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Strings Attached
a Princess Tutu fanfiction by Tripleguess
[Post-Series; possible mild spoilers for Princess Tutu]
Genre: Drama/Humor
Rated PG+
July 27, 2007

Summary: They say Drosselmeyer never gave anything away.

Jump To...
Chapter One
Chapter Two

White halls. White walls. Pale curtains against the moon.

A silhouette against the window. Looking away, outside, to the endless landscape beyond the glass.

Glass and bars. A pristine room; a spotless tower.

A prison.

The silhouette turned, and he knew her. Her dress was a dream of lace. Her hair flowed in glossy locks from perfect ribbons.

She looked so sad.

X X X

He jolted upright, tangling with the covers as he tried to get his bearings in the darkness.

"Qua?" The sound was sleepy. He’d been crying out in his sleep, he realized. His throat hurt.

"Sorry to wake you..." He groped for a candle and lit it, as much to reassure himself as her. Guileless eyes blinked back at him. She was fine. He managed a smile for the sleepy bird on the dresser. "It’s okay. I just... had a dream."

He blew out the candle.

Just a dream. That’s all.

X X X

It was hard to sleep after that. He rose before the sun and slipped out, leaving her dozing in her basket. Sometimes she did come and watch through the windows, but more often she preferred not to obsess over her old life.

At least, that was how he interpreted her usual preference for staying with Charon. Without spoken words... it was hard to tell.

He missed those arguments.

No one else was there. No surprise, that, really; dawn was still just a tint on the clouds. He went through his dance exercises on autopilot. It was a little like what they’d both been doing... just carrying on as best they could with the way things were. It was hard not to look back; hard to face every day and know that some things weren’t going to change anytime soon.

He was checking his spins in the mirror when it happened.

The mirrors were often frosty in the winter mornings, graceful ice patterns scattered across them in patches. It was so today. He was counting spins with part of his mind while the other assigned identities to the patches, like seeing shapes in the clouds. Birds, dragons, castles, towers. Full moons and half moons. Curtains blowing in the wind...

He blinked. His spin wobbled. The curtains were blowing.

It was a ballet hall this time, barre and all, awash with the light of a sunless dawn. White walls. White floors. Pale shoes lingering near a silhouette, dancing shoes begging to be worn.

She turned away from them, and he knew her.

X X X

It couldn’t be helped. That night, when all the chores were done and she was nestled on his shoulder, he started writing.

She cocked at her head at the scratching of the pen and gave him a long look... then pecked him gently on the nose, as though to say I trust you, and wandered off to her basket so she wouldn’t distract him.

At least, that was what he thought. She knew that he often stayed up to the wee hours with his stories. It was just easier to write while the rest of the world was asleep.

He re-read the words in surprise. What did that have to do with anything?

More words crowded, wanting their turn on the paper. He kept writing, curiosity getting the better of him.

X X X

Except for a short little shadow, wandering from ruined house to ruined house like a timid mouse.

"Nothing here, either," the shadow murmured tiredly, as she finished poking through the third gutted pantry of the day. Almost everything edible had already been spirited away by other war orphans. Or rats. She shuddered at the thought. The rats were awfully big these days. Big enough to be a danger at night. Evening was coming on, too. If she was going to find anything, she needed to find it quickly.

"Bah, I’m so hungry." She plopped down beside the lifeless fireplace, not looking at the hearth. There was something comforting about the rough stones, a familiar feel that brought back the warmth of better days. She was careful not to touch more than the edges of those memories. Now... it was just too much. Living day to day was hard enough.

A rustle started her. A rat was scuffling through the ashes, picking out bits of paper to line her nest.

"Oh!" The shadow startled backward; the frightened rat dashed across her ankles and disappeared into a hole in the wall.

It hadn’t even been a big rat. She put a hand over her heart to calm it.

A twinkle of color from the fireplace caught her eye. She tugged at a corner of paper, and squealed in delighted surprise when an almost new magazine slid from the ashes. Someone must have rolled it up for tinder before... before...

She shunted that line of thought aside. Magazines were almost as good as a meal. She flipped hungrily through the crisp pages, devouring the bright pictures with her eyes. It was some kind of dancing publication: men and women in sleek costumes, balancing in impossibly graceful positions.

"Ba...llet," she sounded out, mispronouncing it. She couldn’t remember having heard the word out loud before. People didn’t talk about dancing these days. "A theatrical re... rep...representation of a story performed to music by ba-llet dancers."

She sat back on her heels, pondering. She wasn’t sure what representation meant, but music, story and dancers sounded good to her. "I wish I could be a ba-llet dancer. I’d practice all week and give performances every Saturday. On Sunday I’d rest up like the Good Book says, and then practice some more."

She closed her eyes as the vision grew clearer, smiling faintly at the unseen. "My manager would give me three good meals a day, and ice cream for desert at night. I’d buy myself a new dress once a month, and give the old ones away to orphans like m- like the kids in this city. I’d work really hard and be famous, and people would put up posters with my name on them..."

She sighed. "I’d love to be a dancer in a story. I wonder if The Twelve Dancing Princesses danced ba-llet? I bet they weren’t hungry, even if they were so tired all the time!"

Her eyes popped open. "What?"

The voice was aged, rich with many undertones. Would you like to be a ballerina in my story?

She craned her neck, looking back and forth. "Where are you?"

Wary of more rats, she took a stick and poked through the ashes.

Tink. The stick hit something hard and flat. She pried it up and dusted it off with her dress. The cloth was so dirty already; a little ash wouldn’t make any difference.

It was a mirror, oval like a teardrop. She rubbed at the ash caked along its edge and uncovered the border... a delicate silver filigree of swans, intertwining along the edge. She sat back on her heels, cradling it in admiration. That anything so fragile and beautiful could survive the bombs was amazing.

Looking back at her was the most beautiful person she’d ever seen. She had short, fluffy hair and wide azure eyes. She inhaled with longing. To be so clean, so pretty... "Is she a ballerina?"

She jumped to her feet. "Can I? Can I? Oh, yes, yes, please!"

A chuckle. So eager... very well, my dear. Step into the mirror.

And suddenly the mirror was flat on the floor, like a lake. Its surface was gleaming with sun-kissed wavelets. It spread across the ground, lapping at her ankles, drawing her in.

"To be in a story..." She stepped in deeper, willingly. Away from the bleakness, the ashes, the desolation. "To be a ballerina..."

The water swirled around her hands, her wrists. "I’d do... almost anything..."

More raspy mirth. I’m sure you would.

X X X

Impossible.

The pen stilled in his hand, momentarily dry of words. It wasn’t that he put anything past the old man. It was just that...

He shook his head. Stories were all about the impossible, or at least the improbable. Things that had so little likelihood in succeeding that you hunted through every page to see how they’d pulled it off.

Could it be that Drosselmeyer, with all his talent, had also been guilty of plagiarism?

Could it be that he’d borrowed one of his characters from another story?

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She was sitting at her dresser this time, head buried in her arms. She’d probably been crying. In the dresser mirror curtains blew, as always, silver in the moonlight, dancing across a landscape very far below.

A platter sat by her elbow, filled with tantalizing delicacies. They filled the room with their aroma.

She pushed them away.

X X X

He woke. His cheek felt numb from pressing against the desk. The ink on the last page was smeared... he grumbled, but the words were still legible.

"Hang on, Ahiru." He dressed in the dark, hoping his socks weren’t inside out. It was almost morning... he’d written through the whole night. He bundled the papers under his arm, snatched up his sword from its place of honor on the wall. He had a feeling he’d need it.

Last of all, he took her basket, cradled safely against his chest. She stirred but didn’t wake.

"I’m coming."

X X X

A voice was calling. She wiped her cheeks, glossy locks shimmering with every movement, and listened as hard as she could. She’d heard this voice before, but it seemed clearer now. Closer.

Her expression in the mirror was blank with concentration, ringed with a delicate filigree of silver swans. She could almost make out the shape of words, almost...

No use. Meanings skittered tantalizingly at the edge of perception, then danced out of reach. She banged the dresser in frustration. The mirror bounced. She yelled, louder than she’d ever dared before in this place of silence.

X X X

He wasn’t sure how he knew. Maybe it was the glimpses of distant landscape through those curtains, or the visions of water that kept flickering round the edges of his story. In any case, it wasn’t long before he was on the outskirts of town, slogging through knee-deep water.

Her lake.

Everything was shrouded in fog. He was freezing.

It was patently insane. Except for the one he was holding, not even the birds were out. She was awake now, watching the wavelets dance mere feet below her basket. She didn’t seem alarmed. She wasn’t afraid of water.

And she trusted him.

He thought he could see something now... great spires and turrets winking across the surface of the lake.

Only the surface. Nowhere else. A reflection with no source. An ending with no beginning.

"An unending story is cruel," he whispered. This, his instincts told him, was where it’d started. Where his story, and hers, had begun to intersect.

Visions in the mist. Sorrow on the water.

He stuffed the papers into his shirt, tucked her under one arm, took a deep breath, and dove.

X X X

He could breathe this water.

It tasted like tears.

Water weeds fluttered like curtains... curtains fluttered like water. Out of the grayness rose a room, perfectly pale in its spotlessness. The duck fluttered out of his arms and landed on the dresser.

"Ahiru."

Tutu was sitting on the floor, looking at nothing. Especially not at him.

Suddenly, he was angry. "Pay attention when I’m talking to you!"

He strode to her, took her wrist and pulled her up. She gasped. "Fakir!"

"You called me, didn’t you?" He took her other wrist. Even if she’d been sleeping in that dress, it wasn’t showing. The fabric was flawless. Her tresses were smoother than ivory, not a hair out of place. Her ribbons were perfectly even, tied just so. Her freckles were gone.

She ducked her head. "Yes..."

"Why?" He gave her a firm shake, trying to snap her out of this... trance she was in. "Why, if you didn’t want to leave?"

She caught her breath. "I do want to leave!"

"Part of you does." He looked at the duck, sitting calmly on the dresser. "And part of you doesn’t."

She clutched his hands, as though trying to draw strength from him. Her skin felt soft. "But..."

His eyes narrowed dangerously. "I like you the way you are, Ahiru." He tipped her chin up, making her look at him. "Not the way you aren’t."

She tried to avoid his gaze, to no effect. So he’d been right.

"I just wanted..."

"I know." He stroked her hair, then pulled a ribbon free. "You were tired of filth and famine and vermin. You wanted something better."

She ducked against his chest. "It wasn’t supposed to be like this."

"Drosselmeyer never gave anything away, did he?" Fakir observed. "All his promises were barbed. His portal was also Tutu’s place of banishment."

Her words were muffled now. "I don’t belong in his story anymore."

"Maybe not." Fakir disentangled himself from her and went to the mirror. "But you belong in mine."

Her eyes widened as he drew his sword. "What are you doing?"

"You have to let it go. Let this go." He swept his hand across the room, then at the mirror, swans flying forever around its rim. "But I won’t break it unless you ask me to."

"I won’t be perfect anymore." It wasn’t a question. "Will I."

"No," he acknowledged. "But it doesn’t matter. I’ll always be with you."

She was silent a moment. The breeze caressed her hair, silver in the moonlight. When she did answer, the words were so soft he could barely hear them.

"Thank you, Fakir."

The duck fluttered down into Tutu’s arms. Both of them looked to him expectantly. "Please break the mirror."

Fakir the dancer was rivaled only by Fakir the swordsman. The mirror shattered explosively, filling the room with brilliance as shards and papers and curtains swirled into a violent whirl of water and wind.

Fakir dropped the sword and threw his hands out blindly, somehow catching hers. They were rough and calloused this time, toughened from a lifetime of breaking clumsy falls.

He wasn’t worried about the duck. There was only one Ahiru now.

The whirlpool carried them upward, or perhaps it was outward. He couldn’t see. He had Ahiru tight against him, trying to shield her from the buffeting, but he couldn’t breath anymore. His vision was turning black.

X X X

He was alive.

That was the first thought that registered as he came to. The second was that he was half in water. Pages of his story bobbed around his ankles, ink bleeding into the lake. His sword was there too, flat in the mud. Farther out, flocks of swans graced the water. Many swans.

He hauled himself up, hampered by the weight on his chest. Ahiru was sprawled anyhow across him, barely conscious herself.

Her braid was tangled.

Her school dress was disheveled.

Her freckles were back.

He smirked. "You look like you’ve been dragged through a knothole."

Blue eyes narrowed. One hand fell to her side, as though she couldn’t quite get her limbs to obey yet. That hypothesis imploded as it came back up full of mud to grind in his face. He yelped and tried to wrestle her off, too late.

"I haven’t seen you in lifetimes, and that’s the only thing you can say?" she shouted, grabbing more mud. "I gave up perfection for you, you ingrate!"

Her voice was cracking... just like it used to.

"You gave up a lifetime of bobbing upside down!" he protested, scrambling out of range.

"Meanie." She wadded the mud with both hands and threw it. Hard. "You’re all beat up yourself, so there!"

"Ow! Knock it off! Ahi—ow!"

The sun tipped over the horizon, flooding the lake with diamonds as they shouted at each other. A flotilla of swans lifted off and wheeled in the air, wings flashing silver.

It was morning.

X X X

"I don’t understand. Why didn’t he just take a duck? Why me?"

She looked much better after a hot bath and change of clothes. Sunlight from the window spilled across the kitchen table, making a halo of her hair, and the world was just about perfect.

Fakir handed her another biscuit. "He needed your human heart."

The biscuit stilled halfway to her mouth. "Eh?"

He couldn’t help it. He ruffled her hair. She looked so... Ahiru, with her mouth open like that and crumbs all over her face. "Ducks quack and go on by. It took a human heart to feel compassion for Mytho."

She mused on that. The name didn’t seem to pain her. A relief, that.

"Well, I guess it makes as much sense as anything else in your crazy stories." She popped the rest of the biscuit in her mouth.

"Don’t blame me for his crazy premises." Fakir smeared a napkin across her face, eliciting a muffled protest. "I’m just picking up the pieces."

She beamed at him, catching him off-guard. Gratitude and warmth shone in her eyes.

"Thank you so much, Fakir."

He busied himself with pouring her a glass of milk. "Eat your breakfast, moron."

Author's Note: Yay for late night/very early morning inspirations! As always, reader reactions are welcome (no heavy critique please). Your thoughts are important. Thanks for reading!

Disclaimer: You know the drill. This story not created, acknowledged or endorsed by the makers of Princess Tutu, to whom all relevant characters and trademarks belong. No infringement is intended. Princess Tutu: Strings Attached itself is fan domain and may be freely recopied and archived.

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