Tales of glory written in the dust

fairytaleknight @ 2015-02-03T14:53:00

2015-02-03T19:55:51Z

[Before: "Drosselmeyer killed them," Fakir breathes. "And he used me to do it."]

The first gray shock is turning into anger by the time Fakir finds his way to the Milliways ballet practice room. Fakir wants to pour his rage into leaps and fouettes, to dance until his mind and body are one, utterly focused on the demands of each step.

Unfortunately, Fakir's initiation wasn't even a full day ago, and his legs and feet have not recovered from sixty-four hours spent standing.

Begin at the beginning.

Fakir grips the barre and moves into first position. If he can't throw himself into a sequence of leaps, he'll throw himself into the warmup drills.

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The Spinners: The test

2015-01-27T20:20:35Z

"Straighten up. Now I have to put you to the test."

Fakir gets to his feet, his eyes still on the family tree Autor showed him. I'm a descendant of Drosselmeyer? A direct descendant?

My ancestry is not the point.

"I'm ready," says Fakir. "Test me."

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fairytaleknight @ 2013-03-02T21:31:00

2013-03-03T02:50:10Z

Every morning in Goldkrone, the clockwork prince and princess, swan and knight, spin out from the window of the great clock tower. Every morning, the dance students meet in the salle, stretching their legs, practicing their steps. Every morning, Mr. Cat gives the same lecture, yells at the same probationary class, proposes marriage to the same --

That isn't the same lecture, Fakir thinks, listening to Mr. Cat describe his great teacher Meowzinsky, and watching as Mr. Cat shows the precious shoes his teacher gave him. It's a new day.

...where's Mytho?

But when Fakir hurries out of the salle to find his roommate, the door opens on Milliways instead of on the Academy campus.

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OOC: Princess Tutu at Milliways: continuing onward in canon?

2013-02-23T14:28:52Z

Hi, everyone.

As I think I told you all, I've been immersed in Princess Tutu for the last month with Mark Watches, so now I both miss Fakir and am in love with Season 2 again. I've also been watching the lovely work of Autor (herr_bookman) and Lohengrin/the Knight (knightoftheswan).

I spoke to Autor's player, who has followed what Duck, Fakir, Rue and Uzura did at Milliways, and who has done everything she can to make her play compatible with the rest of the Princess Tutu group. Thus, her Autor, like the rest of our characters (except Lohengrin, who is obviously from a different point in time) is currently at the break between seasons/first few minutes of episode 14.

I'm promising myself that I get to play Fakir as soon as I catch up on grading, i.e. if I can finish the current stack of papers before the next stack comes in. I move that when I do, we move onward in canon. Does that make sense?

I don't think we should play through canon scenes in groups unless we're actively changing them, this time. I for one don't have time for that! Individual OOMs from individual characters' perspectives are great, but if the scenes are the same, I vote there's no need to play them together.

So now the question becomes, where in canon do I come in, and do you guys have any preferences? The second half of episode 14 goes straight in to episode 15. I'm thinking that, for Fakir, the point right after he leaves Mr. Cat's office in 15, when everyone thinks he pushed Mytho out the window, is an interesting spot...

Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Corrections?

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This is happily ever after

2012-01-18T05:27:03Z

[Later on this day]

The girls in the salle mutter to themselves: What happened to Fakir? Why is he wearing those bandages? Maybe he got in a fight! Who did he fight with?

Mr. Cat ignores them, and turns his baleful gaze on Fakir. "That," says Mr. Cat, "was the most pathetic excuse for a leap I have seen from you in years. Go home."

"But--" Fakir tries to protest.

"You are not going to learn anything if you persist in attempting difficult routines with those injuries. Go home. Practice the basic steps there, as often as you can. I expect you back in a week."

Fakir ignores the girls watching him as he walks out to the dressing room.

***

In the smithy, Karon is paring black soot off scraps of wood. He doesn't look up when Fakir comes in. "Sit on a stool," Karon says. "Before you fall over."

Fakir sits, less to be obedient and more because the walk through Kinkan Town was more draining than he'd prefer to admit. "Let me help," Fakir says.

Karon does look up this time, surveying his adopted son with the eye of a craftsman examining a damaged object. (It is, in fact, the same look he gave to the piece of wood in his hands.)

"All right," Karon answers, after a moment. "Put on these work gloves, first, to keep your hands from getting cut up any further, and start untangling this knot of wires. Here are the pliers."

Fakir works in silence, feeling the quiet of the smithy enter his mind. This is peace, he thinks. This is happily ever after.

***

Fakir can't breathe in the cold water(but it wasn't like that). A raven's beak pecks at his chest, tracing the purple edges of his birthmark in blood. The raven isn't even wet. Puppets, someone says, follow only the pull of their strings. "So who," Fakir says (how am I talking, anyway?) as he chokes on green water, "is pulling mine?"

All at once Fakir is awake, in his childhood bedroom, sometime after midnight. He pulls on a blue bathrobe and pair of suede slippers and pads down the staircase to the smithy.

The pieces of Edel are on the larger worktable: a wooden staff now whittled into the form of a lower leg, a curved frame that will become a torso, a row of straightened wires, seven gears with the soot cleaned off of them, some unrecognizable black shapes. Fakir sits on a stool beside them.

"Why did you do it?" Fakir says. He can see her blank smile in his mind. "You didn't have to step in. I was ready to die. It's the Knight's job, you know."

Edel doesn't answer, of course.

"I appreciate that you're not giving me cryptic and unhelpful comments," Fakir says. "But I want to know. Did somebody pull your strings, or did you pull your own, in the end?"

Silence.

"I know the story by heart. The Knight stands between the Raven and the Prince. The Knight fails, and the Prince shatters his own heart. I was resigned. I told Princess Tutu to take care of Mytho. I broke the Prince's sword, so Mytho couldn't lose it all again. After that, my job was over. But you -- you gave me a light, to lead me home. You burned, so I could live."

Fakir closes his eyes, remembering the fire.

"I'm alive, and the battle's over. Am I still the Knight? I wish you could tell me, Edel, what did you give me my life back for?"

The pile on the table says nothing.

In the silence, Fakir goes back up to bed.

(Karon, in his bedroom adjoining the smithy, does not sleep for the rest of the night.)

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fairytaleknight @ 2012-01-24T23:59:00

2012-01-14T08:45:15Z

( work in progress )

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