I do not own Princess Tutu.

Princess Tutu: Chapter of the Raven

Act 10: Friendship

Once upon a time, there was a girl who was a raven. Being a raven, she cared not for having friends and neither did any of the other ravens. When this raven girl's father was killed by the humans alongside a little duck, she decided she would have revenge. In her efforts to avenge her father, she ended up needing to kidnap a human girl. Despite her hatred for humans, she somehow befriended this peculiar and innocent girl who had no memory of who she was. A beloved friend. But would this raven girl still think the same of her new found friend if she found out that she was the duck who had helped kill her father?

Fakir, Mytho and Rue made their way back to the fountain between the dormitory buildings. Once there, little Uzura greeted them with a bang on her drum. All disappointed in their failure, none of them bothered to remind Uzura that it was nighttime and all the students were asleep. The little girl stared in confusion and then glanced around the yard expectantly and frowned.

"You didn't find Ahiru-zura." Mytho, noticing Fakir's flinch at those words, sighed.

"Fakir, don't blame yourself. None of us were able to stop Ahiru from being kidnapped." Mytho reached out to put a hand on Fakir's shoulder, but instead of calming him, he seemed to tense and his fists tightened into a ball at his sides.

"I could've. I hesitated and got caught off guard! If only, if only I were stronger!" Fakir began to tremble, his self-hatred boiling. "It's all my fault, and now Ahiru is gone again!" A stinging slap to the cheek brought him to his senses. Rubbing the red mark on his face, Fakir yelled, "What was that for!?" Rue lifted her hand to smack him again but Mytho caught it.

"Fakir stop being an idiot! Yes, you are useless as a knight, but you yourself isn't entirely. We may not have saved her from being kidnapped, but you prevented her death! So stop wallowing in your guilt; saving Ahiru isn't a lost cause yet!"

"I never said it was a lost cause!"

"Then stop beating yourself up about it and think of a way to find her!"

"Well-" It seemed Fakir would never have the last word in an argument with Rue as, once again, Mytho intervened.

"Both of you, stop!" Mytho slowly let go of Rue's wrist, watching to make sure she wouldn't slap Fakir again, then continued. "Fakir, Rue is right. We shouldn't be feeling guilty right now. What we should be doing is finding out how to get Ahiru back. Though I doubt that we'll be able to get much done as we are now. We should rest up and meet here tomorrow."

Both Fakir and Rue glared at the ground in surrender. "Fine." , they both said in unison.

As they parted, each going to their room, no one noticed a shadow watching them from the girls' dorm.

"Oh," Drosselmeyer said from his rocking chair within the gears of the story. "Things are getting quite interesting! The story is finally starting to take a new direction!" Now, a new gear appeared before him, revealing the underground lake and the two figures who now occupied the island in the middle. "Oh? How could I forget little Ahiru? I wonder how she's fairing against my newest character."

Setting Ahiru down on the island, a shackle appeared on her right ankle, chaining her to it. Rhia carelessly let her broom fall to the ground and squatted down by the water, holding her head in her hands. She was still crying and apologizing, and Ahiru couldn't help but wonder why. Crawling over beside her, Ahiru sat down and laid her hand on Rhia's shoulder.

"Why are you crying? Who are you apologizing to?" Rhia flinched away from Ahiru's hand and kept staring into the depths of the lake.

"What do you care!?" She hissed.

"But...I want to know why you're so sad." Rhia didn't answer. "Please, won't you tell me? I want to know." Ahiru insisted. Rhia moved her hands away from her head and instead, used them to hug her knees closer.

"Why do you want to know so badly!? I tried to kill you! You should be afraid of me!"

Ahiru frowned. "I don't know why I want to know. I just want to know. I also don't know why I'm not scared anymore. But I feel like I'd know if I had more of my heart back." Rhia glanced at her from the corner of her eye, still facing the water. That's right. This girl's heart still isn't complete. But if Daddy wants me to resurrect him, then I have to get back all her pieces of heart.

"So, now will you tell me why you're sad?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I don't want to." After that, the two remained in silence for a few moments. But it was very short lived.

"Well, can you at least tell me your name?" This time, Rhia turned her head to face her, confused. This girl is weird! Why does she want to know my name!? I almost killed her, in fact, I'm going to kill her as soon as she gets her heart back! Despite these thoughts, Rhia answered her hesitantly.

"M-my name is Rhia." she said slowly.

"Okay, Rhia. My name is Ahiru."

"Hmph, whatever." Still confused, Rhia turned back to the water.

In the morning, Fakir, Mytho and Rue met by the fountain, as planned. Fakir had told Uzura to stay inside Mytho's room as it would have been complicated to explain to his roommate why there was a little girl in their room, annoyingly banging her drums.

"I've been thinking," Fakir started as they walked towards the academy. "When my memories came back, Uzura told me that her and Drosselmeyer had been traveling from story to story. If Uzura is back, then it's likely that Drosselmeyer is too."

"But even so, what can he do? We destroyed the machine he used to write his stories, remember?" Rue reminded.

"Don't you remember what I said? When this story started, the machine had been repaired by that witch. After class, I think we should go check on it." They all nodded and prepared for class.

Ahiru had fallen asleep shortly after learning her captor's name. As she slept, more memories came back to her in the form of dreams. This time, she remembered being a beautiful and graceful prima donna named, Princess Tutu. She had been returning a heart shard to a boy from school. She recalled that his name was Mytho. But before the heart shard could be returned, a raven-like woman appeared, and stole it. Her name was Princess Kraehe. Ahiru remembered all the times when she encountered her, but whenever she saw her in her memories, the image of Rue flashed in front of Kraehe. Ahiru had no idea why. Then, the next memory she saw, was of her as Princess Tutu again. She was giving Mytho another heart shard, but once it left her hands, she turned into a duck. After that, she saw herself floating idly on the surface of a lake. She looked sad and brooding as she sighed.

Ahiru woke up to find that Rhia had gone out and was just returning. Standing in front of Ahiru, one hand holding a red shard of glass, the other on her hip, Rhia frowned down at her. "You really can sleep, y'know that? It's already well into the day."

Staring up at her, Ahiru noticed something glowing in the witch's hand. "What's that?"

"It's a piece of your heart. I believe this one is the feeling of anger."

"Are you going to return it to me? Or...do you plan on eating it?" Rhia flinched. She wouldn't dare attempt to eat Ahiru's heart after the scolding she got from her Father.

"No. I'll return this one later." Rhia had recently found out that the heart shards reacted to one another and decided that getting Ahiru's heart back would go much faster if she kept one to guide her.

"Okay." Ahiru said quietly. The silence that followed seemed awkward, unusual. Normally, Rhia would have been perfectly fine, happy even, to have this silence, but something about this girl compelled her to ask, "What's wrong?"

Ahiru stared up at her again briefly, and then down at the ground. "Every time I get a piece of my heart back, I gain an emotion and some memories. But usually, the memories that come back to me are related to the emotion that was returned. This time, none of them really had to do with curiosity. But that's not all, one of the memories that I got back...it scares me. I have this feeling that if I get my heart back, I'll be really sad in the end. I'm scared of what might happen."

Rhia stared at her with pity. She had no idea why she felt sorry for Ahiru, but once again she thought that there was just something about this girl. She had a sort of personality, even when incomplete, and charm that drew her to her, that prevented Rhia from hating her like the other humans. It could be, she thought, partly because she didn't have a big part in killing daddy. The ones who killed him were that sister of mine, her prince, that writer and the duck who was Princess Tutu.

Rhia sat down beside Ahiru and put a hand on her shoulder. "Ahiru, I understand, but I'm much more afraid of what would happen to me if I don't return your heart. I'm sorry, but I'll have to keep returning pieces of your heart whether you like it or not."

Drosselmeyer chuckled. "Oh, that's right! Hidden away from the events of the story, my new character only knows what Princess Tutu and her true form look like. I wonder if her feelings towards little Ahiru would be the same if she knew the truth!"

Fakir stood in front of the machine that he had destroyed so long ago. Rue and Mytho stood behind him, concerned. The machine really had been rebuilt.

"I think it would be best if I destroyed it. That way we won't have to worry about the story controlling us." They all nodded. As Fakir turned back to the machine, Drosselmeyer had only just turned his attention towards the gear that showed the three of them gathered around his storytelling machine. As Fakir prepared to destroy it, Drosselmeyer realized what it was that he planned to do.

"Oh no, no, no, no! What does he think he's doing!? That will not do at all! He obviously doesn't realize what it is that he's about to do!" Drosselmeyer rushed to the loophole in time and entered kinkan town. "Now, what do you think you are doing?"

Fakir tensed. He had known that it was likely that Drosselmeyer had returned but his presence still managed to shock him. He turned around to face his ancestor, but not before masking his anxiety with contempt. "Drosselmeyer." He uttered with disgust.

"Now, now, is that any way to greet your great great grandfather? But more importantly," started Drosselmeyer. "You weren't thinking of destroying my machine again, were you?"

"Yes I was." Fakir answered, matter-of-factly. "That way, your story won't be able to interfere with our actions."

Drosselmeyer clicked his tongue in disappointment. "My dear boy, you are quite mistaken! If you destroy this machine now, while the story is still developing, still progressing, the story will be left unfinished! It will simply end with no ending!"

"I won't let it. I'll write the rest of the story. I'll write it towards another happy ending."

Drosselmeyer practically cringed at the thought of another disappointing end to a story that held much potential. Shaking it off and chuckling, Drosselmeyer said, "You overestimate your power. Perhaps if this story was of your own writing to begin with then I suppose you could write the ending yourself. But this story isn't yours, in fact, it's not even mine! I do believe that the only way for you to bring this story to your horrible happy ending is if you let this story write itself and use your power to twist it. So what do you say, eh Fakir? Allow this machine to function?"

Fakir glared daggers at Drosselmeyer. Fakir would usually never, under any circumstance, listen to what Drosselmeyer would have to say, but the more Fakir thought back on it, the more it made sense to him. It was true, his powers weren't exactly very reliable. Even when he was writing the happy endings for the people of kinkan, he found that some things didn't turn out exactly the way he wrote them. But no matter how much sense Fakir found in those words, after what happened in the previous story, there was no way that Fakir would trust Drosselmeyer so easily and willingly.

"I still don't understand. You say that if I destroy the machine, the story will just stop, and I won't be able to continue it myself. So why do you care? If I destroy the machine, all of us will fall into despair, unable to move forward. Isn't that what you want, for your story to end in tragedy?"

"Well, of course, but having the story end so abruptly and missing out on all the despair yet to come would be quite boring and disappointing!"

Fakir smirked. "Tch, of course. But it doesn't matter. Either way, we're going to have to disappoint you again Drosselmeyer. This story will have a happy ending, for all of us."

Drosselmeyer, content with having prevented Fakir from destroying the machine, stepped back into the loophole in time. But as the grandfather clock closed up behind him and disappeared, Drosselmeyer's last words sounded only to Fakir as time resumed. "We'll see about that, now won't we?"

As time resumed, Rue seemed impatient as the seconds passed by, uneventful. "Well? Didn't you say that you were going to destroy it?"

"Drosselmeyer appeared, just now. Somehow, he convinced me not to."

Rue stared at him with disbelief. "Fakir, are you stupid!? Did you forget what he did to all of us?"

Mytho laid his hand on Rue's shoulder, stopping her. "Rue, none of us could forget. That is why I trust Fakir's decision. I believe that he would be the last person to ever take Drosselmeyer's advice, and if for some reason he's willing to take it now, then I know that it must be a good reason."

Rue mumbled something under her breath, but neither of the boys in the room payed it any attention.

Just then, Mytho's ring glowed. "A heart shard?" Mytho looked around, searching for a person, an object, that could be holding the piece of heart. A shadow at the door of the room caught Mytho's eye. Having been spotted, the figure jumped and ran down the long, spiraling flight of stairs. "Could it be-?" Mytho was quick to pursue the figure, transforming into Prince Siegfried as he descended the kinkan clock tower stairs.

"Prince!" Rue fell in behind him, doing her best to keep up. Fakir followed soon after. Their pursuit led them to the art building of the academy. Upon entering, the three immediately noticed the mess of papers spread across the floor. On each was an exquisite drawing of Rue. The papers seemed to form a trail, and as their eyes followed it to the middle of the room, the shady figure that they had been chasing was sitting on her knees, crying, with her back facing them.

Mytho approached her and knelt beside her. Taking notice of more drawings of Rue sprawled in front of the girl as well as the name signed at the bottom of each, Mytho commented, "These are very beautiful drawings Miss...Malen?"

Malen nodded with a sniff, "They are, but they're all of Miss Rue. I like using her as a muse for some of my drawings but lately, she's all I've been able to draw. I used to draw so many different things like fruit and scenery. But now..." She shook her head.

Mytho smiled softly at her and stood, offering his hand to help her up. "Malen, would you like to dance for me?"

"Me? But I don't know how to dance."

Hesitantly, remembering that his dance couldn't help people's hearts like Princess Tutu's, Mytho told her, "That's okay. I'll guide you. Just do what your feelings tell you to do." Taking his hand, Malen stood and began to dance. "Miss Malen, I take it that you love to draw many different things, am I right?"

Malen nodded. "Of course. I love having many subjects to choose from."

"Well, if that's how you feel, then I'm sure you can see that this desire to draw only Rue is not yours. Those are the feelings of someone else. You should be able to draw what you want."

Malen smiled as their dance came to an end. "Yes, I understand. Thank you!" As the heart shard left Malen's body, she collapsed. Mytho caught her before she hit the ground and laid her down gently. Turning to the heart shard, he asked, "And what feeling might you be?"

"I am the feeling of devotion."

"I see. Well, I do believe that you should be off to where you belong now." Holding out his hands, the shard reverted to her fragment form. As the shard flew out the door past Fakir and Rue to find it's home, Fakir's eyes widened.

"That's it!" He darted out of the art building. Mytho and Rue exchanged glances and followed. They found him outside the building searching the sky.

"What are you looking for Fakir?" Mytho inquired.

"The heart shard. I thought maybe we could follow it to Ahiru. But I lost sight of it when I got outside." Fakir cursed under his breath.

"Ahiru still has more heart shards scattered about, I'm sure. If we find another one, we'll definitely find Ahiru." said Rue.

"That maybe true, but I suppose you weren't expecting someone else to be after the rest as well, were you? You'd better be quick to find another heart shard, lest there be no more to lead the way!" Drosselmeyer said in his rocking chair.

Rhia had come back from her search for Ahiru's heart shards. Her search had been successful as she returned with a heart shard in hand. This one had been much easier to retrieve than Anger. The heart shard had reacted to a girl who was wandering the town anxiously. When Rhia appeared before her, she could tell that this girl was very strange. She was unsure whether she should be afraid of the witch before her and why she should be. Rhia could only stand there and watch as the girl started rambling to herself. She was going on about how she couldn't find her way home because something told her that she should go one way, but then something else told her to go in the opposite direction. This was odd to the girl because she said that she used to know Kinkan town like the back of her hand. Then, she changed subjects and rambled on about school and how her grades were going down because everything she learned was suddenly confusing to her which was also odd because she was a very smart girl and used to always get good grades. Changing subjects again, she even started getting confused about why and what she was rambling on about! By now, Rhia was getting tired of listening and conjured a raven's feather and shot it at the girl's heart. The girl let out a strangled cry and closed her eyes, falling to the ground. The heart shard had left her hostess and submitted to Rhia. She guessed that this one was probably the feeling of confusion.

Finally back at the underground lake, she arrived just as Ahiru was waking up from a nap. As she approached her, Ahiru put a hand to her heart. "Rhia, another piece of my heart was returned while you were gone. Did you return it?"

Rhia raised an eyebrow. "No, the one I retrieved is still with me." She held her hand out to show her the shard.

"Oh, I see." Ahiru paused and then continued. "I got back some of my memories again, too."

Rhia sighed. "Ahiru, what makes you think I want to hear about your memories?"

Ahiru stayed silent for a few moments, as if thinking. "Well, I guess I thought since we're friends-"

"What?" Rhia said, startled. Friends. "Since when are we friends?"

"Well, I thought since you comforted me when I was sad and are returning heart shards to me..."

"Look, I was returning the favor of you comforting me. But how does returning your heart make me your friend? I thought you said that you were afraid of getting your heart back?"

"Well, yes, I did say that but I suppose at the same time I want to get my heart back. I feel like I'm incomplete without my heart and memories. I guess it overwhelms my feeling of fear. But I'm still scared..."

Rhia stared at her in silence. This girl really was something. She actually wanted to go down a path that frightened her. Rhia had to admit that that was quite brave of her. Not many people had the courage to head down paths that were dark and uncertain. In this silence, Rhia's thoughts also went back to the idea of being friends. She'd never really had a friend before. Rhia was sure that if it was anyone other than Ahiru, she would have outright refused it.

"Okay, why don't you tell me about your memories next time. Right now, I have to return this." Holding out the heart shard once more, Ahiru nodded. As it returned, piecing itself together with the others, she found herself drifting off into sleep once again.

Drosselmeyer chuckled. "Poor Ahiru! If you reveal your thoughts on your memories to come, you're only going to end up losing a friend! You may even end up making my tragic ending inevitable! Oh little Ahiru, you always were my most promising character! Heheeheh."

to be continued....