The ziggurat was a lush and green paradise. Terraced farms were ripe with fruits and vegetables. Cold, blue water flowed from the top all the way down the sides, cascading over smooth white stone and disappearing into the base of the building.
A soft zephyr blew through Sheptilah's hair. She sat cross-legged at the very top, looking out at the glittering desert vista warbling in the heat.
There was no noise, not even from the running water.
The sky was devoid of clouds and although it was bright there was no visible sun.
She sighed quietly and just stared unblinking into the distance.
"Sheptilah?" Eggman's familiar voice whispered behind her.
"Ugh." She looked over her shoulder at him. "I was hoping you wouldn't be able to dream walk."
"What is this?" He tried to step forward but his legs felt cemented in place.
"We're both asleep and you are in my dream." She turned back to the empty desert, "Congratulations on your first astral projection."
"What?" Eggman wasn't sure if it was his own dream or not.
"Our bond."
"What… about it?"
"It's grown strong enough in these last few weeks that now you are able to dream walk. You're in my brain." She stood and turned to him. She was dressed in a long, black cotton sarong tied at the breast. The fabric had golden thread embroidered in a filigree pattern at the hems. "Watch your step."
"I don't want to be here." He looked around uncomfortably. It was hard for his vision to focus on any one detail. With a wave of her arm, Sheptilah made everything disappear. They were now standing in total blackness.
Wake up, Ivo. You shouldn't be here. Her voice whispered.
Eggman opened his eyes and saw he was in his bed. He remembered everything he saw clearly and lucidly.
He sat up and looked at the time on his digital clock: he'd been asleep for three hours. It was only a nap but it felt like he was blacked out for days.
Sheptilah was standing over him with her arms crossed and eyebrows furrowed. At some point she switched out of her uniform back into her old top and sarong. Eggman opened his mouth to say something but she waved her hand and pointed to Thunderbolt, curled up at the foot of the bed. She had initially fallen asleep on the sofa with Sheptilah but wormed her way into his room.
She motioned for Eggman to follow her but to stay quiet. He hesitated at first but with a nod followed her out of the room. She was very hungry and made her way to the kitchen. Sheptilah pawed through the refrigerator and took out a whole head of lettuce; there wasn't much else in there that wasn't meat.
"Are you… angry?" Eggman spoke quietly.
"No," she nodded toward the door, "Follow me." She took him to the pool in the lowest level of his lair. The humidity and the smell of chlorine became stronger as they descended the stairwell.
"I have an elevator." He reminded her.
"I have a phobia." She responded. The pool room was huge and well-lit for an area without windows. There were many beach chairs despite the fact that Eggman never threw any pool parties. Huge fake palm trees towered over them. Upon closer inspection the coconuts were actually speakers.
"Why'd you bring me down here?"
"Chinchillas don't like water and I don't want Thunderbolt bothering us." She peeled a leaf off the lettuce and munched on it. "I gotta teach you how to ground yourself so you don't kill us both when dream walking."
"Is that like astral projection?" He stroked his mustache between his fingers. Sheptilah made herself comfortable and stretched out on one of the lounge chairs.
"Yes, but we're only in each other's brains. That's how I knew to come down here. I learned you had a pool in that brief time you spent on my plane." She beckoned for him to sit next to her. He did so after unzipping his shirt a bit.
"I don't want you in my head." Ivo adjusted his glasses.
"And I don't want you in mine," she munched on more leaves, "But that's not an option anymore."
The chewing noises were getting on his nerves. "You're never going to get to a healthy weight if you eat like that. Carrots and lettuce? I think you're so malnourished your stone is the only thing keeping you alive."
"I'm used to not eating much." She shrugged nonchalantly.
"You're a queen. Why are you used to starvation?"
"It's important your people eat before you do," she pointed at him, "But you probably wouldn't know that seeing as how most of your people are golems."
"As long as we're forced to be together you must take care of yourself."
"It's cute how your soft side peeks out from that cruel exterior. I saw how you put your arm over us when we crashed; and now you're yelling at me about my health."
"What? That's a reflex." He crossed his arms and stuck his nose in the air.
"I saw some of what the ziggurat showed you, that red haired woman and two little girls? I guess it was tapping into your greatest desires in order to keep you placated. It was afraid of your mental prowess. It tried to take us all down separately but even that didn't work. I saw you defeated the specter right away." Tilly smirked. "You have a thing for redheads?"
"What on Mobius does this have to do with the astral projection?" He had a slight embarrassed blush on his cheeks.
"I'm getting to that." She rolled to her side facing him and continued to eat bits of lettuce. "You're incredibly intelligent and devious but there is a tender side. You're soft-boiled. I'll teach you how to ground yourself so that you don't run the risk of having your memories warped or worse: people seeing things you don't want them to. The world can never know about how many times you've been downright gentle and caring. That would ruin your image."
Soft-boiled?
"It's easy, too. Close your eyes. First you imagine a pinpoint of light above your head and four at your feet and lines of light connecting them in the shape of a pyramid around your body. Now just imagine a box. Place all the specific memories you don't want getting seen into the box and lock it."
"That's it?" He rubbed his nose. "Fine." He visualized it exactly the way she asked him to. In the box he placed passwords, Lucinda and finally the memory of his grandfather's murder that was broadcasted to the world. He mentally placed a steel padlock on this memory box and opened his eyes.
"You should ground yourself from now on before you go to sleep. Just imagine the pyramid and I won't be able to cross into your plane anymore, or you mine. This also blocks the memory sharing we experienced earlier when I headbutted you."
"This sounds too easy." He peered at her casually eating.
She shrugged. "Sometimes magic is absolutely mundane."
"Can I astral project anywhere?" He was curious if he could infiltrate the minds of his enemies while they slept.
"You? No. Just to me and maybe Shadow."
There it is. "I'm sure he has lots of secrets he wants to keep locked away." Eggman paused.
"What?" Tilly tilted her head.
"Keep this between us, Sheptilah." He rolled to his side to face her.
"Of course." She raised an eyebrow.
"Shadow means a lot to me. He's the only family I have left on this planet besides my estranged nephew and niece. Everyone else is dead."
Sheptilah frowned.
"He was the life's work for my grandfather and as you know he died for Shadow; and so did my cousin. If anything happened to that hedgehog I don't think I could cope with it."
"You love him."
Eggman hesitated for a moment. "I don't love a lot of people but Shadow is one of them and I hate that he's your familiar. In the long run I don't care what happens to me. I'm getting old and tired but Shadow? Shadow has suffered more than his fair share."
"I would give my life for my familiar. You don't have faith in me?"
"You said you know you will be dead when this is all over. You said that you were very, very sure of that fact. You would be just like your mothers died sealing off the monsters."
"Yes."
"And their familiars died along with them, didn't they?"
Sheptilah inhaled sharply and cast her eyes down at the tile floor.
"So they did." His voice was grave. He turned to look at the pool's still water.
"I won't let you or Shadow die, Ivo."
"Don't make promises you cannot keep."
Shadow was handling the Chaos Emerald the team retrieved from the ziggurat. The warm power of the stone flowed from his hands to his body, energizing him. He held it close to his chest and silently thanked it for sharing its power with him.
He replaced the emerald in its protective case and went back up to his dorm. On his bed were two small boxes labeled with his name and the other simply said 'witch'.
Rouge tapped her knuckle on the door to get his attention. "Hey, Shadow."
"Hi, Rouge." He scratched his ear. "What do you want?"
"I read your report on the great north. I also heard that Cabbot chewed you out for being so reckless." Rouge smiled gently.
"Ah yes, I believe his exact words were 'that witch is rubbing off on you.'" Shadow opened the box with his name on it. It contained a smartphone. He rolled his eyes at the bat.
"Gramps, you gotta start carrying a phone. I've preloaded everyone's numbers into it." She pulled her phone out from a hidden pocket in her jumpsuit and waved it.
He narrowed his eyes at her and then sighed with defeat. "Fine, but don't send me a bunch of stupid texts when I'm trying to sleep."
"No promises!" She winked. "I do think we should keep Tilly here at GUN from now on. I don't like the idea of her playing triple agent with Eggman."
"She's nuts, that's all I'm gonna say." Shadow tossed his new phone on the bed and went to his ruined bag sitting on the floor. "I agree with you, though. We should go collect her."
Sheptilah sat at the edge of the pool with her legs in the water. The cold tile felt nice on her bare thighs. Eggman changed into his swim trunks before coming back and sat at the edge with her.
"Do you have to put your face on everything?" She nodded her head toward the center of the pool, a mosaic with his logo smiling menacingly at them.
"Because I have a very marketable face." He said. He called for his robot lackeys to bring them some dinner. "So when I was on your dream plane was that what the ziggurat looked like back in the day?"
"Yes, except it wasn't empty. It's dangerous to dream lucidly and have people there that are dead." She put her hair behind her ear with a finger.
"Why's that?" He noticed her teeth were slightly crooked.
"Because you'll never want to leave. You can do basically anything on that plane and some people become obsessed with it. Sometimes they even get seduced by the shadow people or other spirits visiting the plane. You shouldn't worry about it, though. I won't be lazy about my psychic grounding anymore." She sniffed.
"What was your kingdom like?" He leaned in.
"I spent most of my time with Hebat and playing the harp. They didn't like me much so I didn't go out much. Occasionally I had a suitor try to marry me but I was more concerned with the witch-eaters than anything else. That and I was seeing a succubus named Fegato."
Sheptilah frowned, "She's probably dead by now. They live extraordinarily long lives but… not that long."
"Marrying a regular person after being with a succubus would be a tough act to follow." He wiggled his eyebrows knowingly. She lightly shoved him for teasing.
"It wasn't that! So rude." She said between laughs.
Orbot and Cubot came in with lemonade and some hearty sandwiches. The two Overlanders ate and generally enjoyed each other's company for once.
"I have to say it's pretty nice having another Overlander around." Eggman wolfed down his sandwich.
"How so?" She ate her sandwich a little more daintily. Peanut butter and jelly on toast deserved to be treated politely.
"The furries get annoying, honestly. Even my best underlings. Thunderbolt doesn't understand personal space." He guzzled down his drink.
"She's in love with you, you know." Sheptilah finished off the rest of her sandwich.
"I know. I'm not stupid. I worry that if I outright reject her she may come down on me with the wrath of the heavens itself." He would never admit it to anyone else but he was a little afraid of the chinchilla.
"I think it's just a girlish crush," Tilly giggled, "You know, like having a crush on your teacher? Something like that."
"She's the size of a basketball! What does she think she'll get out of a relationship?"
"I asked her the same thing and she said the thought never crossed her mind." She said with a shrug. "Before I forget I'd like to share a memory with you."
Eggman wasn't really paying attention to Sheptilah; he was lost in thought about that damned yellow puffball. He jumped when he felt something touch his hand: Tilly had laid her palm on top of his fingers.
"What? Oh, a memory? Of what?" His face flushed slightly when he turned to her and saw her face was inches from his.
"You." She gently pressed her forehead to his.
Eggman found himself seeing things from Sheptilah's perspective. Peering at the man from inside the crystal while half-awake and feeling absolute guilt over his bleeding hand. Then he felt overwhelming fear in the strange, new future. He saw himself gingerly carry the witch into his home and felt her relief. She believed she was safe.
Suddenly they were in his dining room with the candles burning faintly. Sadness and panic is what he felt. He saw himself remove his glasses to reveal his mutant eyes. Her reaction was one of horror and intrigue.
They were beautiful, Sheptilah thought. Exotic and spooky but… beautiful. She was incredibly grateful he saved Shadow at one point and he experienced that emotion as a warm feeling starting in his heart and spreading through his chest.
Then undiluted terror when he grabbed her throat. Boiling rage and primal fear when he slammed her into the ground. The feeling of fighting back tears of regret, guilt and hatred as she dug her claws into his stomach.
She pulled away from him so he could process all he saw.
"Why did you want me to see this?" He scooted back from her.
"Because it's important you know how I see and feel about you as being my partner. We're bonded. Let's make more positive memories of each other and less negative ones. Let's be friends." She held out her hand and waited for him to take it.
"You don't want to be my friend." He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose.
Sheptilah nodded curtly but still held her hand out.
"Allies, then?"
He took her hand and firmly shook it. "Allies." She smirked and jumped into the pool pulling him in with her.