Disclaimer: All the Final Fantasy VII stuff mentioned here belongs to Square. Cid Highwind, the Highwind, etc. all belong to Square. This is something from my imagination and cannot be used to make any money.

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Life was strange. So... confusing... Yes, that was Cid Highwind's life. It was strange how one's life could be turned upside down in hardly fifteen minutes. And did he understand it? No, not at all.

It all started when that spiley headed kid and his friends came and asked him if thay could take the Tiny Bronco. His Tiny Bronco, of all things. That little plane was his pride after he lost the one thing he loved most. The Highwind. How was a man supposed to give up his pride? But who knew what that kid was up to. He sure didn't. Sometimes he wished he had never found out.

All that led to so many hard times. When can you remember seeing a friend be murdured before your eyes? It was one of many of his painful memories. Yet, he hadn't shed a tear. No, a real man didn't cry.

And how much of bullshit that statement was. His father had said it when his mother died. He said 'Cid, you'd better shape up. A real man dosen't cry.' Why had that affected him so, he'd never know. But as the years passed and he saw people close to him die, he never cried.

He remembered that day well, his father's death. It was said to be an accident, but he knew to well. He had seen those pills. All sorts of them. That's why his father's death had been so quick. All those diffrent kinds of pills in one dose would easily kill a person.

The Father had talked of his father's death, how today's society was falling fast due to those things. Halfway through the mass, he had left. Left to go somewhere. Where his feet would take him he supposed. He didn't look back on the way.

What brought him to Midgar, he couldn't know. On to the Space Program he went. He learned many things there, and being at the top his class gave him a chance to work on a top secret project. An airship.

Night and day he worked, earning him the trust of many and a few friendships. There he met a girl about two years younger than him, Shera Noah. Now there was am intresting girl, but she was always one to back down. From seeing his mother do that so many times, he hated the sight, making him develop a bad attidude to the girl.

And it got worse. Budget cuts made work on the Highwind stop immediatly, leaving the workers with out a job. But he and a few others, Shera included, got a job working on a Rocket. The Shinra 26. Ah, yes, another of his prides, that dirty old rocket. It was too bad what happened.

It was the day he could of gone to space, the day his dreams came true, and Shera, well Shera ruined it. She had found one of the oxyegen tanks not working corretly and insistied upon fixing it.

Fate must of not been playing him a good hand, for every thing possible that could go wrong went wrong. Just as the rocket would of taken off, he discovered Shera in the cargo holds, with the tanks. Not wanting to be a murderer, he quit the mission. His dreams once again had back fired on him.

Why she stayed with him was a mystery to him. He never could understand women, never would. But she stayed. She cooked and cleaned, plainly did everything for him to make up for what she had done. It really pissed him off at times.

And that led up to the kid and his friends. They seemed to be trying to stop some man named Sephiroth. Since they had destroyed the Tiny Bronco, he went with them. And what a hell that led to.

And now, two years later, he still looks back on those times and smiles. Why? With them he got his pride back, the Highwind. True, it had been heavily damaged after the Final Battle, but he was working hard. All for one thing: so he could give his daughter Skylar a ride in it one day, and even give it to her one day.

Yeah, he had a family now. A Highwind to carry on the traddition. Little Skylar would be a great pilot like her old man. He saw it in her eyes.

When that little girl looked into his eyes, it ate up his insides. His father had taught him a one thing: to not be like his father. He knew how to raise his own child.

At nights he'd stand over her bed and tell her about the adventures he had to defeat Sephiroth. Of course, she'd fall asleep halfway through but he'd smile, kiss her forehead and leave quietly. He knew now that the Highwind or Tiny Bronco wasn't his pride, but little Skylar Highwind was his pride.

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This is dedicated to my dad. Nice, huh? I don't think he'll be reading it, tough. He dosen't undersatnd the game, but I think he'd understand the father daughter things.

This isn't so bad for a a story I came up with at 12:00 am on a Friday. AS always, send me your comments and questions. And in case you didn't know who the hero of this story was, I suggest you go play your Final Fantasy VII game real quick.