sakon76 | [rd][fic][Princess Tutu] Cygnus 6/?

Cygnus
by K. Stonham
first released 25 December 2012

Hakuchou blinked. "Do I know you...?" she asked the strange woman.

She received a smile that seemed practiced and not quite trustworthy. "No," the woman said. "But your father knows me. We are distant cousins, he and I."

"He's never mentioned you."

The woman's smile seemed a shade more genuine now. "He and I don't always see eye-to-eye."

"Oh." Hakuchou swallowed, wondering if she was doing a foolish thing, then rushed ahead anyway, asking, "Why are you here?"

"Well." The woman gestured at the warm, sleeping forms around them. "You know your family is under a curse?"

"Of course!"

"And you wish to break it?"

Hakuchou glared. That, she felt, didn't even need a reply.

"I," said the woman, "can give you the means to break the curse."

Hakuchou straightened, eyes going wide. "How?" she breathed, then gasped, shrinking back. There was a price for magic, Papa had told her. There was always a price.

"Smart girl."

She had to know the price. Hakuchou couldn't do much, but maybe she could do this. "How?" she asked again.

"It will take a year of your life. You will bleed. You will cry. And whether or not you succeed will depend entirely on yourself."

A year? Hakuchou's breath caught. But around them her family lay slumbering. How could she abandon them?

"I can do this," she told herself. "I can." She looked up, into the woman's eyes. "What must I do?"

"Walk with me." The woman rose with the dancer's grace Hakuchou had never possessed. Hakuchou scrambled up after her, going out into the moonlight. She could hear the surf lapping and the brook gurgling. But she could not hear the sound of the woman's feet as she walked through the forest.

After a few moments, the woman stopped and knelt. "Do you know this plant?" she asked, gesturing before herself.

Hakuchou nodded. "Nettle."

"And you know it can be made into fiber?"

"Yes."

"Good." The woman nodded. "Your task, the task that will free your mother and siblings, is to gather nettle and turn it to thread. Weave the thread into cloth. Sew the cloth into long shirts, one for each member of your family. And when you are done, when they all wear these shirts together before you in daylight, the curse will be broken."

"I... I don't have a spinning wheel," Hakuchou protested. "Not even a drop spindle! Let alone a loom, or scissors, or needles...."

"And," the woman said, ignoring the protests, "to give the spell you will weave its strength, you may not speak. Not from this dawn, until the day your task is complete. Not to your family, not to yourself... to no one. There is power in silence."

Hakuchou was breathing harshly at the sheer scope of the task before her. It was too big. She couldn't... she couldn't possibly succeed!

Unbidden, her hand crept to her mother's locket where it lay in the hollow of her throat.

"This is the only way?" she asked, just to be sure. "The only chance?"

The woman nodded. "The choice, of course, is yours."

Hakuchou took one last shuddering breath, then nodded. "I'll do it." Stepping forward, she knelt, and, steeling herself against its stinging pain, uprooted the nettle plant.

*

Fakir's breath hissed through his clenched teeth. "Cousin," he grated.

She accepted the task, his reply came. Do you not believe she can do it?

Closing his eyes, Fakir took a deep breath. Hakuchou... could complete the task. She was diligent, and stubborn, and had a goal worth working toward, unlike school grades. She was good with her hands, and her heart and mind were as pure as poppies.

But as a father, he never wanted her to suffer.

Opening his eyes again, he breathed out regret, and let go of things he could not change. Reaching for his quill, he dipped it into his inkwell, and wrote instead of the things he could.

In the middle of the forest, not too far from the seaside cave, a great field of nettles spread, carpeting the ground as thickly as gems in a dwarf's mine.

And the magician, the writer, the father, wept for the pain in his daughter's blistering hands.

*

It was almost dawn by the time Hakuchou returned to the cave, her arms piled high with nettles. At least there was that huge field of nettles not too far away. Lucky!

She dumped the pile against a wall and tried to rub feeling back into her hands, with no success. They hurt. They only hurt. She bit her lip. She had said she would do this, and she would. A little bit of pain wasn't going to keep her from getting her family back!

As the sky lightened, her brothers and sister and mother began to wake. The fire had burned low, to embers, and the cave was chilly. Hakuchou rushed over, stirring the embers with a long stick as she put some more deadwood in the stone ring. It took a moment, but then it caught, little yellow flames licking at their new fuel.

"Hakuchou?" Pieter levered himself up on one elbow. "I had the strangest dream, little sister."

"Me too," said Edmund, sitting up and stretching. "About you and a witch...."

"Oh, Hakuchou knows better than to make deals with witches," Tanzy laughed. "Don't you, dear?"

Only her mother didn't laugh at that, staring wide-eyed at her youngest. "Hakuchou," she asked, "what have you done?"

Sunlight spilled across the mountains, and through the trees, and into the cave, bathing them all in light.

In an instant, the cave contained only a mute girl in a torn school uniform, and nine white swans, all staring at her, aghast.

*~*~*

Author's Note: And the final Christmas chapter for this year. Some story I may actually have to name this mystery cousin of Fakir's. But all she's ever let me know about her is that she looks somewhat like Edel. :/ Nettles, for those who've never dealt with them, hurt to touch. They're not called "stinging nettles" for no reason. They pop up in my kitchen garden like weeds every winter/spring, and I will not deal with them bare-handed. Fortunately, once you cook them, they lose the sting and are tasty, tasty greens indeed. The first five parts of this story may be found by clicking the Princess Tutu tag. Happy Christmas!

[rd][fic][Princess Tutu] Cygnus 6/?

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