Tapestry
Disclaimer: The song "Tapestry" by Carole King is not mine, nor is Shadow.

My life has been a tapestry of rich and royal hue

Shadow stood atop the suspenstion bridge, smirking down at the frightened people below him. "Pathetic humans", he muttered, closing his eyes.
Finally, time alone where he could think...

An everlasting vision of the ever-changing view

A young girl smiled down at Shadow. "What's your name?" she asked of him, bright blue eyes sparkling.
Shadow looked up to her, and felt a warmth run through him that he'd never felt before. "M... My name is Shadow," he whispered, trying to understand the overwhelming emotions that ran through his body.
"I'm Maria," the girl said cheerily. "Come on, I'll show you around."

A wondrous woven magic in bits of blue and gold
A tapestry to feel and see, impossible to hold

On the bridge, Shadow's eyes snapped open. "Maria-!!"
No one heard the scream, and no one cared to. That shadow on the bridge top wasn't Sonic.
Not their culprit.

Once amid the soft silver sadness in the sky
There came a man of fortune, a drifter passing by
He wore a torn and tattered cloth aroung his leathered hide
And a coat of many colors, yellow-green on either side

Shadow looked to Maria, still confused. Greeted by a soft, warm smile, he mentally blocked the confusion. Just as long as this girl... Maria... was happy, nothing else mattered. To some, the girl may have looked slightly odd, a little girl in blue amidst a large spacecraft, but Shadow didn't care. She was beautiful all the same...
He glanced at his hand. He wasn't beautiful. But if such a girl took a liking to him...
A smile appeared on his lips for the first time.

He moved with some uncertainty as if he didn't know
Just what he was there for, or where he ought to go

Shadow leaped onto the rail, wanting to get away from the memories.
He reached the road itself, and sped off.
"I have to keep my promise to you, Maria..."

Once he reached for something golden hanging from a tree
And his hand came down empty

Shadow looked up, speeding up a little. No matter where he went, no matter what he did...
Maria. Maria was everywhere. Was he doing something wrong? Was she trying to correct him?
No. "Maria, I promise you..."

Soon within my tapestry along the rutted road
He sat down on a river rock and turned into a toad

"Maria!" Shadow cried as he was pushed into the glass column. "Maria, please!"
Maria smiled sadly at him. "Sayonara..."

And I wept to see him suffer, though I didn't know him well

Maria tried as hard as she could not to cry. "Shadow... the hedgehog." She pressed the button as a gunshot echoed throughout the colony.
"MARIA!"

Shadow found himself on ARK once more, Maria's promise ringing in his head.
What had happened before was all a blur to him, but here he was... he was going to keep his promise. The real promise.

As I watched in sorrow, there suddenly appeared
A figure gray and ghostly beneath a flowthing beard

Shadow looked up as he fell slowly back to Earth. He had done it.
He'd kept his promise to Maria. He'd stopped the professor from destroying the world she loved so much...
His eyes narrowed. The professor... he'd once known him as a kindly old man... not the insane, homicidal professor.
The professor he loved died with Maria.

In times of deepest darkness, I've seen him dressed in black
Now my tapestry's unraveling, he's come to take me back

Shadow felt a warm embrace. Maria's embrace.
Finally, he'd be back with the people he loved so much...
"This is what you wanted, right? My promise... to you..."

He's come to take me back...