Disclaimer: I do not own Princess Tutu -- it owns me.
Notes: Post-series, so there will be some mild spoilers. Also a very peculiar literary crossover.
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between stories
They call him the champion, the dancer-prince, the king of light and tales.
Of her they do not speak. But in the dark they murmur of the shadows, the monsters, the ravens still. Raven's blood, they say, and shiver.
Together, he and she, they rode out on a fine morning for an inspection of the kingdom's borders.
At midday, the sun glittering fiercely on wide-brimmed hats and studded velvets, their absurd court procession pleaded for a break; they paused in a clearing to lunch. Around them, the forest rang dark and loud. Rue shivered, a quick thrill of movement that caught no one's eye but the prince's.
He reined in, dismounted, and laid his fingers at her wrist. She lowered a hand to smooth his brow but twisted away before they touched, hearing the whisper shudder through the trees: false daughter of the raven, blooded with nightmares and by darkness raised.
She turned her horse instead toward a meandering path through the dark woods. "I will ride a little while longer," she said, and he nodded. His hand slipped away, but he did not turn from her until she disappeared from his sight.
Shadows chased her down, threading through each thundering step of the horse. Beneath them, she heard the lingering whispers: blooded with nightmares...
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The little path broke and wandered, and in the underbrush she let the mare down to a trot but did not turn back. Eventually she came to a crossroads. An old woman sat on a boulder squarely on the fork, a basket on one arm and a smile propped up by a bony elbow.
"An apple, dearest," she croaked. Her eyes were glossy and black, black as a raven's feathers.
Rue demurred, and rode on.
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The second crossroads found a girl singing by the stream.
Not such a girl, Rue saw as she drew close, with her shirt curving taut over her belly and her thin, wan smile.
"I go to meet my lover beneath the apple tree," she called. "He's promised to meet and marry me, a boy with fox-colored hair and great green eyes. Wish me luck, stranger."
Rue bent her head but did not slow. "Luck," she said, a breath in passing.
"And more to you!"
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At the third crossroads, they came to another clearing with a tower. At the base of the tower the horse stopped and would not go on, however she coaxed it and cursed it.
She dismounted and gazed up. There was a small door a little way before her. Above her there came the faint trickling sound of song.
She went in.
Into the tower, high and higher, until even the sun lost itself between the stones. Her footfalls echoed, unexpected sound breaking stillness; her unsteady hands searched for a hold in the wall. Step by step she moved further from the light, spiraling up into the dark.
Her next step struck an echo. She stopped, felt a knob under her fingers, and turned.
Down into the stairwell spilled a fountain of light. Rue did not speak, but walked into the sea, blinded and unblinking.
When the white dimmed from her eyes, she saw. The crown of the tower bore inside a small room, to which the only opening was a small window at the east. The floors showed only here and there, heavy with dust; crumpled folds of a tapestry buried the flagstones in an embroidered sea of flashing silks. At the center of the room came the end of the tapestry, and a woman weaving, her back to the door.
The lady spoke. "I have not seen happiness before."
Bitterly, "And do you see it now?"
"Oh," said the lady, as if to herself. "Fair queen. Our fair, fair queen, blind to her own demands."
Rue started. "Who are you?"
"Are you not happy? He does so love you -- the dancer-prince. As night loves noon, as the sun loves its shadow, as flight loves the fall..." In her hands as she spoke, her words seemed to fly and take shape in the threads, finding images to claim in the clacking movements of the loom. Rue saw a wild burst of feathers, stillness in a sky at midday, a single swan drifting through the water.
"What do you desire?" she said.
"Questions and questions," said the lady, motion unceasing. She looked very young in the thin light, her fine bones chiseled to marble, her light-spun hair vivid as gold. "I have all that I want here; my work, and my mirror."
Movement flashed past, and her eyes turned to the ornate glass that hung on the wall before them both. For a moment, Rue thought she saw their faces in parallel, startled and utterly unalike. Then the rippling pictures smoothed, and she saw:
a gilded throng painted with bright reds and azures and emeralds. Their ringed hands caught at the sunlight. They ate and drank and talked together in low, content voices, seeing and not seeing the descending sun. Their prince half-crouched among the barely-stirring grasses. His bright head dazzled back the sun with its own light as he turned, and spoke a name that the mirror snatched back from obscurity.
"I have seen a thousand lovers," the lady said quietly, conversationally. "A thousand girls, a thousand boys; advancing, persuading, arguing. Who could guess whether he loves you better than that? Who could guess whether you love him more than they?"
Rue said coolly, "Answer me."
The lady seemed to see her for the first time. Her faraway eyes gradually returned. "Ask me a question I can answer, and I will."
"Who are you?"
"Sometimes," the lady whispered, "I imagine myself a monster." She held one hand slackly in the other, and turned up the palm to the light; stitches ran through clear to her bones; even her bones were melting to stitchery, to the tapestry's wealth of design.
"If this," she said, showing the little parts near her wrist that had started to take on the colors of the weave, "is not merely a slipping illusion, then what am I? A creature formed from a shadow's whim? A bare thought given shape, then forgotten? Where shall I be consigned for eternity?"
"Escape, then," Rue said.
"Oh, clever," said the lady, turning back to her weaving. "You who have never danced a step from the line; you who have never toed an inch from your place. You dancer. You pawn. Who are you to talk of daring?"
"Who are you," Rue whispered, "to talk of monstrosity?"
"An abandoned mistake."
"Better than a monster's child."
"The monsters forsake you."
"And yet," Rue said, "rumor would have it that I am theirs still." Though there was more: flight under evening, the curving sweet possession of Kraehe, the dark dancer; longing wild and inescapably for her father's granite demands. A kingdom was not so concrete in its desires; a kingdom could not be sated by a few hearts, a tragedy.
"Oh, rumor," said the lady. "When have you ever cared for rumor?"
"Not the whispers of people. Shadows. Little things--" she struggled, hearing secrets slipping from her tongue and teeth without will, falling into the pattern of speaking in dreams, where every word became an inexorable revelation.
"Monsters do not die," the lady said. "They break into echoes, lingering brushes that will not fade. They look for tragedy to magnify themselves, where they might fester and see places to grow. Are you afraid?"
Rue's eyes narrowed. She gave no answer.
"Ah," said the lady after a moment, and sounded very amused. "Still," she said, growing pensive, turning to look at the dimming window. "At least you are loved."
She did not remember leaving the tower.
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She woke to a touch.
"Rue," the prince said. "We ride again soon."
She lifted her dreamy eyes. Her hand cupped his jaw, the curve into his chin. "Say my name again."
He turned to her. She laid her head at his shoulder.
"Rue," he said, and smiled.
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end
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