If music be the food of love...
Title: The Food of Love
Fandom: Princess Tutu
Pairing: Mythos/Tutu, implied Mythos/Fakir
Rating: G
Genre: humor, angst
A/N: Set near the beginning of Season 2. Written for the PT gift exchange, for ladyairy.
“Fakir,” Mythos’ voice echoes through the early morning stillness of their room, and even in his bleary half-asleep state, Fakir can hear a faint question in it.
Fakir splashes cold water in his face, grimacing as icy droplets trickle down his neck, and marvels once more as he seems to daily since Princess Tutu began returning the prince’s heart, at hearing emotion in a voice that has been as impersonal as the moon for as long as he can remember.
At Fakir’s grunt of acknowledgment from the bathroom, Mythos continues, “What’s a sonnet?”
Fakir, never a morning person, is thrown completely off balance by the unexpected question. “Where did you learn that word?” he asks in disbelieving tones as if Mythos has uttered an obscenity.
“There was this strange boy…” Mythos answers.
Fakir, scowling already, steps out of the bathroom and catches a glimpse of Mythos' face: pale eyebrows puckered, puzzlement in his amber eyes.
“I went to look for you at the library last night when you didn’t come back because,” a pause, and then, Mythos’ expression and voice lighten with the wonder of an understanding he has forgotten ever existed, “because I was lonely. And there was this boy, lost in a book. Like you. Except it wasn’t you.” And Fakir wonders if all this time, heartless, Mythos has never noticed the faces around him except when they insisted on making their presence felt, like his, like Rue’s. Like Tutu’s.
Mythos can’t find the words to explain how he had walked down the empty, shadowed aisles lined with books that looked all the same to him, all somehow dark, sinister and how relieved he had been at catching sight of a figure that had at first seemed so familiar. But when the boy had turned, the face was not what he had expected, not what he had wanted.
The other boy’s eyes hadn’t revealed any expression, had merely given Mythos’ own face back to him, as he asked, “Have you come to find your story?” There was an eagerness in the other boy’s voice that was lost on Mythos, too fine an emotion for him to perceive, and so the prince had merely echoed, “Story?” And then, because for him, all stories led to one inevitable ending, “Princess Tutu?”
“She’s not part of your story. That’s not her fate.”
“What is her fate?" he had asked, uncertainty and worry creeping into his tone, and Mythos had been startled again at the strange intensity, the unexpected sharpness, and unlooked for brightness that emotions lent to everything.
The other boy’s glasses went opaque as he tilted his head slightly, a trick of the light Mythos knew, but he could not help feeling that there was something hidden behind the light-filled glass all the same. “Surely you know the ending of that story. Rather, ask yourself, what are your feelings for her? Then you will know her fate.”
“My feelings for her? How do I find them out?” Mythos asked intrigued. “Who will tell me?”
And at that, the bespectacled boy had smirked in a way that reminded Mythos a little of Fakir, and he had felt more at ease, once more in the realm of the familiar. “Well,” the other responded, “I have it on rather good authority that poetry is the food of love. Try writing her a sonnet, telling her how much you love her.”
“But I don’t know how much I love her.”
“That is why you write the sonnet, to find out.”
“The sonnet will tell me?”
“If it’s a fine, stout, healthy love, poetry will nourish it,” the other boy recited, as if quoting an authority. “‘But if it is only a slight, thin sort of inclination, one good sonnet will starve it entirely away.’ That’s what all the books say. Write the sonnet and you will find out one way or the other.” (1)
No matter how many times Fakir tells Mythos to dismiss the ridiculous notion, the other boy can’t seem to let it go.
“Have you ever been in love?” Mythos asks him the next morning and Fakir sputters, choking a little on his toothpaste. “Did a sonnet tell you that you were?”
At last, in order to stem the never-ending stream of questions, Fakir shoves a book of love poetry in Mythos’ hands that he has picked up hastily from the library with a muttered, “Here, any of these should do. They’re not all sonnets, but that doesn’t matter. They’re love poems. Go read some and figure it out yourself.” Fakir hurries away before he can be asked any more difficult or awkward questions.
And so, Mythos sits down diligently with the small leather-bound volume, puzzling over its pages. My love is like a red red rose, Mythos reads, and frowns in thought (2). Does that mean his love too is like a red red rose? Would it be better to say his love is like a large white bird? How is he to tell?
He closes his eyes, hoping a red red rose will rise in his mind’s eye as he thinks of Tutu. He tries to recall her in all the detail he can, trying to separate her body into its parts as all the poems seem to. He tries to picture her blue eyes as so many of the sonnets mention eyes, that he is certain there must be some secret to them, the shape of her fingers because he is always watching her hands as she mimes and dances, her small nose because it is an organ entirely neglected by the poems and he wonders at its absence. But as he tries to imagine her face in bits and pieces as all the sonnets do, he feels more and more uncertain of what she actually looks like.
He turns to the book once more, glancing at lines. Is her mouth a gate with pearls and rubies richly dight? (3) He tries to imagine her mouth full of rubies and pearls in place of teeth, and shudders a little-in fear? he is not certain of the precise emotion, but feels discomposed in any case-at the picture his mind conjures. No, Tutu certainly does not have such an unnatural smile. Is there a garden in her face where roses and white lilies grow? (4) Surely he would have noticed, surely it would be odd if there were flowers in her face. He is quite certain there aren’t any. Perhaps these poems were written in a land far away where women have golden wires for hair and plants in their skin?
He does not feel any wiser than when he began the project, though. He does not know how much he loves or even if he does. He closes his eyes in one last attempt, calling up the feeling that wells in his heart when Tutu appears, willing it to be a red red rose.
And indeed, it is as if his entire being is awash in a warm, crimson light. “A red red rose,” he exclaims aloud in his delighted surprise, and although there is no rose only that light, he basks in the gentle warmth that seems to embrace him. Is this his feeling of love? Is this what he feels for Tutu? But before he can even attempt to answer the question, the light of his love begins to swallow him whole, curving into a hateful, ravenous eye.
He clutches at his heart in agony as the malicious red light stabs through him, closing eyes that for a moment, for a hair’s-breadth of time, flicker from gold to red.
(1) Lifted from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice:
“I wonder who first discovered the efficacy of poetry in driving away love!”
“I have been used to consider poetry as the food of love,” said Darcy.
“Of a fine, stout, healthy love it may. Every thing nourishes what is strong already. But if it be only a slight, thin sort of inclination, I am convinced that one good sonnet will starve it entirely away.”
(2) Robert Burns, “My love is like a red, red rose”
(3) Edmund Spenser, Sonnet LXXI
(4) Thomas Campion “There is a garden in her face”
Fandom: Princess Tutu
Pairing: Mythos/Tutu, implied Mythos/Fakir
Rating: G
Genre: humor, angst
A/N: Set near the beginning of Season 2. Written for the PT gift exchange, for ladyairy.
“Fakir,” Mythos’ voice echoes through the early morning stillness of their room, and even in his bleary half-asleep state, Fakir can hear a faint question in it.
Fakir splashes cold water in his face, grimacing as icy droplets trickle down his neck, and marvels once more as he seems to daily since Princess Tutu began returning the prince’s heart, at hearing emotion in a voice that has been as impersonal as the moon for as long as he can remember.
At Fakir’s grunt of acknowledgment from the bathroom, Mythos continues, “What’s a sonnet?”
Fakir, never a morning person, is thrown completely off balance by the unexpected question. “Where did you learn that word?” he asks in disbelieving tones as if Mythos has uttered an obscenity.
“There was this strange boy…” Mythos answers.
Fakir, scowling already, steps out of the bathroom and catches a glimpse of Mythos' face: pale eyebrows puckered, puzzlement in his amber eyes.
“I went to look for you at the library last night when you didn’t come back because,” a pause, and then, Mythos’ expression and voice lighten with the wonder of an understanding he has forgotten ever existed, “because I was lonely. And there was this boy, lost in a book. Like you. Except it wasn’t you.” And Fakir wonders if all this time, heartless, Mythos has never noticed the faces around him except when they insisted on making their presence felt, like his, like Rue’s. Like Tutu’s.
Mythos can’t find the words to explain how he had walked down the empty, shadowed aisles lined with books that looked all the same to him, all somehow dark, sinister and how relieved he had been at catching sight of a figure that had at first seemed so familiar. But when the boy had turned, the face was not what he had expected, not what he had wanted.
The other boy’s eyes hadn’t revealed any expression, had merely given Mythos’ own face back to him, as he asked, “Have you come to find your story?” There was an eagerness in the other boy’s voice that was lost on Mythos, too fine an emotion for him to perceive, and so the prince had merely echoed, “Story?” And then, because for him, all stories led to one inevitable ending, “Princess Tutu?”
“She’s not part of your story. That’s not her fate.”
“What is her fate?" he had asked, uncertainty and worry creeping into his tone, and Mythos had been startled again at the strange intensity, the unexpected sharpness, and unlooked for brightness that emotions lent to everything.
The other boy’s glasses went opaque as he tilted his head slightly, a trick of the light Mythos knew, but he could not help feeling that there was something hidden behind the light-filled glass all the same. “Surely you know the ending of that story. Rather, ask yourself, what are your feelings for her? Then you will know her fate.”
“My feelings for her? How do I find them out?” Mythos asked intrigued. “Who will tell me?”
And at that, the bespectacled boy had smirked in a way that reminded Mythos a little of Fakir, and he had felt more at ease, once more in the realm of the familiar. “Well,” the other responded, “I have it on rather good authority that poetry is the food of love. Try writing her a sonnet, telling her how much you love her.”
“But I don’t know how much I love her.”
“That is why you write the sonnet, to find out.”
“The sonnet will tell me?”
“If it’s a fine, stout, healthy love, poetry will nourish it,” the other boy recited, as if quoting an authority. “‘But if it is only a slight, thin sort of inclination, one good sonnet will starve it entirely away.’ That’s what all the books say. Write the sonnet and you will find out one way or the other.” (1)
No matter how many times Fakir tells Mythos to dismiss the ridiculous notion, the other boy can’t seem to let it go.
“Have you ever been in love?” Mythos asks him the next morning and Fakir sputters, choking a little on his toothpaste. “Did a sonnet tell you that you were?”
At last, in order to stem the never-ending stream of questions, Fakir shoves a book of love poetry in Mythos’ hands that he has picked up hastily from the library with a muttered, “Here, any of these should do. They’re not all sonnets, but that doesn’t matter. They’re love poems. Go read some and figure it out yourself.” Fakir hurries away before he can be asked any more difficult or awkward questions.
And so, Mythos sits down diligently with the small leather-bound volume, puzzling over its pages. My love is like a red red rose, Mythos reads, and frowns in thought (2). Does that mean his love too is like a red red rose? Would it be better to say his love is like a large white bird? How is he to tell?
He closes his eyes, hoping a red red rose will rise in his mind’s eye as he thinks of Tutu. He tries to recall her in all the detail he can, trying to separate her body into its parts as all the poems seem to. He tries to picture her blue eyes as so many of the sonnets mention eyes, that he is certain there must be some secret to them, the shape of her fingers because he is always watching her hands as she mimes and dances, her small nose because it is an organ entirely neglected by the poems and he wonders at its absence. But as he tries to imagine her face in bits and pieces as all the sonnets do, he feels more and more uncertain of what she actually looks like.
He turns to the book once more, glancing at lines. Is her mouth a gate with pearls and rubies richly dight? (3) He tries to imagine her mouth full of rubies and pearls in place of teeth, and shudders a little-in fear? he is not certain of the precise emotion, but feels discomposed in any case-at the picture his mind conjures. No, Tutu certainly does not have such an unnatural smile. Is there a garden in her face where roses and white lilies grow? (4) Surely he would have noticed, surely it would be odd if there were flowers in her face. He is quite certain there aren’t any. Perhaps these poems were written in a land far away where women have golden wires for hair and plants in their skin?
He does not feel any wiser than when he began the project, though. He does not know how much he loves or even if he does. He closes his eyes in one last attempt, calling up the feeling that wells in his heart when Tutu appears, willing it to be a red red rose.
And indeed, it is as if his entire being is awash in a warm, crimson light. “A red red rose,” he exclaims aloud in his delighted surprise, and although there is no rose only that light, he basks in the gentle warmth that seems to embrace him. Is this his feeling of love? Is this what he feels for Tutu? But before he can even attempt to answer the question, the light of his love begins to swallow him whole, curving into a hateful, ravenous eye.
He clutches at his heart in agony as the malicious red light stabs through him, closing eyes that for a moment, for a hair’s-breadth of time, flicker from gold to red.
(1) Lifted from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice:
“I wonder who first discovered the efficacy of poetry in driving away love!”
“I have been used to consider poetry as the food of love,” said Darcy.
“Of a fine, stout, healthy love it may. Every thing nourishes what is strong already. But if it be only a slight, thin sort of inclination, I am convinced that one good sonnet will starve it entirely away.”
(2) Robert Burns, “My love is like a red, red rose”
(3) Edmund Spenser, Sonnet LXXI
(4) Thomas Campion “There is a garden in her face”