Many apologies to the lovely Mormon to my right. I would like to thank my bestest friend Shayna for listening to me go on and on about this story, and for still being my friend even after I threatened to drag her face first through the worm infested dirt if she didn't read my story, and of course, then coming up with the last 'L' and fixing said story. Much love. You're the only woman for me. No, seriously. I don't like girls but I'll pretend for you. =P

EPILOUGE

I remember all of it like I remember how good the slice of chocolate cake I had last night was. They are just those things you never forget, those life changing moments, like accepting a proposal for marriage for instance. I certainly do not mean to brag, but my darling Endymion gave one hell of a proposal speech. Then again, I would have said yes had he dumped the ring on my finger and said "let's get hitched!" But I digress.

Finally, after one thousand, give or take a couple hundred, years I have completed my life's tale. I know how many times it has been published in the papers, and I know how many biographies there are out there called, "The Legend Behind the Glamour: The True Story of the Earth and Moon Royals." I could hardly get past the sparkly cover page, let alone read the man's, who I had never met in my life... lives rather, account of my family's history. So I felt as though I should be the one to tell my own tale. But I digress... Again.

Why did it take so long you ask? Perhaps it was that it took some adjusting to, being queen of a galaxy. But maybe it was that events have come full circle. It is now the year three thousand and twenty, the beginning of our restoration period after the war with Nemesis and the Doom Phantom. Some thousand years in the past, my son, Prince Endymion, known to me as my darling Keisuke, has just been conceived.

How he and I have grown since then. Now at "age" of fourteen, he has accomplished more than I could have ever dreamed for him to. His little sister, Small Lady, just now entering adolescence, adores him so, though they tease each other relentlessly at times. It feels as though time has slipped through my grasp with Keisuke just starting college, and Chibi-Usa preparing to start her training as a Sailor Senshi. Of course I and their father, my Endymion, my Mamo-chan, are as proud as can be.

Here is where I will set the record straight. Endymion IS Keisuke's father: legally, emotionally, and physically. He raised him, educated him, was there for him, and loved him as he continues doing unconditionally. There is nothing on this Earth that enrages me more than for someone to say he is not that child's father. He is. He's more than a father; he is a father when he did not have to be.

That cleared, and my children bragged about, as every good mother needs to do, I fear I have again derailed from the point.

At first, this story was my way of trying to sort out my life, back in the twentieth century, but now I see it has taken on an entirely new form. It would be my disservice to every girl or boy out there like myself, were I not to publish this. Too many times people let themselves be conquered by their greatest fears. Or a victim lets her attacker rule her life. That is was happened to me. I had feared my attacker so greatly, even past his demise, that I let that fear of him rule my life, and as I explained to my darling husband, through my fear did he come about.

I write this to every victim of an assault: Even if your attacker did not rematerialize in your world, back from the dead as mine did, or if they are still alive, you need only to let yourself be ruled by that fear of them, and your attacker will enter and try to ruin your life. First and foremost you need to conquer your attacker in your own heart and mind, realize that it is you who has the power, not they. Only then will you be free of their hold. Whatever it takes, fight them in court, or fight them in your mind, but do not give up.

If you recall, I had revealed to you that at one point it my life I had decided it could be summed up into three words: love, labors, and lost. But I had also begun to think that there must be another word to add, trinities are so cliché after all, not to mention stealing book titles. But I know now what that word is.

Love is a constant and I have much of it. But love can be lost. There is labor, but it too is always passing and changing. I, like everyone, have lost much in my lives, but after what we have lost, something shines with every breath the remaining take. Something will be here as long as I, my family, my friends, my PEOPLE are here. I know now as I sit here on the lakeshore, gazing at my husband and our two children splashing away, that after the love, after the labor and after the lost, after one has had them all, if that person still living, they still have a chance. The next word, is life.

For me, my family is my life, what keeps me going everyday, and what makes a smile come to my face every morning. But I know that even those without children, or spouses, or even families, even if a person thinks they have nothing to live for, they must remember, they have themselves, their own life.

"Life's not a song, life isn't bliss, life it just this, it's... living..." And living is what it is all about.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Ok, last line of my story belongs to the writers of the Buffy Musical; I only wish it was mine. Or, rather, I wish Spike was mine...

But there you have it folks! Thank you so much for your letters, pictures, reviews, everything. It's all meant so much to me; YOU'VE all meant so much to me in writing this.

I'll have you know that though I have planned and dreamed about writing this story for four years, it took the defeat of my own attacker in the spring of '02 to actually write this and find its direction.

If this story inspired one heart to take a stand and fight, a heart to encourage a friend to fight, or if I have even just succeeded on shedding some light on the trails and process of recovery for such a victim as Usagi in my story, then my own trials were worth it.

Remember girls (and boys!) fight. You have the right and the responsibility to yourself and anyone else your attacker might harm, to fight. Even if your attacker escapes the hands of the law, he or she will know you are stronger than they thought as you took matters into your own hands. And most importantly YOU will know what you did what was right, that stood up for yourself. There's no greater feeling in the world.

Worry not, this is not the last you will hear of me. I still have Just Another Otaku to finish and many more fics after that, ne?

Adieu, review!

~Claidi