Cream floated carefully from pillar top to pillar top through the halls of the palace. She'd been thrown out once already, and had no desire to repeat the experience. However, she wasn't leaving until she did what she'd came here to do. Finally, she came to the room at the center of the palace.
It was a large chamber, perfectly round. Seven pillars, arranged in a perfect circle, were near the outside of the room, surrounding a raised podium in the very rather closely resembled the chamber of the Master Emerald. Glancing up, Cream saw the seven Sol Emeralds, one on each pillar, sitting unmoving, giving off a soft light. On the raised podium, though, was a well made bed. Sitting on the bed, wearing a white robe and sitting in the lotus position, her eyes clozed, was Blaze.
Cream came down to the ground next to the bed. "Hi Blaze!" she said happily.
Blaze jumped on the bed, nearly falling off, flames leaping out of her hands as her eyes shot open. Then she saw Cream, and smiled. "Helo, Cream," she said, the fire fading. "How'd you get here?" She pulled Cream into a quick hug, and Cream laughed. "Come to think of it," Blaze said, looking at Cream, "how come no one announced you?"
Cream frowned. "When I tried to come in the first time, they wouldn't let me in. They kicked me out." She rubbed her rear. "It wasn't pleasant, so I decided not to have it happen a second time. I made my own way in."
Blaze raised an eyebrow. "Really?" she said, amused. "How'd you get past the guards?"
Cream lifted her ears. "They don't look up."
Blaze chuckled quietly. "I'll have to have a word with them about that...as well as how they treat my friends." Blaze leaned back against a large pile of pillows. "So what brings you here, Cream?"
Cream sat nearby on the bed, Cheese idly orbiting her head. "Just visiting. Tails managed to build a machine that can allow us to pass freely between our worlds without problems, so I thought I'd come say hi and let you know."
Blaze smiled. "I see. Well, thank you for coming." She blinked for a bit. "Sorry I'm not good company just now. It's been a long day."
Cream hopped off the bed. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to wake you up."
Blaze shook her head. "You didn't wake me. I wasn't asleep."
Cream looked at her. "Why aren't you? If you need to rest-"
"I don't sleep, Cream," Blaze said. "Not ever. I enter a deep meditative state that reenergizes me."
"But...why can't you sleep?"
Blaze sighed. "For the same reason I can never relax, no matter how much I might want to. My bond to the Sol Emeralds." She held out her hand. Flames sprouted from her hand, flowing around her fingers. "I have to keep myself - my physical repsponses, my thoughts, me emotions - under complete control. The flames are always inside me, and come out if I ever relax. The only exception is if I am knocked unconcious. Other than that...sleep, or any other similar relaxed state releases the fire. And if the fire burns unchecked for too long...I, and anyone near me, will be consumed by the flames."
"Oh," Cream said, sitting back on the bed, shocked. "I...I see." She hugged Blaze. "I see why you always keep yourself so tightly controlled. I guess, with that inside, it must be hard to relax." She stepped back. "I'll come visit you again tomorrow." Waving, she flew out.
Sighing, Blaze sat back, about to go back into meditation, when she noticed something. Glancing over, she saw a pattern of red and black behind one of the pillars. She held back her laughter. "I begin to think a 'Do Not Disturb' sign might be more effective than a palace full of guards. How did you get in, Shadow?"
The pattern vanished, and Shadow appeared closer to the bed. He had learned long ago how to tap the Chaos Emeralds power from a distance for his teleportational abilities. He looked up at Blaze. "That's a hard burden you bear, Blaze."
Blaze, looked at him sidelong. "Were you eavesdropping?"
He shook his head. "I came to visit as well. Cream thought we should make seperate ways in, so we'd have better chances of not being kicked out. I just have very good hearing."
Blaze nodded. "I see. Did you warp all the way in, or did you go through the halls?"
"Through the halls. Freezing time was easier than warping." Shadow hesitated then. "If I may ask...if you can never relzax, then what about..." He paused, obviously groping for a polite way to phrase his question.
Blaze sighed. "The bond to the Emeralds - and the power of their fire - is hereditary. Long tradition takes care of that. You probably noticed eight young men along your way in, who stayed together and looked different from the guards." When Shadow nodded, she continued. "The Eight, as they are reffered to, are all strong young men of my age group, men of good breeding. Eight are selected for each generation, one for each Sol Emerald and one for the Princess. When the Princess comes of age to produce an heir...our greatest healers determine when her day of greatest fertility will be. She them chooses one of the Eight to take to her bed to give her an heir." She looks to the floor. "He is given two tinctures...one to guarantee he will sire a child...and the other so that he will not feel the pain as the Princess' flames consume him in the throes of passion." She blinked her eyes, not letting tears fall. "The remaining seven become a ring of steel to protect the Princess. This has been the way of our people since the Princess of Solluna was bonded to the Sol Emeralds as Guardian. This is why I have never gotten to truely know anyone, before I came to your world. Why I never made any friends. It is why I truely value the friendship I share with all of you. Why it is only with all of you I dare to relax, just a little, and let myself feel." She fell silent, and was surprised when Shadow came forward and pulled her into a tight embrace.
"It's alright," he whispered. "You can let it out. I won't let anyone see you cry."
At first, Blaze was shocked, sitting frozen in Shadow's embrace. But then, after a time, the pain she wasn't even aware of, the pain of loneliness implicit in her existance, hit her full force. With a silent wail, she buried her face in his chestfur, tears of fire running down her cheeks as she wept in emotional agony.
