Disclaimer: I do not own Princess Tutu or any of its characters.
Author's Note: I am so, sooooo sorry, but I have to call Ahiru "Duck!" I know this bugs you guys to death, but this whole story was created because she's called Duck! Please forgive me! I promise that in the next Princess Tutu story I write, her name will be Ahiru (provided I remember and it doesn't cause extreme problems for some unknown reason). I hope it isn't too annoying!
And thanks to Shadow Neko Yumi for all her help. :)
- - -
Duck, Fakir!
Chapter 1
- - -
Once upon a time, there was a duck floating peacefully on a pond. Not a very uncommon occurrence, it's true, but obviously this duck on this pond was special. This duck was in love with a human.
"Oh, no, that won't do. If you start a story off with 'Once upon a time,' your readers might expect you to end it with 'and they lived happily ever after'! Oh, no, that just won't do! Because a tragedy is so much more interesting! And this story is just crying out for a tragic ending. A duck in love with a human? How very tragic!
"No matter; I always have room for a tragic duck in one of my stories. And after my last tragedy was ruined by one -! Well, she should still get the tragic ending she deserves, along with that pathetic excuse for a knight. But, I wonder if I am in someone else's story? Two storytellers to tell one story! What a fascinating idea! But, you know, I can't control my stories anymore, so perhaps we are going to need a third one. My, my, little duck, you are popular!
"Now, where should this story start? With the duck again, I suppose. Now, now, in love with a human again? What have you gotten yourself into this time, little duck?"
- - - - - - - -
Duck floated along on her pond, minding her own business. She seemed to be doing that a lot lately. Fakir had resumed ballet again, and he just didn't have time to sit by her pond as often as he used to. She didn't mind terribly, though, because she knew that he was happy when he danced, and she was only sad that she couldn't dance with him as well.
Anyway, she wasn't doing anything to attract the attention of, say, a dead insane maniacal madman who was (as Fakir put it) "a sadistic old fossil" who "played with other's fates for a lark." Unfortunately for her, however, she had defied her fate, and was therefore entitled to "glory" (which she hadn't gotten) and not "happiness" (which she hadn't gotten either, so that was okay), and a certain man was going to make sure she never got that happiness. Well, he was certainly going to have fun trying, at any rate.
So Ahiru wasn't really expecting to have a necklace dropped on her from out of nowhere. And she wasn't expecting it to land perfectly around her neck. Or what happened next.
There was a tinkle and then a splash, and Duck suddenly found herself standing on the bottom of the pond. "That's weird. Where did that come from?" said Duck. Wait – said?! "Quack!" cried the duck who was currently a girl. There was another tinkle, then a plop. Phew, a duck again, was all she had time to think before there was another tinkle, and then a splash.
"Quack!" Tinkle, plop. Tinkle, splash. "Qua -" This time Duck clamped a hand (!!!) over her mouth.
Okay, I should get out of the water before something else happens. Once safely on the shore among the reeds, she sat down to think about this new predicament. She didn't get very far, though, before she heard the strangely familiar sound of a clock . . .
"Ah, the duck who is a girl. How interesting, how very interesting!"
"Quack!" cried Duck. Tinkle, thump.
"It's been a while, hasn't it? You see, I wouldn't even be here, but all the other stories I found where just too boring."
"Quack! Ack! Quaaaack!" (Mr. Drosselmeyer! No! Go away!) cried Duck, flapping her wings as threateningly as she could manage.
"So you remember me, little duck! I am so flattered. But there's no need to get all excited. Perhaps you should take another dip in the water, though – it's a bit disconcerting to be talking to a duck, and it takes too much concentration!"
Duck waddled over to the pond and dove into it, surfacing after a moment. Tinkle, splash. "Is this another one of your stories? Are you trying to control Kinkan town again? But we broke your writing machine!"
"It's true," said the old man mournfully. "But, you know, even if I may not be able to write stories anymore – my hands keep falling off -" he muttered, frowning, "family trees really are useful! And the power to control stories isn't always immediately obvious, you know!"
"Wait -" said Duck, sitting down in the water, "You mean there is someone besides you and Fakir who can write stories that come true?"
Drosselmeyer didn't say another word, and the ominous ticking of a clock began to grow quieter.
"Mr. Drosselmeyer!" cried Duck, but it was too late. The last sounds of his maniacal laughter faded into silence, and the duck who was a girl sat alone in her pond.
- - - - - - - -
"Oh, the poor, poor duck!" cried Drosselmeyer gleefully from the safety of his . . . uh . . . weird-dimension-thingy-inside-a-clock.
"Did you do something to Duck, zura?" asked a small girl from beside Drosselmeyer's rocking chair. She appeared to be about four to six years old, and she had pale skin that looked as though it were made of wood, blue eyes, and short, pale green hair. She had on a strange little outfit with rather poofy pants, a little drum was strapped around her waist, and she held a drumstick in each hand. "Are you writing another story about her, zura?"
"Ah, Uzura. No, I am done writing stories. But I have no problem telling them to anyone willing to write them down!"
"Did-you-do-something-to-Duck, zura?" asked Uzura again, frowning, her small hands gripping her drumsticks over her small drum threateningly.
"Now, now, Uzura, are you getting attached to something besides your strings? Oh, that's right – you are the puppet with feelings who doesn't have any strings!" Drosselmeyer chuckled, and then sighed. "It's such a pity that Edle had to go and burn herself up like that. Well, that's what happens when you don't know your place, zura! Ah, Uzura, now I am even talking like you!"
Uzura glared at him, and began to beat her drums loudly. "What about Duck, zuuuuura!"
"Come now, Uzura! No, no, I didn't do anything to Duck. Not really, anyway. But I think it is time I tried my hand at a different kind of writing. Well, not my hand, actually -" Drosselmeyer's right hand fell off, and he hurriedly caught it. "But Uzura, perhaps you should make yourself useful. Get out some parchment and one of those envelopes, will you?"
- - - - - - - -
Duck was wondering what to do. "Should I go look for Fakir? I mean, I can't really go find him like this, but should I turn back into a duck so I can find him? Then . . . I don't know! What will he think? Will he mind me being a girl again? Will anyone else even remember me?"
"Is that Duck, zura?" someone called nearby.
"What? Uzura?" asked Duck, looking around wildly.
A small girl came through the reeds at the edge of the pond. "I can talk to you, zura! You're a girl again, zura!"
"Uzura!" Duck hugged the little girl, and realized that she was crying. "Oh, Uzura, are you okay?"
"I'm just so happy to see you, zura!" exclaimed the girl happily. "Here are some clothes, since you lost your duck tail again, zura!" She handed Duck a pile of clothing, which she hurriedly put on. "And this too, zura!" Uzura held out and envelope with "Duck" written on the front.
"What? A letter? From whom?"
"I'm not supposed to say, zura," said Uzura seriously. "You should open it, zura!"
"Yeah, I guess I should!" Duck giggled nervously and opened it.
Dearest Darling Duck, (it said)
I know you must think I am a truly pathetic for not having confessed my feelings for you sooner. Perhaps you think I am only a worthless writer of stories, but I can write other things as well! Indeed, every time I write a single pitiful word on a truly tattered piece of paper, I can only ever see your pathetically beautiful, wonderfully woeful, fantastic face. Please forgive me for not having recognized you for what you are! Take this as an arrow from Cupid's bow, so that you may return this letter and my feelings with it!
(There was then a poem which was truly the worst attempt at a love poem Duck would have ever read if she had ever read one before. The rest of the letter continued on the same theme, taking up a full two and a half pages of parchment, and it was filled with words which Duck was pretty sure were all made up, but since she wasn't even sure that she had ever actually learned how to read, she might just have not known any better. Although, she was actually pretty sure she had learned how to read, but she hadn't read anything in a while.)
I may not seem it, but I am really a shy person. I am too cowardly and pathetic to even deliver this letter to you in person, but I feel that I must confess my feelings to you in person. I will leave you a note with when and where you should meet me!
Please know for now that, to me, you are not a smelly duck, but a gracefully odorless swan!
Sincerely,
(strike)Drosse(end strike) Fakir
Duck turned a deep shade of scarlet. Her wild imagination immediately summoned up an image of Fakir's smiling face, saying, "I care deeply for you, Duck." Clutching the letter tightly to her chest, Duck 'squeeeee'd and ran in a little circle. She paused again, summoning up another day dream. "I love you, Duck." Squeeee, run in a circle.
"Did you like it, zura?" asked Uzura, looking a bit concerned for Duck's sanity.
"Yes!" cried Duck, but then she frowned. "There's just this bit here, just before he (sigh) signed his name (squeee) . . . '(strike)Drosse(end strike)'. What was he going to write?" Picking up a dictionary (don't ask me where it came from!) she flipped through the pages. "Dri . . . dro . . . dross! Right . . . 'dross. n. 1. Waste or impure matter; refuse. 2. The scum that forms on the surface of molten metal when it oxidizes.' " Duck frowned a bit at that. "Well, uh . . ." Then her face brightened. "He is so creative that maybe he was going to make up a word just for me!" It wasn't the best explanation, but it was the best she could come up with. She sighed. "I wonder what Fakir is doing right now . . ."
- - - - - - - -
Meanwhile, Fakir was running for his life.
"Get back here!" screamed the person chasing him, and he ducked just in time as a ballet shoe narrowly missed his left ear.
"What did I do, again?" he called over his shoulder, rounding a corner as the previous ballet shoe's partner flew past him, hitting the wall instead with a dangerously loud 'thunk.' He narrowly avoided a group of girls from the ballet division, who all gave him rather strange looks.
"What did you do?!" shrieked the girl. "How dare you ask me that! After writing me that letter with all those horrible insults! Saying I was too heavy to lift during a pas de deux -"
A shower of bobby pins rained down on him. Bobby pins - she must be almost out of things to throw by now, thought Fakir hopefully, though he didn't dare stop running. "But I have never danced a pas de deux with you! I don't even know your name! So why would I -"
"That's what I want to know!" she cried, and something hit him in the back.
Fakir risked a glance back. The girl, whose name he honestly didn't know and whom he wasn't even sure he ever met before, was now armed with a pointe shoe. At least with the last one it hit me at an angle. If that hard bit on the end had –
"Look! Duck, Fakir!" one of his devote fangirls cried.
"What? Where?" asked Fakir, looking around wildly for the duck he was now so attached to.
Something hit Fakir in the back of his right knee, and he fell, felling as though a lead weight had just been thrown at him. Or maybe a hammer. Oh. "LOOK, I DIDN'T WRITE THE STUPID LETTER, OKAY?" shouted Fakir, finally at the end of his patience, and now with a damaged pride at being felled by a pointe shoe. His leg really hurt, too.
The girl burst into tears and ran off, surrounded by concerned friends who all glared at Fakir in a way that would probably caused him to die in some horrible manner if he hadn't returned it with the same amount of force.
Fakir limped outside, muttering to himself. "A knight lamed by a pointe shoe? Ha! If she had been some raven or something she would be long gone!" He ignored the part of his brain that was trying to remind him that he hadn't held a sword since he finished The Price and the Raven.
"Look! Duck, Fakir!"
"Not again!" groaned Fakir, and he threw himself to the ground, hands covering his neck in the there-is-going-to-be-an-earthquake position, waiting for the inevitable.
It never came.
"Uh, Fakir?"
"Is she still here? Is she gone?" asked Fakir urgently.
"Well, I don't know who you're talking about, but I don't see anyone else, so -"
"She's gone, then," said Fakir, standing and dusting himself off. Then he caught sight of the person in front of him. "Du – Du – You're a – a -" he stuttered in a most un-Fakir-like way.
"Yeah, I know. Funny, huh? Well, see, this necklace fell from the sky, and then I kept turning into a girl and then a duck again, and then Drosselmeyer talked to me, and then Uzura brought me some clothes -"
Fakir's surprised expression was wiped off his face. "Wait, did you say Drosselmeyer? He's back?"
"Well, uh . . . sort of." Duck met his eyes and blushed.
"What do you mean, 'sort of'?"
"Well, see, he can't write stories anymore, and he can't control Kinkan town anymore because we destroyed that machine of his, but, well, uh . . ."
"Well, what?"
"Uh, he kind of said something about . . ."
"Duck, I can't hear you."
"Something about family trees. And the power to write stories that come true not always being obvious right away. And stuff."
"What?!" cried Fakir.
Duck frowned. "That was it, though. I mean, he didn't really say anything about who it might be."
Fakir tried to think clearly. "So . . . how come you're a girl if Drosselmeyer wasn't the one writing the story?"
"I'm not really sure. This pendant" She fingered the blue stone hanging from her neck, "just dropped out of nowhere. Drosselmeyer kind of showed up soon after that."
"He . . . didn't hurt you or anything, did he?" asked Fakir, looking concerned.
"Oh, no, I'm fine," said Duck, and Fakir looked relieved. Then he sighed.
"Well, we should figure out who is controlling your story in case something like last time happens," he said, running his fingers through his hair. "I doubt it's Autor, but we can check. Let's make a visit to the library."
"Okay!" said Duck, and obediently followed him to said location.
- - - - - - - - (End Chapter One) - - - - - - - -
Author's Note: Hehe. This was originally a one-shot; now I think it's a three-parter. I came up with this idea with the help of Shadow Neko Yumi a loooooooooooong time ago, but I kept having serious writer's block. -.-' I decided to post Chapter One, though, so that's something.