The Duck Princess
Fakir sighed, staring down at the blank parchment before him. He hadn't written anything beyond feeble scribbles in weeks. At times like this, the only thing he could ever think to write about was Ahiru.
He glanced down at the sleeping duck curled up in his winter scarf on the hardwood floor. Well, that was an original story title. "The Duck Who Took A Nap", by Fakir.
He sighed again and leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling. It seemed the only people doing something interesting in town were Mytho and Rue, or rather, Princess Rue and Prince Seigfried. They were always doing something interesting; after all, they were the prince and princess with raven blood. That alone should have made them the perfect topic, but he could never manage to write about them.
Again, he glanced at Ahiru. The little duck quacked sleepily and ruffled her wings before tucking her head underneath a fold in the scarf.
Fakir picked up the quill, dipped it in the ink and began writing.
Mukashi Mukashi…
Once upon a time there was a little duck named Ahiru. She hadn't always been a duck, though .her feathers, yellow as corn, insisted she had. She had once been a human girl, like many other human girls. She couldn't dance very well, she was clumsy and awkward and silly, but she was well loved. Then, she became a beautiful princess who could dance and laugh and touch the hearts of others in a way that a mere girl could not. She saved the world, but at the terrible price of returning to being a duck.
She sleeps a lot.
Fakir paused, his pen hovering above the paper as the ink dripped down. It was happening again; his hand moving of its own accord. Ahiru sleeps a lot… how odd. She was seldom asleep when he was home, except for rare moments like this. Could it be that that's what she did when he was gone at school?
He glanced down at the sleeping form for the third time, his muse, and continued, letting Ahiru write the story through him.
She sleeps more than a duck should, but she can never really be a simple duck again. She lives with a human, a fallen knight who writes her stories day by day. Many say she is his pet, but those who remember her heroism as a princess remember that she lives with him as a friend. He forgets she is a duck, and often wishes her to return to being the silly maid once again.
When Ahiru dreams, she dreams of being the same girl. She dreams of dancing, she dreams of speaking, she dreams of wearing clothes and reading books and walking across the schoolgrounds in shoes. But she knows her story as the human Ahiru and the princess Tutu is over, and all she can do is dream about it.
Ahiru stirred, one eye cracking open. The world was blurry, and she had to blink several times before it came into focus. Fakir sat in the chair above her, his quill scratching across the parchment in a familiar rhythm.
Ahiru jumped up excitedly, shivering from the cold, and flapped her wings.
"Qua-Quack quack quack!"
The duck rose one day to see her knight writing again, after a long break. She rose, her heart overflowing with joy as she asked:
"Fakir? Are you really writing again?"
"Qua-Qua-Quack, Quack Quack Qua-Quack."
"I'm sure it will be a wonderful story. Who is it about? Can you read it to me once you've finished?"
But the knight went on writing, oblivious to her questions, for it was difficult for him to stop writing once he had started.
"Quack? Quack?"
"Fakir? Fakir?"
The little duck settled back down where she had been sleeping, wide awake now, watching the knight as he wrote. It was all she could ever do anymore. Watch. On the lake, she could only watch the other ducks being ducks, for she herself could not join them. When she snuck into the knight's locker at school, it was all she could do to sneak out again and watch the ballet dancers. At the knight's house, it was all she could do to watch as he wrote stories and did something.
Fakir paused, stunned. The quill seemed to vibrate in his fingers, wanting to go on writing of the despair Drosselmeyer had left behind, but Fakir couldn't bring himself to write it. Dropping the quill, he leaned down and scooped the little duck up in one hand, cradling her against his breast.
"Ahiru, is that really how you feel?"
"Qua-Quack Quack!" she chirped, flustered, waving her wings about in denial. One of the number one things Fakir knew about Ahiru, though, was that she was a terribly liar.
"Ahiru," he murmured, hugging her close, stilling her protests. "You're being a moron. You're one of the most important people to me."
"Quack. Qua Qua Qua Quack."
Unbidden, Fakir's hand caught the quill again and began writing.
"I'm not a person, I'm a duck. And I can't do anything but eat bread and sleep and watch while you do things and I don't."
"Ahiru, you're the reason I do anything."
"Am I?"
"Yes. Mytho lives in a castle now, with Rue. Aotoa only gets on my nerves-"
"You know you don't hate him."
"But I dislike him enough. You and Charon are the only people left in this town who mean anything to me. And you are a person, Ahiru."
"I sometimes wish I could be a princess again."
Fakir smiled, stroking her downy head with one finger.
"I often wish the same thing, Ahiru. But I can't write stories that toy with fate the way Drosselmeyer did. Besides, isn't it nice like this?"
"Yes. I just wish it was as easy to talk to you and everyone else, like it was when I was a girl. And I wish I could dance again, even if I wasn't very good at it."
"There, you're wishing again. Wishing doesn't do anything, Ahiru."
Ahiru was prepared to quack a response when the door slammed shut and heavy, booted footsteps sounded through the house.
"Fakir! Come on into the kitchen, I've brought home some dinner. Have you been writing again? Well, wash your hands, first."
"Aa!" Fakir called. "Just a second."
He turned back to Ahiru.
"Just wait a bit, okay?"
o-o-o
That night, in his bedroom, Fakir sat up at his writing desk. It really was an indecent hour to be writing; Charon and Ahiru had long since fallen asleep. He knew he was going to pay for staying up this late in the morning, but he was burning to write down this story.
Mukashi Mukashi…
Once upon a time, there lived a little duck named Ahiru. She had once been a little girl, and a beautiful princess, but that story had ended. She slept too much, all so she could dream of being a girl again, and dancing the en pointe with her friends.
The knight she lived with, whose story had also ended, wrote stories. At first he only wrote about her. Then, as he grew better, he learned to write happy endings to unhappy fairy tales. Whenever he didn't know what to write, though, he had but to look at the little duck, and he could always write about her and her happiness.
But Ahiru was not always so happy. She missed being a girl, and the boy did not dare writing about her becoming one again, for fear of the consequences. So she watched.
One day, Ahiru said to the knight,
"I still wish I was a girl again."
The knight, who wished the same thing, asked her,
"Why?"
"Because," Ahiru replied. "As a human, I could talk to anyone I wanted. I could dance and laugh with my friends and do as I pleased. I can't do that anymore."
"But you can," the knight said. "A duck can do anything a human can do, in its own way."
At first, Ahiru did not believe him. To show her, he stood and began to dance. Ahiru mimicked as best she could, with webbed feet in the place of slippers. Soon, they danced the same dance, in perfect sync, across his bedroom floor. Ahiru did not notice when the knight had stopped dancing to watch her.
"You dance so beautifully, Ahiru," he said. "Why would you ever want to stop being what you are?"
"Because, you're not a duck," she told him, still dancing across the floor. "And I'm not a human. I just want us to be the same."
"But we are," he insisted, leaning down on the floor. Ahiru stopped as he pressed two fingers of one hand against her downy breast, and one hand against his own human one. "Our hearts beat the same, Ahiru. That is enough to make us just like one another."
Ahiru did not question him again. The knight tucked her into her own little bed, as he would a human girl, and kissed her beak, as though she was not a duck at all. Happy at last, Ahiru drifted off to sleep, and the knight sat down to write about her. Ahiru, the duck princess.
Fin.