Islander meeting!

[savedbyasong]

Who: Everyone!
What: An information gathering meeting, mingle log style!
When: 13th as advertised Here!
Where: Big tent, islet 4 (sorry Ardyn!)
Warnings: Keep an eye on subject lines for warnings!

[The tent is a good place to have this. It's sheltered at least. Shion has collected strawberries and also water. He hopes that people will turn up, there's a lot to discuss. About this place, how they are here and how to leave. But also surviving here. Helping each other make the most of being here.

They had done such things in the Tower and it was a good way to get things organised. He knows he has questions and he thinks other people probably do as well. If it's anything like the Tower then people all have different bits of information that will fit together eventually.

He greats people as they enter and will encourage anyone who looks less than certain to enter and offer them strawberries.]

((OOC: So I'll put up a subthread for mingling before the meeting, then discussion points can be posted as a reply to this main thread. I'll do a few for things Shion will bring up but feel free to post your own points as well! Tag around, do breakout threads, discuss all the things. Don't worry if things go off topic. Have fun!)

Comments

[savedbyasong]

"I think most people come from the world they started in, but there are a few people from other places." So far. He looks at his notes.

"Have you and Ignis figured out if you are from the same world? Or a similar but not identical one?"

[want_to_belong]

"Wha-"

That was not something he thought was a possibility and struck him off guard. "How could Iggy and I be from different worlds? We've known each other for years! At least partially, through Noct."

[savedbyasong]

Shion blinked at him and reached out to touch his arm, to calm him. He doesn't want to scare him, he's scared him before and though he didn't seem to be upset at him because of it... He's being careful.

"There are lots of worlds. Probably infinite amounts. Some are very different, like mine and Aster's. Some are very similar even almost identical to one another. In the Tower where we were before... Only one person from each world was rescued." A breath, checking to see that Prompto was following.

"But people still saw people they knew, we thought the administrators were lying for ages. There were a lot of people from Aster's world for example, they had the same memories as each other for the most part. But sometimes things were a little different, one person would seem to be from further in the past than another."

It had been terrifying to get his head round at first but now it was... normal. As normal as anything else.

"It turned out that we all were from different worlds, just some are very similar. I had a... friend who woke in the Tower from my world. Except we remembered slightly different things and in his world my eyes were dark purple, not red." The tiniest difference in a whole different universe.

"Here... our worlds aren't destroyed and no one has claimed we are all from different ones. Me and Aster are from the same place..." Unless there were infinite versions of the Tower as well but he is not thinking about that because that is headache inducing.

"You and Ignis are the only people I know that come from what is potentially the same world. So I was wondering if everything matched, you remembered the same things."

[want_to_belong]

"Everything has always matched up so far..."

Nothing had ever seemed off in their talks. "Except, Iggy doesn't remember as far as I do."

He wasn't rejecting the possibility, but his tone made it clear that he didn't like the idea. "But then if we were from different worlds, then Iggy would actually be friends with a different Prompto."

As if he needed more of him out there.

[savedbyasong]

"And you would be friends with a different Ignis." It was difficult to get your head round at first. "In the Tower there were sometimes more than one person who were identical but from slightly different worlds."

It had never happened to Shion, he was sort of glad. Meeting himself from a different universe... If Ignis didn't remember as far as Prompto, that probably meant their worlds were different. He noted that down, even if he didn't say it to Prompto, he understood it was a lot to take in.

"But... even though people were friends with different versions of their friends it didn't stop them being friends. It just means there are so many more Ignis' for you to be friends with out there."

More friends were never bad.

[want_to_belong]

"Yeah, but..."

He stopped himself, not exactly wanting to complain. It greatly worried him that there was someone out there who could replace him. What if Ignis liked him better? He'd been scared enough finding out that he wasn't one of a kind to begin with, but finding out there were other hims who even used the same name? Had the same past? He could literally be replaced. Would anyone even notice?

Long-held childhood fears were hard to leave behind.

He sighed, and covered it up by just agreeing with Shion, "Yeah, I guess." He swallowed. "Well, I guess, if you find out anything, let me know?"

[savedbyasong]

"Prompto..." Shion blinked at him. Though Prompto was agreeing with him he could tell that he had upset him, worried him in some way. It was a difficult thing to hear at any time. That everything you knew was... if not wrong than only as tiny fraction of the multiverse at large. That you were not unique. That you were not the person your friends cared for.

Don't tell me you're some kind of imposter? Rat's words still hurt, even now two years later. Especially now that Shion knew it was true, he had not been the Shion Rat had known.

"I'm sorry. I just talk sometimes and I should..." He shrugged, "I didn't mean to scare you."

[want_to_belong]

Prompto furrowed his brows a bit, arms folded. It was still an uncomfortable subject, but his hint of confusion was genuine, "Huh? It's fine."

It wasn't, exactly, but he didn't place any of the blame on Shion. If Ignis was a different Ignis, Shion wasn't the one who'd done it. He finished it up trying to blow it off like it wasn't that big of a deal to him, "Just kinda weird thinking someone else out there who looks just like you can be running around with your name, you know?"

What if the other Prompto was better than him? He wondered whether or not he should even bring up this question with Ignis. He selfishly wanted to keep Ignis to himself.

[savedbyasong]

Shion nodded at him, it was weird but he was glad that Prompto was okay. That he was panicking or upset. He wouldn't have blamed him if he had. The idea had terrified Shion at first. Many things had terrified Shion. Prompto was a lot braver than Shion was.

"I don't know if you knew Asch before he disappeared. Me and Aster knew an Asch before we came here, he was a good friend of ours. The Asch who was here wasn't that Asch, he had never met us before."

[want_to_belong]

"Wait, seriously? So you met another version of someone here?"

He didn't like the sound of that. That made the whole thing a lot more common than he wanted.

"No one's ever met any other Promptos, though, right?"

[savedbyasong]

Shion nodded, so far he had not met more than one person here that looked the same. Unlike in the tower when there had been two of many people, two Renos, two Minatos, eleven Links.

He shook his head, "I've never met any version of you before. I'm sure Aster would have mentioned it if she had."

So far there was only Asch here that he recognised, and the boy Luffy who he had met at the Story Teller's temple. He was pretty sure he was identical to the boy he had fought at the side of in the Dark World. Though he had never gotten his name.

[want_to_belong]

"Hope that means there aren't too many of me out there. I don't think I've ever seen more than one of anyone around here."

And in the short time he didn't have experience with the same people showing up yet.

"I think I'd prefer if it stayed that way. It'd get really confusing if a bunch of the same person started showing up."

[savedbyasong]

"No there haven't been more than one person who looks the same in the storytellings." That was a good way of seeing roughly who was on these islands.

It had been a little confusing he supposed. "But they aren't really the same person. Even if many of their experiences are the same. Reno who adopted me and Aster and the other Reno who we knew were not the same person. He was friendly and taught me to swim but he wasn't..."

He wasn't the Reno who was his dad.

[want_to_belong]

"Sorry, man. That has to be rough."

He didn't see his parents often, but if he saw them and they didn't even know who he was or they didn't recognize him as their son that would be quite something.

"I haven't met a Reno. Is he here?"

[savedbyasong]

"It was just strange." Maybe if it had happened later it would have been worse, if another Reno who hadn't known them had arrived when their Reno was gone... that would have been rough.

He shook his head, "He's not. I hope he went back to his own world and hasn't been dragged somewhere else." He deserved to be home, after everything. Even if it meant he and Aster would never see him again. "Really if you think about it the odds of our Reno coming here is really small compared to all the Reno's in all the worlds who have no idea who we are. The fact me and Aster ended up in the same place is..."

Remarkable, bordering on impossible. They had said goodbye and found each other again. "Amazing. I didn't think I would ever see her again."

He was so glad that he had.

[want_to_belong]

That caused him to pause.

"You've gotta imagine there's like, hundreds of billions of people out there, right? Maybe billions of billions."

He hummed thoughtfully.

"But you ended up here with her, eventually. And, I ended up here with Noct and Iggy, out of all the bajillion people there could be. ...That can't be a coincidence."

[savedbyasong]

"Not a coincidence?" That was a terrifying thought, that this was all somehow orchastrated. Zo had always said that the soul he pulled was random and Shion believed him. After all who or what would look at his entire world and decide that the one person they wished to save was Shion?

But it seemed too much of a coincidence that him and Aster were both here. That they both came here after the Tower, together. Sometimes there had been many people from familliar worlds and sometimes only one or two people. Shion had only ever met a Rat from his world and his world was distinctive enough that it was obvious when worlds were even a little like his. Aster had known a lot of people from worlds similar to hers, people similar to those she had known before.

No pattern or obvious reason. But Prompto had a good point, out of all the people on Prompto's world never mind all the people in all the worlds there ever was how had he ended up with versions, if not the one's from his own world, of his friends.

"It makes no sense..." He stared at his book, "It's all too... big. The Tower was bad but we escaped and now..." He looked around at the meeting, at the islanders talking. "It's so much bigger, it's not just this place, we don't know who is behind any of it, or what their motivations are in taking us. Why us? Why together? Where..." A breath he needed to breathe. "Aster was here for two months before I got here... where was I? I have no memories of that time..." Yet they had left the Tower together. If he had been on his world then why couldn't he remember and if not then... where had he been?

Breathing. He shouldn't panic, not in front of Prompto.

[want_to_belong]

"If it's weird time stuff, maybe somehow you went through time a different amount than she did?" This stuff was way above his head. "...Iggy probably had some good ideas."

But if he brought up that they might not be the versions of each other that they really grew up with, would he still want to be friends? He knew Ignis wasn't like that, yet he couldn't help but worry.

"Maybe it's better not to think too hard about it. I mean, we can't really know right now, right? So, we should try not to worry." A bit hypocritical, but he was telling himself that as much as he was telling Shion.

[savedbyasong]

"Perhaps, or I was in some kind of suspended animation. Time was paused for me whilst it continued for her." But it still begged the question who had suspended his time, where he had been and the most terrifying, what had happened to him in that time.

He breathed and looked at Prompto before nodding, he didn't want to worry Prompto, felt bad he had already made him worried. Made him think about these things that had no answers and were terrifying to contemplate.

"Knowledge is important though... if we don't understand this then we will never escape." Ignorance would only leave them trapped. "Don't... you shouldn't worry though..."

Not that reassuring, really.

[want_to_belong]

"How are we supposed to find out? I came floating in on a raft and don't even know where I came from."

He wouldn't even know where to start looking. Besides which, he wasn't worried about leaving. "Staying here wouldn't be so bad. I mean, the place you and Aster came from didn't sound so great..."

[savedbyasong]

"It wasn't..." He shook his head. Staying here... here wasn't awful. Bad things happened but bad things happened everywhere. "Here we are being controlled... by something. I don't know but we were brought here, they can access our memories, control our actions."

He shook his head, he wasn't even sure he wanted to go home, back to his own world. It was complicated and he had mostly been trying not to think about it. Going home... he had been pushing to go home to save Safu but she was dead. He knew that now. Had suspected it for a while. Going back would not mean seeing his mum again, the only reason he had to return to No.6 would be to destroy it. Rat... He missed him so much but...

"Aster made the choice to go back to her world, she has unfinished business there. She made that choice so I'm going to help her succeed." Even if the idea of never seeing her again made his heart hurt so much, he had already said goodbye to her forever once... he didn't think he could do it again. But her choice was more important, her life and her decision to put things right was more important.

[want_to_belong]

"Hmm."

It was oddly flat for him. Like he was just making a sound to fill the void of silence, without any enthusiasm behind it.

"Yeah, I can understand that. My friend wants to go back, too. And if he goes, I go. ...I think we could be better off here, though."

Tough decisions he'd rather not make.

"Doesn't even matter much if we don't have a way to get back anyway."

[savedbyasong]

"We will find a way." Shion looked into Prompto's eyes, his own were determined. "We will figure a way out."

He had no idea how, but they had had no idea how to escape the Tower for most of their time there and they had still done it. Still escaped Ruana.

"And if you don't wand to go back home... we can find somewhere. Somewhere better."

[want_to_belong]

He smiled lightly.

"Yeah. We'll figure things out."

Reaching out, he gave Shion a light pat on the shoulder. After all, he obviously wasn't a fan of this subject, either.

"One way or another, everything will be okay, so don't worry too much about it."

probably wrapped?

[savedbyasong]

Shion nodded with a smile. He was going to worry about it, and plan for it and try and find a way out. But if Prompto didn't want to worry himself that was alright, Shion didn't want him upset.

There were more people, ready to answer his question and to ask his own. The meeting was going well so far and Shion was glad that people had come and were willing to share information.