Chapter 7: The Fairy Tale

The stars twinkled around her, their unshifting locations forming into a great massive map.  For thousands of years, these stars were her home, their presence an unchanging comfort to her.  Yet now they were simply an impediment to her – an unreadable enigma keeping the secrets she needed to return to the world below again.

The difficulty of her task was trying to use that map to determine the most likely fate of one specific person.  Fate was not as unchangeable as these stars, but it had paths of probability she could work with.  Divining down to a single soul amongst the multitudes of others was the hard part.

She walked along the starry road in white dancing slippers, her short, soft dress and sheer knee-length tutu so similar to the one she wore in her brief time pretending to be a mortal and a ballerina… how she longed for the freedom of her stage again…

She’d been warned before about trying to use the stars in such a manner.  One person’s fate could not be seen so easily, not when so many other fates intersected it.  She’d made this mistake once already – in scrying the fate of a princess, she’d failed to foresee consequences for the one who tried to save her.

Now it was this poor soul she tried to find answers for.  There was no magic she knew of that could be permanent.  There was simply a serious of steps she needed to search for that lead to him being freed of it.  The direction of his fate was not fixed, but a curse’s solution was – even if it was nearly unreachable. 

“Luka…”

She turned her head to see a woman with blue hair, a white corset and short skirt, white gloves, and long white boots.  “You still haven’t given up on saving the Nutcracker?”

The faerie’s eyes turned back to the stars.  “No.”

She saw no need to explain herself.  Besides, she couldn’t exactly answer why she had such an obsession in the first place.

The white diamond in the other girl’s hair sparkled much like the stars above them.  “You shouldn’t blame yourself for what happens to the mortals.  We aren’t meant to be like them.  That’s why we live here.”

“The actions of mortals have consequences… as does our refusal to take responsibility.”

She had brought them both to this world, and in spite of so many happy times, they’d also suffered immeasurable pain.

“That man is my responsibility.”

“I thought we were simply meant to guide them…” the other fairy said, “Give them a path to this world and let them sort out what they’ll do.”

Certainly that was her philosophy as well… in the past.  Her emotions cloaked, her face a stoic mask.  But after all that she had seen… she couldn’t keep simply observing the world as if it wasn’t part of her.  As if she bore no responsibility for the actions of others.

“Why do you so favor that toymaker anyway?”

She remained silent.  She still didn’t understand how to explain these emotions she felt around him.  Why he made her act so peculiar, why she so eagerly engaged in physical intimacy with him, and why their separation made her feel so empty.  She’d never experienced it before, and sometimes it frightened her as much as it thrilled her.  None of her kin had experienced this… as far as she knew.

This was something he would understand.

But her last failure had hurt him beyond imagination.

Before the other faerie could press her for another response, she finally began to spy the patterns in the sky that she sought.  The directions of the Nutcracker’s fate.  As she hoped, she began to see a path where he became human again.  She tried to divine the swiftest permutation of that path.  The constellations began to give away their secrets and she tried to witness the events and understand how they came to pass.  Once, she saw him as a tiny doll, given to a human girl who cared for him… in another she saw the Mouse King and Queen fall at his hand… she saw him in another world, surrounded by other humans, yet somehow his face seemed devoid of his nearly permanent smile…

For just a moment, she saw another fate intersect his… a tragic sorrow that wounded him…

When she finally realized in all of these visions, she saw him alone.

If she intended to free the Nutcracker, she would have to wait and discern the entire horoscope but… she had a horrible feeling if she waited that long, she might lose something precious again.

Without hesitation, her gaze broke with the stars.  “You’re leaving in the middle of your divination?” asked the diamond-haired fairy.

“Lapis… I must go back.  I’m sorry.  I have to find him.”

She clutched at the clockwork heart ticking in her jacket as she pursued the closest exit from the celestial road, her gown glowing as it billowed out into a long shirt and skirt, then a white coat and boots, and finally her winter cap…

The inside of the workshop showed signs of disrepair from having sat unused for so long, though Miku thought it seemed better off than she would have expected.  The structure remained sound, no major damage to the walls or pillars.  Many of Gakupo’s possessions lay scattered.  Luka began to gather up some of the papers all over the floor and methodically filed them.  “Wretched mice… I promise, Gakupo, the workshop was nice and tidy before I left to fetch you,” she said.

Gakupo moved into his kitchen and began to set up the table and chairs again.  “Not to worry, Sugar Plum,” he said, “We both knew they’d probably try and take it for themselves again.”

‘Sugar Plum!?’ Miku thought to herself.  What kind of a nickname was that!?

“My goodness… you used to make all of your contraptions in this place?” Meiko said as she ran a hand along a dusty fireplace.

“The factory should still run if the rodents didn’t get down there!” Gakupo said, hauling over some firewood, “It’s in the basement.  I just hope the workers still function…”

“Wait… you have a factory here?!”

Miku could barely contain her excitement.  “Is this where you built things like James!?”

Gakupo had joined his “Sugar Plum” in helping to tidy up his home, but he stopped in his task on hearing the name of the bird. “You know about that little bird?!  So, you went through Bonbon…”

Kaito clapped a hand to Miku’s shoulder.  “Miku fixed James!” he said proudly.

At that the toymaker whistled.  Miku traced her foot along the floorboards.  “I just found one of those little pebbles was out of place and I gave it a nudge… it’s not such a big deal…”

“But I never even told you what those were!” Gakupo said, as he walked over and ruffled Miku’s bangs playfully, “You still worked it out on your own!  Oh, and to think your mother was still poo-pooing your mechanical inclinations when I last saw her…”

“AH!  Mother!”

On being reminded of her family again, Miku began to panic.  “Gakupo, how are they holding up?!  They must be so worried by now!”

Gakupo hesitated to answer.  “Well, Miku… they… probably… still don’t know you’re gone.”

Miku’s jaw dropped.  “I’ve been missing for two days and they haven’t noticed!?”

Luka’s amused laughter was the closest thing to an emotion Miku had yet seen from the strange woman.  “Miku, what Gakupo is trying to say is… time doesn’t pass the same way between this world and yours,” she explained, “I went to go fetch him when I had a vision that Kaito was going to come back here… in this world, that was three months ago, but for me it was only a few moments in the World Beyond.”

The toymaker’s expression grew cloudy.  “It’s not a reliable passage though… sometimes very little time can pass here while the other world moves more quickly.”

“So… I could have been gone even longer?!” Miku gasped.

“Or you might have only been gone a few minutes,” Gakupo said reassuringly, “Luka’s generally good about guessing how the two worlds will align if she’s given enough time to predict it.”

Luka finished putting up the last of the papers.  “If you want, Miku, I could probably send you home right now and it will have been merely an hour since your departure…”

Miku’s relief over not worrying her family faded as she realized that getting home was not her biggest obstacle.  “Well, I’d certainly like to know they’re all well but… until I break the Mouse Twins’ curse, I don’t think I can – ”

“What?!”

On hearing that, Gakupo began to poke and prod at his goddaughter looking for any signs of distress.  “What did those awful things do to you?!  Are you feeling well!?  You’re not stiff are you?!”

Miku slapped his hands away.  “Ah, you’re worse than Kaito!  I tried to chase the mice out of my bedroom, and they put some kind of spell on me that made me smaller… and… now I can’t sleep either…"

She stopped talking as suddenly the mysterious pink woman was leaning right over her shoulder. “Oh… she’s right, there is an enchantment upon her…” she murmured.  Her entire attitude felt unnerving, as she still had that soft, stoic smile on her face even as she declared Miku under some kind of vile spell.  At least she wasn’t poking her all over like her godfather had just done. “Miku, did they say anything when they placed the enchantment?”

That night in her bedroom felt like years ago now… Miku took a deep breath as she recalled the Mouse Queen’s foul threat.  “They said they were going to turn me into a doll just like Kaito…”

“I see…”

Luka speaking in such a clinical tone now seemed a great deal more bizarre than  “My guess… and this is only a guess…” she finally said, “They’re not powerful enough in the World Beyond to use all the magic they have here… so when they tried to turn you into a doll, the curse didn’t have enough power to transform you into another being entirely… so you’ve just taken on some doll-like attributes instead.”

“AH!  Miku’s not going to turn into doll now that she’s HERE is she?!”

Kaito sounded utterly terrified at the prospect, his painted eyes wider than Miku had ever seen them.  Miku looked hopefully to Luka for some answer, but her solid face gave away nothing.  “I wouldn’t think so… but I don’t know anything for sure…”

As upset as Miku was at even thinking of the prospect, just seeing Kaito’s comically panicked face made Miku decide to try and reassure him.  “Don’t worry, Kaito, now that we’ve found Gakupo, he might know how to fix me.”

On hearing his name again, Gakupo nearly dropped the logs he’d been gathering for the great fireplace in his study.  “Wait, was that why you were seeking me out?”

“Well it was you that derived the solution to my curse!” Meiko said, putting her hands on her hips, “Surely you can figure out how to save Kaito and Miku too!”

The toymaker quietly began to settle the logs into the fireplace one at a time.  “I’m a man of machines, not magic,” he said quietly, “It was I who was supposed to keep the city protected from the mice when they issued their threats against the Princess.  But they proved so much more resourceful than one man could manage – and their numbers were endless.  When they finally found you and laid that curse… your father gave me just one fortnight to find a solution to your enchantment before he had me put to death.”

On that grim pronouncement, Kaito let out a gasp.  “You never told me anything about that!” he said, “Uncle, I would have worked twice as fast had I known your life was in danger!”

But Miku had seen that reassuring smile on Gakupo’s face before, whenever he needed to calm a crying child.  “Now Kaito, why would I have ever told you something like that?” he said.

Meiko nervously placed a gloved hand to her chest.  “I had no inkling of what he’d done to you…” she said somberly, “I guess it explains why he had you examine me but… even so, you’re the one who presented the successful plan to him and found the nut and…”

“I did nothing.”

And all at once an altogether unfamiliar harsh tone crept into the toymaker’s voice as he spat out those words.  Miku had never so much as heard her godfather slightly lose his temper – even the most trying situations she could recall, he found a way to maintain his cool.

‘But I never saw him every day… who knows how much he would keep from us when he needn’t worry about us…’ Miku assured herself.

He grabbed for some tinder as he finished up his log pile.  “It was Luka who spent every second of those precious days reading the Princess’ horoscope.  At the eleventh hour, it was she told me of an uncrackable nut that could only be found and opened by a person with a pure heart.  That bought me some more time to at least try and find both nut and boy but… Kaito did that on his own.”

Now both Miku and Meiko were staring at the soft-spoken, enigmatic woman.  “Luka… you know so much about magic… you can read the stars… are you… a faerie?” Meiko asked.

On hearing her true title, Luka politely curtsied.  Meiko turned pale white and promptly fell to her knees.  “I… I had no idea!  Please forgive my impertinence!”

Miku wasn’t entirely sure how to react either – her image of faeries were of delicate little creatures who zoomed through fields of flowers as they laughed joyously.  Yet Luka seemed altogether different now – her detachment the expected result of being a creature of such great power and consequence surrounded by seemingly lesser creatures.  Then again… hadn’t Gakupo told her a story about a faerie once, to accompany one of his Christmas toys?

Before that story could be fully recalled, Kaito’s laughter broke up her thoughts.  “Meiko, it’s okay!  Auntie Luka isn’t so formal like that!”

Meiko’s cheeks turned bright scarlet and she hopped back to her feet.  “AUNTIE?!” she sputtered, “I… I…. Kaito, you never told me your uncle was involved with a faerie!”

The nutcracker’s laughter slowly died down.  “You never asked!” he said.

“I chose to live amongst mortals of my own will,” Luka said calmly, and now to Miku her every word seemed to carry so much more weight, “I never wished for others to know of my true origins.”

As the faerie turned her head to Kaito, Miku finally detected a crack in her façade.  “Kaito, as for your …condition… in Gakupo’s absence, I did learn part of what you must do to finally rid yourself of this enchantment.  But I warn you, the task you must complete is quite daunting.”

Kaito’s blocky hands were balled up into blocky fists.  “I’ll do anything I have to do!”

“You must defeat the King and Queen of Mice.”

Silence settled over the assembled individuals as the weight of the task sank in.  “They’re always surrounded by their armies… the King’s swordplay is second to none, and the Queen’s magic is so terrible…” he murmured.

His wooden body began to slump.  After a few moments though, he straightened up.  “Well then, I’m sure it won’t be easy, but I’m sure killing them will solve everything!  I’ll work as hard as I can!”

He turned to Miku and suddenly his smile was as innocent as ever.  “Miku, maybe that will break your spell too!”

While Miku tried to grant him a brave smile, the lack of certainty to her situation didn’t entirely reassure her.  She’d come so far and they still had no answers for her?  Home seemed so much farther away now than ever…

“Even if it doesn’t save you Miku,” Gakupo added, “We won’t get far ending your enchantment if they’re still bearing down on us at all hours of the day!”

The fireplace roared with fresh flames, the heat a welcome addition to the cold room.  “And don’t you fret, I won’t be going anywhere until we DO help you.  Do you think your mother would ever let me hear the end of it if I let you go running around a candy kingdom by yourself?”

As Gakupo turned back away from the flames, Miku saw that a sparkle had returned to his eye.  “Now, enough of this dreary business!  You know, Miku, I’m pretty sure the assembly is still in good repair… would you like to see a real toy shop?  I need to make sure the mice didn’t get in there… and I’ve got plenty of things stashed down there you never would have been able to see back home!”

“New… toys!?  Right in the factory?!”

Now it was Miku’s turn for something exciting to happen.  “You’re finally letting me see all your secrets?!  With all the mechanics and the prototypes and those glowing nodes and…”

Miku stopped at once when Kaito started to laugh at her over the top burst of excitement.  She tried to calm herself.  “Ah… I’d love to…” she said, blushing brightly.

“Gakupo, I’ll go back and fetch our sled,” Luka said calmly, “We need to get those supplies ready.”

“AH!  Miss Luka!” Meiko said a little too quickly, “It would only be right if I were to accompany you!  As… your… protector!”

The faerie’s confusion didn’t seem to dissuade a drop of Meiko’s enthusiasm.  “You’re certainly welcome to…” she said.

‘I hope Meiko doesn’t talk her ear off…’ Miku thought to herself.

“Good… the lock is intact… that means they didn’t get at the factory proper…”

Miku tried to contain her excitement as she watched Gakupo turn a few cogs on a great steel door, humming to himself as he did so.  Kaito had quickly followed the both of them into the basement – no great surprise.  Miku suspected after being separated from his uncle so long, Kaito didn’t want to stray too far from him. 

Right now, she didn’t want to stay too far from him either… not when he was about to share some truly mind-blowing secrets with her!

Once they were in the correct position, the great door pulled back…

Miku had never seen such a colorful factory.  In one corner were shelves upon shelves of books and papers, a desk with half-finished plans laying atop it.  There were several massive conveyor belts, surrounded by mechanical harnesses and arms.  Miku guessed these were meant for mass production, but she tried to imagine how many people would have been needed to manipulate them.  Several workbenches abounded – likely for custom work.  At the back of the room was another door – not nearly as tightly secured, so she guessed that meant it wasn’t easily accessible from the outside.

“Gakupo, did you used to have people working here for you?” Miku asked, “Besides Kaito I mean…”

“Back in the castle, I employed a number of dolls for operating the machinery… but for here, I did something better!” he said with a laugh, “I created clockwork people that could perform simpler tasks… that’s what drew the attention of the King in the first place.”

At that Miku started.  “Clockwork people?!”

Even as she spoke in doubt, Gakupo wandered over to an unfinished chassis with a humanoid shape.  “Indeed… early on, I wanted to keep as much of the process to myself as possible.  Besides, the invention could work wonders!” he said, running his gloved hands along the metallic creation, “Think of the labor that could be saved!  I know the humans here think of dolls as cheap labor, but they have lives too!  I thought if I could empower them to be more independent, they’d have some leverage with the human kingdom and villages…”

“Miku, you should have seen them!” Kaito said with excitement in his voice, “Gakupo could get them to run around and dance and even play music!  And when he had the forges running, he could roll them out in the blink of an eye!  He was working on soldiers too… a long time ago…”

Gakupo coughed.  “I’ll check the back storage room to see what we still have left.  I’m certain I can trust the two you to take stock of what’s left?”

“Don’t worry, uncle, you can count on us!” Kaito said, saluting so hard that Miku heard his hand knock against his forehead.  She tried to suppress a laugh.

As Miku wandered around the factory, she observed plenty of supplies left – great steel girders, dozens of gears of assorted sizes.  “Kaito, if Gakupo was the royal toymaker, why is there still so much here?”

Kaito wandered back to look at a collection of old wires and rods.  “He used to come back out here from time to time,” he began to explain, “He liked the privacy.  The last time he was out here, in fact, was when he was trying to build his clockwork cats…”

“AH!  He built them here?!”

At once Miku remembered the simple toy in her home… now she was eagerly searching for more, but if there were any more toy felines in the shop, they were hidden from her sight…

“Well, more complex than the one you had in your bedroom…”

Miku kept trying to mentally inventory everything in front of her, but finally she began to search for some paper and a pen to record them more formally.  “So Kaito, is anything you worked on here?”

She heard Kaito grunting and the sound of metal pieces shifting around.  “Ah!  Well… I didn’t take notes the way Uncle does… when we moved out of the workshop, I took them with me.”

Quietly she counted out metal sheets, girders, gears… it didn’t exactly feel like a workshop that Gakupo never expected to use again.  ‘Perhaps he was worried it wouldn’t work out for him?’ she thought to herself.

“What kind of toys did you like to make?” she asked cheerfully, just happy she was keeping him talking about something less daunting than the massive task Luka laid out for him.

“Oh… I really wanted to make a toy musician!” Kaito said, panting all of a sudden, “Gakupo had those life-size band automatons, but I wanted something you could carry around and sing with whenever you wanted!  Except they were always out of tune… I never got them to play the melodies right and – ”

A loud metallic clang sounded out in the workshop and Miku jumped.  She turned to see Kaito tangled in dozens of electrical wires hanging from the ceiling.  He resembled a marionette twisted up in its own strings as he struggled to get his body loose again.  Once he realized Miku was watching, he gave her a sheepish smile.  “Umm... I think I need a little help here…”

Taking stock of Kaito’s predicament, she couldn’t believe how thoroughly he’d tied himself up – wires wrapped around every limb, holding him in place.  “How did this happen!?” she exclaimed.

“Umm…. I didn’t really… notice them at first… once I finally realized I was getting wrapped up, I tried to fix it but… well…”

‘Right… he wouldn’t have noticed the wires getting so tight until they stopped him from moving…’ she thought to herself, trying to loosen up some of the wires around one of his arms.  But Kaito had gotten himself spun up but good.  She looked at his bound arm, trying so solve the conundrum when an odd idea flew into her head…

“AH!  Kaito, I’ve been meaning to ask but… well… do your arms come off?”

Kaito looked rather surprised but as his painted eyes spotted Miku wrestling with the wiring around his limb, he seemed to understand.  “I think they might!  Here, let me just grab onto something…”

He managed to get his left hand tightly gripped around one of the metal pillars in the workshop.  “Okay, I’ll stay put.  I’m sure it won’t hurt!”

Miku rolled Kaito’s long sleeve up just enough to get a solid grip on the wooden limb just above the joint at his elbow.  She gave a careful tug…

POP!  Kaito’s right arm slipped out of its socket, the loose wiring falling as she started to wiggle it loose from its trappings.

‘I should really be more creeped out by this…’ she thought as she carefully tugged the detached limb through the wiring, ‘At least he isn’t hurt by it.’

“I can’t believe that worked…” Kaito said in amazement, “I never exactly wanted to try tearing my arms and legs off like that but I was kind of curious too…”

“All right, that’s the first arm…” Miku said, trying to stay calm, “Now, the left.”

She set his free arm to the floor and tried to tug at the other arm the same way.  Kaito’s body began to sway more wildly without another arm to anchor him.  Miku felt her footing slip as the two crashed into each other, yanking the wires down on top of them…

As Miku hit the floor, she felt Kaito’s still-attached arm holding her tightly.  She opened her eyes and saw herself just an inch from his face, lying on top of him as the loose wiring draped over both the girl and her nutcracker.  She held her breath as Kaito stared up at her in worry.  “Miku, Miku are you okay?!”

For just a moment, Miku thought his eyes, painted though they were, were the loveliest shade of blue she’d ever seen…

Awareness of her situation kicked in and Miku almost sprang up right that moment.  But logic won out – she still needed to help Kaito.  She leaned up slowly, trying to keep herself from becoming tangled in wires herself.  Kaito shook his arm loose – the force of the fall unplugged enough of the cords that he could free himself now.  “Okay, I think I’m ready for my other arm now!” he said with a grin.

Quietly, Miku handed him back his arm and Kaito carefully popped it back into his shoulder socket.  He gave his arm a good shake, checking each of his fingers and smiling.  “There, now I’m re-armed!  Miku, you always have the best ideas!”

‘Why can’t I talk?  I can’t even laugh at his little joke?  Kaito, what are you doing to me?’

Kaito approached Miku carefully.  “Miku… I’ve been thinking… about what Luka said I need to do to free myself… I promise I’ll kill the Mouse King and Queen.  For you, I’ll become strong enough to defeat them for good.”

Her nerves caught fire again.  ‘Kaito, stop it!  I feel like my heart’s going to explode!  I don’t know what to say to you when you’re like this…’

But as she imagined Kaito throwing himself in front of her in the heat of battle… words did finally come to her.  “Kaito, I don’t want you to promise me that.  I want you to promise me you’ll protect yourself.  That you’re not going to get killed or… or…. Fall asleep again.”

“Oh, that’s all?  Sure I will!”

He said it so flippantly… did he not think himself capable of dying?!

“Kaito!” Miku said, getting angry, “I mean it!  You… I can’t… I don’t want to go back home without my Nutcracker!  I care about that more than I care about whether a bunch of mice live or die!”

Kaito put one of his hands on Miku’s shoulder.  She knew he couldn’t feel her… so that meant he was doing this entirely to try and calm her.  “Miku… I promise, I’ll protect myself too.  So when we’re both free from all this magic, I can see your home again, for real.”

Again, Miku fell silent as her nutcracker just stared ahead at her.  What did she really want to say to him?

“Miku!  Come on back here, you’ll love this!”

Gakupo called from far off, but thankfully his voice indicated he was too far to have seen what was happening.  Slowly Kaito’s hand slipped from her shoulder.  “You don’t want to keep him waiting,” Kaito said with a soft smile.

Quietly, Miku nodded.  As she turned to leave, Kaito’s voice suddenly stopped her.  “Ah!  M-M-Miku… um… you remember, back in Bonbon?  What we were talking about while you were fixing James?”

Before Miku could even answer, Kaito stammered “Ummm… you said I was handsome.  I mean, for a nutcracker, I was handsome.”

“Yes… I meant it too, Kaito,” Miku said, now far more aware of how much that particular conversation likely meant to him now that he knew about his true past.

But that didn’t seem to calm him, his painted eyes darting around the room.  “W… well… I just wanted to say that… you… you’re also… p… pre….”

All at once whatever nerve the doll still possessed vanished.  “AH!  I’m going to go upstairs and help out Meiko and Auntie Luka!” he shouted, turning and running away, his wooden footsteps heralding his exit as he ran back up the stairs.

Miku tried to calm herself before she chased after Gakupo.  The last thing she wanted was for her godfather to see how flustered his nephew had made her.

Kaito skittered upstairs, trying to compose himself before he marched into the living area…

Luka and Meiko were nowhere to be found.  He leaned against a wall in relief.  ‘What’s coming over me?’ he thought to himself, ‘All of sudden it got so hard to talk to Miku…’

He placed a wooden hand over his chest, patting it as though he still had a heart in there.  He stared down at his hand, realizing how silly he must have looked.  Ever since he’d started to remember his previous human existence, he kept finding himself adopting more and more human habits.  None of which worked – he couldn’t feel Miku if he touched her, he couldn’t even remember what warmth felt like any longer.

He found himself wanting to do more than just put his hand on her shoulder, but that required warm blood, a working face…

He straightened up as he heard Meiko’s voice just outside and pulled himself together.  ‘I have to keep up a straight face!  They’re counting on me to kill the mice after all!’

“… ah, and I loved your performance as the swan!  Does it even hurt to stand on your toes for so long like that?!”

Luka and Meiko rode up to the house on a sleigh pulled by a clockwork horse.  Kaito spied the pile of new materials in back – his uncle hadn’t wasted even a moment since arriving!  As Kaito walked outside, Luka waved to him genially.  “Kaito, your timing is excellent.  Could you aid the two of us in unloading these supplies?”

He found his smile at once and ran over.  “Anything you need, Auntie Luka!”

In all the panic over trying to remember his family, he’d barely remembered the kind if standoffish faerie who’d been such a fixture in his life.  As frigid as she seemed to be with the sudden influx of strangers, she still seemed to have a genuine smile for him.  ‘I hope I didn’t worry her too much…’ he thought to himself.

He pulled back a tarp and started to pick up one of the large crates stacked in the back.  “Where was he keeping these?” Kaito asked, “I thought everything was in the workshop…”

“While you and Gakupo were gone, I made contact with some of his old workers and they helped me smuggle some of his old materials out,” Luka said calmly, as if such a daring act of theft were as trivial as speaking of the snow fall, “Most of them are drafted in the war now though… this was what I could acquire on my own.”

Meiko hesitated on Luka’s words before she gingerly picked up a box for herself.  “Just stack these near the door…” Luka continued, “Once Gakupo’s done in the basement, he’ll open up the door so we can get them down.”

Luka started to unload a few small boxes.  “Luka, is that more stardust?” Kaito asked, recognizing the unusual runes.

“Stardust?” Meiko asked in confusion.

“It’s Gakupo’s secret weapon in his toymaking,” Luka explained, “He had the idea years ago that if he had some way to add magic to the toys, they could perform more complex tasks.”

Meiko nearly dropped the box right there.  “And the faeries are okay with you just giving that to him?!”

Luka’s enigmatic smile hid her emotions as usual.  Even as many times as Kaito had seen her, she rarely allowed anyone a glimpse of her true state of mind.

Except for Gakupo.

Whenever she was with him, her face animated with a wide palette of emotions, her words easy and free.

“So… are you and Drosselmeyer… well… married?” Meiko asked nervously.

Luka looked surprised, but not embarrassed.  “We’re supposed to be?” she said out of curiosity.

“I call Luka ‘Auntie’ because of how long I’ve known her!” Kaito said proudly.  He gave his head a solid knock with his knuckles.  “I’m glad I’m starting to remember her again too!”

But that only dragged up another question, one that had lingered for the Nutcracker since the trip through the Crystalline Cavern.  A question a faerie could answer.

“Ah, Luka… well, I kind of lost my memories before.  And I’m only just starting to get them all back.”

At that Luka showed the hints of surprise.  “That shouldn’t have happened, Kaito.  Your curse was only meant to give you a doll’s body.”

That wasn’t what he needed to hear.  “I was hoping maybe you knew how it happened… I still don’t remember a lot of my past… I don’t even remember why I ‘fell asleep’.”

She pressed a gloved hand to her chest on hearing him speak like that.  “I… wasn’t present.  Neither was Gakupo.  You were already a small doll then, and all I could tell your godfather was that he needed to give you away to the first child that asked for you.”

“AH!  That was MIKU!” he exclaimed, “I woke up at Miku’s house, in her arms!”

So it wasn’t just a coincidence – or so he hoped.

“Do you know anything else!?  I’m not going to fall asleep again, am I?!”

Luka pursed her lips, falling silent.  Now Kaito knew she had a secret.  “Ahhhh, this isn’t faerie business, Luka, it’s about me!  I can’t turn back into a little doll again if I’m supposed to kill the King and Queen!”

Before she could say another word, the voice of a young girl broke out over the snowfield.  “Officer!  Officer!  Please, wait up!”

Kaito put a hand on his weapon out of reflex as he looked out and saw a young female doll with short green hair and wearing in a uniform like his – white with a blue sash.  Her face and hands appeared to be made of rubber, but the rest of her body was white cloth.  “Please, we must warn the company!  The mice are coming!”

Kaito looked behind him as Meiko stood stock still, not even allowing herself to speak.  Finally the girl made it up to Meiko and gave her a salute.  “Officer, I promise, I didn’t desert!  I got separated in the last battle, I promise!  But I have important intelligence on the movements of the Mouse King and Queen!”

Meiko stared at the girl dumbstruck.  Did she not know who she was?!

“Um… yes, well, I…”

She suddenly regained her proper bearings and stared the girl down as if she were in fact a commanding officer.  “We were just trying to find them ourselves.  Please, private…”

“Gumi!  Private Gumi!”

“Please deliver your report at once!”

“Stardust… so that’s what those funny nodes were…”

Miku stood hunched over a box filled with glowing powder.  “Isn’t that kind of cheating though?”

Gakupo chuckled.  “It still took a great deal of work to figure out how to forge them correctly,” he explained, “If I didn’t have Luka, I’d have been completely lost.”

He closed the box carefully.  “Once Luka brings in what I need… I’m hoping to be able to get another unit of soldiers activated…”

He gestured to the several rows of inactive clockwork soldiers standing around him.  “That might be enough to get us closer to the Mouse King and Queen…”

Miku couldn’t imagine what they’d look like in motion.  To her they seemed like life-size equivalents of Mikuo’s toys, but the way Gakupo was describing them, they could possibly be even more impressive once he wound them up.

“I’d love to make something like these someday…” Miku said in awe.

Her godfather laughed.  “When we have this mouse business settled… I’ll crack one open and let you tinker with it.”

“Really?!” Miku had already seen the inside of James, and that was a much smaller simpler toy.  She could already imagine the way Gakupo would have lined up the mechanisms, the places where the nodes might need to go to animate them… oh, she already had some ideas of her own she wanted to try…

… would she be able to do any of that when she went home?

“If you can talk mother into it, I’d love to,” she said in a more guarded manner.

Her godfather patted her on the shoulder.  “She’s just worried about you.  She wants you to be able to take care of yourself.”

She tried not to scowl at that worn explanation.  She’d hoped for less platitudes from Gakupo of all people. 

“Even so… just because the place we came from has rules that tell you your place, doesn’t mean you have to follow them…” he continued, his eyes casting about his workshop as they shone with pride, “There are places you can go to become the person you wish to be if you’re willing to give up certain comforts.”

He began to fall silent, the only sound audible to Miku being the ticking of his pocket watch.  “Just… try not to give up too much…”

He stared quietly at the closest soldier to his position, until finally Miku felt she needed to intervene.  “Gakupo… I saw what happened to Kaito.  With Princess Pirlipat and everything.  We got caught in the caverns and…”

She swallowed.  “I’m sorry you had to suffer through that.”

The toymaker lightly placed his hand on the shoulder of one of his creations.  “It’s been more than fifteen years since I last saw him alive… I’m certain I have you to thank for that.”

His heavy voice hung over his weary smile as he traced a finger along his creation’s face.  “How could it have been so long?” Miku asked, “Even Meiko isn’t that old… is it because of the time thing again?”

“I spoke with Luka, and it had only been a year in this world.  For her, it may have felt an eternity to have lost me for even that period of time, but imagine how long it was for myself!”

He released the clockwork soldier and began to wander down the hall, Miku keeping close to him.  “Miku, I need to warn you.  This is a world where wonderful things can happen.  I was a man of no means and no future when I came here… decades ago.  Before you were even born.”

“So you’re… immortal now?!” She always knew her godfather was older than he looked, but this was a bit more than she’d anticipated.

He let out a slight laugh.  “Not exactly… but I have cheated death far longer than I would have where I came from.”

Miku swallowed.  “So… is Kaito like you too?”

A slight nod of the toymaker’s head.  “He’d already slowed down his aging as he approached adulthood.  I’m not sure what would have happened had I brought him here even younger than that.”

He began to walk across the basement to another set of dolls.  Miku followed him, enamored of the idea that her godfather was finally speaking plainly about his seemingly impossible life story.  “So… did Luka use some kind of faerie magic to make you two age slower?”

The idea of Gakupo having hidden so much that he even concealed a lover from her still seemed so shocking.  “No… it’s just the magic of this world, holding us in place as it weaves around us…” Gakupo said whimsically, “I’m sorry you had to meet Luka under these awful circumstances.  I’d hoped someday to introduce the two of you in peace.  She’s a little quiet with people she doesn’t know, but that’s just how faeries tend to be.  She’s truly a gem from the heavens…”

‘Quiet doesn’t begin to describe her,’ Miku thought to herself.  “And… Kaito calls her ‘Auntie’?” Miku teased, “Is there anything else I need to know about you two?”

Gakupo let out a nervous cough, but the rosy color in his cheeks gave away his true feelings. “We’ve… ah… well, we haven’t seen much of each other in the last fifteen years… but I’ve never really stopped thinking about her.  I’m rather flattered she said the same thing to me…”

She thought she saw him tapping his chest right where his pocket watch was.  “Gakupo,” Miku said in a sing song voice, “That watch of yours isn’t from her is it?”

She thought she’d see him blush again, but he seemed to stop being flustered at that very moment.  “It’s… a long story.  One I don’t think I feel like telling right now,” he said curtly.

Gakupo fell silent so quickly Miku was afraid she’d offended him somehow as he wandered around examining his soldiers.

“Kaito seems to be getting along with you all right,” he said suddenly.

‘GRK!’

She didn’t want to talk too much about this with Kaito’s uncle of all people.  “What do you think of him though?  You seem to speak so rarely of yourself these days.”

“Ah… yes, he’s very kind.  He’s stronger than he looks too.”

She thought back to the strange couple of days she’d spent at Kaito’s side.  It seemed like one was always rescuing the other.  If she ever felt alone, Kaito was there to cheer her up.  If Kaito was about to crumble under the weight of his burdens, she wanted to lift him up.  And no matter how hard the mice kept trying to hurt them, they always drove them off.

Together.

“He loved to play with toys.  He loved every day in this shop.  Even more so in the castle when he was surrounded by people.”

Gakupo adjusted a sash that was out of place on one of his soldiers.  “But one day he wanted to be a soldier… and I could never refuse him his wishes.  So I started to build toys for war to try and keep him safe.”

Miku swallowed.  “So I guess Mikuo and I were kind of replacements for Kaito…”

Her godfather’s brow furrowed.  “What in the world would give you a notion like that?” he said.

He turned from his clockwork creation and began to approach Miku.  “You and your brother mean as much to me as Kaito does,” he said sternly, “Your mother and father lent me the money I needed to start my business back home, and I used that to keep travelling until I found a way to free him.  But I always felt so very blessed that they allowed me to be part of their family.  And don’t think for a moment that I’m not going to work to free you just as hard as I have to free Kaito.”

As another melancholy smile spread on Gakupo’s face, she thought he seemed so much older now.  His face was a youthful as ever, but his entire manner seemed to show the weight of years of burdens he carried without complaint.  “I lost my nephew for so very long… but I could always cheer myself up by thinking of how wonderful it would be when he was alive again and he could finally meet you and Mikuo…”

Miku watched as Gakupo approached what looked to be a clockwork humanoid family, an older man with black hair pulled into a ponytail and his “wife”, a young woman with red hair cascading down her shoulders.  He softly stroked the brown hair of a young girl who still looked barely a teenager.  “But this world… as beautiful and wonderful and magical as it is, it is very dangerous for people like us.  If you lose sight of yourself, your identity, your goals, your old home… that same magic can break you until you forget who or what you were.”

“UNCLE!  UNCLE!”

The sound of Kaito’s voice echoing through the house upstairs drew both of them out of reminiscing.  Miku departed the storage area with quick steps, just as she saw Kaito came pounding down the stairs.  “The Mice!  They’re setting a trap for the royal army!  They’re going to be torn apart!”

“Gakupo!  Talk some sense into him!”

Meiko came stomping down the steps.  “Kaito’s blathering on about trying to take on the mice himself!” she said, “You must talk him out of this foolishness!”

For the first time, Miku saw Kaito actually get angry.  “I have to beat them!” he protested, “It’s my destiny, and I can’t run away from it anymore!”

The chaos only increased as Kaito and Meiko got knocked down the remaining stairs by the sudden arrival of another person, landing in a great pile of dolls and people.  At last Luka walked down carefully, without any undue haste, staring at the pile with bemusement.  The new arrival, a rubber and cloth doll with green hair and a soldier’s uniform pushed herself up off of Kaito.  “S-sorry!  I just wanted to see if…”

“Gumi?”

Gakupo calmly entered the factory, and on just hearing him say her name, Gumi stood up at rigid attention.  “AH!  It IS Sir Drosselmeyer!  Oh, what good fortune!”

She gave him a peppy salute.  “And how kind of you to remember even the lowliest of the Gearbolt Girls!”

“Gearbolt Girls?” Miku asked in confusion.

The toymaker chuckled.  “I took in a number of doll apprentices for manufacturing,” he explained, “Since they were all women, they called themselves the Gearbolt Girls.  And of course I remember every one of you!”

Gumi’s excitement at being so acknowledged only seemed to increase – and to Miku, it spoke highly of his opinion of them given how long it had been for Gakupo since he’d seen her.  “Oh, oh, oh, now it doesn’t all feel so hopeless!  Lord Drosselmeyer, you’re supposed to be a legendary military commander, I’m sure you can come up with a PERFECT strategy!”

On hearing such a bold proclamation, Gakupo took a few steps back.  “I… I never made it past Lieutenant…” he stuttered, “I can provide the automatons, but we don’t have enough to bear down on an entire army!”

“Well we have to do SOMETHING!” Kaito said as he helped Meiko up – Miku winced as she realized Meiko had landed on the bottom of the pile, and she was the only one that could feel pain. “What if we don’t get another chance?!”

Miku looked back to the storage room filled with automatons.  “Gakupo… we don’t have to beat the whole army… we just need to get the King and Queen… if we cut them down when they least expect us, maybe that will disperse the rest of the mice as well?”

Gakupo looked up to her with a dangerous smile.  “That I can give us a formation to accomplish,” he said.  “All right then… Miku, Gumi, help me wind the keys!  Kaito, help get the basement door open!  Meiko, get the sleigh cleared out so we can leave at a moment’s notice!”

A bright flash briefly illuminated the basement as Luka summoned a small white orb of light into her hands.  “I’ll ensure there are no disruptions from the mice.”

The faerie’s smile had completely disappeared, her last words taking a rough edge.  Clearly past experience with the mice had taxed even Luka’s great wells of patience.

As everyone split up to their appointed tasks, Gakupo touched Miku on the shoulder.  “Miku… I promise I am going to do everything I can.  But I wasn’t lying to you before.”

She’d never seen Gakupo so deathly serious.  “I cannot help Kaito - only you can do that.  Be faithful and strong.”

As the sleigh bolted through the snow at an unnatural speed, Miku still couldn’t stop thinking about Gakupo’s cryptic warning to her.  What did he expect her to do?  Gakupo was a trained soldier – fearless in battle.  He had a small army he’d constructed to support him.  She had nothing to offer.

She looked up to Kaito, whose only focus appeared to be the battle ahead.  How was she supposed to help him?  She was always getting beaten back in fights…

“Ahhh… at first I was afraid you guys were deserters…” Gumi moaned, “Every fight with these monsters is just worse and worse…”

She started nibbling on her little rubber finger tips.  “Aren’t you a soldier?” Miku asked.

Gumi her hands together.  “I was apprenticing in a candy shop after Sir Drosselmeyer disappeared…” she said sadly, “But… well… the war’s gone so poorly.  They needed as many dolls as possible to sign up.  So… I kind of got drafted, actually.”

She clutched the sides of her head and let out an overdramatic wail.  “AHHHH!  I’m not a soldier, I only overheard the mice because I played DEAD!”

Miku reflexively put a hand on Gumi’s shoulder to comfort her before she remembered Gumi couldn’t feel it.  “It’s okay to be scared…” she said, “The King and Queen are really frightening…”

Gumi’s rubber eyelids fell closed.  “I don’t want to die out there… I just want the mice to go away… if I go back… if any of us go back… the king will…”

Meiko let out a loud huff at the reigns of the horses.  “The King will not be permitted any more of these transgressions,” she muttered under her breath.

“Gumi…” Gakupo said calmly, “A long time ago, when I was a soldier… I would sing before a battle to calm myself.”

Kaito tried his best to smile for the nervous girl with that odd wooden mouth of his.  “Uncle’s right!  What’s your favorite song?”

Gumi kept her eyes closed, but slowly she began to sing on the back of the sleigh.

“A morning mist like that one day comes into view. My legs caught on each other, and you took my hand.”

She sounded so nervous at first, her voice shaky and unsteady as the sleigh raced through the trees.

“Do you remember your unsolved magical fairytale? Its continuation still... Mm, I'll tell it again, 'kay.”

Her voice sounded so soft and fragile, but finally steadier.

“So a couple floating in a dark see wouldn't be lonely, God surely, for just a little bit, surely permitted the time…”

As Gumi’s confidence built up, her voice grew louder.

“Responding to the monogram of the overlapping stars, you are coming! Raise your voice above the orbit!”

Miku listened carefully to Gumi’s song, trying to draw inspiration from it herself.  She looked ahead and saw the signs of dolls and mice clashing out in the snow.

“I've continued to yearn for the sparkling of yours only!  Despite being unable to return to that time that passed, pure white as it was.”

Miku saw him again and clenched her sword tight.  Len the Mouse King, chopping at dolls like they were nothing.  To her relief, she saw no further signs of the Queen.  She saw the clockwork soldiers running behind the sleigh, slowly overtaking it with frightening speed.  “When they get ahead of us…” Gakupo said, “we pulled the sleigh up towards him and try to get at him first…”

Meiko tried to pull the sleigh into a flanking position – the mice were trying to tear apart the dolls, and by sheer number… they were winning.

“Since I can’t shine alone, there’s a continuation to your fairy tale.  Listen up!”

Gumi gripped her own weapon closer, but kept her song steady.

“Our overlapping pulses teach us of the sparkling of our lives!  Even if you receive someone’s love, it won’t vanish!”

The soldiers leapt out ahead of the sleigh.  Kaito looked Miku straight in the eye… and smiled for her.  “I won’t break my promise, Miku… I’ll save you… and I won’t die…”

“If I see off the stars that're going away after a few seconds, I mean, since we'll meet even after several thousand years pass, it's that sort of a story.”

Miku recalled Gakupo’s warning to her.  As Kaito prepared to leap from the sleigh, she grabbed his hand.  “I won’t abandon you.  My Nutcracker.”

“It’s a promise.  It’s a promise.”

Kaito held Miku’s hand tightly and they jumped into the chaos of the battlefield together…