Dear Serah,
I hope you are reading this. No doubt it has travelled a very long way and has exchanged hands many times. But Serah if it is you who is reading it then you have fulfilled an elderly lady's dying wish.
I am writing to you from New Bodhum. The sea is pleasantly brushing across the shore, the sand is beautiful and overlooking it all is an amazing sunset; an orange hue which touches and embraces everything in its path including the crystal which encases and encumbers Cocoon. However it's not the New Bodhum you know; its changed beyond recognition. That's because it's now been sixty-three years since you left. On occasion I look at the photos of NORA, Snow and you and I am surprised at how small and nascent New Bodhum looks in them. It boggles my mind a little that for you that is New Bodhum; your reality is like a time capsule for the rest of us. Since then the town has grown massively to the point where we have an amusement park, numerous hotels, shops, businesses and expensive homes and we have regular train and bus routes to Academia and places across Pulse. 66AF is quite a year; we are connected more than ever yet the town somehow manages to retain a certain isolated and easy-going innocence which always manages to bring out the nostalgic in me. But this place is now for the youngsters who did not live amongst us during the times that we shared.
Why did you not come back Serah? Why did you not come home? It's ok, I'm not angry at you. On the day you left you returned twice within a few hours of each other. We realised deep down that you had seen a lot and grown as a person and that you still had something great left to do before it would all be over. We wished you luck and retained high hopes for your prompt return. However you didn't come back, not ever. A few days passed and Gadot became a little upset. Perhaps it would have been better if those little return trips didn't take place. I say that only because we expected many more such visits but there were to be no more. If you had been through as much in your journey as we sensed you had yet still managed to briefly return home then surely you would have been strong enough to succeed and come back for good at the end of it. You not returning was bad and without any real way of finding out the truth our imaginations slowly but surely began to fill in the blanks.
In the following weeks we took turns teaching your students and doing our usual things. I tended the fields, cracked some jokes, served some NORA specials. That sort of thing. However we had started to miss you more and more. First Snow and then you. One night we all went down to the time gate together for the first time since you left. We let our emotions out in our own way; Gadot screamed and shouted at the Time Gate about Noel and how "he should never have been trusted as he couldn't keep you safe", Maqui tried to calm him down and Yuj stood there trying to stop Snow from running off. I just stood there silently; I was seemingly calm and composed but inside I felt like I was in shreds. I ended up crying all night.
Serah your absence brought two things for us in the end. First it was longing; you were a missing person and through you we had a missing piece in our lives. Your wake left guilt in our hearts. Guilt for letting you go. Later it was revelation. We were young and stupid kids. We thought the good times would never end. But you and Snow had represented an idea we could not ignore: the idea to leave it all behind; saying goodbye to all the pleasant and carefree days in pursuit of your dreams. A nice sentiment but one which causes decay to that which has been left. I like to think that when the tears were flowing I felt decay deep inside which now existed on a subconscious level and that through learning a lesson that all would ultimately never be the same we had learnt a lesson which could never be unlearned. It was amazing that we hadn't learnt this lesson sooner.
Over the next few months we took turns with one of us spending a few hours by the Time Gate as if it were a gravestone. Even if we did not realise it we were grieving for you as if we knew you were dead. The Time Gate sat there like a deafeningly silent testament to both the past which had slipped through our fingers and a now foreboding future which waited to reveal its secrets. I remember that tiny slithers of grass were now starting to grow in the crater and thinking that one day the whole area could be overgrown. The Time Gate was slowly becoming a symbol for a bygone era and through it so were you and the time we spent together. Had the gate activated then all would have changed. But it never did. From what I hear it has never once activated in all this time. Snow and you never came home.
We tried to enjoy life but things were changing. Maqui's business folded, Gadot spent more and more time in the fields and fighting monsters and Snow wandered off one night when we were all asleep and we couldn't find him. I myself kept serving drinks and making meals. One day I stood in front of the mirror and upon doing so I had an epiphany - you are alive somewhere and somehow and would return to our world one day even if it would be many years from now. I got really excited for a moment, I think it was because on some level I perceived you as the essence or embodiment of what we once had and even if it were years down the line as soon as you jumped out another Time Gate we could reunite, rekindle old times and forget the pain your departure ended up causing. Or perhaps not. I am an old woman now and I am different from the bold and confident girl who I once was; a girl who had no time for contemplation or soul-searching. Regardless, such a thing would not be good news for us. Our personal futures were coming and even if we waited for you we would eventually have had to grow up and move on. Even if our family and all we once shared would survive to the end of time in you and Snow it would not in the rest of us.
Maqui eventually went to the pillar to help finish the Great Elevator, Yuj went travelling, Gadot joined the Academy's military and I went to what would eventually be called Academia where I managed to become a chef at a place that had just opened. When Maqui left town the glue which bonded us together began to unravel faster and faster and I think we all wanted just to forget. I know I couldn't stay there in New Bodhum on my own. NORA house was sold up and it was very painful saying goodbye. When I turned my back and walked away a page in my life turned but a door in my life managed to stay slightly ajar.
Serah, we never stopped caring about you. A few times we resented Noel but we never blamed you. After all, real heroes don't need plans and I always respected how you saw your opportunity and took it without procrastination. That's why when I eventually heard rumours you had been at the Bresha Ruins I immediately dropped everything via an impromptu sick leave act and went up to Cocoon to try and find you. Trust you to pick a gate to come out near where we all grew up. At one point I even considered finding a Time Gate there and jumping through to begin on my own journey. However I couldn't get in or sneak in to the area no matter how hard I tried. I felt devastated. The rush was a good indicator that I had issues which I needed to deal with.
I returned to Academia and eventually I became Head Chef at a restaurant. I loved that place. One day however Maqui came in and we sat and talked. My lifestyle meant that I didn't have anyone to discuss my issues with. I had to be my usual confident self with my staff and I had no way to care for my soft side and personal needs. Perhaps this hesitancy to open up is what allowed the decay and regrets to fester within me in the first place. As we spoke we had an awesome idea and arranged for the others to come together for a reunion. It had been so long but finally we were back together again. However something was different. Yuj brought his pregnant fiancé along. In that moment I saw her I think that was when my previous hopes and dreams were struck a killing blow. The family was back together but the good, free-spirited and carefree times that accompanied it were not. Much was not said that day. We had drinks and a few laughs and Maqui mentioned his nice young lady he was unable to bring along. I like to think there was also underlying regret and sadness in the others that day but now I'll never know.
After that day I decided to do the same. I was now twenty-six and had to start acting my age. You and the good times NORA shared were a teenage phenomenon. I allowed myself to have a good time with new people, went on my fair share of dates and eventually met a nice young man. We moved into a nice, spacious apartment which would be suited for a family home. He had his business and I had mine. I now owned the restaurant and even had the financial capital to toy with the idea of opening a restaurant in New Bodhum. I would not do so for a great many years.
One day I heard rumours that you had been to the Yaschas Massif. It had been seven years since you left but perhaps I would catch you this time. If I kept my wits about me I eventually would catch you. Once again I dropped everything and left. Once again I couldn't get anywhere near the place. I hung my head and went home. My partner wasn't impressed by my disappearing act. He wouldn't understand. He couldn't understand. On my travels home however I encountered Gadot. He was now an officer and where once he had fought the government he now fought terrorists. Amazing how things can change. Gadot and I spoke and he politely implied that it was my fault all this happened. After all I had told you that day that it was fine for you to leave and that we would be fine in your absence. Even though I had believed that to be true at the time I had been wrong on both counts and had I whistled to his tune at the time things could have been different. But why would I when at the time I had no idea that your departure would have this effect on me? He said that you were gone forever and if you did turn up one day you deserve to have your life unhindered and to be allowed to find your own happiness. That is after all what you had left for, to find Lightning and bring her home. We had no right to stop you from doing that.
I went home and eventually realised Gadot was right. You were an eternal unchanging constant but I had been using you solely as an instrument for my potential happiness. Somewhere along the line I think I had forgotten you were a person in a sense and saw you solely as an object. I think it was that day that I started to truly move on. I think it may have been then you can argue that I started to give up on you and for that I am sorry.
After a while my partner proposed to me and within a year we were married. My twenties had been forgettable with the exception of work throes and ever increasing amounts of adult responsibilities but my thirties were proving to be very different and eventful; they had only really just started yet it had already managed to grant me a beautiful daughter. I became both a wife and a mother in quick succession. For a moment I considered naming my daughter after you but I resisted.
The rumours came again that you were trapped in the future and that the director was going to change history to help you out. I think it helped that you hadn't come to this time or I may have dropped everything to try and find you again. I heard that the director was using a time machine or cryogenic chamber or something to go to the future. It would have been cool to tag along with him but I had a family now to care about and a business to run on the side. In retrospect that proved to be a major milestone for me as it showed that others who don't have luxury Time Gate travel can also become unchanging constants capable of reaching distant shores of history. It was also a major milestone because it would prove to be the last I would ever hear of you. After that day there would be no more rumours, no more messages and no long anticipated arrival. I would not hear anything from you, Snow or the rest of NORA ever again.
Years passed and I had one more son and a daughter. I didn't think it would be my thirties when my age would start to show and be felt. What others warn you about is all true! When my eldest was five we went on vacation to New Bodhum. It was strange as I had not been back there since I left that day. Fortunately it would prove to not be as painful as I had feared. The time gate was still there; connecting two now distant points in time: the point in time where you left us and the point in time where I found myself now. It was now surrounded by a garden, with beautiful white columns and a small circular moat which originated from an artificial waterfall on the back cliff with the two parts connected together by a small connecting gulley or canal. A nice gesture and seemingly a strange one when it became apparent that nobody in the town now remembered me or you for that matter. They knew of me of course as I was one of the town founders but not about me as a person. I shouldn't of been surprised however. The town had expanded and many people were no doubt migrants of some sort or another who arrived after I had left. A concrete example of the new shafting out the old. In the end however we had a wonderful time and would return again many times over the years as the kids were growing up.
A few years later my kids learnt all about my role in the events that brought down Cocoon. They played together and formed their own NORA group. A new family with new experiences ahead of them. They talked about fighting monsters and even besting Atomos or Titan in battle. We had come full circle now. However you and Snow were the last loose ends and I now found myself tinkering with the idea that one day you could be enjoying time with or even fighting alongside my kids or even my grandkids. A bizarre thought. I hoped you could forgive me for leaving you two behind. Our decisions we make when we are young, our missed opportunities and the mistakes we make echo forever through us and across history into the future for all eternity. All we can do as humans is accept that we walk only one path and forgive ourselves if the path we walk was not what we necessarily wish it had been. These would eventually play out for all my kids, their kids and now even my great-grandkids. It's amazing how we take a lifetime to learn and understand, we tell our kids what they need to hear but they don't listen and it ends up with them too taking a lifetime to learn and understand the exact same things when it would have been easier if they had listened and accepted your wisdom in the first place. But that's ok, how can they walk their own path through life if they were walking a carbon copy of yours? I suspect you are still to make your own fair share of mistakes so I hope my findings can guide you and enrich whichever path you end up walking.
When I retired my husband and I travelled the length and breadth of Gran Pulse and Cocoon. In all that time however I did not care to be on the look out for Time Gates and if I were to ever see you again I would have embraced you like a sister and left you to live your life happily whichever way you chose.
I have now moved back to New Bodhum where I have lived for the past few years but I am not here to long for the past. I always loved the sea and the sea breeze and I always find a time to smile when I see it. Even though I am weeping as I write this I can still look out at the sea and smile. I like to think they are in my blood. I can accept that this is not where I once lived, loved, wept for you and waved away. However I can say that this is where I will die. I am an old lady now and the doctors say I only have weeks left to live. Living here has produced my fair share of lazy days and these have allowed me to reconnect with the past and I have found myself with the one last thing which has always been left unresolved: you. For many years I drew strength from you but never once gave anything back.
My dear Serah, you the eternally youthful who holds infinite possibilities in your hands. I leave you one final gift. I wish I had given you a gift the day long ago where you left us to begin walking the paths we ended up walking but even now it's better late than never. I hope that what you are doing wherever you are doing it will bring a better life to my descendants who I have no doubt you have encountered and to others who have loved them and lost them and I carry the hope that my final words can help you if only just a little in succeeding in your quest. My son says he will keep this letter safe. His position at the Academy he says allows him to know the date when the director's capsule will finally open. We are hoping you will be there when it does. Now we must wait, allow this letter to gather dust as it slowly passes from one person to another and hope that fate will grant us one final messenger who can at long last deliver you what I have spent sixty years wishing to share. I carry this hope to my grave.
My beloved Serah I love you, I always have and I always will. I once carried the fear that you were lost but now I carry the belief that all is well and that you will eventually succeed. You have nothing except my full support and belief. Once everything is over with be sure to allow yourself the time to be happy. If you find yourself unable or unwilling to return to 3AF for the sake of that confident, independent yet caring young girl whose maturity ultimately comes at the cost of needing to be there with her loved ones you are welcome to come to 66AF and we can share one final NORA special under the sun, sand and sea which we both once called home.
With love from your beloved sister,
Lebreau