Author's Note: Here's something a little more lighthearted this time to make up for the last one. This is mostly just me trying to figure out how the heck the future universe even works, so headcanons ahoy!
Measuring Time
"You know, Celebi," Claire said, "how is it that you're able to guess at these 'year' things, anyway?"
"Well, you know…" Celebi shrugged. "It's more of a…vague sense of sorts. I guess it's kind of like that feeling you get when someone's following you, you know?"
Claire frowned. "Yeah, but…years are time, right? So if we don't have time, how can we have years?"
Celebi frowned as well as she thought it over. She and Claire, along with Leaf, Andrew, and Jirachi, were all in their current cave dwelling, and Claire had sprung the question somewhat randomly. It was something she'd been wondering about for a while, really, but she'd never gotten around to asking until now.
Finally, Celebi responded, "Well, they say our 'dear' Primal Dialga controls time. So while he's completely nuts, time must work to some degree if he's still alive."
"I guess you have a point," Jirachi mused. "But still, how would you go about measuring that, anyway?"
Leaf and Andrew nodded, and Celebi fell quiet again for a little while. Eventually, she shrugged and went on.
"You know, my parents told me once that 'years' still work, just about. It's mostly 'days' that are messed up. So it's harder to tell that 'years' are passing, but they still are. It's like…like…" Celebi sighed in frustration. "Oh, Jirachi, dear, you've actually seen time! Help me out."
"Well, yes, but it's still different now than it used to be." Jirachi frowned. "But…well…hmm. You know, what we have, they used to call 'nighttime.' 'Daytime' was when the sun was out, and there was more light, and you could see things better. When Temporal Tower collapsed, we got stuck with night."
Claire hummed as she mulled over that information. "You know…if we have 'night,' I wonder if there's anyone who has 'daytime' instead! Do you think that's what 'days don't work' actually means? Like, we travel a whole lot, but we haven't seen the entire world! So you never know."
"I've actually heard that there's a 'light side' and a 'dark side'," Celebi replied, nodding. "Of course, I don't know how true this is. Now, there's not anyone left who might've seen this 'light side'—at least, no one who's come back from it."
Huh. Claire blinked; was her random guess actually right? Of course, even then, she wasn't entirely sure what that would mean for them. If there was such a thing as a 'light side,' it would be light forever, just like she saw darkness forever. Would it really be much better?
Well, just sitting around and thinking about it wouldn't answer her questions. She'd have to see it to be sure, and it would probably be way too dangerous to actually find out. Eventually, she just shrugged.
"I guess it'd be kinda interesting if it was true," she said. "But that would still need to be fixed, too. So if we can fix this, then that'd be fixed too, right?"
Andrew shrugged as well. "Yeah, I guess so. And, either way…as long as we still have some kind of time, I guess it doesn't matter how you measure it."
"Very true!" Celebi agreed. "Now, I wonder where Michelle and Blitz got off to—"
"We're here, Celebi."
Michelle's voice floated towards them; she'd just ducked into the small cave. Blitz was close behind her, along with Jack. The two Pokémon had large bundles of sticks strapped to their backs, and Michelle was carrying a basket full of food.
"Firewood," she explained. "It took a little longer to gather than I thought. And it's not a whole lot, but I did manage to find some food."
"Oh, very nice," Celebi said with a grin. "Should we start preparing the food, then?"
Everyone nodded, and Claire went to help Blitz and Jack arrange the wood into a circle. A fire would be nice, anyway, even if they didn't need it to cook. It always got so cold otherwise—something that Jirachi had said usually happened at nighttime.
Well, she could wonder more about it later. Everyone's guesses all made sense anyway. Besides, Claire was hungry, so she wasn't too concerned about the details. Her curiosity had been satisfied for now, and they had other things to do.
