I wrote this originally as a dojinshi script, but in a bolt of inspiration, I began to adapt it to prose-form. I think this is one of my finest fan works and my most thoughtful pieces-but not depressing as some of my moodier pieces, which tend to end horribly for the characters. Most of the reason I post this here is because I want to do a few IRGer cameos-a few fans coming to a fancy-shmancy hotel for a most excellent Rose Con, one of whom gets to boink Akio. (I reserve that position for Gio, who I'm sure has several in mind)

Azure Summer Dreams

"Not all who wander are lost."
-J. R. R. Tolkein

This is the link that was lost

"...a girl cannot be a prince."

And she was a child still, yet she preservered. The girl had been run through and even then, not a thought for her own pain. "Himemiya... save Himemiya..." She moaned, gasping, pleading. Begging me.

             "I am..." Intoned the Rose Bride.

The bells began to chime, the sound echoing over the screaming of the swords. It was always the same. Witch. Bleed. Hate you. Be pierced. Suddenly, she spoke, the hidden one, the undying one, the true one. "Who are you?" She asked.

Lo, I have vanished, yet now I am laughing

The child wept. "...I was too busy pretending to see your pain. Finally we..."

Such futility

Then I was at a desk, going through files when she approached me for the first time with pity in her eyes. She stood before me, laying aside her glasses. She was speaking, but I can't hear her at first. "....am going to find her. Goodbye, brother."

I call after her until I am hoarse with screaming.

Missing link, missing link...

I bolt upright. "Anthy..." I am in a cabin suite, comfortable, luxurious and I remember who-and what-I am: Ohtori Akio, wanderer.

I am no longer a prince. I am no longer End of the World; I have not been those roles in years. My dreams, her glasses, they are remnants of those days-my solace and my gadfly. I will never again see her outside my mind.

The clock by my bed ticks away meaninglessly. It was early yet. Thoughts and reflections sifting themselves in my mind, growing more chaotic as I drifted back to sleep. I had saved one last princess-or was it Anthy? -and that princess saved her-or was it betray? Or the other way around...? I did not dream again that night.