Disclaimer: Not mine.
A/N: I don't really know where it came from, but I'm strangely fond of it. Enjoy.
When the legends die, the dreams end.
There is no more greatness.
-Tecumseh
I knew a man with a huge sword and glowing eyes…
The cubs had always avidly listened to those tales, from when Grandpa Nanaki and AVALANCHE saved the world. The stories of heroism, sacrifice, suffering, and victory.
The legends.
I knew a woman who could grow flowers in Midgar and died by the sword…
- Where are they now Grandpa? Where are they now? –
Nanaki would huff softly at them.
- Gone –
He would say.
- Gone and they have taken their greatness with them. -
I knew a man who carried demons within himself…
The cubs would cry out.
- No! No! Grandpa tell us another tale! -
And he would. Stories from a time that would never come again, about a breed of men and women that had died out long ago. The last of SOLDIER, the last of the Ancients, the last of the Enhanced. The last of the great.
I knew a pilot who visited the stars…
Times were different now. No great evil threatened, but neither did any great good occur. Life was a far greyer place without the dazzling might of ShinRa, of Sephiroth the Great. Without the defiance of AVALANCHE.
I knew a ninja princess from the land of Wutai…
All were gone. No others remain. The people still tell tales of them, of their power, beauty, glory, and strength. But they don't remember the people they were and without others like them their deeds become fantastical and mythic but not real. Only Nanaki truly knows that men could slice up buildings and summon meteors.
I knew a man with a gun arm and enough defiance for ten men…
Some came still, to hear the words of the last surviving AVALANCHE member. To scoff at the impossible.
I knew a girl who survived so much and fought more…
Life was duller without them. Without the impossible. He missed those times.
I knew a cat who sold fortunes and yet was a man too…
Then he remembered the deaths, the sacrifices, the pain. Were those the price of greatness?
Maybe they were.
I was a young lion who'd been called Red XIII…
This world might just be too small for them Nanaki thought. Too small for all that strife and glory, pain and passion to exist in one place.
The world killed the great ones, or drove them mad for its own safety.
I saw a young man with white hair and green eyes who this world was too small for…
But it was a sadder, quieter place for it. The most beautiful of its flowers were gone, the most vibrant colors muted.
Nanaki preferred that old world, far more dangerous and desperate but far more alive. It was a world where the impossible was real. Where the legends lived and dreams thrived.
I knew a life beyond imagining. I knew greatness.
A world where greatness was not dead. Where good and ill did not hide behind polite masks.
But it is gone…I mourn its passing…
But it would be remembered as long as he still had breath. Nanaki wished it would not be too long, this dull world bored him. He longed for the impossible again.
- Grandpa! Grandpa! Tell us a story, about the man with the sword and glowing eyes… -
I knew them all. I miss them still. I will see them again.
But not in this world. He was the last of the legends. When he went, so would the dreams.
Greatness would die with him.
Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.
-Theodore Roosevelt
The End