(no subject)
Rue should get changed, and she should sleep. But instead she’s sitting on the edge of her bed, dressed for class, staring at her dresser. There’s some inertia holding her there, like if she moves…if she moves...
She never finishes the thought. There’s a noise, at her window, and she looks over, scared startled.
And she moves. She walks to the window, and looks out, and sees the eyes.
It’s like she’s in a dream. That explains everything. That explains how she follows, when the raven flies away.
--
They are standing behind some trees, the girl and the raven, but the girl still sees Fakir running off, frantic. She still sees the waterspout from the river, Princess Tutu and the Prince stepping off of it.
Tutu turns to go, but Mytho stops her.
He says, wait. He says, I don't want you to just disappear. He says, when I think of you, I can feel a small light being kindled.
The girl stands there. She can’t move. She can’t think.
He tells Tutu, restore my heart.
She feels her lips part, in a silent gasp-silent because there’s no air in her lungs, because she’s burning and she-
The raven next to her shifts, and she thinks it pleased.
--
Tutu puts her hands out for the shard, and the girl’s lips tighten.
--
The world is black and tumultuous, the world is always black and tumultuous, but from a sudden lull in the storm the ballerina in black descends.
“Who are you?” calls the other ballerina, bright and shining, and she laughs.
“Princess Kraehe.”
“Princess Kraehe?” asks the other, but Kraehe is not listening.
Kraehe is opening her hand to pull out the shard, red and glistening and alive. “What is this?” she asks, mildly.
“Give it back!” demands the other.
“I won’t!” She snaps, suddenly angered. How dare this intruder try to command her? “I will give you nothing. I will let you do nothing.”
The anger boils over into feathers, sent at the other, making her stumble. Princess Kraehe laughs. “Don’t get close to the Prince.”
Her laugh hitches on the thought, reality intruding on this nightmare-dream. “Who am I?” she asks herself, and in another storm of feathers she disappears.
She takes the Prince, and the shard, with her.
--
Mytho is safely asleep, lying in the cottage where Fakir will find him. By him, like a lady's favor, is a raven feather.
--
Rue sleeps in her bed, drained. She never did change out of her clothes.
(When she wakes up, she’ll remind herself that the fading unpleasantness was a dream. But that doesn’t explain the ache in her heart.)