LA History

Mu

Their last impression was a dying world being torn assunder by a crying child, that child was put to sleep and they went back to where they belonged.

Except... They didn't. Instead of being back in a cave with Nezumi on his world Shion found himself on a sheet of ice. Ice as far as the eye could. There were ice sharks because of course there were and also... Xion.

At first Shion thought it was a strange effect of the machine, it felt like a dream after all. But it soon became apparent that it was something more. Xion had been on a series of islands for two months and often people came into this dream space before ending up on those islands. In this strange dream he also met a blind man who saved him from sharks and Shion himself saved a man named Dagger from quicksand.

The dream faded and yet his adventures were just beginning.

February Year One

Shion woke up on a beach after a dream of the Story Teller who explained that their worlds were frozen and some other things about the islands. He was worried and afraid but he knew that Xion was there somewhere. He remembered what she had said in the dream. He met others who had just woke up like Seto, a boy who was as overwhelmed as Shion was and Akko, a girl who was full of enthusiasm. They followed the noise of people until they found a celebration. A celebration of the rebirth of the sun. There were people from many worlds and also Jormunn, a people native to the world they were on.

He met Dagger again and Ignis, which was the name of the man who had saved him from sharks, he came from a world with Chocobos.

He also met Asch who was not the Asch Shion knew. Finally he found Xion. They reunited and she gave him all the infomation she had about the place including the fact that the sun was a literal phoenix. They paddled in the water, a real beach and for a moment, despite everything that had happened things were alright. They went back to the party and she began introducing him to people. Including Prompto and his baby chocobo Coco, Shion learned that Xion had Excalibur.

There were still monsters about and that evening Shion and Xion got terrified by fireworks and met Tim, who Shion liked even if he was a bit defensive.

Xion had been staying in a house belonging to Ardyn but a few days after Shion arrived Monson disappeared (islands could disappear, tick one on the everything is not real list) and Ardyn turned up and gave them five minutes to get out. They moved into an empty house and began figuring out how to fix it up to make it more livable. Shion had noticed something was strange with Xion, she jumped at loud noises and was more jittery than normal. He confronted her and she told him about the monster that almost ate her and caused sensory deprivation. It caused her to not exist for a short time, a terrifying and horrible experience and one that hit close to home. He told her how brave she was.

A few days later whilst collecting leaves for the house he stumbled upon Tim's nail art party and met Connor. Ceej who was kind and friendly and painted Shion's nails. He told Shion about his favourite book, The Little Prince and told him he had a sister, called Zoe who's favourite colour was indigo. He also told him about the writing rock, how story tellings were the best way to keep time and that the temple was a good central place to meet people. He lived in a tree house and told Shion how to avoid the traps to get there. Shion liked him pretty much instantly.

He and Xion spoke about potentially changing her name, for many reasons. Shion did his best to help her and be supportive of whatever she decided.

A strange thing happened half way through the month, they ended up on strange floating islands in the sky. The longer they stayed there the more they began to form shapes out of their memories. Shion found himself surrounded by places from No. 6, places from the tower. Sometimes he ended up in places from other peoples memories, like a palace with Mickey Mouse.

Then one night when he was stuck up there something happened, a wave of energy swept over him and he felt the urge to collect people, collect here means stab. He attacked Ignis, who had his sight back. Ignis knocked him out. He met Ren who had been made tiny and tried to help her. She was brave despite being so tiny and Shion made his mind up to protect her.

He found Asch who had seen a vision, of a grave his family had made for him with the name Luke on it. Shion hadn't even known Asch was dead. They spoke about family and Shion told him about how family could be made, it didn't have to be the family you were born with and now that Asch new more about what caring looked like, he could find a family of his own.

Then Shion had a vision himself. A vision of his world, from his future. Safu was dead. Experimented on by No.6. He was too late. Once the vision faded he went beserk, flinging himself against the memory rock of No.6. Xion stopped him, calmed him, managed to bring him out of the anger. There was nothing to hurt, no one to kill. Safu was dead.

Xion had had a much nicer vision, of their family safe back in their own worlds.

Finally they were pulled from the islands to story telling. Shion reported on his first month on the islands and told a story in an attempt to remember Safu. Xion announced she was changing her name to Aster, she still felt strange about it, Shion continued to be supportive. He also spoke to the Story Teller about the islands, memories and gods.

Shion knew he had to apologise to Aster for hurting her during his berserking and also to apologise to Ignis. He used his stories to bring Thalassa, the cat, to come and live with them for Aster and then went to apologise to Ignis. Prompto was there as well and wasn't too pleased that Shion had tried to hurt Ignis.

Ignis had lost his sight again. They talked about the islands, about how the things that had happened there could have come from within them. He also told them that he could fight, he just was in his real body once more, he explained about glamour and accidently scared Prompto by hitting a bit too close to home.

Prompto went to fetch water, Ignis calmed Shion down, they went to find Prom who had been distracted by taking a picture of Coco. Shion wondered if he took pictures the same as Shion wrote things down, as a way of remembering and making sure you had evidence.

March Year One

As the month turned ash fell from the sky, among that ash were tiny fluff chicks. Baby phoenix's. Shion tried to befriend a few, four in total before Aster veto'd any more attempts as Shion no longer had eyebrows.

Lup organised stones of far speak, for better inter islands communication and Shion offered to give stories to the attempt.

A new island appeared. A city. Ai'Tuoh. A city with many rules and harsh penalties for breaking them. Shion did well at first at following them until something inside him rebelled, the city reminded him too much of No.6. Perfect. False.

He got arrested, he spoke to his jailer, 41916 and helped the Drfiter who was injured, through the wall of their cell. Triage by knocking code through a wall was a new experience. After a week in cells they were taken to the standing water, where those who broke the rules were cast into. Instead of drowning Shion found himself in a colourless void with the sleeping bodies of many people, many, too many, of them were children. Children who could not learn to control themselves in time. Doomed to eternal slumber. Aster pulled Shion out of the void and then dived down to rescue more people.

Anger blazed in Shion, he was going to destroy Ai'Tuoh. He wasn't the only one and no one knew him well enough to know he was out of control. Ignis gave him fire blades, he went to start setting fires. Laurent stopped him, stabbed him, beat him up. Knocked him out. Aster rescued him, furious at Laurent. Shion woke back up, the rage gone and replaced with guilt.

Ceej and Ignis had stolen a boat and they used it to get back to Enso. Shion got into a fight with Gabe over some stolen bags, Ceej broke it up and in the subsequent argument between Gabe and Ceej Shion learned that death wasn't real here. Death wasn't real and Ceej had killed himself twice. He finally curled up next to a sleeping Aster and rested a bit.

Story telling happened, Shion reported, dull and monotonous. He spoke about Aster being a hero. He spoke to Dagger about found family and to Tim, who had taken it on himself to make sure everyone had a birthday. Tim called him Kiddo and that hurt.

He spoke to Ignis afterwards about what had happened, about losing control, about how Noctis was missing, about how they had both lost control. They promised to bring their burdens to each other from now on.

A couple of days later, despite his injuries Shion went to visit Ceej. Ceej had sort of forgotten to tell him that he had added a second stake pit. Shion tried to get round it and got shot in the knee with an arrow. Ceej removed the arrow and stitched up the wound.

April Year One

A new island arrived. Ziziphus. New people arrived with it and Shion did his best to help some of them. He also met Hinata and they discussed starting a place for people to get medical help. He and Tim fought a spindlank. Tim fought with fire and yet fire seemed to scare him.

Shion, Ceej and Aster went exploring and found tigerlillies. More specifically Shion found Cobweb, a tigerlilly cub who followed him home and was his friends from then on.

Shion had been thinking about Asch, who had disappeared and what he had said about being dead and his parents mourning Luke. Shion started a memorial garden, beginning with a memorial for Asch and continuing to make them for other people who had disappeared. He also organised a meeting of everyone to discuss information. He learned about other worlds, terrified Prompto some more and freaked out at Tim who told him that they had to think about the consequences of them trying to escape the islands would be, what that might do to the people who lived there. He also spoke to Lup and she told him more about the story teller and the crystal caves. Ignis warned of strange vines that came with a smell of rot.

The next day he sent strawberries to Tim as an apology for being a nutjob, he probably made things worse. He and Hinata went and explored and found garlic, ginger and blooroot. He and Akira tried to figure a way to make ink out of delphinium.

He told stories of Ceej and Tim's braveness.

May Year One

The month started with the most special time of Ren's birthday! Shion and Aster made her a set of playing cards and taught her how to play poker. Then the floating islands began crashing from the sky, bringing new people and causing strange glitches. He found a man called Barry stuck in a tree, literally and helped some other people, new and old.

Tim was horribly hurt, his boy twisted and broken. He shouldn't have been alive and yet somehow he was. Shion tried to help him, despite the fact there was nothing he could really do. Just be helpless and stay with Tim until it was over one way or another.

Ceej was also stuck in a tree and they talked theories, about how these glitches reminded Ceej of a video game. About what the Story Teller had said about creation and about who might have lived on these islands before them. Ceej told Shion about the sunken city. They mused about just sailing into the horizon, to see what would happen.

He also met Gladio and agreed to give him meat from his traps in exchange for teaching him how to fix houses. He also said that Prompto was sometimes too nice.

Shion and Dagger went exploring and found some plants to transport back. Shion worked on planting a garden and also was tempted to poke a centre of gravity. He, Ren and Seto went exploring and got attacked by vines. They escaped.

A few days later whilst out on Ziziphus a distress call came over the rocks from Laurent, before Shion even had chance to react the island exploded around him, vines twisting around him and sending him to sleep.

Everyone caught up in the vines fell into dream worlds. Perfect dreamworlds were they were happy. It was the work of Bliss, the god of the island who put happiness above everything else. Shion's perfect world was a hybrid world where people could come from other worlds, leave if they wished. No one was forced to stay, no one was forced to do anything, their fates, souls and bodies were there own. He was married to Nezumi, Reno and Elena were there as well as his mum. Xion was there too. He worked in a library.

As well as being in their own dreams they visited others, each one seemed normal, natural like they had always been there. Ren was in his dream, a visitor to the library. In Daggers world Dagger was a prince. In Ren's world... It was Enso but without monsters. Shion and her played baseball with lots of cats. Aster's world was one where all of those she knew and loved from all the worlds were there.

Ceej's world. Was the strangest to Shion. Not least because he was cast as Ceej's... Or 'Con' as he was known's, boyfriend. They were studying and everything seemed normal despite the world being nothing that Shion would normally recognise and there being an over abundance of music.

Eventually he figured that his dream wasn't real. That none of it was real and he woke up on Ziziphus, surrounded in vines. He called out over the stones and Laurent answered, he had also managed to break free, as had Dagger who was furious. Shion convinced Dagger not to set fire to the vines, as they had no way to know where people were tangled and buried in them.

He searched for Aster, did not sleep as he tried to stay out of whatever strangeness was happening. The Story Teller called them all to Mu and told them about Bliss, who they were and that they needed to be destroyed. Shion spoke to the Storyteller, an awkward conversation that reminded Shion that gods are not like humans, not really. They had to kill Bliss and they had to go into the dreams and tear them apart with grief and heartache. Lup made a rallying speech over the stones. Shion went into dream land to pull his friends out, sometimes to save a life you had to be cruel. He tore Aster out of her dream and destroyed Ceej's.

Then he caught up with everyone else and helped destroy Bliss. He told stories about the centre of gravity and of how brave Ren and Seto had been.

He was subdued for a while, as was everyone. He continued gardening, continued training, worked on his memorial garden. The 27th marked the day Reno had first given him the Turk pin and it was a day he marked, a reminder to continue trying to be better. Muffet helped him with the garden, he helped Jaune process the fact there had been another Jaune here before him and Ren 'trained' with him.

Ceej came to see him, bringing eggs in a basket. Shion had meant to go and check on him, he felt back for breaking his dream, weird about his place in Ceej's dream. Ceej apologised, Shion told him that he didn't need to. Much was said. And yet nothing was said. All at once. Ceej and Shion were good at that. Perhaps it was the day but Shion made it clear that no matter what Ceej did, Shion would be his friend. Ceej quoted the little prince at him, Shion quoted Shakespere. They then acted out Hamlet using eggs as props like the huge nerds they were and Shion realised that maybe he liked Ceej. Like he liked Nezumi.

It was all very confusing.

At the very end of the month a very injured Gladio asked if he could borrow some paper. Shion went to meet him, not knowing what had happened. Gladio was adamant that he was alright and he just needed to write some things down to get them straight in his head. Shion gave him some herbs to numb pain and told him he would check on him in a few days.

June, Year One

With the death of Bliss Ziziphus began breaking apart. The animals stampeded in a rush to escape and the islanders did their best to evacuate them all, Monson came close again and it was there that they sent them. Kaleidoshells began nesting, beautiful creatures. Shion did some explorations of parts of Enso that had not been fully searched yet. The Story Teller asked for help rescuing the plants and animals of Ziziphus, Gladio asked for a healer and Shion offered, but he had found someone with magic. He did invite Shion to explore what was left of Ziziphus with him and Tim. They managed to find both a flustercluck and acid spitting mushrooms.

He met some of his new 'neighbours' and spoke to Dagger again, continuing his ever long quest to convince Dagger he was not a terrible person. He also went to speak to Ignis, to check he was alright after Bliss and after whatever had happened with Gladio. Ignis told him about Soma, a friend who had vanished and they made him a memorial. Their cottage was much better, Gladio had done a lot of work to it. He learned that Ignis loved both Gladio and Ardyn at the same time and it made him wonder more about Ceej and how he could love him whilst also loving Nezumi. They planted an apricot tree next to Asch's flower, for Soma.

The Jormunn returned and asked for help with the Kaleidoshells nesting period, it was a time where they were preyed upon and they needed help protecting the hatchlings. Shion helped out, as did Cobweb. His hut was invaded by Fingerlings (baby Jormunn.) Ceej taught them a cardgame that was 'super appropriate for children' (it was cards against humanity.) He also read them the Little Prince and Shion and Cobweb stopped to talk to him.

At story telling he told stories about his explorations, how brave Gladio and Tim were and about the memorial garden.

After the storytelling the Jormunn threw a beach party where they painted everyone in glow paint (shellivthiss) and everyone had food and drink. He played a card game with Ren and a cat (the cat won, obviously). He met Kravitz, whose job was imprisoning those who didn't stay dead. Gladio was tipsy, Shion tried to convince him not to call him kiddo. Laurent wrestled a tiger shark, refused Shion's medical help and told him a harsher world would tear him apart.

What he didn't know was that it already had.

July Year One

New people arrived, as did a rogue elevator that snatched people up and spat them out in random places over the island. Cobweb got snatched and Shion searched for him frantically, meeting new people like Legion and Lucas along the way. He got 'eaten' himself, which was a less than pleasant experience.

He went to the lighthouse where Gladio was repairing things, for his building lessons. He enjoyed learning how to make clay and how to repair walls. It was good work and he was a diligent student.

A new island arrived: Unmi. It was covered in flowers and devoid of almost all else. Shion, Shouto and Gladio did some exploring and found weird automatons. A few days later he explored with Connor. They realised the flowers were too regimented and that there were no insects, nothing to pollinate the flowers... They found some buildings and some old tools and more automatons. The new island even encouraged Aster to come out of hiding.

Lance found a letter, as did others. More clues popped up, they mentioned flowers. Differing flower families. Connor found a letter too. Shion had six thousand theories, one of which was parasitic flowers. He rambled about the bees of No. 6. Ceej told him to never say parasitic bees to him again and said he thought the flowers might be parasitic and also genetic. This island was connected to Ai'Tuoh. Shion still thought that god given punishment might be more likely. They wondered if the traits banned in Ai/Tuoh made the disease worse and contemplated that it was so horrible the people of Ai'Tuoh saw eternal slumber in an infinite void a better alternative.

They talked about islands and placement and Ceej had a theory that the islands were actually seperate realities where the borders between them had merged for a moment to allow people and things through. It turned out that different universes were a study in Ceej's world called quantum physics and Ceej had terminology that was useful in talking about... things Shion knew to be fact because he lived it. So did the story teller have barrier powers? Did they help the people from Unmi go to Ai'Tuoh and if so why did they reject them?

He also spoke to Ignis about theories and flowers and parasitic genetic diseases. They talked theories for a while and then got distracted because Ignis had chocobo eggs and they would be hatching soon.

Shion, Ceej and Laurent explored the coast by boat, Shion and Laurent sort of put aside their differences, Laurent said he didn't dislike Shion, which was a surprise. They found first aid kits and also fluro (a medicine/weed killer). He and Aster also went exploring. He shared information during story telling as well as telling tales of being beaten in card games by cats and of his new found building skills.

A few days after story telling he disappeared.

August, Year Two

He returned nine days after he disappeared after a strange dream filled with vibrant colours and testing something through feeling.

Ceej contacted him and came to find him. He was sick but still trying to figure things out. He needed a list of all the rules from Ai'Tuoh and also all the information they had so far. They figured out that it had something to do with emotions. Emotional lies made it worse, emotional truths alleviated the symptoms.

Knowing that and actually, spilling their truths were two different matters. Shion and Connor desperately went on another search and found more fluro. But Fluro was not enough, not really. He threw himself into helping people, trying to give them fluro, trying to persuade people to talk. It didn't work too well. Shion tried talking, but he couldn't get the cure to catch, it seemed things were buried too deep inside him. Gladio tried to help him, Shion desperately tried not to shatter the illusion Gladio seemed to have about him being competent instead of a total mess. They spoke about lova and bonds making you stronger.

He tried to convince Ren to talk but she refused, he realised how little he knew about her, how bad he was at getting through to her. Instead of doing what he knew he needed to, pushing her to talk to someone, anyone he instead distracted her by reciting Midsummer Nights Dream to her. He had another terrible painful conversation with Tim where too much and not enough was said all at the same time.

He was worried about Ceej, he figured Aster had managed to talk enough to survive, but Ceej... He spoke to Ignis and Ignis told him he couldn't force Ceej to live. Just like he couldn't force Ardyn to live. It was their choice. It was a painful conversation, like so many were that week.

Then Shion went to find Ceej. They tried to speak, of Paris of Art, of centres of gravity and the desire to jump into them. Ceej offered to test if for him and Shion begged him not to die.

Shion failed at words so kissed Ceej instead, he expected to be pushed away but wasn't. He told Ceej he couldn't force him to live, that he wouldn't try and control him like that. Ceej told him to leave but reminded him to look with his heart, that he would live on in the sound of waves.

Shion managed to get out of the tree house before he gave in to the flowers and died.

He woke up some days later in the story tellers temple and realised he had... forgotten how to read. Also he couldn't see Ceej, not when he looked straight at him. Ceej wasn't mad at him for kissing him, or trying to force him to live but he did remind Shion that sometimes people did selfish things, whilst thinking they were helping others.

Story telling happened, Shion refused to tell stories.

Little Ghost had asked for new clothes for everyone from the Story Teller, the temple was filled with strange clothes. He got an impromptu lesson in LGBT terminology from Gladio. Then he disappeared again.

September Year Two

He woke back up after a dream where someone was leaving someone else, ignoring their sobs. He threw himself into helping new people who had arrived, including a talking puppy.

A new island, Nuidan, arrived. This had a god called Harv, they quickly put the islanders to work on this island where each corner was a different season. Shion threw himself into work, it was much better than thinking about... well anything really. He went animal herding with Laurent, Gladio, Damen and a dog (not the talking one). He helped Ren practice her slingshot.

Also it was his birthday. Ceej came to visit him and gave him a notebook that he had made. Made, bound, created art in. It was the most beautiful thing Shion had ever seen. He also kissed him and told him that if Shion ever wanted to kiss him he could just ask.

They still didn't really... use all their words. But it was definitely a Start.

At story telling he spoke about the weird dreams he got after disappearing, dinosaur herding and also how amazing Ceej was. He embarrassed Ceej a bit, which he hadn't meant to. Gladio gave him some good advice.

October Year Two

New people arrived on Nuidan and there was another stampede of animals. On Enso there were strange things, things you could see out of the corner of your eye. Random glitches. Shion once again did his best to help people. Even if his rescuing of Shiro ended up with Shiro rescuing him instead.

Once things calmed down he organised the harvesting of a cotton field. Evan, Fang Ray Shin, Dagger and Prompto helped him.

Of course after a quiet September things went wrong. Ghosts. A person for each of them, from their past, there to haunt them. Shion was followed around by a Nezumi who insulted and criticised him. He tried to help people ignore their ghosts, it was something the tower had prepared him for after all. Ceej was seeing his sister. Shion suggested a distraction. He and Dagger went swimming. He talked with Ann to distract her.

Finally the ghosts faded. But that was not the end for during story telling their stories were told, without their consent. Visions from their pasts, even their futures were shown. Shion's were all futures. Him killing for Nezumi, him dying for Nezumi and Nezumi leaving him.

Prompto's was a future, Prom dealt with it in his usual Prompto way. Gladio's was also a future and Gladio was less alright with things. Despite everything Gladio said he would still return, should still return. Dagger's showed him to be reckless and brave and was again a future. Ignis' showed his past mistakes. Ignis could see for the duration of the story telling, for added cruelty.

Ceej... Well it turned out Ceej had forgotten he had a Secret boyfriend. Ceej wasn't alright, but they managed to talk and things were... a little bit better.

And yet things still weren't over for there were more ghosts, those of people from possible futures, having lived a long while on the islands. He met a Ren and a Tim.

It was the calmest conversation he had ever had with Tim. They made a birdhouse together. Harv upgraded their houses to cob huts.

November Year Two

The story tellers temple went strange, trapping people in rooms that looked like islands they had been in before. Whilst trapped Shion found Nezumi. At first he thought he was a vision, especially since Nezumi seemed to believe he had dyed his hair and was wearing contacts. It soon became apparent though that this Nezumi was real. Real and from a world further behind in time than Shion's own. To Nezumi he hadn't yet rescued Shion from No.6. He was as infuriating as any Nezumi ever was but together they escaped from the temple.

Shion took Nezumi back to his hut where Nezumi met Aster. Shion had a lot of feelings and mostly ignored them all because thinking was hard.

Later that month he began learning Geth from Legion. He organised a birthday gathering for Aster and questioned some people on magic and how their powers were effected on the islands. He and Ignis had another theory discussion.

A new island, Maati arrived and Shion met the god, Anbaki an avatar of justice. The conversation with them was interesting.

It was Ann's birthday and Shion gifted her fruit and they spoke about the complexities of age when time was nonsense. He harvested corn with Ren, Ray, Ed and Héctor and threw a small beach party for Aster. He spent more time with Nezumi and got to know this Nezumi a bit better, he realised he couldn't treat him like a frightened mouse, but it was hard because Shion knew if he pushed to hard Nezumi would just leave.

Gladio had been missing, which was worrying but he returned at Story Telling. Shion told stories about learning a language and Aster's birthday. Terrifyingly many of them had a mark on their hands, a symbol. Like they had been chosen for something.

Laurent threw a party that actually seemed to be a wedding for him and Damen. It was nice to relax a little. Shion got ingredients with stories and made fruit pies. He spoke to Muffet about magic and about her world and species. He and Ceej went to explore Maati and found fire breathing goats because of course they did. Shion also went exploring with Lup, Kravitz, Shepard, Knight and Erika. They found more fire breathing goats and also a strange door with a symbol that looked similar to the ones one their hands.

December Year Two

A few days into December, just as new people arrived the sea surged upwards, a huge wave that blotted out the sun. It was attacked by paper birds and a tidal wave hit the shore. The absence of sun caused the creatures of the dark to crawl out and attack. Mana pools stopped working and everyone was stuck where they were. Shion got hit by the wave and got serperated from Cobweb. He found Wash, who was injured and together they freed Cobweb from where he was stuck and made their way to higher ground. Wash knew CT and he gave Shion a gun and told him to keep an eye out for danger.

Most people ended up in Denny, barricading themselves against monsters. Ceej offered to sail people over to the islets because he's a reckless brave thing. Gladio was on the islets and went to barricade Thalassa and Excalibur in Shion's hut for him, to keep them safe. Dagger contacted him to check he was safe, he was at the monkey compound and felt he was safer alone. He helped people get to safety, got attacked by monsters and set up a make shift clinic in Denny to help. He recruited Ren as a nurse and taught her a little bit of first aid, it would help her, he hoped.

Finally the water and the monsters rescinded and they began putting their lives back together. Not for long though as mid way through the month Shion woke up in a strange chamber with Tim, Chip, Frisk, Bucky Barnes, The Hollow Knight, Prompto and Lance. Except they weren't in their own bodies. Shion was in Chip's body, Prompto was in Shion's. This was the trial of the mindful, they moved through chambers where each one was designed for a person to do, but the body not the soul.

Chip's trial was a strange fae creature which Shion had to use Chip's magic to defeat. Shion's trial was a labyrinth where Promoto had to identify flowers over a bee pit, answer a maths question to stop molten chocolate pouring on top of the group and answer questions to stop everyone being shot. The last especially hit hard and Shion felt guilty about Prompto having went through that but also proud of him for succeeding.

The group succeeded as a whole. Shion vanished after the trial.

January Year Two

Shion returned during story time to learn he had lost an entire month. He had no strange dreams this time. He told a story about Ren learning first aid and a vaguer one about the trial but it came apparent from other peoples stories he had lost time. Gladio filled him in on what he had missed, Monson was back, things were strange, Ignis and Ardyn were idiots. CT was gone and so was Aster...

something strange was happening, there were dopplegangers of people. Their shadows. The dark parts of them. Shion ran into a shadow Nezumi, who he believed at first was just Nezumi. It was pretty terrible and told Shion to leave. Shion eventually did. He also met a shadow Ardyn, who was much more obviously not himself. Shadow Tim who insulted Nezumi, made Shion furious. He told Shion he was a liar and that he had set fires when he was younger, he told Shion all about his imaginary not so imaginary friend. He yelled at Shion telling him that he was always sorry and being sorry didn't fix anything. Then he tried to set Shion on fire. He got into a fight with shadow Beau, someone he didn't even know. Then Shion confronted his own shadow with the help of Ignis. They also decided they needed to figure out the puzzle pieces they had and find out what information other people had to get a better picture of what was going on.

Finally the shadows vanished, Shion went to find Prompto to talk to him about the trials and check he was alright.

But the worst was yet to come for after the shadows came the light. Good aspects of themselves. Shion met a light version of Dagger who was openly helping people and giving out food.

He met the light of Wash who was open and kind and wished to talk to the real Wash. Which was were it all went wrong. Shion saw a side of Wash he had perhaps guessed at but had not wished to witness, he broke a promise and made everything worse. It was worse than anything the shadows could have done.

Finally he met the light of Nezumi and in many ways it was more painful than the shadow. He told Shion about Nezumi's history, about the village burning. He told Shion that Nezumi needed him to love him unconditionally (alright he didn't, but that's what Shion took from their conversation.) Shion made a promise to be better, to try harder with Nezumi. He told Shion that he was enough, just as he was and that... That was a difficult thing for Shion to comprehend.

February Year Two

Shion moped around for a while, trying to deal with everything that had happened and not really getting anywhere. He tried to come to terms with the fact Aster was gone and Ceej was probably gone too but mostly fell to pieces. He spoke to Prompto about barriers to protect them but couldn't muster up much energy for anything.

Around the tenth he saw Faust's advertisement for clinic staff and forced himself to go and offer his services. He got the 'job' and that kick started him into doing more things. He realised he'd been on the islands more than a year, it had been a year since he had first met Ceej, when Ceej had painted his nails. The memorial garden had been wrecked badly by the flood and Shion worked on putting it back together and adding memorials for those who had disappeared. Laurent came to talk to him, he had lost someone though he was his usual cagey self. It turned out it was Damen, Shion learned later. Nezumi grumbled about it being a waste of time but he stuck with him anyways and even helped him make Aster's memorial. Ignis found Shion at Aster's memorial when Shion had broken down completely. He asked if Shion wanted to go and live with Ignis, Gladio and Prompto but Shion told him he couldn't leave Nezumi and Nezumi wouldn't stay with people he didn't know.

The story teller came up with a way to protect the islands, the paper birds that had attacked the wave. But first they had to mark the islands as 'safe' with magical ink. This... Somehow turned into ink wars. Though Shion was still very hurt and very sad he took part, being silly made him feel a little better.

During story telling Shion spoke about being on the islands a year and also about the memorial gardens. He spoke about the fear that some might come and go without ever being remembered and declared he was starting a census. He witnessed a Big Character Moment (TM) of Ardyn's.

March Year Two

New people arrived and it turned out the barrier system was not very well tuned yet, so they needed painted in ink too. Shion did his best to bring some calm to the situation and explain things to people. He met Church, Sayako and Tachibana, the latter who he got on very well with and hoped to see again. He also spoke to Laurent who informed him that Gladio was missing. He also told Shion about how some people where he was before got mind wiped, like drones and believed they were native to the world they were in. Some of them got on a train to nowhere and disappeared. It was a very uneasy thought.

He went to check on Ignis and Prompto, only Ignis was there and he was not doing well. Shion agreed to look after Rory the phoenix, as a practical thing he could do to help.

The Drifter organised a library and Shion offered stories and some book ideas.

A new island arrived. Cahypdo. Shion went exploring with Ren, Hollow Knight, The Knight, Amaterasu and Hector and found sea grapes. He also spoke to one of the Rooka.

Nezumi disappeared, another person gone. Ignis organised the stone announcement they had spoken about, to gather information. Shion asked if the offer of staying at theirs still held and moved in temporarily with Ignis and Prompto. Prompto vanished.

During story telling Shion spoke about the new island and announced that Ceej and Damen were gone... He took names for census.

The books arrived and Shion helped organise the library, he spoke to Legion about books and learned that they had gotten into danger by losing charge whilst exploring.

Not long after that day Shion disappeared once more, this time for good.