A/N: Chapter 1 now revised

Princess Tutu OVA: Chapter of the Girl

Their story is not quite finished yet: how Ahiru and Fakir move past the endings they find themselves in. All reviews welcome.

Disclaimer: I own neither Princess Tutu nor any of the quoted material.

.
.

Once upon a time, there was a prince who was "alive and had a human heart. He did not know what tears were, for he lived in the palace of Sans-Souci, where sorrow is not allowed to enter. Round the garden ran a very lofty wall, but he never cared to ask what lay beyond it, everything about him was so beautiful. His courtiers called him the Happy Prince, and happy indeed he was, if pleasure be happiness. So he lived, and so he died. And now that he was dead they had made a statue out of him and set it up on a pedestal so high that he could see all the ugliness beyond the wall and all the misery of his city, and though the statue's heart was made of lead yet it could not help but weep." But this is not his story. (quotation adapted from "The Happy Prince" by Oscar Wilde)

After his last term at Kinkan Academy for Ballet, something had happened to Fakir. He was brooding. Well, more than usual. Charon had said nothing at first, hoping that with some time and patience, Fakir would come out of his gloom on his own. It was almost visible some days, the dark aura that gravitated around him. But Charon had let it go on long enough. Summer had started, and Fakir had already missed the beginning of the new term and hadn't even mentioned the new year's tuition and fees.

With all this in mind, Charon determinedly took off his blacksmith's apron, dusted his hands, and went to find his adopted son. Not that it was much of search. Fakir was lazing by the pond, feeding the ducks and fishing as usual. What had gotten into the boy? Fishing! And that is why Charon decided to begin the confrontation in as direct a manner as possible.

"Fakir, is all this over a girl?"

Fakir, jerking back his fishing pole in shock, let fly a large mackerel. The force of the fish jumping to freedom made him lose his balance, causing him to hit his head against the dock with a resounding smack. Ahiru, who had been bobbing sleepily near the base of the dock, was doused into wakefulness by the mini-tsunami Fakir's fall creates.

Blushing awkwardly only in the way he can, Fakir stuttered out, "Wh—what are you talking about!"

But Charon going to the heart of the matter with the bluntness of a hammer striking hot iron on the anvil continues, "Don't expect me to believe that you've been doing nothing but fishing for the past 3 months just because you've developed a taste for trout! What about your studies? What about your future?"

The matter hadn't even occurred to Ahiru. "I hadn't even noticed. It seemed so natural that he'd be at the lake every day just like I was. But I guess Fakir's not a duck," she thought sheepishly.

Charon's complaints, however, had given Fakir the time he needed to regroup, "Oh, so that's what this is about. There's nothing for me to learn at that school."

"I may not understand what this is all about, but I can tell there's much more to it than you're letting on. You can't run from sorrow, Fakir. No matter how hard you try, it'll follow you more closely than your shadow," Charon replied. For all his harshness, Charon did love the boy and knew that applying force wasn't always the best way to solve a problem and so he spoke gently. Yet some part of him nagged that this knowledge was acquired not inherent. A vague memory of a girl in white and pink tutu soothing a painful, unending regret that did not even appear to be his own arose in his mind; for all that she dressed and comported herself like a princess, her face was as plain as a duck's, as plain as if she didn't even have the sense to wear her heart on her sleeves and instead had it shining out of her eyes, out of her very being.

Dismissing his irrelevant thoughts of the ballerina as some long-forgotten, nonsensical dream, Charon returned to the matter at hand, namely talking sense into Fakir. "I know you've been in a slump since your friends left for that ballet tour. But you've indulged in it long enough. If you're tired of ballet, there's plenty else out there you could be doing."

Staring at the gaps between the boards of the docks Fakir could only mutter in reply "So, what's wrong with coming here? I'm doing something."

"Fakir, I'm serious. This isn't healthy. All you do is mope, read, and fish. I don't care what you study, but I want you back in that school within a week. I don't like how you've cut yourself off. I hardly ever see you exchange even two words with anyone." Resting his hands on his son's shoulders, he added, "Look, maybe if you transfer to the Kinkan Academy for Writing you'll be more interested. At least think about it, Fakir," he said before walking off.

Peering up at Fakir from behind one of the supports of the dock, Ahiru realized the truth of Charon's words. After they'd freed Mytho and Rue from the Raven, Fakir said he'd try writing but a few weeks and failed attempts later, he had stopped going to the library and began spending all his time with her. "Charon's right! Fakir's stopped ballet and even writing. I guess I didn't even notice because it was nice to have his company," she thought. "He always brings that yummy bread and reads aloud to me. And they're always the kind of stories I like. He seems to understand me almost as if we've known each other forever. I mean I like the other ducks, but we just don't have much in common…they're kind of like Pique and Lilie, actually. Friendly, but we just don't see eye-to-eye. Almost like we live in different worlds. And I'm so bad at all this making nests, that I feel like I'm back in the apprentice ballet class again. I make as bad a duck as I do a ballerina. I don't even understand that Big Flight thing the other ducks keep talking about…"

While Ahiru had been busy derailing her train of thought, Fakir had resumed sitting on the dock with his feet dangling in the water, pretending not to care about what Charon had said. Charon was wrong. Fakir wasn't isolated. He talked to Ahiru all the time. Perhaps they didn't "exchange" words per se as Ahiru could no longer speak. Yet surely she understood him. She was all that mattered. He didn't need anyone else's company. Of course the princess would love the prince. But did anyone know that the knight would fall in love with her too?

It was ironic really, that he himself hadn't realized the fact earlier. On some level, he had known even back when he and Ahiru had been working together to save Mytho from the Raven's-blood drenched heart. But at that point Fakir had been too busy denying the fact to himself and he had known then that Ahiru's only concern had been her prince. Princess Tutu had a role to fulfill and it had nothing to do with the knight. Yet the girl Ahiru had somehow risen past the confines of Drosselmeyer's tale. Only Ahiru could do such a thing because only Ahiru had that mixture of courage, kindness, and determination.

Ironic that it had taken the absolute impossibility of his love for Ahiru for Fakir to realize its existence in the first place. It had happened a little day by day ever since she had turned back into a duck. He would bring down novels to the lake and read to her, both of them seemingly content and then inevitably he would be jerked out of that contentment by thoughtlessly saying something like "Ahiru, what do you think of—" and abruptly cutting himself off. He would never know now what she felt for this or that character, or what she found funny, or even what she thought about inconsequential things like the weather that day. Fakir was a certified introvert really, and he couldn't let something like this go without trying to understand why it mattered so much to him what she thought. And then on the day he decided to never write again because the temptation to write about her was too great, he knew. He loved her. It answered all the questions that had been plaguing him and at the same time brought a self-mocking smile to his face. When they had been inside Drosselmeyer's story, he could not tell her; now they were out of the story, she was a duck, and so he still could not tell her.

Rue, Mytho, and Uzura, as the only others who remembered a girl named Ahiru, were the only people whose presence he could stand and they were all traveling. He couldn't bring himself to care for the oblivious company of schoolmates and acquaintances. So perhaps Charon was a little right in thinking that Fakir had cut himself off from others.

But Charon didn't understand everything. Fakir hadn't stopped doing everything out of some adolescent angsting fit. Charon had no right to speak like he knew all of the answers. Charon hadn't been the one to find Drosselmeyer's journal buried among unsorted manuscripts in the library. It had been Fakir who had made that terrible discovery and it had been Fakir who had read with dawning horror as he watched Drosselmeyer himself change shape through those journal entries. The master-puppeteer had started out no more manipulative and psychotic than Fakir. It was as if Drosselmeyer had written himself into a different man.

The entire mess had started with nothing more than a desire to give happy endings. Seeing so much unhappiness in the everyday lives of the townspeople, Drosselmeyer had thought to secretly change their lots in life; to grant success to a gentle old shoemaker on the brink of poverty, to assign new constellations to star-crossed lovers, to mend tears in the social fabric of Kinkan Town without telling a soul. This, of course, convinced him to try a hand at patching his own life, an experience which taught him that a written happy ending felt hollow if you knew that it wasn't the way of things. And the girl who he had made fall in love with himself—one whose description suspiciously reminded Fakir of Edel—was no longer the girl he loved. He had written that she would love him and so she did, but changing her heart, had changed who she was. Having twisted his own story, he could do nothing more than twist the stories of those around him.

And just as he had as he left the library all those months ago, Fakir tried to convince himself now that that kind of power was best left alone. That it would be better to not write at all than to warp the very shape of the world with the best of intentions.

Yet for all that he was irritated by Charon's words, something in them struck a chord within Fakir. Just as Charon had said, he had not been able hide from his sorrow. The Raven was vanquished, Mytho was safe, and even Rue was tolerable. Kinkan Town had returned to its true shape as had Ahiru. That last transformation, however, had not been for the best. And afraid that he would follow Drosselmeyer's footsteps, Fakir had put writing aside. Fakir wouldn't deny that he had toyed with the idea of turning Ahiru back into a girl. Hell, he'd even considered turning himself into a duck. Yet he feared that in changing Ahiru's form, he would irreparably alter the girl he loved, that he would turn into the new puppeteer of Kinkan Town.

Charon only understood half the issue. Fakir was drawn to the written word for its own sake and that very predilection scared him. Had it started for Drosselmeyer that way? A simple passion for reading stories and then a naïve interest in trying to write them? And then the beguiling discovery of the power of his words? Fear was driving Fakir as much as sorrow was and trapped between the two, Fakir had decided to do nothing. For nothing would come of nothing. (1)

And yet, nothing would come of nothing. Fakir didn't wish to manipulate reality through his writing, but that didn't mean he wanted things to stay as they were. Perhaps there was no harm in learning as ignorance too could be dangerous. He would study and see if changing Ahiru back was even possible and he certainly wouldn't do anything without asking her first; but there could be nothing wrong with simply finding out. Perhaps he would follow Charon's advice and enroll in Kinkan Academy for Writing after all.

So absorbed was he in his ruminations, Fakir hadn't even realized that he had walked home. He stood at the door of his cottage and could hear Charon pounding away at horseshoes in the adjacent smithy. He couldn't believe he'd left without telling Ahiru. Well, he would return early tomorrow morning and let her know why he was reenrolling in Kinkan Academy.

Fakir wasn't the only one roused by Charon's prodding. Just as Fakir had made a resolve that day, so too would Ahiru. And just as he had failed to communicate his decision to her so lost was he in conflicting desires, she too would leave him in ignorance. Granted it always took time to get the wheels in Ahiru's head turning, but once they started, nothing could hold her back if it concerned any of the people she cared about—in fact, nothing could hold her back even if it concerned complete strangers. All she needed to be pushed into thought and subsequently into action was to realize that someone might be unhappy.

And that she hadn't realized until Charon had spoken that Fakir was unhappy was unforgivable. When she had seen the sadly smiling Mytho dancing by the lake, she had known at once that he was unhappy and wanted nothing more than for him to smile truly. She had not even known the prince then, and yet she had seen his unhappiness. To not have seen it until someone pointed it out in Fakir, who was her closest friend, was awful. She had been so selfishly happy that Fakir had chosen to spend time with her even if she was only a duck that she hadn't noticed that even his smiles were tinged with sorrow until today. She didn't know why he was unhappy, yet even more so than with Mytho, she wanted to return Fakir's smile to him.

But she was only a duck. Where were the creepy devil's-bargain-offering Drosselmeyer types when you needed them? Well then, the only way to solve this would be to turn back into a girl, even if she couldn't turn back into Princess Tutu, figure out what was wrong with Fakir and fix it!

That couldn't be too hard. She'd even broken it down into three easy steps. Well, step number one couldn't be accomplished in Kinkan Town. There was no way to turn back into a girl here. Despite her earlier thoughts, she certainly didn't want to run into Drosselmeyer again even if he could make her human again. Well, maybe there was some magic something out there somewhere that could somehow change her back. She would just have to go out into the wide world and explore. She would definitely make Fakir smile again. So thinking, Ahiru flapped out of the pond and began flying towards walls of the town.

.

.

To be continued...

(1) adapted from Shakespeare's King Lear