Disclaimer: If I said I owned Princess Tutu, Neko-sensei would make me marry him! So let me just say that Princess Tutu and all related characters are the legal property of Ito Ikuko-sensei's brain and no one else's.
Vignette Five: Wieder Menschen
Hope was shaped like a pair of fluttering wings. Wings that the people of the town had once used to leave the nest with. Wings that the prince had used to return to himself with. Wings that Princess Tutu must once again don to guide his heart.
SPACE
"That's a little dramatic, don't you think?" Asked an impatient Rue whilst looking over Fakir's shoulder.
"This was how I wrote it last time." He replied irritably. "I didn't hear you complaining the last time I wrote about you and Mytho."
She picked the heart up off the table. "Well, it doesn't seem to be working."
She was right. Nothing had changed about the heart sense he had begun that morning. He leaned back in his chair and ran his thumb over the scar where he had stabbed his own hand. Was he really just as useless a writer as he was a knight? Did he really have no purpose? Was his true self a useless dead beat that couldn't even help his friends when they needed him the most? When he had to write a story about Mytho, all he could write about was Ahiru. When he was trying to write about Ahiru, all he could do was revise the story he'd written for Mytho. Now he had the key to making Ahiru human again within his grasp, but he couldn't for the life of him make it work!
Where were the words, the feelings, her feelings? Her feelings flowing through his hand and into his quill to spill over on to the page. All he felt now was guilt, sorrow, betrayal and hopelessness. But why? He understood the guilt perfectly. He had the power to help his friends, all of his friends, but couldn't use it for some reason. The sorrow, betrayal and hopelessness was a mystery to him. They all seemed irrational and irrelevant to his current circumstances.
He sighed. When he had to write about Mytho, all he could do was write about Ahiru. Now he needed to write about Ahiru but a he could do was think about Mytho...
That was it! Just like when Ahiru was taken by Drosslemyer and her feelings had flowed through him, now Mytho's unconscious feelings were permeating his very being. That had to be it! To write about Ahiru, to write about Princess Tutu he had to write about Mytho! He crossed out what he'd previously written and began again.
SPACE
He was cold. Very, very cold. Like all the life's blood had been drained from his veins leaving nothing left to warm his heart from the guilt and sorrow that threatened to claim it. He had tried so hard, tried to save the child that he couldn't help, couldn't even understand. And save him from what exactly? Himself? Raven is what he is. It was what he was born. He wasn't like himself or Rue, whom had been corrupted by Raven's blood. His son was Raven by birth and Raven by nature.
Was this their fate then? To constantly battle his own child in an eternal dance of good versus evil?
SPACE
Fakir leaned back in his chair and sucked in air between his teeth. Mytho sure had gotten Emo since he'd last seen him. That had to change.
SPACE
He had fought Raven's before. The one in the Tutu anime had not been the first. He had never believed it would be the last, but he did believe that he would triumph over any others whom dared to rise and challenge him again. For his will was as strong as theirs' and his kingdom as great. No Raven would have power over him. Never again! Never!
A warm light spread over his whole body. A soft ruby glow that started at his center and moved slowly to fill his ribcage, climbed his shoulders into his arms and to the fingers beyond, trickled down his legs to pool in his toes and finally to condensate into his skull.
He was aware of things now. Things outside himself. He knew he was hanging, he could feel thin wires cutting into the flesh of his wrists and elbows, his feet touched nothing but air, he was missing one toe shoe and all around him was the sound of beating like a heart. Or was it ticking like a clock? That bit of his cognition was still a bit fuzzy. He slowly, ever so slowly began to open his eyes to see where...
SPACE
"Fakir you did it!" Rue's cry of jubilation yanked him from his trance like state of writing. She held up a small oval shaped stone the color of spilled blood complete with gold chain to wear around the neck. "You restored Hope!"
He was glad, of course. But he wished she had waited a few sentences longer to snap him out of it. He was so close to finding out where Mytho was.
She draped the pendant around Ahiru's little duck neck and stood back. The room filled with shimmering pink and transparent shojou sparkles and when they had all finally dissipated Fakir's head was down on the table with his arms wrapped around his head. Though muffled through his sleeves, Rue thought she heard him say "I forgot about that." Or something like it.
Where one the was a duck sitting on the kitchen table, there was now a very happy and very naked human girl.
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He slowly, ever so slowly began to open his eyes to see where he was.
The first thing he saw was darkness. Inky, black and deep. So deep in fact that he wondered if he'd even opened his eyes at all. The his pupils adjusted to the gloom and hi found himself suspended above a massive cog wheel by thin silvery white threads. All around him were man sized puppets made of flat wood planks cut in the shapes of arms, heads, torsos and legs. No two puppets were alike but all were suspended by the same silvery white threads that he was.
All accept for one that lay prostrate on the wheel beneath him. This puppet, he supposed, was the one that had been cut down to make room for him.
"Where am I?" He asked the darkness.
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He felt like quite the fool indeed. Forgetting about that particular part of Ahiru's transformation. And how could he have? Those few glimpses of her... those flashes of skin not touched by the light of day... the innocent curves of her tiny frame... were those not the things he thought of when he was alone? Alone with himself and his imagination. His thoughts of her.
He sighed deeply and leaned meaningfully against the door to his room. The room that now contained within it the very naked Ahiru and the very patient (but becoming less so by the minuet) Rue.
"What about this one?" He heard Rue's irritated voice drift through the wood door. He wondered if it was a good idea to let Ahiru barrow his clothes. He also wondered if it was a good idea to leave her and Rue alone in his room to pick them out. He didn't have anything to incriminating to hide. Although he had nearly had a heart attack earlier, when Ahiru's scream had pierced the wood of the door and impaled his ears with the words: "EW! FAKIR'S UNDERWEAR!"
He had nearly committed suicide right then and there. It would have been better than living with the imbarrasment. But Rue had calmed Ahiru down and told her things about living with Mytho that Fakir sympathized with her for.
After that though, he had quickly taken a mental inventory of any other incriminating items he might have left in his room and where they were located. He sighed in relief when he remembered that the nude sketches one of the boys in the Drawing division of the school had sold him were safely tucked away under his straw mattress and the girls had no reason to go under there.
"It's no use Rue." Ahiru's sweet voice drifted through the door to dance in his ears. "All of Fakir's clothes are to big on me."
"Stop complaining and put this one on."
There was the sound of ruffling fabrics and muffled indignations and finally the door opened to reveal a harassed looking Ahiru and an exhausted Rue.
She was right, his clothes were to big on her. Only the tip of her big toe was visible through already rolled up black slacks, the belt that kept them from slipping down her hips was pulled so tight that Rue had, had to cut a new hole for the buckle. The dark blue shirt she wore slipped so low down her left shoulder that it threatened to expose one small breast. The image of her would have been very comical actually, that is if it didn't make his mouth water. Which it did.
"Well, Fakir, what do you think?" Rue placed her hands on Ahiru's shoulders.
"F-fine." He stammered. He was fighting hard to suppress the urge to tear his clothes off her.
"See, Ahiru?" She gave the pinkish-orange haired girl a reassuring pat on the back. "Nothing to worry about."
Ahiru simply blushed a light, modest blush and pulled the sleeve of the shirt up over her shoulder only to have the right one slip down in it's stead.
Fakir balled his hand into a fist and bit his nails deep into the scar on his palm to keep the blood in his head and not let it rush down to where it wanted to be at that moment. He was surprised at himself. Surprised at how much of a perv. he'd become in the last six months. He wasn't quite sure what to do with the human Ahiru, now that he finally had her back. Not knowing what to do or what to say, he asked one of the questions he'd been wondering for so long.
"Do you still love Mytho?"
Rue looked insulted.
Ahiru didn't answer. She actually didn't know herself.
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Hoffnung pulled the blue jacket over the white shirt of his new school uniform. He was really very exited. He'd never bee to school before. All his learning was from private tutors, but that had stopped when he had started eating them so he was quite happy to attend a place of learning. A place full of young and beautiful Pure Hearts to feed on.
He spun around en pointe in front of the mirror. "What do you think, Autor?" He asked his very disgruntled new room mate.
"Fine." Autor didn't even look at him. He was lying down in bed with the blankets drawn up over his head. His glasses laid folded on the bedside table between their twin beds. "You look fine."
"I can't wait until tomorrow. Can't you?"
Autor groaned in annoyance under his blanket.
"I wonder what I should have for breakfast..." Hoffnung continued musings allowed. "My a blond or a red hear... Oh! A brunette. I like brunettes, they always have such beautiful dreams. Autor, write a pretty brunette ballet student into the story for my breakfast tomorrow." He ordered.
"I can't write anything if you don't let me sleep!"
"Fine. But I want a brunette ready for me in the morning or else-" He licked his lips menacingly. "- I might have to take your heart instead." It had no effect, Autor's head was still concealed by the blankets.
Fin for now...
Thanx to:
Zenki379: I keep my chapters short 'cause I have ADD and don't like to read fics with long chapters.
Derrick Hansen: It won't mold.
James Birdsong: A boy who likes Princess Tutu! And is from my state! Meow! You MUST marry me!
Saris Yui: I'm glad you like it.
Evil Mytho Rocks!: I think you mean ch. 5 (unless you're only reviewing chapters with even numbers now).
Special Thanx to:
Saris Yui for adding me to her favorites and her Story Alert list.
(A/N-PS) Do you guys think I update to often?