Belated PT Flash-fic
Jul. 29th, 2010 04:51 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
spheralunaris.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
tutufansSo about 5 months ago, I took 6 Princess Tutu flash fic requests and said I’d post them to this community when I finished. Some are angsty, some are cracky, but hopefully none are too OOC.
Title: (Im)Possibilities
Fandom: Princess Tutu
Pairings: various
Rating: PG
When the mansion had disappeared, the Wili-maiden and Princess Tutu both vanished, all that was left was an abandoned playground, and Rue had wondered if she’d imagined the entire encounter. But there was Mythos standing before her, a hand still pressed to his heart, a few tears still beaded on his eyelashes and that was even more fantastical than her having challenged a ghost ballerina. When he had gathered himself at last and noticed her still on the ground, the concern in his eyes as he looked down at her had shaken her so badly, she snapped, sharply telling him to go back to his dorm.
Of course he had complied, without question, without thought, as he always did, but not without looking at her one last time with those sorrowful eyes as if she were the one who had hurt him, as if she were the one who had betrayed him.
It wasn’t until she’d tried to stand that she realized just how much that moment of fear and anger would cost her. Rue leaned against the swing support, catching her breath and easing the weight off her foot. The pain was unbearable and she cursed herself for sending Mythos away. She barely managed to hobble to the swing and collapse onto it, clutching the chains of the swing and trying to will the pain away. If she limped home on this, she would worsen the injury and have to take days off from practice.
Of course Duck, who seemed to have a knack for appearing in situations where she was least wanted, had to find her like that, so low and helpless.
“And just where have you been?” Rue demanded.
“I, um, had something to take care of,” the other girl responded looking away sheepishly. At Rue’s unconvinced glare, Duck hastily blurted on “Anyway, shouldn’t we be getting back? We have class tomorrow!”
There was a moment of silence as Rue stared petulantly at the ground and tried to convince herself to swallow her pride and ask for help but her inner turmoil was interrupted by Duck’s voice.
“Rue-chan? What’s wrong?” Duck continued, her forehead furrowing in confusion and then clearing just as quickly. “Oh! Your foot!” she exclaimed, striking her fist against her palm in sudden remembrance.
Rue’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “So you were there for that? And you just thought you could leave me to dance with the wili maidens? Just how much did you see and why—“
“Here, let me take a look your foot.” It was clear the other girl was trying to draw attention away from her suspicious behavior...and yet, Rue couldn’t say why, but she was sure Duck’s concern wasn’t feigned.
“What are you doing?” Rue hissed out in pain as Duck eased the shoe off the already swelling foot. The blisters on her toe had burst, and the white sock was spotted with blood.
“Oh Rue-chan,” Duck said, holding that foot so gently in her hands as she knelt before Rue. “I’m sorry.”
She looked so sad and guilty, Rue found herself saying, “It’s not like it’s your fault. This time.” And then, wrapping her tattered dignity around her, Rue informed her, “But after manhandling my injury like that, you better help me home!”
--------
“Here, let me help—feet are awkward to deal with on your own.” Before Rue could even respond the other girl was already nosing around in Rue’s bathroom. She heard the sound of running water, a clang, a bang, and then, “Where do you keep your towels—oh, whoops found them. Well I needed to get them wet anyway I guess. Sorry!”
And then with both of them sitting on her bed, her foot in Duck’s lap, Duck carefully wiped away the blood and grime and irrevocably ruined Rue’s pristine white towel.
“It’s hard to believe that this is what a ballerina’s foot looks like.”
“Are you insulting me?” Rue asked eyeing Duck suspiciously.
“No, I mean, you’re so beautiful when you dance, but it’s because you’ve practiced this much. Until it hurts,” she added, softly dabbing at the calluses and blisters on Rue’s foot. Her touch was so gentle, so careful, that Rue felt the tears she hadn’t even known were still hiding behind her anger and hurt prickle in her eyes.
This is why she hated kindness. It made you soft and weak and wish for things you could never have. It was cruel in a way nothing else could be.
“I’m fine now,” Rue managed at last in voice that was only slightly thick with tears she refused to shed. “Go.”
Rue had to wonder if they spoke the same language at all for in response to her terse command, Duck merely chirped, “Okay! I’ll go get ice and stuff from the infirmary and be right back! Don’t move, okay? I mean, I guess you can’t...what I mean is, it’ll be all right, you’ll see,” hugged her and dashed off.
And Rue found herself startled into a watery laugh.
Once upon a time, there was a woman who was meant to die and a poet who was meant to grieve her death so heart-brokenly that even the gods would have pity and give him the chance to steal her away from death; but he would turn and look and fail and lose her forever, or so the story goes. And so, poetry is born from unending sorrow.
----
Charon closed the book mid-story, and considered again the sleeping child before him, grateful that those green eyes that still seemed stunned by pain had eased into even a fitful sleep. In a gesture that was so foreign to him that he wondered at himself, he brushed back the thick dark hair on the small uneasy forehead, resting his calloused hand there a moment, before getting up and leaving, closing the door behind him quietly.
How had things come to this—him taking care of this small frail boy? His life, as far as he could remember it had always been wild, dissipated, lost in empty bottles of cheap vodka with nights—and as often days—he didn’t remember until Cora in her pristine Academy uniform with her green eyes full of disappointment was there to drag him home to those pit-vipers she called parents.
He wasn’t sure really how she was related to him, how that vicious, pinch-faced couple was related to him—how they had had a daughter like Cora, he would never know, but then didn’t it just go to show how worthless blood, kinship, family and all that crap really was? All he knew really and all that mattered was that his own parents had died young, and there was nowhere else for him to go.
There was a curious history of mysterious deaths in his family. No one really knew, or wanted to. There were whispers of a blood curse, of a talent from the devil. Fools, the whole narrow-minded stupid town. Every miserable, wretched day was the same damn thing—listening to that miserable couple carp over how he ate them out of house and home, of trying to forget his anger in the burning fires of the forge and the sweet oblivion of drink. But he knew if it continued like this, soon he would explode or die smothered.
And then one day, when he was far gone in his cups as usual and the damn barkeeper kept calling his name and didn’t the stupid man know to shut-up—
“We are both gods of death, it seems,” a darkskinned stranger smiled at him, and Charon was caught in how the smile seemed to overflow from his lips, from his eyes, from his very being; looking at that smile, Charon felt, he had at last in a lifetime of never leaving that town, somehow finally come home. “Shiva,” the man said, holding out a hand.
Charon laughed and shook that lined hand, and then, because it seemed the thing to do, held onto it. The man didn’t pull away. “New in town?” Charon slurred out.
And the man smiled his same welcoming smile, without a trace of the usual judgment or scorn. “Yes. I’m a poor scholar, making my way through the world. But I think in these parts folks call me a gypsy, and expect their fortunes told.”
“Do you? Tell fortunes?”
The smile had broken into a laugh, and Charon laughed too because it was impossible to hear it and not do so. “No—that would mean our fates are written out, spun like stories. Surely we write our own.”
----
They were his props, Cora and Shiva, holding him up, holding him together. And somehow, in the process of doing so, they had fallen in love with each other and Charon wondered if this was the twisted fate he had somehow written for himself.
He forged their wedding bands, his tears burned away by the forge before they could even fall.
----
And now all that was left was that child, so frail and small, green eyes glazed with a pain he had never seen in Cora’s, and Shiva’s smile as if had never been. He leaned against the closed door, closing his eyes as tears streaked down his face.
III. Fairytale Endings
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serika_san ’s prompt: Mytho/Rue - post-series and maybe dealing with the Raven's blood?
The thing about fairytales, Rue realized too late, is that nothing is perfect. Or rather, by their very nature, good things must unravel, so that what had at first felt like a wonderful and beautiful happily ever after for her and Mythos soon turned into a horrific once upon a time.
Once upon a time, there was a kingdom ruled by a wise and good prince and his princess. They had both overcome a dire fate, broken an impossible, ravenous curse and brought peace to the land. But then one day, the prince fell ill and the land fell into disquiet and unrest...
It had come on so slowly, and Mythos had been so busy lately, that even Rue did not notice, until one day as the early morning light streaked into their bedroom through a gap between the velvet drapes, and she opened one eye in irritation and then both in disbelief. Surely it was the starkness of the light, the way Mythos’ cheek looked so hollow, the way the shape of his skull seemed to be pressing through his skin. She reached out one tentative finger and traced his cheekbone.
He started awake, turning on his side and curling away from her so quickly that she thought it had to be a trick of the light, her imagination, and the early hour. His mellow golden eyes had seemed to spark a moment, turning almost coppery. She brushed the ridiculous thought aside as she sat up, shaking out her hair. But she did insist he see a healer and reluctantly, he acquiesced.
They could find nothing wrong with him. They poked and prodded and changed his diet and gave him smelly concoctions, but each day, the prince seemed to waste away a little more, as if something consumed him from within. Now, his councilors as alarmed as Rue was, sent for every hedge-witch and two-bit sorcerer in the land to try to find a cure. They sought unicorns by moonlight, brought him golden apples of the sun and silver apples of the moon, the song of the firebird, anything, everything.
And still the prince faded, and soon, some murmured that their kingdom was cursed. Rue had no time for such foolish rumors between running the kingdom and tending to Mythos. Each night long after he fell asleep, she cried herself into an exhausted, uneasy slumber. She needed to be strong for him. He could not see her tears. She did not know he woke, and traced the drying tears on her face with trembling fingers, his eyes full of hunger.
---------
“But he has no heir!” an elderly advisor despaired.
“Surely things are not so dire as all that,” another placated.
“The healer says he has mere days.”
“But the people will rebel if they hear that!”
Rue burst out of the council room as the voices swirled around her, following her, haunting her. She found Mythos as he was that morning, propped against freshly plumped pillows in their bed, drifting in and out of wakefulness. She collapsed on the floor beside him, sobbing into his lap, her skirts an elaborate crumpled mess of lace and satin about her.
“You can’t leave me now.”
“Your tears,” he said at last, “make me happy.”
She looked up into his copper-colored eyes and thought, they glint almost red, like the Raven’s. “Mythos,” she whispered, as if to reassure herself.
“There is a raven in my heart and he has been thirsting for so long.”
“What—what are you talking about?” she asked, sitting back on her heels
“Every night, the raven eats a little more of my heart,” he breathed out, closing his eyes and leaning back. “But I’m sealing him away with each piece he eats. He’s devouring me from within, but soon it will be over.”
“No, no” she said, pressing hands against her lips as if afraid of what else might escape. It couldn’t be—that same wretched story, playing out yet again. “Why—why didn’t you tell me?”
“You deal with it so well,” he answered, eyes still closed, “the raven’s blood. I wonder” he said, “if it’s because you have a human soul.”
Rue straightened, pushing away tears and sorrow, her eyes as hard as cut jewels. “Then I’ll find you one, no matter what I have to do.”
Mythos didn’t mind going shopping with Autor, in fact, he was rather looking forward to it. What he didn’t understand was why Fakir had outright refused. The prince had very carefully snuck away from the kingdom for just this occasion. He wanted to surprise Rue with the most perfect present, and push out all those memories of his heartless years when Rue herself had bought the presents, had made him give them to her, and then looked with heartbroken eyes as he complied mechanically.
The problem, of course, was Mythos had no idea what a perfect present was . Surely Fakir, who had always guided him, would. But curiously, when Mythos arrived at Fakir’s doorstep and explained his errand, the former-knight had looked at him with something akin to horror.
So, here they were, something of a strange procession, Autor, who had been helping Fakir edit and had volunteered eagerly, Mythos, and Duck, who with some vigorous quacking had also indicated her eagerness to participate, tucked into the crook of Mythos’ arm.
“It will be good to have some female advice,” the prince had said gratefully as Duck blushed and Fakir merely rolled his eyes. Even when she had been a girl, she was the least feminine girl he had known. But valiantly, Fakir refrained from commenting, not wanting to draw any undue attention and getting roped into this ridiculous quest after all.
---------
As they walked through the streets of Goldcrown, Autor cast side-long looks at his companion. He wondered if it would be rude to inquire what the prince remembered of his own creation. But, to think, the prince in the flesh! What a royal bearing, what a princely mien, what a lithe figure! True, he was Autor’s rival in love, and yet so perfect, Drosselmeyer’s ultimate creation, really, that Autor couldn’t quite bring himself to hold it against the Mythos.
But, well, she was also so perfect, he thought with a pang, remembering her queenly bearing, her graceful limbs. And once she, in all her perfection had entered his mind, he couldn’t get her out of it. Everything they considered, those swan-shaped earrings or these scarlet toe-shoes made him imagine her wearing said items, and made him remember each perfect detail of her. She was incandescent, she smoldered like a flame, she burned hotter than the sun. She was so hot. Ugh, did all his wonderful, poetic emotion boil down to that horrid vulgar expression in the end? But once the thought had occurred, he couldn’t get it out of his mind. She was so hot! So much so, he was sure at any minute, the words would burst from his lips.
And once that thought had occurred, he felt all the greater urge to say it. Oh God, Autor thought horrified, Don’t say “Your girlfriend is so hot!”
He was so preoccupied in his internal conflict, he didn’t even notice when they step into a storefront decorated with an elaborately cursive purple sign reading “Sugar and Spice,” Duck quacking happily that she had heard her friends had gotten part-time jobs there, even though neither the prince nor the musician understood her.
Autor looked about the lady’s boutique unseeingly; initially, it seemed like all the others they had been through, full of perfume and jewelry and assorted trinkets. He was too busy chanting to himself to notice anything beyond that, Don't say “your girlfriend is hot!”, don't say “your girlfriend is hot!”, don't say—
“Your girlfriend would look so hot in that!” Autor nearly fainted, unable to believe he’d said the vile words when he realized, with a burst of relief, that it wasn’t him but the nosy shop’s assistant at the counter.
She had bright pink hair and smiled up at Mythos cheekily, as the prince uncomprehendingly held up a scarlet, and very indecent piece of lingerie. Autor couldn’t quite figure out how it would work or where it would fit, but the very skimpiness of it made him feel he would in fact faint. “I’m Pique,” she said, “I take it you’re looking for something for a lady friend—
“Unless,” another shop assistant, a blonde this time, interrupted, coming up behind them, “you’re into that sort of thing.” The blonde eyed the two boys before her speculatively, holding up a pair of lacy black panties to Autor, a glint in her eyes suggesting she was considering him in relation to the garment in her hand, and that most definitely was the end of him. He didn’t even feel it when he hit the floor.
V. The Friend of My Friend
kai_lis ’s prompt: Ahiru, Fakir, and Rue--Ahiru wants Rue and Fakir to be friends.
That first rich creamy scroll with its dab of scarlet sealing wax and imprint of swans, Fakir opens eagerly, but only a few lines into the missive, tosses it aside in something closer to anger than disgust--did she want to take from him everything he had?!--and it comes to rest among the heap of discarded papers that cover the corner of his room where a wastepaper basket logically should be.
It’s when he gets the third one, which he doesn’t even bother to open, that Duck notices. She’s long since abandoned the basket Fakir has prepared for her and instead finds that she enjoys roosting and rooting about in his discarded piles of paper. She can arrange them as she wishes, she finds entertainment in idle hours by trying to make out what Fakir had been trying and failing to do, there’s a pleasant crinkling when she shifts, and should the sheets become soiled, they can easily be cleared up and replaced.
The seal resists her until in a bit of quacking frustration she squashes it with one webbed foot, it cracks, and she is able to unfurl the heavy paper.
You arrogant bastard! I wrote to you in the first place because unlike you I actually care about what Mythos might want. Don’t flatter yourself into thinking I’d ever extend an invitation to you otherwise. It’s Duck I want to see and if you don’t bring her—you can go hang yourself after that for all I care—
More threats of bodily harm followed, and Duck skimmed down to the bottom to see Rue’s elegant signature at the bottom and was surprised she hadn’t recognized the other girl from the tone alone. Duck felt as if she could even hear the fierce, tightly controlled voice in the swift angry strokes of the hand-writing, the pure emotion of the words. She missed Rue.
And that is why when Fakir came home that day, he found Duck perched on his desk on top of the scroll like some unlikely paperweight, waiting for him with an angry look in her eye.
“You want to go, don’t you?” he grumbled.
She nodded while flapping her irritation at him. Used to reading emotion and trying to impute thoughts to it, he responded “You’re probably wondering why I kept it from you.”
At her angry emphatic nod, he felt his own ire rising, “I can’t stand the sight of her. She’s still the same possessive harpy she was when we were children.”
Prince? Duck mimes in her clumsy, duck ballet and looks a question at him that he has slowly taught himself to read.
“No, I want him happy. But don’t you realize that if she didn’t exist, you wouldn’t be a duck, you’d be the fairytale princess sending out imperious invitations?”
I am happy, she dances. Here. And her wings spread out to encompass Fakir’s room. With you. And her wings spread out and reach towards him.
He is too startled to even blush.
And then she flutters back to the scroll and perches on it resolutely once more. Fakir sighs. “Yes, fine, I’ll try."
All stories by their very natures are cruel. But the ones you know the endings to are the cruelest of all. The audience, Fakir thinks as he reaches out to Duck as she slips further and further into Despair, knows this is the last farewell, but Romeo and Juliet do not.
Fakir does not know if she even realizes it. She is so good at reading hearts and people, but when it comes to reading books, to any kind of formal knowledge really, you'd think her simpleton. Does she understand what this dance means? Does she realize why he led her out of her despair and into this last farewell? They're already in the middle of it, when he wants to grasp her by the shoulders and instead of helping her move into a turn, shake her a little and confess, it's Romeo and Juliet parting, moron. Dare he confess his love, when he's barely begun to see it, barely begun to acknowledge it himself. Besides, there are more important things for them to talk about at this parting than the hopeless feelings of a foolish knight for a princess that was never meant to be.
The dance, he decides, as he lifts her into the air, must be his confession, even as he knows she will not understand it as he means her to. His heart is not strong enough, not like hers. She opened it so entirely to the prince and when he didn't taken that gift of her love that she had given so freely, it hadn't withered and died, it hadn't made her dark and bitter. It had hurt, certainly. Her eyes were too expressive really, each ache shone through them, and yet, that heart, it was still the same. Not wordly wise, not guarded, not bitter like his. But just as open, as trusting, as freely giving of itself as it had ever been.
He could never give so much, so much power to hurt, to cut, to undo himself to anyone else. Not even to her. He dared not. No, he could not confess.
If he offered his fledgling love and she did not take it--for how could she? what was there between them?--it would wither and die like a rose foolish enough to try blooming in winter. It is not meant to be. Romeo and Juliet. But his and Duck's is lovestory not even written. And never would be, for instead of confessing his heart's desire to her as any fairytale knight would here, he instead has to convince her to relinquish hers forever and be content with her lot in life. Surely then, he deserves nothing more than to be content with his own reality, which is to never have her.
The briars guarding his heart constrict a little, the blossom withering before it could ever bloom. Duck smiles at him sadly, one hand going to the pendant at her neck, and it unclasps effortlessly, falling into her hand like a rose.
Title: (Im)Possibilities
Fandom: Princess Tutu
Pairings: various
Rating: PG
When the mansion had disappeared, the Wili-maiden and Princess Tutu both vanished, all that was left was an abandoned playground, and Rue had wondered if she’d imagined the entire encounter. But there was Mythos standing before her, a hand still pressed to his heart, a few tears still beaded on his eyelashes and that was even more fantastical than her having challenged a ghost ballerina. When he had gathered himself at last and noticed her still on the ground, the concern in his eyes as he looked down at her had shaken her so badly, she snapped, sharply telling him to go back to his dorm.
Of course he had complied, without question, without thought, as he always did, but not without looking at her one last time with those sorrowful eyes as if she were the one who had hurt him, as if she were the one who had betrayed him.
It wasn’t until she’d tried to stand that she realized just how much that moment of fear and anger would cost her. Rue leaned against the swing support, catching her breath and easing the weight off her foot. The pain was unbearable and she cursed herself for sending Mythos away. She barely managed to hobble to the swing and collapse onto it, clutching the chains of the swing and trying to will the pain away. If she limped home on this, she would worsen the injury and have to take days off from practice.
Of course Duck, who seemed to have a knack for appearing in situations where she was least wanted, had to find her like that, so low and helpless.
“And just where have you been?” Rue demanded.
“I, um, had something to take care of,” the other girl responded looking away sheepishly. At Rue’s unconvinced glare, Duck hastily blurted on “Anyway, shouldn’t we be getting back? We have class tomorrow!”
There was a moment of silence as Rue stared petulantly at the ground and tried to convince herself to swallow her pride and ask for help but her inner turmoil was interrupted by Duck’s voice.
“Rue-chan? What’s wrong?” Duck continued, her forehead furrowing in confusion and then clearing just as quickly. “Oh! Your foot!” she exclaimed, striking her fist against her palm in sudden remembrance.
Rue’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “So you were there for that? And you just thought you could leave me to dance with the wili maidens? Just how much did you see and why—“
“Here, let me take a look your foot.” It was clear the other girl was trying to draw attention away from her suspicious behavior...and yet, Rue couldn’t say why, but she was sure Duck’s concern wasn’t feigned.
“What are you doing?” Rue hissed out in pain as Duck eased the shoe off the already swelling foot. The blisters on her toe had burst, and the white sock was spotted with blood.
“Oh Rue-chan,” Duck said, holding that foot so gently in her hands as she knelt before Rue. “I’m sorry.”
She looked so sad and guilty, Rue found herself saying, “It’s not like it’s your fault. This time.” And then, wrapping her tattered dignity around her, Rue informed her, “But after manhandling my injury like that, you better help me home!”
--------
“Here, let me help—feet are awkward to deal with on your own.” Before Rue could even respond the other girl was already nosing around in Rue’s bathroom. She heard the sound of running water, a clang, a bang, and then, “Where do you keep your towels—oh, whoops found them. Well I needed to get them wet anyway I guess. Sorry!”
And then with both of them sitting on her bed, her foot in Duck’s lap, Duck carefully wiped away the blood and grime and irrevocably ruined Rue’s pristine white towel.
“It’s hard to believe that this is what a ballerina’s foot looks like.”
“Are you insulting me?” Rue asked eyeing Duck suspiciously.
“No, I mean, you’re so beautiful when you dance, but it’s because you’ve practiced this much. Until it hurts,” she added, softly dabbing at the calluses and blisters on Rue’s foot. Her touch was so gentle, so careful, that Rue felt the tears she hadn’t even known were still hiding behind her anger and hurt prickle in her eyes.
This is why she hated kindness. It made you soft and weak and wish for things you could never have. It was cruel in a way nothing else could be.
“I’m fine now,” Rue managed at last in voice that was only slightly thick with tears she refused to shed. “Go.”
Rue had to wonder if they spoke the same language at all for in response to her terse command, Duck merely chirped, “Okay! I’ll go get ice and stuff from the infirmary and be right back! Don’t move, okay? I mean, I guess you can’t...what I mean is, it’ll be all right, you’ll see,” hugged her and dashed off.
And Rue found herself startled into a watery laugh.
----
Charon closed the book mid-story, and considered again the sleeping child before him, grateful that those green eyes that still seemed stunned by pain had eased into even a fitful sleep. In a gesture that was so foreign to him that he wondered at himself, he brushed back the thick dark hair on the small uneasy forehead, resting his calloused hand there a moment, before getting up and leaving, closing the door behind him quietly.
How had things come to this—him taking care of this small frail boy? His life, as far as he could remember it had always been wild, dissipated, lost in empty bottles of cheap vodka with nights—and as often days—he didn’t remember until Cora in her pristine Academy uniform with her green eyes full of disappointment was there to drag him home to those pit-vipers she called parents.
He wasn’t sure really how she was related to him, how that vicious, pinch-faced couple was related to him—how they had had a daughter like Cora, he would never know, but then didn’t it just go to show how worthless blood, kinship, family and all that crap really was? All he knew really and all that mattered was that his own parents had died young, and there was nowhere else for him to go.
There was a curious history of mysterious deaths in his family. No one really knew, or wanted to. There were whispers of a blood curse, of a talent from the devil. Fools, the whole narrow-minded stupid town. Every miserable, wretched day was the same damn thing—listening to that miserable couple carp over how he ate them out of house and home, of trying to forget his anger in the burning fires of the forge and the sweet oblivion of drink. But he knew if it continued like this, soon he would explode or die smothered.
And then one day, when he was far gone in his cups as usual and the damn barkeeper kept calling his name and didn’t the stupid man know to shut-up—
“We are both gods of death, it seems,” a darkskinned stranger smiled at him, and Charon was caught in how the smile seemed to overflow from his lips, from his eyes, from his very being; looking at that smile, Charon felt, he had at last in a lifetime of never leaving that town, somehow finally come home. “Shiva,” the man said, holding out a hand.
Charon laughed and shook that lined hand, and then, because it seemed the thing to do, held onto it. The man didn’t pull away. “New in town?” Charon slurred out.
And the man smiled his same welcoming smile, without a trace of the usual judgment or scorn. “Yes. I’m a poor scholar, making my way through the world. But I think in these parts folks call me a gypsy, and expect their fortunes told.”
“Do you? Tell fortunes?”
The smile had broken into a laugh, and Charon laughed too because it was impossible to hear it and not do so. “No—that would mean our fates are written out, spun like stories. Surely we write our own.”
----
They were his props, Cora and Shiva, holding him up, holding him together. And somehow, in the process of doing so, they had fallen in love with each other and Charon wondered if this was the twisted fate he had somehow written for himself.
He forged their wedding bands, his tears burned away by the forge before they could even fall.
----
And now all that was left was that child, so frail and small, green eyes glazed with a pain he had never seen in Cora’s, and Shiva’s smile as if had never been. He leaned against the closed door, closing his eyes as tears streaked down his face.
III. Fairytale Endings
serika_san ’s prompt: Mytho/Rue - post-series and maybe dealing with the Raven's blood?Once upon a time, there was a kingdom ruled by a wise and good prince and his princess. They had both overcome a dire fate, broken an impossible, ravenous curse and brought peace to the land. But then one day, the prince fell ill and the land fell into disquiet and unrest...
It had come on so slowly, and Mythos had been so busy lately, that even Rue did not notice, until one day as the early morning light streaked into their bedroom through a gap between the velvet drapes, and she opened one eye in irritation and then both in disbelief. Surely it was the starkness of the light, the way Mythos’ cheek looked so hollow, the way the shape of his skull seemed to be pressing through his skin. She reached out one tentative finger and traced his cheekbone.
He started awake, turning on his side and curling away from her so quickly that she thought it had to be a trick of the light, her imagination, and the early hour. His mellow golden eyes had seemed to spark a moment, turning almost coppery. She brushed the ridiculous thought aside as she sat up, shaking out her hair. But she did insist he see a healer and reluctantly, he acquiesced.
They could find nothing wrong with him. They poked and prodded and changed his diet and gave him smelly concoctions, but each day, the prince seemed to waste away a little more, as if something consumed him from within. Now, his councilors as alarmed as Rue was, sent for every hedge-witch and two-bit sorcerer in the land to try to find a cure. They sought unicorns by moonlight, brought him golden apples of the sun and silver apples of the moon, the song of the firebird, anything, everything.
And still the prince faded, and soon, some murmured that their kingdom was cursed. Rue had no time for such foolish rumors between running the kingdom and tending to Mythos. Each night long after he fell asleep, she cried herself into an exhausted, uneasy slumber. She needed to be strong for him. He could not see her tears. She did not know he woke, and traced the drying tears on her face with trembling fingers, his eyes full of hunger.
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“But he has no heir!” an elderly advisor despaired.
“Surely things are not so dire as all that,” another placated.
“The healer says he has mere days.”
“But the people will rebel if they hear that!”
Rue burst out of the council room as the voices swirled around her, following her, haunting her. She found Mythos as he was that morning, propped against freshly plumped pillows in their bed, drifting in and out of wakefulness. She collapsed on the floor beside him, sobbing into his lap, her skirts an elaborate crumpled mess of lace and satin about her.
“You can’t leave me now.”
“Your tears,” he said at last, “make me happy.”
She looked up into his copper-colored eyes and thought, they glint almost red, like the Raven’s. “Mythos,” she whispered, as if to reassure herself.
“There is a raven in my heart and he has been thirsting for so long.”
“What—what are you talking about?” she asked, sitting back on her heels
“Every night, the raven eats a little more of my heart,” he breathed out, closing his eyes and leaning back. “But I’m sealing him away with each piece he eats. He’s devouring me from within, but soon it will be over.”
“No, no” she said, pressing hands against her lips as if afraid of what else might escape. It couldn’t be—that same wretched story, playing out yet again. “Why—why didn’t you tell me?”
“You deal with it so well,” he answered, eyes still closed, “the raven’s blood. I wonder” he said, “if it’s because you have a human soul.”
Rue straightened, pushing away tears and sorrow, her eyes as hard as cut jewels. “Then I’ll find you one, no matter what I have to do.”
IV. Sugar and Spice
blacksheep91 's prompt: Post series Autor and Mytho shopping (for some reason?), the former feeling jealous awkward around the latter. ("Don't say 'your girlfriend is hot!', don't say 'your girlfriend is hot!', don't say-")
blacksheep91 's prompt: Post series Autor and Mytho shopping (for some reason?), the former feeling jealous awkward around the latter. ("Don't say 'your girlfriend is hot!', don't say 'your girlfriend is hot!', don't say-")Mythos didn’t mind going shopping with Autor, in fact, he was rather looking forward to it. What he didn’t understand was why Fakir had outright refused. The prince had very carefully snuck away from the kingdom for just this occasion. He wanted to surprise Rue with the most perfect present, and push out all those memories of his heartless years when Rue herself had bought the presents, had made him give them to her, and then looked with heartbroken eyes as he complied mechanically.
The problem, of course, was Mythos had no idea what a perfect present was . Surely Fakir, who had always guided him, would. But curiously, when Mythos arrived at Fakir’s doorstep and explained his errand, the former-knight had looked at him with something akin to horror.
So, here they were, something of a strange procession, Autor, who had been helping Fakir edit and had volunteered eagerly, Mythos, and Duck, who with some vigorous quacking had also indicated her eagerness to participate, tucked into the crook of Mythos’ arm.
“It will be good to have some female advice,” the prince had said gratefully as Duck blushed and Fakir merely rolled his eyes. Even when she had been a girl, she was the least feminine girl he had known. But valiantly, Fakir refrained from commenting, not wanting to draw any undue attention and getting roped into this ridiculous quest after all.
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As they walked through the streets of Goldcrown, Autor cast side-long looks at his companion. He wondered if it would be rude to inquire what the prince remembered of his own creation. But, to think, the prince in the flesh! What a royal bearing, what a princely mien, what a lithe figure! True, he was Autor’s rival in love, and yet so perfect, Drosselmeyer’s ultimate creation, really, that Autor couldn’t quite bring himself to hold it against the Mythos.
But, well, she was also so perfect, he thought with a pang, remembering her queenly bearing, her graceful limbs. And once she, in all her perfection had entered his mind, he couldn’t get her out of it. Everything they considered, those swan-shaped earrings or these scarlet toe-shoes made him imagine her wearing said items, and made him remember each perfect detail of her. She was incandescent, she smoldered like a flame, she burned hotter than the sun. She was so hot. Ugh, did all his wonderful, poetic emotion boil down to that horrid vulgar expression in the end? But once the thought had occurred, he couldn’t get it out of his mind. She was so hot! So much so, he was sure at any minute, the words would burst from his lips.
And once that thought had occurred, he felt all the greater urge to say it. Oh God, Autor thought horrified, Don’t say “Your girlfriend is so hot!”
He was so preoccupied in his internal conflict, he didn’t even notice when they step into a storefront decorated with an elaborately cursive purple sign reading “Sugar and Spice,” Duck quacking happily that she had heard her friends had gotten part-time jobs there, even though neither the prince nor the musician understood her.
Autor looked about the lady’s boutique unseeingly; initially, it seemed like all the others they had been through, full of perfume and jewelry and assorted trinkets. He was too busy chanting to himself to notice anything beyond that, Don't say “your girlfriend is hot!”, don't say “your girlfriend is hot!”, don't say—
“Your girlfriend would look so hot in that!” Autor nearly fainted, unable to believe he’d said the vile words when he realized, with a burst of relief, that it wasn’t him but the nosy shop’s assistant at the counter.
She had bright pink hair and smiled up at Mythos cheekily, as the prince uncomprehendingly held up a scarlet, and very indecent piece of lingerie. Autor couldn’t quite figure out how it would work or where it would fit, but the very skimpiness of it made him feel he would in fact faint. “I’m Pique,” she said, “I take it you’re looking for something for a lady friend—
“Unless,” another shop assistant, a blonde this time, interrupted, coming up behind them, “you’re into that sort of thing.” The blonde eyed the two boys before her speculatively, holding up a pair of lacy black panties to Autor, a glint in her eyes suggesting she was considering him in relation to the garment in her hand, and that most definitely was the end of him. He didn’t even feel it when he hit the floor.
V. The Friend of My Friend
kai_lis ’s prompt: Ahiru, Fakir, and Rue--Ahiru wants Rue and Fakir to be friends.That first rich creamy scroll with its dab of scarlet sealing wax and imprint of swans, Fakir opens eagerly, but only a few lines into the missive, tosses it aside in something closer to anger than disgust--did she want to take from him everything he had?!--and it comes to rest among the heap of discarded papers that cover the corner of his room where a wastepaper basket logically should be.
It’s when he gets the third one, which he doesn’t even bother to open, that Duck notices. She’s long since abandoned the basket Fakir has prepared for her and instead finds that she enjoys roosting and rooting about in his discarded piles of paper. She can arrange them as she wishes, she finds entertainment in idle hours by trying to make out what Fakir had been trying and failing to do, there’s a pleasant crinkling when she shifts, and should the sheets become soiled, they can easily be cleared up and replaced.
The seal resists her until in a bit of quacking frustration she squashes it with one webbed foot, it cracks, and she is able to unfurl the heavy paper.
You arrogant bastard! I wrote to you in the first place because unlike you I actually care about what Mythos might want. Don’t flatter yourself into thinking I’d ever extend an invitation to you otherwise. It’s Duck I want to see and if you don’t bring her—you can go hang yourself after that for all I care—
More threats of bodily harm followed, and Duck skimmed down to the bottom to see Rue’s elegant signature at the bottom and was surprised she hadn’t recognized the other girl from the tone alone. Duck felt as if she could even hear the fierce, tightly controlled voice in the swift angry strokes of the hand-writing, the pure emotion of the words. She missed Rue.
And that is why when Fakir came home that day, he found Duck perched on his desk on top of the scroll like some unlikely paperweight, waiting for him with an angry look in her eye.
“You want to go, don’t you?” he grumbled.
She nodded while flapping her irritation at him. Used to reading emotion and trying to impute thoughts to it, he responded “You’re probably wondering why I kept it from you.”
At her angry emphatic nod, he felt his own ire rising, “I can’t stand the sight of her. She’s still the same possessive harpy she was when we were children.”
Prince? Duck mimes in her clumsy, duck ballet and looks a question at him that he has slowly taught himself to read.
“No, I want him happy. But don’t you realize that if she didn’t exist, you wouldn’t be a duck, you’d be the fairytale princess sending out imperious invitations?”
I am happy, she dances. Here. And her wings spread out to encompass Fakir’s room. With you. And her wings spread out and reach towards him.
He is too startled to even blush.
And then she flutters back to the scroll and perches on it resolutely once more. Fakir sighs. “Yes, fine, I’ll try."
VI. Such Sweet Sorrow
mangaka_chan 's prompt: In the Lake of Despair Ahiru was Juliet, and Fakir, her Romeo. What went through their minds as they danced The Last Farewell knowing they were doing the pas de deux of star-crossed lovers.
mangaka_chan 's prompt: In the Lake of Despair Ahiru was Juliet, and Fakir, her Romeo. What went through their minds as they danced The Last Farewell knowing they were doing the pas de deux of star-crossed lovers.All stories by their very natures are cruel. But the ones you know the endings to are the cruelest of all. The audience, Fakir thinks as he reaches out to Duck as she slips further and further into Despair, knows this is the last farewell, but Romeo and Juliet do not.
Fakir does not know if she even realizes it. She is so good at reading hearts and people, but when it comes to reading books, to any kind of formal knowledge really, you'd think her simpleton. Does she understand what this dance means? Does she realize why he led her out of her despair and into this last farewell? They're already in the middle of it, when he wants to grasp her by the shoulders and instead of helping her move into a turn, shake her a little and confess, it's Romeo and Juliet parting, moron. Dare he confess his love, when he's barely begun to see it, barely begun to acknowledge it himself. Besides, there are more important things for them to talk about at this parting than the hopeless feelings of a foolish knight for a princess that was never meant to be.
The dance, he decides, as he lifts her into the air, must be his confession, even as he knows she will not understand it as he means her to. His heart is not strong enough, not like hers. She opened it so entirely to the prince and when he didn't taken that gift of her love that she had given so freely, it hadn't withered and died, it hadn't made her dark and bitter. It had hurt, certainly. Her eyes were too expressive really, each ache shone through them, and yet, that heart, it was still the same. Not wordly wise, not guarded, not bitter like his. But just as open, as trusting, as freely giving of itself as it had ever been.
He could never give so much, so much power to hurt, to cut, to undo himself to anyone else. Not even to her. He dared not. No, he could not confess.
If he offered his fledgling love and she did not take it--for how could she? what was there between them?--it would wither and die like a rose foolish enough to try blooming in winter. It is not meant to be. Romeo and Juliet. But his and Duck's is lovestory not even written. And never would be, for instead of confessing his heart's desire to her as any fairytale knight would here, he instead has to convince her to relinquish hers forever and be content with her lot in life. Surely then, he deserves nothing more than to be content with his own reality, which is to never have her.
The briars guarding his heart constrict a little, the blossom withering before it could ever bloom. Duck smiles at him sadly, one hand going to the pendant at her neck, and it unclasps effortlessly, falling into her hand like a rose.