I can Dream, Can't I?
by Reaya
It's strange how everything turned out the way it has. Even with her as the legend, even with him holding throne and Jewel. Even with the death of the Sorcerer Duke.

There was I time, I remember, when I was still a lass of nine. When I played at being her on the streets. I chased after my bullying brother, stick in hand, yelling at the top of my lungs. It was the first time he ran from me.

My grandfather once told me that when you lay all the pieces on the ground, and examine each one carefully, you'll see that the smallest pieces are more important than the larger, more brilliant crystals. We all wish it were so, but those are only dreams.

Look at him, for example. He started out like me, mayhap better, since his mother had been priestess and healer. But he was still was of us...King or not. He fought his way to the top, didn't he? And married her.

I can dream, can't I? I can play at it, I can pretend. And maybe, just maybe, it can happen.

And her, she might have been me. Forgetting the fact that she was a noble and Gifted. She took her Fate in her own hands--though some say the Goddess had a piece in it as well, but that's besides the point. She made it all the way up there; a living legend.

I can dream, can't I? I can spin tales of my own, and bid them come to life in my own mind. My own story.

I was in awe when she came back through the legends, making one of her own. And even though that dead man (mother said not to call him Duke anymore) came back, she killed him again. Even though he tried to destroy our world.

And that gave me the courage to stand up to that big, fat, bully, way back then. I laughed with glee when I saw him run, it was so funny. And when I called him the Duke, he was almost arrogant at first, thinking it a compliment. Stupid.

But then, when he died, I felt it was my fault somehow. When I told him to "submit to my sword," did I somehow draw his fate? I regret it, for all he was a simpering fool. But I shouldn't speak ill of the dead, should I? And after all, he was still my flesh and blood.

I think that maybe she felt bad when she killed the Sorcerer Duke, too. He was His cousin after all, no matter how many bad things he did. Did she feel like me?

Maybe, maybe not. But I can dream, can't I? I can dream up my own Legend and create my own myths. Because I'd be safe there in my little dream, forever and ever. After all, I have eternity.

You know, the thing I regret most of all is ironic in the telling. I regret looking up to her. She never saved me, not when they came. She was near, but I suppose she was too busy being a hero and a legend. And I'm wondering that maybe she's not that special after all.

Because I'm dead and looking back to when I was not.

But I can dream, can't I? I can dream that she's still the hero, still the legend. Still what I wish to be.

But I can't, because I'm still dead. And the only thing I can do now is dream.