Mytho the last heart shard and goes back to being a duck. After she dances as a duck and gives the Prince enough time to destroy the Raven; Ahiru wonders whether she made the right choice giving Mytho his last heart shard… As she is trying to decide if what she did was right, memories come rushing in her mind like a hurricane. She remembers things about her life as a duck, and even before her first memory as a duck; the memory of being hatched; she remembers being… human… This is the story of Ahiru; everything that happened to her before she became Princess Tutu and moved into Gold Krowne Town…
It is five years before Herr Drosselmeyer has an idea for his first story, and Ahiru has just turned twenty-one years old. She is in school at Matsui Ballet Studio. Her real name is… "Oh, crap! I can't remember, but maybe it will come back to me later," Aorio Metsuki thinks. "Ah ha! Finally remembered, my name used to be… Aorio Metsuki. My name is Japanese for...'Blue Eyes'. I loved that name because it suits me just fine, but what happened to turn me into a duck, how did I get here in this town, what was that huge black thing in the sky, who are all these people?" Aorio wonders.
"Ahiru!" she hears screaming in her ears as if from a long distance. "Are you alright?" she hears again. When she finally gets back on her feet, she sees the sweetest sight before her; the raven destroyed, the townspeople normal, Mytho and Rue standing before her and the best sight of all; she sees Fakir standing over her wounded body with a very worried look in his eyes, tears watering his beautiful green eyes. At that moment, she knows she will love him for the rest of her life, and will always stay by his side no matter what happens. "Of course," she thinks; "I already fell head over heels for him the first time I met him, when Mytho hurt his ankle catching me when I tripped, I was about to tell him everything, but then he had to go and be a jerk to me." As all these thoughts are going through Aorio's head, Fakir is smirking to himself because he can see Aorio smiling with a whole lot of love in her eyes; he knows just what she's smiling about, he can tell she loves him.
While this is going on; Aorio's thoughts float back to before she became a duck, to her past life as Aorio… "I know what I'm going to do today," Aorio thought aloud. "I'm going to go visit my boyfriend in the hospital. He really is an idiot, jumping in front of that horse to push that child out of the way, if I ever get the chance to sacrifice myself to save others, I won't do anything." Little did she know that she would get that chance, and by her inactivity; her whole world would be flipped upside down and inside out for years to come. One chance meeting with a stranger will make her whole outlook on life change forever and she will forget she ever had a boyfriend, she will forget all her friends and family, she will forget her present life... forever.
Back in ballet class, her teacher introduces two new transfer students; Pique and Lillie. At first, they seem like they're just a couple of regular girls, always chasing after boys, blowing off doing their homework, skipping school to go to market and all around making fun of everybody else that they don't like. Aorio immediately likes them because they have the same attitude that she does. "Hi, my name is Aorio, why don't you two let me show you around school?" asks Aorio. "I would, but I don't associate with geeks," replied Pique. "Weirdo," states Lillie. After she gets rejected and dissed in this un poetic way, Aorio decides to never befriend anybody, she decides to only communicate with her boyfriend, which she tries to do by writing him a love letter; which the teacher sees and reads the letter to the entire class. "Ahem! Everybody, Aorio has a boyfriend that injured himself saving a young child, how... stupid of that idiot moron to almost get himself killed over a child?" exclaims Ms. Dog. Ms. Dog is a 35 year old female Daschund that was originally in love with a certain wizard; that is until he started an experiment to turn humans into animals. His first subject; that Ms. Dog knows about; is a male ballet teacher that always got left at the altar whenever a girl accepted his marriage proposals. The wizard decided to combine this teacher with a purple colored cat. This teacher is now known as Mr. Cat and he teaches ballet at the Kinkan Academy of Fine Arts. Mr. Cat has several pupils under him and every time one of them make a mistake, his favorite saying is; "If you don't get this right, I shall have you ma… ma… marry me right this instant!" As you can see, he is very excited about marriage. The wizard's next subject was Ms. Dog herself, because she witnessed him experimenting with Mr. Cat. The wizards name is… Herr Drosselmeyer. After turning those two into animals, he decides to try his hand at writing stories. The first story he wrote was called "The Prince and the Raven", which unexpectedly came to life in the town. When the events in his story came to life, he decided to write tragedies because his true love was his tragedy, she caught him experimenting with human/animal hybrids, and made her a hybrid himself.
Now we return to Aorio's story. After class, she is walking back to her house, when suddenly she hears a very sinister laugh coming from the bushes surrounding the roadway. As she is walking, she begins to pick up her pace little by little until, suddenly, she finds herself in a full-on football run. After a few minutes, the laughing ends, and Aorio finds herself at home. She enters the house and finds that… her mother and father and her entire family has been murdered. "Why?" she screams at nobody at all. After she gets all her anger out, she finds the courage to go to the neighbor's house, who is the police chief. Aorio reports the murder to Mr. Meadows; whose hair is the soft green of a grassy field, his eyes the color of moss, his figure represents a small elephant, but all muscles. As she is reporting the murder, she hears that sinister laugh again. She asks Mr. Meadows if he hears anything. "Hear what," Mr. Meadows asks. "You mean to tell me that you don't hear that sinister laugh, Mr. Meadows?" queries Aorio. "No, I don't hear anything at all," replies Mr. Meadows. "Damn it! I must be going crazy," stated Aorio.
After Aorio leaves Mr. Meadows office, she decides to go visit her boyfriend, but when she gets to the hospital, he has left a message at the Nurse's Station that Aorio not be allowed to visit him anymore. She wonders why he said that, until she gets back home; where she finds a letter in the mailbox for her from him. She reads the letter aloud. "Aorio, Sweetie, I'm sorry I have to do this in a letter and not in person. I think we would both be better off if we broke up and just remained friends. I can't bear the pain of knowing that the girl I love will never help anybody at all; you wouldn't even help me if I asked for your help. That's why I am breaking up with you until you can learn to sacrifice your needs and start helping others. Love, Sergio Drosselmeyer".
"Well, we have a HUGE plot twist here, who would have thought that Aorio, the heroine of this story would be going out with my nephew." exclaimed Drosselmeyer. Back at Aorio's house; she's in her bedroom throwing everything she owns all over the floor in a fit of rage. When Mr. Meadows hears the ruckus, he comes running over and asks Aorio why she's doing this, is she upset about her entire family being murdered, or is her rage because of something else? Aorio states that she is angry because her family is dead and because now, her boyfriend breaks up with her and he doesn't even has the decency to tell her in person. "Well," says Mr. Meadows. "Why don't you spend the night with me at my house and we'll sort this mess out in the morning." "Thank you, but no thanks," replied Aorio. "I'll be fine at my own house, my mother and father left it to me in their will, you know," replies Aorio. "How do you intend to pay the taxes on it," Mr. Meadows asks Aorio. "I'll find a way to make enough money to survive," replies Aorio.
After she leaves Mr. Meadows' house, she goes back home to sit on her bed and think about her future. The next day when she wakes up, she gets dressed for school. She wears some yellow shorts with ruffles that look like wings on the sides of them. They are her favorite pair of shorts because they remind her of the beautiful ducklings that she feeds in the pond behind her house. With these shorts, she wears a long sleeve white blouse that has yellow ruffles on the wrists. She loves this outfit and has three sets of them; she wears this outfit at least three times a week. During third period; which is gym class for Aorio; Mr. Meadows comes to school to talk with Aorio.
"We found more evidence about your family's murder, Aorio," states Mr. Meadows. "We found white hairs and several different colored feathers in the living room. We also found the same evidence on your parents' bodies, in the bedroom and all through the house," stated Mr. Meadows. "Drosselmeyer's signature hair and hat decorations," replied Aorio. "We already did forensic studies on the feathers from his hat and neither his hair nor those feathers match the feathers and hairs found as evidence," states Mr. Meadows. "But, the evidence did match one person in his family," Mr. Meadows tells Aorio. "Who?" asks Aorio. "The evidence matched his father's preferences perfectly," states Mr. Meadows. "You mean to tell me that Herr Drosselmeyer Senior is the person that killed my family?" asked Aorio. "That's just what I'm saying," replies Mr. Meadows. "Then that means… that means that Ser… Ser… Sergio has heard rumors about his family wanting to do this," Aorio thinks out loud. "I'll have to go ask him if he heard anybody in his family planning this, but he told me to stay away from him and his family. But, I'm not going to let him bully me around like this, I'm going to go visit him and make certain he's alright," exclaims Aorio. When she gets to the hospital, she marches up to the nurses' station and asks where Sergio Drosselmeyer's room is located. The nurse on duty states that she is only allowed to let immediate family visit Sergio because his injuries are life threatening. Aorio states that she is his girlfriend and the nurse lets her go visit Sergio's room. When she gets there, she sees Sergio in an oxygen tent with tubes running from everywhere off his body to weird machines that she don't know what they control. When she sees Sergio like this, she lays her head close to his and falls asleep crying. "Oh Sergio; what's wrong with me? Why didn't I jump in front of that car instead of you? I would give anything to change places with you right now, I wish I could let you know how I feel," exclaims Aorio.
After this exchange with her boyfriend, Aorio left the hospital and went to her car. She drives a 1995 Saleen S-281 Mustang that her parents got her for her sixteenth birthday. When she gets to her car; she finds a letter stuck under her windshield wiper. "I wonder who this is from," Aorio thought to herself. She pulls the letter out and begins to get sick to her stomach as she reads the horrific words written in red ink. The letter says; "I have killed your entire family because you refused to stop my nephew from getting hurt, he told me something else about you; you're carrying his child." Aorio reads this news and laughs very loud. When she gets home, she finds a letter in her mailbox from her doctor's office. She pulls the letter out and tears it open really fast. While she is reading the letter, her heart starts beating really fast and she breaks into a cold sweat while her hand instinctively covers her stomach. The letter from her doctor's office stated just what the letter under her windshield wiper stated, Aorio was indeed pregnant… by Drosselmeyer's nephew… her baby would be an indirect descendant of Drosselmeyer. Through this child will come the person known as Autor.
When Aorio is finished reading the letter, she rolls it up in a ball and screams her lungs out until her throat hurts. After she screams off her frustration and anger, Aorio rushes out the front door; forgetting to lock it in her hurry to get away from all the pain and suffering she is going through. Aorio dashes too her car and speeds off down the road, not even making sure that the road is clear. As she squeels out of her driveway, two cars coming from her left almost collide with each other because Aorio was too upset to watch for oncoming traffic.
Aorio decided to go to Mr. Meadows' office and try to help him find her families' murderer. When Aorio gets to his office, she finds it in such a clutter that she can't even get inside far enough to sit down at his desk. "Why are you here," asks Mr. Meadows. "I have stopped by to see if you've discovered anything else about my family's murder," replies Aorio. "That's why I haven't been able to straighten my office today, all these files are unsolved murders with the same evidence," states Mr. Meadows sadly. "You mean to tell me that my family wasn't the only one killed by these creeps," asks Aorio. "Yes, your family isn't the only one murdered; and even weirder is the fact that after we got involved and were close to solving these murders, the daughters of every one of these family's disappeared and were never found anywhere," sighs Mr. Meadows. "You mean to tell me that every family murdered had a daughter that vanished into thin air, as if the daughters of every murdered family never even existed," asks Aorio. "That's exactly what I'm saying, and I think it would be best if we put you into Protective Custody and gave you a new home, new identity and new life," stated Mr. Meadows. "Alright, I'll go into Protective Custody, if only to save my life and catch these murdering cowards," Aorio stammers in reply.
As they are discussing this new turn of events, there are a pair of ears listening. They hear Mr. Meadows give Aorio her new name, her new address and her new vehicle. After he hears this, he rushes back to Gold Crown Town to report to his master this tragic turn of events. He knows when he reports to his master, he will not be pleased that Aorio is trying to wriggle her way out of his control. He knows that when he reports this to his master, he will get rid of the little puppet. When he gets back to Drosselmeyer's house, we notice that this person is 5 feet 10 inches tall, wears green pants, wears a white dress shirt with a light blue dinner jacket. His name is Mr. Ladle. He is a puppet controlled by Drosselmeyer.
Chapter 2
Mr. Ladle gets back to Drosselmeyer's house and reports that Aorio will be called Ahiru. She will be moving to Kinkan Academy of Fine Arts, where she will be studying ballet. When she leaves Mr. Meadows' office, she notices somebody in a black step van watching her every move.