Rosy (real_life_rosy) wrote in lupin_snape, @ 2008-06-12 00:07:00 |
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Entry tags: | fic: pg13, prompt: fairy tales |
FIC: Rabe und Wolf, PG13
Title: Rabe und Wolf
Author: Rosy
Rated: PG13
Challenge: Fairy Tale Challenge
Disclaimer: The Potterverse does not belong to me, and I do not make money off of it. More's the pity.
Summary: Once upon a time, there was a puppet who wanted a heart.
Warnings: AU, somewhat dark
Notes: ...this is what happens when you watch Princess Tutu, read too many Grimm’s Brothers and Hans Christian Anderson, and then find out there's a Fairy Tale Challenge going on at Lupin_Snape.
Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV
Part I
Once upon a time, a man was murdered.
Oh, you think with some disappointment. Is that all the story is? A man being murdered? Such things happen everyday. It is sad, to be sure, but it is not uncommon.
Yet you do not know the awful and heartbreaking truth of this man's death. For the man was a teller of stories and a maker of puppets. Puppets such as he created could not be found in all the world. They danced and sang; so lifelike and real that no one could say whether they were puppet or person. And with each puppet, the man wrote a story. This is not so amazing, except that the stories would bring the puppets to life and breathe life into the stories themselves. What was once wood and string became flesh and bone, and went out into the world to do some good, as their story dictated. That was the man's gift to the world; each story had a happy ending, and each puppet gave hope to the people it encountered.
Well... almost.
One day, the old man took from his workbench beautiful ebony wood and began to carve it. He worked from the sun's rising well into the night, the light of the lamp flickering across the glassy surface of the wood. The man peeled and shaped, drawing a form out of the beautiful wood. He took two pieces of polished jet and set them into the head for eyes, and then shaped two pieces of amber into a smooth, sharp beak. When he was finished, a magnificent raven sat on the worktable before him so close to reality that the pigeons on the windowsill peeked in curiously, chirping and calling to their wooden cousin. The old man chuckled, and tied strings to the puppets wings and legs. Suddenly, the raven hopped up and trotted about the table, trailing its strings behind it.
"What a marvelous puppet you are," the old man wondered. "What story shall I write for you?"
"A heart! A heart!" the raven cried. It flapped around the table croaking out "A heart! A heart!" The old man blinked and tipped his head, watching the raven.
When the sun set and moonlight spilled through the windows of the old man's workshop, the raven hopped onto the floor and took the shape of a man. He was still very visibly a puppet made of wood, with a beaky nose, eyes like jet, and hair the color of the raven's wing. "Who are you?" the old man asked.
"I am the raven you have wrought," the puppet answered. "The ebony tree was enchanted by the fae creatures of the wood, and whenever the moon shines upon me I may take the form of a man and walk upright. But still, I have no heart."
"What a sad thing, to be without a heart," the old man murmured. He turned to his paper and pen. "Do not worry, my friend. I shall write you a story where you are able to find a heart."
The puppet frowned sourly. "Can you not simply give me a heart, as that will be far simpler and less vexing than my questing for one?"
The old man chuckled, slowly swirling the nub of his pen in his pot of emerald ink. "Oh no, my friend. For many times, the journey is the worthier part of the story. How else could you cherish a heart, unless you learn what it is to see it broken?"
The puppet glared at him. "I think that is quite a foolish way to go about getting a heart," he said, and then proceeded to poke around the workshop until the sun rose, when he resumed the form of the raven.
During the day, to keep the marvelous raven safe, he would lock the puppet into a cupboard, laying it on a nest of satin and velvet. For three days, he closed his doors and windows, and went down to the woodcutter's cottage not a league from the village. There, he would spend many hours by the lake beneath the spreading branches of an old and gnarled willow, writing the puppet's story. When he was finished for the day, he would lock the sheaves of parchment in a box and go and have supper with Potter and his young wife, who lived in the cottage. Every day, the raven would ask about the heart. And every day, the old man would say, "Practice patience, little Rabe. Severe Rabe. And you shall have the heart you wish for."
But the raven grew more and more impatient as the days stretched into weeks. Soon, he began pecking at the lock of his cabinet until he could coax it open. He would hop down and begin hopping about the workroom during the day until a little before sun set. Then he would hide in the cabinet again and wait for the old man to return. Many days, the old man returned alone and let him out, talking about how the Potters were, and how young Lily was radiant with the child growing inside her belly. But on one day, the old man brought someone with him. In his shadowy cabinet, the puppet could not see the stranger's face, but he could see that the stranger was draped with lengths of pelt and furs.
"It is still unfinished, my young friend," the old man said quietly, resting his hand on the box where he kept the raven's story. "But soon, soon the last threads will come together, and the story I promised you so very long ago will be finished."
"I have waited a long time. But I can still wait for this story of yours, sir." The raven cocked his head, curious at the low, gentle rasp of the stranger's voice. It was not the hoarse croak of his daylight shape, or the velvet smoothness his night form produced. It intrigued him, and stirred something in the empty recesses of his breast. But that could not be, for he had no heart to feel.
The old man chuckled. "You have been patient, and for that I can tell you this much. The story may not end has happily as some I have written, but in the end, all will be well."
"How contradictory," the stranger drawled. "For the ending not to be happy and yet for all to be well. The only worse thing I can think of is a happy ending where all is not truly well." The old man chuckled, and then told the stranger that the Potters would be most happy to see them tonight. He would follow along in a little while. When the stranger was gone, he unlocked the cabinet and let the puppet out.
"I will return in the morning," he said, watching the puppet hop to the table. "I will spend some time with my good friends, and then I will work on the last bit of the story tonight."
"A heart? A heart?"
The old man smiled. "Soon, Severe Rabe. Soon."
The old man left him alone with a book, all about herbs and medicines and special brews. He gingerly turned the pages with his claws, reading and reading and reading until he felt his form shift to that of the man. He settled into a chair at the table, reading still more. The book fascinated him, giving him the secrets of how to blend potions and teas and serums. So engrossed by the book was he, that the puppet had not heard a rival puppet master open the back door of the workshop. "My!" the rival puppet master exclaimed, "Are you the old fool's latest creation?"
"He calls me Severe Rabe," the puppet answered. "Who are you?"
"I am a great master of stories and puppets," the younger man said simply, looking intently at the puppet. "Once, I was the old man's apprentice, but he would not teach me the greatest of all secrets. Now, I have powers all my own. Tell me, has he offered to write you one of his stories?"
The puppet nodded. "I wish to have a heart, and he says the story will help me to find one." The puppet sighed, glaring slightly at grain of the table. "And yet, it has been some time since the promise was made, and I have yet to see any of the story."
The rival puppet master chuckled. "Ah yes, that is his way, the old fool. Never showing anyone what he or she should know until it's 'the right time'. I always found it irritating in the extreme. Especially when one is ambitious, such as yourself." When the puppet blinked at him, the puppet master smiled. "Well, it's easy to tell. You grow impatient; because there are things you wish to do. And you want a heart. Though, I can't imagine why."
"It is the thing that separates puppet from man," the puppet said. "And if I were to have a heart, I do not think I would have to endure the empty feeling in my chest anymore."
The puppet master nodded. "Severe Rabe... I can give you what it is that you seek. But, in return, you must do something for me."
"I will do anything to have a heart," the puppet said earnestly.
"You must kill the old man."