Been So Long Without You {Hope}

[nora]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=style, background-color:#555555; width:400px; padding:15px; border: 15px solid #111111; border-radius: 60px 0px 0px 0px;] I'VE MADE MY PEACE I HOLD NO GRUDGE - -I'M GONNA SING MY FINAL SONG Sprawled on the five hundredth floor of Academia the unconscious woman startled the crowd that had slowly gathered around her by opening her eyes and inhaling sharply. She registered the faces before anything else and shot to her feet with remarkable spryness for someone who hadn't used any of her muscles for a number of centuries. Her hands instinctively went for the gun she could feel hanging heavy on her hip and the crowd skittered backwards, raising their hands in a placating manner. The blonde paused without drawing her weapon and took in the faces and the fear on them, her PSICOM training as fresh in her mind as it had ever been. Civilian clothes and that level of fear suggested that the clothes weren't part of some sort of ruse. She let out a deep breath and slowly lifted her hands from the weapon, mimicking the stance of those around her that said 'Look, no weapon.' While she, unlike the others, actually did have a weapon, they seemed to get her point, that she wasn't planning on hurting any of them and some of the braver ones edged closer. "Are you alright miss?" Nora eyed the man who spoke for a moment before relaxing her shoulders and smiling gently. "Yes, I'm fine. I'm sorry about that before, I got a fright." He nodded understandingly and she was glad to see that the civilians weren't as jumpy as they had been before she had died. Her behaviour probably would have started a stampede for safety back in Palumpolum. Or maybe this was Palumpolum. It had been so long that she wasn't surprised she didn't recognise it. "You couldn't tell me where I am, could you?" "This is Academia. Are you another traveller? If you are, you'll want to go to the Academy headquarters and speak with Director Estheim." She flinched in surprise at the name of the director. Estheim. Hope? She knew he was still alive, could feel it was surely as she had when she was floating in the blackness of death. How he was still alive, when she was aware that she had been gone for centuries, was still a mystery to her but she had a feeling she would find out soon. But what did they mean by traveller? The way he said it suggested that he didn't just think she was from another city. Curious. "Of course. The...Academy. Which direction would that be?"

[/color] After a flurried list of directions that mostly seemed to be 'in a straight line, that giant building', she nodded her thanks and moved away from the still gaping crowd. One hand came up to clasp her left shoulder, hiding the tip of the black mark that she knew was emblazoned on her skin, glad that the crowd didn't seem to have spotted it. That really would have caused a stampede. As she walked she began to catalogue what she knew, trying to get a grip on what was going on.

She knew that she had been dead and wasn't any more. She knew that several centuries had passed between her dying and now. She knew that before she had woken up here she had seen a figure that had branded her and then a jumbled dream she couldn't quite understand. From her days in PSICOM she was able to put the pieces together and reach the conclusion that she was now a l'Cie but the figure hadn't looked like Lindzei. The old PSICOM archives had recorded that Cocoon l'Cie saw an image of Lindzei, hence how they knew what to make her statues look like. But that could only mean one thing.

She clamped down on the nauseous feeling in her stomach. That meant that she had to be a Pulse l'Cie, an enemy of Cocoon. But that didn't make sense either because in her dream she had seen Hope and she just knew that whatever her Focus was, protecting him was an important part of it. Was Hope an enemy of Cocoon? She hoped not but then again, Cocoon had killed her and tried to kill him. She didn't suppose she could blame him too much if he was.

Lost in her thoughts, Nora bumped into a wall and looked up. Oh. So that was the Academy. The...giant building shaped like Eden. Maybe Hope hadn't crossed the Sanctum then. Good. Paying closer attention to her surroundings, she noted that she was the only one with a PSICOM weapon. Well, a change in weapons wasn't surprising after so long but why were people giving her Infiltrator's gun such scared looks? She added that to the list of things to ask 'Director Estheim' about.

As she approached the doors of the Academy, she stalled. What if the Director wasn't Hope or even Bartholomew? What if it was just some descendent of hers and her feeling that her son was alive was wrong? But then, her Focus. No sense in a Fal'Cie telling her to protect someone who wasn't even alive. With a shaking hand she pushed the door open. Come what may, she had to know. Even if her son was gone, there was definitely an Estheim here and she wanted to meet them.

"PSICOM Intruder!" The blonde barely made it two steps through the door before she was surrounded by armed people aiming guns at her. PSICOM intruder? Completely confused, she raised her arms in surrender once more and had her weapon roughly pulled from her hip. It was obvious she had missed quite a lot while being dead but she certainly hadn't expected this. Since when were PSICOM the enemy? And where was she that they could get away with that? Still, she knew how to handle military types. Give them something that they would have to verify before shooting you and you had a better chance of surviving in the long run.

"My name is Nora Estheim. I am looking for my son."[/color]

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tagged .

[/b] Hope Estheim words .[/b] 1022
notes .[/b] So...that ran away from me x3 outfit .[/b] Link[/color]

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this lovely template was made by Arro from Caution 2.0 and features lyrics belonging to the oh so amazing Coldplay. please leave all of this credit stuff in tact and leave a link for Miss Roro here if you are going to be using this anywhere. Thank you, loves!

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[Hope Estheim]

lights will guide you home

and ignite your bones

TAG: Mommy! Words: 849

ONE LAST THING: RAMBLY POSTS FTW.

”I hate to say it, but we can make it official – the Oracle Drive won’t be of any use to us anymore.”

Despite having already known that the Oracle Drive’s use had probably run its course now that the chaos hung over Gran Pulse and time had stopped, Hope thought he might have been the most disappointed person in the room to hear the news from out of his own mouth. He fidgeted with the computer panels surrounding the nearly-spherical device one last time to ensure that his words were accurate. The Drive flickered to show it was up and running, but there was nothing to be seen from it as there had been previously.

”The principles behind the Oracle Drive are no longer in existence, really. We have to start rethinking some scientific rules altogether. I think we should start, since we have the blueprints for a future recreation, by dismantling the Oracle Drive and determining which parts were affected by the stoppage of time.” Equal amounts of groans, agreements, and small arguments struck up from within the ranks of the researchers in the room, but all of them ultimately knew what Hope was saying was probably accurate. They all had a far new scientific landscape to deal with, because it was starting to look like, without getting back to the roots of their studies, that none of them were going to find a way to deal with the death of Etro and presence of chaos through their previous studies. It was going to be a long road…like the past thirteen years had been for Hope. Thank goodness that Light, Vanille, and Fang had come back. He couldn’t deal with another decade of his previous loneliess.

”Where do we begin? We have no clues.” Hope brought a hand to his chin, admittance that he didn’t have an answer to the woman’s question. Etro, had she been alive, would have known that the last thing any of them would have wanted to do was find a fal’Cie who could help them. As it had always been with the Academy, they wanted to do this work on their own, through human ingenuity. That was what Hope wanted, at least. He couldn’t be so sure that some of the faces surrounding him as he turned in place would agree so much with him anymore. After all, these people had never even seen a fal’Cie with their own eyes, and their only experience with Barthandelus and Orphan came from history books. Hope had already been hearing a few whispers here and there of people mentioning the fal’Cie of Gran Pulse in relation to the chaos and determining a way to set the world right again. He hoped he could quell those whispers.

”Well the samples of flora and fauna that the junior scientists have been gathering would be a nice place to start. We need to keep sending them out as the months pass on, to pick up samples to see if the stoppage of time has really affected the aging process as we first thought. Dr. Erin could also start working with human tissues for a comparison. Beyond that, I’m sure some atmospheric readings could tell us-“

Hope turned to see what some of the researchers seemed to be looking at, finding a guard entering with a grim expression on his face. Ceasing his talk, he turned to the guard as a signal for him to speak. ”Director, we may have a problem at the front. You may need to look into it.” Admittedly, it was strange for a guard to come straight to the top, so Hope had to assume it was quite a big potential problem. Glancing to the researchers, who informed him that they’d be beginning to make plans to have the engineers dismantle the Oracle Drive, Hope nodded and followed the guard out into the hall and towards the elevator.

Once they were inside, Hope turned to study the guard’s face again. The same grim expression sat on his features. ”What exactly is the problem?”, Hope asked. The man took his time answering, looking reluctant. ”We believe we may have something of a PSICOM infiltration, sir, though they walked in the front doors conspicuously.” Well, that made Hope assume that the individual had been apprehended and had their weapons taken off of them. Why, then, did they need him to come along?

He chose not to question it. The silence did not last long, though, as the guard seemed to find a chance to shake the chains off and speak up. ”They claim to be an Estheim. Do you know anything about that, sir?” The grim expression made its way over to Hope’s face, too. He didn’t understand how the Estheim name could have survived for four hundred years with Hope leaving before having children. ”It’s probably a trick,” Hope told him, as the elevator doors opened and he stepped outside into the main lobby. ”But it was a good idea to come and get me.”

Hope could not help but have the feeling, though, that the guard wanted to say more.

and i will try to fix you

TEMPLATE BY: THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE MIKEY ! @ CAUTION.

[nora]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=style, background-color:#555555; width:400px; padding:15px; border: 15px solid #111111; border-radius: 60px 0px 0px 0px;] I'VE MADE MY PEACE I HOLD NO GRUDGE - -I'M GONNA SING MY FINAL SONG Nora watched as one of the men broke away and headed into an elevator, presumably to fetch what she hoped was her son. She was relieved to have gotten this far; she was well aware that there was a chance she could have been taken for a lunatic as soon as she opened her mouth and tossed out. She had no idea how she would have reacted to that or what she would have done. Settled down in the city and petitioned for an interview probably. It might have been her only option. Lacing her fingers together, the woman rested her hands atop her head. It was something she had been taught in PSICOM in the event she might get arrested. The position allowed her captors to still her hands and what she was doing with them but was less painful on her upper arms and fended off the inevitable ache for a while longer. With the immense size of the Academy Headquarters she had no idea how long it would take for the guards to fetch the mysterious Estheim and didn’t really want to have to put up with a cramp for any longer than she had to. Of course, that was if they fetched this Estheim at all. They might instead call for a superior officer, who would likely be less sympathetic than someone who was potentially related to her. That hadn’t been much of a concern for her before; even if she wasn’t recognised she could still introduce herself and find out what was going on here. Now, however, she was presented with a worse problem. It was obvious that PSICOM was not welcome here and she had been identified as a soldier from the elite army, even if it had been years since she had actually been a serving member. If the current Estheim did not recognise her or believe her story then she would most likely find herself either arrested or even outright killed. While she held no ill will against this city she did not know, there was a very low chance they would actually believe her when she said that if PSICOM was really that hated here. Her brazen entrance through the front door, with no attempt to hide her entry, along with her quick surrender might work in her favour there. However, imprisonment was hardly an ideal outcome either. If she explained and was lucky enough to be believed then she might manage to get herself on some sort of probation and avoid rotting away in a prison until she died a second time. Nora still suspected that the Estheim here was her son. She instinctively knew that her son was not deceased but that wasn't much help in pinpointing where he was. Apparently an ingrained familial life detector did not also function as a compass, which was a bit of let down really. Immense magical being lets you know your kid is alive and curses you to be a slave for them but can't be bothered to point you in the right direction. Seemed out right rude if she thought about it which she tried not to because that just led back to thinking about how she was now a Fal'Cie weapon and that...could wait. Wincing, the woman rolled her shoulders and then her eyes as the action brought all of the soldiers attention back to her. They were so jumpy and it reminded her of the cadets she'd worked with. After they were certain that she wasn't pulling up some sort of mystical weapon from her hair they went right back to their muttered conversations. The majority of them seemed to be discussing whether or not she really was an Estheim or if the name was just a PSICOM trick. A frown settled on her face as she continued listening. It wasn't what they were saying, that was par for the course speculation, but the volume they spoke at. She didn't exactly have to strain herself to listen in. Even if they had succeeded in keeping quiet, she could have been lip reading. Now, Nora herself was not a great lip reader but she remembered hearing that some of the PSICOM infiltrators, the best of the best, knew how to. To hold any conversation like that so close to an assumed enemy was a rookie move. She didn't like it; it suggested that the security here was lax. She didn't know what was going on in the world lately but she knew that she was charged with protecting her son and this, this was not secure. Th familiar sound of elevator doors brought her attention away from criticising the Academy security and back to what was actually happening around her. The blonde sucked in a sharp breath as her eyes landed on one of the people who appeared. Her fingers clenched in her hair as she locked her muscles to prevent herself from dashing forward. It had been so long and he had grown so much since she had last seen him but she knew that the man who stepped from the elevator was her son, as sure as she knew that her name was Nora Estheim. Her knees buckled and she placed her legs in a carefully balanced stance. As much as she wanted to run forward and take him in her arms she knew that she couldn't, not yet. But it been so long. She only hoped this wouldn't be drawn out more than was necessary. Her voice cracked as she called out to the silver haired man. "Hope."

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tagged .

[/b] Hope Estheim words .[/b] 946
notes .[/b]N/A outfit .[/b] Link[/color]

[/div]

this lovely template was made by Arro from Caution 2.0 and features lyrics belonging to the oh so amazing Coldplay. please leave all of this credit stuff in tact and leave a link for Miss Roro here if you are going to be using this anywhere. Thank you, loves!

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[Hope Estheim]

lights will guide you home

and ignite your bones

TAG: Mommy! Words: 511

ONE LAST THING: This is a terrible post.

What was Hope supposed to do with someone who was probably an imposter? Considering that they had apparently walked up to the doors aware that the Academy would quickly move to detain, Hope figured that the they probably wanted to be caught if they had no real claim to the Estheim name. If the person truly was an Estheim, Hope had to wonder why they would brand themselves as PSICOM and then come pouring back into the Academy later on. None of the possibilities for a motivation really made any sense to the Academy director, so he didn’t assign any expectations to who or what he would find once he reached the other end of the lobby and got to work at solving this problem.

”Did you-“, Hope started to say to the man beside him, before a voice from the other end of the room caused him pause, eyes studying the gathering of Academy that were gathered. The voice...well, it sounded undoubtedly familiar, but Hope could safely say that he had never met an Estheim from 400 AF. Again, so far as he knew, he had no Estheim relatives that he was aware of. So with curiosity written on his face and his question to the soldier forgotten, Hope rounded the lobby desk to get a better look at-

He froze in place, almost mid-step, a combination of joy, terror, anger, and confusion covering his face all at once. For a few moments, the joy took over, and Hope nearly broke out of his place to rush forward, his lips parting to form a simple, three-letter word that every child knew but his voice never arriving to meet the action. He only ended up flopping forward onto the other foot. Logic took over for a few seconds, informing Hope of every kind of variable that could make what he was seeing possible and impossible at the same time. And then, the anger tried to creep its way in, when the logic started to make less and less sense. The anger, though, never manifested, only gave him the means to keep stepping forward drunkenly, not caring who saw him acting so foolishly, towards the form that he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt was, at the physical level, his mother.

His mother.

Again his mouth opened, managing to form words. ”Who…are you?”, he asked, only the slightest bite to his voice in case this person turned out to be the imposter that Hope prayed that she was not. Why would his mother be standing here before him? She had died; there had been no crystalstasis to preserve her and- just- it didn’t make any sense. Hope didn’t know exactly what emotion would lead him to do if the woman standing before him truly was an imposter, but with the way his mind was already set aflame, he imagined that his reaction would not be a peaceful one in the slightest.

If someone could play with his mind like this, Hope didn’t much care what he ended up doing to them.

and i will try to fix you

TEMPLATE BY: THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE MIKEY ! @ CAUTION.

[nora]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=style, background-color:#555555; width:400px; padding:15px; border: 15px solid #111111; border-radius: 60px 0px 0px 0px;] I'VE MADE MY PEACE I HOLD NO GRUDGE - -I'M GONNA SING MY FINAL SONG Her son was in front of her. The thought reverberated around inside her skull as she stared at the man in front of her. She wanted to dart forward and never let him go again but Nora Estheim had never been a fool. She knew that her actually being alive again was such a far out explanation that she would have to make it certain that this wasn't a trick before she was believed. Death wasn't exactly the sort of thing that people tended to bounce back from and she knew plenty of ways to fake being someone else so convincingly that people couldn't tell you apart from just looking. She wasn't foolish enough to assume that the art of deception was a forgotten one, not when it was so very useful. She stayed perfectly still and silent for a moment after the question. She didn't think that would be able to talk even if she tried. A swell of emotion blocked her throat and she focused on pushing it down enough that she could speak again. She knew that what she said next would most likely make or break this reunion and if she said the wrong thing she would probably be labelled an imposter and shipped off for interrogation. She had gone through an interrogation as part of her PSICOM training and it had been...unpleasant. She had no doubt that the methods for extracting information had only improved while she had been gone. She didn't want to experience the improvements first hand when her training had been painful enough. But what could she say? Just answering his question wouldn't do; anyone could tell a lie that simple. No, she knew that she had to say something with a little more meaning to it; something that only the both of them would actually know. Her head was surprisingly clear considering she had been dead not two hours ago and she found it easy to flick back to her memories of when he was still her little boy and not the grown man in front of her or even the teenage boy she had seen last, huddled with the other refugees in Hanging Edge. She focused on the memories from when he was still small enough to cradle in her arms, still young enough to actually need his mother. "When...when you were t...three years old-" A shaky start but so long as she wasn't shot before she finished, she believed that she would get her point across. "When you were three years old the one thing you wanted, more than anything else in the world, was a pet moogle. After a month of pleading, I had to tell you that there was no such thing. You cried for three hours and only agreed to come out of your room because I made chocolate and vanilla cookies. Your father and I got you a dog for your birthday instead, a white one. You named him Nindana Joes and you used to put a headband on him with a moogle bobble on it, the ones they sold for kids at the toy store." The blonde exhaled heavily as she finished talking. She doubted that Hope would be too happy with her for telling that particular story in front of people who clearly worked for him but it was one of the few incidents she thought that they might both remember that no one else would have known about. Bartholomew would also know, of course, but given Hope's insistence at the age of ten that the entire incident have never happened, she suspected that her husband wouldn't have gotten away with telling anyone either. Besides, it was a personal sort of story, only shared between family members or, when it was necessary to identify ones self without being shot or interrogated, family members and their co-workers. She waited nervously for Hope's conclusion, her skin prickling with the tension in the room. This was it; he would either believe her and they would be reunited or he wouldn't and...well, she didn't particularly want to think about what lay down that road. A reintroduction to the dark if she had to guess. A small shudder ran through her at the thought. She didn't really want to go back into the dark again, not for a long time, and suspected that she wouldn't even be sleeping without the light on for quite a while. But she could see what issues her incarceration in that black nothingness had given her later. Now was all about her son.

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tagged .

[/b] Hope Estheim words .[/b] 770
notes .[/b] N/A outfit .[/b] Link[/color]

[/div]

this lovely template was made by Arro from Caution 2.0 and features lyrics belonging to the oh so amazing Coldplay. please leave all of this credit stuff in tact and leave a link for Miss Roro here if you are going to be using this anywhere. Thank you, loves!

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