"Mhmm. Princess Tutu's barely even in it, though. It's mostly about the prince."

"What's he even a prince of, or does that not come up?"

"He has a kingdom and stuff. It's all kind of vague. It's a fairy tale, so it's not really about the politics. But there must be other kingdoms around, too, since there are other princesses from other places."

"So what happens?" he asks, flipping open the book to look at the first page.

"In broad strokes? There's an evil raven who's threatening the kingdom, and the prince is the only one who can stop it. First he has to gather his allies, but most of them die in the process of getting him to the battle with the raven. And then there's a battle. But it doesn't say who wins, it just stops in the middle."

"Sounds like kind of a bad book."

"It's OK. I like parts of it. S'hard to write a good book if you only get half the book to do it in."

"Well, fair enough."

She pages through the book to the page with the illustration of Princess Tutu, drawn in the process of turning into a speck of light.

"Princess Tutu's only there for a few lines. The only thing she does in the story is confess her love for the prince, and then she turns into a speck of light and vanishes. And nobody really says anything or remembers her at all, after that."

"That's... uh..."

"...concerning???"

"She's not a very important character."

Duck doesn't look like this is actually successfully making her feel better about the situation.

"Then what's she doing having such an important job this time around—?! And—is she just—how's this speck of light thing work, exactly—I would like her to be able to talk about her feelings without dying!!!"

She crumples up in her chair and hugs her knees to herself. ".....I dunno. I didn't hear about that part until later."

He scoots his chair closer to hers and hugs her.

She hugs him back. She thinks she might be crying again.

"I don't think I'm going to die. But I want - I want to fix Mytho's heart, and - I don't know if the story has a happy ending from where it is."

"I don't want you to die!!" he says. "I - I'm not - I won't let that happen. You're my friend and you're good and important and I want you to - be happy, and learn to dance, and, and do the things you want to do with your life, and not die just because some stupid book says so."

"I - I mean - I dunno if I can make that happen. But - thank you."

Something red wavers in the air between them, and then there's another red ghost, hugging her.

"...oh," he says, blinking at it. "—I'm an idiot—Duck, there was a shard at the theater, wasn't there? And then you came home feeling all messed up—"

" - oh. Yeah. That - that makes a lot of sense. What feeling are you?"

"I am the feeling of fear. You won't leave me alone, will you? It's scary all alone - "

...Serafin hesitantly attempts to pat the ghost.

"It'll be okay," he says. "I think if we give you back to - the rest of you - you'll feel better."

"Yeah, you'll be OK once you go home. Which, uh, I can do, as long as, uh - "

C'mon, transformation.

....c'mon.

Maybe not.

"Now now now, you didn't think it would be that easy, did you? No, little Duck, this time you have to face your fears alone."

...oh.

Oh.

Oh, fuck.

"...um," he says. "Does - the shard need to - be somewhere that's not you. For the thing to happen."

"Mmmmmmmmaybe?"