Speedy's note: Hawki kindly pointed out that it's important to know where to put this story on a time line so the events and behaviour of the characters make sense. So, please consider that this story takes place some time after Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 and Sonic Heroes.

Carvings and Relics

The small, curved knife gave a scratching noise that reverberated through the entire chamber as its blade passed through the gap between the cobble stones.

Knuckles paid the noise piercing the icy silence no actual attention. He wiped after the knife's path, shoving dirt and moss to the side, then tackled the next part of the stairway. Slowly, stone row by stone row, he worked himself down from the top of the for years empty, large altar.

He didn't come here all that often anymore. After Robotnik's intrusion, Hidden Palace had never been the same again, and before long Knuckles had taken the Master Emerald back outside to the original Temple of Chaos. Before, the echidna used to think Hidden Palace the far safer site, but he had been proven wrong, so maybe it didn't matter that much where he kept it. An item of the importance, power and value of the Master Emerald would always be in danger, regardless of being kept behind a wall or not.

Now, back in the underground chamber for the first time in months, Knuckles suddenly found those walls, that should by all means grant safety, oppressing. Without the Emerald's bright glow, the room was dark in the flickering torchlight. The lack of light didn't hinder Knuckles' work; as all echidnas, adapt at digging around in tunnels, Knuckles saw well in the dark, so he didn't miss on any spot to clear of the onslaught of time and decay.

Without the Emerald, it had cooled down in here, too, and right now it was cold enough for the guardian's breath to show in small puffs of mist in the frigid air. It wasn't near as cold as outside, but cold enough to make the tips of his fingers lose feeling over time.

His knife dug out a larger plant that had managed to grow roots between two of the treads. He looked at the pale green weed for a second before tossing it behind his back. He wasn't sure if the plant would've survived much longer in here anyway. It would probably find some water from the ceiling that leaked ever since Robotnik happened to it, but the lack of sunlight showed clearly in the paleness of the leaves.

Having finished clearing the stairway, Knuckles moved around the altar slowly, continuing his quiet work on the walls of the shrine.

It was the least he could do, to try his best keeping the buildings, especially those on sacred ground, tidy and in as good a shape as was in his power. After all, they were all that was left.

Counting out himself, of course.

Knuckles sighed, reaching above his head to tug at a particularly persistent stretch of ivy. When it finally came loose, he stumbled backwards with the jolt of it. He ended up little gracefully on his tail and his knife scattered first to the floor next to his hand and then when he clumsily reached for it, it slit further away along the damp floor.

Careful not to slip again, Knuckles picked himself up, retrieved his tool and went back to work.

He wasn't even sure when he'd gotten the idea to try battling time's grip on the old temple today out of all days. Knuckles was sure he was the last one on the entire planet to even know how to read the Echidnaen calendar. Well, maybe a few of the science guys with the oversized glasses and those silly hats that dug around in the ruins on the surface had a basic idea. It didn't make much of a difference, for Knuckles was sure he was the only one that still cared.

Today was a holiday, the last day of the ending cycle, and it was by tradition the day for memories. It was the day to remember the fallen and their deeds as well as those that had passed away not in war. The day to honour what had been.

Knuckles didn't have anyone to remember and honour. He didn't remember any parents or grandparents or whoever else. All he had were relics left behind by people he at times wished he had known, but still all of them remained strangers to him. Faceless marks and fingerprints carved in stone.

But he thought it, they should matter, and so he honoured what he could honour. Carvings and rocks and relics of days long passed.

When Knuckles was finally done, his hands and feet were near numb with cold and he was sore and tired. The dirty tool loosely in hand, the echidna made his way out of the underground chambers and tunnels. At some point, the tip of the blade had broken off, leaving a ragged edge, but he didn't have that many knives of the sort and he was going to decide in better light and mood if it could be saved.

Back outside, he found it was even colder than in the early morning, but it had stopped snowing. Over the course of the day, the freshly fallen snow had settled on Knuckles' footprints from the morning and his path now led in semi-disguise down the hills.

It was a long way that felt even longer in winter and by the time Knuckles neared the Temple of Chaos and his small home the sun was setting behind the sea of clouds at the distant horizon. For a while the echidna stood and watched, not minding the cooling winds, because before him, the sky was ablaze with fiery light that seemed an almost unnatural closing to a day so cold and pale.

As the sun finally slipped below the layer of clouds, the Master Emerald's light from the nearby temple instead broke through the trees like a green halo and Knuckles followed the light's lead until his feet found the small, but much-walked path between the temple and the furnished cave that Knuckles used as his house.

He was almost at his door when he noticed the footprints along the path, too small and too fresh to be his own left in the morning. Just a few years ago, such a discovery, so close to the shrine, would have been quite alarming to him. Especially since he'd been so busy that he'd not noticed the person's arrival. He normally did.

Now, Knuckles could tell those footprints didn't belong to an enemy… although he wasn't sure if he had any patience for visitors this evening.

But there wasn't much chance evading them, and Knuckles' body longed for the warmth of a fire and a place to sit down on. Resigning to his fate, he took a last deep breath of the frigid air and pushed the door open.

The room was greeting him with such a pleasant warmth that it stung in his eyes. He blinked them dry quickly and closed the door against the sharp wind.

"Hello Knuckles! I was wondering if you'd ever be back!" From across the room, a little fox with two bushy tails was smiling at him.

"Hello Tails." Knuckles didn't even know where he'd found the little smile for his young friend, but he thought it should count that he had found it.

"Just what were you doing out there all this time? You're freezing!" A frown had taken the place of the smile on Tails' face, and the blue eyes were wide with concern Knuckles didn't want to be the cause of.

"I'm okay, Tails," he insisted with a soft shake of his head.

Tails wouldn't have any of it. "You're so scared of me then?", he asked with a strange smile Knuckles would have almost taken for mischief.

"Huh?"

"You're shaking. If you're feeling so good, I suppose you must be scared." The fox shot Knuckles a mock grin. "I'm not going to hurt you, I promise."

Knuckles found himself laughing in spite of himself. Tails' observation was accurate; now that he was in the warm room, his body had taken to shivering rather badly in its attempt to warm up, although his feet and hands still felt numb.

The grin remained on Tails' face, although it had taken on a softer shade. "Come sit down; I'm currently cooking us some warm soup."

"You're cooking soup," Knuckles echoed, but he moved over to the fireplace, dropped the knife on the floor and sat on his stool, secretly glad to be off his feet and near to the warming flames.

Tails shrugged, looking over at him. "I was hungry. And I thought you'd be hungry too if you ever decided to come back here." The blue eyes moved over Knuckles' body and the fox raised a brow. "You could use a bath."

Knuckles grinned. "I'm not getting one here right now."

Tails grinned back. "I suppose not." He reached for the long wooden spoon to stir the soup in a small pot over the fire.

The red echidna nodded at his kitchen equipment. "I see you found everything alright."

"I hope you don't mind." Tails glanced over at him from the pot.

Knuckles shook his head. "Not at all," he said, and realized it was true only when he said it.

Tails put the spoon down again and plopped to sit on the floor next to the fireplace. "And your stuff is a lot more orderly than Sonic's," he noticed with another grin.

At the mention of their mutual friend, Knuckles frowned. "Where is Sonic?" It wasn't often he got to see Tails without the hedgehog. At times the two seemed like each other's shadow.

Tails shrugged. "I have no idea. He went on a run. I never ask him where he goes anymore. He never seems to know himself."

Knuckles held his hands closer to the fire. They were starting to tingle and sting. "How long has he been gone?"

Another gentle shrug. "A couple weeks."

The echidna eyed his little unexpected guest. "And you– ?"

Tails smiled almost apologetically. "I got lonely after a while. I normally don't, but I didn't have much to do. So, I decided to come up."

For the moment, glaring into the flames to avoid turning the glare on Tails, Knuckles felt mad at Sonic for leaving the kid alone like this. All this running off for his own entertainment seemed selfish to him if it left Tails feeling lonely. Maybe he should have some words with Sonic next time he saw him…

"It's okay, Knuckles. Please don't break his neck or something," Tails interrupted the echidna's thoughts. "I wouldn't want him to stay because of me."

Knuckles looked up at him quickly in surprise. "You –"

The fox laughed. "I swear I could see the gears spinning behind your forehead there." He shook his head. "Really, it's okay." He looked at Knuckles for a moment of thought. "Sonic is… He gets unhappy if we tie him down. When I was small, for a while we only really ran around when we were chasing Dr. Eggman. I think he was trying to be nice to me. But I never wanted him to stop travelling, especially not for my sake. When we got our house, we got it mostly for me, so I had a place to build things and stay when I didn't feel like running with Sonic, and a place for him to come to when he didn't feel like running, either. He comes more often and stays longer at times than I thought he would at first." Tails smiled. "I think he likes it; in his own way, maybe it's home to him, too. But in the end, Sonic is only happy if he can run. I want him to feel at home, not like in a cage."

Thoughtfully, Knuckles looked at Tails. In moments like these, you sometimes had to wonder if he didn't lie about his age.

Apparently considering the topic of blue hedgehogs and their habits settled for the day, Tails stirred his soup again before turning back to Knuckles. "You didn't answer my question," he noticed.

"You had a question?" Knuckles frowned, half at Tails, half at his hands. His left, along with his feet, had ceased to tingle finally, but his right was still stinging fiercely and was now starting to throb.

"Yes, I asked you what you'd been doing out there all this time." The young fox tilted his head. "Unless it's a secret and it endangers the safety of your Emerald if you tell me, of course."

"No, it doesn't." Stealthily, Knuckles inspected his hand by the firelight, finding the glove torn at the base of the thumb. It was quite dirty, too, and he couldn't really see through the slit in the sticky fabric.

"But you're still not telling me?" Tails smiled. "Then I will have to speculate what you do in the middle of winter that has you coming back as a popsicle and covered in mud."

"It's not that bad," Knuckles insisted, trying to shift the tear in the glove to peek through it without Tails' notice.

Ignoring him, Tails launched into his speculations. "Well, let me list the facts. Whatever you've been doing wasn't done anywhere in the direct proximity. Every piece of ground down here is frozen solid and covered a meter thick in snow. You couldn't have found any mud around here. So you where at a warmer place. Somewhere up hill, closer to Lava Reef. Not at the volcano itself, though: it's rocky up there. I'd guess on the underground maze around Hidden Palace. Did a tunnel collapse and you had to dig it back out? You picked a bad tool for that."

Although somewhat distracted with his less than successful attempts to examine his hand, Knuckles still found himself impressed with Tails' sharp thinking once again. "Close," he noticed. "I was removing the moss and weeds from the buildings of the Hidden Palace."

Tails looked at him, cupping his chin in his hand. "And that was so urgent a task that you couldn't continue it another day even after you did I-don't-even-want-to-know-what to that hand of yours?"

Knuckles' head snapped up sharply. How had he even noticed that? "I… You don't understand."

"Not yet. Not unless you explain it," Tails said softly, then suddenly reached over and without warning pulled Knuckles' glove off, dropping it to the floor where it landed with a wet splash. "Here, now you can properly look at it."

"Uh…"

"Are you going to try explaining it? You won't know if I understand or not unless you try." Tails was sitting down again, blue eyes trained on Knuckles with an unfamiliarly sharp look. Knuckles wondered how often Sonic might have seen it.

"I was there to… honour the past." For now ignoring his throbbing hand, the echidna shot a look into the flickering flames. When he turned back to Tails, the fox was still silently and patiently looking at him. "Today, in the old calendar of my people, is a day to remember the past and what was lost."

"A memorial day." Tails nodded. "We have those, too." Again the blue eyes studied Knuckles with an odd mixture of piecing sharpness and gentle care. "So you… decided to pay a tribute to your people by caring for the buildings they left?"

Knuckles nodded, unsure what to say to Tails' perceptiveness and that wisdom that went so far beyond his age, or Knuckles' own at times. Suddenly, he realized he'd never really had a conversation one-on-one like this with Tails before. Not on a subject like this. Actually, Knuckles wasn't used to discuss things like this with anyone, and he was at a loss for what to say. How much he even wanted to say. How much he had to say.

"The moss is covering the carvings so you can't read them anymore. I… don't want it cover the entire buildings. They are sacred ground. For over a thousand of years, this chamber was home to the Master Emerald. Back in days of old, ceremonies were held down there." He sighed. "I've never seen one of them. I read about them and I've seen pictures, but I won't ever see one. Because there is nothing left but carvings and relics."

Tails softly shook his head. "You are left."

Knuckles swallowed. "I'm a relic, too, aren't I?"

"Oh Knuckles, don't say something so stupid. Don't think something so stupid."

"It's not stupid if it's true," the echidna said quietly, turning back to look at the flames.

There was the sound of ruffling fur and then Knuckles was almost pulled off his stool when Tails caught him in a hug. He stiffened in surprise, unsure what to do with the bundle of fox clinging to him now.

"You're not a relic, you're an idiot," Tails said thickly into the muddy and damp long spines.

"Uh, Tails? Are you crying?" Knuckles really didn't want to be the reason for that.

"No." The fox shook his head, but his arms tightened around Knuckles' shoulders.

"What did I do wrong?", the guardian asked, to his own surprise finding himself much more uncomfortable with Tails' obvious distress than with the proximity.

"Nothing," Tails said quietly, muffled by the dreadlocks. "It's not your fault. Maybe it's ours. Maybe we shouldn't leave you on your own up here with nothing but all these ruins around." He shook his head. Knuckles couldn't see it, but he could feel it. "You're not a relic, Knuckles. You're a person, and a nice person at that. You and Sonic are my best friends. You're awesome. And… you know what you do is important. I know you know how important much better than I do. Really… you're so much better and worth so much more than any of those old buildings, so please don't think anything like that."

"I…"

"No, you repeat after me now. I'm awesome and I'm not a relic." Tails let go of him then, but kept standing firmly right next to him.

Knuckles looked at Tails, his position still on the stool bringing them almost to eye level for the moment, and in the flickers of the fire Knuckles could see how shiny Tails' eyes were. He hadn't been lying, he wasn't crying, but he wasn't far from it either.

"Tails, I'm sorry." He never meant to make Tails sad, and he hadn't meant to say what he had said. But he was tired and sore and hungry and it had been a long day, and something about Tails' insistent questions had made it impossible to keep silent.

Tails smiled at him, though sadly. "You don't have anything to be sorry for. Just say it. And believe it, too."

Knuckles sighed. "Okay. I'm not a relic."

The fox nodded. "You're not. I can prove it, too."

"You can?" The echidna raised a brow.

His friend nodded again, pointing at Knuckles' hand. "You're bleeding. None of the relics I know do anything like that."

"Oh." Knuckles turned down to look at his hand. Tails was right, it was bleeding. Not badly, but it was enough that a drop or two had already found their way down to the floor. "I must've cut myself while I was working, but my fingers were so cold I didn't even notice."

"It's bleeding because it got warm now." Tails nodded. "How about you get yourself patched up and I get our dinner ready?" He winked at the echidna, the almost-mischief of earlier suddenly back in his eyes. "Last one to finish is a stupid old relic?"

For reasons he didn't understand, Knuckles found a smile tug on his lips. "Alright."

While Tails went back to stirring the soup he was making, which was starting to give out quite a nice smell, Knuckles fetched himself some water in a bowl, a clean towel, some of his healing herbs and bandages. Within minutes, he had the gash running across his palm at the base of his thumb thoroughly cleaned out and dressed. When he stood up to toss the soiled water outside, Tails was still gazing into the pot.

Knuckles suddenly grinned. "Look who's a dusty old relic."

Tails turned to shoot back a grin of his own. "Must be me." He laughed. "Sit down and have patience, us old relics aren't so fast, you know."

Shaking his head, but chuckling, Knuckles stepped outside to clear out his bowl. When he sat back down on his stool near the warmth of the fire, Tails handed him another bowl, this one full of delicious, steaming soup.

Knuckles smiled as he took it. "Thank you," he said, and didn't mean the soup.

"You're welcome." Tails' blue eyes twinkled happily, and Knuckles knew he didn't mean the soup either.