"The people of Centra were, we believe, a space-going race." Amy's cool voice wasn't remotely offset by the PA system she was using. She addressed some of the most important people on the planet; Cid and Edea Kramer, President Loire, the headmasters of Trabia and Galbadia Gardens, the newly elected president of Timber, and of course, Squall Leonhart and his friends who had helped save the world from Ultimecia.
"Extremely intelligent and long-lived, they came to this planet, Gaia, and settled it. They left their mark; many of the travelers thought of this place as home, and decided to stay. They were our ancestors."
Everyone in this room was aware of the situations that had brought her and Kira to live here. "Where I come from, it is believed that human beings descended from apes, monkeys, because they have similar DNA. Well, we've discovered, through our research, that the people of my time are completely wrong." She smiled. "Ultimecia messed with the very fabric of time and space; through a black hole that exists now, up until my time, there is a portal. A portal between the two times. It has collapsed on my end; I don't know what you would experience if you went through it now."
"Excuse me, Instructor Durham, if I may." The Headmaster of Trabia Garden interrupted. "How did you come to these conclusions?"
"Well, sir." She nodded in his direction. "My collegues Seifer Almasy and Kira Field had both experienced the time warp, as I had. We compared notes and realized that things were not all that they seemed. We got permission from the Headmaster of Balamb Garden and took an educational trip to the Centra Ruins located near the center of the Centra Continent." She smiled again. "What we found was amazing; the technology we have in this time period is nothing compared to what they had."
"What does that mean?" Edea asked.
"We found a tomb; I'm sure everyone has heard of the legend of Hyne, who supposedly passed some of his powers onto the ones who are now sorceresses." Amy's eyes politely indicated Rinoa, sitting next to Squall.
Squall had abandoned the Commander position after his discussion with Laguna. He gave it to Amy. While she was the Commander, she preferred to be an instructor, and had gotten her Instructor's certification two months ago, just before they left for the Centra trip. With the loss of heavy responsibility, he became the old him, and Rinoa returned.
Amy dealt with the responsibility better than he did; she was used to it, and hired plenty of people to help with the paperwork so she wouldn't burn out.
"The tomb we found contained the body of the Centra known as Hyne. Perfectly preserved for all time. He was the last real Centra on the planet; he had powers that the land-bound settlers didn't have. When he found a way to preserve some of those powers, by passing them on to a Sorceress, he gave his life to do just that." She paused. "For some reason, the recreative power of his act made it so that only females can recieve the powers. No male will ever be a sorceress."
There was some disquiet over that.
"There's more." Her voice commanded their attention again. "This time period is well over three hundred thousand years in my past. At some point within the next hundred thousand years, there will be a cataclysmic event that will push all of our decendants into the stone age." She sighed. "The evedance I found suggests that the ones who realized what was going to happen simply packed up, caught a spaceship, and left."
Kira stood up as Amy gestured her onto the platform. "I took a trip, using the Ragnorak, up to my abandoned scout ship from our time. We retrieved all data from the ship, stripping it of it's hard drives and other storage mediums. We had to research carefully, reading between the lines at what historical data was contained on it. Luckily, every ship in use during our time is equipped with a complete and comprehensive history of the planet earth." She grinned. "I think the higher-ups were trying to encourage studying among the enlisted. However, reading through the data we retrieved, we were able to make a few connections." A diagram popped up on the screen. "This was found in the area known as Egypt about two hundred years before my time. Does anyone recognize this?"
"That's a satphone battery!" Zell exclaimed.
Kira grinned. "Exactly. It was carbon dated to have been created about three to four hundred thousand years before the present at that time. Scientists ran tests again, thinking that it must have been a mistake, but the tests were conclusive."
"That wasn't the only evidance." Amy said, stepping forward again. "There were other things; for instance, the Esthar sorceress' memorial eventually expanded to become the Pyramids at Giza."
"Humankind, with the technology they had avaliable to them at the time, couldn't possibly have actually built the pyramids." Kira continued. "We hypothosize that they were already there and the Egyptians simply adapted them to their use."
"So in one hundred thousand years, what will happen?" Cid Kramer asked.
"The beginning of an ice age." Amy said. She smiled. "It is quite cataclysmic; it will erase over ninety percent of the technology that exists today, leaving only the wheel and a few other rudimentary tools. Hyne will be reduced to myth."
"What's an ice age?" Laguna asked. Kira giggled and batted her eyes. Amy rolled hers; Kira had a bit of a crush on the middle-aged president. That wasn't so bad; Kira was in her mid thirties.
"An ice age is a complete lowering of global temperature, President Loire." Amy said. "The polar ice cap will begin at Trabia and a new one will grow on the southern half of the globe. Thirty three percent of the earth's surface will be covered with ice sheets over three miles thick."
"Sounds cold."
"Hence the name ice age." Amy grinned at him. "The only good thing I can find about all of this is that the ice age also kills all of the monsters; even snow lions."
"In our time, the monsters were known as dinosaurs, and everyone got everything wrong about them." Kira said. "And because of the way their bones are made, the carbon dating on them was all wrong; they were hypothosized to have been around millions of years before this. Some of them were. This was their planet before the Centra came. But not all of them."
"What about the monsters on the moon?" Rinoa asked.
"Well, the only hypothesis we can come up with is that the meteor crash that will cause the ice age had a sister that crashed into the moon." Amy explained. "There is a rather large crater on the lunar surface in my day, one that extends to a depth that indicates a large meteor, that isn't there today."
"This is quite interesting, Instructor Durham." Edea said, formally. "But what does it mean?"
"It means that we have to keep the legend alive for a hundred thousand years." Amy said, solomnly. "We have to make sure that our descendants are ready to go when the time comes. We absolutely must make sure of that; because eventually the ones who leave will meet up with humanity again. A hundred years before I was born, first contact was made with beings that were virtually identical to us in DNA structure. They were our descendants, and they had found a place to live." She closed her eyes. "The survival of humanity depends on keeping this alive."
"I'm going out!" Kira's voice said.
"Where?" Amy said, automatically, running yet another program on her computer terminal.
"Laguna and I are going out to celebrate the success of the symposium." Kira said, offhand.
"Laguna, eh?" Amy turned completely away from her terminal and smiled knowingly at her friend.
"You know, Amy, you should come too." She clicked her tongue at her friend. "You and Seifer don't even act like..."
"We aren't." Amy said, automatically.
"Oh, come on, it'll be fun!" Kira said. Amy sighed, and put her hand to her forehead. How a woman almost fifteen years her senior could have that much energy was beyond her.
"Did Kira put you up to this?" Seifer asked, whispering to her. Squall, Rinoa, Laguna, Kira, Seifer, and Amy all sat around a table at some sort of restaurant.
"Pretty much." Amy replied, sighing.
Idle chat and Laguna dumping various drinks all over himself filled a good portion of the evening. He seemed to honestly like Kira, and Amy knew she could trust her friend in the hands of this gentle, sweet, somewhat klutzy president.
"Squall seems to be in a much better mood around Laguna nowadays." Amy said.
"What do you mean?" Seifer asked. Amy blinked.
"You mean, you don't know?"
"Don't know what?"
Squall overheard. "How did you know, Amy?"
Amy was abashed. "I...it just seemed obvious to me."
Squall allowed a rare smile to grace his face. "It's alright, I don't mind."
Laguna grinned. "Hey-hey! That's my boy!" A thump. "Damnit, that was the third Coke tonight!"
"What do you mean, Amy?" Seifer asked, his face paling.
"Laguna's my father." Squall said. He crossed his arms and stared at Seifer, daring him to make something out of it.
"Really?" Kira asked, batting her eyelashes at Laguna. "I didn't know you had a son!"
"Neither did I, until we found him trying to save the planet." Laguna said, laughing. "Scared the daylights out of me."
Kira had left with Laguna. Amy sighed as she dropped her bag on the floor near the door to her room. It had been a stressful night. Ever since they'd gotten back things had been all work and no play, and this seemed like more of the same.
At least Kira was having fun. Then again, she always had fun. Seifer had mentioned when they first got back that he thought she'd get along with Selphie well, and...well, he was right. The two of them shared the same never-ending energy that left other people gasping for breath.
still, she was her friend. And she was happy; Laguna and Kira seemed to genuinely like each other. She couldn't ask for a better pairing, really.
That just brought her back to her own convoluted love life...if she could even call it that. Since they'd touched ground on ancient Gaia Seifer and her hadn't had any time to be anything...hell, she didn't know if they were ever going to do anything even remotely like a couple. Like go on a fucking date.
She sighed. I don't want to think about this right now. Instead she pulled on pajamas and flipped on her telescreen. Right now an older movie was playing, one that Laguna had starred in. She found herself interested and watched it all the way through.
In the end, the Sorceress died. Her knight, portrayed by Laguna, also died; out of the pain of knowing that the one he'd dedicated his life to was no longer in existance. The bond between a sorceress and her knight was supposed to be deeper than those of marriage.
"It's not really like that, you know." Seifer's baritone voice said, quietly, from behind her. Amy was startled, and she didn't turn around.
Briefly, her mind flitted to the first time she'd ever heard his voice; on the cool hospital bed in the infirmary. He'd told Squall and Zell that he didn't think she was a sorceress.
"How'd you get in?" She asked, without removing her eyes from the rolling credits. She smirked to herself that "Laguna Loire" was listed. She knew that person. Little old Amy Durham, from a desolate little bumblefuck town in Nevada knew famous people, and had just had a rather nice supper with three of them.
She wondered if her parents could see her, or if that just wasn't the way heaven worked.
"I know a lot of tricks." Seifer said.
"I'll bet."
"It's really not like that." Seifer came around and sat down on the couch next to her. "At least, it wasn't for me. Knights don't join with a sorceress because they love her; they join with her because they want power."
"You wanted power."
A smile. "I was a stupid little boy. Edea was right."
"We all make mistakes."
Seifer looked down with a half-smile on his face. "Mine was pretty big."
"Oh, Seifer, don't tell me that two and a half years later you're still pissed off that you went off with Edea." Amy rolled her eyes. "What's the past is just that--the past. You can't change it, and mulling over it won't change your feelings. Accept it and move on."
"If it were that simple, love, I would." Amy's heart skipped a beat; he'd never used an endearment like that with her before.
"I don't see why it can't be." Amy smiled and turned to him. "No one holds it against you. I mean, come on. You had supper with some of the most powerful people on the planet tonight. They didn't hold anything against you."
"A point." Seifer shrugged. "I'll get over it eventually."
"I certainly hope so." Amy said. She felt Seifer's arm snake around her shoulders and smiled.
"Where's Kira?"
"Out with Laguna." Her smile broadened. "They're so cute."
Seifer chuckled. "You know, it was that movie that Laguna was in..." He laughed again, softly. "I idolized him for a really long time."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Kinda weird meeting him all of these years later. He's a goof."
"Perfect for Kira."
"Absolutely." He paused. "Just like you're perfect for me."
Amy turned to him slyly. "Are you absolutely sure of that?"
"As sure of anything as I can be." Seifer looked down at her. "The past three months have really sucked, haven't they?"
"Pretty much." Amy said. She yawned. "I think I'm going to go to bed, Seifer. I'm exhausted."
"Mind if I crash over here?"
Amy's heart sped up. "Sure thing." She said, standing up. She stopped and looked down at Seifer, mentally wishing she'd paid more attention to the way females seduced men. "I'm going."
"Okay."
She sighed and crossed her arms. "Seifer, are you coming with me or not?"
Seifer grinned and stood up. "That's the woman I fell in love with." He said, drawing her close to him and kissing her lightly on the lips.
"Does that mean you'll join me?"
"Of course, you dolt."
"Tomorrow...do you work?"
"No. You?"
"No." Amy smiled. "We should go to the training center and kill us some rexaurs."
Seifer laughed. "Sure thing, love. Sure thing."