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"There is no Rue."
Duck leaned heavily on the railing, staring down at the twirling and leaping advanced class. Pique and Lilie had gone back to the dorm more than half an hour ago, but Duck couldn't pull her eyes away from the girl that led the class in dance. Tchaikovsky sang from the piano's keys, a melody that would usually fill Duck's heart with warmth, but she hadn't found much joy in her favorite songs in the past weeks.
If Rue knew that Duck was watching, she didn't acknowledge her. Her steps were precise, elegant, smooth, even as her eyes seemed focused on something far away. Those movements, the look on her face, were so familiar. Had Duck not known otherwise, she would seem no different from the upperclassman Duck had so earnestly admired only a few months before.
When Rue danced, Duck could not--would not--believe that she could be anyone else.
Duck's heart stuttered as the teacher drew Rue and another girl aside, and the two began to practice a pas de deux. Duck had watched the other girl practice this dance before, with one of the male students, but he didn't seem to be here today. Perhaps he was ill? It didn't matter really. Duck couldn't even manage the illusion of sympathy for the missing dancer as she watched Rue perfectly, confidently accompany the other girl through their dance. The sinking feeling that resided in her heart when she looked at Rue changed direction, becoming a rising pressure in her throat, making her breaths shudder and her eyes sting.
"Just follow my lead."
Duck remembered--of course she did, how couldn't she?--the feeling of Rue directing Duck's hands with her own, the firm touch at the small of her back, the strong grip lifting her into the air. The girl Rue danced with now didn't need the guidance Duck had. Rue probably liked dancing with her a lot better, liked being able to focus on her own movements rather than lead along a wobbly klutz like Duck.
She'd said as much, hadn't she? Kraehe had pulled no punches in criticizing Duck's fumbling performance.
Had Rue thought such things about Duck the whole time?
Duck took a gasping breath as warm tears began to make their stuttering way down her cheeks.
She couldn't watch this anymore.
Did Rue notice when she ran away?
"Rue, please!"
"I've told you before: There is no Rue!"
As many times as she had heard it, the pain inflicted by those words never dulled. The venom that spilt from Kraehe's painted lips never became easier to swallow. Even in her guise as the brave, noble Princess Tutu, Duck faltered, heart squeezing and eyes burning. The confidence and serenity the transformation usually gifted to her was shoved out of her body by desperation as she latched tightly onto Kraehe's arm.
"Please, Rue, wait!"
Red eyes, colder than such a color had any right to be, regarded Tutu's trembling form and quivering lip. Kraehe's lips turned up in a sneer as she jerked her arm away.
Eyes that once couldn't meet Duck's as Rue flushed. Lips that had hesitantly smiled at her at the very beginning of their friendship.
"Why do you insist on calling me that? I am Princess Kraehe. Your Rue never existed."
"Yes she did!" The trembling of Tutu's body echoed in her voice, easily slipping through the cracks of her elegant mask. "I know- I know- Rue was-!"
Kraehe's eyes narrowed as Tutu stumbled over her words. She wondered if Kraehe could hear the sobs she gulped down, desperate to make herself heard, her feelings known.
"Rue was . . . Rue is my friend. She's talented--She's a lot more talented than me but- but she doesn't make me feel like my practice is useless. She d-danced a pas de deux with me and it was- it's one of my favorite memories! I'd never had so much fun dancing, before."
Kraehe silenced a sudden gasp, but not quickly enough to prevent Tutu's hearing, not quickly enough to keep Tutu from seeing the way her mask of indifference faltered, cruel red eyes widening and wine colored lips parting just slightly.
Tutu continued.
"I remember when Rue . . . When you got all dressed up for the fire festival," a weak smile played at the very edges of Tutu's lips, even as she blinked away building tears, "and you looked so beautiful. I thought . . . You must have been the prettiest girl in the whole town. I don't think you knew, did you, Rue? When I told you how-"
A twinge. Tutu swallowed down a shuddering breath.
"When I told you how nice you and Mytho would look together you got so red, and you couldn't even look at me, remember?"
Kraehe jerked her head aside, crossing her arms over her chest. Dark nails dug into her skin, making little divots.
"I just didn't want to look at the obvious jealousy on your face when you saw that I had won again."
Words fell from Tutu's lips before Duck's heart had even a chance to know how true they were.
"I was jealous, Rue, but I wasn't jealous of you."
Wide red eyes turned back to Tutu's face, and the open, startled expression was all Rue.
"Q-Qua-!"
As Duck's mind caught up with Tutu's words, she turned a pirouette and fled into the night.
Ducking behind yet another corner, Duck wrapped her hand tightly around her pendant, gasping for air as she used her other hand to brace herself against the wall.
She hadn't thought avoiding Rue would be this difficult, with how much Rue usually ignored her outside of her Kraehe guise. Yet today she had no end of trouble trying to find a corner of the school that Rue wasn't pacing through, eyes searching and lips frowning.
Duck pulled her hand away from her chest, taking the pendant with it, gazing down into the red that Tutu slept the day away in. Her own words, in her own voice, echoed in her mind.
"But I wasn't jealous of you."
She remembered watching from around a corner as Mytho and Rue danced, the warmth of a lamp upon her face. She remembered the tightening of her heart, the sinking feeling in her stomach and the squeezing pain in her throat. She remembered the shameful envy that had bloomed in her chest as she had watched the couple dance in the firelight, but she could not remember who she had been envious of.
How could that be? She had felt so guilty for envying her friend, hadn't she? She had thought herself so selfish for wishing she had been in Rue's place, hadn't she? Wasn't it Mytho's smile she wanted to see directed at her?
Or had it been the way Rue looked up from beneath her lashes, cheeks flushed and lips curled in a tiny smile, that Duck had wished for all along?
This wasn't right, was it?
Everything she had done up until now, the very reason she was in the place she was--that was because of Mytho, wasn't it? How could the aim of her heart drifted so far without her noticing?
Duck released the pendant, feeling it bounce once, twice against her chest, and took in a long, shaky breath, closing her eyes.
When she opened her eyes again, a familiar pair of brown eyes glared into them. Duck choked upon her steadying breath, losing sight of Rue's eyes as she descended into a coughing fit.
"What did you mean, you weren't jealous of me?"
"R-Rue-"
"Don't start that again! Answer my question."
Duck's pendant weighed heavily against her chest, the chill of cold metal seeping past her clothes. She bit her lip, taking shaky breaths in and out of her nose. Tutu would disappear if she confessed, wouldn't she? Did it matter that Rue wasn't the prince?
"I'm . . . I don't know . . ."
"Don't give me that!" Rue snapped, stomping her foot. "What did you mean, Tutu?"
Tutu. Right.
Duck looked up at Rue through pale lashes, fisting her hands at her sides.
"I . . . don't know if I'm allowed to say, Rue."
The moment before Rue turned on her heel and ran was possibly the longest three seconds of Duck's life.
"Duck! Duck, wait!"
Tutu stumbled, pointe shoe wobbling beneath her, and she barely kept her balance as she swung around to see Kraehe, arm outstretched, eyes afraid, trembling.
"Rue?"
The sound of her name made Kraehe flinch, turning her face away from Tutu, drawing her arm back and wrapping it around herself. Tutu's chest tightened as her face was illuminated with the glow of her pendant, and Duck--plain old Duck--stood before the trembling raven princess.
"Rue."
Kraehe took a faltering step back as Duck reached for her, but did not jerk her hand away, once caught. The glistening in her red eyes grew into heavy tears, tracing down her sharp cheeks.
"Why--I'm a crow, so why--How can you love me?"
Duck shook her head. "It doesn't matter, Rue. If Rue is a human, or if Rue is a crow, I lo-"
A finger pressed sharply, insistently against her lips.
"Don't. Don't say it. You might-"
"If vanishing would bring you back, I would do it." Duck said, grasping both of Kraehe's hands in her own, stepping into the circle created between them, "Rue, if I say it, and I vanish, that means it's true, y'know?"
Kraehe ducked her head, bare shoulders shaking with hiccups and sobs. "You don't- you don't have to prove it like that. Please . . . I can't- I have to- the prince-"
"I know," said Duck, resting her head against Kraehe's, "I'm not a prince. I'm not even a real princess. I'm sorry."
par Kraehe shook her head, looking up at Duck from beneath dark lashes. "Don't . . . Don't."
A sharply clawed hand loosed itself from Duck's grip, rising to cradle her cheek, thumb stroking her lip.
"Duck."
"Rue?"
Kraehe closed her eyes, and whispered.
"Say that again."
"Rue."
"Again."
"Rue."
"Once more?"
Duck closed her eyes, and pressed a light kiss to Kraehe's painted lips. As she pulled away, Kraehe chased after her, kissing her again and again, smearing lipstick and tears on her face. Duck smiled into the kiss, raising a hand to press gently against Kraehe's chest, making her look at her face once more.
"Rue."