Squall Leonhart stayed at Balamb Garden after the war, going on take over as Headmaster after the resignation of the previous Headmistress and combined it with his position as Commander. Under his leadership he expanded the organisation away from paid mercenary work and further into diplomatic and construction contracts. He would later establish Esthar Garden with the help of the Republic's president. Decades later he would oversee the launch of the first manned interplanetary flights as a joint effort between SeeD and Esthar, acting as head of operations alongside his father, Laguna Loire. For the rest of his lifetime there was no recorded conflict between the nations of the world.
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Rinoa Heartilly withdrew from SeeD, never graduating from the program. She split her time between Dollet and Timber as the two states worked to reconstruct after the year-long Third Sorceress War, only stepping away from her duties temporarily to give birth to her children with Squall; Mira Leonhart and Cal Heartilly. A hero to the two nations, she would foster a trade and defence alliance between the two city-states that would eventually turn into an intercontinental alliance with the help of Galbadia. Although she never made total rapprochement with her father, Fury Caraway, she visited Deling City often where the man stayed under house arrest for much of his life. She would later obey his final request to be cremated, and kept the ashes herself.
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Selphie Tilmitt and Irvine Kinneas married not long after the closing of hostilities and the breakdown of the Second Time Compression. After the wedding at Balamb Garden they would return to Trabia where Selphie would remain as Headmistress of T-Garden for the next twenty years, with Irvine Kinneas as Head Instructor. With advice and guidance from Esthar to the south Trabia's population would expand tenfold, and a true capital for the nation was built in the warmer outskirts of the frozen north. During this time her husband re-opened relations with the non-human Shumi, and developed a more permanent relationship between the sheltered village and humanity, bringing much of their weather-control and botanic technology to the rest of the world. Their son Keiron Tilmitt would later be elected mayor of Eidel City, and continue his parent's work of turning the white country green.
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Quistis Trepe resigned her commission in SeeD two years after the end of the Third War, six months after her trial for the atrocities committed as a leader of the Unnamed Cult and the Burning of Timber. Although acquitted of all charges she found no peace within the mercenary organisation and after finalising plans she handed leadership of Balamb Garden over to Commander Squall Leonhart. She spent the next several months travelling, making one final trip to Esthar's historical archives before finally settling down in Fisherman's Horizon where she remained a private citizen, opening a library alongside her wife Xu Tyynes. She would only leave the ocean-locked city twice more in her lifetime, to attend the funerals of her biological brother Morden Aimsland and her orphanage-brother Seifer Almasy. Upon her death in 2092 the final strain of Blue Magic left the world and passed into history.
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Zell Dincht remained a core member of SeeD for all his life, travelling the globe as the organisation's primary trouble-shooter and representative. Acting as an example and role-model to the SeeD cadets that came after the Third War he would become legendary for his exploits across the world. Although he eventually had to cease direct combat due to injuries sustained in the Centran Deserts tracking down the last of the Unnamed Cult, he would never entirely shake off the enthusiasm that had been his trademark for all of his life. Zell Dincht vanished during his final mission at the age of sixty-five, investigating the Deep Sea Research Facility for signs of forbidden weapons-testing, alongside the GFs known as Cerberus and Leviathan. His death was never confirmed.
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Seifer Almasy returned to the SeeD program three years after the end of the Third War, after accepting a pardon for his Second War activities from President Loire of Esthar. Although starting once more as a cadet he rose swiftly and was a SeeD Rank A within five years. Alongside Zell Dincht and later Mira Leonhart he became one of the primary members of the Garden's now-smaller yet still elite military wing. Under his command two brushfire wars were averted, and a conspiracy to assassinate the Galbadian leadership was put down. His relationship with Squall Leonhart never fully thawed but the two worked together on several operations until Squall's retirement. He died in 2065 on the off-world colony Alexandria, defending the spaceport as the civilians were evacuated in the wake of the Fifth Lunar Cry. He was buried as a SeeD, with full honours.
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President Laguna Loire ruled Esthar until his death of old age in 2059. In the final years of his life he would oversee the disassembly of the great Esthar barrier judging it 'too goddamn tempting', the creation of trade-routes between the once-silent country and the rest of the world, and the opening of the permanent space-station Midgarand lunar bases Dalmasca and Alexandria. He was carried to his final rest by his friends and old comrades President Kiros Seagill and Ward Zabac, and by his son Squall Leonhart.
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Xu Tyynes left the organisation she had helped shepherd at the same time as Quistis Trepe, and the two eventually married in a private ceremony held in Esthar. Moving to Fisherman's Horizon with her wife, she had trouble adjusting to civilian life at first but was sought out to fill a space on the neutral city's governing council, which she would remain on for the next several decades and eventually lead. She established the absolute neutrality of Fisherman's Horizon as the world's diplomatic centrepiece, and allowed free access to the area to all nations on the condition that no weapons enter the city limits. She never allowed Balamb Garden to dock there again, a fact that brought her into conflict with Commander Leonhart often. She and Quistis lived in Fisherman's Horizon until their deaths, in a house that could see the ocean from the sky.
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Alec Nuo was ordained as ruler of his city-state in a ceremony shortly after the war ended, beginning the reconstruction with assistance from SeeD's construction division. He would oversee the expansion of Dollet inland and would be there three decades later as Duke when he, the Secretary-General of Galbadia and the Council of Timber signed the Declaration of Locks to become the Greater Western Union, finally ending the lifetimes-long rivalry between the three neighbouring states. His funeral was attended by SeeD commander Leonhart, his wife Rinoa, and their daughter Mira.
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Morden Aimsland was tried and convicted for crimes against humanity, and was imprisoned within Esthar for the rest of his natural life. Leftover cells of the Unnamed Cult tried several times to break him free from confinement they failed due to the work of Esthar's security forces and SeeD. Although held within the deepest layer of the prison-block, no sign of Blue Magic ever manifested again. Upon his death he was buried in southern Esthar in an area containing the ruins of an old city, upon the request of his only living relative Quistis Trepe.
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Jakob Kettil was never seen or heard from again. But there is a new forest in Centra.
-xx-
Almas Jordin did not emerge from Time Compression. It was thought by the only remaining expert on the subject that she allowed herself to dissipate across time, rather than return to the world that had created her.
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Sorcery continued on, in accordance with the rules set at the dawn of time itself. With the disappearance of the artificial Sorceress and the silence of the memories within Rinoa Heartily's mind the succession was clear again. The Power would pass down to Rinoa's daughter Mira upon her death, and from there to Mira's granddaughter Caela, from Caela Leonhart to Sara Harkens, to Annila Nines, to Janas Karsan, to her daughter and her daughter in turn, onwards through time. It would never be used in anger again until 3287 when Ilsa Renlos unleashed it during the Second Terra-Offworld War, resulting in the destruction of a considerable part of the Lunar surface and the area once called Centra, which sunk beneath the waves forever. It would pass down through the Leonhart bloodline for the next thousand years both in secret and overtly until finally coming to rest in the body of Rinoa Heartilly's descendant San Li'son, later known as the Empress of Stars, the Great Attractor and Power of All, and by the childhood nickname of Ultimecia. There it would begin its journey home.
To the start of it all.
Πάντα ῥεῖ
The End
And here we are again, at the end of a whole lot of words that I hoped entertained a little bit.
Thank you for reading. As always feedback is welcome, in any form.
Stay tuned for the next tale, sometime: Q+S
~Cobray