Entertaining the Old Man, a princess tutu fanfic

Rating: G, can you believe it?

Summary: Drosselmeyer is bored.

Credit: Gratitude for Mei-chan and Meimi for bothering to point out grammar errors here and there.

Commentary: Always. XD

Ah, but an old man gets bored with all his puppets asleep and nobody there to entertain him.

Wake up, Drosselmeyer said to Mytho. Dance for me.

Mytho's eyes jerked open. In truth he needed not sleep. When it grew dark he obediently laid in his bed, closed his eyes, and turned off his consciousness, but only because Fakir made such a fuss otherwise. Sleeping, waking, it made no difference to him. He felt nothing either way.

If Mytho wondered why his bedroom had been replaced with the ruin site of an ancient Greek structure he did not ask. He merely rose to his feet and began to dance.

Drosselmeyer rocked back and forth on his rocking chair, content. Nothing was better than a good story, true, but sometimes physical poetry was so much more relaxing. Particularly the prince's. Fakir was lovely for his emotionally intensive movements, making him someone Drosselmeyer watched when he was in the mood for a stomach-ache. (All that frowning and sweating agitated him. It made him want to throw a tomato or two at the boy. It's just a dance! Don't pull your life conflicts into it. Relax already, life is a joke. Not that Drosselmeyer really had any right to criticize Fakir's personality seeing how he himself had created it.)

Mytho threw a look at Drosselmeyer; would you like to dance with me? Everyone else does. Drosselmeyer waved him away, no, no, I'm not just old, I'm dead, if I were up to running and jumping and cart wheeling I wouldn't have all you puppets to keep me entertained, now would I? Puppet prince shrugged, almost as if to say, your loss, but of course the shrug meant no such thing. Mytho couldn't care less either way.

No music played. Music served as Mytho's cue as to where to start and stop. Without it he was set on infinite loop. Where his energy came from is a mystery (and, as Drosselmeyer would chuckle if asked, aren't mysteries what make a story interesting?) but whatever it was he seemed to have an unlimited supply of it. If you do not draw from life you cannot exhaust the source.

For a puppet he moved with surprising fluidity. Perhaps it's because Drosselmeyer didn't pull on his strings, per say, more like imbued commands into his head, commands that revived old memories. Mytho's dance was based on a faded memory. The body never truly forgets what was ingrained onto it. Thus Mytho knew his steps perfectly, but without a soul to fill the dance, it was lifeless. Like his eyes.

You were never my favorite, Drosselmeyer told Mytho. There's scores of characters I like better than you-- there's that witty cat in boots, for one. Always good for a laugh. You're not even my favorite from my own stories. You were just too perfect. Who's going to like a prince that's all strong, all loving, all sacrificing? No reader can sympathize with a flawless being. I'm glad I died while writing your story. It finally stripped you of that annoying perfectness.

Mytho was undisturbed by these revelations. You cannot hurt feelings that do not exist.

No, mused Drosselmeyer further, you weren't the interesting one. You're a smidgeon bit interesting now, puppet that you are, but the ones that are really bringing the story to life are all those other characters. How they go insane over you! The lengths they'll go to have you as theirs! That's the advantage of a perfect character-- it inspires the others to do so much more. They all want the same thing, you know-- you. Heaven knows why. What can you do with a mute pretty toy aside from watch it?

At this Drosselmeyer laughed openly. Look at me, watching you. I'm no better than those characters I made up!

Mytho went on dancing to the tune of Drosselmeyer 's chuckles and ramblings.