Once upon a time there was a prince. Everyone this prince met loved him, and so the prince tried to love everyone back just as much. But the prince was afraid to show weakness in front of his people, and so, despite all of the love the people gave him, the prince fought and journeyed alone. Why? Because the people only loved him as a prince and would never know him enough to love him for who he truly was.


Act 34: The Past of Prince Siegfried

(((West Wing)))

The door to the royal carriage opened. Gachou, Mytho and Rue's dark-skinned, brown-eyed attendant dressed in a black suit with a tall white collar, had already run beside the carriage steps, and he offered Rue a hand as to help her out.

The once raven princess took the attendant's hand and stepped out gracefully, eyeing the bloody kingdom of Cygnus in a mixture of sadness and guilty nausea.

No longer in her swan-inspired white wedding dress from the finale of The Prince and the Raven, Rue was adorned in a red dress with a wide skirt and loose, long sleeves and an intricate silver tiara laden with fake red roses.

Mytho stepped out of the carriage too so he could stand beside her. He himself was dressed in his classic gold crown, a light yellow shirt with puffy gold sleeves and his kingdom's emblem of extended swan wings across the chest and slim white pants and shoes.

"I know," the white-haired prince murmured as he looked over the ruined castle. "It's rather sad, isn't it?"

Rue eyed Mytho with a morose look. "This…is where you grew up, ouji?"

"Yes," answered Mytho.

Rue almost said something in return, but she stopped when she saw the look in Mytho's amber eyes. She was still slightly unused to see emotions from Mytho as for most of the time she'd known him he had been heartless, unable to feel anything. But the painful longing in Mytho's eyes at that moment surprised Rue more than any other emotion she'd ever seen there, and she was almost afraid to ask Mytho what had made his childhood home look like this.

"Prince Siegfried," Gachou stated Mytho's real name in formal concern, "would you like the guards and me to inspect the castle first for possible dangers?"

Mytho shook his head. "No…I want to see it without anything being touched, just as it was left."

"But there might be worn floors, or even stray-"

"I can defend myself, Gachou," Mytho assured him gently, patting his swan-icon sword resting on his side. "I want to see myself if there's anything that's been left undamaged. Gather the guards and tell them to investigate the town, and then we'll enter the castle."

"Yes, your Highness."

Gachou hurried to gather the royal guards, as Mytho looked back upon the ruins. Rue, hating to see such sadness from Mytho, reached out a hand to touch his shoulder; Mytho turned to see solemn concern in her eyes.

"My…heart is hurting, Rue," he murmured explanatorily, his hand moving to his chest. "I almost don't want to do this, because it hurts so much…"

"Don't go then, ouji," Rue insisted, touching his cheek affectionately. "I hate seeing you like this…"

Mytho smiled sadly. "I've had to go through pain before, Rue. I couldn't have gotten my heart back if I didn't go through some pain."

"But ouji, what will you gain by hurting yourself like this?" demanded Rue, both concerned for him and frustrated that he wouldn't listen to her.

Mytho's eyes shifted toward the ruined palace once more. "Closure."

"Hato!" Gachou's voice suddenly rang out in a less formal and more alarmed tone that he had been using with Mytho and Rue. "What are you doing in there?"

Mytho and Rue turned to see their royal attendant near the royal carriage's luggage compartment, where the head of a dark-skinned boy of about six years with yellow-green eyes was poking out.

"You found me, Daddy!" the boy called Hato greeted cheerfully. "Now you've got to hide, and I'll seek!"

Rue looked slightly appalled at a little boy stowing away in the luggage compartment; Mytho, however, laughed at the look of pride in Hato's eyes.

Gachou, taking his son out of the compartment and into his arms, immediately tried to apologize. "Prince Siegfried, I am so sorry; I honestly didn't know-"

But Mytho waved a hand in a dismissive fashion. "Don't be…it's been a very long time since I've been able to laugh like that."

Hato gave Mytho a wide smile. "Daddy, can he play hide-and-seek with us too?"

"Hato, this is not the time," Gachou scolded gently. "The prince has plenty of other things to worry about."

"Well, in a way, we are going to be doing a bit of seeking," Mytho stated more seriously. "Rue…you could take care of Hato while we explore the ruins-"

"No." Rue's dissent was so firm she surprised both Gachou and Mytho.

She wrapped her arm around her prince's resolutely. "I won't let you go into a place that hurts you this much without me; I'm coming with you. Hato can come too if Gachou keeps him close…I'm not letting you go alone."

Mytho stared at Rue for a moment, before his face broke out into a grateful smile.

"Thank you, Rue."


Rue felt intense foreboding as she, Mytho, Gachou and Hato journeyed through the wrecked palace, but she forced it down, knowing she had to be there for Mytho. If it was scary to her, she could only imagine how much it hurt Mytho.

'It must have been beautiful,' Rue thought as her eyes moved over the cracked walls covered in ripped tapestries, cobwebs and dust. 'Everything is so soft…yet grand…almost just like ouji. It's not surprising why this place is painful to him; it must be a living nightmare to see his childhood home in such disrepair and ruin…'

"Daddy," said Hato, shrinking back toward Gachou, "this place is creepy…"

"Hush, Hato," Gachou reproached under his breath. "This was the prince's former kingdom…show some respect."

Hato looked around, his yellow-green eyes wide. "You lived here, prince?"

"Yes," Mytho answered in quiet despondency. "Though when I was last here, it looked very different."

"Oh," Hato replied in an equally quiet tone, before asking, "When were you-?"

"I think that's enough questions," Rue interrupted the child a little more harshly than she had wanted to.

She understood Hato's curiosity, but also was afraid of having discussion of Cygnus be painful to Mytho.

'I have hurt Mytho even without knowing his past,' the once raven princess thought, remembering when she had soaked Mytho's heart shard of love in the Monster Raven's blood and turned Mytho in a raven. 'I don't want to hurt him anymore.'

Mytho looked down from the main hall's ripped-open ceiling over the swan-adorned banisters on the grand staircase, as he remembered two boy friends, one white-haired and one blond, racing each other down the rails, before his memory fell away to see the now-headless swan on the blood-stained marble rail.

'This place…was my home,' Mytho thought heavily.

He looked down the hall to the left of the staircase toward the dining hall. In his mind's eye, a laughing Spanish boy with curly blue hair and a worried Middle-Eastern boy with long black hair were running down that hall to escape the wrath of a dark-silver-haired knight-in-training. When the prince blinked, however, the image of the three boys vanished instantly and all that remained was an empty hall with a large crack through the floor.

'This is not a home…'

Mytho's amber eyes moved over the parlor to the right of the staircase, recalling the memory of a middle-aged man and a girl with matching long red hair applauding a white-haired boy's ballet routine, before the reality of over-turned furniture and scraped walls took its place.

'…It's a graveyard.'

"Hato! Hato, come back here!"

Mytho suddenly shot out of his thoughts at the sound of Gachou's worried voice, and the prince saw Hato running up the ruined grand staircase, ignoring his father's calls for him.

"Hato!" Gachou repeated, sounding angrier but not hastening to run after his son. "You get back down here, young man! I am not playing! Get back here!"

"Gachou, you're hopeless," Rue reproached him, lifting up her red skirt slightly so she could run up the stairs after Hato. "You can't control little boys with words…I'll get him myself."

"But Princess-"

"Don't argue with me, or it's your job!"

Rue dashed up the rest of the stairs into the hallway little Hato had run off to explore, immediately perceiving the lack of light once she left the main hall where the ceiling was ripped open. The menacing, almost endless darkness reminded Rue of when the Monster Raven was released from his imprisonment and blanketed Kinkan Town with his blackness and raven evil.

Again Rue felt a flash of fear in her heart, but she fought it down as she saw the curious Hato slip into a room on the far end of the hall.

Rue moved to the room's door. She hesitated for a moment at the thought that she could call Hato back and go right back to Mytho, before, thinking of her reproach of Gachou, she pushed the door open and peeked inside the room.

It was enough of a nightmare to terrify even Rue.

The walls looked as though they had once been painted a youthful light yellow, but had been slashed by a set of giant claws, making the paint peel off as if to escape the claws' horrible wound. Furniture had been smashed, making the edges of innocent tables and chairs protrude like daggers. Ripped child drawings, broken dolls and torn stuffed animals littered the floor, as if whoever had destroyed the room cared nothing for child-like innocence.

Rue walked in slowly, horrified by what her eyes met. 'Could this have Mytho's room? No…the toys on the floor…they're stuffed animals and dolls…a girl's toys.'

She whirled around when she felt something grab the edge of her skirt. To her relief, her dress had only gotten caught on the sharp edge of a broken chair.

Pulling her skirt off the chair, Rue looked to a bureau in the corner that had somehow been able to stay intact, to find a dusty velvet box with a swan engraved on the top placed on the back-left edge.

'A jewelry box,' Rue realized. 'So this is a girl's room…'

Her pale hand gently brushed the dust off of it, before her fingers dug into the groove around the box to open it.

A ballerina figurine in a pink tutu inside began to turn in a slow pirouette as an innocent little music box tune tinkled in the background.

Her heart aching, Rue closed her eyes and forced herself to close the box, before turning instead to look at the wall above the bureau. On it were the remains of a beautiful portrait of three people: a man, a woman and a little boy.

The man had long red hair tied back in a ponytail that reminded Rue of Fakir and warm amber eyes that were an exact replica of Mytho's, and was dressed in a white and gold velvet tunic and a gold crown not unlike the one Mytho often wore. The man had a hand rested on the shoulder of a white-dressed toddler with white hair and innocent amber eyes that Rue recognized at once as Mytho.

Rue then turned her eyes to look at the woman, and she stared.

The woman's hair was the same shade, texture and length as Mytho's, her eyes were a lovely shade of blue and she was dressed in a white dress adorned with pink and a tiny gold crown that balanced delicately on her head. Her hand was resting gently on her slightly large belly, obviously full with a baby.

To any other person, the woman wouldn't have been startling: lovely, of course, but quite ordinary. Rue, however, had seen the woman's wise, gentle face before, though only whenever the woman had been using her friend Ahiru as a host.

'Princess…Tutu…?'

"Hello, Kraehe," whispered a very cold, heartless voice.

Rue's heart stopped. She whirled around, to find herself faced with a pitch-black, red-eyed raven.

Hato suddenly ran out from behind one of the broken tables to hide behind Rue, his eyes filled with panic at the sight of the raven.

Rue stood her ground, attempting to hide her fear. "I am not Kraehe…I'm Rue!"

The raven laughed darkly. "Call yourself what you like, Kraehe! You were our princess…and you betrayed the Monster Raven!"

Rue flinched. 'He knows about the Monster Raven…but I've never seen him before…'

"Yes, we hear all, Kraehe," the raven whispered cruelly, "even we who haven't left here in many years…we know of your treachery…"

Hato cowered behind her as more ravens appeared behind the leader.

"W-what are they saying, your Highness?" the little boy stammered, obviously unable to understand the ravens' angry caws.

The lead raven's eyes were so red they were like fiery coals. "This time your heart is ours, Kraehe!"

The leader flew at Rue so fast she had no time to react; just as his claws were about to sink into her, however, a silver sword with two swans adorning the hilt slashed the raven in half, making it disappear in a bunch of light particles.

"Ouji!" Rue cried.

Mytho stood protectively in front of her and Hato. "Don't worry, Rue…I'll handle these ravens!"

The prince swerved his sword to slash the other ravens in half as they flew at him to avenge their leader, until finally all of them were destroyed.

Gachou immediately ran into the doorway of the room in response to all the noise, and wrapped his arms around Hato in relief. "Hato, are you all right?"

Hato was crying. "Daddy! The ravens…I was so scared, Daddy!"

Mytho panted slightly as he slid his sword back into its sheath, before he turned to Rue, his amber eyes filled with worry. "Are you hurt, Rue?"

Rue shook her head. "No, ouji…I'm all right."

Mytho's eyes softened slightly. "I am relieved."

He turned to his attendant still hugging Hato. "Gachou…I think you and Hato should gather the guards, and perhaps find someplace for us to stay tonight."

Gachou nodded. "I agree with your idea, your Highness…come along, Hato."

With that, the attendant departed, pulling his son by the hand out with him. Mytho turned to look around the room, and Rue noticed when his eyes' almost immediately rested on the ruined portrait of him, Tutu and the red-haired man.

"Ouji," Rue murmured, "I wasn't going to ask, for fear of hurting you…you know you're everything to me, ouji…I want to help you. I have to know…what is hurting you so much. Please, ouji…what made Cygnus look like this?"

Mytho stiffened, and Rue instantly wondered if she'd gone too far. The prince, however, sighed slightly and turned to look at her with sad eyes.

"I should've known you would ask. I think, deep down, I knew you would. I guess…I'm just not used to people having the chance to know anything about me. Everyone else I've met…while they loved me…didn't really know me. They loved the prince who loved everyone. But you…you deserve to know, Rue…"

Mytho sighed once more. "You probably noticed the painting here…"

He gestured the decrepit portrait above the bureau, and Rue nodded.

"Is that…really Tutu?" she asked him.

Mytho nodded. "Yes…she was my mother."

Rue's scarlet eyes widened. "Mother?"

"Yes," assented Mytho. "She died giving birth to my sister…but before she died, as an act of comfort toward me, she told me she loved me, and disappeared in a flash of light. My mother was cursed, you see, when she was born, and was forbidden to speak of love to anyone…"

He looked at the man in the portrait, sadness etched on his features. "…Even her own husband, Lohengrin."

"Lohengrin?" repeated Rue. "But…but that was-"

"The knight, who was slashed in half by a raven's claw protecting the prince," Mytho finished for her. "He was a knight unable to fight without words who fell in love with a princess who could not confess her love for him…my father."

Rue looked amazed. "So that's why he looks like Fakir…"

Mytho nodded. "Fakir is his reincarnation…I trusted and responded to him so quickly because I found him familiar."

Rue was quiet for a moment, her eyes wandering back to Tutu in the portrait. "You said…you had a sister, Mytho?"

"Yes…her name was Odette," Mytho replied, smiling in a type of sad fondness. "She was three years younger than me…and probably my closest friend. She was always right there for me, praising my ballet…she was never very good at it, you see," he chuckled slightly to bite back tears. "Ahiru…made me think so much of her…so clumsy, but sweet…"

"What…what happened to her?" Rue inquired, almost afraid to know.

"She was kidnapped along with some of my friends," Mytho answered, his voice becoming hard with grief, "by a wizard whose heart had been consumed by one of the ravens…the wizard who had penetrated Cygnus's walls and sneaked the ravens inside…so they could destroy everything. I…I'm all that's left."

Rue wrapped her arms around Mytho, stroking his hair as tears filled her eyes. "I'm sorry, ouji…I was a raven for so long…and you had this pain in you…how could you love one raised by the creatures that destroyed your home?"

Mytho brushed her tears away gently. "Rue…you were still a baby when Cygnus was destroyed. I didn't age after I lost my heart, and you were only a little girl when we first met. You couldn't have done anything."


"That's right," Drosslemeyer chuckled sardonically as he focused on the gear image of Rue and Mytho. "None of you can do anything anyway…storybook characters never can!"

His focus then went to a gear image of the writing Fakir and smirked widely.

"Now away from this little side-story! Let's get back to the story at hand. Go on, foolish Knight…and write Ahiru-chan's demise! Ha, ha, ha!"


I'm afraid that is all for today. Is a fun story awaiting us? A sad story? Or maybe…?


Name Notes:

Hato - Japanese for "pigeon" or "dove"

Odette - name of the princess that fell in love with the Prince Siegfried in the ballet "Swan Lake"; comes from French male name "Odo," which means "wealth" or "fortune"

Music Notes:

"West Wing": starts as Rue goes after Hato. Rue sees Hato go into the room at the far end at 0:25 and hesitates at the door at 0:31 before pushing the door open at 0:37. Rue is startled by the broken chair catching her dress at 0:58, notices the box at 1:04 and opens it at 1:07, where the music pauses. The music comes back at 1:20 as Rue notices the portrait, looking at each figure until her eyes fall on Tutu at 1:32. The raven leader makes his presence known behind Rue at 1:35 and Hato runs behind Rue in terror at 1:40. The music pauses at 1:45, until the raven starts his "Yes, we hear all" chain of speech. Mytho appears from nowhere and kills the lead raven when he tries to attack at 1:56, slashing the others at 2:00, 2:02 and 2:03, and the group runs in after them at 2:04, where the music stops. The music picks up again as Rue notices Mytho eyeing the portrait at 3:14. The piece ends as Mytho stiffens at Rue's question.

"Prologue": The tune of "Once Upon a December." Starts when the velvet jewelry box opens and ends at 0:19.

The piece "West Wing" is from the "Beauty and the Beast" original motion picture soundtrack.

The piece "Prologue" (and the tune for the song "Once upon a December") is from the "Anastasia" soundtrack.