Ion and Alina

<sub>WOENWOATGRTIGH you have NO IDEA how rediculously long this took me!

Ion again, with his lovely (late) wife Alina c:

I've been putting this off until I got a decent picture of Ion, but as I was making this doll I realized that this was as good as I was ever going to get. So here goes.</sub>

Ion is by far one of the most developed and dynamic characters I have ever created. He's lived quite an interesting life.

Ion and his twin sister Liliana were born into a royal family in Romania in the mid- 1500's. As such Ion was heir to the throne. He was born with both abilities of his parents- A genetic ability from his father, which gives him white-blue eyes, the ability to manipulate his shadow, with which he can transport some objects, and the ability to manifest his shadow in the form of a small Chinese-style dragon, which acts as a guardian. He also has another power from his mother- though it's not genetic -that allows him to get glimpses of the future. For most people these glimpses are inaccurate and unclear, but for Ion they almost always came true. It also allows people who share the ability to share images through touch and Ion has a very vivid memory. The ability is pretty rare.

At the age of three his parents received a message from an old friend saying that Ion and Liliana's lives could be in danger because there were enemies everywhere. Desperate to protect their children, they were locked inside the palace for seven years. They did not go outside for seven years, weren't allowed to really communicate with anyone outside their own family, ect. It was a pretty boring way to live. Because they only had each other, Ion and Liliana formed a very close bond.

Then when they were ten they were kidnapped in the middle of the night by the very guards that had been protecting them. They were taken, via a secret underground tunnel system, far away from home. Later they learned that the guards had been under mind control, though they did not know by whom.

They were rescued in the woods by a woman named Angelina who agreed to help them find their way back home. She was, to say the least, a bit scary. But having no other options, the twins had to trust her.

Not long into their journey Liliana, feeling that she was only dragging down the group, ran away in the middle of the night. She fell and hit her head which caused her to forget who she was and where she was. A woman named Daphne, who had the ability to control people, took advantage of the opportunity: she convinced Liliana that Ion and Angelina were trying to kill her and that she had to kill them before they killed her.

Ion, panic-stricken when he realized that his sister had disappeared, immediately set off with Angelina to find her that morning. The two met, and after a short fight Ion incapacitated her and helped her to regain her memories.

They realized at this point that though they could not always see them, they were being constantly followed, and under the eyes of an assassin, in one form or another.

To get back home they had to go through a precarious mountain range. About halfway there, Angelina fell through an ice floor and Ion, blaming himself for not being able to help her before she slid through, was determined to save her. He made Liliana go on without him- they were being led by a falcon who had the same ability as Ion -and climbed through the hole to find her.

He succeeded in finding her, but in doing so he fell into a river and almost froze to death. The incident left his hands and feet permanently numb and cold to the touch.

The falcon led them all to a cabin in the woods inhabited by a man named Mordecai, who had helped Ion and Liliana's parents when they were younger and had sent the note that inevitably led them to being locked up in the palace. He had the same ability as Ion, but his visions are very inaccurate and very frequent.

Living with Mordecai was a boy named Gabriel. He's two years older than the twins (twelve at the time) and doesn't remember most of his life before age six, as some kind of calamity involving fire traumatized him and he simply blocked it out. Or at least that's what he assumes, since he has a burn scar that covers a majority of his left side.

Once Ion and Angelina recover from the nearly-freezing ordeal, Ion and Liliana actually sat down to consider their situation. They came to the conclusion that while they loved their parents, they didn't want to go back right away because they feared that they would be locked up again, and though their whole ordeal outside the palace had been terrifying, it had also been enriching and a lot of fun. Mordecai had opened his doors to them, and they accepted the offer, deciding to live with him for the time being.

Around this time, Angelina realized who Gabriel was- turned out she knew a lot more about him than he did... It turned out that Gabriel was Angelina's younger brother.

Ion, Liliana, and Angelina stayed at the cabin with Mordecai and Gabriel for five years, happily enjoying living as mountain people (xD) before they were disturbed by any outside influences. Gabriel and the twins became great friends- Gabriel developed a pretty big crush on Liliana, which Ion didn't really mind. Angelina helped Gabriel to remember some (very little, relatively) of his past before age six, and the two became very close. Mordecai, after a couple years, passed away; he was in his late sixties at the time.

One evening while they were playing a trick on Ion, who is an incredibly heavy sleeper, they found a girl named Morgan who claimed to be wounded. They brought her back to the cabin with the intent to nurse her back to health.

She stayed there for a couple days, where she could not exactly be called welcome; Liliana was insanely jealous of Morgan, as she took advantage of her situation to snuggle up to Gabriel. Once Morgan was well enough to leave the cabin, the three teenagers (reluctantly) allowed her to hang out with them, since she did not really seem to have the intention of going anywhere.

While they left the house Gabriel, suddenly under the control of somebody else, took a knife, grabbed Ion, and slit his throat. It turned out that Morgan had the same mind control ability as Daphne had (Daphne and Morgan are sisters) and whoever had controlled the guards that had kidnapped Ion and Liliana five years earlier. After making Gabriel slit his throat Morgan disappeared.

Ion blacked out and did not wake up for several days. The wound nearly killed him, not only from the blood loss, but he got several minor infections that gave him high fevers and induced hallucinations. When he woke up for the first time he was hallucinating; he thought that Liliana was his mother. He told her about a vision he remembered while he was asleep: Of some kind of battle at their palace at home and of flames.

It was not a lot, but it was enough to convince Liliana that they had to go home and warn their parents. She and Gabriel left while Angelina stayed back with Ion, as he was still far from well enough to go. He went in and out of consciousness for the next several weeks, during which he was plagued by horrible visions of somebody be brutally murdered and himself screaming out.

It horrified him. He was desperate to change the future he had seen, and to do so he decided to not say a word for the rest of his life, as he figured that if he never made a sound, the other part of his vision could not come true. Not only did he become mute, but it changed his personality. He was traumatized by what he had seen, plagued by nightmares of the same images again and again; and it made him cynical and depressed. It became hard to see the light in anything anymore when this horrible confusing future seemed in store for him.

Besides this, three other rather important things happened before he and Angelina went back home: He began wearing a blood-red bandana over his neck to cover up the scar, he and Angelina formed a rather tight bond, and accompanying the nightmares are horrible migraines that last for hours and plague him almost all of the time.

When they got home, Ion's family was shocked by the sudden change in his personality. He more or less became the bane of his family's existence; they still loved him, but they simply had no idea how to interact with them anymore.

Four years pass; Ion and Liliana are nineteen when Ion's father proposes an arranged marriage that would act as a peace treaty between two nations. Ion agrees without meeting the woman or knowing anything about her, much to his family's surprise.

When he meets the woman, Alina, it does not take him long to fall in love. He is not even sure why, and neither is anybody else, but she becomes the one thing in his life that can make him happy.

Around the same time that Alina and Ion get married, Gabriel proposes to Liliana, and she says yes; Ion and Alina have a daughter named Juliana and Gabriel and Liliana have four children: Rolin, Adrian, Cristian, and Natalia.

Eight years pass; Ion and Liliana are twenty eight. Juliana, Ion's daughter, is seven. Tensions had risen in the palace over an ongoing dispute Ion had been having with his father. He wanted to take over the kingdom and his father refused to stand down. As with most things Ion does, nobody is sure why he is suddenly so insistent on becoming king. Afraid that the tension would start affecting the children, Angelina took them to her house, which was on an estate just down the road from the palace. They spend the night.

The next morning Ion wakes up to see that his first vision has been fulfilled: Alina is lying in bed next to him, her hand outstretched, her eyes open, her throat slit, her body cold. Mortified, he realizes that there is a blood trail, bootprints in blood that leads out the door, down the hall, and to the armory, where his father's swords lay covered in blood, as do a pair of bloody boots. The second part of of his vision comes true as he lets out an enraged scream and tries to attack his father, but his blows just narrowly miss, and Gabriel stops him before he can land a blow.

Before he can even stop to mourn what had happen, he sees another vision: the fire, and this time he sees it in more detail. He and Gabriel rush off to Angelina's house just as it is struck by lightning and burns to the ground. They get out all the kids in time, take them back to the palace, and hide them.

As they do so, generals sent by Alina's father show up, realize what has happened, and swear to kill every member of the royal family. Ion, still bitter at his father, refuses to help, and his father and Gabriel are left to try and ward off general's entire guard.

As he stands there waiting for his father to die Ion sees a new vision: It brings all the pieces together. It shows him who really killed Alina, and why, and it was not his father. Realizing his mistake he rushes to help, uses his shadow manipulation ability to take their weapons away from the general's army, and then leaves, leaving only a small note saying that he will be back.

He spends the next six years as a rogue, training and gathering information on his new target. The person behind his and Liliana's kidnapping, behind Daphne and Morgan's mind-controlled assaults, behind Alina's death, was a king in a distant kingdom who had been told by an oracle that one of the twins would take over his kingdom, and he was determined to not let that happen. In those six years as he traveled and gathered information he became something of a myth; he wore a demon wolf mask so that nobody could see his face and used his shadow manipulation ability so that he nearly never had to be seen anyway. He was believed to be some kind of wolf spirit, feared by most in his home kingdom.

A vision finally brought him back to his home kingdom when he saw that one of his nephews, Adrian, had run away. He saved the boy from wolves and took him with him without initially telling him who he was (Adrian had been five when Ion had disappeared; he was eleven now). But Adrian pulled his mask off while he was asleep and recognized his uncle. Adrian was immediately defensive for Juliana's sake, and he told Ion in blatant, uncensored detail the chaos his disappearance had caused on his daughter. Then Ion tried to explain to the eleven-year-old why he had done it. Neither party really felt very good about the situation they were in, but Adrian refused to go home and Ion knew that, so they developed a grudging respect for each other that eventually became a genuine bond.

Using the same tunnel system through which he and Liliana had been kidnapped Ion made it to the other kingdom, Zerrath, in only a few weeks. Along the way he picked up an orphaned girl around Adrian's age who called herself Serenity; the girl was not aware of it, but she had healing abilities and to date her singing- she is a wonderful singer -is the only thing that can cure Ion's migraines. They also pick up a collie named Fell.

Once they get to Zerrath Ion accidentally runs into the Resistance that had been planning to overthrow the king. It consists of the king's guards and his closest soldiers, and upon recognizing Ion's eyes as those of a royal family and remembering the prophecy that a man with such eyes would be the one to overthrow the king, they readily team up with him to help put him on the throne and kill the current king.

He and the Resistance stage a coup with the help of Morgan and Daphne, who, after realizing that they were nothing more than the kings' puppets, want to help. A battle ensues when the king turns half the Resistance army into mind-controlled puppets, and in the battle Ion's leg is injured, giving a permanent severe limp.

The king also antagonizes Ion in a way he had not anticipated: He retells him every graphic detail of the night he, through the mind of a guard, murdered his wife Alina, and he tells Ion something specific that he did not previously know: Before Alina died, she turned to him and tried desperately to wake him up, but he was such a heavy sleeper that he did not even stir before she died.

Despite this, the coup is actually, for the most part, a success. The king is killed, and Ion is crowned as the new king. He spends the next year putting the pieces together of a shattered kingdom; Zerrath has the reputation of the worst place to live in Romania, and he is determined to change that. He has some success.

A year passes, and at the end of that year Zerrath is starting to come back around. It is then when Ion invites his family to Zerrath; nobody but the closest inner guards and those who are in the palace really know who he is.

He is greeted, to his surprise, with more love than anger; everyone is shocked and excited to see him. His sister and her husband are ecstatic to see Adrian.

His family stays for a week or two, during which time Ion starts to become himself again, the way he was before the incident when he was fifteen: he becomes light-hearted, good-natured, realistic instead of pessimistic. Happy.

So things settle down for a while; Juliana, Adrian, and Serenity live with Ion in Zerrath while everyone else stays in Celderon(Ion's home kingdom), but the two-week long journey between the two palaces can be cut down to a couple of days by the underground tunnel system that joins them.

Then Ion gets a letter from Alina's sister, Analice, saying that she wished to meet him. She had just heard about her sister's death a short time ago and had been unable to contact Ion until now. If it is alright, she would like to come to Zerrath to meet him. He sends Analice back a letter saying that he would be honored to have her. Alina had talked about this sister once or twice, but he had never met her, as apparently they were estranged.

When she arrives, Ion is not prepared to see Alina's face staring back at him; Alina and Analic are identical twins.

This sets Ion back, as he realizes that he never really dealt with Alina's death. Seeing her face when he sees Analice is just too much for him, and he more or less becomes a shell of his former self, trapped in the prison of his own mind as he is forced to replay the image of waking up to find her dead again and again, reliving the guilt of not being able to save her.

Serenity and Adrian, afraid of what they see happening, go to the other palace via the tunnel system to find help. They bring back Liliana and Angelina, who with some effort bring Ion out of this psychological hole he's buried for himself. It takes some time, but once he is out of it he's more mentally sound than he has been in a very long time, and can enjoy Analice's company without a problem.

And once again things return to normal for some time.

Then a month or two later, Liliana shows up in the Zerrath palace again. She's been sent by their father to fetch Ion, because something has happened and they need to have a meeting. Ion drops everything to go back with her. Their father announces that they have another sister: an illegitimate child that nobody ever knew about.

The one taking it the worst is Ion and Liliana's mother, who is obviously angry and feeling betrayed through all this. In a series of unfortunate events she ends up injured, and Ion stays several more days to make sure she is okay.

Then when he is thinking about going back to Zerrath, his father makes another announcement: He is resigning. That means Ion gets control of the kingdom. He decides to join them under the name of his home kingdom, which takes several more days before he can go back to Zerrath.

Edit 12/31/11

While Ion was away Serenity and Juliana become friends with some boys who live down the road. Their names are Achille and Celso. They are identical twins from France. And though they do not intend to do so they completely transfix the girls. Ion, wary of these strange new boys, does a little research on them, and finds out that nothing about them makes a sense...

Meanwhile a series of disappearances has unsettled Zerrath: men are disappearing from prisons without a trace. Nobody claims to see anything and no bodies have been found. As the weeks progress, townspeople begin to disappear as well.

Before he can handle that, however, Analice shows up, beside herself with panic. Her home, which lies in Transylvania, has been taken over by vampires who are killing anyone with royal ties. With the help of some friends she was able to sneak out and she had no idea where to go but Zerrath. Ion tells her that she can stay as long as she needs to.

Several days later Ion then tells the girls that they are not allowed to see Achille and Celso anymore, because one of the twins, Achille, has been convicted of murder and held responsible for the disappearances of convicts and townspeople. This infuriates the girls. They storm off, furious at him, and as they do he is forced to become acutely aware of a much bigger issue: Vampires have invaded the palace. Without any explanation he sends the kids to Celderon with directions to not come back until they have been told to do so by him and he and Analice take on the task of trying to exterminate five vampires from the palace.

Several days later Liliana, Gabriel, Angelina, and Ion's father show up determined to help, despite the fact that he explicitly told them not to. As night falls the vampires send the palace into complete darkness and spend the night tormenting the people by playing "games".

These "games" would have been the end to everyone if it weren't for Celso showing up suddenly. He makes a deal with Ion: If he kills the vampires in the palace, Ion will force the townspeople to release his brother and also allow him to see Julie and Serenity. Ion, out of options at this point, grudgingly agrees, and in the course of twenty minutes Celso kills the five vampires that have been tormenting his family.

At this point it is blatantly clear that Achille and Celso are vampires. And Ion can do nothing about it, because he owes them his and his family's life. He does not like it, but he allows his girls to go see them again, and when they come back one day, Juliana and Serenity are begging him to let them go to Spain or Italy with the twins.

<sub>This story is still going.

So if you read through all that, you understand why Ion is just so awesome.... Okay, maybe he't not, but I love him SO VERY VERY VERY MUCH

I'll update this as the story progresses, and I'll also spell check it tomorrow |D;;;</sub>

Doll maker: [link]
Prolly put this in the wrong category...