Many, many thanks to EarthStarChan and Asatira for acting as my betas. I REALLY need the quality control these two lovely ladies provide, and there was a lot of editing for them to do this time. Thank you.

A quick reminder, anything written in bold that is not specifically the title of the current chapter, should be taken as text written on a page.

Schwäne Zwei

Chapter 3: Two Swans

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A sunset-like fire painted the mountains of Kinkan. In the forest on the kingdom's eastern border, at an abandoned lakeside castle, the animals were strangely silent as night fell.

At a lake by an abandoned keep within the mountain ranges that bordered Kinkan, there were two swans.

Much like the princes of Kinkan, one swan was white and one black.

The graceful swans alighted in the shallows of the lake's westernmost edge. They waited patiently as the moonlight spread across the surface of the lake. The pale fingers of silver light reflected first on the glossy feathers of the black swan, then brushed over the soft curve of the white swan's plumage.

In a rush of magic unseen by normal men, the waters of the lake swirled up around the swans, cocooning them in moonlight and sparkling water.

But when the swans were bathed in moonlight on the surface of this lake...

Two cursed princesses regained their human forms.

But only as long as the moon hung in the sky.

When the magic receded, two women stood in the shallow water that soaked the hems of their elegant gowns.

The slightly taller of the two was dressed entirely in shades of gold, the wide skirt of the dress bobbed slightly on the water's surface. Every inch of her skin below the neck was covered. Her shoulders covered with a sheer golden material that tucked into a darker corset. Blue gems were fastened at the neck and waistline, and her delicate fingers peeked out from beneath long full sleeves cut to resemble a bird's wings. She turned her head, this way and that, long pink hair making a sliding sound over expensive fabric while deep-set eyes the same blue as the lake's water scanned the shoreline.

The woman beside her was as dark as the other was light. Her fitted gown was made in shades of black and dipped into the water i n a mermaid silhouette. Trailing open sleeves stopped just short of brushing the water themselves, echoing a significantly different but no less bird-like wing design. Her shoulders were exposed by a low ruby red trimmed neckline that echoed her sash and worried crimson eyes that watched the shoreline with concern no less evident than that of the pink-haired woman's. She brushed olive-toned fingers through walnut brown waves of hair as she focused on the woman standing next to her in the ankle-deep water.

"Sister!" She almost hissed the words, as if afraid of being overhead in this desolate and abandoned place. "Ahiru!"

Blue eyes turned to catch crimson, and the dark woman reached instinctively for the golden girl's hands.

"He's not here yet." She pulled both of the other girl's hands up between them and leaned in close. "Listen, Ahiru."

For her part, Ahiru moved in closer, making surprisingly little noise in the water, and nodded intently.

"You hurry away and see if you can find help." The dark woman's eyebrows knit together, torn between fear at sending her sister and only companion from her side, and desperation to find a solution. She took a deep breath and steeled herself against her own fear. "I'll deal with him tonight."

Ahiru gripped her sister's fingers tightly at this, and started to say something when the sound of steps against stone echoed off the crumbling walls of the ruined keep.

She released Ahiru's hands in a fluttering motion that attempted to shoo the other woman into motion. "Hurry! I can hear him coming!"

To her credit, Ahiru narrowed her blue eyes in determination rather than fear. "Don't worry Rue. We can beat this. I know it." She then turned, lifting her skirts and started at a sprint out of the water. She seemed practiced at this, slipping easily from the wet shoreline onto the game trails between bushes, not so much as snagging the hem of her trailing sleeves as she slipped into the swiftly darkening forest.

Rue stepped delicately out of the water onto a marble walkway that once upon a time must have led to an ornate dock. It was hard to be certain though. Much of the delicate stonework had been worn smooth by time and nature, and the end of the path crumbled in a cascade of broken marble into the water. A dead and broken castle and a path that could never be trod again. She prayed that it wasn't an omen as she listened to the echoing steps grow closer.

She didn't turn when the dark cloaked figure stepped out of the shadowy doorway of the ruins and onto the crumbling marble dock next to her.

"Now, now, wherever is your sister off to in such a hurry?"

Rue narrowed her eyes, and cursed that she only had a false name, a name from a children's fairy tale for their captor. As a magician, his true name must have held power, power she could have turned against him. If only she had known it. "Away from you, Rothbart."

"So unsociable princess." The vile man moved closer to her as he spoke. She could feel his presence become larger, a warmth almost touching her bare shoulder. "Although it is endearing. The way you have yet to give up hope-"

Rue almost swore she could hear a second voice echo his next word, "Princess."

-.-.-

In his darkened study, it was all Autor could do not to drop the quill.

"...Rue."

He grasped his head in his hands trying to process it.

Fakir had handled Rue and Mytho's story himself. They should be having their happily ever after in Mytho's kingdom now. She should be happy. Had he seen some similarity to Rue in a vague description? Had he torn her out of her happy ending and put her in that dark keep with that cloaked man holding her captive? Surely not.

But if he hadn't, why then had Fakir put her there? Didn't Fakir say he had forgiven Rue for acting as the Raven Princess five years ago? He wouldn't have punished her like this. Would he? Had he forgiven her because he had personally sentenced her to this hell five years ago?

These were questions Fakir could no longer answer for him.

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Dun. Dun. DUNNNNN.