Once upon a time, a Prince and Princess lived happily ever after.
"And so she took it between her delicate fingers, staring at it curiously. It was soft, fine, and with every little movement her fingers made, the object tickled her palm-and..."
"-This is useless!" The paper was crumpled, and thrown on the floor.
Fakir leaned back in his chair and started to rub his temples. It was very late at night now. He had been writing the whole evening almost non-stop, and now, he has finally hit a halt.
"This just won't do... This isn't going to help her." Fakir said in a low whisper to himself. "I'm still not strong enough... and my writing... it's-" He holds his head in his hands and tries to regain himself.
He looks up again, and walks to the window beside the door.
"It'll be sunrise soon, I should rest for now. I won't be able to accomplish anything in this state anyway."
And just as the dark-haired youth moves to close the curtains, he suddenly hears a strange howl pass through the small house, almost as if the wind itself were shuffling through its corridors.
Slightly alarmed, he walks towards the hallway. He goes and investigates the other rooms, but finds nothing out of the ordinary. Sighing, he walks back to his work room.
As he enters it, for a brief moment Fakir's face contorted into one of shock, and another much louder howl can be heard reverberating throughout the house.
And as quickly as it came, it disappeared just as fast, leaving behind a house much too quiet... and empty.
"QUACK!"
In a small pond, just out in the nearby forest, swam a small yellow duck. Minding its own business and just swimming around under the warm, late summer sun, the duck known as Ahiru, was bored.
"Quack!" 'I wonder when Fakir is coming to visit again, it's been a while since he last came. He's been coming here everyday since summer began.' A sigh. 'Then again, summer is almost over... Maybe he's busy preparing for school?'
Just the thought of school suddenly reminded the small duck of all the times she spent in school as a human girl. It wasn't a very long stay, but she enjoyed every moment of it. The ballet classes, all the people she met, the friends she made, the tears, the laughter, everything. She truly did miss it. Heck, she even missed all the marriage threats that Mr. Cat constantly gave her and her fellow classmates.
"Quack..." Another sigh. While it was fun, there was no point in thinking about such things now. She was a duck, and life was content. Everyone moved on, and so should she. It doesn't however help how she feels and she finds herself wondering if there was perhaps someone who misses her as the girl, Ahiru.
"QUACK!" 'Argh! Here I am thinking such things again!' "Quack! Qua-Quack!" 'When is Fakir coming over again!'
And just as she thought it, she suddenly spied a young man with dark hair walking through the forest towards the clearing that is her pond.
Excited, she quickly swims to the edge of the small pool and hops out of the water to greet her supposed visitor. The excitement however was short-lived as the figure stepped forward into the view of the small duck.
Before her, stood none other than Autor; The music student who taught Fakir about his powers and his connection to Drosselmeyer.
While she had nothing against Autor, she just really doesn't know him well enough. She never quite got the chance to talk to him or to even make friends, and among the few times they've ever interacted, she remembers it being quite the disagreement in relation to what Autor was making Fakir do.
However, even if they were friends, Ahiru couldn't help but feel a little disappointed that the one who had come today was not who she was expecting.
"Hello there, tiny little duckling." The bespectacled boy beckons to her.
"Quack?" Certainly she knew of him, but to her surprise, she really wasn't quite sure that Autor knew of her. Or at least, knew how she looked like as a duck or even where to find her.
Shaking her head she decides she's just another duck to the temperamental music student. She then waddles back to the water and pretends to be just that.
"Ahiru."
She stops. 'What?'
"You are Ahiru, aren't you? I know Fakir has been visiting this pond everyday. It doesn't take a genius to figure why he does." He spoke as he pushes his glasses slightly higher atop the bridge of his nose.
She just gapes at him with her lower beak just hanging there, her whole face a picture of surprise.
"I'll take that as yes. Anyway, listen Ahiru, I do not like beating around the bush, so I'll be straight to the point and tell you why I have come." He kneels down on one knee at the edge of the pond, looking directly at Ahiru.
"Fakir has gone missing."
'M-missing! H-how could he be missing! Where did he go! Where is he? Is he alright! Could he be hurt! I have to find him! Where could he be!'
"Quack! Qua-Quack! Quack quack! Quuuaaack! Quack!"
As the little yellow duck continues to panic and splash about in the tiny pond, Autor couldn't help but feel a vein pulsing at his forehead at the irritating noise the duck is making.
"Calm down already! This is no time to panic!"
"QUA-Quack?"
"While I cannot understand what you are saying, I'm pretty sure you're quite baffled by this new information. Seeing as that is so, I guess I was wrong in assuming you might know about his whereabouts." He concludes a little dejectedly.
'Fakir...' Ahiru stops and settles down. She looks down, then with a sudden burst of confidence, she jumps out of the water and stops short in front of Autor.
"QUACK!" 'Take me to where you last saw Fakir!'
Surprisingly, despite the 'language barrier', the two somehow made it to the place. It took a lot of charades and such, but finally, here they are at the place Fakir always goes to at night to write. It is the same place where he had written the finale of the Prince's tale and that of Princess Tutu. It was the old house of Drosselmeyer himself.
Autor, with Ahiru in his arm, opens the door and walks in to the small work area. Putting Ahiru down on the table, he goes to a small chest beside it, opens it and starts looking through it.
Ahiru, now with a good view of the room, starts to observe. Everything seemed normal. It certainly didn't look much different from the last time she had seen it, as long ago as that was, but still, everything still seemed to be in order. Sure there were a few scraps of paper lying here and there which weren't there before, but this is certainly nothing of great notice.
Suddenly, Autor pulls something out of the small chest and throws it onto the table beside Ahiru.
"QUACK!"
"Look at this. Do you know what it is?" Autor asks her, a serious look set upon his features.
Looking down, Ahiru waddles closer and looks at it. It was a pile of blank sheets of paper. She quickly looks back up at Autor, not quite understanding.
"These are what are supposed to be Fakir's manuscripts of the stories he wrote."
'Manuscripts? But these are blank and have nothing written on it!' "Quack?" She gives him a questioning look.
"Fakir kept all his manuscripts and such in this box. And yet now, all of it are nothing but blank pages." He crouches down and picks up one of the crumpled pieces of paper. "He worked here every night trying to hone his skills better. Not everything he wrote he liked... those are what are now scattered and forgotten on the floor."
Ahiru looks around and spies all the balls of crumpled paper on the floor, finally giving them a second thought.
"He wrote something, didn't like it, crumpled them and then threw them on the floor. But even these-" Autor takes the crinkled paper between his fingers and spreads it out and shows them to Ahiru. "They are also now gone." And he lays this too on the desk atop the pile of papers.
"Quack! Qu-Quack!" 'So the only things missing are Fakir and the words he wrote!' She made various movements signaling that she doesn't understand.
"I am as lost as you are on this. But, if I were to guess, I have a feeling this may be the doing of Drosselmeyer." He pushes his glasses up again.
'But then... That means...!' Ahiru gasps.
"The story may yet again begin."
Squaw!
"Hm?"
"Huh? What's the matter, Lilie?"
The blonde girl continues looking up towards the top of the buildings, and her pink-haired friend, Pike, can't help but follow her gaze. A top, flying over the houses of their quaint town, was a flock of ravens. While it unsettled Pike, her friend on the other hand cracked a smile and murmured...
"...Beautiful."
The little duck, Ahiru paces around the shelves and desks that make up Fakir's workspace, trying to find some sort of clue if there were even any to begin with. She eyed the duck-feather pen that fakir uses as his quill.
'Where could Fakir have disappeared to? Could it really be connected to Drosselmeyer again?'
Off to the side of the room, looking out the window, stood Autor. "Something strange is going on outside."
Ahiru, looking in the direction of Autor; through the window, she notices what looks like a fast moving black cloud coming towards the small house.
Before the two could react however, all of a sudden, a strong gust of wind blows all the windows and doors wide open and suddenly they find ravens flying into the house through the windows, doors, and even through the chimney.
As a chaos of black wings and feathers flew around the room, the two panicked and flailed about their arms and wings respectively, trying to ward the black birds off.
"Where'd they all come from!" Ahiru could hear Autor struggling on the other side of the room.
As much as she'd like to help, there is not much she can do as a duck. Being small and laying flat on the table, she is able to hide away from the claws and beaks of the ravens darting around the room, but that is all. 'What can I do? Why is this happening?'
Suddenly, from the corner of her eye, she sees a raven trying to pull Fakir's yellow quill from out of it's stand. 'That—That's Fakir's!' And without thinking, she runs over to the raven and rams it at its side, making them both stumble over the table. Another raven, noticing this, tries to make a grab for the quill itself.
"Quack!" 'Leave that alone!' Ahiru gets up as fast as she could and runs back. This time however, instead of aiming for the other raven, she lunges for the quill itself and grabs it with her beak.
She flies off the table with the quill and tries to get away. More ravens notice her now, and they all fly in her direction.
'What do they want with this?' She moves and dodges the strikes aimed at her. However, before she knew it, she had mistakenly ran to the corner of the room. She was surrounded by the ravens, and now had nowhere else to run to.
She looks up, desperate, feeling the dread of what the ravens would do to her now that she was cornered.
'Fakir...'
And just when she expected herself to be met with a barrage of beaks and claws, she suddenly gets a warm feeling about her. And in the blink of an eye... she changed.
Feeling a bright light shining in the room, Autor looks back and sees a young girl, wearing a ballerina outfit, enveloped in a soft glow. He notices the ravens suddenly change behavior, seemingly becoming feeble in the presence of this ethereal girl, and just as fast as they came, they fled.
The young girl, eyes closed, now opens her bright blue eyes... And as the glow about her fades, so do the feathers in her hair and her ballerina outfit, leaving behind a more normal looking girl with freckles and long ginger hair.
"What... happened-" Her eyes suddenly become large. "I- I can talk again!" She looks at her hands, and indeed, she confirms to herself, she is once again human. She also notices however, a yellow feather in her hand. It is what was once the quill, but as of now, is free of its pen tip.
Suddenly, she remembers Autor who was also in the room. "A-Autor!" She searches for him in the room, only to find him standing nearby with one hand crossed in front of him, and the other covering his eyes beneath his glasses as he looks sideways.
And he utters just one word: "Clothes."
Realizing she was actually not wearing anything, Ahiru goes beet red and runs further into the house in search of something to wear.
Chapter 1 : Once again a time...
