I awoke. That alone should have surprised me, but it didn’t somehow. The sun wasn’t yet up, but Dawn’s rosy fingers pried their way through the windows to turn the room pink-gold. Anshi was asleep. I stroked the hair away from her face and waited until she moved to kiss her eyes. They fluttered, then opened. The look on her face as she saw me was the most amazing thing I have ever seen, joy and disbelief warring with each other, neither quite taking the field completely. She lifted a hand to my face and stroked my cheek. I smiled down at her. "Can I tell you a story?" I asked. She nodded, and brushed a few small tears away from her eyes. I took her hands in mine and kissed them. "Once upon a time, there was a girl, who wanted to be a Prince. There was also a Prince and he needed, desperately needed, someone with Princely energy to help him, because he had lost his power. But he wanted it back. It was partially his doing that the girl wanted to be a prince anyway, so he felt he had some claim on her. Years passed and she was a pretty fair princeling, so the Prince brought her to where he was, in order to take her power and become a prince himself, once again. "But too much time had passed, and too many people hadn’t been strong enough and the Prince no longer really believed that he would ever be a prince again. But he kept doing this, because somewhere in him, it made sense and the rest of him just liked the game. "The Prince had a sister, who was as powerful as he, but she had sacrificed himself for him, using all her power to protect him. And it hadn’t worked, so she was nearly powerless and in constant pain. When the Prince told her he’d regain the power and free her, she consented to be used in the game. As time passed, she too began to despair of ever being saved, and eventually gave up altogether, until she had no hope at all. One day, the girl who wanted to be a Prince did something strange, something no one had ever done before. She treated the Princess with kindness, and became friends with her. But this was not a good thing, because it rekindled hope, however small, in the Princess’s heart. As the game approached its conclusion, the Prince gave up because, you see, he no longer wanted to save his sister – he had forgotten that her pain was on his behalf. And as he turned away, the girl who wanted to be a Princess refused to realize when she was beaten and she saved the Princess after all." Tears flowed freely down Anshi’s face, but I held her hands close in mine. "But the story doesn’t end there. Because the Princess, angry that her brother had forgotten her pain, used what magic she had and made a spell. She worked on it for a very long time, so her brother wouldn’t learn of it. She had to be careful. If she gave it away, then everything would be ruined, or worse, the girl who wanted to be a Prince would be killed. It was a powerful spell, so powerful it might affect everyone at the school – if it worked. "And it did. One night, under the pretense of a joke, the Princess gave the girl who wanted to be a Prince an herbal concoction. It was a magical potion, if you will, one that would make her forget what happened to her. Not everything, but just some things – things that would hurt her to remember. "But the rest of the spell was to save her. Because the Princess didn’t believe the Prince’s promises anymore and didn’t believe she’d be saved. But the girl who wanted to be a Prince did believe. And at the last minute, the Princess believed too – just enough to make it happen. "The spell worked. The girl who wanted to be a prince disappeared from the school and people began to forget about her. They could remember her a little, or that she was there, but not much else. She simply faded, like a dream. "The Princess was saved, and she left the school too. So they forgot about her, as well, because it was her magic that made so much happen there. "The girl who wanted to be a prince had a very strange thing happen to her as a result of that spell. Because the Princess wanted to protect her, the girl couldn’t remember anything that happened, but she also didn’t remember who she was exactly. The spell was even stronger than that. The girl didn’t even look the same, because someone might want to find her and that would trigger memories that might hurt her. So the spell gave her a new appearance, so no one who knew her might recognize her. "And that’s how it stayed, for ten years, The Princess looked for the girl and, because she had focused all her remaining power into the spell, was able to find her, after a very long time. But she still couldn’t come out and say anything or the spell might collapse and the girl get hurt. She needed to give the girl the antidote to the magical potion. Even then, it might not work, or they might both die from the poison. - or the girl might not remember anything. So the princess sent someone to find the girl and bring her memories back…to bring the girl home. "And now I’ve found her." I looked into Anshi’s green eyes. "Anshi, I’m home." Anshi collapsed against my chest, her words blurred by her tears, murmuring over and over against my chest as we embraced. "Utena."
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