~Roth!~ Ahiru's voice shook slightly with apprehension. ~I need to talk to you!~

He stepped calmly out of the air in front of her. She, too, took it in stride—she had seen too many strange things to be put off by something like that—but something about his expression sent a chill rippling down her short spine. He did not seem to like her angry tone. "Yes, little duck? Is there something else you want?"

Ahiru shoved down her sudden new fear and her old uneasiness and forced herself to sound strong. ~I want answers~ she told him.

He looked unimpressed with her show of defiance. "If you want answers, I'll need some questions," he said dryly.

Ahiru blushed. This was not going as planned. As she grew flustered, all of her questions tumbled out in a rush. ~What did you do to me? Did you write this? Who is Odette? Is she me? What's happening to us? Why—What do you wa—I mean—?" She faltered and came to a halt as Roth continued to stare expressionlessly at her.

"If I understand you correctly, you seem uncertain as to the nature of the spell I placed on you and its effect on your personal identity. Is that correct?"

~Y-yes~ Ahiru stammered. She grew hot under her feathers and Roth's cool clear gaze.

"Do you remember what I told you this spell was going to do?"

~Make me human again?~

"There was no 'again' involved. I said that I would turn you into a human. Yet you seem to be under the strange misapprehension that I intended to simply give you a human body."

Ahiru felt another chill. ~What do you mean, 's-simply give me a human body'?~

Roth's tone turned insultingly patronizing, as though he were explaining for the twelfth time that one and one made two, but Ahiru was too confused to be insulted by it. "Perhaps you do not know this, little duck, but every living thing in this world has two parts—a body and a soul. I told you that I would turn you into a human—in other words, that I would turn your duck body and duck soul into a human body and a human soul."

Ahiru was speechless. She tried to wrap her mind around this new revelation, but as simply as Roth had put it she still could not understand. Or rather, she thought she could understand it. She just didn't know what it meant for her.

"You expected to stay exactly the same." Roth laughed—a laugh that was all the more frightening because nothing about it sounded evil. In fact, it was a great deal like the way Fakir laughed when she did something silly. Almost. This laugh had no love in it. "I rather thought you had realized it when you named Odette." His mouth twisted slightly around the name, but Ahiru did not notice it. "I never told you that you had to give her a name other than your own. You were the one who decided that she was different from you."

~B-but~ Ahiru spluttered helplessly, ~but you said I couldn't tell anyone!~ Wouldn't using my real name have counted as telling Fakir who I was?

"When I said that, I did not realize that there were already others who knew you—at least not by name." Roth's voice was icy. "I did not realize that there was already a man who loved you. Your former human self is the one you thought him in love with, is it not?"

~I—I...~ Was I really that obvious?

"And now you find yourself relieved that he has not, after all, fallen in love with Odette. After all, now the change is complete. You and she have nothing in common except raw material. And, of course—" here he laughed again, a sound like cracking ice—"your foolish love for a man who cannot love either of you."

Ahiru was too shocked to cry. We have nothing in common. Nothing in common. The words repeated themselves over and over again in her mind, as cold and dull and insistent as a steady rain. She felt strange and confused and somehow unclean. How had she gotten mixed up in bodies and souls and this other girl who wasn't her? Nothing in common... except your foolish love for a man who cannot love either of you.

"Would you perhaps like to reconsider my earlier offer?" Roth asked silkily.

~Earlier...?~

His golden eyes flashed. "Marry me," he said. Once again she was reminded of Neko-sensei's threats, but the incongruity of his pathetic dreams and Roth's absolute power made her want to laugh and scream at the same time. "If you marry me, you can forget all this. Your old love. Your old life. Give yourself up to me. Become Odette for good, with no vain regrets. Let me be your life." He paused. "Eventually you will even forget the boy."

As he spoke, Ahiru felt her emotions swirling like a storm at sea, tossing her about and stealing her breath away. Roth's last words were like a lightning strike. ~Never!~ she shouted. ~I will never, ever, forget Fakir! Never!~ Trying to imagine ever forgetting Fakir was like trying to imagine what it would be like forgetting to breathe. He was the only reason she had agreed to Roth's deal in the first place—and the only person that she couldn't live without. Forever, she thought. Just like he promised. I'll need him for forever.

Roth's eyes in that moment were the most terrifying thing she had ever seen. Once again she was reminded irresistibly of a hawk closing in on its prey—except that hawks do not usually have a personal score to settle. "Very well. I wish you luck, then. You still have a chance to be with him—if he swears his everlasting love." His eyes flashed. "Just be sure to keep him away from the other girls. Are you familiar with Swan Lake?"

~Y-yes...?~ Ahiru managed.

Roth smiled coldly. "Then you know what will happen if he swears his love to another."

Ahiru thought back to the performances of Swan Lake she had seen... there were so many different endings... Suicide, battle, magical storms, separation forever, never seeing one another again... but one had had a happy ending after all... ~Wh-which one?~ she ventured.

"If your boy betrays you, I suppose you'll find out." He glanced up at the sky. "Speaking of which... If he's coming to meet Odette, the moon's rising now."

Ahiru looked up at the pale, slender moon, now casting its first silvery rays over the far edge of the lake. She shivered. How could she do this now? Knowing that Odette really wasn't her at all? Could she...

"Your boy's coming now."

Ahiru looked frantically toward the trees—sure enough, she saw Fakir's form and heard him cursing as his shirt caught on a thorny bush. She hadn't transformed yet—was it too late now? Was Roth really going to let her transform in front of him? She had not dared to dream of such a chance since her first night. Still... could she do it? Give up herself? Fakir was expecting her... no, Odette... Fakir was... Fakir was here! Maybe she would be able to let him see her transform. Maybe if he only knew...

She squared her small shoulders and swam out onto the lake. Fear and anticipation sharpened her senses and made the water feel as cold and solid as ice as she paddled toward the reflection of the moon. She paused for just a moment when she reached it. I have to do this... I have to! she told herself.

But she was frozen.

Just at that moment, Fakir broke out of the trees. Her heart skipped once and then started to beat again. For Fakir. As always, Fakir was her strength. For a chance to be with him. Ahiru took a deep breath and plunged down into the moonlight.

Fakir licked the blood from the scratch on his wrist as he stepped out of the woods. He was still distracted by the question of where Ahiru was. She had told him earlier that she wanted to go out for a while, but he'd expected her to be back by the time he left to talk to Odette. Actually... never mind, she'd said that she would be gone—

His eyes fell on the lake, and his breath caught in his throat. The whole lake was illuminated by a brilliant silver-white glow emanating from its center. The light intensified until it almost blinded him, and suddenly the figure of a great white swan burst through the lake's surface, its long neck stretching up toward the stars, its wings outspread as though it was trying to embrace the universe. It screamed, a piercing ululation that might have been musical if it had not been so painfully high. Then, in a flash of light so bright his vision went white for several seconds, the swan vanished—leaving Odette standing dazedly in its place.

"What the hell—" Fakir dropped to his knees as his legs gave way. He had suspected some kind of magic, some story, some trick, but to see it... Memories flashed before his eyes.

Red light. Pain. Useless. A failure.

A white bird, shining wings outspread. Princess Tutu. Ahiru. She came for me. Why can't I ever save someone?

Mytho on his swordpoint. Ahiru on the ground. Drosselmeyer grinning. Why won't my hand stop writing?

"No... not... not again... NO!" He shoved himself back to his feet, eyes blazing. "Where are you?" he shouted. "You son of a bitch, where are you? Damn you, why can't you just leave us alone?"

He received no answer, and when he came back to his senses he realized that Odette, now standing in the shallows near the shore, was staring at him with a combination of fear and horror on her far too pale face. "F-Fakir?" she said weakly. "Your—your hands..."

Fakir looked down at his hands and saw that they were shaking. He took a deep breath and forced himself to still them. "I—I'm sorry," he said slowly. "I shouldn't have..." Odette came towards him, as carefully as if he were a wild animal she might startle away. She reached out hesitantly to touch his cheek.

"You're... crying," she whispered. She gasped softly when Fakir suddenly pulled her into his arms and held her tight. She felt him shaking, and it terrified her. Fakir was the one thing she knew—to her he was normalcy and constancy and strength, and... he was crying. She had wished she could hold him, but not like this. Never like this! She was too shaken to cry with him. In a world where Fakir could cry, what else could happen? What could she trust now that there was nothing to ground her? She felt dizzy, lightheaded, as though at any moment she might faint or fall or simply float into the sky and vanish.

Vanish... She cried aloud as a sudden memory flashed through her.

It's all over, it's ending... I've fulfilled my task. Now I'll never be with him ever again. If it weren't for Fakir, I could never have given him up... I never realized that it would be so painful to vanish. It hurts—! Red light...

A brilliant red glow shattered Odette's vision. "St—stop... Stop it! It's not me! That isn't me!"

Fakir grabbed her by the shoulders and pushed her back so he could see her face. His own face was tearstained, but it no longer showed any sign of weakness—only fierce determination. "Who isn't you?"

She shuddered with the borrowed pain. "I don't know! But she's vanishing—she's disappearing—I don't want to disappear!" she cried out. She shut her eyes tightly, then took a deep, shaky breath and opened them again. Tears trembled on her eyelashes. "Everything's cold and red and bright, and she's vanishing..."

Fakir's grip on her shoulders loosened slightly as he thought. She remembers vanishing... That sounds like... And then just now I saw her as a swan... He looked into Odette's shining blue eyes. "Does the name 'Princess Tutu' mean anything to you?" he asked her. Is it possible that somehow... Could she be the real Princess Tutu? A faint, mocking voice in the back of his mind wondered innocently what he intended to do if she was. He ignored it. A lead was a lead—he'd figure the rest out later.

"Princess..." Another memory. A face reflected in a pair of golden eyes. "Princess Tutu... 'I want to know...'" But as hard as she tried to hold onto it, the memory faded as quickly as it had come. "I don't know," she said miserably.

"Damn. Ahiru's eyes, Tutu's memories... Who are you?" His eyes were dark, unfocused. He was not asking her. "It's Drosselmeyer, it has to be, but... why? He left, he left, the story was over... But... if it's him, why hasn't he—?" He shook his head angrily.

Odette simply stood there, more confused than she had ever been. She had no idea who these people were that he was talking about or why he was so angry that she had remembered something. Her gaze traveled up to the sky as Fakir continued muttering to himself. "The moon is beautiful tonight," she said to herself. The moon is always beautiful. Her mind drifted away from Fakir and the problems that supposedly involved her, and she basked in the fading silver light. "But in a few days it will be gone..."

Fakir suddenly turned back to her. "Days. What do you do during the day?"

"During the day?" She had a vague idea of what a day was—blue skies and golden light—but... "I—during the day, I..." She looked up at him with wide eyes. How did she know what a day was? How had she never—"I don't know,"she said at last. I've never had a day before."

He stared at her. "You've never—?"

She shook her head helplessly.

Fakir's eyes narrowed. "What would happen if I stayed after sunrise?"

Odette's eyes widened. She felt nauseous. "No, don't. You can't."

"Why?" Fakir's voice was almost a growl.

She took half a step back. Her legs suddenly shook under her weight. "I don't know, I don't know! It would just be wrong!" She looked at the sky, then the lake. The moonlight was almost gone from the lake. "Go now, please. Go! You have to go!"

He stared at her. "There's no way in hell." The words were barely out of his mouth before he was yanked upwards into the air, as if by an invisible hand. "What the—?" He choked as the collar of his shirt yanked tight against his throat.

"No, don't!" She meant it to be a scream, but it came out more like a whisper. "Stop it, don't hurt him, stop!"

Suddenly Fakir was flying through the air, as if a huge hand was tossing him away from the lake. He landed unconscious at the edges of her vision, and then Odette remembered no more.

When Fakir regained consciousness, it was well past sunrise. "What—" He cursed as he remembered. He felt his head cautiously, but was surprised and slightly disturbed when he did not even find a bruise. He must have landed pretty hard, but... "Damn it, what don't you want me to see?" he seethed. Why was Drosselmeyer... Come to think of it, that doesn't seem like him. Didn't he love telling all of us the ending in advance? Why is he keeping secrets? The faint mocking voice opened its mouth to speak, but he shoved it aside before it could suggest that perhaps it was not Drosselmeyer controlling this story. He was already as scared as hell, and he knew he would snap if he had to consider the possibility that there were two people in the world with that much power and malice.

"Where is Odette?" he wondered aloud. He walked back to the lake, which was sparkling innocently in the daylight. "Odette?" he called. "Odette, come out! Where are you?" There was no answer.

Suddenly he saw movement among the ruins, and a girl stepped out. So Odette did—he gasped. Her hair isn't blonde. It's red. His voice cracked dramatically. "A—Ahiru?"

He blinked, and a moment later she was gone. So I'm just seeing things. He actually felt strangely reassured by this proof that, despite the lack of physical evidence, he had hit his head pretty hard when he was thrown away from the lake the night before. He hadn't imagined that, at least. Still, that did nothing to slow the pounding of his heart.

I'd almost forgotten the freckles on her nose.