[IC - update post]

[actualizedname]

 [Earlier this morning a tiny teenaged boy went out to explore ruins in camp.

Some time later, said tiny teenager reappears at the outskirts of camp, eleven inches taller, thirteen years older and very confused.]

Somehow, I think I'm lost.

Comments

[actualizedname]

Right now ... I'm happy. I don't think I can describe how happy I am, to be here, to see you and Vanille, and to know that there's a second chance.

[heralding]

Then you haven't been for a long time.

[a soft laugh in that Lightning way of hers]

I was stupid to believe that I could go off and fix things, especially with what happened. It's like I'm no better than Snow.

[actualizedname]

I've been busy, you could say. Leading an organisation involves a lot more administration than I knew.

You and he are a little alike. You both will do anything to save people, no matter what it costs you.

[heralding]

It sounds like we're all prone to rash decisions. Even in the long term. We just want to protect what's important. It's not just me or Snow. It's all of us. Even if Vanille is a little afraid sometimes. It sounds like Serah's right up there with us. Guess that one's my fault, too.

[actualizedname]

...yeah, Serah put everyone first too. Just like you.

[heralding]

Serah's ... she's fine, right?

[actualizedname]

[he takes a breath and lets it out slowly, a little shaky.]

No. But she will be. Now that I have the time...

[heralding]

[give her a moment to look wounded]

[actualizedname]

We can change the future. Serah and Noel told me that. They showed me that. Together, we can do anything. You said, before, that we make the impossible possible. We can do that again.

[heralding]

What are you trying to change? What happened to her?

[actualizedname]

Serah ...

Serah could see the future. Like the seeresses of Paddra. The more she saw, the more it burned her life away. She knew this. She knew this all along.

[heralding]

Sounds like doing the impossible just made things worse.

[at that, she just turns to start walking away]

[actualizedname]

Lightning, wait! It shouldn't have happened. That wasn't the future as it was meant to be. I don't believe that this was how things were meant to go.

[heralding]

Sometimes people die, Hope. You can't bring back the dead. The lost. Maybe sometimes we should just stay gone.

[actualizedname]

No. In one timeline I died. I was killed by a fal'Cie I had created to raise Cocoon. Serah and Noel, they saved me by warning me of what was to come if I continued down that path. I listened, I cancelled the project, and I lived. She didn't give up on me, and I won't give up on her. And I don't think you will either.

[heralding]

It sounds like what's happening to her isn't just as simple as canceling a project.

[actualizedname]

That doesn't matter. We'll find a way.

[heralding]

I won't give up, but it doesn't sound like I have much of a choice in the matter.

[actualizedname]

You can't think like that. Just because that's how a future did go doesn't mean that our future has to go that way.

[heralding]

Why didn't she stop? If she knew she was dying ... Couldn't I have stopped her with those dreams?

[actualizedname]

I don't know. I didn't know what she was until ...

[he swallows, blinking]

But there will be a way.

[heralding]

We have to find it here.

[actualizedname]

We will. That has to be why we're here.

[heralding]

No. We have to make our own reason for being here. This place doesn't give a damn about that.

[actualizedname]

Not this place. But ... there's a purpose behind our actions. An overarching purpose, that is. We're here, in this place, from our times, for a reason.