Continuity buffs: This fragment is during the Student Council cycle,
after Utena's battle with Julie Arisugawa. The "prince" here is Utena's diary.
   Comments welcome of course. To Utena fans, especially--before I go
further, do I have Utena's "voice," her speech and language patterns, down
right, or do they need adjustment? I'd like to know now to spare me much
revision of the full version later. I do have a life. :)
   In case you fear where this might go, don't worry, this isn't a Chris
Davies story. He writes them very well on his own, thank you. :)
   Shadow-Girl A-ko's last name of Ikuhara was given to her by Scott Johnson
and Scott Jamison. Hope they don't mind--it seemed to fit. 
---
Your Highness,

   What time am I writing this at? 1 o'clock. That's how long it's taken to
stop shaking enough for me to be even able to write this, never mind getting
to bed. That and I have classes in the morning. I know I'll be like the
walking dead in class tomorrow if I don't get to sleep like RIGHT NOW, but
the fact is if I don't write this to you it'll replay in my head all night
and I won't sleep at all, and I'll be even worse in the morning.

   Shoot, where do I begin?

   Anthy. It usually begins with Anthy.

   Yeah, I know. You must be getting really bored with me writing as much
about what she does as about what I do, your Highness. I'd probably wish
you'd talk about something else too. I guess I must sound like a girl in
love, or something, like Wakaba gushing about Saionji or her "darling
Utena." (Don't laugh--it gets old after a while, at least if you're me. I
almost wish she _would_ get hitched with Saionji, just so she'd cut that out
stuff out. But you're not me. You're a prince, so I guess being adored by
girls is something you just had to learn to live with, right?)

   Did I say a girl in love? Did I really?

   No, wait. I'm getting ahead of myself. Where was I?

   Right, Anthy. Never a dull moment with her around. You must have thought
you'd heard it all--how she'll be happy as a calm watching Micky Kaoru's
metronome go back and forth for hours on end, or the Home Shopping
Network--her shaved ice dinners--that darn curry--the pencil-box full of
snails--the mongoose (can she keep that thing as a pet?--well, if she can
keep Chuchu, I guess...)--the inflatable octopus (it's things like those
make me convinced this Rose Bride stuff's a crock really--she won't do
_everything_ she's told, there's a mind in there somewhere, but I still
haven't figured out how it works--I'm quite sure I told her it wasn't cool
to keep a live mongoose in an enclosed space like a _drawer_, for crying out
loud)--and so on and so on and so on.

   You thought you'd heard it all? Well, I thought I'd seen it all. God, _I_
feel like slapping her sometimes. She acts like a child, or like she comes
from Mars. "Not of this world" doesn't begin to describe her.

   Come to think of it, she might as well be from Mars, for all I know about
her. Like one time to see if anyone know where she was from. I couldn't ask
Anthy; when I tried she just smiled and changed the subject. Nobody else
seemed to know. Wakaba thought her mother was from Africa. I asked why, and
she was like, "Well, isn't Anthy, like, black?" She doesn't look black to
me, though. Tell the truth, she doesn't look like much of anything. Another
girl, Nanami's friend Keiko I think, thought she was from India. I can see
that, I guess, what with that mark on her forehead that looks like one of
those dots Indian women always seem to be wearing on their foreheads in all
those pictures of India I ever saw, though I'm quite sure that's just a mark.

   Yes, I'm _quite_ sure. I made sure during the curry incident. Don't make
me go over this again.

   Yuko thought her folks were from the Middle East, or the Mediterranean or
something. That sort of made sense. What sort of a name is "Anthy" anyway?
"Anthee?" That's French. "Anthea?" That's Greek or something...

   I am _way_ off the subject, aren't I? Point is, if she actually told me
she was from Mars, or the planet Kashira like the characters in those weird
shadow-plays Eiko Ikuhara and her gang are always putting on--that chick's
got a _lot_ of time on her hands, let me tell you, though I guess that keeps
her out of trouble--God help us if they make it on TV--I wouldn't be at all
surprised.

   So I guess I shouldn't have been as surprised as I was when I came home
late tonight from dinner in Wakaba's dorm room to find a girl I hardly
recognized dressed like Eve (or Venus, depending on which part of the
Mediterranean you have your villa, Your Highness--guess who got a 95 on her
lit. exam for once!) standing on the East Dorm balcony enjoying the warm
summer evening.

[...]

I am, Sir, 
Your obedient servant,
Utena Tenjo.

---
Paul Corrigan
corrig11@pilot.msu.edu