"Hey Sonic, let's take a walk," Knuckles said.
"Okay." Sonic raised an eyebrow, but put his cutting torch down and followed the burly echidna.
Three weeks had passed since Angel Island had rebuffed NME's attack. Since that time, everything had gone quiet. No Eggman. No water monster in the ocean around the island.
The island crew had rented tools on Bygone Island and set about cutting up the vast, burned hulk of the crashed airship Fellstorm. After one round of hauling scrap to the salvage yards to sell, they realized they had a gold mine on their hands. But it was hard work, and Sonic was glad to take a break.
"So, what's up?" Sonic said, falling into step beside his friend.
Knuckles was a head taller than the blue hedgehog, and twice as wide. He wasn't fat-only bigger and more heavily muscled from his hobby of weight training. He wore a frown, and as Sonic spoke, his expression lightened.
"Look what I found out here. I was clearing a path around the wreck, and look at this."
They rounded a tumble of ancient stone blocks, and came to a place where the trees grew in rows, despite the other trees and brush growing among them. Knuckles pulled down a branch and picked a lumpy green fruit. "It's a whole orchard of anon trees." He broke the fruit open and gave half to Sonic.
Sonic pulled out the white chunks inside and ate them. "Hey, I love these things. What is this place?"
"I don't know." Knuckles pushed aside a tangle of philodendron and indicated a smaller tree with orange fruit growing out of the truck. "There's some cacao mixed in here, too. But it's all overgrown."
"From the Ancients, before the Calamity?" Sonic said.
Knuckles nodded. "If we clean it up and take care of it, this is a ton of food. We could sell it, even."
"Dude," Sonic said, "between this and the salvage, we can live like kings." He ran his fingers over a cacao pod. "Mm, chocolate."
Knuckles leaned against an anon tree and folded his arms. "That's, uh, not actually what I brought you here to talk about."
Sonic picked another anon and fixed his attention on his friend. "Yeah, I knew something's been eating you. And probably not just the mosquitos."
Knuckles grinned sheepishly. "It's that obvious, huh?"
Sonic pretended to think. "Let me see. You meet a pretty girl. You hit it off. She goes home. You've moped around ever since."
"Hey, I haven't moped," Knuckles exclaimed. He gestured at the orchard. "I've stayed busy."
"Busy in a really mopey way," Sonic replied, grinning.
Knuckles sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Yeah. So you've noticed."
"Go see her!" Sonic said. "We've got the island parked right now. You could take a boat if you wanted, since you still suck at chaos control."
"That's not the problem," Knuckles said, shifting his weight uneasily. "I've got a secret. Can you keep it?"
Sonic pointed at himself. "Hey Knux, it's me. I never spill secrets."
The echidna folded his arms and studied the ground for a moment, gathering his thoughts. Sonic waited. After years of friendship, he knew that although Knuckles's brain worked well, it worked slower than his own. Often the echidna feigned stupidity rather than stopping to think.
"Okay." Knuckles spread his hands. "You know how Gladiolus has that sickness in her eye?"
"Chaos eye," Sonic said. "Yeah, I think it's rare."
"You know she has two years to live?"
Sonic blinked, the smile fading from his face. "I didn't know that. Wow. That sucks." He patted Knuckles's shoulder. "I see why you've been so down."
Knuckles shook his head. "That's not why. It's not a disease-it's a curse."
"A curse," Sonic said flatly. "Didn't Shadow tell you that as a joke?"
Knuckles raised a hand. "Hear me out, okay? Way back during the Calamity, Chaos was forced to kill people he shouldn't have. In revenge, he put a blood curse on the king who made him do it."
Sonic made a face. "Chaos can do that?"
"He's a water monster," Knuckles said. "Water, blood, I imagine he can do all kinds of things. Anyway, if anybody under this curse touches chaos crystal, they gain power and it rots them away."
"So," Sonic said slowly, "that's why Glad can see chaos auras with that eye, but it's killing her?"
"Yeah."
They gazed at each other for a moment.
"That's your big secret?" Sonic said. "That she's cursed?"
"No," Knuckles said. He blushed and looked at the treetops. "To break the curse, I have to marry her."
"Whoa." Sonic stared at him for a second. A grin spread across his face. "Well, duh! Go do it!"
"You don't get it." Knuckles pantomimed speaking to someone else. "Pardon me, madam, but you can either marry me or die." He turned to Sonic. "That's not a choice!"
"Oh." Sonic scratched his head. "Ohhh. That's why you've been so mopey."
"Yeah, see?" Knuckles paced in a circle. "I like her. I think she likes me. But you don't just marry somebody you kind of like. And gosh, I can't tell her that it's to break her curse. She'll think I'm just being ... mercenary. Like I don't really care about her."
"She might be okay with it," Sonic said. "Just kind of warm her up to it."
"But how?" Knuckles threw his arms wide. "I don't know anything about girls or romance or-or anything!"
Sonic laughed. "You think I do? Knux, I've been dancing around that problem for years. I still can't even say anything to her."
It was Knuckles's turn to grin. "Who? Amy?"
Sonic nodded rather than say her name aloud.
Knuckles snorted. "She likes you, Sonic. Ask her out for coffee or something. You don't have a time limit. And you aren't trying to break a curse."
Sonic folded his arms and looked away, growing hot and uncomfortable inside, as he always did when he thought about the pink hedgehog.
Knuckles lifted his long dreadlocks off his neck for a moment. "So that's my big secret. Manipulation and lies."
"It's not manipulation if you really like her," Sonic said.
"Yeah it is," Knuckles said, letting go his dreadlocks with a sigh. "That's why I haven't told her. If she knows she has to marry me to live, then any time we spend together will feel ... weird. Like an arranged marriage or something."
"You have to tell her sometime," Sonic said. "Look at it this way. Say you guys date and fall for each other. Then you finally let it slip, oh yeah, marrying me will break your curse. And she'll suddenly think that all the dates and things were just leading her on because you had an agenda the whole time."
Knuckles hit himself in the forehead with a fist.
"Just tell her to start with," Sonic said. "Spin it in a positive way. 'Hey Glad, I found out how to break the curse. Turns out it's marriage. I'm an eligible bachelor, so how about it?'"
Knuckles rolled his eyes.
"Say, that's a good point," Sonic said. "Does she have to marry you, or could she marry anybody?"
Knuckles sighed. "I don't know. I had the idea that she has to marry an echidna who is outside the cursed bloodline."
"Great," Sonic said, clapping his hands and rubbing them together. "Want to play matchmaker?"
Knuckles stood there for a long moment, his brow furrowed, one thumb on his chin. "I don't know if I want somebody else marrying her."
Sonic huffed. "Knux, stop being a waffle! If you want to marry her, do it! If you don't want to, then don't! She doesn't have to know."
Knuckles grimaced. "I already told her that we have to find the chaos crystal that put the curse on her."
"You freaking lied?" Sonic exclaimed.
"It wasn't a lie! Maria told me that if we find it, we might be able to use it to fix her chaos eye a bit."
Sonic leaned against a tree and folded his arms. "What else did you tell her?"
Knuckles crossed and uncrossed his arms, looking uncomfortable. "That there's a ritual we have to perform."
Sonic leaned his head against the tree. "Knux ..."
"It's true! A wedding is kind of a ritual, isn't it?"
Sonic began to laugh. "You're well on your way toward messing up everything!"
"Don't laugh," Knuckles said, embarrassed. "I know. That's why I told you this! I need help!"
"You sure do!" Sonic howled. He doubled over, holding his sides. Knuckles smiled a little in spite of himself.
When Sonic calmed down, he said, "Knux, just go talk to her, okay? Lay it all out. Let her decide."
"All right. It's what I should have done anyway." Knuckles pointed a finger at Sonic's nose. "And don't you tell a soul."
"On my honor," Sonic said, laying a hand on his heart.