The world had changed in the last handful of decades that it sometimes seemed near impossible for one to believe. North and South America are now uninhabited by any preak – no, baseline human is the preferred nomenclature now; the world had managed to cease its reeling from mutant ascendancy in Renata Terra, the reborn land. The name of their super continent was strengthened and given greater meaning when the narrow isthmus of Panama saw mutants working in concert to lift the land from the bottom of the Gulf. Working in concert, they raised some of the shallow waters to create a broader, sweeping panorama of a new Eden. In keeping with traditions that the Americans had began, the mutants allowed the channel to be fitted with a new, wider laned, deeper trenched passage than the former canal's waterways.
And an Eden this land was. Open, empty, and fertile, the mutants who had defended themselves left the hostile lands of Citadel X and moved on to inhabit some of the cities the baseline humans had abandoned until they could organize enough to create their own new glittering capital. Set now at the edges of the east and west coast, it is combined by a series of forever open portals, allowing both sides of the continent to represent this united mutant nation.
The sweet fruits of victory did not go unshared. Over the last 60 years the baseline humans have also begun to benefit from the technology of the advanced, and even with some scholarly circles making overtures, the first co-species intercontinental lab groups and societies were beginning to form. What would come of their unions remained to be seen. Nearly all concerns this side of death have been vanquished. What else was there to discover?
Legacy knew nothing of what the future would hold; today she was seated in her small home's most comfortable chair that sat outside. Today she was content to sit, watch, and remember. Legacy looked out over the land that mutants built and felt a stirring of pride. Over the course of her unnaturally long life, she had been feared, hated, respected, revered, and now, occasionally remembered. Her long hair was unbroken white; her hair had lightened to match her streak decades before. It was only through the grace of Wolverine's broken powers had she lived this long, though sometimes in her more maudlin moments she wondered if she was merely living out the years all the people inside of her were meant to.
The deep jungle was unbroken greenery; overhead an occasional series of birds or the one-off mutant flying high could be seen far in the distance of the brilliant blue sky. While this land was beautiful, few went this far, this deep, into the jungles where the volcano known as Volcan Baru stood in place of precedence.
That suited Legacy just fine. She rested in her chair and reveled in the respective peace and quiet. Those first years after their hard-wrought win were full of questions. Legacy – she had not used her birth name since Magnus had died – left with the General, who renounced his position, and the two of them set out to make their own peace. Finding this area to be preferable, they settled, and planned to live the remainder of their lives quietly, away from the politicking that would assuredly follow the newly born mutant nation.
Peace was only to last a short while. Within ten years, the few children who had lived within the Citadel went out in search of their great leader, encouraging him to return and lead the new country, so strong was their belief in him, their General. Inevitably it came to pitched battle for them to understand that he was uninterested in working with Xavier and his kind.
When civil war erupted amongst the mutants, even Basilisk entreated them to become involved, and yet they both refused. Denied, a disgruntled Basilisk left, expecting to never see them again, particularly after certain seemingly irrevocable words were exchanged. It would not be for another twenty years, after Magnus was gone, that Legacy was visited once more by the man, who knelt before her, intent on adding his story to hers, to be reunited with his wife once more.
Legacy shivered in the late morning sun, remembering the cult that had spawned around her for a time. After Magnus had passed – and they had planned he would be the last – the ruling council had decreed all dying mutants must bequeath their knowledge to the living register, to allow mutants their immortality. No matter that Legacy refused, the psychics – all the ones who had sent the frenzied baseline humans at the mutants during those harrowing 1,000 days – made their decision and Legacy was lost to herself for decades after.
If you were to ask her what that time was like, Legacy would be unable to tell you. Her existence was relegated to a small chamber off the Hudson Bay in former Canada, now the Frigid Keep, where all mutants who were at or near death were made to imprint themselves on her. Legacy remembered only meeting the new bodies the psychics housed themselves in, of their proposal to her which she rejected out of hand. Her next memory was of her meeting them once more, in those same bodies, but now aged by many decades. They revealed to her that she was no longer needed, her advancing age was too far for them to delay any further than they already have, and as such, have developed new technologies for a truly immortal logging of every mutant within Renata Terra.
Whatever it was, Legacy didn't care. They released her to her own devices, and even escorted her back to the home that she and Magnus built. After that all visits from dying mutants stopped, and the only people she spoke to were the shades of the past.
It was a quiet, but not lonely time for her. Far better than before, when she could not find herself able to reject the dying requests of her brethren. Yes, far better indeed. She lived her days in quiet thanksgiving, relishing the peace that had been won.
And we did win, didn't we, Magnus? Legacy asked herself as she took in the sweeping panorama. We didn't get what we wanted, an' how we wanted it, but we won.
The silence was never for long when she spoke directly to him. We paid that price, terrible as it was; endlessly. The generations we safeguarded will grow their garden on our field of victory.
Legacy smiled and closed her eyes to the sun that gained strength as the spring morning waxed towards noon. Yes. And what a garden it is, Magnus. What a beautiful garden.
Her lips stayed in that smile as the call of infinity rang out her name, and as she passed from this world to the next, she swore that call was in the voices of those that lived within her. Those who knew and loved her, those who knew and hated what she had done to them. Those who came in fervent, misguided worship, and those who came dutifully for the law demanded it. They called to her by name, whether bequeathed or adopted by her, they all knew her. And as she joined them, she finally found solace.