These are not songfics. Let me just get that fact out of the way right now. They're short stories inspired by songs. I discovered Scribbler doing something similar with the Kingdom Hearts Videogame series, and decided I'd like to give it a shot.
Standard disclaimers apply. Reviews and concrit are both appreciated.
29. Vienna Teng, Drought.
On the planet of Teng, they call the months of summer "Dustimé", meaning "arid".
It's something to do with the weather patterns and the way the seemingly endless volcanic hills around every city affect the air. Or so one of the locals told him. They also told him a bunch of stories about the gods beneath the earth, who, fed by the heat of their Planet Egg, breathed their hot breath across the entire world, to test them until winter came.
Tails just nods a lot and tries his hardest to understand why this meant nobody on Teng wanted air conditioning. The heat rising from the stone pathways distorts the air makes the world around them wobble and tremble, the same way as cars sometimes trembled on the roads of Station Square in the summer. The earth is warm, dusty and clings to his paws and sometimes, they have to jump across huge cracks that the dryness has carved into the sidewalks.
The village elder (who calls herself Veia, and talks an awful lot about the Gods of Heat and the upcoming rainy season) is leading them through the dried out streets of her city to the place where their Planet Egg has been hidden, to keep it safe from the Metarex. Veia –a scaled creature; probably of salamander decent or something– talks a great deal about a great many things, but mostly, she talks about the anger of the gods which will rain down upon them if their Planet Egg is taken away. She believes in these gods unwaveringly, yet when Tails asks what they look like, she says that she cannot possibly describe them. She "knows" only that they are like the fire, devouring everything in their paths and taking whatever shape tries to contain them. "They who are brilliant in life and black as ash in death."
"Yeah, right," Sonic pauses to knock some dust out of his shoes. "So what about when the mountains all blow up on ya? That doesn't sound so brilliant to me..."
Veia merely smiles a toothless smile and takes Sonic's usual irreverence with the manner of a person who had been dealing with harshness and irreverence all her life. "The gods protect us when they release their fire into the skies. And we protect each other. There are greater dangers than the fire in this world, blue one. We believe in our fiery lords' decisions."
"Heh. Whatever works for you, lady. So can we get a soda over here or something? I'm parched..."
While Cream and Amy chew Sonic out for being rude to their hosts, Tails looks up at the faint red sky and the smoking volcanic hills that seem to surround the city on every side, sucking the energy out of the air. They seem so strong and powerful, enfolding the entire city in their heat and stone. Tails can almost believe in the Fire Gods, too.
Tails watches Cosmo a lot of the time as they walk, picking her way daintily across the cracked cobbles around them. Unlike Amy, who pushes her feet firmly through the dirty road and rubs the sand disdainfully away, Cream who hops along on her toes, and Sonic who is zipping around them too quickly to care about what the ground beneath him looks like, Cosmo barely seems to even want to touch the earth. She watches every step she takes quite carefully, lifting up the hem of her skirt away from the soil.
It takes Tails a while to work out exactly why this is. Cosmo is, after all, a plant.
When Veia is finished talking to him (she really likes talking) and after Tails has reassured them that the Metarex are nowhere close by, Tails goes to find Cosmo.
She's by the fountain in the middle of the square: warmed by the surrounding hot pools, and almost empty in these driest of months. She has her toes dipped into the shallow water.
'Hey there.'
'Hello Tails.'
He figures it won't hurt to join her. The water is warm when he touches it. Probably warmer than she wants it to be, but Cosmo, for all her experience and suffering, isn't really one to complain about these things.
Coolness seems to be an alien concept to the Tengi.
'It's... very hard out here, isn't it?' Cosmo says, softly.
'You wanna go back to the ship? I'm sure it'll be a lot cooler there. I'm sorry, Cosmo, I forgot. I didn't think...'
'No, it's alright. It's just... all these people... the world they're living in...' Cosmo gazes around, and Tails finds himself following her gaze, as if wondering exactly what she's looking for. The scaled citizens of Teng are scattered around them, occasionally glimpsing their way in curiosity. Children build mountains out of rocks and knock them down again with their tails, laughing and grinning, and play at hopping close to the bubbling pools that Tails is quite sure don't containwater.
It's kind of amazing, actually, Tails realises. The way Veia and her people stand so tall and proud; comfortable amidst the sweltering heat of a world which experiences severe drought for thirteen out of its fourteen months. 'They're so well adapted to their environment,' he murmurs. 'It's like... they really belong here, isn't it? Even though it must seem a very difficult world to live in to us.'
'Yes, that's exactly it,' Cosmo's face un-creases, as if Tails has said just what she has been trying so hard to put into words. Tails pointedly doesn't ask her about the world she came from: a place of lush leaves, cool summers and solid wood. A place, she had once told him, where metal meshed perfectly with foliage and where people were born from seeds and died as trees.
He knows her well enough, he thinks, to know what to say. Things have been... a little different between them, since they left the planet of Marmol, though he's still not totally sure why. It's like he understands what she does and doesn't want to talk about, and when. Like they're reading each other's thoughts through bristling fur and chlorophyll coated hair.
'It's... not exactly easy to live here, is it?' she says, softly, and then, speaking as if she has come to a tremendous realisation. 'But... it's still beautiful. To the Tengi, the volcanos are their "Mother".'
'Uh... ' Tails pauses for a second, sand then that strange feeling returns to him, and he realises exactly what Cosmo means. 'I... think I get it. Sometimes this world is harsh to them, or challenges them...'
'But overall, she wants them to be happy,' Cosmo finishes, smiling faintly and wriggling her toes in the water.
'Well... yeah. Something like that. That's what I figure from what Veia told me, anyway.'
'Yes, that makes sense; mothers always want the best for us, however difficult our lives may be,' Cosmo says, and though Tails is fairly sure he understands her a lot better now than he used to, he still doesn't think he understands this.
'Veia told me that... it'll be their rainy season soon. So it'll cool down a lot then,' he says. 'I don't know whether the Tengi will like that, though. They seem so comfortable in the heat and dry.'
Cosmo nods.
'Yes. But... I suppose we all need to experience things we aren't comfortable with sometimes.'
"And the taste of dried up hope is in my mouth
And the landscape of merry and desperate drought
One side of myself, and with knowing came love
I would know love again if I had faith enough.
Too far is next spring, and a jubilant shower
So angels, inside is the only way out."
