"You shouldn't have those books here," Autor complains.
Fakir doesn't even look up from his reading on his usual spot by the pond. "If they get wet, I'll replace them."
"If you treat them with more care, that won't be an issue."
"I'm more concerned about staying with Duck."
The musician scoffs. "You call her Duck? How original."
"That's her name."
"Mm. And what do you call your other ducks?"
"I don't have any other ducks."
Autor adjusts his glasses and insists, "Of course you do. Everyone's seen you carrying one of your ducks with you to school for the past two years or so and it's always a duckling. It can't possibly be the same duck; she would be too old by now."
"She is."
"And I suppose next you'll tell me she's actually Princess Tutu."
"Of course not," Fakir answers, still not looking up from the book. "She's as much Princess Tutu as I am Sir Lohengrin."
About then, Duck swims to the side of the dock and flutters up.
"Just make sure she doesn't get the books wet," Autor says as he turns to leave, lest his allergies get the best of him.
Fakir sighs after Autor's gone, fingers resting on the pages that would always be missing from Drosselmeyer's tale both by the author's choice and the bookmen's work. "So that's it. That's why you're what you are. It's just like-"
His hand goes to his shoulder, rubbing where his birthmark lies under his clothes. Between the two, he wonders which one of them got the better reincarnation. It's one thing to be helpless about your own horrible death but another to be helpless about someone else's horrible death.
Fakir closes the book just in time for Duck to hop up into his lap and nuzzle in close. Ever since she woke him up in the middle of the night, she's been reluctant to leave his side for very long.
"I wonder if that's what you dreamed about," he murmurs mostly to himself.