Aishuu Offers:
The Leaves Are Fading
mbsilvana@yahoo.com
Disclaimer: Not mine. "The Leaves Are Fading" ballet
is described as a "tragic love story as told in a
sequence of pas de deux."  	

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Once upon a time...

But that's not quite right.

It happens every day. The traditional fairytale
opening states it is a singular occurrence, but he
knows better, the knight-turned-writer. It is a daily
trial for him.

He wakes up in the morning, and has to fight with
himself. He knows the feeling so well that it's as
familiar to him as the scar on the back of his hand,
or the taste of his morning cup of tea. On the days
when its worst, he doesn't let himself touch his pen,
knowing that this time, he may finally give in.

Sometimes he wishes they had taken his hands so the
temptation didn't exist.									
"Do you ever wonder how powerful Drosselmeyer really
was?" he asked Aotoa one day. Of the townspeople,
Aotoa is the only one who seemed curiously immune from
the forgetfulness that had come to the rest of the
town.

Aotoa may not have been a main character, but perhaps
the blood of Drosselmeyer protects him.

The musician adjusted his glasses thoughtfully,
closing the book he had been perusing. "The power to
create worlds through stories - many people have it.
But it's the rare writer who's able to make them come
alive." He studied his distant cousin thoughtfully.
"He was the greatest, Fakir. Maybe the only reason you
won was because you are alive and he is dead. In the
end, that may have been the deciding difference."

It unsettled him. "I rewrote his ending," he said.

"Yes, but they say 'Dead men tell no tales.'  That's
true. A writer gains insight through their life
experience, and without suffering and joy.... well,
death stops it all. There is nothing after death.
Drosselmeyer tried to break that barrier, but even he
failed." Aotoa seemed a bit disappointed.

He didn't much like Aotoa, but he was the only one he
had to talk to, aside from her.

It's hard for him to be around her, on those bad days.

She's usually in the pond on the side on the house he
bought, floating in contentment. He wonders how she
can act like that, when the story used her so poorly.
She was the one who returned the Mytho's heart at
great cost, but the prince choose to rescue a princess
who manipulative and abused him.

"Ahiru?" he will say to her, and she always turns
towards him. But she never answers, because she lost
her voice when she gave the prince his hope back. She
is just a duck, and he is merely a broken knight who
has promised to remain with her forever.

He stares into her blue eyes, remembering that there
are more ways than just words to communicate. He, a
dancer, should know that better than anyone. There's a
softness in her expression when she looks at him,
sometimes an irritation when she quacks, but it's when
she dances that he can truly hear her.

She hasn't given up her dance.

It should look foolish, a duck doing ballet, but
everyday at noon, he takes his lunch and some bread
for her and goes to the dock to sit and watch. She
flies out of the water and next to him, and he sits
back, her audience of one. 

The dance is odd and graceful as she uses the basics
she learned from Neko-sensei to good effect, and the
remembered skill of Princess Tutu. Above all, there is
hope, there is joy, and there is love...

She is happy, she is trying to tell him. He knows
this, but he is angry on her behalf, since she doesn't
seem to have that in her. 

Anger has always been a part of him.

On rare occasions, when the feelings inside him are
too much, he will join her dance. He stretches
carefully, and then spins into a manic whirl of
movement, angry and unashamed of the fact. The
contrast between them is memorizing. 

Her dance is one of someone at peace; his is one of
turmoil.

Usually he feels better after letting it out like
that. The girls from school still want him as their
partner, but he won't even consider it. He will be
graduating soon, and has had offers from dance
companies from across the nation.

One of them has already taken Mytho and Rue. Already
stories are spreading about the beautiful pair who
seem to dance on air, the pure white prince and his
dark princess.

He knows he won't accept the offer from that company.

Sometimes he almost hates him, the glorious prince who
chose the daughter of a raven over her. If he had
chosen her, perhaps she would have remained as
Princess Tutu, for the power of the prince knows no
bounds. But he had loved Mytho for so long, and knows
that he can never really hate him

She had said it herself. She was just a duck, called
into a fairytale to assume a role no one else would
take. Still, resentment for the prince who had once
been his charge burns beneath his skin, and he knows
that his heart is divided. 

There is more than one way to be torn in two, he has
discovered.

Still, the one he is angriest at is himself.

He had been the one to bring the story to an end. If
he hadn't, she would still be able to speak, still be
a girl, still be able to laugh and be her friends. 

"The real you is a duck," he had told her, but he
didn't know what it would be like, not to hear her
answer.

"Let's go back to being our real selves," he had said
that day.

But was pretending such a bad thing?
						
"Let's bring this story to a conclusion," he had
encouraged, and she had agreed, finally relinquishing
Mytho's heart.

Would he have done it, if he would have known what it
truly meant for her?

Forever as a duck... but forever for a duck wasn't as
long as forever for a human.
					
His hands itch to rewrite the end, to give Princess
Tutu her prince, to allow her to dance the pas de deus
with him. That is his torment, knowing he could change
the past, simply by telling the tale again. 

But no. 

Mytho had been allowed to make his own choice, as had
Ahiru and Rue. That was the story he had told, to
defeat Drosselmeyer. That was her triumph, even as she
vanished into the flash of light she had feared all
along.

They had broken the bonds, and he wasn't going to take
that away from them.

So instead, he writes new stories, and makes sure each
story has a happy end, just in case life comes to it.
The life she lives now contains more than enough
sorrow for one lifetime.
		
Sometimes he wonders if Drosselmeyer hadn't created
the greatest tragedy of all, and is out there,
laughing at the foolish knight whose heart is torn in
two, and the little duck who was once the heroine of
the tale.

And here we should say the end, but this is not the
end, because there never is one. There is merely a
sense of closure, as a new story begins, with new
characters, as old ones are left behind, wondering if
they had defeated their fate after all.


~*~*~*~*~*~*~

For Raye and Xandra, may their paths never cross,
because then I'd never get ANYTHING constructive done.

~ Aishuu

=====
i won't search beyond the sea from now
the shining thing is always here
it can be found within myself
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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