Author's Note: Just really quick; if I did do the written adaptation of FFVII, then this is the epilogue. Skips quite a bit, ne? It picks up RIGHT after the last FMV ends, before the credits begin.
Voices on
the Wind
"Then, when it seemed as if the darkness had sealed our fate, came the new dawn, and never before had there been one so spectacular. I remember every detail of it. The black sky began to pale to a dark gray, as it always does, and then lightened to almost brilliant white, the sky blending to shades of red and pink and gold. We all stared at this miraculous event, as if we had never seen one before it, and when the first golden swell of the sun rose over the horizon, it was as if all of us – every living creature, every form of life imaginable in the planet – had been reborn, in body and in spirit. The world exploded in vibrant colors that we had forgotten; everything was green where it was once gray with death, and the air was filled with the chorus of hundred of birds, singing the hallelujah of our survival. Meteor was destroyed, and the Planet was saved. And before those who had lived, there was a whole new world laid out for us to explore all over again.
"Of course, those few who had faced Sephiroth alone in the core of the planet became instant heroes, and were looked up to by the people of the world to be the re-builders of the human race. With all Mako reactors destroyed world wide, they had to start all over again, but no matter what people said we were, we were not the saviors that they made us out to be. Yes, we did save the Planet, but that was not the real reason why we fought Sephiroth single-handedly, so to speak. Each one of us saved it for, more or less, a selfish reason, and I believe it would have hurt the survivors to hear us say that. All we wanted to do was rebuild our own lives, and to stop worrying about others, so it was in our best interests that we told everyone else to do the same.
"Tifa and Cloud stuck together after the whole ordeal, traveling from place to place by Chocobo, never really settling in anywhere, but, from what I heard, they were always happy together. Never married, or so the rumors said, but they did have beautiful children. Barret returned to Correl with his daughter, where they rebuilt the whole town, and the coalmines became profitable again. Ten years after Meteor, it became the richest town in the world. Yuffie returned to Wutai, Cid returned to Rocket Town, and Cait Sith returned to the Gold Saucer, so I guess that's were we can assume Reeve relocated as well, or somewhere close by, but we never actually saw him in the flesh again. It was Vincent that we saw even less of, even after our separation, but in the few times that we were reunited, he was always there, just as he had been when he joined our quest. I just hope that he was able to find peace in his life."
A small smile crept across Nanaki's mouth as he shook his shaggy head slowly before turning it up to greet that welcomed warmth of the sun. "I guess, if any one of us was a savior, it was Aeris. She was the only one who died for the sole purpose of saving our world. She was the true martyr, not us, but even when it was all over, no one knew the poor flower girl's name, or that, without her, we would have all been doomed to die by Sephiroth's hand. When Sephiroth killed Aeris, Cloud had said that she would never laugh again…but he was wrong. It was on that day, when it felt as if the world had been born again, that we heard it, and even after all these years, I still don't think that we imagined it. We heard it, all of us; laughter, as good-natured and pure as you could ever imagine, drifting to us over the fresh, new breeze. And we all knew, without questioning each other, that it was Aeris. We understood then, also, that she wasn't really gone, nor was anyone else whom we lost during the reign of Sephiorth's terror. They had once again joined the Lifestream of the Planet from which we all came from, and were, therefore, one with the Planet, and one with us all, for all time.
"If you are to take any
wisdom from this tale, my children, remember this one thing that your old
Grandpa's told you today. Laughter is a
universal language, and when the sun dawned the day after Meteor was destroyed,
Aeris' laughter delivered us all one very clear, last message.
We are free… we are free…
~Owari