When Sonic woke up he felt exhausted. He didn't know why, especially since he had just been sleeping. The air was so cold he could feel the inside of his nose freezing. He sniffed once but it didn't help.
Restless as always, he decided to brave the cold and take a look outside. He put Rosemary's shawl around his shoulders, slipped on his shoes and walked out of the barracks. It was colder than yesterday, with a chill breeze winding its way through the tents and buildings, making him shiver. But he didn't go back inside.
He thought to himself. What if Tails was right? What if he could run so fast he was just a blur? Wouldn't that be something?
That part of himself, that had always been told he was no good and believed it, doubted it. How could he ever do anything like that.
But the soles of his shoes were so thin. Had they been that thin just the day before yesterday?
Could he possibly be running so fast he was burning through his shoes?
He dropped Rosemary's shawl in a heap on the ground without noticing. He fixed his gaze on a building in the distance. For the first time in a long time he banished the voice that told him he couldn't, he can't, he would never, and started to run. Before he knew it he had reached the building he had been staring at, a strange heat coming from his shoes. He looked down to see the smoke coming out of his shoes, a trail of melting snow marking where he had come from.
He stared at it.
That was impossible.
How could he possibly run that fast?
But Tails had seen him do it, and Sonic trusted Tails explicitly. He knew Tails had not made it up. Tails did not yet know how to tell a lie.
Still, he could hardly believe it. He held his breath and started running back to where he had come from. He arrived there just as quickly as he had left. He gasped in disbelief. It was so easy too! All he had to do was run! He started to laugh a little to himself, it was just so incredible.
"One more time," he said to himself.
He prepared himself to go even faster, to be there before he realized he had left. He did it, the path of snow behind him a pile of slush and now his feet were burning, and he realized with a start he had almost run through his shoes.
"Uh oh," he said to himself. He still had to make it back.
He ran faster than before, and all of a sudden there was a loud crack and his foot got stuck on something, and the ground below him collapsed into a hole in the earth. As he fell into the hole he hit water, but it was so cold it was as if he had fallen into liquid ice. All breath left his body and he felt the life leave his limbs almost instantly. He tried desperately to reach up, there must be more ground around somewhere, he had fallen through ice right?, but his arms would only lift up so high.
He forced his eyes open. He knew that if he got stuck under the ice he was a goner. He wished he hadn't opened them.
He had already drifted out of the hole and under the ice.
In a panic he tried to draw breath, if he could only breathe he could think, but icy needles stabbed his lungs and he started to cough on the cold, cold water, but he had no air with which to cough and only inhaled more of the hateful liquid. His vision started to go red and his head started to pound as if his heart were up there instead of thumping frantically in his chest. When he realized he was about to drown up north, where no one would ever find him, he tried to get a hold of himself, he had to get himself out of here, but the red faded to grey and he couldn't hold off the blackness long enough to get his oxygen-starved brain to figure something out.
When he opened his eyes he thought he was dead. All he could see was blue, blue, but then a great feeling of nausea gripped him and it was all he could do to turn onto his side so that he would not vomit on himself. As he vomited the water he had inhaled his breath came in spasms, until he was afraid he was going to choke on the water because the vomiting wouldn't let him breathe. When he had finished he lay weakly on his back, shaking violently, still unable to breathe.
A strong, wet hand was on his shoulder, and he realized that he had not been controlling his body after all. He looked over to see Amadeus, naked and wet, looking at him with concern.
"What happened, son?" he asked, his eyes on Sonic's face.
"You're not wearing your patch," Sonic said, not answering the question as all he could see was Amadeus's one golden eye.
"No," said Amadeus. "I should probably do something about that."
Sonic succumbed to the creeping feeling of sleep that was blanketing over him, and did not hear his reply.
The warmth woke him. He had not been warm since he had stepped off the plane, and it hurt. He rubbed at his legs. They ached dully.
"Feeling better?" asked Amadeus. Sonic tried to sit up but was hit with a wave of dizziness. He moaned involuntarily and lay back down.
Amadeus laughed. "I suppose not." He got up from his desk and sat down on the edge of the bed. He was now fully clothed, patch and all.
"What happened to you after I left?" he asked quietly.
"Nothing," Sonic said, turning away.
Amadeus took Sonic's hand and fingered the scar on his wrist, making Sonic flinch and pull his arm away.
"There's one on the other arm," said Amadeus. "Well I know what such a thing means."
Sonic had to try so hard not to let it all out. He trusted Amadeus with a strength he had never felt before, not to anyone, not even Tails. Maybe it was because Tails was so young, though; he told his mother just about everything.
He turned over with difficulty, fighting the nausea that threatened to overwhelm him. He wanted desperately to be strong for Amadeus, although he had no idea why. Maybe it was because Amadeus was so strong himself.
"Why did you put the patch back on?" he asked, trying to distract himself from the tug in the back of his throat.
"That's a good question, little one," Amadeus said, brushing his hair back. "Do you remember the day we met?"
"Yep," said Sonic, bitterly. He remembered every second of that day.
"Appearances are everything to some people, aren't they."
"Yep," said Sonic, becoming suddenly, uncontrollably angry. He clenched his fists as the cold rage swelled up inside of him.
"My father," said Amadeus, "is a very important man among my people. He is the Omnibus, the leader."
"So?" said Sonic. "I don't care if he's the president, what does that have to do with anything?"
"It has everything to do with everything," said Amadeus. "If my father is the most important man in our world, then who do you think is the most important woman?"
"His wife, I guess."
"And who would be the most important child?"
"Whoever their kid was."
"And how would the people view them if their child was Flawed?"
"Are you saying you're this famous kid who was born messed up?" said Sonic, a thought brightening in his muddied brain. "How did they fix you, if it was that bad?"
"They didn't," said Amadeus. "They hid me from everyone instead."
"Well, they couldn't hide you forever," said Sonic. "I mean, famous kids are more famous than their parents."
"That's right," said Amadeus. "Therefore what do you think they did?"
"I guess they'd lie," said Sonic, rubbing his nose.
"And lie he did," said Amadeus. "He told everyone I took my eye out in an accident."
"Why'd your mom agree to that?"
"I don't know," said Amadeus, suddenly looking irritated. "I'll be damned if I know my mother's motivations for anything."
"Whyzzat?"
"I've never met her. I've never even seen her."
"Oh," said Sonic, wondering what that must be like. Whether she liked him or not, he couldn't imagine never knowing what his mom looked like. "Does that make you sad?"
"Not really," said Amadeus. "You can't miss someone you don't know."
"Yes you can," said Sonic.
"What do you mean?"
"Tails missed you," said Sonic quietly. "He had dreams about you. They scared him. He kept having dreams of someone he didn't know. And Rosemary doesn't talk about you, so it wasn't from that."
Amadeus was silent.
"That," he said slowly, "is very unfortunate."
"That all you got?"
Amadeus looked at Sonic.
"Do you really think I don't miss my son?" he asked in a low voice that sent chills down the hedgehog's spine. "Do you really think I want to stay here and fight for some bullshit made up by a group of soft old idiots, sitting in an office the Goddess knows where? Really? The only reason I'm still here is because after seven hundred years, I haven't killed enough of those damned echidnas to stop them from coming back."
Sonic was horrified and shocked at the same time.
"You've been killing people for seven hundred years?" he gasped.
"I have nothing better to do, apparently," said Amadeus sarcastically, but he did it badly, not being a sarcastic person. "How are you even seven hundred years old to start with?" said Sonic helplessly.
"I'm not," said Amadeus. "I'm seven hundred and eighty three. I think. It's hard to keep track."
"It still doesn't make sense!"
"If you're kitsune it does," said Amadeus. "Sort of."
"What do you mean?" Amadeus was always saying things he didn't understand.
"I mean that I should be dead by now," said Amadeus tiredly. "But if the Lady wants you to live forever, I guess you will."
"Who?"
"The mother of all of the kitsune," said Amadeus. "You have your God, we have our Goddess."
"Do you pray to her?"
"Never."
"Why not?"
"Because the only thing She's ever done for me is to keep me in one piece, and I don't particularly feel thankful for that. At least if I was badly injured they would send me home, and I could stay there."
"You could quit," Sonic suggested with childish innocence. Amadeus recognized this and did not get offended, as he would have if anyone else said such a thing.
"I can't," said Amadeus. "That would dishonour everything I stand for."
Sonic was only a boy and did not yet understand what that meant, but he was tired of trying to figure out what Amadeus was going on about. He frowned at Amadeus and turned away.
"I don't like talking to you," he said. "You're confusing."
"I'm sorry," said Amadeus. "I don't know why I started ranting at you all of a sudden."
"You should maybe talk to someone," said Sonic childishly. "That might help."
"It might," said Amadeus.
"So why don't you?"
"I haven't anyone to talk to."
"Oh," said Sonic. "Well...I guess I can pretend to understand."
Amadeus laughed tiredly. "I thought you said you didn't like talking to me."
"I don't," said Sonic. "But I could pretend."
"That's quite all right," said Amadeus. "You're only a child, after all.
Sonic frowned. He didn't like being called a child. He didn't want to be a child.
All of a sudden Tails came running into the room, his arms spread out in the air like he was about to take off. "SONIC!" he yelled happily. "Oh, I'm so glad you're okay! I was real worried!"
"I bet you were," said Sonic, and just seeing his little brother made him feel better, somehow. Some days Sonic wondered what the point of anything was, but Tails was so full of energy and life all of the time that he had long since decided that there must be a point to a world where little kids such as that still existed. He sat up, fast enought to prove he was all right, but slowly enough to stave off the cloud of dizziness that threatened to wash over him. He did his best not to wince, because if he did Tails would worry, and did a good enough job that Tails did not comment.
All of a sudden Amadeus looked up, his ears pricking a little. Sonic followed his gaze to the door.
"Someone's there," said Amadeus, rising. He strode over and opened the door, his hand on the hilt of his blade.
An echidna soldier raised his rifle and emptied the magazine into Rosemary.
Rosemary fell to the ground, eyes already devoid of life. An instant later, Amadeus was drawing his sword out of the soldier's body. Sonic could see a line of soldiers, all aiming their weapons at Amadeus.
It was an ambush.
Amadeus turned to Sonic. Sonic wasn't afraid of the soldiers, or their weapons, or of losing his life in seconds as Rosemary just had. But he became afraid when he saw the look in the old kitsune's eyes.
Amadeus was not yet physically dead, and yet somehow Sonic knew that he had died with Rosemary. There was none of the kindness, the warmth he remembered from when they had first met. His one visible eye had become empty and cold.
"This," said Amadeus, in a voice so devoid of life that Sonic's blood ran cold and he shuddered involuntarily, "this is why I don't believe in God."
As Amadeus strode out to fight a battle he could never win, and probably didn't want to, Sonic fought back tears so that Tails wouldn't see him cry. The little fox was standing there in shock, unable to understand that that was his mommy lying on the floor with all of her blood coming out of her, and Sonic's heart ached to see it. He knew that there was only one thing he could do right now that would be of any help at all.
He picked up his little friend and started running.
As Sonic ran, doing his best to avoid soldiers intent on killing the son of Amadeus Prower, Tails struggled in his arms and started to cry.
"Mommy!" he shrieked.
Sonic no longer believed in God either.
