Title: The Questions and Answers
Author: Coppelia/magicdragonomg (on LJ)
Rating: K/G; fairly tame
Characters/Pairings: Rue, Mytho, Ahiru; Rue/Mytho (platonic or romantic?), Ahiru/Mytho (platonic, one-sided, romantic? You decide!)
Summary: Post-series: a Princess leaves to find her own answers, a Prince awaits the spring, and a girl finds her own spring.
Comments: Written for the LJ Tutu Fic & Art Exchange, and currently un-beta'd. Until I find the time to edit this and give this the more proper attention it deserves, please excuse any blatant and stupid errors you might find. On the other hand, I had a strange amount of fun experimenting with romantic or Hawthorne-esque language, so please enjoy!

The voice of her father came to her in the middle of the night while she dreamed. At first, she fought his call with her own passion, and more than once she woke up with a defiant claim on her lips. In the end, however, the wrath of the nocturnal raven's blood wore her, both body and mind, until one challenging question emerged from the slatted red eyes of the Monster.

"How could such a pitiful person fall into such obsession as love? No, perhaps it isn't even love."

The Raven then went on to mock her feelings and demand that she slit Mytho throat, drink the blood from his neck until she herself emerged as a powerful witch. She attempted to cast the speech from the raven's blood aside, but during the day, that question haunted her: how could such a pitiful person fall into such obsession? She worried her lower lip by it, glared into the spaces of her bedroom, and sought refuge in the one person to hold her up: Mytho. During the rare nights when a nightmare did not visit her, more often than not Mytho would toss and moan within his own. She awoke him from these terrors when she could, but the next day they would both be sleeping of the raven's blood. She knew it was the Monster's last stretch of influence upon them as it tried to spawn crows within each of their bodies, now that the parent no longer lived.

To remedy this, she sighed into Mytho's chest and felt his arms around her during the day. It was a pleasant, temporarily relieving remedy, but such actions did not diminish that question the raven's blood had seared into her heart. Did she love him, truly? It was the first time she had asked herself that question in regard to Mytho, and the possible answer scorched through her like electricity. All her life, she chased after, cherished, and desired the Prince with such rigor that she nearly destroyed him, Fakir, and Ahiru. Had she sought something that was never there in the first place? Had she acquired the acceptance of a man whom she had believed to love when, in reality, her affections were akin to hollow obsession?

Whether her affections for Mytho belonged to earnest love or obsession, were her feelings destroying the both of them? Where did one draw the line, decipher between the love to heal or destroy, to fulfill or remain at the surface forever?

She recalled Princess Tutu. She supposed that it depended on how one acted on that obsession, but didn't Giselle need to free herself from that bond? Didn't she almost harm the stray Mytho who had wandered to her grave?

What terrified her the most were Mytho's reactions; he kissed her with the reserve of a man who cherished her as a best friend instead of a lover. He treasured their bond founded on the agony they shared as minions to the Monster. He would die for her, but only because he would die for anything he saw helpless. Their relationship repeated the times he saved poor, suffering creatures from their doom, and in this perspective he would continue to act as her husband with fondness but without burning, yearning, or attraction.

She didn't know if this relationship could, should continue as it stood, if brought it harm, good, or neither to their spirits. Perhaps the possibility existed to grow and build onto the web of their friendship, but in her mind, she recognized the completeness of a web at hand. Having spent the majority of her life seeking a love which she knew, for the most part, he would not requite, the idea of continuing to love him, despite his feelings, did not faze her. Yet, she had almost destroyed him once. Yet, she wondered if her own affection, close or akin to obsession, might destroy her in the near future. Most of all, she had a duty to her husband to understand what she wanted and what was happening to her, and so she left.

"I don't know when I'll be back," she said to Mytho, Fakir, and Ahiru, who she had gathered by the lake, "but I must do this and find the answers to my questions."

"I must go with you; the raven's blood haunts me as well, and I must learn the answers to its calls. We can find them together," Mytho implored.

She drew one hand up to her chest and let her face fall with the temptation to bring Mytho along, but the sensible part of her knew that traveling with him would not allow her to find the answers she sought. Drawing away from him brought her heart-rending pain that shook in her bones; it took her incredible strength to sum up the voice and deny his offer. Nonetheless, a string of thought dulled the agony: she would be back one day.

Thus, Rue bent underneath the branches of the birch tree and vanished beyond leaves of green.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Ahiru watched Mytho's back from distance for several minutes. He sat alone beside the lake, his form neither hunched or showing any sign of distress since Rue's leaving two weeks ago, but his shoulders bore a perceptible rigidness, heaviness as seen with people overly stressed. She ground the shape of his shoulders into her mind; her large, blue eyes deep with concern, her brow pinched the slightest. When his need for consolation outweighed her idea that perhaps she should let him be with his own thoughts, she approached, a hand clutched near her breast.

"Mytho," she said, smiling, though the smile looked doleful.

He turned and drew his eyes to her, and though he appeared as normal as ever, she noticed something wrong in his countenance. "Ah, Ahiru," he began, surprise fleeting across his face, then, "I'm glad you're here."

Despite her best efforts, she could feel the blush rising a little in her cheeks.

"Um, are you alright?"

The Prince faced the lake again and rested his arms across his pulled-in knees. Ahiru could feel the warm sun on her face and see its rays as it caught in Mytho's bright white hair. A sigh, both strangely contented and apprehensive, barely eased off her lips as Mytho gathered his thoughts.

"I…think so," he said, and his voice had that calm, gentle quality to it that she recognized during his days with half a heart. "Did you know? There's a saying that birds that fly south for the winter come back to the place they were born when spring comes."

"Mytho," she said, casting her eyes a little down.

"I don't know when spring is for her—or even me. There may not be a spring for ravens, or maybe she'll find a place that is suited to her, that will give her answers. I don't mind, as long as she is happy."

"Mytho." Ahiru raised her head to him again and wanted to sit down but couldn't, her legs just wouldn't move and her feet had become roots that melded her form with the ground. Her eyes felt sculpted, her face too fixed. She swallowed. "I'll help you as best as I can, and I'm sure we'll all see Rue again."

The clouds parted from Mytho's demeanor to reveal his tiny, toothless smile for all the immense sunshine in brought. She could feel her chest rising with the surge of energy and lightness within her, and, at the same time, her body flushed a tinge of rose. She could hardly hear his next words for the care and affection for him fluttering in her stomach.

"Thank you, Ahiru. I appreciate it. I'm sure she will. I don't wish to bother you, but until then, will you and Fakir stay by my side? When she comes back, I'm sure Rue will want to meet everyone again all together."

Mytho held out a pale hand. For several seconds, Ahiru stared deep into it, memorizing its curves, cracks, and tones while suddenly hyperaware of her emotions when faced with such a gesture. A paralyzing affection traveled into her heart, and her imagination swirled into dreamy places.

She started her hand forward, meaning to place it into his, but halfway there, a bizarre flame licked at her insides; she stooped down and wrapped her branch arms around his waist in a single, swift movement. At first there was only shock—it charged the atmosphere with palpable tension,—but as each second passed, his stiff muscles loosened against her, the warmth of his body melted completely into her bosom, and his chin rested lightly against her shoulder.

When she finally comprehended what she had just done, she hesitated to draw back, uncertain if it would bring more awkwardness and harm than her initial action had. Flashbacks of an earlier, similar embrace crossed her mind, and her skin burned in humiliation.

"I-I-I, um, I mean, of course, we'll stay…if it's not trouble for you either," Ahiru stuttered against his shoulder, hoping to explain her reasoning somewhat to him.

He smiled, more fully this time, and the soft, tired breath of a chuckle tickled her ear. "No, it wouldn't be any trouble. In fact, it would be a blessing for me. Again, thank you."

Ahiru ducked her head back from a little, catching his amber gaze, and in the distance behind him the green boughs of the birch tree swayed.