Soo... yeah. I'm not really sure exactly what it was that inspired this. Ehm. I hope you enjoy it?

DISCLAIMER: Princess Tutu belongs to the wonderful Ikuko Itoh. I am in no way associated or affiliated. I'm just using her characters as life-sized dolls.

Once upon a time, there was a man who died.

That man's work was writing stories. The man had a power that brought his stories to life. His final work, his masterpiece, was left unfinished on his death. His two greatest characters, the Prince and the Raven, were locked in a never-ending battle that would never find a conclusion. Both grew tired of the everlasting struggle, and tried to flee the story.

But main characters cannot leave their stories behind them. Always the story follows, awaiting an ending, and so the Prince used a forbidden power to remove his own heart and seal away his ancient foe…

––

In this world, there is a story. In this world, that story is reality. In that story, there are roles that are written. The roles are always the same, but the characters are not. The story has no ending, and must continue throughout time, the light and the dark locked in a never-ending struggle while, around them, the other characters fall to their fates and, in time, are replaced by a new actor - a new actor to replay the same role, the same fate, over and over, until the end of time.

The Swan Princess is supposed to love the Prince. She is the vision of perfection, full of grace and beauty, kind and gentle. She dances to guide the hearts of the lost back into the light, and she tries to return the Prince's heart to him. Her fate is to vanish in a flash of light when she breaks the terms of her curse and confesses her love to the Prince in order to save him and lead him from the darkness.

The Prince's Knight is destined to be torn in two by ravens as he tries desperately to protect the Prince, a failed Knight led by a fruitless wish to defend the Prince he swore his loyalty to, a Knight faithful to the end though it cost him his life.

The Raven Princess also loves the Prince, desperately and hopelessly, but a prince does not need two princesses and he has eyes only for the light, shunning the darkness. After the Swan Princess is gone, leaving the Prince with only a fraction of his heart, the Raven Princess succumbs to despair and sacrifices herself to restore the raven that the Prince sealed away.

The Prince is destined to wander forever, lost, fighting against his ancient enemy, forgetting and remembering again and again. Over and over he cuts out his own heart in order to seal the foe away, with the forlorn hope that next time, things will be different.

The Raven is an eternal force of darkness, seeking only destruction, the avian body he was trapped in twisted and mutated into a horrible monster, a thing of nightmares. He cares not how many times he is bound, for he knows that his eventual triumph is inevitable. Darkness will always win.

And so, these five - the heartless Prince, the cursed Princess, the useless Knight, the dark Princess and the force of Darkness that hovers over them all - fight throughout the ages, three of them falling over and over only to be reborn anew. The stage is set. The story will be told.

Each of them struggles against these preordained events, and each of them inevitably falls. The very idea of fate is their undoing, because who can stand against something that is already decided?

Only once is it different, but once is all it takes.

This time, the Knight fights not for the Prince, but for the White Princess. She gives him strength, and he gives her courage. He fuels the hope that she never had so strongly before, and she gives him the hope that he never dared to have before.

He falls, as he always does, but she stands, and she dances. This time, she is fuelled not by love, but by hope – something that previous incarnations of the White Princess never had. The tears course down her cheeks, blind her, make ripples in the water that she dances on as if it were solid ground, but the Knight fought for her and she will not let his sacrifice go unanswered. She leads the Prince from the darkness with her dance, speaking her words of love without speaking. The stage crumbles. The course of events changes. And they fall.

The Raven Princess soaks the Prince's heart in darkness, turning him. The Knight, saved at the last minute by a puppet who wished to be human, fights alongside the White Princess against the Prince they tried so hard to protect.

The Raven Princess suffers silently, falling slowly into the darkness alongside her prince. She doesn't want to be alone, she cries to the sky, her tears blinding her, but she rejects the pity of the Swan Princess who loves her like a sister, she cannot, will not lose her Prince to her again, she won't be weak, and she vows - If she must destroy everything to have the only thing that she wants, she will.

The Knight lays down his sword in favour of a pen, and the White Princess becomes his muse. Together, they proclaim. Together, they will save the prince.

In the end, it is the Raven Princess's screamed words of love that pull the Prince from the darkness, as she falls into the pit of despair. The Swan Princess gives up everything to restore the last of his heart to him and returns to what she always was – neither a swan, nor a princess, or even a human, but merely a duck. The Prince struggles desperately against scores of ravens, with only a small yellow duck by his side.

The Knight who fights with a pen writes. Together, he tells the duck, and together they fight, not with a sword or any act of violence, but through dance. Once more, she dances to guide hearts out of the darkness. She is battered and broken by the ravens, but still she dances. The Knight gives her his strength, they share their courage and her hope pours from her, impossibly bright. Once again, for one last time, she is the Swan Princess, and their dance lends the Prince strength, and hope, and courage. He saves the Raven Princess from the pit of despair, and together they destroy the darkness once and for all.

The Prince takes the Raven Princess for his wife, and they are matched now that his heart, too, is tainted by the darkness. They leave, heading for their happy ending, but the Knight stays and writes, leading the town to its happy ending with the duck by his side and though they don't get their happy ending they are content, for now.

––

Once upon a time, the man wrote a story. He had intended it to be a tragedy, but instead it was brought to a happy conclusion by the man's own descendant and a small yellow duck that the man himself had pulled into the story. He can't understand.

The cursed Princess was written to love the Prince enough to sacrifice herself for him. She was written to be wise, but weak. She was supposed to fall quickly, uselessly, and instead she defied her fate and proved herself to be stronger than anyone else. What could possibly have changed her so much? What could have given her so much strength, so much hope, so much courage?

The dead man screams his defiance, uncomprehending of how, of why his tragedy was denied him. He ponders it as he searches for a new tragedy to amuse him, falling deeper and deeper into the madness that stole him away, the corrupt blackness that twisted his once-kind soul, the power that was too much for him to take.

So little is left of his once-great heart that he never realises it. He has forgotten love. He has forgotten how to love, what it feels like, and he has forgotten the signs of love. But one thing spins around in his unbalanced mind. The White Princess. Her entire character was based around her love for the prince, the love that was so strong she was willing to die for him. Why, then, did she not fade?

The riddle is unanswerable, for he doesn't understand the answer. He doesn't even understand the riddle.

He falls into nothingness, for a time, his mind spinning, twirling, leaping, jumping, dancing amongst the stars. And he remembers how to dream.

When he finally wakes, he understands.

And he laughs. He laughs hysterically, maniacally, feverishly, frenziedly.

He laughs until tears cloud his eyes, until his stomach hurts, until he should have died if he were not already dead.

And finally, the madman spoke, his voice echoing in the darkness and the silence:

"She was never meant to fall in love with the knight."

Soooo. Yeah. =P I dunno.

Hope you enjoyed it.