Disclaimer: I do not own Princess Tutu, any of its characters or plotlines. This is purely for my own entertainment.
A companion piece to Grown.
Growing
Fakir looked out onto the sparkling lake before him, brows together in concentration and quill still scribbling without his eyes. The existence of an author was one that required very little, yet very much, because the story should either go on without you or require your constant attention to make sure everything went as it should.
It wasn't, contrary to his former belief, quite so different from being a knight.
He looked back down at the paper, where ink was lightly smudging on the paper. He cursed quietly and set it out in the sun to dry quickly so he could clean it.
Fakir got up with a sense of weight on his shoulders, which had become a typical presence on more tense days, which could mean quite a lot of different situations. The cold air whisked around his shoulders and out into the town, dropping tiny white drops as it did.
Looking back at that lake felt almost strange now, and he briefly wondered why he kept coming here to write instead of elsewhere. Scenery probably had nothing to do with it, and he could write just as well anywhere else, but stayed here.
He realized with a small shock that he was sentimentally attached to it, and further that he had never really been attached to something ever before. He had considered sentiment weakness and scorned it for years until it happened to suddenly exist inside him.
With a small sigh, the young man took up his dry story and ink and walked home, carrying his tools with him.
His short daily trek across town guaranteed a greeting from a student from the academy and several blushing girls looking at him and giggling, two of them having fuchsia and yellow hair. They probably just waited for him to pass, and if that was the highlight of their day they might try to reconsider their life choices.
Fakir stopped at the wooden door and took a deep breath in and turned the knob.
No one was in the front room, and he quietly set down his paper and ink at the desk and searched around for a cloth to wet that he could use to clean the smudges.
Finding one, he triumphantly went back to the desk and sat down, buried in his work, which some might call tedious, but he called enjoyable.
It might've been minutes or hours later that he still sat, now writing what drifted into his mind. The chilly outdoors felt like millions of miles away and life seemed to be in quite a different state of mind than he was in now.
A loud quack and someone tackling Fakir took him out of his trance.
He groaned and looked down, his eyes softening when he saw her body wrapped around his and shivering.
"It's so cold! I wish I could still fly south during the winter!"
He softly chuckled and let her sit atop his lap and bury herself into him.
"What were you doing outside then, moron?"
"Just walking home!" she protested. "I was leaving Ebine's and it was so cold!"
He looked down at the basket she had seemingly dropped on the floor and he could smell warm food inside, the scent drifting around the room.
He put her on the ground and stood up. "Go change into something warmer, okay? Then we can eat some of that food you brought home."
PTPTPT
She nodded enthusiastically and smiled, bouncing off to her room. Fakir rolled his eyes and took the basket to the kitchen, laughing at the silly girl.
Ahiru stood on tiptoes at the window, trying to catch a glimpse of the snow-covered world. "Fakir? Could we go out into the snow? It's so pretty!"
"Idiot. Just earlier you were complaining about being so cold out there. Why on earth should you want to go back?"
Ahiru sighed, and he turned around to see her desperate look out the glass to the white world around her.
He sighed. "Fine. You can go."
She grinned and ran up to him, grabbing his arm as she went to the door.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"What if I get cold again and freeze? You have to drag me inside."
"Moron." He kissed her forehead and let her outside, standing just on the edge of the door.
Somehow, he realized as he watched her run to the trees and touch small icicles on the branches, Ahiru was growing on him.