Sally was alert the moment she woke up. As she pulled on her boots and jacket she thought, the intruder of her hut would be caught today. She reached for the walkie-talkie and dialed Tails's frequency. The young fox, her 'nephew' was as alert as she.
"It only took an hour to put together. Come and see it."
***
The device was on the workbench, a plain metal box.
"What will it do, exactly?"
"I won't go into the details. Suffice it to say, if you leave this in your hut, any movement will trigger an alarm fit to wake the dead."
Sally grinned and tousled his hair.
"Suffice it to say, you are my favourite nephew."
***
The squirrel princess walked into her hut and left it soon after, carrying her portable computer Nicole. She found a comfortable tree to sit under and switched on Nicole. Loading the word processor, she typed "Mrs. Sally Hedgehog" a few dozen times. It looked right, she thought, although she was really a squirrel. The alarm started screeching. Other citizens of Knothole turned their heads and went to investigate.
"Gotcha," Sally muttered. It took a few seconds to race back to her hut, and who should be standing there, jaw ajar, but Sonic.
"I knew it was you!" Sally cried.
"But… I was just looking for you!"
Sally stepped on the metal box to turn off the alarm and then confronted her fiancée.
"The culprit always returns to the scene of the crime," she growled. Sonic's eyes widened even further (if such a thing was possible), he shook his head and held up his paws, as if in self-defense.
"No! I only came in here to say good morning, please believe me!"
Some of the folk gathered around the hut found this amusing.
"Move! Nothing to see here," Sally commanded them. The small crowd made haste to retreat from her voice. Sonic wished he could do the same.
"You could have knocked first," she said.
"I did! The windows were closed and nobody was answering, and the door was open. Come on, Sal, I wasn't doing anything else."
The fire ebbed inside her, but she leaned forward and poked his chest.
"Every step you take, I'll be watching you."
"Oh, I believe you, Sal."
She took the alarm device, closed the door and walked away. Sonic sucked in a breath and rubbed where she had jabbed him.
"I believe you," he said quietly.
***
The dojo was empty; class had not yet begun. Lazer enjoyed the silence; he had come to appreciate the astronomical value of silence in his life.
"You forgot to take off your shoes. Again."
"So I have."
He slipped out of the spiked boots and turned to the door. The light pouring into the dojo revealed the new trail of holes in the floor that had further damaged its polish. At the entrance stood Patrick, thumbs hooked in his jean pockets. Lazer recognized him.
"You are Rebecca's student? What is your name?"
"Yes, and my name is Patrick, but everyone in the base forgot my name and calls me Pat. You are her boyfriend, Lazer?"
"Fiancée," he corrected. A flicker of rage came over Pat and was gone.
"I didn't see an engagement ring on her finger this morning."
The other red hedgehog smiled.
"I have no money."
"Wait," Pat exclaimed, "You can't get a job?"
"I haven't bothered to look for one. I never needed money… until now."
Lazer, shoes in hand, made for the door. Pat stopped him.
"I've heard about you being the guardian of The Lake. Do you want to spar with me?"
Lazer searched for something in Pat's eyes and found it. The decision was made, the outcome was clear.
"Haven't done anything like it in a month, but okay."
He set his shoes down on their side, so the offending spikes would not do more damage. Pat waited for him in the center of the dojo.
"Three knockdowns?"
Lazer cracked his knuckles and nodded, still watching the thing he had found in Pat's eyes. Pat leaped into action, every moment smooth and controlled, just as Kazuo had taught Rebecca, just as Rebecca had taught him.
After being buffeted around all four corners of the dojo, Pat was fiercely trying to ignore the throbbing, painful areas nearly all over his body. He had managed to block a few attacks, but none of his had struck home. Staggering from the third uppercut, Pat retreated a few steps to take a breath. Lazer spoke up.
"I recognize some of Rebecca's style, but all the rest is strange."
"Don't talk about Rebecca," growled Pat. What Lazer had seen in his eyes at the start blazed forth. Pat took a deep breath and started to run. He was airborne for a moment, leg extended toward Lazer's head. This was the move he had surprised Rebecca with a long time ago, earning him the third stripe on his black belt. Lazer, however, was not surprised. Pat was stupefied when the floor suddenly smacked him in the face. Lazer let go of his leg.
"You lost your temper, Pat. Before the fight even started you had lost control. Your sensei should know about that."
"Please don't," Pat pleaded. Lazer crossed the floor to retrieve his shoes.
"I won't."
He left. Pat attempted to get up, thought better of it, and endured the hard wooden floor. Some small part in his mind told him that he could still win, but the other, larger part of his mind said otherwise.
"Damn," he wheezed. Without anything better to say, he said it again. Couldn't Rebecca see in his eyes that he adored her? Every class she had taught, even when they had sparred, he reserved a place in his eyes for her. Couldn't she see it? He would make her see his eyes, if he could just convince his body to get up.
***
Keri felt that she was dying. Her sense of being had become non-existent as the loving words caressed, warmed and suffocated her. She could not live without them. She read again the poem Sonic had written to Sally, on that night on the tree stump, when he was wreathed with rainbows. It was taped to one of the pages in Sally's journal.
"…Now I ask you, Sally Acorn, to be my wife
Until Destiny leads us to another life."
"So beautiful," Keri wept, and one of her tears fell on the page. To her extreme horror, the tear blotted out the word 'life' into an inky mess on the page. With a strangled scream she backed away from the journal. She felt so filthy to have ruined the perfect poem, so filthy. Her paws covered her face, stemming the flow of tears.
"I don't mind," Sally said matter-of-factly, and walked in. Trapped, Keri looked through a gap in her fingers at the squirrel princess. Her body was so perfect, unlike hers. She wept anew. Sally handed her a napkin.
"I'm not angry at you. I think I blew off too much steam at Sonic to be mad anymore. What's your name?"
Keri dabbed her eyes. She muttered her name as if it were a millstone chained to her neck.
"Let me keep the journal. Please. You can't know how much it means to me."
"Hold on. Save that for after. Now, Keri, what is your problem? Tell me all about it."
Sally offered a seat next to her on the bed. Keri sat on the floor and told her about Kyle, what she thought about him and what she thought about herself. The gears in Sally's head clicked into place.
"You couldn't even speak to him?"
Keri looked at her in shock.
"Speak? I can't even get within ten metres of him."
Sally thought about that.
"Then you can't be helped."
"Oh, I know that," Keri said in a voice that was possibly more morose than before, "Just look at me."
Sally was patient.
"It will be hard, but if you ever want love in your life, you have to go after it."
"Why?"
"Why?" she echoed, "Because if you don't, someone else will. Now, go and tell Kyle how you feel. If he wants to talk to you, then that's a good sign. If he doesn't, move on. Find someone else who wants to talk to you."
After absorbing this for a few moments, Keri spoke up.
"I'll have to wear some perfume."
***
Pat found Rebecca with her sister Rachel. They were making paper collages on an outdoor table, one of the few in Cridon base. He looked at Rebecca's collage and groaned inwardly. He looked at her, beauty incarnate.
"Can we talk?"
It was a whisper. Rebecca sent a significant glance to her sister, who shrugged and went back to the collage. Rebecca led Pat to the greenhouse of the base, where several of the dojo students spent their free time either tending to the plants or socializing. Pat regarded them all as beneath him: the best student. He did not regard Kazuo as beneath him, though; he spied the Master placidly sipping tea, the steam curling above his head.
In a quiet corner Pat looked at his sensei.
"I love you," he blurted, "Every day since I knew you. I can't describe it as anything else. I love everything about you. Couldn't you see it every time I looked at you?"
"Yes, Patrick. I knew that you loved me."
Strain crept into his voice.
"Then why did you ignore me?"
"I wanted you to discover other people. Remember when I lectured about noticing everything about everyone?"
"For everyone is a friend until you open your eyes to tell the difference."
He could have recited every speech.
"Yes, Pat. You will discover that someone is greater or lesser than a friend when you take the time to notice."
"But I only see you!"
"Then use this visual aid... look behind you."
Among all the faces, Pat saw one turn away from his. His mouth decided to open and close several times.
"How long has she been watching me?"
"She has never spoken, but I believe she set her sights on you when you first arrived in the base. She even became part of the dojo, and always stood behind you."
"Couldn't she speak?"
"Couldn't you see her trying to?"
The brown hedgehog was watering vegetables, busy not noticing him. She fidgeted when Pat approached her and spoke to her for the first time.
"Joanne. Sensei told me everything. Why didn't you say something before?"
She blushed. He noticed how odd it looked in contrast to her brown fur.
"I didn't say something, because I knew that you were in love with sensei."
To her great bewilderment, Pat began laughing.
"I'm sorry," he said, wiping a tear away, "It seems that everything in my life has been filled with irony."
While the hedgehogs struck up a conversation, Kazuo watched his student through the mist rising from his teacup. She was smiling, pleased with what she had accomplished.
But can you see my eyes, Rebecca?
It was as much as a prayer as it was a thought.
***
"I told you it wasn't me."
"I'm sorry."
"That sounded nice. Say it again."
"Shut up."
Sally had explained Keri's situation to him. The tree stump where they sat was their place of truce, and she was playing with his spiky hair.
"She liked your journal a lot?"
"It was her holy book. I never knew I wrote so well."
"Liar."
"Okay, I did. Still, it's not healthy for someone to cling to a false hope. She thought what I wrote was all the love she needed."
"I know what sort of love I need from you, though,"
"Breathing down my neck doesn't help, you know."
"Stop being so unromantic, Sal."
She caught him in a lip lock, holding his head in place.
"Whoa, take it easy Sal."
"Hypocrite."
She kissed him again.
***
Tails watched the couple emerging from the same section of trees they always did. He wondered where his two best friends went so often. Sally purposefully headed deeper into the village. Sonic saw him and ran over.
"Yo, Tails! Lunch ready yet?"
"Er, yeah, but…"
He hesitated. Sonic knew Tails too well to misinterpret the look on his buddy's face.
"Don't be shy; I've tried to get that into your head since I knew you. What's wrong?"
"We'll be friends forever, right? You always told me that, it's true isn't it?"
"Yeah," Sonic said automatically, a bit confused that his number one fox would question such a thing. Tails interrupted.
"When you marry Sally you'll still be pals with me, right?"
"Oh!" he said, understanding at last, "Sally's marriage to me means that we can't ever stop being friends. It doesn't mean you get left on the sidewalk. Did I mention you're the best man?"
"What?"
"The best man, it means you're the best friend of the groom. You get to stand right next to me through the whole wedding, 'cause you're the best."
"Sounds cool."
"It is. Which reminds me, you haven't got a tuxedo. We should buy one."
"But it's lunchtime."
"We're not staying here. The city has a fast food place on every street. Think you can make it to city gates before I do?"
"You're on!"
Blue and orange flashed through the trees.
***
When careful demolition of the abandoned Robotropolis was complete, the Freedom Fighter city would continue growing until it consumed the remains, to form New Mobotropolis. Sonic had suggested the plan to the city's mayor, who took care of the details. Now Sonic and Tails were standing in line at a pizza parlour. Sonic was employed there as a delivery boy.
"You sacrificed eleven month's pay for the engagement ring?"
"Yep, and then there's the wedding ring I gotta buy."
After lunch they visited Mina on another side of town. The lavender haired mongoose welcomed them into her apartment.
"Came for lunch? There're some takeout leftovers…"
"No," Sonic said, and flopped onto an overstuffed couch. Tails did likewise. "I came to ask for a favour."
"What, there's another sorceress to overthrow?" she giggled.
"Better than that. Can you be a maid of honour at my wedding?"
She blinked and shrugged.
"…I don't have a dress."
"It's okay. Sally knows your size and the castle's treasury is paying for the dress. Will you do it?"
"Yes. I'll bring my boyfriend, too. When's the big day?"
"November 20th. It's a Saturday."
"That's less than three weeks! What about all the stuff you have to prepare?"
"There won't be much to prepare. Sally and I already agreed on how the castle's courtyard will be decorated. The place where I work is supplying foldable chairs. His majesty is paying for everything else. All I have to do is organize the music, recruit the bridal party and buy me and Tails change of clothes."
"And the ring," Tails said.
"Yeah. Sally's buying my ring and I'm buying hers. You can guess which one will be more expensive."
"A princess marrying a pauper," Mina hooted. Sonic scowled as Tails broke into peals of laughter as well.