He still had no idea how it could have happened. Where had he gone wrong? Were the characters he chose for the roles that inadequate that they would not do as he wished? What made them want to defy fate?
Perhaps Edel had not been entirely wrong when she said a story without an ending was cruel. For now, bereft of his magnum opus, having it stolen away by those he wrote into existence, Herr D. D. Drosselmeyer himself had no ending to look forward to. He was already dead, after all.
But he did have plenty of time to think about things.
Drosselmeyer considered the possibilities amid endless clockwork gears. Once these gears had spun him a story, his story, but now they were still. The quiet unnerved him, reminding him of death and cut-off hands and all sorts of other unpleasant things; their constant noise before had been a comfort that the story was progressing nicely, as it should have.
As it should have…but not as it did. All thanks to a role no one but a duck would take. A role that, in the Story, had been encompassed in a simple paragraph or two. Her goal was simple: She gathered the Prince's heart shards. Her desire was simple: She loved the Prince. Her tragedy was beautifully simple: She confessed her love and turned into a speck of light.
When, then, had Princess Tutu become such a complex character?
She was an animal when he came to her, a mere duck, and yet she had unwound all of his carefully laid plans, stopped every gear cold even after relinquishing the final heart shard. All using nothing but dance and the warm, hopeful light from within her. And, the author reflected, her light had done more than restore the people-turned-crows. Like the center gear from which he used to watch them all, she was connected to the other players of the tale: the Prince, the Crow Princess, and the Knight. She was the glue between them, it was she who had set them on this path, it was she that had convinced them to dare defy him. Drosselmeyer let out a small chuckle at the irony.
In a story of a heartless prince, Princess Tutu—no, Duck—had become the heart of the tale.
But there was nothing he could do about it, now. There were no antagonists remaining aside from the monotony of everyday life. The Raven's heart was shattered, and with it, the Raven. Princess Kraehe had rejected herself, her very being, and the position he had generously granted her as the tragic villainess. To choose to live with the Prince in a saccharine fairytale world—oh, it infuriated the author! Such worlds were far too happy to remain as such; without conflict there could be no story! Playing the villain suited Kraehe perfectly, from her looks to her mannerisms to her covetous attitude. Such a self-centered girl, stolen away and raised on the Raven's own blood, could never win the Prince's love. Of that he had been certain.
Yet she had. Again, thanks to Little Duck.
Lacking in villains, perhaps Herr Drosselmeyer could set his sights to the hero once more. Prince Siegfried, known commonly as Mytho. Ah, what a sorry sight he became as the story spun on—first a doll in all but name, with no words or will to do anything but what others told him. He had been, in a way, a perfect character, one who would never rebel against his chosen part. Then he slowly regained himself, his feelings, and with feelings came happiness wonderfully tempered by sorrow, pain, and suffering. It had only grown worse when the Raven's blood coursed through him; such hurtful things he had done to them all! Such delightfully hurtful things! It was true that he had been freed—by Kraehe, no less!—but even then, the Story had spun to its proper path. He would have taken out his heart and started it all over again.
Yet he hadn't. Because of Duck.
Even if the Prince left the Story one day, Drosselmeyer mused, he could spin stories no longer. There would be no threat of a Raven Prince and Princess in Gold Crown Town. The Knight had seen to that.
Ah, the Knight. Of all of them this was the one he was most bitter about. His role was clearly given: he would be torn in two by the Raven's claw, dying in a vain effort to protect his liege. A senseless sacrifice that would accomplish nothing. His entire role was that of a failure; a wonderful failure who existed to be pitied. Yet he had not only survived, he had traded a sword for a pen. And the Knight had become a Writer.
(Inwardly, Drosselmeyer considered other candidates for a Writer should he need one. The purple haired young man whose very name meant 'Writer' had the intellectual talent, the dreams necessary and even the bloodline, faint though it was—but, it seemed, his thinking was so focused inward that no stories of others could spring from his hands. The blonde-haired friend of Little Duck's shared his own love of tragedy; it had been a delight to see her try and move the story along, but alas! She couldn't write!)
Still, Drosselmeyer had seen the Knight's effort as useless; shared bloodlines meant nothing without the heart for writing. And the youth had the nerve to lecture him about writing when he wanted to write stories of hope and happiness, to take care with every word so that the tale wasn't led astray. It was so contrary to how a writer should behave that when the Knight set pen to paper for the final time Drosselmeyer sat and watched, confident that the Story would prove infallible, unchanging.
Yet it hadn't. The Knight had changed the Story, ended it. And, Drosselmeyer realized, it was again thanks to Duck.
Duck had transcended her role in the Story. She had defied it, defied him, defied the Raven with everything she possessed, and with a smile. She had inspired the Prince to renounce shattering his heart, giving him the strength to defeat the Raven; she had convinced the Crow Princess that despite her ways, she was forgiven, that she was loved; she had served as the muse for the Knight-turned-Writer and ended the story under his pen.
Drosselmeyer considered everything, considered the Story, and came to a realization.
Perhaps this wasn't his Story, after all.
Perhaps, in the end, it was Duck's.