.

The Heart Within

By Sulova (formerly Ming-Yue-Huo)

Chapter One: Distance

Darkness surrounded her, cold and despondent, air that wasn't water. The icy air that was not water pulled at her breath and brushed against her shoulders, but she felt only the warmth of his hands holding hers, twirling her, lifting her into the air, embracing her as she drew near. She could hear his words, their sound echoing in her head distantly, even though he whispered them into her ear. She could hear strains of his words if she tried, but they were so faint that she could barely recall them;

"Don't just blame yourself. Everyone is scared, returning to their true selves…"

As she twirled, she could feel the gentle smile on her face, but her body, her senses, everything seemed distant as the moment went on. His words escaped her ears once more and she strained again to hear them.

"The real you is a duck… The real me…"

His words faded again as she twirled. Her gentle smile remained, but in her head, more clearly than the scene before her or his soft breath against her ear, her voice rang out in protest.

"Why? Why do we have to end the story?"

The words, despite having been spoken in her head, echoed raucously through the empty space, but did not seem to have any effect on either of the two. They continued to dance.

"…even if that is my true form… I want to make the story end…" His words returned and then faded away once more. She twirled again in his arms.

"Let's go back to being our real selves… Let's bring this story to a conclusion."

"Okay." She heard herself say.

"No!" Her voice screamed inside her own head, despite the smile that still remained on her face. She could feel the pendant slip from around her slender neck, falling away from her forever.

"This isn't happening –Quack!"

Ahiru opened her eyes, only to find herself not staring into the eyes of a memory long ago, but at the stitches of the warm woolen blanket that lined her bed. The wicker basket creaked softly beneath her as she shifted, still blinking away the last traces of sleep. When she listened, she could hear the soft burble of a cooking pot on the stove and the musical twinkling noise of a cup of tea being poured. Peeking over the rim of the basket, Ahiru saw that Fakir had already awoken and was cooking something on the stove top.

Shaking her head to dispel the uneasiness within her small feathered body, Ahiru looked about the kitchen from her basket on a table. The walls shone a soft white in the early morning sunlight; the windows were open, permitting a gentle spring breeze into the room. The curtains fluttered, making an almost inaudibly soft sound that soothed Ahiru's racing heart. Picking herself up, Ahiru hopped out of her basket. She knew that Fakir would hear her awakening, so she forced the distress from her eyes and did her best, as far as a duck could, to smile.

Fakir was preparing what looked like oatmeal, judging from the petite saucepan on the stove. Ahiru couldn't see the contents of the saucepan from her height, but she hopped onto the kitchen table and quacked a friendly greeting to Fakir.

He turned and smiled at her, oatmeal-covered spoon in one hand.

"Good morning, Ahiru." He greeted her and removed two bowls from a nearby cabinet, placing them on the table before Ahiru. Ahiru quacked again and smiled, studying his face ponderingly.

Not much had changed about either of them since their defeat of the monster raven. Fakir had grown even taller since then, but he still wore his dark hair tied back and he still greeted her in the same way that he had the morning after their victory. His eyes, with their hint of dark green, had not lost their intensity; nor had his smile. He was still the same Fakir that Ahiru had known those many years ago.

And of course, Ahiru was still a duck.

On that day, so many years ago, she had accepted her fate and returned that last shard of Mytho's heart to him, knowing that she would relinquish her human form for the rest of her life. She had known that she would be a duck forever. But Ahiru would never say that she regretted her decision. Never. Even if her dreams of that promise long ago continued night after night, as they had for the past year, she would sooner leave Fakir and live alone in the forest before she would admit to being unhappy.

After all, she had made a promise to Fakir, to be herself and return to being a duck, and he had in turn promised to stay by her side for the rest of their lives. So Ahiru didn't even have the right to think, for even a moment, that she would have been better off if she had chosen to remain a girl… Even if she could have been able to talk to Fakir, and been able to laugh with him, to comfort him with more than a sad, empathetic "Quack" when he needed comforting. No; she had made the right choice, deciding to return to her original form as a duck.

It wasn't as if she could return to that moment in the past and change her mind, deny the story of the Prince and the Raven its proper ending. And there was no way she could become a girl again; especially not without breaking her promise to Fakir.

Ahiru returned to the present with a start as Fakir poured oatmeal into her bowl, the scent of cinnamon and sugar wafting through her senses. She moved forward and began to eat with fervor, enjoying the warmth of the steam on her face.

Fakir laughed and joined her at the table, delicately beginning to eat his own oatmeal. "You know, you shouldn't eat all of it at once or you'll get sick."

"Quack!" Ahiru responded, and continued to eat at the same pace. She finished her bowl two seconds later and quacked again defiantly, which made Fakir smile again. Ahiru loved to make Fakir smile. After all, in her current form it seemed to be the only thing she could do.

Fakir finished his own oatmeal shortly after and replaced the spoon in his bowl. Ahiru was still cleaning her bill of the last fragrant traces of oatmeal when Fakir spoke.

"Hey, Ahiru. Did you know that it's been exactly four years since we defeated the raven?" He murmured quietly.

Ahiru paused in her cleaning to look at him. The look on his face sent a peculiar feeling through her when she did; Fakir was smiling, but there was something about his eyes that, for a moment, made her think of sadness. The feeling passed in a moment and Ahiru quacked, nodding her head.

Fakir smiled yet again and stood, gathering the two empty bowls from the table.

That was strange, Ahiru thought as she looked worriedly in the direction of Fakir's turned back. She watched Fakir's movements as he cleaned up the morning's meal and prepared for the activities of the day. She wasn't sure, but Ahiru thought she could see weariness in the lines of his body as he moved about the kitchen, now that she thought to look.

Suddenly, before Ahiru could suppress the idea, the thought rose to the front of her mind as she watched Fakir: I wish I could ask him what is bothering him, and how are Rue and Mytho, and a million other things that I could do if I was human…

Ahiru quickly covered her bill with her wing as if to hush the unbidden thoughts, horrified.

Fakir turned and caught sight of Ahiru covering her bill and raised an eyebrow, chuckling slightly. "Ahiru, what are you doing?"

"Nothing-! I was just ah… Warming my bill!" Ahiru squeaked, but the only thing that came out of her mouth was "Qu-ack! Quack, quack, quack, qua -quack, quack! "

The smile slowly faded on Fakir's face and his eyes flickered. "Okay then." He muttered softly.

"I'm going out for a while, Ahiru. Would you like to go out, or stay here?"

"Quack!" Ahiru stayed where she was.

Once more Fakir's eyes flickered, but he nodded. "…Okay. I'll be back soon."

Ahiru's heart clamped painfully when she heard the door shut.

Despite his words, she always feared that one day, he wouldn't come back. Each time he left, she longed to go with him, but she knew he couldn't walk about town everyday with a duck in tow. Sometimes she went out and waddled about town on her own, visiting the duck pond or exploring the town on her tiny webbed feet. For a while, catching fish and listening to the cafe's patrons sipping at their tea and coffee had been entertaining, but she found the pond too quiet, and the cafe reminded her too much of her old life. The patrons spoke to one another, and she felt more and more invisible, cut from the joys and pains of human life by her small yellow form. Lately, she felt more and more at home in Charon's antique shop, where he and Fakir reminded her that she wasn't always invisible.

She wondered if Fakir ever got tired of talking to a duck every morning. Ahiru used to love having him talk to her, but recently he'd been much quieter. Without the ability to have a full conversation, Ahiru couldn't help but feel that they were drifting apart as time passed. She could flap her wings against Fakir's leg as he wrote, or she could brush against him, but the movements felt all wrong. Her body was not made to embrace, but to return to her duckling bobbing felt wrong too. She began to hate her feathers, her hard, sharp bill, her strong webbed feet.

Another sigh escaped her small figure. Clumsily as always, she flapped her way to her basket on the table by the window. The kitchen had grown slightly chilly and the sunlight had faded from the window sill, but so Ahiru burrowed her way under the blankets. Once she had tucked herself in firmly, she ruffled her feathers and tucked her head under her wing, hoping that her forbidden wish would leave her mind and the aching fade from her chest. But both the wish and the ache of loneliness remained, burning in her chest. Closing her eyes, she imagined that she could hear Fakir's steady breathing beside her as he read a book or wrote a story, his reassuring presence soothing her back into sleep.

She had kept and would continue keeping her promise to Fakir to be herself. That meant she would never admit that she was unhappy. Even if she was.

Fakir struggled to loosen the knot in his throat as he shut the door and proceeded down the paved street. Behind him, the familiar shop sign, Schmied, faded into the distance. Soon, Fakir had left the town and entered the woods at the edge of town. Even when the noises of the town had faded and he was left alone with the rustle of the trees, he continued walking.

In the months after their defeat of the Monster Raven, he and Ahiru could talk for hours about the events of the day. When they spoke, he could see her face in his mind, encouraging him, scolding him, laughing with him, and he knew what she was trying to say, he could hear it in her tone and see it in her body. Every now and then, he thought he could see her sadness when she reached for a jar of jam and knocked it over instead of picking it up. And yet, her humanity was still written clearly in her eyes, and he had continued to treat her as if she was her old self. Charon also tried to keep up the charade, although Fakir knew he couldn't understand Ahiru nearly as well, and sometimes had to remind himself that this duck had once been the graceful dancer, Princess Tutu.

As time passed, Fakir had thought that the growing pauses in their 'conversations' were merely natural. However, after the second fire festival following their victory, Fakir brought Ahiru to the festival to watch. Ahiru had quacked at him, and he found that all he heard was a quack, nothing more. He had spent many nights after that lying in his darkened room, while Ahiru slept in her basket nearby, wondering why it seemed as if she no longer made sense when she spoke.

And then, today, for the first time, he caught himself feeling absurd. He felt a sudden sense of shame when he talked to her, found himself wondering what someone passing by the window might think of him saying goodbye to a blank-eyed duck sitting on his kitchen table. He felt confused, ashamed. He tried to remind himself that she had once been a human, searched her eyes for understanding, for a trace of the girl she once had been. And yet, she always looked at him so plaintively when he spoke. He wondered if Ahiru was still in there. He wondered, for the first time, if she could even understand him.

Fakir paused as he reached a clearing in the woods. Just beyond the trees at the edge of the clearing, he could see the pond where he and Ahiru had often gone on lazy afternoons to enjoy the weather and write his story. Fakir turned from the well-trod path through the woods and made his way toward the dock that jutted out at the pond's edge. Fakir's steps on the sun-bleached wood echoed in the silence of the clearing.

The water's surface was still and smooth as Fakir peered over the edge of the dock at his reflection. His own expression troubled him; his eyebrows had sunk low, his eyes darkened, frustrated, confused. He disliked what he saw.

Allowing his vision to blur, Fakir tried to call up Ahiru's face in his mind again. He remembered that she had fair skin and her hair had been somewhat reddish orange, and of course her eyes were blue; that part of her had not changed. He took these memories and tried to piece them together, but they wouldn't stay fixed in place, and he couldn't put together the whole image in his mind. He tried closing his eyes and imagining her next to him, saying something, anything. But what had her voice sounded like? What would she have said to him? He could no longer remember.

His shoulders drooped. He had promised Ahiru that he would stay with her. Yet he wondered if a duck would even care if he left, let alone remember a promise made by a human years ago.

Exhaling forcefully, he stood and watched ripples spread out from the poles supporting the dock. He watched until the ripples blended into nothing against the far banks of the pond, and then turned back the way he had come.

Author's Note:

Hello! Welcome to the story. It's one I've been meaning to do for a long time, because I always felt that the story left so much unfinished. Born of my longing for closure, this story will hopefully delight all of you as much as it has tormented me with its pleas to be written.

Please Review! ^-^