The dark sky held a brilliant crystal clarity. Far from the choked and clouded atmosphere of Robotropolis, Sonic could see the speckled stars, gleaming against a backdrop of deep bluish-black. With one raised finger, he traced the constellations, daydreaming about the times Uncle Chuck had pointed them out to him, explained their origins. Sonic had too short an attention span to be enamoured by them for long, but the memories were comforting.
"You'll be okay here, right?"
Sonic tilted his head against the grass, flashing his small companion a confident grin.
"You're asking me, Sonic, the hedgehog, if I'll be okay? Tails, Tails. Have I taught you nothing?"
Tails beamed, his twin appendages twirling with delight. Ever since his return, Sonic had been hard-pressed to find a minute without the eager, worried fox jumping around at his side. He'd been spared the details of the story, but to see his idol dragged back from Robotropolis wounded and exhausted had been more than enough; Tails had been determined to help out, and that was that.
"We're far from Knothole, though. Why'd you come this far?"
"I don't know. I can't stay in one place for too long, especially not when I have Sal fussing all over me." Sonic rolled his eyes, an action perfectly mimicked by Tails as though they'd rehearsed it together. "Yeesh, girls. Cooties and stuff."
Tails poked out his tongue. "Ewwww."
"I know, ain't it the truth, lil' buddy. Say, Tails." Sonic rolled onto his side, pointing a distance away toward an array of trees that fringed the clearing. "Since I'm the invalid an' all, why don't you go rummage around for some firewood?" He inhaled a deep breath, flexing in a stretch that only slightly pained his bound hip, and folded his hands behind his head. "I'm in a story-telling mood, and you can't tell stories without a fire, right?"
"Right!"
The fox was off and running before Sonic could even blink. "Don't go too far though!"
Poor kid. So enamoured by his best buddy, he didn't even suspect a deception. Sonic waited until Tails was far out of sight, and then he turned his head to the dense wall of trees that sheltered him on the right, scanning the darkness with wide eyes.
" 'Three days from now'," he quietly intoned, perfectly remembering the final whisper in his ear a certain feline had left him with before bounding off into the city, drawing his friends close enough for a rescue. " 'Meet me at the northernmost forest border'. Well, I'm here if you are, Saffy."
A pair of opalescent eyes peered irritably from behind a tree, their owner scowling. "I told you not to call me that."
Sonic laughed under his breath. "I know."
"Then don't."
"Okay, okay."
Silence descended. Sonic turned his gaze back to the sea of stars above, uncharacteristically patient, because now he knew the rules Safira played by. He understood what made her tick, and he didn't have to wait long.
"You are faring well?"
"Good as ever. Kinda." He removed one hand from behind his head, patting the bandages at his hip. "It's apparently pretty superficial, but I think you meant for it to be. Some sleep and eats later, and I'm feeling way better."
Safira purred ambiguously. " . . . good to hear. You are lucky your comrades were close enough, or I would have had to drag you all the way. What did you tell them?"
He'd considered downplaying Safira's role, when he'd been 'encouraged' to spill the beans. And to an extent, Sonic had. He'd certainly ignored plenty of the incriminating details, focusing heavily on what had happened in the citadel to cast her in a better light. But the message of not trusting everyone you came across was too important for him not to pass on. Sally had been livid to hear of such behaviour from a 'fellow Mobian', so he'd tactfully decided that accusing her father of destroying distant cultures and triggering such hatred of civilisation in the first place could probably be left until a better time.
"Well, you know. I told 'em stuff. But not everything." Sonic shrugged, shaking his head with a frown. "There were bits they . . . I guess they just wouldn't understand. Were your kittens okay?"
"Just as you had left them. I've moved us closer to the forest for now."
"Safira . . ." Puffing out a breath, Sonic narrowed his eyes at the sky. "Something's been buggin' me. About when you came back to help me out. You shot at Robotnik, but you didn't shoot him. You could have killed him, you know? It was a perfect opportunity."
The feline's eyes seemed to glow in the gloom. "Would you have wanted me to?"
"That's been bugging me, too." Sonic closed his eyes, shaking his head indecisively. "And I still don't think I have an answer."
"Well, regardless. I did not follow you to kill your enemy on your behalf. I followed to stop you from killing yourself."
Sonic grinned, giving Safira a teasing look. "Felt guilty, huh? Huh?"
"No, but responsible. I told you before, it just felt right." An edge of irritation crossed her whispery tones. "You think I came here to apologise?"
"Naw." Sonic shrugged, his words sincere. "You don't need to. You kinda went about things the wrong way, buuut . . . I know why you did them. And I know why you did them that way. And you made up for it because, without you, 'Buttnik would have his grubby paws on me."
Safira ventured slightly out from the trees, drawing herself up tall and proud. "I will never change my Ways. But, I have decided to be more considerate of yours, all the same."
He rolled onto his side, propping himself up eagerly on one elbow. "That's plenty enough for me. Your plan, though – you gonna hatch a new one?" Sonic would have invited her back to Knothole, if he hadn't known instinctively that she would reject. That wasn't her Way.
"I already have." Safira circled the tree, until her back was facing him, one hand against the bark and the other holding up a number of unsheathed claws. "In four days. I have been gathering resources for myself and my children to leave. We will attempt the Great Forest route, heading east away from the city. If we make it, we will keep going, until we reach the old lands again."
A pause. And then one eye, framed by an arched eyebrow, peered back at Sonic over an angular shoulder. "You are not obliged to help."
"I'm not, huh?" Sonic smiled. It wouldn't have made sense before, because he hadn't known the rules, but now he could play the game with her. "Well, four days. It may be a bad time, since I'm pretty sure we'll be pulling some kind of stunt right about then. I suppose I could try and, I don't know, convince the guys to shift our activity to the west a bit. Wouldn't want to rain on your escape attempt, and, aw, shucks, distract 'Buttnik's security or anything."
Safira smiled – not a venomous one, or a sly one, or one of amusement at someone else's expense. It was a real, genuine smile, and Sonic couldn't help but stare at it.
"That would be most convenient," she said quietly. "At any rate, I have to get back. My children are waiting for me."
Sonic didn't anticipate a thank you, but nonetheless he sat upright, calling softly after Safira as she began to step back through the foliage toward the distant city. He'd been wrong before, but not now; this was the last time he was going to see her, and it had to be ended right. His Way.
"Safira? Good luck, okay? I won't forget you."
The feline laughed, turning back only briefly. "I would fear for your memory if you did. Goodbye, Sonic."
And with that, she was gone, vanished into the darkness as surely as if she'd teleported clean away. The hedgehog stared into the trees, thinking that it was perhaps the first time she'd addressed him sincerely by name, and also ironically the last . . .
"Sonic!"
He jumped a mile, clutching a hand to his chest and spinning about to face his eager companion, who was running across the clearing with his scrawny arms full of branches and his oversized shoes threatening to send him flying at any given moment.
"Give a hedgehog a heart attack, why don't ya?"
Tails giggled, miraculously making it without mishap and dumping his haul an appropriate distance from the pair's allocated snoozing spot.
"Wha'ssamatter, Sonic? Scared of ghosts?"
"Pssh! PSSH! Sit your butt down before I boot it. You want your stories, or not?"
They got the fire cheerily crackling away first, and the familiar warmth boosted his improved spirits even further, but Tails was quick to remind Sonic of his suggestion, even though this was one unusual occasion the hedgehog felt able to lie perfectly still and quiet. They lay head-to-head, Sonic's gaze drawn back to the twinkling stars, Tails twittering about which kind of stories he wanted to hear. After a long moment of contemplation, he began.
"This one time, while I was on a solo mission in Robotropolis, I met this really interesting cat . . ."
