The Parent and the Child Incorporating Sonic and the Secret Scrolls,
Written by Janis Diamond

"So Antoine," Seahorse said as she sat down and crossed her legs. "How has your week been?"

Antoine's first reaction was to laugh a little, rather bitterly in fact. There was so much to say he barely had time to say it all. So first, he told her about his tete-a-tete with Sonic over the camp fire, disappointing as it had been. He took care to mention how annoyed he felt with himself and particularly his inability to make things go differently to the usual animosity.

She listened intently. When he was finished she said, "That was quite an event. How did it feel?"

"I felt my heart so fast," he said. "I could feel a lot of me was wanting to be arguing. I tried to be I'm OK You're OK with him and not to be a Victim but in the end it was too much. So I walked away." He sighed irritably. "I failed." He'd been bested by Sonic in front of everybody and he hated Sonic, and himself, for it.

The counsellor seemed to retreat into thought over this and when she caught his eye again, he could see what she was thinking.

"You have something to be teaching me," he said with a kind of wry, complicit feeling he wasn't quite ready for because he still felt angry about Sonic.

"I certainly do," she said with a smile. "Would you like me to teach it to you now? It's quite different from what we've been through so far."

"Hmm..." He considered the longer story he had to tell and decided to tell it later, or perhaps next session. "Yes, why not?"

She nodded and got up to visit the A-board. On it she drew three circles, one on top of the other. The overall image looked like an anorexic snowman. "Now, this is a useful way of understanding how the mind works. Counsellors of my school of thought imagine the mind in three basic pieces. There is the Parent," She wrote the word beside the top circle. "the Adult," which she wrote beside the middle one. "and the Child." She stood back to let Antoine see her handiwork.

"Now. The Child," she continued, "Is the part of us that remembers how it felt to be an actual child. Those feelings remain accessible to us for the rest or our lives. Although we put memories and experiences into here when we were little, we draw on them at different times even when we have become adults."

Antoine tried to cram all of this into his brain but it didn't quite fit. "Ah. Can you explain again, please?" he asked.

"Yes, I think I can. Do you remember that baby we talked about in the polar circle? Let's imagine he didn't end up with that block across his emotions but instead, he was still able to feel his emotions as an adult. Back when he was a baby he felt fear when he heard howling predators in the distance and his mother came and picked him up. He learned the howling was bad news because his mother looked afraid of the sound and protected him from whatever made it.

"Years later he is a grown man, out on the ice. Fishing perhaps. He hears a distant howl and immediately feels afraid, even though it doesn't make much sense for him to feel that way because he is now too big for a predator to catch.

"What happened was that when he heard the howl, the sound triggered him into his Child-" she tapped the bottom circle of the diagram with her graphite. "-and he made that same connection as he had done, when he was little, between hearing the sound of howling and feeling the emotion of fear."

Somehow it still wasn't fitting very well for Antoine. "I am still not understanding. What does this having to do with me?"

The seahorse thought before she answered. "The Child is your emotional centre," she explained. "Whenever you feel an emotion, it is quite likely you are in your Child."

"Quite likely?" he asked. He felt irritated by her indistinct answers and watched her coolly for a response.

She watched him back and he realised she'd noticed his challenge to her. "Yes. It is not definite - emotions can come from elsewhere."

"Then why say emotion comes from here?" he asked with a flippant shrug, his arms folded.

She glanced at the Parent circle. "It may come from here," she said and pointed at it. "The Parent is the state we go into when we feel there are rules to be followed and that we will make sure others will follow them, or if we feel we can look after somebody else."

This sounded clearer to the coyote. "So it is like being a real parent." he said.

"Yes, absolutely. Or anybody who is a parent-type figure, like a teacher perhaps."

"Ah." His irritation seemed to have receded for the time being. "So... Why is this useful, Madame?"

"It is useful because everybody has these three ego states. So if you think of..." She stopped as she saw the coyote find his notepad. "Which word was it?" she asked kindly.

"Ah, 'ego,' I think?"

She nodded. "Of course. Ego is the self. My ego is my sense of I. Does that make sense?"

Antoine felt excited by this discovery. He knew this word after all! "Yes, it does! My princess has said before that Sonic has a big ego. I did not know what this was meaning. She seemed to think it was a bad thing."

"Well, it can be, depending on what you want from the other group members. We all need a sense of 'I', otherwise it would be difficult for us to function, especially in groups. So Sally thinks Sonic has a very big sense of himself, and you have described him as having a lot of presence in your group."

Antoine beamed. "So that is a big ego!"

She tilted her head and smiled at his pleasure, which by now was bordering on hilarity. "So I think that gives you an idea of what an ego is."

"Yes!" he laughed. And because he couldn't stop, she started too.

"Oh, I'm sorry Antoine," she said wiping tears of mirth out of her eyes. "But I'm always glad to hear a client laugh. We were in the middle of a conversation, weren't we?" She took a breath and went back to explaining.

"So. We all have a Parent ego state and a Child ego state. And in the same way as a real parent has authority over a child, a person in their Parent state will try to command a person in their Child state."

Antoine hummed at this idea. Soon enough he said, "I am trying to think which of these Sally is usually in. I am wanting to say Parent, but she is looking after the rest of us for much of the time. She becomes Parent with Sonic some of the time. But he cannot be in Child because he is never sorry." He felt angry again as he thought about this. Trust Sonic to be too arrogant to fit Seahorse's model!

"Do you believe he would definitely feel sorry if he was in Child?" asked the counsellor.

Antoine looked at her strangely. "But you already said that one person in Parent will make another be in Child. And children do as their parents tell them."

"Do they always?" she asked.

He paused as a thought occurred to him and he began to suspect this new diagram was about to get much more complicated. "Well, they should do," he tried, in an attempt to stem the idea.

She smiled. "But not always," she said, as if saying so finished his sentence for him.

There was a pause. Eventually Antoine realised he had tensed and allowed himself to slump. "Not always, no Madame."

"What else would you say they might do when a parent tells them how to behave?"

"Hmm. Well, they can do as they are told," he said, because it was an option, after all.

She nodded. "So they can adapt to what mother or father is telling them," she said and wrote the word 'adapt' on the board. "Anything else?"

"They might not do as they are told. They might, ah, what is this word?" He racked his brains for a moment but came up dry.

"Rebel?" she suggested. This sounded right to Antoine. And when he nodded, she added that to the board.

He struggled to think of any more. But the idea of rebellious children had caught hold and it brought forth an old memory. "I remember when we were all very young, Sonic liked to have the adventures. He used to be leading us all out of Knothole."

"Mm hmm?" she prompted, and unfurled and curled her tail.

He nodded. "He loved Monsieur Hedgehog and was on very good behaviour with him but not with my princess' nanny, Rosie. He was a rebel with her and loved always to do the opposite of what she was to be saying. He put us in danger. Just like he is always doing now," he added as the observation came to him. He noticed less bitterness in his voice when he said that than he might have expected. Something about understanding the mechanics of the situation helped him avoid the anger. He felt pleased by that.

She hmm'd about this. "And how about you? How did you behave as a little one?"

"Moi? Ah, well, I always did my best to be good. My father was the Captain of the Guard and I was always looking up to him and trying to be like him. I remember him telling me to be good for Rosie. Hah, I just remembered," he laughed as a very old memory indeed chose that moment to surface. "He used to be telling me that because I was the Captain's son I must protect Rosie!" He laughed at his father's joke, and how easily Antoine had been duped. He'd actually taken his father's instruction seriously!

But... What does this mean? he thought, and the laughter died. He continued talking, with increasing numbness, to the corner of the room this time. "I took it on myself to protect the princess. She was in my playgroup. So was Sonic. Father did not say to protect her but I thought of it myself and decided to, to prove I was a good son. And then Sonic would go out in his way to put us in the danger. I did not know how to stop him endangering my princess."

He carried on gazing at the corner of the room for a while. It was only after a few moments he realised he had his hand on his head, as if he had to hold the top of his skull in place and not let the memories pour out any faster than they already were.

"Oh Madame," he breathed and covered his eyes. "This- this is where it was beginning. Oh, sacre bleu!"

All he could do was shake his head, his eyes still covered. Father... Sonic.

For Seahorse's part, all she could do for the moment was wait for Antoine to process this enormous realisation, and its equally huge implications. He would steady himself and be ready to interact again soon but for now, he needed this time to ache, grieve, and pick up the pieces that he would later glue back together in a shape far more useful to him. She glanced at the clock fitted discretely to the wall behind him, the one she'd deliberately fitted opposite the louder clock behind her so that she never had to look obvious when checking the time. They weren't far into the session; there was time for Antoine to digest his realisation and find enough strength to face the world beyond her study door.

When Antoine looked up at her again his facial fur was ruffled and his expression lost and tired. He squeezed his eyes shut again and dropped his head. "I wonder what would my life be like if Robotnik was never to be taking over," he said in little more than a whisper.

She answered just as quietly. "Can you tell me more of your thoughts about that?"

He spoke on dully. "There would never have been such a big adventure to attract Sonic and he would never have started dragging us all into Robotropolis. Because Robotropolis would still be Mobotropolis instead. I would never have felt so much in danger then... And perhaps I could have coped." He glared tiredly at the wall. Eventually he carried on. "And Father would still have been there to teach me how I should be protecting the princess. Instead he was roboticized when I was young and he was never to be able to finish my education." He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair.

"It sounds as if the coup left you with half an education," she said.

"Hah, even less than half, Madame. I could have been betrothed to the princess if only His Majesty was still in place. Sonic would be nothing in Sally's life and I would have been fully trained to protect my future queen. It is all wrong. It is all wrong."

They were silent for a while longer. Gradually Antoine managed to pull himself together and looked at the A-board again. "I would be liking very much to move on now," he said a little stiffly. "What is this Adult?"

She followed his gaze and looked at the board. "The Adult is different from the other two ego states. It's not made up of our emotional history. Instead it uses information available to us in the here and now. And it uses information we've learned in the past about how to do things."

"How do you mean?" he managed to ask, despite his heart feeling like lead.

The seahorse thought about this. "Let's use this as an example: I might feel too warm in here," she said. "My Child response might be to sit tight and not open the window. After all, you are here too and you might be feeling just fine. I imagine that if I opened the window, you would get cold and feel displeased by my action. So I don't.

"My Adult response is different. I have a set of how-to-open-a-window instructions in my head, and I know you are capable of answering the question, 'Are you a bit warm?' Or, 'Would you mind if I opened the window?'"

"But why would everybody not simply be doing the second thing?" he asked.

"Anybody can. But remember how we talked about the Child ego state? About how a person can be in that state and feel they should adapt to what the Parent wants?"

Antoine frowned in confusion, and then nodded carefully.

"If I were to leave the window shut and suffer being too hot, I would be adapting to what I imagine you want."

"But this is not of making sense," he said, feeling a little more like himself. Certainly there was a part of his mind that felt very bruised but he felt able to put that to one side. Or perhaps I need to, just for now, he thought. "How can you know whether I am wanting the window open or closed? You are not the mind reader!"

"What if I were to tell you that as a child, I was taught not only that my elders were to be put first for comfort (such as whether they want the window open or not) but also that I should be seen and not heard? If I am in my Child then I will continue to obey that rule, and not raise the issue of the temperature in here until you do."

"But if I am fine then I might never mention it," Antoine said, irritated. Nobody would ever do this, it was too foolish!

"You might indeed never," she answered.

"And you, Madame, would be left too hot and suffering in the silence-" he said before something important dawned on him. He looked at her in shock. "The plane."

Seahorse looked confused. "What plane?"

"There was something I wanted to tell you," he said. "Rotor and Sally have been repairing a small plane in secret and we were presenting it to Sonic a few days ago. We used it to travel to the floating island of Maga. I am afraid of flying but I flew anyway." He sat back, still gobsmacked by his own behaviour. How does Seahorse manage to be right about these things? "I did not ever tell the others that I was afraid. Not when Sonic and Sally argued about the safety of using the plane, not when we were making the final checks... "

The counsellor nodded, her face alert with interest. "So you adapted to what you guessed was their wish for you to fly with them?"

He nodded dumbly. He looked at the three circles but they didn't inspire him to speak. He felt struck dumb. "I..." he eventually said, "I do not know what I am supposed to be doing now."

"What would you like?"

"To stop doing it. I have been a fool."

The seahorse looked at the diagram. "When we make a contract we make the aim something positive, not negative." When she glanced at him and saw his confusion she elaborated. "So rather than saying you want to stop a certain behaviour, we'd contract for you to start a different behaviour instead to replace the unwanted one."

Antoine felt too tired and confused and sheepish to get annoyed by this pedantic answer, but he said, "But I do want to stop doing this."

She smiled understandingly. "What do you propose you would do to fill up the time you would have spent in Adapted Child?"

He bit his lip as he thought. "I would..." Eventually he sighed. "I am thinking the obvious of things is to be saying I would be in Adult and say I am not wanting to fly. But I..." A sharp piece of honesty pierced his heart again and he looked to the counsellor for guidance.

She'd already seen it. "There's something about stating your needs as an Adult that isn't what you want?" she said tentatively. To call her statement a question was overstating it a little. Instead it was a tentative suggestion and the coyote understood this.

"There is," he said quietly. He held his breath for a moment and then said, "I still want the princess. How can I ever be having her if I choose not to be attending these missions?"

The way she nodded told him she did not consider this a problem-solving request. "How do you go about meeting your need to have her in your life?"

They were both quiet again for a while. He looked at the three circles and wondered at how they could have caused such turmoil in his mind. The words Adapt and Rebel stood to one side of the Child circle and he wondered where else that conversation could have gone. For now, he didn't want to find out.

He looked at the clock; time was moving on. "Madame, before I go I think I should be saying another thing." He looked pleadingly at her.

She saw him struggle with the secret he held. "What is it?"

"Everything I say here is private, yes?"

"As we agreed," she nodded, and recited her only limitation. "Unless I believe you are going to harm yourself or anybody else."

The coyote held his breath and tapped the tips of his fingers awkwardly together before he could bring himself to break the news. "Robotnik is dead," he began and waited for her reaction.

He saw true shock on her face. The seahorse seemed to try and find something to say for a moment before she eventually gathered herself. "My goodness. I admit I'm taken aback by that." A look of relief and tentative joy crossed her face. For some reason he didn't feel as happy as she looked. "How did it happen, may I ask?"

This wasn't the way Antoine wanted the conversation to go but he honoured her request. "He was to be falling over a cliff."

She nodded, satisfied, but then tilted her head. "But there is something else?"

He nodded sadly. In truth he had doubts about the death, but was having trouble knowing why. And the real issue, for him at least, was... "I think Sonic and my princess are... closer because of this." He shuffled uncomfortably, and willed Seahorse to understand and not ask him to clarify what he meant. He found the potential implications too painful to think about.

"You think, or you know?"

"I... I only think." He glanced forlornly at the counsellor before looking again at the relative safety of the floor. He really didn't have any evidence, but the possibility of Sally becoming completely unavailable to him was too hurtful for the time being for him to consider.

"And that brings a lot of pain for you," she said, her voice as soothing as a mother's.

He nodded. But as he sat there, trying to balance his fears, reasoning and suspicion with his natural resilience, something else came up about the whole thing. Something about Robotnik and his own resilience. The way he had survived once.

And then he remembered! "I am not sure he is dead," he blurted.

The counsellor furrowed her brow. "Why?"

"Because before the first time I was to be coming to see you I..." He paused. Now that he revisited the memory for the first time in weeks, he found himself embarrassed by the foolishness he'd proved himself capable of. For a moment it scared him. He shuddered and explained. "I tried to capture Robotnik. I wanted to impress my princess and lured him into a pit. He fell but he was not breaking the bones. And he got out very easily. He had the, ah..." He lifted a foot and tapped the underside of his shoe as he tried to recall the right phrase. "The rocket boots."

His counsellor was already using this information to come to her own conclusions. "So you think he may have employed his rockets to break his fall over the cliff? And even if he didn't, you noticed he doesn't get injured easily."

"Yes Madame, exactly this." They looked concernedly at each other. But their session had come to an end.

Antoine left with his head in the clouds again.

TO BE CONTINUED...

This is just to let everyone know that I may not be able to keep up posting a chapter a week for a short while. I haven't lost interest in this story, not by a long shot, but I had a crisis of income and had to put my efforts into finding employment. I've got that now but need to write some more of this story so that I can resume posting once per week. But keep checking - I may be able to manage one per week after all!

DISCLAIMER: "Sonic the Hedgehog" and most other characters and situations in the following story are copyrighted trademarks of Sega Incorporated, Archie Comics and/or DIC Productions. Permission to reproduce this specific material may be granted by the author so long as you email first. Words and Seahorse character © 2013 Velvet D'Coolette/Hayley Deakin.