It is barely autumn and Rue thinks she is probably six. She didn't worry much about her age until a few weeks ago, when the air was a little warmer and the children of Kinkan had still been playing on the streets. Now those same children are tucked away inside school rooms that protect them from the wind that rustles leaves and sends them down in bright swirls over her and the prince.
Rue tries to catch the leaves, but they whirl too quickly for her little hands. The prince looks at her efforts quietly, not showing any signs that he minds when leaves land in his hair instead. He inclines his head obligingly when she asks, so she can shape th
The first thing Kraehe ever learned was that she was in the wrong place. The second was that she wasn't ever going to find the right place.
Skirting around the edges of the world of the crows and peeking around the curtains at Kinkan Town got her by for a while. Neither was the right setting for someone like her, but as long as nobody caught her where she wasn't supposed to be, she was all right. And when nobody else was around, she didn't have to worry about being seen.
Letting the prince, of all people, see her had been an accident. But when he looked at her and his expression didn't change, his eyes reflecting back at her, she learned th
Ahiru didn't doubt that her spring had run dry. All the same, she wasn't unhappy.
Not being caught up in looking for Mytho's heart shards or his latest victim left a surprising amount of extra time in her days. She could get in more dance practice--maybe not enough to qualify her for a spot in the advanced class, at least not for a long time yet, but she had been allowed to finally start learning pointe. And then there was still even more time--time to chat with Pique and Lilie, time to find Autor in the library and ask him which stories had happy endings, time to read those stories and then tell Fakir all about them. It would always turn ou
Coming up behind her as she sat at the kitchen table not-really-doing-her-homework, Fakir emptied a handful of yellow fluff on top of Ahiru's head. "This is getting ridiculous."
"Huh?!" Letting out a small squawk in surprise, Ahiru endeavored to brush the light yellow feathers out of her hair, scattering them all over the floor in the process. "But I thought we already found them all!"
"Shouldn't you know where you left them?" Fakir had already fetched the broom from the corner and started to sweep up the pile of old down.
Turning around in the chair, Ahiru huffed. "Well, you can't talk about it! You don't know what it's like to molt! You
"Hey--hey, Fakir! Wait up, wait up, wait up!"
Fakir missed only a beat before he started walking faster.
"FAKIR, HEY, I said WAIT, y'know!"
He gave no indication of having heard her, and instead quickly stepped into the library. His feet took him upstairs to a far corner in the stacks, at a pace so quick that Autor looked up with irritation when Fakir passed him, though Fakir's silence gave him nothing to actually scold about.
But he could not escape her, at least not for very long. The disadvantage of the location he'd chosen was that, while it was obscure to the common visitor of the library, there was no way to get out without ultimate
Ahiru spent all that afternoon at the barre. She went through the basics over and over, continuing long after her muscles ached and begged her to give it a rest. Anything, anything besides thinking about that....
She was still going at it, in fact, when the voice of her instructor greeted her with rare praise. "Miss Ahiru, this is quite a change! I see I've finally gotten through to you... !"
"Ah--!" she paused in the middle of lifting her leg in an arabesque behind her, not quite completing the pose and so making a rather awkward show. But Mr. Cat was not deterred.
"You have found your true motivation, haven't you? Could it be--could it b
When Fakir danced, there was power in it. He could do what others simply couldn't. His lean body could perform feats that belied a seemingly impossible strength. Audiences were left amazed, wondering how anyone could move so quickly, jump so high, and do it all with such grace as made it appear easy. He looked superhuman on the stage.
Ahiru looked rather less than human. She was more likely to trip and fall than execute a jeté, more likely to stumble than glissade across the dance floor. And even something in the way she walked just normally, when she wasn't dancing at all, looked awkward.
Critics wrote in their reviews about how poor
It is barely autumn and Rue thinks she is probably six. She didn't worry much about her age until a few weeks ago, when the air was a little warmer and the children of Kinkan had still been playing on the streets. Now those same children are tucked away inside school rooms that protect them from the wind that rustles leaves and sends them down in bright swirls over her and the prince.
Rue tries to catch the leaves, but they whirl too quickly for her little hands. The prince looks at her efforts quietly, not showing any signs that he minds when leaves land in his hair instead. He inclines his head obligingly when she asks, so she can shape th
The first thing Kraehe ever learned was that she was in the wrong place. The second was that she wasn't ever going to find the right place.
Skirting around the edges of the world of the crows and peeking around the curtains at Kinkan Town got her by for a while. Neither was the right setting for someone like her, but as long as nobody caught her where she wasn't supposed to be, she was all right. And when nobody else was around, she didn't have to worry about being seen.
Letting the prince, of all people, see her had been an accident. But when he looked at her and his expression didn't change, his eyes reflecting back at her, she learned th
Ahiru didn't doubt that her spring had run dry. All the same, she wasn't unhappy.
Not being caught up in looking for Mytho's heart shards or his latest victim left a surprising amount of extra time in her days. She could get in more dance practice--maybe not enough to qualify her for a spot in the advanced class, at least not for a long time yet, but she had been allowed to finally start learning pointe. And then there was still even more time--time to chat with Pique and Lilie, time to find Autor in the library and ask him which stories had happy endings, time to read those stories and then tell Fakir all about them. It would always turn ou
Coming up behind her as she sat at the kitchen table not-really-doing-her-homework, Fakir emptied a handful of yellow fluff on top of Ahiru's head. "This is getting ridiculous."
"Huh?!" Letting out a small squawk in surprise, Ahiru endeavored to brush the light yellow feathers out of her hair, scattering them all over the floor in the process. "But I thought we already found them all!"
"Shouldn't you know where you left them?" Fakir had already fetched the broom from the corner and started to sweep up the pile of old down.
Turning around in the chair, Ahiru huffed. "Well, you can't talk about it! You don't know what it's like to molt! You
"Hey--hey, Fakir! Wait up, wait up, wait up!"
Fakir missed only a beat before he started walking faster.
"FAKIR, HEY, I said WAIT, y'know!"
He gave no indication of having heard her, and instead quickly stepped into the library. His feet took him upstairs to a far corner in the stacks, at a pace so quick that Autor looked up with irritation when Fakir passed him, though Fakir's silence gave him nothing to actually scold about.
But he could not escape her, at least not for very long. The disadvantage of the location he'd chosen was that, while it was obscure to the common visitor of the library, there was no way to get out without ultimate
Ahiru spent all that afternoon at the barre. She went through the basics over and over, continuing long after her muscles ached and begged her to give it a rest. Anything, anything besides thinking about that....
She was still going at it, in fact, when the voice of her instructor greeted her with rare praise. "Miss Ahiru, this is quite a change! I see I've finally gotten through to you... !"
"Ah--!" she paused in the middle of lifting her leg in an arabesque behind her, not quite completing the pose and so making a rather awkward show. But Mr. Cat was not deterred.
"You have found your true motivation, haven't you? Could it be--could it b
When Fakir danced, there was power in it. He could do what others simply couldn't. His lean body could perform feats that belied a seemingly impossible strength. Audiences were left amazed, wondering how anyone could move so quickly, jump so high, and do it all with such grace as made it appear easy. He looked superhuman on the stage.
Ahiru looked rather less than human. She was more likely to trip and fall than execute a jeté, more likely to stumble than glissade across the dance floor. And even something in the way she walked just normally, when she wasn't dancing at all, looked awkward.
Critics wrote in their reviews about how poor