Speedy's note: Please note that this fic resulted of the mixture of me coming across a philosphical quote (see below) and playing through one of my favoutite games again after a long time of not having played this game.

Set directly after the end of Sonic Heroes and Knuckles' return home to Angel Island. Knowledge of the game's plot is not absolutely necessary but might simplify understanding the story.

Warning: Story includes echidnas in thoughtful moods. May you read it without losing sanity.

Cover art by Nik159 on DeviantArt.

Time changes everything except something within us which is always surprised by change.
- Thomas Hardy -

Changes And Chances

Somehow he wasn't quite sure what to think of this, of everything that had happened during the last weeks. It was so... well, unfamiliar … maybe? The only thing he was sure about was that it was disturbing him, had dome sp for a long time. But it was now that he really realized how much, and that he needed to think about it.

Knuckles took a slow breath and rested his left foot on his right ankle, leaning comfortably against a stony pillar. It was nice to be sitting here, it was right to be here, inexplicably right. His left cheek was warmed by the last light of sunset and his right palmed by the ever so familiar, reassuring glow of the Master Emerald. The echidna blinked slowly against the orange sky, searching the depths of his own mind for explanations.

But there was so much of... confusing stuff, he felt lost for even where to start thinking.

The first disturbing thing had happened about a week ago. Tails had landed on the island, with a letter signed with 'Doctor Eggman'. And the fox had asked Knuckles to come with him, find Sonic and stop Eggman's plan. Well, it had turned out finally that this had not been Eggman's, but much more Metal Sonic's plan, but that wasn't quite the matter.

It was Tails' request itself. He'd come to ask him for help. Openly, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Now that he came to think of it, Knuckles was more or less sure that he had mainly given in so quickly because he had been so confused by it. Dumbfounded really.

When they found Sonic, doing exactly the kind of thing Knuckles expected the hyperactive blue hedgehog to do in his spare time, Sonic had seemed not really surprised to see Knuckles, instead, he'd simply taken Tails and the echidna along on a trip to find their archenemy.

It was not the fact that Sonic, Tails and he had been working together that disturbed Knuckles, it was how it had come to it. There was something very different from accidentally meeting and becoming allies to team up on purpose. Last time they had met it had been... – Knuckles cast his mind for the appropriate term – well, different. Something had changed in how they treated him – and in how he treated them back.

Just a while ago... He wouldn't even gotten the idea of going to join them on such a dangerous trip all over the world to stop one of Eggman's schemes and leave the Master unguarded while he was gone. But he had. With a simple gesture to Tails, with a single word, and somehow without much thought. Knuckles realized only a while later, when he sat behind the fox in the biplane: He had left his duty as a guardian. It would be wrong to say without a thought. But with far less thoughts he should have been spending on such an important matter as leaving the Floating Island unguarded and the Emerald an easy bait for thieves.

It had troubled him all along the way with Sonic and Tails hunting the mad scientist and his as mad machines. In the back of his mind Knuckles had been worried about the Master Emerald all the time. What could happen to the Island, what if intruders made their way up, what... and so on.

But still, yet another highly confusing fact, he had been having fun. In spite of his worries, in spite of robotic armies fighting them, in spite of Metal almost starting apocalypse. Seeing the world, talking to Sonic and Tails when sitting at a camp fire for the night, working together. Even if he had not seen the others, he had been sure they were there. Sonic rushing around smashing robots, preventing the killer machines to shoot at the echidna or the two tailed fox. Tails hovering a meter above him, shouting a warning or an advice for the right direction if need be. It had taken Knuckles long to work out that he was indeed relying on them. Blindly. And they were counting on him just the same.

Knuckles found the term for this new relationship only after an unconscious prompt Sonic had given. They were buddies. Friends. It was a rather simple word for a complex thing. And it was yet harder to accept it considering that Knuckles' concept of life had never contained the idea of friendships, not of any closer contacts in general.

He was the guardian, had been fated to be for as long as he could remember. Being a guardian of the sacred Master Emerald was not a profession to learn. It was something you were born to be and do. That was what Knuckles had learned, what he felt all the time, with every glance at the Emerald, with every breeze of wind stroking his fur that was filled with the Master's presence, with its energy, with its power and might and softness. In every glance it gave back with a green twinkle at him. The Emerald decided about its guardian, chose one worthy of this task, Knuckles had read that in the old writings of his ancestors; it did not accept just anyone.

The Master Emerald was part of his life, yes more, part of him. And somehow, in a weird kinda way, he was part of it too. For he felt its mood, its pleasure on a calm day, and its sorrow when Robotnik had taken it, away from the Island, away from its rightful place. Knuckles had always known these feelings, and he had rarely questioned his duty.

But from when he had first met the people from the surface, Eggman, Sonic, Tails and others... There was something existing beside this ancient honourable task.

Yes, they had brought him trouble. Their existence and the fact that they were very well able to get up to Angel Island and endanger the Master Emerald made Knuckles' life more difficult. But it had also brought him answers to long asked questions. There were people living on the surface, intelligent, sentient creatures like himself. It had given him a new view on himself and his job to know that.

And it had brought up new questions. Ever since he knew of the surface people, he wondered what it would be like to be one of them. To be living with them all the time. Being honest with himself Knuckles had to admit that he wasn't the kind of guy to like being around a lot of people. He liked being on his own, in the quiet of the Floating Island's solitude.

But once the thought had been thought, he sometimes wondered.

Knuckles shifted his weight against the pillar, glimpsing the last stripe of big reddish sun sink behind the Island's edge, its light already dimmed. Below his position, the cool evening wind blew shades of mist from the forest out onto the meadow around the Temple of Chaos, slowly dancing across the open field illuminated by the remains of daylight. The forest itself was already vanishing in the shadows of dusk. Just up here, the green everlasting glow wasn't bothered by the night.

A small smile lit Knuckles' face. He had missed that. The lights and the sounds and the feeling of being home, where he ought to be. At the place that was for him as rightful as it was for the Emerald.

No, it might be an idea from time to time, but he couldn't imagine to feel like that anywhere else. It was right that he was here and would always be.

But still, there was a new feeling about being here. It wasn't that he wasn't glad to be home, to have time for himself, to relax at last. But there was a slight impression in the very back of his mind. It was almost a feeling of loss.

Knuckles had never known loneliness. He was used to be on his own and not talk to anybody nor have any company. But after that long trip around the world with Sonic and Tails, he had gotten almost used to them being around, to Sonic's annoying impatience and recklessness, his way of being completely and utterly unable to stand or sit still, his jokes about nearly everything that happened, to Tails' giggling and chattering about things Knuckles didn't understand at all, even to their fights.

And now they were all gone their way, Sonic likely off to run into the next adventure, Tails certainly trying to get pieces of the advanced robots they had smashed working to improve his little plane, the Chaotix crew to a new job, and the others... who knew? Returned to their lives just like he had.

The last time, Knuckles remembered well, he had been glad to be alone again. Now, he was glad to hear nothing but the whistle of the wind caught around the landmass of the Floating Island and the familiar sounds of nature around. He was glad to feel the Master Emerald's warm power. Everything was how it was supposed to be and it was a calming notion. But he wouldn't have any company any more and somehow, oddly enough, Knuckles had the feeling that he would miss the stupid hedgehog and the little fox.

But they had shown up almost frequently ever since he knew them, hadn't they? This tendency had worried him during the first time he had known them for they always brought danger along, but now it had almost become routine.

So they could pay him a visit from time to time. Tails had said so one time and now Knuckles was strangely looking forward to it. He had never been before.

The guardian slowly sat upright and crossed his legs, lowering his gaze into the green light of the Emerald. If it was true that his fate was guarding the Emerald, how could he have gone that far to make friends with somebody? Knuckles had thought a lot about that already. He had been used to think that such things hindered him doing his task. But it hadn't happened. Nothing had occurred that was a danger to the Emeralds because he got himself in Sonic's company. Instead, the others had helped him when Robotnik had attacked.

And Knuckles had helped saving the world this time. By leaving the Island. Maybe that was also something a guardian could to, for his task was to provide the Island's and Emerald's security, saving the world somehow included that, didn't it?

A brief blow of wind tore through his spines, making a ruffling sound in his dreadlocks for a second, then it was gone and he was left with the glow all around again, sinking back deeper into his thoughts once more.

Life, as Knuckles had learned, was no static thing, it was alive itself, moving, changing. So was his. It was hard to accept, but it seemed a fact. The conditions of his life, his surroundings, the situation had changed, and he had changed with it. Unconsciously, without truly noticing it. But he had for sure. And he would have to deal with what was new.

Was it a bad thing? Knuckles slowly shook his head to himself. If you kept your eyes open for the world around you, you could easily see that indeed everything changed. All the time. The trees, the animals, all the plantlife, the seasons, the weather, even the stars changed over the year. So it was a fact of life. Simple. Natural. Incontrovertible and therefore beyond doubts.

The red echidna sighed. His problem seemed on closer look not like something he could solve by any means, but like this kind of thing you could only accept and live with. And he would.

... Somehow.

The Great Emerald's green light pulsed at his eyes, not blinding him, instead giving a bit of its light to him. Knuckles hesitantly smiled at the Master Emerald. Fine then, things had changed. He wasn't completely alone any more, he had friends. The nature of his duty seemed to include new aspects now and it would never be the way it was before. Anyway, only time would show if it was good or bad. All he could do was wait and see.

But suddenly, drifting in the Emerald's light, he was fine with it. It was weird, it still confused him and he would need time to adapt to it, just like the flowers needed to adapt slowly to a new season, but it was fine. Somehow it was right that it happened. It always was and had always been. The guardian felt the disturbed confusion that had bothered him all the time ease out of him as his thoughts ordered themselves in his mind.

The Master Emerald was still pulsing at him in a slow rhythm Knuckles could almost hear and it cleared the last bit of unsure feelings away. "Thank you," the echidna whispered, vaguely addressing the Emerald or the sky or … something. It didn't matter, Knuckles felt he had spend enough time on philosophy today. He would just wait and let things happen. It appeared the best and easiest way to handle this.

Having finally come to some sort of conclusion that satisfied him as much as he could realistically expect, Knuckles pulled his gaze away from the Emerald's glow and got to his feet. Slowly he walked down the stairs, suddenly feeling calm and relaxed and cozily tired now. He lay down on the thick carpet of grass and moss the meadow created and looked up at the stars for a moment, just breathing, and taking in the peaceful night.

He was home. And that was a thing to be content with after all.