Work Text:
The lake was like something out of a dream. An overnight cold snap had left the pond covered in ice, solid and glistening in the morning sun. What had started as a heavy rain had changed into snow that transformed the cabin and the pond into a pristine, winter wonderland.
Fakir inhaled deep; the crisp air seared his lungs and it was a struggle to hold it as long as he did. He let it go, coughing as he did and watching the mist of his breath float away into the early sunlight. Although he ought to go back in and get a coat, he found himself grinning at the transformed landscape, grinning at the sky, heavy and grey with snow it had yet to shed. Another inch maybe? Perhaps if he was going to live at the edge of a town that still bore the vestiges of enchantment, he should learn to read the weather better.
“Ahiru, come see the lake,” he called back into the cabin.
No response.
He stepped back inside and let the door close behind him, turning to look into the dimly lit cabin interior. It wasn’t much to speak of, just a tiny kitchen and a sitting room, a bedroom and a bath. Fakir crossed the room in a few strides, leaning into the bedroom to look for her.
The bed was unmade, blankets thrown haphazardly from when Fakir had awakened and gone to look at the snow through more than the tiny window over the bed. Beside his pillow at the head of the bed, a nest of twigs and bright ribbons and soft, downy yellow duck feathers still contained the sleeping shape of Ahiru.
It still brought a smile every time he confirmed she was still there, that she hadn’t been lost to the story. Whether she was a duck or a girl, Ahiru had never been a morning person. Now that she could no longer chide Fakir into feeding the birds which had gone south for the winter she was even less inclined to get up with the sun.
“Hey sleepy,” Fakir addressed her as he climbed onto the bed. He reached one hand to tease yellow feathers when Ahiru stubbornly curled into a smaller ball than she already was. “Is that the sort of day it is? You don’t want to see the snow?”
At first Ahiru quacked drowsily into her own feathers, warm and content in her nest. But the prospect of snow caught her interest. Slowly she lifted her head to peer up into his green eyes, quietly inquiring if there was really snow. She didn’t ask with words of course, being merely a duck, but Fakir had an uncanny ability to parse her meaning from body language and voice. And though they were no longer a part of any story but their own, his ability to understand her had improved as he’d accepted his role as a writer.
“It’s real. If you want to go for a swim today I’ll have to break the ice for you. Come on, dummy.”
Fakir flicked the single feather that refused to lay flat on her head, then left her to decide if he was teasing her or not. He stopped beside the worn, antique desk in the living room, ink-stained fingers turning an open book slightly so it was angled where he could read the old, cramped handwriting. It was impossible to stop a smile when he heard the pat-a-pat of duck feet on the floor, but he could hide it at least.
“Deigned to join me, princess?” he asked, looking down at Ahiru next to his ankle.
She squawked indignantly, ruffling her feathers at him. Of course she had come to join him, he didn’t need to be all bristley about it. But then she looked up and saw the smile he’d been trying to hide, curling the edges of his mouth and making wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. She loved when he smiled, Fakir had such a naturally stern face that it surprised her everytime she saw it soften when he smiled or laughed or when he felt particularly satisfied with something he’d written.
Ahiru padded across the room to the door, quacking at it on arrival. Fakir was only a few steps behind her, strolling to push the heavy wood open for her. The air was just as cold as he had experienced it first thing that morning, but Ahiru couldn’t hide her delight. She stopped just at the edge of the doorway where the snow was nearly as tall as her, straining up onto her toes to see out. Everything sparkled, bright and white like something out of a dream. Something in a story.
“Do you want me to-”
Fakir stopped in the middle of asking if Ahiru wanted a boost up onto the snow when she ran face first into it. There was a minor fall of snow into the house as she all but disappeared into the snow. The only indication of her position in the snow was a gold feather sticking up at an odd angle as Ahiru waded toward the pond.
For a brief moment, Fakir tried to smother his laughter, but it was only Ahiru who would see it. Ahiru who knew the worst of him and still came back for him, who saw the best in him when no one else did. So he laughed, bent double and releasing the strict hold he’d long ago learned to keep on his feelings. Fakir laughed until his eyes watered and Ahiru had come back to see what he found so funny. With her wings on his boot, peering up at him, just the delight in having her here made Fakir start to laugh all over again.
“Sorry I’m sorry it’s just that-” he said, trying to stifle the last giggled that wouldn’t stop. “Your feather.”
She blinked up at him, then turned to look back at the snow she’d emerged from. It was a fresh delight when she understood and her eyes lit up. He’d read that ducks couldn’t laugh but Fakir could feel the joy radiating from her, could see how the light in her eyes danced and he would have sworn she laughed. Perhaps Ahiru was a duck but she would never be just a duck in his eyes.
“Let’s see if you can stay on top of the snow maybe? You’ve basically got snow shoes for feet and it’s going to be a lot easier to see where you’re going.”
Ahiru lit up all over again; it hadn’t even occurred to her that she might be able to walk on the snow. As always she was ready to take the hardest path and, as ever, she would reach her destination through will alone.
He bent and scooped Ahiru up in one hand. She always loved the swooping sensation of her heart when she moved so quickly in his hands. Fakir’s face when he was laughing was her favorite, but she loved his hands at any time. How his fingers were always inky and sometimes left her feathers dark when he would pet her mid-thought while he wrote. The scar that went right through, one side to the other. Ahiru always knew she was safe in his hands, whether he was just picking her up or when she trusted her fate to his words.
“Don’t stay out too long, I’ll leave the door open just a little so you can come back in.”
Fakir set her on top of the glistening snow as he spoke. There was a brief moment as the snow gave beneath Ahiru’s feet before it stopped and she loudly proclaimed her happiness. But then she looked up at him, tone changing as though to ask if he was coming out with her or not.
“I’ve got an idea for a story, but I’ll be right here.”
Ahiru ran out to her pond first, watching through the solid ice to see if she could find any fish. Did fish still swim in the winter or did they freeze in the ice? It was lucky she had Fakir to keep her warm in the winter. She was only a duck after all, what if she had been frozen in the lake as well?
Her feathers were enough to keep her body warm but it wasn’t long before Ahiru’s feet had gotten cold playing in the snow. With a final, loud quack to tell the winter snow she could be back, she waddled back to the cabin and worked her body through the barely open door. Fakir was where she had left him, head down over a manuscript while he worked on bringing a story to life.
One of their first things they had done after moving into the cabin was to build ramps up to many of the higher surfaces that Ahiru might want to get to. Her favorite was, of course, the ramp leading up to Fakir’s desk. He spent a lot of time there and sometimes he would forget about the rest of the world if she let him. Ahiru stepped up onto the desk and Fakir shifted his frown from the papers in front of him to her.
“It’s not quite ready yet. Can I read it to you in a little while?” Fakir asked, his frown easing into the familiar expression of someone struggling to get the words right.
Ahiru quacked, climbing into her second nest and settling in to keep him company and warm herself up on the soft lining of the nest. The sound of Fakir’s pen scratching at the paper was soft and reassuring and lulled Ahiru to sleep before long.
“Always sleeping. Come on, dummy. It’s time for a story.”
Fakir’s voice roused Ahiru from a dream of being a girl and she stretched to shake off the last of it and remind herself of her body and her wings. She was a duck. But she was a duck who got to listen to all of Fakir’s stories. She nibbled at his inky-stained thumb and climbed into his offered hands and settled into the safety of his grasp while they walked out into the snow. Fakir had to wade through it, hard now after an afternoon of thaw and then freezing again when the sun had sunk down.
“Once upon a time,” he began the story, talking soft and low and just for Ahiru to hear. “There was a handsome prince. He had already found his own happy ending with his princess, but that didn’t mean that his story was over.”
Ahiru picked up her head and blinked at the underside of Fakir’s chin, giving him her full attention. They didn’t often talk about Mytho and Rue, though Ahiru could tell when they did that Fakir missed his friends. Ahiru missed them and it warmed her to hear Fakir tell a story about them.
“And even though the prince had a happy ending, it doesn’t mean that his story ended, because he had friends he still missed,” Fakir continued the story.
Because Ahiru was still looking at him, Fakir drew her attention toward the pond, jerking his chin so she would look in the right direction. She turned her head, watching a swirl of snow sparkle in the moon as a gust of wind kicked it up.
“So when the princess asked to go and see their friends, the prince agreed on the condition that they only came to dance so that they would not risk trapping their friends in a story again.”
The shining swirl of snow swept up higher and Ahiru couldn’t look away. Ephemeral and barely solid enough to be a shape, the snow resolved into Rue and Mytho skating together on the ice. Ahiru fluffed herself and quietly quacked her awe at the sight of them. They skated as beautifully as they danced, so in tune with another that they could have been formed from one soul. It took Ahiru’s breath away.
“Do you want to dance with Mytho?” Fakir asked, his voice soft and close. Out on the ice, Mytho and Rue twirled away from one another, the prince coming to the edge of the ice near where Fakir and Ahiru were.
Ahiru nibbled at the ink stain on Fakir’s thumb one more time before jumping down and fluttering down onto the snow as gracefully as a duck could. Mytho was made entirely of snow but she could see that it was him, his eyes and the way he smiled at her, the angle of his wrist as he held a hand out to her.
They twirled out onto the ice, Ahiru entirely held up by the dancing snow. Mytho always made her feel graceful, whether she was a girl or a duck. Ahiru skated with Mytho. She skated with Rue, dancing across the snow as light as if she was Princess Tutu once again.
Fakir was content where he stood, watching the wind-driven snow take on the form and a bit of the story that was Mytho and Rue. He smiled as Ahiru skated with them, kicking up her own shape in the snow so that he could see all three of them. The prince, the princess, and Princess Tutu; all three of them graceful and dancing on ice too light to support an actual person.
The wind died down and Ahiru stopped on the shore, deposited safely by Mytho and unaware she had briefly been more than a duck. In his eyes she had never been just a duck, and it was beautiful to see her believe it too, just for a moment.
“Happy because they had seen their friends again, the princess and the prince returned to their story, to continue to live happily ever after,” Fakir finished the story. Even if the snow-shapes of their friends had dissolved, he didn’t want to leave a story unfinished ever again.
Beside herself with delight, Ahiru ran to his feet and threw herself around his ankle. She didn’t know how to thank Fakir, oblivious that this was his way of thanking her for being who she was.
“Come inside before you catch a cold, dummy,” Fakir said, extra gruff to cover how pleased he was that his surprise had worked out so well.
He held the door and watched as Ahiru danced gracefully back into the cabin. Perhaps he couldn’t say he loved her, but he would find ways to prove it.