Disclaimer: I would LOVE to be the brain that created Princess Tutu, but I'm not... Princess Tutu and all related characters are the rightful property of Ito Ikuko-sensei's brain.

Vignette Four: Feder

Bang Bang Bang

Her fist hammered the door to the house mercilessly. A small yellow duck hopped around her feet wildly and quacking loudly, adding even more noise to the already obnoxious sound of knocking.

"Please, open the door!" Rue pleaded. "Fakir lives here, right? I need to speak to Fakir!"

Bang Bang Ba- punch!

Rue's fist had, this time, not impacted the solid wood door but the face of a middle-aged, very sleepy and very angry looking man whom was massaging a hery hurt looking jaw.

"Young Lady," he began but stopped when he saw her torn and soaking wet dress. "Are you alright? Were you attacked? Do you need help?" It was amazing how fast he shifted from Angry Old Man to Concerned Parent it was almost a complete one eighty.

"Please," Rue clutched the piece of heart to her breast all the more tightly. "I need to speak to your adopted son Fakir! It's very important!"

He regarded her with the type of suspicious look parents give to their children's love-interests upon their first meeting, only this look was more severe and lasted longer do to the fact that she had simply appeared in the night seemingly out of no where and he'd never seen her before in the town. At least he thought he hadn't, she did seem very familiar in a 'maybe it was a dream I had' sort of way. So preoccupied, was he, about why the strange woman confused him so that he didn't notice the little yellow duck follow her in.

"Karon, what was all the noise abou-" Fakir was standing in the kitchen door, his mouth hanging agape in shock. His shirt off, his dark hair surrounded his face in a cascading mist that would have been attractive if the person whom he wanted to find him attractive was the same genus at the moment. But she was not, and so his hotness when un-noticed. Probably for the better, too, seeing as how Rue was already hysterical. "Rue, what are-"

He didn't finish that sentence either, Rue had launched herself at him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders and sobbed into his chest. Fakir was ashamed to admit that the first thing that jumped into his mind was: 'I didn't realize we were on a hugging bases.' The second being: 'Did things not work out between her and Mytho in the story?' and the third was the one he actually said allowed: "What happened?"

The duck that had entered with Rue jumped on the table and began to explain, or rather began to try and explain but seeing as all she could say was "Quack" or "Qua" and all the humans said in turn was "Huh?" Or in Fakir's case: "Ahiru!" she gave up and hoped Rue was up to the task in her current emotional state.

As it happened, Rue didn't explain much. She simply said: "This..." and opened her hand to reveal the bloody mass of muscle tissue that was formerly Mytho's Shard of Hope.

"Oh! My goodness!" Karon exclaimed upon seeing the bloody organ.

Fakir took a pair of tongs from a rack near the kitchen stove and plucked the heart from Rue's palm. He held it closer to his eye for a better look, it was a sort of kaki colored thing with a peach-ish hue to it. He examined the smooth contours of the muscle before turning it over to see the jagged ridge left by the sword's blade. "Rue, what is this?" He finally asked as he placed it back in Rue's protective grasp.

"Mytho's... it's a piece of..." She cracked. "OH, FAKIR! You have to help him -them- you have to help both of them! I'm so useless! There was nothing I could do for either of them, nothing accept watch them kill each other! It's so un-fair! Why did this have to happen to us? Because we have the Raven's blood? It that it? Are we going to be cursed like this for the rest of eternity? I HATE THIS! I HATE FATE! I HATE DESTINY! I HATE DROSSLYMYER! I HATE STORIES!"

She collapsed to the ground sobbing. Fakir just stood there more shocked and confused than he first was when she had walked in. An equally confused but still capable of thought Karon knelt down beside her and offered some words of comfort that didn't work and said that she could spend the night if she wished and when she was feeling better in the morning she could tell them all about it. She agreed to this plan and followed him up the stairs to a spare bedroom.

A few minuets passed before he reappeared in the kitchen in which Fakir and Ahiru just starred at each-other.

"Alright boy," he said upon his re-entrance, "you've got some explaining to do yourself. I don't know what they're teaching you up at that outrageously expensive school I'm paying for or what you are doing at that lake you seem to always be at..." he eyed Ahiru suspiciously now. " But somewhere in between it looks like you got mixed up in something occult-ish. And I will not have it in this house!"

Fakir blinked, had Karon had just accused him of witchcraft?

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Autor stared transfixed at the mop of silver hair that was Mytho's head. It was longer than it had been the last time he'd seen him. Much closer to Fakir's length now, than what he remembered it being. It flowed over his shoulders and face to pool on the hard wood floor of Autor's dorm room. He couldn't quite see the face clearly but he was sure it was Mytho due to the fact that he was wearing the same royal blue tunic with pearl white swan feathers running the length of the collar and matching lighter blue tights he'd seen him in shortly before Fakir sent him back into the story. And now he, Autor, had brought Mytho back out again. He had started the drama, the tragedy all over again. He looked back up into the face of Huffnung with it's wicked smile.

"I think I made a mistake."

Hoffnung waited for Autor to continue. When he didn't he said: "Hope you're not planning to go back on our deal then." He began to preen the dark feathers that ran the length of his own tunic's collar and hem. "It would be very unfortunate if you did. Not just for you but for everyone who lives in this town..."

"What do you mean?"

"Well." He crossed the distance between them and ran his fingers gently through Autor's hair. "Like all creatures I need to eat, right?" He pulled hard on Autor's hair, yanking his head back and making his chest curve out. "And I eat people's beautiful pure hearts..." He began to unbutton the light blue jacket of Autor's school uniform. "And if you were to go back on our deal I'd be trapped here in this town forever..." He ran a finger over Autor's bear chest. "So I'd have to feed on the people here, starting with you of course, until there was nothing good left in your world." He kissed Autor's chest before releasing his grip on the terrified boy's hair. "So you'll help me get home, won't you? I can't go home without my father's heart."

Autor sat panting in the chair by the writing table. His chest burned where Hoffnung's lips had brushed him. He looked up into the lavender-pink eyes that were the same shade as Mytho's eyes when he was possessed by the Raven (although Autor had never seen him then) and knew he was serious. He would be like a plague on the town unless he was sent back, unless everything was sent back! Him, Mytho, Mytho's heart and... and Rue to. No! Rue was originally from this town, this world, surely she could stay! Yes, he would help Hoffnung get Mytho's heart, then send everyone back accept for Rue and she would stay with him. That's how he'd write it!

Decision made, he gazed unblinkingly into the lavender-purple eyes and said: "I won't go back on our deal. I'll help you get Mytho's heart, then I'll send you home."

"I'm much obliged. Now then," He kicked the unconscious Mytho in the ribs. "What are we going to do about my father? He's a bit conspicuous here in your room."

Autor thought for a moment before thinking of the perfect place.

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Karon was already awake and working in the forge when Fakir woke up. He didn't poke his head in to say "good morning". After the lecture he'd received last night about witchcraft and the occult Fakir didn't want to have to meet his eyes again just yet. Rue was sitting at the kitchen table when he entered. There was a pot of hot tea on the table and a full but otherwise untouched cup in-front of her. Ahiru was drinking the tea from a saucer to her right. The air in the room was heavy and he wondered if he should give Rue a few more minuets to herself before making himself some semblance of food.

"I need you to write another story for us." Rue said without looking at him.

Well that answered that question. He fully entered the kitchen and sat at the table across from her. She reached out to move the tea pot aside and placed the heart between them. Ahiru stopped drinking and waddled over to sit by the heart.

"This is Mytho's heart shard of Hope." she explained. "Mytho tried to shatter his heart again but missed and only this one piece broke off. But now it's got no power, it's just this." She poked the organ with her tea spoon. Fakir cringed when she put the spoon back in her tea to stir before taking a sip.

"Why did Mytho try to shatter his heart again?" It was an obvious question to ask and he had expected her to be prepared to answer it. He couldn't quite tell if she really was prepared or just had really good self control, he was just happy that she wasn't crying.

"It's all my fault." Her whole body was shivering as she put her tea cup down and it's scalding contents splashed over the kitchen table. "It's my fault because I wanted to have a baby, you see?"

Fakir and Ahiru blinked in perfect unison, although Fakir's blink was accompanied by a blush.

"But you don't look a day older than when you left. Six months ago!"

"He was so happy when we found out I was pregnant." Rue didn't seem to hear Fakir, she was starring into her teacup. "We would lay in bed sometimes with his ear to my belly, and his hair splaying over my hips... He grew it out, you know. His hair. I really can't think of a happier time in my life. Well, giving birth wasn't quite so happy."

She looked up to see it they'd laugh at her joke. Ahiru blinked in confusion again, Fakir just blushed some more. Never mind, she thought.

She gazed into her tea cup again. Yes, they were very happy back then. Hoffnung was the most adorable baby boy you could imagine and everyone who met him simply adored him and had only complements to give him and his mother. Of corse that could have been due to the fact that he was their crown prince and Rue their queen, but who's asking?

The trouble didn't start until she had started trying to ween him off her breast. He simply refused to eat anything you gave him, no matter what it was or how well mashed it had been. He simply wouldn't eat. But Rue and Mytho had absolutely no idea what to due.

One evening Mytho, in an attempt to get Rue's mind off their ailing child, had thrown a ball (or was it a masque?) Rue didn't quite remember that bit. An when they returned to their chambers later that evening to check on their son they found his nurse laying on the floor by the crib with her heart rip out and blood on the floor, the bars of the crib and all over Hoffnung's sleeping face.

Rue had become hysterical at that point. She Plucked Hoffnung out of the crib and wiped his face and hands on her pure white silk dress. Mytho tried to calm her, holding her and Hoffnung to his chest saying that everything would be okay and he would take care of it. All the wile his eyes were scanning the room taking inventory of everything that had blood on it or for any other reason had to disappear.

He had sent Rue to bathe Hoffnung properly and began his clean up. The bars of the crib were wood and were easily cleaned with the bloody baby blanket, bedding of the crib however had to go, along with the nurses body and Rue's now bloody silk dress. It all had to disappear. He had the coldest, most calculating expression on his face when he asked her to take off the dress and give it to him. The only other time he'd looked that cruelly strategic was when he was possessed by the Raven.

The nurse's body was warped in the dress along with the baby blankets and bedding. Mytho had changed into dark inky blue riding clothes (he didn't own anything black) and taken the body out threw the servants passage so no one noticed. Where he took it or hid it after that Rue didn't know, he never said. The next morning he'd gone to the head of house keeping to complain, pretending that the nurse hadn't been there when he and Rue had returned from the ball. And when no one could find her, they all chose their own explanations for her disappearance.

That same morning they sat together more worried and frightened than they had been when he wasn't eating at all. They both knew it altho neither said it aloud. Their son was a full blood Raven.

"Qua?" Both Ahiru and Fakir were getting worried. It had been a full ten minuets since Rue had said anything.

"Um... Rue?" Fakir ventured. "Do you want us to leave you alone?"

"Huh?" She looked up, tears peaked out of the corner of her eyes wondering if they should fall, she wiped them away with her sleeve. "No. I'm fine. Sorry, I was in the middle of an explanation, wasn't I?" She gave the saddest smile either of them had ever seen. "Mytho and I both still had the Raven's blood in us when we went into the story, remember?" The tears were back again, this time they did fall in crystal cascades down her cheeks. "Well, because of that our son is a full blood Raven. My son's a Raven and he tried to eat my husbands heart!" She berried her face in her hands and sobbed uncontrollably.

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"Well, what do you think?" Autor asked.

Hoffnung gazed up from the machine full of blank paper to the mass of gigantic cog wheels above. "This is where Drosslemyer did it?" He asked in haw (A/N that my not be the right spelling).

"Yep. this is where-" His sentence was interrupted by a rush of wind. When he looked back at where Hoffnung was supposed to be standing there was nothing but a single black feather.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" Hoff's voice called down from that cogs above. "Bring my father's body up here right now."

Autor grumbled something under his breath that this author will not repeat. He was becoming less and less content with his new found servitude.

Hoffnung gazed at the immense darkness that stretched out endlessly from the wheel on which he stood. "I like this place very much."

Fin for now...

Thanx to:

James Birdsong: You have reviewed allot of the same stories I've read, who are you?

Ducklin: I'm glad I could make you laugh and cringe at the same time.

Zenki379: Feed back is always good.

Evil Mytho Rocks!: Welcome back. I missed you in chapter two. Glad you like Hoffnung. I'm always afraid everyone will hate my OCs.