Eternal Legends
By: The Andromeda Rose
Chapter 1: On the Doorstep
Many years ago, in the times of King Arthur...
A Medieval castle. Only a few people are roaming about the Royal Courtroom, primarily, lords, and soldiers. The King and Queen are sitting upon their designated thrones. An aged man, possibly hundreds of years in age, rushes into the royal courtroom, panting. He bows before the king as he stumbles over his words, "Your highness, there is urgent news for my lord."
Mildly alarmed, looks up from the papers in his lap, "Yes, Merlin? What is it?" he urges, hoping he had heard this sooner.
The poor wizard, still stumbling over his words sputtered out something along the lines of this, "Your highness, the brutes are invading the northern part of Camelot.
He turned away, sighing, "I knew this day would come all too soon…" he glanced to his wife, who is holding a babe in her arms, "Guinevere, my queen, we must give her to Merlin to take to the future; there she will be safe with no harm to come against her."
"No, Arthur, I can't—I-" she stands up, startled by this, "I just can't let Nichole go to the future world-it could be dangerous!"
"Guinevere," he turns to her sternly, shouting over her sobbing, "Merlin has been to the future, and this new dimension before. He has found a good family for her. There, thy daughter shall be safe with the family I have chosen. She shall live with this family until the day comes that she will return to Camelot on her sixteenth birthday, where she shall stay forevermore."
The woman drops to her knees, begging one last time, "My king...please, no..."
"As much as I want her to stay here too, I cannot let her. I'm sorry, Guinevere." he takes his daughter from his queen's arms, and kisses her goodbye, then gently lays her in the wizard's arms, "I love you, my little princess." from his pocket he pulls a little jewellery box and tucks it into the blankets. To the wizard, he gave a small chest, "Take care of my daughter, Merlin."
Merlin stuffs his sack with the chest and other provisions, "I will, my lord." he turns abruptly, leaving the throne room with haste with the child wrapped in his cloak.
It was wintertime when Nichole left Camelot, and Merlin had a difficult time trekking through a snowy Camelot to Avalon, where the child was born. There, he could open the portal to the future where the child would be living.
He shuts his eyes tightly as snow and bitter winds nipped at his face as he crested a hill, "The Lady Nimue! Where art thou?" he shouted half-heartedly into the wind in hopes that she would show up sooner so they could get out of this cold snow.
His only response was a baby's cry. He opened his cloak and peered into it to see the baby staring back up at him with tear-filled eyes, "Shh, little, Nichole. You will see your parents, the king and queen of Camelot, again soon." he laughs a little as Nichole reached up to grasp his white, coarse beard in her tiny hands to tug on it, "Ah, no, no, little one," he gently pulls her hand away and smiles at her. Tears begin to form on the rims of his eyes, "I'm going to miss you, Princess, but I'll come for you after the Lady of the Lake puts me to my sleep. I will be there to guide you for the rest of your life in the time you shall be in."
After several hours' travel through one of Britain's most dense forests, the magical man knew that they were getting close to Avalon.
Just as that thought crossed his mind, a woman clothed in a pale blue dress with a matching cloak appeared in the path in front of them, "I have been waiting for you, Merlin."
"Ah, the Lady Nimue!" he cries over the howling winds, "Why didst thou not answer me when I called out for thee in the forest beyond Camelot?"
"We have no time for that." she snaps, quieting the enraged wizard, "We must open the portal before midnight for you and Princess Nichole to pass through."
"Yes, yes." he mocks, "Let us open the portal, for it is not even four minutes 'til the twelfth stroke of midnight." he motions to the gentle ticking of the Elves' Clock in the Village of Avalon, "Make haste, Lady of the Lake!"
"Silence, Merlin. I will open the portal in due time." with that, she disappeared in a sparkling blue mist, and in place of her, a pale blue portal appeared once the mist settled, "Go, Merlin! Take Princess Nichole to her new home, to the planet called Mobius. There thou shalt find the Legendary Blue Hedgehog, who shall care for her until it is her time to return to Avalon, then Camelot." her voice faded slightly, as she continued, "Within the next passing years, Merlin, thy granddaughter, Merlina will come for them, and thus will begin the fight for the freedom of the darkness in Camelot."
"How wilt I know this blue creature?"
"You will know him by his blue pelt and his great speed at which no living thing can outrun the Legendary Hedgehog. Now go, Merlin! Make haste, for thou time is running out!" the wind from the east pushed Merlin forward, causing him to stumble into the portal, "Goodbye, Merlin! and good luck!"
XXX
Present.
The portal spits the elderly wizard out onto the ground, then fizzles out as quickly as it had appeared.
"Ah, the Lady Nimue, must thy portals always spit thou out?" he grumbles, looking about his surroundings curiously as the portal appears again suddenly, spits out a little cedar box, then disappears once again not to be seen again until Merlin's mission would be complete and he may return home, "Very funny Lady Nimue!" he scoffs as he picks up the cedar box and opens it to reveal a necklace with a rainbow coloured crystal.
A voice, like that of the Lady Nimue's, rings out from it, however, the Lady Nimue is not visible; her voice is from box, "Keep this pendant forevermore with the Princess Nichole. Let no man take it out of her grasp, nor touch it, for it is the key for her return to reign in Camelot of Britain. When the time comes, she shall cut the Crystal in half, and present the Crystal of Avalon to the Legendary Blue Hedgehog. Upon his possession, it shall become the sword called, Caliburn, which the Legendary Blue Hedgehog will slay the Black Knight with, thus freeing Camelot of the darkness forever."
"Ah, yes," he croaks as he picks up the crystal and lets it dangle from its chain, noticing the chain was broken in several places. He then turns it over and over, examining every definition of beauty in the sunlight, "the Crystal of Avalon." he turns to Nichole, and lets it dangle once again as he placed it around her neck, "My, lady, I present you the Crystal of Avalon." when he clasped the chain about her neck, it wielded the two broken ends together, and the child took the form of a tiny, black and navy-blue hedgehog, never to come apart again until the time comes when it shall unleash the ends to become Caliburn.
Nighttime. The wizard rushed as quickly as possible through the new forests of Mobius, quite unlike his own homeland, looking into every house window he could peer into. He was having no luck until he came across one containing the only sleeping hedgehog he had seen the entire night.
"At last!" he slips around to the front door, "I have found him!" whispering a spell, he uses his magic to unlock the door and let himself in, "Little Nichole, I shall leave you with the Legendary Hedgehog. Please, Nichole, be good for him." he lays Nichole on the bed beside the sleeping hedgehog, and lays the note on the nightstand, "Goodbye, Nichole Nichole. May Avalon be with you." he smiles sadly before he uses his magic once more to disappear into the night.
The next morning, the ebony hedgehog awoke to find the little female hedgehog snuggled on his furry, white chest, "What the hell?" seemingly startled, he lifts the tiny hedgehog off his chest, "What's going on?! How'd you get in here?" the hedgehog looks around the room in search of someone or something hiding in the shadows of the room, then to the nightstand. He reaches up for the note and reads it, "Hmph...so this is how you got here." he held the baby hedgehog to his chest as he sat up and carried her about his home.
He sighed knowing that he can't simply drop her off somewhere for someone else to care for her as they might try the same as was just mentioned, "You're in quite the predicament, aren't you, Nichole?" he scoots the baby hedgehog up in his arms to be closer to his face, and nuzzles her, "I suppose I will call you Nickie, or perhaps by your middle name? What was your middle name again–?" the baby hedgehog shifted in her sleep as he spoke softly to her, "I do not suppose I will have much trouble with you, either, considering Flora..." he looked back to the note in search of her full name as old memories began to surface, "You would like each other, Nickie." he mused.
The child's eyes fluttered open, and when she looked up at the person holding her, she began to cry, realising that this was not her mother, nor her father, or even Merlin, the good wizard. But she did not know exactly who they were in regards to their fame.
"Nichole – don't cry." he hushed her a little, but she began to cry more. The poor ebony hedgehog tried calming her, but his first tactic didn't seem to work, "Kojika, little fawn," he pinched her nose gently, upon which she stopped crying and went cross-eyed looking at her nose, "do you want to meet Rose? Rose likes little babies like you." he cradled her in his arms, crossing the room to lay her in the armchair, then placed a pillow in the open side of the chair, "Wait here for just a moment."
With that, the male hedgehog had some difficulty limping his way up the stairs, and soon regretted leaving her in the armchair. He went into his bedroom where he found a pair of socks and his hoverskates, and proceeded to put these on, "Finally!" now with his skates on, he was able to walk normally (A/N: his limp is due to a spinal injury early in his life, and the skates, which Gerald Robotnik created for him, emit a puff of air to the leg that limp, giving him enough support to walk normally).
When he returned, he found that Nichole had settled down, and had fallen back asleep, "You seem tired, little kojika." he picked up his cell phone and dialled for Amy Rose, "Hello, Rose?"
"Shadow? What are you doing calling so early?"
"Er..." he glanced to the clock on his phone, now realising it was half past six in the morning, "I thought it to be later in the day since my alarm didn't go off."
"Oh, that's understandable." she replied back sleepily, "Is there something you need help with?"
"Yeah...I woke up to a baby on my chest this morning..." he admitted, "It scared the crap out of me."
This seemed to get her attention as she now sounded more awake, "A baby on your chest?"
"Yeah. A female hedgehog." he stated blatantly, "I don't know where she came from, or why the hell someone placed her on my chest."