White rapped his knuckles on a door. "Helloooooo? Heeeelllooooooo?" He called out.
A certain special face answered the door, with quills hanging down like little dreadlocks from her head. She was pink, VERY much so, and at the moment, was covering up her body with a towel.
"Oh! Mr. White!"
"Might I trouble dearest "Sonniku"?" White asked calmly, grinning broadly, like a cat. "It's to do with my book. I need his official permission."
"Oh, fine. Come in."
"Yes, it's not like I haven't seen you naked before."
"WHAT?"
"Kidding, Ames." White joked, raising a hand up as he walked into the next room. Sonic folded his arms, looking White over, his blue quills slightly bristled.
"What ARE you doing there?" He asked.
"Your ancestor." White said, raising a waiver form up. "According to the law, if I am to write about him, I need permission from his descendant, and that's you." He said, gesturing at Sonic. "Otherwise you can sue me, which is what I REALLY care about."
"No doubt." Sonic laughed. "But you should know that I don't know a barrister from a bar stool." He went on. "Tell me though, what did you find out about my ancestor?"
"Well, let me tell you what I know…" White commented calmly, holding up his notepad.
THE HEDGEHOG
Quills. If you were to sum up the hedgehog race, it would be by their quills. They were proud, very proud, of the quills upon their backs. The longer and thicker they were, the better. And perhaps one hedgehog was the perfect epitome of this belief.
His name was Oglive. All hedgehogs had "cultured" names. The finer and more lustrous your quills were, the more pish-posh the name, and "Oglive" was the fanciest hedgehog in all of the burrow where his kind lived around. Two long and sharp quills hung down the sides of his head, whilst four shot far back up at the top. On his back were six equally hazardous-looking quills and all of them glistened in the light, carefully-kept and polished, the same beautiful shade of blue as Oglive was.
Hedgehogs had a bit of a thing, you see, for the sky. They loved looking at it and admiring it. They thought it was the most beautiful thing in all of the world. In many ways, they were right. How could one not love the sky? It brought light to the world in the morning, blue wonderment during the day, luxurious colors like the fall leaves at twilight, and peaceful darkest blue/black to soothe the soul at night. It glowed even then, with stars and the moon, and occasionally bolts of white would shoot across and you could make a wish of the sky.
Indeed, the sky was a wonderful thing. And to Hedgehogs, if your body was the color of the sky, that was a sign of greatest luck. The highest-ranking hedgehog leaders all had colors that were shades of the sky, and everybody agreed that Oglive's beautiful light blue fur was the finest out of them all.
He was not a truly "good" leader though. For he was sure of himself. Foolish. And this often was made all-too-clear to the other hedgehogs.
Priscilla, his sister, whose shade was as the darkest night, would always sigh when Oglive boasted to other hedgehogs about how wonderful his fur was. It was so sleek and smooth and beautiful, he said, that surely Chaos and Order themselves had chosen him for something special. She would see what he could not…the seeds of anger growing in the burrow that was their home.
One day a hedgehog with fur dark grey like an overcast sky filled with rain snapped at Oglive. "You think you're so keen, why don't you prove it against me? I've got the finest MIND in all of the burrow. If you think you can guess the answers to my riddles, then I'll oblige you're the smartest hedgehog here."
Oglive never backed down from any challenge. He agreed. The grey hedgehog, Vernon, proceeded to tell a series of riddles to Oglive.
"As you are pillar, so I am vine, you see me when the sun doth shine…what am I, oh foe of mine?"
Oglive thought of himself as a pillar standing outside the burrow in the sun, imagining vines hanging to him and creeping off like…
"A shadow."
"That was an easy one though. Now for something harder." Vernon remarked. "What can run, but never walks, has a mouth but never talks, has a head but cannot weep, has a bed but cannot sleep?"
Oglive wracked his brain. What ran, yet didn't walk, and couldn't ever TALK? It could not be something living. It had to be something non-living that ran, had a mouth…had a head…had a BED. That was it.
"A river."
"Not baaaaad." Vernon said, placing his paws together and smiling. "But now things get tricker. What question can one never speak an answer to?" Vernon asked one final time.
Oglive simply smiled. "What is it like to be mute?" He asked.
And so Vernon hung his head in shame, and Oglive was thus known as the smartest hedgehog in the burrow. Unfortunately, this stoked his ego further. He began to brag OUTSIDE of his home.
"And so I told him, "what's it like to be mute", and you should have SEEN the look upon his face!" Oglive told Rojo, a Robin. He and Rojo were playing with Priscilla at the local pond as some frogs and toads watched them from afar. "Wiped that smirk clean off. And that's how I got to be known as the smartest hedgehog in the burrow. And I'll bet I can outsmart any other animal too." Oglive added to Rojo.
Rojo dipped his wings into the water and splashed some of it onto his face, shaking it all off before trotting around in a circle a few times. He titled his head to the side, the beautiful red vest on his chest making him appear as though he wore a flame upon his form.
"Well, I dinnae no 'bout that." He said. "Everyone says that Grijs the OWL's tah smartest and wisest. I'll wager he could beat cheh, Oglive mah good mahn."
"No, the smartest creature has to be Brother, the Rabbit." A nearby mouse said, poking it's head out from a log and scampering on top. "You've never met anybody so clever. He's tricked lions and tigers and bears-OH MY!" The mouse shrieked at the sight of a newcomer appearing.
"You're ALL wrong, the smartest creature's MAN." Adam boasted as he stepped out of the nearby long reeds by the pond, smirking as he put his hands on his hips. "I've been hiding in these reeds for ages and not a single one of you smelled me or heard me. I'm the only one who's found ways to disguise myself to keep you from catching me." He told them, grinning. "Now clear out. I'm fishing here."
The animals all sighed sadly. They weren't as strong or smart as Adam, they thought. If they stuck around, he'd beat them.
Or rather…MOST of them thought that. But Oglive was reckless.
"Ah, but you can't run fast enough to catch a rabbit or fly like a bird. Why, I'll bet you couldn't even catch ME!" Oglive said, smirking.
Man looked at Oglive and a nasty smirk appeared on his lips. "Alright, hedgehog. I'll play your game." He held up a knife and then placed it back in his sheathe. "We'll race. And we'll keep racing until one of us admits defeat. If you win, I have to let you take whatever pick you'd like from my garden. If I win, then I'll take my knife and get to work on your quills until none are left and you're BALD."
Oglive just smirked right back. "I accept those terms!" He said.
And so, word spread about the great races that were to occur. The animals all lined up to watch as Adam and Oglive took their place at the start of a line that Priscilla had drawn in the grass of a large field. "You must run around the field, following markers I've placed." She told them both. "Whomever reaches the line first after a loop…wins that race."
Oglive nodded. Adam nodded. They smirked at each other. Then the race began!
Oglive was a quick little fellow. But…mankind has always had longer legs. Therefore, as quick as Oglive was, as quick as hedgehog kind was, he lost the first race. Moaning, he sat down as Adam took the knife and lopped off the ends of the quills.
He tried again. And he fought DIRTY. He spat at Adam. He clawed with his paws. He tossed dirt. But Oglive, sadly, was shorter than man. Not so much damage was done to the human. Soon man had won the SECOND race. And now the quills were becoming shorter and shorter.
Soon they weren't even a foot off of Oglive's body. Now…he felt an emptiness within him. He'd lost his beautiful quills. This was personal. He clenched his fists as the next race began.
He and Adam were neck in neck, but Oglive knew full well that the human would get a burst of speed soon, as he always did. Why…why was he continuing to race? He was afraid to lose his quills completely…afraid to lose all of his respect.
He was afraid. And yet…he accepted this. He accepted he could very well lose, but he resolved to give man a run for his money, and he summoned up his strength, screwing his courage to the sticking point, and found…
He was running FASTER than he had before…MUCH faster. And he knew why. With his big and heavy quills now shorter and now less long, they weren't slowing him down! He could BEAT man. New courage filled him. He could DO this. He could DO this!
He raced around the field and outran Adam, again and again and again. He found new drive as he continued to bolt across the field, past the markers and over the finish line. Finally Adam couldn't take any more. He hit the ground, moaning, and raised his hand in defeat.
"I'm proud of you." Chaos said, appearing from behind a nearby tree with a collection of delicious food from Adam's garden, all for Oglive. "You have discovered your gifts in allowing yourself to give in to your weakness."
"Your kind will always be courageous. Bravery will be second nature to you." Order agreed, appearing to the side with delicious nectar for Oglive to drink, and he happily downed it. "But you will also be reckless. Your mouth will get you and your kind into trouble. Courage will quickly turn into cockiness, and when seek a way to escape the calamity you yourself have caused…"
"You will use your other gift, the gift of SPEED. If they wish to beat you, they must first CATCH you." Chaos laughed.
Oglive nodded, accepting these terms, and he extended a hand to Adam, helping him up.
"You were a pretty damn good runner. Not as good as me, of course, but not bad at all." He told Adam.
"You're not half-bad yourself." Adam agreed. "You know, I think you're alright. You can come into my garden whenever you want, little buddy."
And so, Adam felt a kinship with the hedgehog spark. There would always be a soft spot in his heart for Oglive and his kind.