Epilogue

The children sat, watching in fascination as the old storyteller finished his tale. As he began to rise, a little pink haired girl tugged at his long, slowly graying red hair. He turned a single sightless eye to the child. "What is it?"

"Did all that really happen?" She asked, smiling up at him.

"Of course it did, every word of my tale is true." He answered her, ruffling her soft hair playfully.

"What happened to everybody who left? Like Juri, and Miki, and Kozue, and Mitsuru, and all the others?" Another child in his little audience piped up.

"That is a story for another day, little one." He replied.

"What about Edric, that nasty guy? Did somebody get him?" A third asked.

"And Utena and Nemo and Anthy? Did they make it to the other land? What did they find there?" The pink haired girl spoke again.

"And why do you only have one eye?" Yet another asked.

"So many questions little ones! Those are all stories for another day." He said, raising his hands to ward off the inquisitive children. "Perhaps I will tell you another story when I travel back this way. How does that sound?" He asked them.

"Okay!" They chorused to him, then hurried to their feet, rushing off to find sticks for sword fights.

"I'm Prince Utena, and I am a hero!" One of them shouted excitedly.

"Well, if you're the Prince, I'll be the blind sword master, Touga! Take that!"

"You can't defeat me, I'm Juri, and I can beat anybody."

For several long moments, the old duelist sat, feeling their battles as memories of the long past flowed through his mind. Rising from the stone where he had sat, he let his senses flow about the courtyard. The castle was just as he remembered it. The rose garden was no longer held in by it's prison, flowing across one corner where the kids dashed amongst the well tended bushes, refighting the battles from his story.

"Hey, Great Uncle Touga, here's your sword." A young blond lad held up the sword he had left sitting next to the rock.

"Thank you, Laverne." He took the sword in one hand, feeling over the child's face with the other. "You know, you're the spitting image of your grandfather."

"Haha! That's what everybody says!" He smiled up at his tall relative. "So, when are you gonna come back and tell us another story?"

"When the wind calls me back home, Laverne, when it calls me home."