A/N: Inspired by ohghostwhat's rant on tumblr pointing out the lack of Fakiru!darkfic ( .com (slash) post (slash) 35051843444 (slash) i-think-the-reason-happy-endings-leave-me-feeling).
This is my first fanfiction, so please hit me like a linebacker.
Princess Tutu © Ikuko Itoh
There once was a story after the Story, about a boy who loved a girl. His name was Fakir, and he loved Ahiru. Every bit of her.
But he decided that he wasn't good enough for Princess Tutu. He had the upmost respect for her, as a former enemy and an ally with an indomitable spirit. She was just far too elegant for a blacksmith's boy and a failed knight. Plus, he figured that she belonged to the Story. She was a princess made to catch the eye of Mytho, not Fakir.
And he was so tired of the duck form, even though he knew it was her true self. "Frustrating" was too tame a word to describe their attempts to communicate. Thinking about what could have been made him cry himself to sleep at night-quietly, so as to not wake her while she nuzzled against him.
Once, when Fakir thought about how miserable she must be, he planned to smother her with a pillow out of kindness. Instead, he locked himself in the bathroom for hours, sobbing until he threw up again and again. Fakir wanted to consider himself a man of honor. He would provide for her as promised—until she died in a few years. He'd also promised to follow shortly afterwards, if he lived that long.
So he really did love all of her, he told himself.
But oh, how he wanted the girl. He wanted that chattering monkey and her unfailing optimism. He wanted the redheaded firecracker that dragged him through an underground cave and faced down ravens without fear. He wanted that clumsy, oblivious little moron.
His moron.
Fakir missed being unsettled, one of Ahiru's rare talents. Never did he think a ninety-pound girl would be able to tackle him to the floor. And she used to touch him in other ways, too, he often remembered. She would trip into him, or place a hand on his elbow, or squeeze his shoulder. At the time, he thought her behavior cloying. Now…
Well, now it would probably still be cloying, he thought, smiling to himself as he smoothed out his parchment. But now, less so. Probably.
A thought unbidden curled in the back of his mind, as wispy and choking as cigar smoke. God, I'd like to touch her back.
Distracted, Fakir scratched at the puckered, oozing wound on his left hand. Charon had threatened to cut it off at the wrist if his damn fool son didn't stop reopening scabs and pustules, but Fakir didn't care. He'd already lost the use of his hand, anyway. Curled into a bent husk of its former self, his fingers were too stiff to grasp things—including his quill.
He'd learned to work with the disability by sticking his pen through the hole made by his fingers and using his left hand to balance his right. The wound itself had turned black at the edges, likely from ink, despite Charon's attempts at cauterization with a hot poker.
Stiffness, scabs that bled white and wouldn't heal, ink-poisoning … Fakir knew he was a dead man walking. But he'd be damned if he didn't finish writing Ahiru first.
I owe her that much, at least, he thought, dipping his quill tip into the ink bottle. If I'm going to give my life for her, I'd better make sure she has a life to live.
So in large, shaky script, he wrote. And wrote, and wrote, and wrote, and then wrote some more. He didn't know how long he had, so he begged Autor to tutor him in the craft of writing. He slept at his desk and ignored food, despite Charon's pleadings. Every hopeless, infuriating moment of Fakir's life was devoted to Ahiru, his magnum opus.
And then, on a crisp, clear morning, a breakthrough:
There once was a girl who was once a duck, but no longer. A girl who belonged to a boy who loved her—and likewise did he belong to her.
A girl with the heart of a warrior, but as gentle as a lamb; a girl who the boy could protect and provide for.
And they lived together, for the most part happily.
"This story can't possibly have any power," Fakir said, eying the ink spatters with distaste. "It's too simple."
Panicked quacking from the bedroom told him otherwise. His heart leapt in his chest as he ran to the room. This was good. This was expected.
He needed the hope.
To his surprise, the story worked: Ahiru was indeed changing. But Fakir was no Drosselmeyer. Her transformation was not glitter and light, full of magic.
Fakir stood paralyzed as he watched feathers tear from her in chunks. Bones shifted and cracked as her wings broke, forming fingers. Her face stretched and her eyeballs popped and muscles quivered under skin far too thin. Fakir, horrified, tasted bile on his tongue.
By the end of it, the girl—not a duck, not a princess, but just a girl—was lying on her side on the floor, curled in on herself. Like any newborn, she was naked, covered in blood, and screaming.