Disclaimer: Not mine. Title belongs to e.e. cummings

time from time shall set us f r e e

I.

The ravens remain, even after the story is over.

At first, Fakir doesn't go near them, watching them with an ever wary eye. Charon seems confused about this sudden onslaught of paranoia, but Autor looks smug and all knowing which may just prove that some things never change.

'In real life, ravens don't kill parents, you know that?' which is Autor's way of trying to explain.

(but all fakir can think about is shrieks and blood and protectfakirkeephimaway and fires don't kill people like that, but ravens might)

He distrusts and avoids them for a month. Then one lands on his windowsill, and he looks at it and it looks at him.

Ah, he thinks, it is just a bird after all.

How strange and true.

i.

"Mytho-"

"Prince Siegfried," she corrects, swishing her dark hair behind her. She sounds bored, which he knows is her way of coping with being uncomfortable.

"He should have picked Princess Tutu. You know that."

He thinks for a moment that she might crumple and break. There were only so many times a person could crack and reform. But then she turns to him and smiles.

"Yes, yes, but then who would be left to take care of us?"

Ah, he thinks, I forgot I'm selfish too.

II.

Fakir quits going to the Dance Academy two months after the story ends. Charon is puzzled but accepts, though this time Autor is also surprised.

'I didn't think that you would actually give it up,' Autor muses, as if he had some part in the decision.

Fakir shrugs. He doesn't feel like he has to explain himself.

He signs up for the writing school instead and he writes stories that have neither sad nor happy endings.

'It would have been terrific, really,' his teacher explains, 'if only the conclusion had been clearer!'

Fakir nods but does not speak. He knows that he will not follow his teacher's advice.

Endings, after all, are not always so neatly tied up.

ii.

"You're happy now that you've got your heart back."

He tries to make it sound like a statement, but the question pours out anyway. He is not trying to force control anymore, so how could he know?

"Not always."

However, the pale boy's lips turn up a little in a smile.

"But I think that is nice, too. To be able to be sad as well as happy. Don't you think so?"

"Yes. Yes, that is a little nice…"

Even a little bit nicer than happily ever after.

III.

Even though he is no longer a dancer, Fakir still attracts girls at the academy.

One in particular reserves smiles just for him, and sometimes he wonders whether he should smile back.

She is nice (but not quite genuine enough), she is smart (but it's all about books and not about heart), and she dances gracefully and elegantly (but there is no passion, no spark).

'Humph,' Autor snorts, 'That girl wants you to ask her to the Fire Festival.'

'So?'

Autor looks at him with an expression that could almost be akin to pity.

'You know, it won't matter. Tutu is only a duck now…'

Autor doesn't understand.

Still, Fakir stops the girl on her way to class the next morning.

'Yes?' she asks, and he thinks she sounds hopeful.

'Would you-' her eyes are brown, not blue, her hair is black, not red, and he realizes he wouldn't be able to love her, it's as simple as that '-Never mind, I mistook you for someone else.'

She looks hurt and broken, and inwardly he feels guilty and nasty. But she gets over it and never looks back at him again.

The night of the Fire Festival he goes to the lake and writes. He has a promise to keep.

iii.

She's beautiful every time he sees her, even with her freckles sprawled across her nose and her skinny, clumsy legs.

'It's unfair of you to do this to me, you know.'

He meant it in jest, but like most things he says it comes across as more of an accusation.

'I'm sorry,' she says, face turned downward, 'I don't mean for it to hurt.'

He was expecting a fight, not an apology. It makes him feel worse.

'Hey, hey, don't… I didn't mean it like that. It's just that seeing you like this sometimes makes it harder for me to accept the ending we chose…'

'Should I stop coming then?'

Really, he should tell her yes. They don't belong together like this anymore.

But instead he takes her face in his hands, kisses her, and hopes she understands.

I love you.

IV.

The strangest thing about Goldecrowne, Fakir eventually decides, is the way it adapts itself to the end of the tale. Animals that once talked now walk on four legs, doors that were once sealed now open normally, and weather that once followed mood now operates itself to season.

A fairytale that was once realityfleshbone is now just peninkpaper.

So it goes.

Still, sometimes he thinks the town remembers if only for just a second.

'There was a boy here once, and didn't he look like a prince?' A lady might ask on the street.

'There was a girl here once, and didn't she look like a princess?' A man might ask at the store.

'And wasn't there also a duck, except she wasn't a duck she was girl except when she was being a swan?' And they wonder.

But then they laugh, and say 'no, no, of course not'.

Still, not all is entirely forgotten.

'And it's very silly, but sometimes I think I see them in my dreams. Isn't that very stupid?' Autor asks him one time.

Fakir smiles, catching Autor off guard.

'I see them too.'

And isn't that the strangest part?

iv.

"Shouldn't you be gone? You lost control of the story; you have no reason to be here anymore."

The old man leans farther back into his rocking chair and laughs.

"So you say, so you say. But this is your dream, not mine, so why don't you tell me?"

And the old man leers, confident in a way that he has always lacked.

"I don't know," he confesses, "But someday I will, and I'll move on from this story completely."

The old man laughs again in his disturbingly carefree manner.

"That is the spirit, my boy, oh isn't that the spirit…"

But in the meantime he still dreams about a proud raven, a wise prince, a loving duck, and a once powerful corpse.

It is not quite an ending, he thinks, but for now it is enough.

It is enough.

A/N: So I sort of discovered Princess Tutu and it is one of the most fabulous series out there. Seriously. And I'm sort of obssessed with it. So I was orginally going to write a SUPAR FLUFFY fic about it, but it kind of turned into this instead. Hopefully this is still ok! As always, constructive crit is very much welcome.