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He was back. He had tried so hard to live, to bring the rest of his team to victory, to just have some fun in a death game that was a welcome respite from an empty, war-torn land.
It had almost been a year since Scar had slammed his fist into the success button that declared him a Winner. Over and over and over again, until the inability to heal didn't even matter anymore. He had so many hearts he just wouldn't die. The sunflowers had spilled out of his tiny little valley where he had rebuilt Trader Scar's over the Summer, spreading across nearly every corner of the world. It was, he supposed, a home of a kind. An involuntary one, but one he had built with his own hands.
There was something sad in him at the thought of home. Scar knew he had come from somewhere else; all of the other Lifers swore by it. After he had won he remembered all the Games, but still he could not remember his home. All he knew was that he was stuck, held between his game and the next.
Nothing else was left for him. He had scraped almost every last block in the small worldborder, filled in creeper holes and TNT explosions, repaired burned and bombed bases to something close to their former glory, had planted so many sunflowers that he could barely step off of the paths Lizzie had carved out that lifetime ago, where everyone was still peaceful and the world was so much kinder, a Task to bring connection to the Server.
No matter how long he spent burying himself in menial tasks and repairs and gardening, nothing would change the fact that he was alone. Trader Scar's was as much his home as the other bases were, the nights he'd spend in them pretending everyone was alive. Like they cared for him in death like they never had in Life.
Every night, Scar watched the sun set over Secret Life, sunflowers closing and falling limp in a unison the Server never shared, dying to be reborn with the next sunrise. Every night, the vantage point was different. Up in the mesa mountains sat perched on top of the Big Dogs' house, watching across the valleys of the Roomies, swinging his legs off the side of Joel's Helter Skelter, lying down on the stupid Task-driven diving board next to Gem and the Scotts' cottages, watching from the windows of Lizzie's pumpkin, sat atop of the Heart of the Heart Foundation, clambering up the tower in the Mounders' lands, and watching the sunflowers slump from the porch of Trader Scar's. In mesa and plains and forest and cherry grove and ocean and savannah, he watched the sun be drowned by the earth in every corner of the world, from every biome he could access.
Every single night he would watch. And every single night, without fail, the shadow people would settle to sit next to him, silent as always.
Their shape changed day by day. That was the main way he recognised them. But over time, Scar started to recognise behaviours the shadows held, started to identify them one by one. Tonight, minutes after the sun was fully swallowed, it was Stars, someone who only came at night once their namesake started to shine on the earth.
Sometimes, Stars was joined by Moon. But it was just Stars that night, a silent shadow for Scar to speak to.
He didn't want to speak that day. He had been given hope that after Wild Life ended, he'd get to return to wherever home was. But he hadn't. He had just woken up in Trader Scar's again, the sun shining bright as ever.
Stars still sat down next to him, patient and comforting in their presence. Scar felt guilty, sitting on the edge of Joel's slide and just wishing one of the other Lifers were there instead of Stars.
"Hello there." Scar greeted tiredly, and that was that, until night leaked into day once more and Stars faded with the lights shining in the skies. He was alone again.
But he wasn't alone for long, surprisingly. Creeping in the dramatic shadows cast by the golden glow of early morning sunlight, there was Sun, the rarest of his shadowy friends. Sun didn't show up often, and they only ever did for a few minutes, sitting in the shade of other buildings, wing-shapes ruffling in greeting. Scar nodded in return, too exhausted, too hopeless to do much more.
Something was different that day it seemed. Because Sun, after hesitating for several minutes, stepped out of his sheltering shadows, a
different
shadow quick to follow. For half a heartbeat he thought it could've been Comet, but Comet only showed up near the water. Their eyes darted around, wary, and then settled properly on the very stunned Scar.
"...Well that was unexpected!" Scar exclaimed, quickly falling into a familiar routine, of greeting and socialising, playing the Game so that people would trust him, so when he turned Red they weren't wary when he inevitably-
'No, bad Scar.'
He admonished himself.
'Play nice with the shadow people. No more Red bloodlust.'
It still crept under his skin. It hadn't even stopped during Wild Life, weakened but still present. Stronger, once he was Yellow, the Limited Life mechanics returning with a twist.
The new shadow twisted around Scar, scrutinising him, then opened their mouth, a torrent of hushed whispers melding into each other pouring from them as they tried to speak to him.
Scar smiled and shook his head, recognising the attempt to communicate from that way back when, almost an entire year ago, when the shadows had first shown up.
"I'm sorry." He laughed quietly. "I can't understand you. The other shadow people have tried to speak to me too. It never works."
The new shadow
(Scar needed to come up with a nickname for them)
rippled slightly, making a full, shuddering circle around him in their irritation. A thousand more whispers poured from them, harsh and unknowable, until, suddenly-
"Scar."
The whispers aligned, a thousand voices still, but one clear word. The shadow rippled again, before punching(?) Sun and rattling slightly, swooping into the air with pride. Scar's smile froze on his face. Well. That changed things.