Soft noises pulled me back into the dim, gloomy light that filtered through the mist. Blinking my eyes, I noticed some crud crusting them together and tried to move only for my arms to feel so incredibly heavy, far too heavy to move. Warm, familiar fingers started to caress me, gently wiping my eyes, ever so careful to make me comfortable. A feather’s touch ghosted over my face until finally, I could fully open my eyes and see the world clearly once more.

Now, there was an additional spot of colour in the dreary world of swirling white, Vio’s familiar teal hair and pale body having joined me at some point, currently cushioning my head on her lap, playing with my hair just like I occasionally played with hers.

“You are back,” the voice mused and for a moment, my mind blanked, recognising the voice but failing just the same. “We warned you, but I believe your mind is still whole. Or, at least not more broken than it has been before.”

“What…” I tried to speak, only for my voice to come out as a hoarse whisper. Trying to remember if I had something to drink, I frowned, only for the soft noises to shift, for Vio to start a gentle song as I saw the ghostly, purple light indicating that she used her psychic powers swirl around her. Accepting whatever she had in mind, I let myself sink back onto her lap, feeling a strangely soothing sensation as her power washed over me, making me far more comfortable than I had been.

“She’s a wonderful friend for you,” the voice mused and I could only agree. Vio was an incredible friend, gentle and caring, trying her best to take care of me, even when she wanted to do nothing but hide behind my legs. Even now, I could feel a vague, nervous energy around her, making me think that she wanted nothing to do with the entity that was nearby.

“She is,” I croaked, my voice working a lot better than before. Whatever Vio was doing, it was working, if slowly. “Did you find something?” I prodded, before falling silent again.

“That, I did. Fascinating, the way the Renegade’s realm has infused you. Separate from reality, and yet a part of it. And at the same time, not a part of it. It is a contradiction but feels like it makes total sense when looked at from the inside. As if it was always meant to be that way,” the figure began to ramble, apparently far more interested in the strangeness it had experienced in my mind than actually helping me.

Given how exhausted I felt, despite the continued soothing song coming from Vio, I simply waited, listening to the Uxie ramble on. I could barely follow, partially because my tired mind blanked from time to time, partially because it was incredibly confusing. Connected realms, distorted worlds, changes to time, space and spacetime, whatever that meant, I just couldn’t follow. I knew most of the words it used, but not all, they just didn’t make sense in the combination it was using them.

Finally, it started to slow down and I began to understand more.

“Your memories. Some of them are…” for once, it paused, maybe looking for the right word, “corrupted, you could say Or maybe fragmented would be a more fitting word. Your journey began many, many years ago, quite some distance from here. Well, many years, if measured by this world's time, if we measure it by the time that passed for you, it was just a little over a year ago. At least for what I believe to be the person that you started out as. Your journey was cut short, or maybe you were sent on a de-tour, a quite long one at that…” it started to ramble again, drifting back into the confusing talk of dimensions, gates, portals and the differences between them. How some beings could, apparently, turn reality into putty and play around with it, moving through it, or out of it at will. Or move others out of it, something I caught onto in the rambling.

“I was moved?” I asked, faint memories swirling somewhere in the depths of my mind. Golden rings, purple portals, those might be what it was talking about.

“You were, yes. Only that the Mischief Maker doesn’t always make sure its pranks work. Or maybe it felt that the prank worked and this all is part of the prank. Maybe all of reality, every realm guarded by the Lords, it might all be the tapestry for the Mischief Maker’s prank. I just don’t know if you are the punchline, part of the joke or simply… there,” it mused, a faint touch of annoyance creeping into the voice, though I didn’t think the annoyance was directed at me.

“And where was I moved from?” I prodded again, trying to get anything that was actually helpful from the infuriating creature. Why couldn’t it tell me what I wanted to know, instead of rambling about the knowledge it had gained from my mind and the conclusions it had drawn from that glimpse?

“You were moved out of our reality in a distant place, both in time and space. Years have passed, not a huge number but I believe it would be multiple of your human lifetimes while you weren’t part of our reality. I believe that is what caused your mind to crack. And those cracks were… mended by the Renegade, or at least I believe the Lord tried,” the voice explained and I wanted to shout in joy at the nuggets of actual information pertaining to my situation seeping through.

“The few memories that I could read, those that weren’t fragmented by your exposure to the Renegade’s Realm without the strength and ability to protect your mind, indicate that you came from a place named Kanto. I believe that is how you humans refer to it, but you could also be from Johto, that name was used a few times, too. I am not certain,” the voice admitted, sounding strangely disconcerted by its lack of knowledge.

“The human mind is such a strange thing, always shifting, rewriting itself, interpreting what was through the lens of what is and changing what was into what appears to have been. But there are some things that I could find, without rooting through your mind too much and risking that you start fraying,” the voice started to focus for a bit, before starting to ramble once more, this time meandering through hypotheses about the human mind and its workings, how they differed from the minds of Pokémon and how they both were differently flawed. Compared to the previous ramblings about dimensions, this was even more confusing and I only felt lost. How could memories taste, and how could they smell of colours?

“From the images I have seen, you enjoyed sweet foods, there are quite a few memories of you having some. There was a person in your company, I believe it to be a male and in some you used an affectionate term, calling him your brother. Those memories had an odd taste, different from most others. I believe the images I have seen stem from repeated exposure to that sweet food over the years, the changes the person in them is undergoing hint at that, or there were multiple beings you called brother. There was one that stood out in particular, it was of that person handing you some berries and a few strange objects before placing their arms around you, wishing you well. Something about claiming your rightful place. I do not know the significance of the berries you were given, but the memory tastes important,” as I was listening, I closed my eyes, trying to conjure up those memories it was speaking of. I partially managed, but I wasn’t sure if the images I was seeing were actually memories and not just my imagination, filling in the blanks between the Uxie’s words.

It could be either, some of the images I was seeing were familiar, from half-forgotten dreams, but I didn’t give up, listening to the voice and trying to remember.

Vio, still cradling my head, continued singing, a strange accompaniment to the continued stream of words coming from the voice, her song allowing some of the images to become sharper, while others faded a little, losing their colours and importance.

Slowly but surely, more and more images started to gain vibrancy, images of people, of strange contraptions made from wood and metal, memories of large gardens, or maybe fields, filled with bushes and berries. I couldn’t place any of it, but I slowly started to feel a little more like myself. As if each of the images was a piece of the puzzle I was trying to solve, jumbled together in my mind.

Hopefully, I would have enough pieces by the end of it, to at least guess the image it was supposed to portray.