[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

[heralding]

But if it came down to that, you'd do it that way, wouldn't you?

None of this sounds like a very good plan.

[actualizedname]

I'd try not to. I can help people more by being alive than by being dead.

[heralding]

Just keep thinking that, then. And try not to be in your fifties by time you save us. I can't have you being more than double my age. This is weird enough already.

[actualizedname]

I'll try to have moments of inspiration more often.

[heralding]

And I better pull it together and offer you some more help. However I can. If only I could change how I behaved there.

[actualizedname]

Lightning, no. I know you offered us all the help you could, even when you really shouldn't. I know you.

[heralding]

I wouldn't let Serah die. I would find a way to stop that!

[actualizedname]

We don't even know if this isn't part of that way!

[heralding]

I can do what I can to help. I'll change things. But don't ever try to make me feel like it wasn't my responsibility. Serah's my life, Hope. That's the bottom line.

[actualizedname]

I wouldn't dare to say that Serah was anything less than the most important person in your life.

[heralding]

I—I know you wouldn't.

[defeated tone]

We'll handle things.

[actualizedname]

We can't give up. We can't.

[heralding]

I'm not.

Are we even any closer to saving Fang and Vanille? We have the world covered, but what about the two of them. That was why I thought I was leaving, before I got swept away by an uncontrollable force.

[actualizedname]

They're not in the pillar anymore.

[heralding]

Then where are they?

[actualizedname]

We brought them aboard our ship. I haven't had time to find out how to bring them out of crystal stasis yet.

[heralding]

We don't even know how we saved Serah, do we? Not really.

[actualizedname]

We have time here to find out. I know this is true.

[heralding]

You this camp has the answers?

[actualizedname]

If it does, we have the time to find it.

[heralding]

If it doesn't give us a permanent headache first.

[actualizedname]

I can handle the time travel aspect. It's my primary area of research.

[heralding]

How do you even decide to go into time travel? None of what we did had any connection to that.

[actualizedname]

I didn't at first. Initially what I wanted to know was why an ancient recording device showed you. The time travel aspect came later, when I found out that your sister had traveled forward two years.

[heralding]

How old were you, Hope?