[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]

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?

[actualizedname]

I was eighteen when I discovered the Oracle Drive with you on it. Nineteen when I heard about your sister appearing in the Bresha Ruins.

[heralding]

So this is literally all you've done.

[actualizedname]

No. The Academy has become the creator of policies about how humanity should progress. As it's director, I have more to do than research, though I'd really prefer the research.

[heralding]

Something that works in place of the fal'Cie.

[actualizedname]

Yes. To use technology that has been built by human hands, for human goals, instead of the goals of the fal'Cie. It's our future, so we should be the ones shaping it. That's one of the core tenets of the Academy - to create a future for the human race, where we'll never have to be the pets of anything.

[heralding]

I bet people here can give us an idea of how to do it. Some proposals. Not just research, but history, too.

[actualizedname]

I'm hoping so.

[heralding]

I can believe it.