The moment Blaze opened her eyes, she knew something was wrong.
Her first assumption was that Marine had woken her up, but a quick look to the side showed she was still sleeping soundly, sprawled on Blaze's cot with one arm thrown over Blaze's face. Rolling her eyes, Blaze shoved Marine's arm off and swung her legs over the edge of the cot. She pulled the mosquito net free and found the slippers she kept at the foot of the bed, then ducked under the mosquito net. She tucked it around the cot again once she was free.
With that taken care of, Blaze stood and looked around. The room looked the same as it had that evening: small and tidy, populated by a floor desk, a rug, a small wardrobe, and the charpai bed behind her. Marine's hammock hung empty by the window, as usual. Blaze had long ago accepted that trying to get Marine to stay in her hammock each night was a losing battle, especially since no one else seemed to understand why Blaze preferred sleeping alone. Clearly they had never been woken up in the middle of the night from getting smacked in the face by an unconscious raccoon. She'd once asked Jian how she used to deal with sharing a bed with her siblings; Jian said she just didn't sleep. Blaze thought she was joking at the time, but since she started sharing a room with Marine she'd come to see Jian's point.
Snoring aside, Marine wasn't nearly as troublesome a roommate as Blaze had expected her to be. She'd been surprised to learn Marine was actually something of a neat freak. Blaze had always thought herself very organized, but since Marine moved in the room had taken on a new level of tidiness. Blaze couldn't leave anything out and unattended while Marine was around lest she turn around for a minute and find everything she'd been working on neatly put away.
One space Marine politely left alone (for the most part) was the centerpiece of the room. The Sol Emerald shrine was a circle of grass and flowers surrounded by seven raised pedestals. From each pedestal poured a small stream of clear water, providing a soothing ambience as it flowed into the moat around the grass before eventually circulating back up into the pedestals through a mechanism Blaze daily resisted the urge to take apart. That would be sacrilegious even for her. Atop the pedestals sat the Sol Emeralds. Normally at night they glowed soft and low, providing only a dim, steady light so as not to wake up the other inhabitants of the room. But tonight they were far brighter than usual, flickering and flaring erratically, flashing colored light on the walls. It was a wonder Marine hadn't woken up.
"{What's wrong?}" Blaze whispered, approaching slowly. "{Is something happening?}"
Yes, they said, their voices a discordant chorus.
Blaze flattened her ears. Usually when all seven Emeralds spoke together, regardless of how dire the situation, they were in harmony, bright and fierce and certain. But now they sounded… unsure. On edge.
"{What is it?}" she asked. Even the Fairies in the garden seemed to be stirring in response to the Emeralds' agitation. Their lights flickered in the grasses, their nervous chirping barely registering in Blaze's mind.
The Others, the Emeralds said, and now they were rising from the pedestals, spinning around her, lights growing ever brighter. There is something… Blaze, be careful. Take care of him.
"{Who-}" Blaze started to ask, then cried out as the light of the Sol Emerald's flared to a blinding brilliance. She raised her arm to shield her eyes, but even still her vision danced with stars. For a moment she felt the seven Emeralds brush warm and bright against her mind… And then they were gone. She lowered her arm, blinking furiously to clear her vision. The room was dark. The Emeralds had vanished.
Come back, she pleaded, tugging at their bond. Where did you go?
No response.
Blaze squeezed her eyes shut, forcing herself to breathe. In. Out. In. Out. She could still feel her bond with them, with all seven, tugging distantly at her soul. They were still out there, somewhere. Had something forced them to leave? They had seemed worried, upset. The Others. What others? And to "take care of him"? Who? There was only one "him" she could think of that the Sol Emeralds would want her to take care of, and he was in the other dimension.
Blaze's thoughts were interrupted by a soft groan. Immediately she snapped her eyes open. That wasn't Marine. The voice was too deep, too soft.
Now that the aftereffects of the flash of light were fading, Blaze could see there was something else in the garden. A bulky dark shape, broken only by… scales, of some sort, glowing a soft purple. As her eyes adjusted, Blaze made out the shape of a… a wolf. They were clearly a person, but they were shorter and stockier than any Solian she'd ever seen. Their purplish-black fur was thick, too, much thicker than was typical. And they had strange glowing markings on their head, down their arms, legs, and back, and on their hands and feet. They were slumped on the ground, eyes closed. Were they unconscious?
Blaze closed her eyes and tried to focus on the wolf's Sol energy, then snapped them open in surprise. The wolf had none of the fiery warmth she detected in all Solians. Neither did it have the electric energy of the people from Sonic's dimension. Instead, she felt a radiating coolness. Curiosity piqued, Blaze stepped closer. The wolf's eyes snapped open. They—he, his energy signature suggested—scrambled backwards on all fours, his markings shifting from purple to red-pink while the cool energy spiked like cracked ice. Blaze quickly stopped, raising her hands in a placating gesture.
"{I won't hurt you,}" she said softly.
The wolf stilled, squinting at her suspiciously. He was still crouched on all-fours like a feral wolf, even though he clearly wasn't one. Blaze kept her hands up and open, holding as still as she could and trying to look as non threatening as possible. Which, she admitted with distaste, likely wasn't very difficult, given she was unarmed and in her nightgown. Still, the wolf continued to squint at her suspiciously for what felt like a very long time before, as Blaze's arms began to ache from being held in the same position, his fur slowly flattened.
"{I'm going to put my arms down,}" Blaze said, trying to keep her voice as clear and level as possible. The wolf only stared. Did he speak her language? Blaze wrinkled her brow in thought. If not Indonesian, then what would he speak? On a hunch, she tried English. "I'm going to put my arms down. Is that alright?" He blinked at her, then, to her relief, nodded. Slowly Blaze lowered her hands. "May I come closer?"
The wolf flattened his ears.
"Alright." Blaze glanced over her shoulder, checking on Marine. Still sleeping, still snoring. Typical. It seemed she'd have to deal with their new guest on her own.
She looked back at the wolf. The agitated red-pink of his markings was changing to a cooler cyan. The coiled tension in his posture slowly eased, and he rose to his feet, wobbling for a bit before steadying. Even when standing he was still a good deal shorter than Blaze. He looked at her with quiet curiosity.
"Can you tell me who you are?" Blaze asked carefully.
The wolf flattened his ears, markings briefly flaring red again before returning to cyan. He looked at his hands, seeming to ponder the question. Blaze waited, and eventually he looked up at her again. He finally spoke, voice deep and rough and uncertain. "I don't know."
"{Text like this}" means a character is speaking in a language other than English. What language they are speaking in will usually be indicated in the text.