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Mar. 22nd, 2009 03:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reallyaduckThe door comes back fast this time - it's only one day in the bar (and one night's sleep curled up as a duck under the sofa) before she sees the exit and dives hastily through.
For Mytho and everyone in Gold Crown Town, it's been no time at all. Duck can tell by the sky, and by the far-off sound of music from the Fire Festival. For Duck, though, it's been time that she needed to calm down, and when she meets Miss Edel outside the library, it only takes her a moment to grasp what her friend is trying to say when she points to the hole in the library window.
It's not big enough for a girl, but it's just about the right size for a small duck.
"Thank you, Miss Edel!" Duck shouts, and ties her clothes into a neat bundle before quacking herself into duck-shape. Several long, struggling minutes later (don't worry, Mytho, I'm coming,!) and she's squirming her way through the hole, and -
Wait. Mytho's not there? Where'd he -
- and a fatal moment's distraction sends Duck (and most of the window-frame) tumbling to the floor, and then through it, into the dark catacombs underneath the library.
Okay! It's okay. She can handle this. She's gonna get Mytho out of here! A convenient water-drip turns her back into a girl, and lanterns light her way, and a voice calls out to her that really should be creepy, but Duck's not scared. The voice sounds warm, somehow.
I'm only a small thing, but I flood the entire room. What am I?
"A riddle!" Duck exclaims.
(Duck is terrible at riddles.)
Laughter comes, and, okay, now Duck is a little scared. The underground corridor comes to a turning; one path is light, and one dark. She wants to stay in the light, she really does, but the laughter is coming from the dark path, and if that's where the laughing is coming from then that's where Mytho probably is too . . .
And Miss Edel had said something about not being frightened of the dark.
"I mustn't fear the darkness!" Duck says, and is a little proud to hear how confident she sounds. She races down the dark path, talking to herself; the sound of her own voice is a comfort. "Okay! Okay. A little thing that floods the entire room - oh! A sneeze!"
She's got it, right?
Too bad . . . I'm a white snake with a red head that swallows the sea. What am I?
The next riddle comes so quickly that Duck hardly even has time to realize that she's messed up the first one. (She runs by skulls set into the floor, walls of bones and rooms filled with cracked coffins, but she doesn't register them; they're just shapes, scenery, blurs passing by. She has puzzles to decipher.)
"Um - a white paintbrush with red paint on it?" she calls out, and the laughter rings out again in response.
Too bad . . . here's the last one. I become shorter the longer I stand. What am I?
The voice is coming from within one of the darkest openings in the wall. Duck gulps, and approaches, her steps slowing.
"So you're . . . like . . . a flower, right?"
Too bad, giggles the voice. But congratulations - the person you're looking for is here . . .
"Mytho!" Duck says, her eyes straining to see. "Where is - give him back!"
No, says the sweet, warm voice, and a wall of bricks slams shut behind Duck, and the entryway is blocked. You also must stay here.
"I can't do that!"
It's all right, the voice tells her. I'm here.
And the pendant on Duck's chest glows, and then brightens, and a different voice, an old man's voice, laughs far away and says something that Duck can't hear, and then everything is red light and shining feathers. The light takes her in and wraps her up, as it always does, and when it lets her out she is somebody else . . . .
She stands en pointe absently, without thinking about it, and her feet don't hurt at all.
She knows the answers to the catacomb's riddles. They come easily - the little thing that floods the whole room is a lamp; the white snake with the red head, the lamp's wick.
It was so hard before but it seems really obvious now . . .
The voice is that of a lamp. The lamp is holding Mytho prisoner, but Princess Tutu is sure she can convince it otherwise. It isn't strange that a lamp should talk. In a story, everything has a soul. She knows this better than anyone; she's nothing but a story herself.
If Princess Tutu dances with the lamp, she knows, she will find the source of its pain. If she understands its pain, she can alleviate it. She pirouettes, slowly, and the light shines down on her. (The yellow light creates pink sparkles around her hair, her arms, her feet. This does not seem in the least strange to her either, although a physicist might boggle.)
The light shines on her, and the lamp confides, my only wish was to shine for someone. As Tutu listens to the lamp's story, moving through the steps, arabesquing gracefully into the warmth of the rays, she understands: when you are overflowing with affection, you need a place to direct it.
They must not have needed me all along, the lamp whispers, and a sudden beam shoots into the corner, revealing Mytho curled up, asleep, around a glowing lamp.
"Is that what you want?" Tutu asks. "To shut him away?"
That's what Fakir wanted, too. Maybe that's why he wanted to shut him away; maybe he doesn't know any other way to show that he . . .
"Forcing your warmth on people," she tells the light of the lamp, "won't bring joy to anyone - but I love the warmth and glow of your light." She steps forward, and though anyone else - anyone real - might have had a great deal of difficulty embracing a symbolic emanation of light, Tutu has no trouble carefully pulling the yellow-edged outline of a glowing spirit into her arms.
For some things, it helps to be only a story.
She leads the lamp-light in a graceful dance, spinning her under her arm, and tells her, without words: if you want what is best for Mytho, return his heart. That will bring him happiness.
Princess Tutu, comes the answer, I want to continue illuminating you.
The lamp-spirit diminishes and flickers back into the lamp, leaving behind in its stead a pale, red-tinged figure.
A shard of Mytho's heart.
I am the feeling of affection, it tells her, shattered and forgotten.
Tutu holds out her hand for it, and it comes to her, briefly filling her with warmth, and then flies back to Mytho. Where it belongs. Which means that it's time for Tutu to send Mytho back where he belongs - to the person who needs his affection, right now. To Rue, who has been waiting for him.
That's who his affection should be for, after all. It's not for Tutu; that's not how the story goes, no matter the way he looks at her. And if it's not for Tutu, then it's definitely not for Duck.
By the time she's emerged from the catacombs, Tutu's glamour has faded and Duck is back in her school uniform and everyday, ordinary shoes. Her feet don't ache from the exertion of dancing - they never do, no matter the feats she performs as Tutu - but her arms do, from lugging the bulky, silent lamp.
And though she thinks she might have been thinking something important when she was Tutu about the lamp, and Fakir, and affection, and forcing your light on people and locking them up - well, she just can't quite grasp it anymore. It's slipped away along with the rest of Tutu's power, the way her wisest thoughts always do.
Oh well. It probably wasn't important anyway.
For Mytho and everyone in Gold Crown Town, it's been no time at all. Duck can tell by the sky, and by the far-off sound of music from the Fire Festival. For Duck, though, it's been time that she needed to calm down, and when she meets Miss Edel outside the library, it only takes her a moment to grasp what her friend is trying to say when she points to the hole in the library window.
It's not big enough for a girl, but it's just about the right size for a small duck.
"Thank you, Miss Edel!" Duck shouts, and ties her clothes into a neat bundle before quacking herself into duck-shape. Several long, struggling minutes later (don't worry, Mytho, I'm coming,!) and she's squirming her way through the hole, and -
Wait. Mytho's not there? Where'd he -
- and a fatal moment's distraction sends Duck (and most of the window-frame) tumbling to the floor, and then through it, into the dark catacombs underneath the library.
Okay! It's okay. She can handle this. She's gonna get Mytho out of here! A convenient water-drip turns her back into a girl, and lanterns light her way, and a voice calls out to her that really should be creepy, but Duck's not scared. The voice sounds warm, somehow.
I'm only a small thing, but I flood the entire room. What am I?
"A riddle!" Duck exclaims.
(Duck is terrible at riddles.)
Laughter comes, and, okay, now Duck is a little scared. The underground corridor comes to a turning; one path is light, and one dark. She wants to stay in the light, she really does, but the laughter is coming from the dark path, and if that's where the laughing is coming from then that's where Mytho probably is too . . .
And Miss Edel had said something about not being frightened of the dark.
"I mustn't fear the darkness!" Duck says, and is a little proud to hear how confident she sounds. She races down the dark path, talking to herself; the sound of her own voice is a comfort. "Okay! Okay. A little thing that floods the entire room - oh! A sneeze!"
She's got it, right?
Too bad . . . I'm a white snake with a red head that swallows the sea. What am I?
The next riddle comes so quickly that Duck hardly even has time to realize that she's messed up the first one. (She runs by skulls set into the floor, walls of bones and rooms filled with cracked coffins, but she doesn't register them; they're just shapes, scenery, blurs passing by. She has puzzles to decipher.)
"Um - a white paintbrush with red paint on it?" she calls out, and the laughter rings out again in response.
Too bad . . . here's the last one. I become shorter the longer I stand. What am I?
The voice is coming from within one of the darkest openings in the wall. Duck gulps, and approaches, her steps slowing.
"So you're . . . like . . . a flower, right?"
Too bad, giggles the voice. But congratulations - the person you're looking for is here . . .
"Mytho!" Duck says, her eyes straining to see. "Where is - give him back!"
No, says the sweet, warm voice, and a wall of bricks slams shut behind Duck, and the entryway is blocked. You also must stay here.
"I can't do that!"
It's all right, the voice tells her. I'm here.
And the pendant on Duck's chest glows, and then brightens, and a different voice, an old man's voice, laughs far away and says something that Duck can't hear, and then everything is red light and shining feathers. The light takes her in and wraps her up, as it always does, and when it lets her out she is somebody else . . . .
She stands en pointe absently, without thinking about it, and her feet don't hurt at all.
She knows the answers to the catacomb's riddles. They come easily - the little thing that floods the whole room is a lamp; the white snake with the red head, the lamp's wick.
It was so hard before but it seems really obvious now . . .
The voice is that of a lamp. The lamp is holding Mytho prisoner, but Princess Tutu is sure she can convince it otherwise. It isn't strange that a lamp should talk. In a story, everything has a soul. She knows this better than anyone; she's nothing but a story herself.
If Princess Tutu dances with the lamp, she knows, she will find the source of its pain. If she understands its pain, she can alleviate it. She pirouettes, slowly, and the light shines down on her. (The yellow light creates pink sparkles around her hair, her arms, her feet. This does not seem in the least strange to her either, although a physicist might boggle.)
The light shines on her, and the lamp confides, my only wish was to shine for someone. As Tutu listens to the lamp's story, moving through the steps, arabesquing gracefully into the warmth of the rays, she understands: when you are overflowing with affection, you need a place to direct it.
They must not have needed me all along, the lamp whispers, and a sudden beam shoots into the corner, revealing Mytho curled up, asleep, around a glowing lamp.
"Is that what you want?" Tutu asks. "To shut him away?"
That's what Fakir wanted, too. Maybe that's why he wanted to shut him away; maybe he doesn't know any other way to show that he . . .
"Forcing your warmth on people," she tells the light of the lamp, "won't bring joy to anyone - but I love the warmth and glow of your light." She steps forward, and though anyone else - anyone real - might have had a great deal of difficulty embracing a symbolic emanation of light, Tutu has no trouble carefully pulling the yellow-edged outline of a glowing spirit into her arms.
For some things, it helps to be only a story.
She leads the lamp-light in a graceful dance, spinning her under her arm, and tells her, without words: if you want what is best for Mytho, return his heart. That will bring him happiness.
Princess Tutu, comes the answer, I want to continue illuminating you.
The lamp-spirit diminishes and flickers back into the lamp, leaving behind in its stead a pale, red-tinged figure.
A shard of Mytho's heart.
I am the feeling of affection, it tells her, shattered and forgotten.
Tutu holds out her hand for it, and it comes to her, briefly filling her with warmth, and then flies back to Mytho. Where it belongs. Which means that it's time for Tutu to send Mytho back where he belongs - to the person who needs his affection, right now. To Rue, who has been waiting for him.
That's who his affection should be for, after all. It's not for Tutu; that's not how the story goes, no matter the way he looks at her. And if it's not for Tutu, then it's definitely not for Duck.
By the time she's emerged from the catacombs, Tutu's glamour has faded and Duck is back in her school uniform and everyday, ordinary shoes. Her feet don't ache from the exertion of dancing - they never do, no matter the feats she performs as Tutu - but her arms do, from lugging the bulky, silent lamp.
And though she thinks she might have been thinking something important when she was Tutu about the lamp, and Fakir, and affection, and forcing your light on people and locking them up - well, she just can't quite grasp it anymore. It's slipped away along with the rest of Tutu's power, the way her wisest thoughts always do.
Oh well. It probably wasn't important anyway.
