I thank Unnoticeable_Demon for helping.
"We have to get Fakir to safety." Princess Clara said resolutely.
Princess Tutu nodded. "Right." She said and started lifting Fakir by the arm, Princess Clara took his other side and together they supported him. Fakir was only semi-conscious, so he stumbled along, but slowly they could make it to the boys' dormitory.
"Let go of me. I can walk by myself." Fakir said to them weakly and he twisted in their hold of him, but neither of the Princesses fell for it. Fakir was in no fit state to move on his own.
"No." Told Princess Tutu him firmly.
"This is no time to be stubborn." Princess Clara added and she glared at Fakir, but the boy did not have the strength to focus on her.
They dragged him in the building and helped him up the stairs and into his room. They kept their Princess form, because they knew that no one would notice them this way. Their magic would mask them, whereas if they looked like normal, someone could report them for being in the wrong dorm. Carefully they hoisted Fakir in his bed and Princess Clara found a first aid kit to take care of his broken arm. She bandaged it tenderly while Fakir had already fallen into a deep sleep.
"We should stay here until he wakes up." Princess Clara suggested in a whisper.
"You're right, in case Mytho decides to come back." Princess Tutu said hopefully.
"Or anything else that comes for Fakir." Princess Clara corrected her grimly.
Princess Tutu nodded and without another word she went over to Mytho's bed and sat herself down on the floor beside it, her back turned to Princess Clara. Clara looked at her solemnly. She thought Duck was naive and forgot what the real dangers were. Then she turned to Fakir and looked at his face. He was twitching in his sleep and shivered from the cold. Without thinking about it, she climbed into the bed and wrapped her arms gently around him to keep him warm. Fakir stopped shivering.
'I've never slept as Princess Clara before, but hopefully, I'll get another dream to prepare for what will happen.' Tiger thought, before she too fell asleep.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Once upon a time, there was a handsome slave. What bound him were not heavy chains, but the love of a princess. Every day, every night, the princess whispered her love to the slave, and the slave responded in kind. Bound body. Bound emotions. The slave or the princess? Which of them is really the one who is unable to move?
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Thunder rumbled over the roofs of the school and its dormitories as night fell. In one of the rooms within the boys' dormitory, behind the windows of one of the few towers, Fakir was still sleeping deeply. Princess Clara had woken up beside him and was watching him. Fakir's face wore a frown as if he was still trying to fight on by himself, but otherwise, he looked quite peaceful and innocent. Then, his frown furrowed suddenly as he woke up. He seemed still dazed and looked down at his bandaged arm.
"How did I…" Fakir muttered in confusion, then he remembered the crows attacking him and boring him down to the ground. They had suddenly disappeared and Princess Clara and Princess Tutu had been there and helped him back to his dorm room.
"That's right, Princess Tutu and Princess Clara helped me and then…"
The electric shock seemed to go through his heart as he realized his broken arm had been bandaged carefully. What was more, the person who had most likely done it so carefully was lying beside him in his bed! Blood rushed rapidly to his face as he shot up straight.
"What the-!" He blurred out, feeling flustered.
Clara, who had been drifting steadily back to sleep yelled in alarm at his sudden movement.
"Fakir, you're awake." She said, a bit louder than she had meant to.
"Nevermind that." Fakir spluttered and he felt his cheeks continue to burn bright red. "Why are you-" He looked wildly behind him in search of a distraction from this awkward scene and found it in Princess Tutu, who apparently had stayed with him too overnight. She was lying half over Mytho's bed and seemed to be still fast asleep, despite their yelling.
"Hey." Fakir called out to her purposefully and she stirred.
"Oh, Fakir. How are you?" She asked him in a perfectly normal tone as she straightened up. She didn't seem embarrassed about the situation at all.
"Don't give me that. Why are you two still Tutu and Clara?" Fakir asked, an edge of annoyance in his voice. He seemed to be the only one taken aback by all this.
"What? Oh, we thought it might be bad if we went into the boy's dorm, looking like normal." Princess Tutu replied.
"It was my idea. I wanted to protect you in case something else came back for you." Princess Clara said.
Fakir looked at her, his annoyance was disappearing from his face, leaving his expression not easy to read.
"What's with that look?" Princess Clara asked him, smiling nervously.
"Ah, was that weird?" Princess Tutu asked, at last picking up on the discomfort of the situation.
Fakir's staring expression broke. "No. Sorry to have troubled you with this." He said, still a bit uncomfortably.
"It was no trouble." Princess Tutu assured him happily.
"You should know I would do just about anything to help you by now." Clara said to Fakir, a bit of defiance in her voice. She knew how he was and true enough. Fakir chose not to hear her and proceeded to stand up from his bed.
"Oh, you're able to get up then!" Princess Tutu cried out happily.
"Hey listen, this doesn't mean I plan on cooperating with you." Fakir bit back at her.
"But you're going out to look for Mytho, aren't you? We can at least cooperate on that, right? Let's look for Mytho together." Princess Tutu reasoned kindly.
"Earlier, I wanted to give you something, but I can see now is not a good time. So I'll give it to you later when the time is right." Princess Clara told him and with that she too left the bed and headed for the door.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
It was only the crack of dawn when they started their search. First they headed to the old watermill on Fakir's request, the place where he and Mytho had hid for a while. But they found nothing, but the pile of pillows on which he had slept.
"Mytho!" Duck called out as they stood in the room, in case he was lurking in the dark for some reason, but no one responded.
"He's not here, either." She said sadly. Fakir and Tiger didn't say anything to this. Their hopes had not been high in the first place. They then left again and continued to comb out the streets of Gold Crown Town. They passed the restaurants, and walked all the way back to the old ruin where Kraehe had attacked them. All was quiet and abandoned and in desperation they turned back to the school, which had some towers looking over the ground they could use.
"He's not around." Duck said sadly when she was done peering out of the window of the tower.
"Of course he is. It's just that we haven't been able to find him." Fakir said thoughtfully.
"Is there anywhere we didn't look?" Tiger asked, thinking.
"Oh, the lesson room." Cried out Duck suddenly.
"Huh?" Fakir stared at her.
"He might be dancing there right now, huh?" Duck replied, her face brightened by her own idea.
"And why is that?" Fakir wanted to know with a sigh and he sounded skeptical.
"Huh? Because Mytho loves to dance and that's where-" Duck tried, her smile faltered by Fakir's attitude.
"I don't think he will be there." Fakir said flatly.
"That does sound too easy." Tiger agreed.
"But, but the last time he was taken, he was back before we knew it, right? I thought it may be the same this time. Besides, I can't think of anywhere else." Duck began to mumble while she played with her fingers.
"That doesn't mean it will happen a second time, but what choice do we have?" Tiger said, sounding resigned. They had been looking for a very long while now. She sighed and looked to Fakir for support. Fakir gave her a smile.
"We can check it out. We've nothing to lose." He said and there was some amusement in his voice as he said it. He turned and climbed down the steps, leading out of the tower. Tiger followed.
"Huh? Oh, wait for me!" Duck cried out and hastily made to follow them.
Once out of the tower they emerged onto the bridge that led up to the front gate of the school. It was a chilly morning and mist still hung low above the needly cut grass as they entered the school grounds.
"The school sure is quiet on Sundays." Duck remarked lamely to break the airy atmosphere.
"I guess." Fakir answered without interest and he looked keenly around to see if anyone else was around, apart from them.
"Wait, I know that music anywhere." Tiger said suddenly and she held up a hand to tell the others to strain their ears as well. It was very faint, but drifting along with the gentle breeze, was a soft melody. The music piece of the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy. The very piece to which Mytho liked to dance!
"Is that Mytho?" Duck asked hopefully and she began to run towards the source of the sound.
The music was indeed coming from one of the big lesson rooms on the ground floor of the Ballet Academy. Cautiously they closed in around the large window that looked into the room. Duck crouched low and looked in from the front, Fakir from the left and Tiger from the right. However they all received a shock when they saw simultaneously that it was not Mytho who was dancing, but their teacher Mr Cat.
"I can't believe it!" Tiger hissed out of frustration after she retreated quickly behind the left wall. Fakir did the same at his side of the window and Duck quickly ducked down under the window pane as Mr Cat's senses had noticed them. Unfortunately, Duck had that large plum of hair, sticking out of the top of her head and it was still visible at the bottom of the window.
"Hey, he can see you!" Fakir whispered to her.
"What, where, what?" Duck asked in panic and she turned her head left and right, making her plum of hair sway and twitch, captivating the attention of Mr Cat even more.
"Stop moving your head!" Tiger hissed to Duck, urgently as she saw Mr Cat ready himself to pounce.
CRASH! Too late, Mr Cat had launched himself at the window and slammed into the glass. The sudden hit made Duck stand up in reflex and she was too late in diving back down. Mr Cat had seen her and his face was twisting with barely controlled rage.
"Who dares to intrude on my Sunday practice?" He spluttered blindly, then he saw Duck standing in front of him, frozen with sudden fear. "Oh, Miss Duck, this time I will punish you for disturbing my tireless effort. I will have you marry me right now!"
Duck jumped, found the feeling in her legs and ran. "I'm so sorry!" She cried out as she quickly disappeared from view.
Suppressing a snort with difficulty, Tiger followed Duck, guessing Mr Cat was doing something insane at the moment to cool off. Rolling in circles on the floor, for example.
"What were you doing?" Fakir asked Duck when he too had caught up with them. He was hiding his amusement very well.
"You just had to look in, didn't you?" Tiger said to Duck, smirking.
"But, but…" Duck tried, but she dropped it and kept quiet after that.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
They reached the arbor and this time they did find Mytho.
"Hello there." He greeted them in a sort of strange amused voice as he emerged from the little structure.
"Mytho? So Mytho is ok, thank goodness, he-" Duck cried out happily and she wanted to run towards him but Fakir stopped her by throwing an arm out. He was watching Mytho suspiciously.
"Wait!" He told her urgently.
"He's right. Something's wrong here." Tiger agreed in a low whisper and she too was watching Mytho intently. Something happened to Mytho, she was certain of it.
"You know the story of The Prince and the Raven? It's a tale of a brave prince who battles a monster raven. There was a knight whom the prince trusted, but the same knight was torn in two by the claws of the raven. Without the knight even landing a single blow with his sword. A useless wretch, who could only talk of protection." Myhto said in a sneering voice and he began to dance slowly inside the arbor.
"Fakir's not like that knight!" Tiger yelled indignantly, but Mytho ignored her.
"That's why the prince suffered such hardship. The raven had leapt out of the story. Alone, he persuaded it and alone, he sealed it away. Of his own will, he used a forbidden power. That's right, the prince drew his sword and took his very own heart out of his body." Mytho continued, miming a struck to the heart.
"What? How? He took it, he took it out himself?" Duck gasped in surprise. She had always assumed it had happened against Mytho's will. She had even believed that it had been Fakir who had done it.
"That's what it says in the book." Tiger answered her, but she did not spare Duck a glance and kept her eyes on Mytho.
"Oh, it's true." Rue said, suddenly appearing from behind Mytho.
"What, Rue?" Duck cried out.
Tiger had a feeling this might happen soon, but Rue herself had no idea about the girl's suspicions and she decided to keep it that way.
"Why are you here?" She therefore asked her, but couldn't keep the bite out of her voice.
"You don't know anything, do you Duck? What do you know about Princess Tutu?" Rue asked Duck in amusement while she began to dance with Mytho.
"Princess Tutu? Nothing, I mean, I don't know!" Duck replied flustered.
"You see in the Prince and the Raven, Princess Tutu is only presented in a few sentences. A miserable existence which none of the characters of the story wanted to take on. An insignificant existence which even the story left by the wayside. Someone who could never hope to catch the prince's eye. A little added flourish, poor thing." Rue told Duck and her enjoyment in seeing the effect of her words in Duck's face was undeniable.
"So you're saying Princess Tutu wasn't supposed to exist? Is that what you're saying?" Tiger asked her.
Rue gave a hollow laugh."No, not necessarily. Princess Tutu is a means for the story to move forward. It is rumored the original didn't have Princess Tutu in it, but it made the story stagnant and so Drosselmeyer called in a sacrifice. Someone who would only exist to keep the tragedy from concluding." She explained with a sadistic sneer.
"But Rue, why are you telling me this story now?" Duck asked her weakly, her voice was shaking and she seemed close to tears.
"So you still haven't figured it out? Rue doesn't even really exist." Rue said darkly. She and Mytho had stopped dancing. Mytho had halted just behind Rue, her outstretched hand in his when he suddenly transformed into a crow. Smiling at their shocked faces, Rue closed the hand in which the crow was now sitting and the bird vanished.
"I really didn't want to believe it." Tiger whispered to no one in particular.
"What?" Duck gasped in shock and she took a step backwards.
"Now then, you have finally figured it out, Princess Tutu. But why is the one called Tiger here?" She asked with a grimace.
"And you claimed you knew everything." Tiger spat back, a skeptical smile forming on her face. "You really don't see, Princess Kraehe?"
"Princess Clara?" Rue guessed, angrily.
"Princess Kreahe? No way, you can't be, 'cause you're my friend! We used to chat together and dance together, and.." Duck was in panic now, her emotion rising as she tried to wrap her head around this awful truth.
Fakir took pity on her. "Come on, knock it off!" He told her, but not unkind.
"That's true, but it is time to put an end to all that foolishness." Rue said as she slowly began to take on her true form.
"It wasn't foolishness! And it was my fault you regained your memory of who you are! But it wasn't something I intended to do!" Tiger tried. She had no love for Rue, but this was not something anyone could wish for.
"It doesn't matter." Kraehe replied in a sickly sweet voice. "True crows don't change their feathers, ever."
"Rue, please!" Duck tried desperately as a hard wind began to blow to keep them all back from Kraehe.
"I only came to retrieve something the prince left behind, so I'll take my leave now." She said.
"Left behind?" Fakir asked and he tried to see what Kraehe had taken.
"It is not something for a mere failure of a knight to have in his custody." Kraehe said and, as she spoke, a crow appeared before her briefly. It carried a sword with a winged handle.
"The prince's sword, but when did she get..?" Fakir cried out in alarm.
"Rue, no!" Duck tried again to recall the friend she once knew, but it was pointless.
"Hurry up and come rescue the prince!" Kreahe laughed as she disappeared within the blowing black wind.
The wind died down and soon they could hear the faint melody of an organ. All three of them turned around to see Miss Edel, standing behind her portable organ, in front of the fountain. And she was not alone, the little boy was with her.
"Miss Edel." Duck cried out with renewed hope and she ran to meet her. "Miss Edel!" She greeted her as she stopped in front of her.
"It's you." Tiger looked surprised to find the boy there as well. She hadn't expected him to show up with other people around.
"Water is drawn to fire, fire to darkness, darkness to silence." Miss Edel said as she stiffly turned around to exit the school grounds.
"The time is coming closer to be revealed, but not yet." The boy told Tiger.
Neither of them explained their remarks further.
"Come, let us go." Miss Edel just said and started walking away.
"Go where?" Duck asked.
"To where you must go." Edel replied simply. She didn't turn around to see if they were following her. She just started to walk purposefully through town. Without a second thought, Fakir, Duck, Tiger and the boy followed her.
Edel led them to a part of Town none of them had ever visited and found a strangely old building, made from a different stone than the buildings surrounding it. They took the next corner and met the side of it.
"This place." Duck looked at the structure in puzzlement, then she turned to Miss Edel who still had her back to them as she led the way. "Uh, Miss Edel?"
In the sidewall of the building there was a small door and Fakir tried its lock
"It's locked." He told Duck and Tiger who were standing just behind him, watching over his shoulder.
Miss Edel, however, did not pay them nor the door any attention. She had opened her organ and took out a bright green gem from within. Carved in the wall opposite her was a stone Jester. It had a little hole on its collar and Miss Edel placed the green gem in it. At once, the ground began to rumble as a passageway revealed itself beneath the Jester. Fakir, Duck and Tiger looked round when the ground beneath their feet had begun to move and could see now a set of stone steps leading down.
"You can go where the prince and Kraehe are from here." Miss Edel informed them.
"An entrance? Here?" Fakir asked suspiciously and he took it upon himself to be the first to inspect the steps, but he could not see far down, it was too dark to see.
"Go on." Miss Edel simply urged them with a gesture towards the steps.
"I'll be standing by." The boy told Tiger.
"Ok, I'll go first." Tiger suggested and she walked past Fakir to put a cautious foot on the first step. Slowly, she descended the steps, so deep in concentration not to misplace her feet in the growing darkness that it had not hit her that her friends had not followed her.
"Are they still up there?" She asked herself. She decided to wait and her thoughts drifted to the dream she had. It was about a slave and a princess this time. Tiger could not recall ever hearing about a fairy tale like that and she wondered who the slave and who the princess could be. It couldn't possibly be about Mytho, he was a prince! Maybe it was about Fakir? But a knight was no slave! Then she heard footsteps and forgot about her dream for the moment. She looked up to see Fakir and Duck, finally descending the steps as well.
"What took you so long?" She asked them, a bit exasperated.
"It's not important." Fakir replied.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
They emerged into an underground cave with a deep pit on one side and a rocky wall on the other. Fakir started walking and Tiger and Duck followed him, walking in single file.
"Scary." Duck remarked as she leaned over the edge to see how deep it was. Taking no chances with her clumsiness, Fakir had stopped walking immediately and grabbed the end of her long braid to drag her back to safety.
"Ow ow ow!" Duck whined as she was pulled backwards.
"Idiot, walk towards the middle, you're already careless enough as it is!" Fakir said to her crossly and he let go of her at once to resume his walking. Duck stared after him, then smiled. He had meant well, she knew. She walked on, but couldn't help but be distracted by the strangeness of the cave, or rather, tunnel. It had beams sticking out of the wall near the ceiling, they were placed randomly and some were longer than others.
"Wow, this place is kind of incredible." Duck said in awe as she walked on with her eyes towards the ceiling and it caused her to smack into a wall when the path suddenly turned to the left.
"Duck!" Tiger cried out and rushed towards her to see if she was alright.
"Ok, ok, eyes forward!" Duck said determinedly to herself as she continued on her own, but by keeping her eyes only forward she missed the change in the level of the floor and tripped nevertheless. Then, later in the road she was surprised by a short stairway that led into the pit below. Fakir and Tiger had jumped off it to where the road continued, a little jumping distance to the left, but Duck had missed seeing him doing it. Flapping her arms wildly in surprise she let herself drop onto the road and after that she bumped her head where the ceiling was lower than it previously had been. Panting with both exhaustion and annoyance, Duck crawled under the low ceiling to where Tiger and Fakir had been waiting for her.
"Um, you really are Princess Tutu, aren't you?" Fakir asked her hesitatingly.
"Wah, yeah, what of it?" Duck asked him warily.
"I thought Princess Tutu was more, eh, you know…" Fakir trailed off, not finishing his thought.
"This proves not everyone is as they seem." Tiger said smugly, but Duck didn't grasp her meaning, nor what Fakir was getting at.
"Huh?" She asked them as she swayed to her feet, catching her breath.
"Nevermind." Fakir said and they moved on.
As they entered a new part of the tunnel, one with a high ceiling with stalactites hanging from it, Duck began to make conversation, or at least, was trying to. "Say, Fakir."
"What is it?" Fakir replied, not really enthusiastically.
"N-nothing, nevermind." Duck answered.
"What the heck? If you didn't want to say it, just keep your mouth shut." Fakir told her, annoyed.
"Oh no, it's not like that, but just so you know, I don't think you're no good as a knight or anything." Duck said in a wavering voice.
"To me, you were always my knight." Tiger said, trying to help.
"What are you two getting at?" Fakir sighed, still not really interested.
"I'm not trying to get at anything. It's just, I didn't think you were very nice when we first met, and I couldn't see what Tiger told me about you, but now I think I know you a little better-"
"I say this right now. I have no intention of cooperating with you. I'll help Mytho in my own way, end of story." Fakir said, raising his voice to make his point.
"I know that." Duck mumbled and she sounded subdued.
"You have to break this bad habit of yours." Tiger tried, raising her voice as well, but Fakir ignored her and looked stubbornly away from them both.
"Wow, you know…" Duck tried again, but when Fakir gave her a sign that he was listening she shook her head. "Never mind, it's nothing."
"What's your problem? Quit stopping in the middle of your sentences!" Fakir snapped at her.
Duck flinched. "Well, the truth is that I never thought about things like, what do I like about Mytho." She muttered.
They reached a change in the rock formation again. They had reached the end of a ledge and the path continued on a lower one. Fakir Jumped down and helped Tiger to jump the steep distance. Then he turned around and offered a helping hand to Duck as well. She had not expected this, but took his hand and jumped. Her face was still pensive.
"The first time I saw Mytho, it was mostly just me thinking he was handsome. But when I looked closer, his eyes looked so lonely and I thought if I became Princess Tutu, then maybe I could do something about it." Duck continued. Her voice was soft and sincere and Fakir finally took the time to really pay attention to her. It dawned on him what Tiger had said just now. About how not everyone is like they seem.
"I should tell you, Duck. To me, Mytho's eyes weren't lonely, they were empty." Tiger said to her friend truthfully.
Duck looked at her in surprise. "Hm, maybe they were. I know now that it is because he has no emotions, but that was how he first looked to me. At the start, that was all there was to it, but now I…" Duck's voice got quieter and for a moment everyone looked at her in silence, then Tiger heard something in a distant corner.
"Crows!" She cried out and she grabbed Duck's shoulder to drag her with her as she backed away.
"Damn it." Fakir swore and drew his sword to fight them off.
"Fakir!" Duck stopped to look behind her as Tiger was trying to get her to run.
"Run!" Fakir yelled as he continued to slash at the attacking birds.
"Duck, come on!" Tiger urged Duck, but just as Duck had started to follow Tiger further down the path, they were surprised by another murder of crows, swooping down on them. Instinctively they threw their arms over their heads and tried to move past them, but the birds came from every direction.
"They're here, too!" Tiger screamed.
Fakir turned around when he heard Tiger, but it was too late to help. The birds were driving Duck and Tiger backwards and soon it became clear to Fakir why. They were leading them to the edge of the path.
"Idiots!" Fakir yelled desperately and he tried to reach both girls at the same time before they would tumble down into the pit below, but he ran too fast and lost his footing. All of them fell down into the hole. Fortunately the distance had seemed greater than it in reality was and they landed with a splash in a pool of water.
"S-sorry. Are you hurt at all?" Duck spluttered as she scrambled up and hastened to see if the others were unharmed as well.
"It's a miracle I'm not. What is this place? I guess we'll just have to climb back up." Fakir replied and he came to his feet. He looked up to the very edge they had fallen from, thinking of a way back up. Meanwhile the two girls were walking along the edge of the round pit to see if they could find some other way out. They discovered a rather large hole at waist level where a few stones seemed to have been removed. They squinted their eyes to peer through the semi darkness behind it.
"It's covered with moss, I doubt we can climb it. Damn!" Fakir was saying on the other side of the pit as he, in vain, tried to keep his foot against the wall in order to start a climb.
"Fakir!" Duck called his attention.
"What is it?" Fakir asked, turning around to look at them.
"One time when I had lost this necklace, you held on to it, remember Fakir?" Duck said to him brightly.
Fakir raised an eyebrow. "Huh? What about it?" He asked, bewildered.
"Will you hold on to it again?" Duck asked him and she started to walk towards him while she undid her necklace.
"What the heck is this all about?" Fakir asked and held out his hand in a sort of dazed way.
"The truth is, we have another confession to make." Tiger told Fakir and she smiled at him a bit sheepishly.
"Here!" Duck laid the necklace in Fakir's hand. The moment the tips of her fingers had left it, she began to glow and seemed to shrink away.
"What was that?" Fakir asked as the glowing light vanished and there was no trace of Duck anywhere. Where did she go?"
"Quack!" Duck poked her head out from under the pile of clothes she had left behind.
"A duck?" Fakir asked, completely confused as Duck freed herself from her clothes and waddled towards the water.
"Meow." Came close to Fakir's heels. He looked down and saw a small cat there, looking up at him with teal eyes and curiously waving her tail.
"Tiger, you're…" Fakir mumbled, he looked back at the duck who had swum into the pool and then dived down. Disappearing out of sight. Fakir looked back to the necklace in his hand.
"She just…" 'So then, this wasn't a pendant for her to become Tutu?'
"Meow." The cat said joyfully.
'A duck and a cat'. Fakir thought. It was an odd combination. The only time he had seen a cat and a duck together was when they had come to him. He was sure they were the same cat and duck every he remembered the very last time they had come to him. He had been crying in Charon's garden and they had seemed to just appear there. 'It can't be That duck and That cat!' Fakir thought in sudden panic.
'Sorry, you caught me at a bad moment.' he had told them. He had been moved by their companionship and hugged them. Shocked, Fakir clapped his hand over his mouth as he felt his face burn in embarrassment. He backed up against the wall and let himself slide down it. What the pair of them had said to him began to make sense.
"Just so you know, I don't think you're no good as a knight or anything." Duck had said to him.
"To me, you were always my knight." Tiger had said.
"They saw.. me crying!" Fakir mumbled in terror as he tried to calm himself. Tiger had been trying to get his attention and Fakir only now realized. She was meowing loudly.
"What?" Fakir asked her, a bit harsher than he meant to.
Without warning, Tiger changed back into her human form.
"I just remembered I can't talk when I'm a cat, and yes, we saw you crying." She said to him, the corners of her mouth twitching a little. Fakir only grunted something in reply what was unclear and so Tiger ignored it. Fakir looked down at his knees again. His face was still burning, he still felt humiliated. After a minute or so, Fakir raised his head to look at the pool. It had been some time now since Duck dove in.
"No way. She isn't drowning now, is she? Can ducks even drown though? Knowing her, she might." Fakir said and he stood up, looking worried.
"Don't be crazy. Ducks were made for swimming." Tiger told him, but Fakir wasn't listening.
"Idiot!" He cried out and made for the water, ready to jump in when Duck suddenly emerged from it. Apparently she had found something because she was flapping her wings and quacking rapidly.
"Duck, we can't understand you." Tiger told her friend, recognizing the same mistake she had made only moments ago.
"Why did you?" Fakir began, feeling flustered again and his face was twisting with sudden anger. "Why did you not tell me? You shouldn't hide things like that!"
"Quack?" Duck cocked her head in confusion.
"Quit playing dirty, you…!" Fakir blurred out.
"WHAT?!" Tiger screamed in indignation and rounded on Fakir.
Duck had been affronted by this as well, she quacked loudly and took flight. Fakir backed away when he saw her coming at him, but Duck was only aiming for the loop of her necklace, still hanging from Fakir's closed fist. She laced her head through it and began to glow again as she transformed back into a girl.
Angry, Duck landed with two bare feet on the ground in front of Fakir and began to yell at him.
"You say that, but it's not that I revealed it to you because I wanted to. It's just easier when I'm a bird to check small…" She suddenly stopped and looked up at Fakir and saw that he had averted his eyes from her and pointedly stood there with an arm out towards her upon which he had neatly stacked her fallen clothes. Laughing nervously, Duck slithered back into the shallow end of the pool where drew her knees up to her chin. Tiger, too, had looked away.
"You saw?" Duck asked in a blunt tone.
"No." Fakir replied, just as bluntly. "More importantly, what did you see? Shouldn't you bring that up first?!" He yelled.
Without thinking, Duck stood up again, sending a splash of water upwards.
"How can I when you…?"
But Fakir cut her off. "Don't stand!" He yelled at her in sudden panic and blindly threw the pile of clothes at her head as he averted his eyes again.
"Stop!" Tiger cried out.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"We can make it to the other side through the water. The water down that way smells different so there's probably a lake up ahead." Duck told Tiger and Fakir. Before all plunged in. Duck led the way. She dragged Fakir along by the hand and he pulled Tiger.
"See?" Duck said when they were out of the water. "It looks like it goes deeper. That's probably where Mytho is. Were you ok back there, Fakir?" She added, a little concerned to Fakir. Fakir didn't reply, but gave her an amused smile.
Duck looked surprised at this. "What is it?" She asked.
"A duck is Princess Tutu, huh? And my childhood friend is a cat." He mused.
"Actually, I don't know what I really am." Tiger confessed and she shrugged, not really bothered by it all.
"What?" Fakir now looked at Tiger in surprise.
"I've been shapeshifting so much, I can't remember what I am. Am I a human, a cat, or Princess Clara? Knowing the truth scares me." She said softly.
"I wouldn't worry about it, if I were you." Fakir told her gently and he even gave her a smile. "As far as I am concerned you are still Tiger and that includes you as a cat and magical Princess."
Duck smiled at them both. "He is right, I think. I see myself as all three, because my wishes do not change, no matter what form I take. We still are who we are."
"I have something you'll want to hear." Fakir said, addressing Duck again.
"Back when I was still a brat, when I was reading the Prince and the Raven to Mytho, the thing that he showed the strongest interest in was neither what happened to himself nor the Raven, but what happened to Tutu, about whom only a little was actually written. He wanted to hear over and over again the part in which Princess Tutu turns into a speck of light and then vanishes. His sudden desire to regain his heart most likely stems from Tutu's role in returning it."
"But, they were saying Mytho took his heart out himself." Duck said and the hurt it had caused her was back in her voice.
"That's the kind of guy he is. Will you see, protecting the small and the weak, that is Mytho's single greatest desire and to fulfill that, he'll cast off any regard for himself. Even the loss of his heart couldn't tear that out of him. That's Mytho." Fakir said. He looked at peace, as if he had finally understood the way his friend had always been.
"Let's go." He then said and stood up.
Duck and Tiger stood up as well. "Right." They agreed resolutely and together the three of them walked the last corridor that came out in a crack in the rockface. Through it a blinding light was shining.
"Finally, you've come. I've tired of waiting." The lazy voice of Kraehe remarked as they emerged into a spacious area with an underground lake.
The light had been so bright upon entering, that they had to adjust their eyes first, before they could make out a glittering island of ice in the middle of the lake. It had a single tree-like ice sculpture of a menacing claw and in a giant nest at its roots lay Mytho. His face was peaceful and he was sleeping, his head adorned with red roses.
"Mytho!" Duck cried out and she wanted to run towards the island, but at that moment a black whirlwind appeared in front of the island, obscuring Mytho from view. Kraehe had arrived and she sneered at them.
"Please, stop this malevolence now!" Duck had transformed and addressed Kraehe imploringly.
"Agreed, let us put an end to it. The prince's feeling of love is right here." Kraehe replied coolly and she showed the three friends a black box, the size of a jewelry box that might hold a ring.
"The heart that loves people, that loves all the world, yet belongs to no one and I wonder, you or me. Which one of us will it choose? Whose words will be drawn to it once we both lay our hearts bare? If the shard chooses you, I'll return it and the prince. So then, why don't you speak of what burns in your heart? Well, Princess Tutu?" She smiled triumphantly at Princess Tutu, who had stepped back in sudden fear.
'If she ever professes her love to the Prince, she will turn in a speck of light and vanish.' That was her written fate after all.