Princess Tutu -- The Sunken Cathedral, Fakir/Ahiru
Title: The Sunken Cathedral
Author/Artist: mithrigil
Fandom: Princess Tutu
Pairing: Fakir / Ahiru
Rating: PG - a little bestial, well, technically.
Also, end-of-anime spoilers.
Prompt: Ahiru wants to dance en pointe - Fakir is willing to be used as the barre.
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Usually, she leaves him alone when he’s on the shore. Usually; if it’s raining, or if he’s especially depressed-looking (which he isn’t today, not really, well, just the langly sort of tired that makes him look a little older-wait, how old is he?), or if he smiles at her, it’s an open invitation, and she’ll pad out of the lake, (usually) remember to shake herself off, and sidle over. Today it’s because of all three things at the same time-it doesn’t rain much, this is kind of a treat!-and when she scrambles up into his lap, yep, it’s because the page is blank. It’s usually because the page is blank.
(He doesn’t doodle in the margins or anything. Why that doesn’t make sense, she can’t know.)
So it’s raining, and he’s tired, and he smiles at her through both of those things so that his eyes look like wet frogskin, and the page is blank-well, she means there isn’t any ink on it. It’s got spots. She tells him that it’s silly for him to write in the rain. He probably doesn’t understand, not the whole thing, but she tells him anyway. And she tells him that sleeping might be better for him too.
Nope, he definitely didn’t understand. All he does is smile a little more and ruffle her crown, but that’s okay too, and she could have sworn she shook off all the water. Oh. Rain, right. His shirt’s wet too. Not her fault. But it’s not uncomfortable.
Maybe she’s still making sound in her throat-she hardly ever stops, really-but he seems to be listening, not just to her but to something she can’t hear. She looks up and asks what’s wrong, thunder maybe? Maybe. But he pats her and she scoots aside. Oh, he’s going to write something! But it’s raining. She tells him so.
But he’s smiling. And tired. And he tends to care more about writing than rain. So.
She has to turn around to see what he’s scrawling, which means trying not to tramp so much or flap so much, and she does try. His pen still shakes, though.
Oh. She remembers some of these words!
Nearby, Artek, who most of the town thought was crazy anyway, began to play a modern piece that suited the rain quite well. Fakir’s handwriting is really good, Ahiru thinks, if she can still understand it.
And it’s true, too. (But Fakir’s writing it, so it must be true, or true soon.) She can hear the music (the rain must be really soft!) and it’s like the stuff that Femio danced to, which was strange when he danced it but isn’t now, it’s really pretty. Ahiru thought that it was possible to get sick of water-sounds but guesses it isn’t, if this song makes her so happy. It sounds like church and the past and a land far away, more like the past before stories, where even authors don’t go.
Fakir keeps writing. His hair’s stuck to his cheeks.
It is a song with absent voices, a chant, and a slow, somber tone, not without hope.
Does she-? Yes. She does. And she wants to.
Maybe the rain’s a little stronger, and the grass around the lake is tall and really slippery. The ink’s smudging, and she pouts up at him, but he just keeps writing. He doesn’t even stop to rub the pen against his chin like he usually does. The quill is dripping. Its feather isn’t as good as hers. And she can’t see what he’s writing anymore from this angle, but the music’s still going. And there, that’s the start of a count of eight!
Steadying her wing on his thigh, she turns out her feet, remembers she doesn’t have knees, and plié s anyway.
…It’s really easy to remember! She’s danced before in the shape of a duck, and it was Fakir telling the story then-is it him doing that now? doesn’t matter, it’s nice to dance again. She goes through positions and forms, first first, second second, and the song is very slow and very moving, so it’s easy. Except she isn’t sure how she’s doing it, but then, she wasn’t a really good dancer even when she was a girl, so it probably doesn’t matter now. It’s wonderful to dance, it always is, and Fakir’s leg is just the right height to be a barre when she’s this small, so. He isn’t even shifting. And he’s warm, under the rain. Oh, right. Rain.
There’s a quick lightning-clap, but Ahiru stops bothering to listen for the thunder. Fifth position is really difficult! Maybe the thunder never comes. She wonders what Fakir is writing now, and he’s still writing, even though the edges of his page look black from here. Wow, the ink is really smudgy. She tells him that maybe he should stop. He doesn’t understand, though.
But he does stop, when she’s run out of positions and the monks start chanting underneath the piano music and the time signature goes away. The rain is strong, really strong, Ahiru feels smaller than ever, and when Fakir shuts his book with the pen sticking out of it the book feels bigger, louder. Maybe that was the thunderclap. But he reaches past her wing and closes his hands around her belly (she feels dry) and swigs her up into a lift.
It’s like flying without being able to fly! She cranes her neck, points her toes (wait, she doesn’t have any toes), spots her eyes on his and they still look like frogskin, his eyelashes all cloudy with the rain. She misses eyelashes. And Fakir’s are nice, even darker than his hair. He holds her still and gentle and her wings keep the rain off his face, so the water that’s already there beads and runs down and she really wants to be human again so when she tells him that he looks clean and old and sad, he can understand.
Well, she tries anyway.
But then his mouth is on her beak.
…Um.
He’s warm and wet there. Tastes different than the rain. Um. She should stop fluttering. Wait, it’s only her heart that’s fluttering. Oh. Um.
Hey, where’d the music go?