12.6

[fairytaleknight]

The tunnel opens on a spiral staircase in red sandstone, and then on a set of rough, uneven paths overlooking a cliff face.

Faint light, radiating from nowhere in particular, shows that these paths, too, and the great stone walls to the right of the paths, are also built of red sandstone. The air is damp and cool, and something, somewhere, is dripping.

Fakir walks quickly; there's no reason to dawdle. Duck can just do her best to keep up.

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[reallyaduck]

Duck scurries along behind, craning her neck.

It's dark, and the reddish walls are kind of a creepy color - and it gets creepier when one wall falls away, revealing an epic drop beyond that. And on the ground -

Duck cranes her neck over, trying to see what might in fact be on the ground. But as far down as she can see . . . there's just nothing.

She leans further out. "Waaaa . . . scary!"

[fairytaleknight]

Great. On the way to a climactic battle, Fakir has to be nursemaid to a girl who can't be trusted not to fall into a pit.

"Idiot!" Fakir snaps, grabbing Duck by her dangling ponytail and pulling her backwards. "Walk towards the middle! You're already careless enough as it is."

[reallyaduck]

"Ow ow ow ow ow -"

Duck wobbles herself back to something approximating balance, then stares at Fakir's back as he walks on.

Did he just . . . save her? Was he worried about her?

There's a smile on Duck's face as she races after him . . . and bangs straight into a wall.

Oops.

[fairytaleknight]

Fakir stands and waits for her. "You're saving the graceful-and-wise bit for later, I see."

But, despite the words, he sounds genuinely and pleasantly amused.

[reallyaduck]

"- huh? Ohhh . . ."

Duck makes a face at him, but there's no real malice behind it. He did wait for her.



She thinks about this for a few moments, as the lighting of the scene goes from red-tinted to blue. Fakir has been acting different. Like a person who talks, sort of.

"Hey, Fakir . . .?"

[fairytaleknight]

Fakir, walking ahead of Duck, threads his way through a cave of stalactites and stalagmites. He doesn't turn around. "What is it?"

[reallyaduck]

. . . and Duck's nerve fails her.

He looks really kind of preoccupied and maybe he's not as friendly now as she thought and what she's going to say isn't all that important anyways so . . .

"Uh, it's nothing . . ."

[fairytaleknight]

"What the heck?" Fakir keeps walking. The destination is ahead, somewhere, and when they get there, this conversation will be over. "If you didn't want to say, just keep your mouth shut."

[reallyaduck]

Duck steels herself.

"N-no, it's just . . ."

One foot in front of the other, Duck. He pulled you away from the cliff, Duck, he's probably not going to try to shove you off again just for trying to say thanks.

"I don't think you're no good as a knight or anything, you know," she blurts out.

[fairytaleknight]

Fakir halts halfway through a step, and then attempts to cover the pause by speed-walking again.

What right does she even have to say that?

But Duck did hear all the insults that Kraehe tossed at him. Maybe she's replying to them.

Fakir sighs. He can't just ignore Duck, if she's down in the underground passageways and about to fight ravens at his side. "What are you getting at?"

[reallyaduck]

"I'm not really trying to get at anything," Duck protests, trying to keep up.

"It's just - I didn't think you were very nice when we first met -" (Maybe he hadn't noticed.) "- but now I feel like I know you a little better -"

[fairytaleknight]

Nice? Niceness is not an advantage for a warrior.

Before Duck can say anything even more embarrassing, Fakir interrupts. "I'll say this right now. I have no intention of cooperating with you."

Walking fast enough so that Duck has to fall behind, he finishes, "I'll help Mytho in my own way. End of story."

And perhaps I can find somewhere to put you so you stay out of this battle.

[reallyaduck]

Duck sighs, and scurries after him.

"I know that . . ."

He'll help her but he won't cooperate with her. 'cause he thinks he has to do everything alone, and he doesn't think she'll be useful. She gets it.

[fairytaleknight]

[continued from above thread]

Fakir doesn't swim very often.

That's why he's grimly holding on to Duck's hand as she drags him along underwater.

Any moment now, he may run out of breath.

[reallyaduck]

"We can get to the other side through the water," Duck explains as she tows him along - apparently oblivious to the fact that sound doesn't usually carry underwater.

(But the rules are different, in Gold Crown Town.)

"I smelled a different kind of water . . . so there must be a lake up this way!"

Her eyes are fixed ahead. She can feel Fakir's hanging on, right? And it's most important for her to get them where they need to go!

(She's a lot more graceful in the water than she is on land.)

[fairytaleknight]

Fakir, for once, follows Duck's lead.

In the water, her hand feels surprisingly soft through Fakir's glove.

Huh.

[reallyaduck]

Duck reaches the edge first and squirms her way up out of the water, pausing to make sure Fakir's got something to hold onto before she lets go of his hand.

Once she's out, she turns around and grins back at him, irritation, for the moment, forgotten. They made it!

"See? It seems like we can go further in, doesn't it? I'm sure Mytho will be there . . ."

Fakir's being weirdly quiet. (It would be less weird if he looked sulkier, but . . . he actually doesn't.) He's not getting out of the water, either. Duck squints down at him, wet skirt draping the ground around her and soggy bangs drooping around her face. "Were you okay, Fakir?"

[fairytaleknight]

Fakir hasn't bothered to get out of the water yet because he's thinking.

Also, his mouth is twitching.

That's a lie, actually. Fakir is smiling.

[reallyaduck]

". . . what?"

Fakir's making a weird face . . .

Duck resists the urge to tug at her hair.

[fairytaleknight]

Fakir's almost laughing, in fact.

"A duck is Princess Tutu, huh?"

It really is funny, he thinks.

Fakir pushes himself up with both hands and clambers onto the shore. He's soaked and filthy; his black shirt and knee-length breeches, already torn in yesterday's battle, have been ripped further by Fakir's fall from the ledge and by rocks underwater.

He doesn't care.

There's Duck, who swims better than she walks, who can hardly take three steps without falling down, who is a small yellow duck transformed into a girl, who -- yes -- is Princess Tutu.

Fakir wants, for some reason he can't even fathom, to give her something.

"Now, I have something you'll want to hear," Fakir says as he stands.

He turns away from Duck and leans against the side of the cave, right hand raised. His left hand rests against the scabbard of his sword.

"Back when I was still a brat, when I was reading The Prince and the Raven to Mytho, the thing that he showed the strongest interest in was neither what happened to himself nor the Raven, but what happened to Tutu, about whom only a little was actually written."

[reallyaduck]

Duck turns her gaze to follow him as e moves onto the shore, her eyes enormous.

She thinks it may be the most she's ever heard him say at once . . . . well, to her, at least. (He talks a lot more to her when she's a duck. But even then . . .)

[fairytaleknight]

Fakir looks thoughtfully into nowhere, the water dripping down his hair.

Duck deserves to hear this story. It's her story, after all. And-- and Mytho will need her love, soon.

"He wanted to hear over and over again the part where Tutu turns into a speck of light and then vanishes."

Fakir doesn't pause, but he does bend his head and close his eyes. The pain this costs him shows in his face, which Duck can't see, but not in his voice.

"His sudden desire to regain his heart most likely stems from Tutu's role in returning it."

Fakir is formally withdrawing from the lists. He never had a chance of winning Mytho for himself.

Besides, it's too late now.

[reallyaduck]

Mytho wants to see Tutu; she knows that. But - he wanted to see her before Duck was Tutu? Before Tutu even really existed?

She looks at Fakir, wondering: why is he telling her this now?

She's never heard how the Prince feels about Tutu, in the story. Hers is a tragic love . . . but what does he think?


"But . . . Mytho took out his own heart," she says, suddenly remembering that bit of the story as well.

[fairytaleknight]

Fakir leans against the wall, head bowed, right arm crossed over his chest.

Even turned away from Duck, as he is, he looks vulnerable, unguarded.

"That's the kind of guy he is."

I've never really thought about what I liked about Mytho or anything, Duck said.

Fakir knows what he loves about Mytho. He can tell Duck. She can remember it for him.
(Well, besides the fact that Mytho walks around Fakir's bedroom with no pants on.)
"Well, you see, protecting the small and the weak, that is Mytho's single greatest desire, and to fulfill that he'll cast off any regard for himself. Even the loss of his heart couldn't tear that out of him."

Fakir raises his head again. He can see the memory: Mytho, climbing into the burning building. Fakir was ten at the time, and furious, but Mytho... Mytho looked just the same as he does now.

Mytho protected the small and the weak. Fakir protected Mytho. It was the only way Fakir could be like him.

"That's Mytho."

[reallyaduck]

As Fakir speaks, Duck starts to smile - small and earnest.

Yeah. Yeah, Fakir's right. It's not just that Mytho's eyes are sad . . . it's also that they're kind.

(Fakir thinks it's important, too.

There's a small warmth that she feels, knowing she was right about the real Fakir.)

"Mm," she says, with a tiny nod.