Leo has not bathed in over five days.



He really needs to use the restroom.






No, he's not going there and no one can make him.

Duck's been looking for Mytho all day.

And Mytho's been looking for Princess Tutu.

"Is my prince searching for someone?"

It's Tutu and not Duck who asks; it's Tutu, and not Duck, that Mytho shelters with the umbrella that Duck gave him.

And it's to Tutu that Mytho gives the gem called love - a gem that contains Mytho's heartshard inside of it.

And something else.

"The feeling of love," exclaims Tutu, her eyes shining. "How wonderful!" This is, after all, what Tutu's function is - to allow the Prince to love again.

(No, it's not. Tutu's function is to vanish. Duck's desire is to allow the Prince to love.)


"Thank goodness," says the heartshard fervently. "It was so dark inside that jewel, and that terrible crow . . .!"

How strange, Tutu thinks, as she lifts her hands to return the gem.

(Crow? thinks Duck.)

But before she has time even to process, the orange gem hanging above her throat - looking slightly gaudy, even for a magical princess, above the elaborate red gem of her office - begins to darken.

Tutu gasps - and then lets out what can only be called a shriek, high-pitched and ungraceful, as black vines lash out around her legs, her arms, her torso. The orange gem acts as the clasp for a cloak of black feathers.

Princess Tutu is bound.

Duck has a Plan! A Plan to team up with Mytho and get him away from scary Fakir and then working together they'll get his heart shards back! It's a great, Miss Edel-endorsed Plan and Duck is very proud of it.

The Plan runs into its first snag when Duck realizes that in duck shape (she obviously can't go leave a note in Mytho's locker as a girl!) she'll have some difficulty getting the door to the boy's locker room open. That's okay, though - Maximo comes out while she's waiting, and she can sneak in around the edge of the door as it closes.

The Plan hits its second snag when Mytho's locker turns out also to be closed. Fortunately, Gold Crown Academy's lockers are as flimsy as those at most boarding schools - however rich in magic gold, fairy tales are not known for budgeting a lot of cash for gym repairs - and a couple of firm kicks from a webbed foot send it flying open. Duck deposits her letter inside, hits the locker door closed again, and leans back against it with a sigh of relief . . .

- and then the Plan hits the third snag, as she hears the door starting to open again. No one is supposed to catch her in here! They'll totally think it's weird if they see a duck in the locker room! Hastily, Duck flutters into Mytho's locker and peers out - just in time to see Iguanadon, who is a very sweet kid with very sharp teeth and a taste for poultry, saunter in.

Hopefully he can't smell as well as Crocodellia can . . .

Fortunately, the door opens this time into the courtyard between the housing buildings, rather than into the middle of the girl's dormitory.

Duck wipes away a relieved sweatdrop (she really doesn't need to get more of a reputation with Lilie!) and then turns to Trowa and Duo, beaming. "So this is my school! That's where I live and that's where the boy's dorm is and the dance building's over there just down that road -"

The courtyard is very green. In the middle is a fountain made of black stone; a prince holds a princess aloft in a ballet pose. Several students are sitting around the fountain's edge or on the green hill going up towards the school, chattering with each other or reading books from the library - apparently it's lunch break.

She just wants to help Mytho one more time - that's all. She really doesn't plan to be Princess Tutu again for any longer than that.

But she can't just let him drown!

And she can't save him while she's just a duck. She can't. She can't do anything unless she's Princess Tutu. So when she sees the pendant floating in the water in front of her, she swims through it without a pause and lets the magic work . . .

She lands at the bottom of the river - she can breathe, of course, she doesn't think twice about this - and sees Mytho standing before her, cringing back a little.

Which is extra awful because no matter how confused she is as Duck, she's never uncertain when she's Princess Tutu. Princess Tutu always knows what to do.

But her feet don't falter, and her mimes, as she urges Mytho to return to the surface with her, are the essence of grace. That's the nice thing about being a magical princess. And when Princess Tutu breaks down and cries as she tries to tell Mytho how she just wanted to help him - how she never imagined how much he would suffer because of her - even her tears are beautiful.

When Duck cries, her mouth is open and her eyes are red and she bawls. When Duck cries, Fakir tells her that she's an eyesore and shoves her into a wall and storms off.

When Tutu cries, Mytho steps forward and holds out a hand, and tells her not to weep, that he'll come back with her. And Tutu looks up and smiles, her face as unstained as if she was never crying at all, and brings them back up to the surface.

But once they're firmly on the ground, Tutu turns to Mytho, and realizes, to her astonishment, that now she has saved him again she doesn't quite know what to say.

"Oh, I, uh, I'm sorry," she says, and feels unnervingly like Duck as she stammers. "But I'm afraid this will be the last time."

Mytho just stares at her. But this isn't really unusual, so she forges on. This is right . . . isn't it?

"I promise to never appear before you again. So don't worry," she says, hands at her sides, with no mime to accompany her words, and then, as Mytho still doesn't answer - "well, uh. Goodbye," she says, at a loss for more, and turns to go. Her steps are light and determined as she walks away, and her heels touch down on the grass.

"Wait!"

Duck - no, Tutu - pauses.

"I understand a little of what I'm feeling right now," Mytho says, voice halting. "These are feelings of loneliness, and of sorrow. I don't want you to just disappear."

"But I haven't brought you anything but pain," Tutu says, without turning.

"I don't care," Mytho says. It's the most determined she's ever heard him sound. "Even if it hurts, when I think of you, I can feel a small light being kindled and come to life in my heart."

Now Tutu does turn her head to look at him. "So can I."

"If you disappear, I feel like that light would be snuffed out and vanish with you. That's why I fear," Mytho says. His eyes start to brim with tears.

(Mytho cries beautifully too, of course. A fairytale prince could hardly do less.)

"I want you to restore my heart, Tutu."

Tutu stands frozen as Mytho steps towards her. "The voice that comes from this river is most likely my desire for knowledge. Return it to my heart?"

She should be certain now. He said it himself - he did! He wants her to restore his heart, and, as if in answer to his words, the red Mytho-shadow comes pirouetting up out of the river, ready to return to him. But -

"But -"

I see, says the shard. So I am you, and you are me.

No one pays it any attention. "Are you sure?" Tutu says, and, when Mytho nods, steps forward, very slowly, hands out for the shard -

But then there is an interruption.

So what if Pique and Lilie were making a really scary face when they told her about the Prodding Bridge? There couldn't really be a mean ghost that threw people in the water -

- okay, sometimes there really were mean ghosts around town, but Pique and Lilie said people went to the bridge to ask questions all the time! So there wasn't anything to be worried about.

"Nothing to be scared of," she chants to herself, her feet keeping time as she marches along the cobblestones, "nothing to be scared of -"

But she knows that's not really true. Mytho hasn't been back to school in days and days, ever since he got the most recent heartshard back. He could be really suffering, and it could be her fault. And that's sure something to be scared of . . .

(And so is the idea of giving up her pendant and going back to being a duck forever.)

That's a different kind of scary than ghosts, though.

"I just want to be sure I know what I should do!"

The 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.