Knuckles woke when the sunlight began to play upon his face. He smiled, basking in the warmth without opening his eyes. Knuckles loved to begin days like this—though he could and often did operate many days without sleep, he found that this way helped him focus his mind. Moreover, it felt so good!

After the sun had risen more, he turned towards the interior of the cave and opened his eyes. Sure enough, the girl was still there, curled up like any newborn mammal, he thought. He rose and walked over to her. Gently, he began to shake her. She is nowhere near as sensitive as I am, thought Knuckles. I would've been awake with the first touch. He shook harder and she finally stirred. Knuckles backed off to give her some room, then decided to leave her alone for a while. He retreated back to the mouth of the cave.

As the sun climbed higher, Knuckles felt her approach behind him. She walked out beside him. "Thanks for staying out here all night," she said. "I felt… safe."

Knuckles shrugged. "I would have without you," he said.

She gave him a strange look, and Knuckles regretted his reply. From now on, he noted to himself, he would accept gratitude and praise whenever it was given.

My comprehension of her language has greatly improved, he noted. It was as if during the night, the Master had sorted and analyzed his conversations with her yesterday. Now he knew far more, was able to communicate far better. That would be excellent, he thought.

Knuckles stood and stretched a bit. It never occurred to him that this was somehow boring to her; boring wasn't a concept he was familiar with. When he was done, he turned to her. "Are you hungry?" Knuckles wasn't—then again he rarely was, thanks to the Master—but she'd eaten so few termites, he was concerned.

She squiggled up her face. "No thank you. Those termites were just fine."

Knuckles smiled. He'd done well in feeding her! She was more full than he'd thought. "Where shall we go?"

"I don't know," she said. "None of this is familiar. Where do you want to go?"

"We could go towards the center of the island."

"Sounds fine to me."

To be sure, Knuckles reminded himself, he had no intention of bringing her to the Emerald chamber—there was no need for that, anyway. But the center just seemed the natural direction in which to travel. On the Floating Island, everything ended up moving towards the middle.

They set out, though for Knuckles the pace was abominably slow. The girl, try as she might, had no idea how to move properly in the jungle. He saw her try new ways of moving, some of which worked, some of which failed miserably. Worse still, Knuckles had no idea how to teach her. He didn't think about how to move properly, he simply did; it was as ingrained a part of Knuckles' character as his duties and his color.

At the very least, she kept from hurting herself.

Knuckles felt the approach of midday and told her to stop. She plopped down on a root, tossed off her sandals, and rubbed her feet, repeating "Ow, ow, ow, ow," over and over.

Knuckles shook his head, dismayed at her weakness. He wanted to try conversation again; there had been precious little of that since the morning's embarrassment. The problem was, he couldn't think of anything to say. Instead, he looked around. There! He saw, hanging in a tree about five echidna lengths up, a moss that he used to ease sores and pains. Maybe it would help her feet.

He walked over to the tree, apologized to it in advance, and then dug his knuckle-barbs into the bark. Hand over hand he scaled the tree up to the moss. Grabbing a big handful of it, he pushed off from the tree. With a deep breath, he focused on the strength of the Emerald, trying to draw on a little bit of its power. Yes! He fell slowly to the ground and landed without injury.

It never occurred to him that she was watching him, nor that this was slightly beyond usual as far as she was concerned. So it was surprising to him when he looked back at her to see her eyes filled with distrust and fear.

She looked up at the tree where he'd been, then down at him again. "How did you defy gravity like that?"

He cocked his head. "What is gravity?"

Her face was incredulous. "You don't know any science?"

"What is science?"

From the look on her face, she couldn't understand his ignorance any more than he could comprehend her knowledge. He shook it off, walked to her, and bent down to her feet.

She drew back. "What are you doing?" she said with suspicion.

"This moss will ease your pain."

"Are you sure? How do I know?"

He thought about it for a few seconds, then shrugged. "You do not," he said flatly, and reached for her foot.

She jerked away at the last second, but Knuckles tracked her and caught her in his original motion. She struggled against his grip, even kicking him in the mouth, but he disregarded it and applied the moss, rubbing it into her foot.

The beating continued unabated for a few seconds, then stopped when she began to feel the relief from the moss. Knuckles shook his head. He was helping her, but it was more trouble than it was worth. So far, he'd gained almost nothing from their interactions. Knuckles weighed his prospects of getting information from her with those of finding information through investigation. After thorough evaluation, he decided to leave her behind. Dropping the moss, he walked away from her.

"Hey, where are you going?" she asked. Knuckles felt no need to answer. She ran after him, stumbling over rocks and vines and roots, trying to keep up. Knuckles was almost indifferent to her cries. "Come back! What am I supposed to do? What if another snake comes? What if… ow!"

Slowly but steadily, she lost ground to him. For some reason, he didn't go near as fast as he could have. He went only slightly faster than she did, even with all of her stumbles.

Why do I not simply leave her behind? He asked himself. He found no answers, but did conclude that she was getting better at walking in a jungle.

Knuckles picked up a barely audible sound. It was unknown, unnatural. He immediately put all of his concentration into holding on to the sound, focusing over the complaints and cries of the girl. It seemed like the same screech-rip sound he'd heard before he'd met the girl, but it was all around him. Knuckles looked up and saw that the land around him seemed to be glowing. The sound grew louder, the land glowed brighter, and the scene changed with a loud crack.

As before, the island was very changed. Where once there was dark green and lush growth, now there was spare growth and a lighter tone. Instead of an ordered chaos to things, as Knuckles was used to, everything seemed phony, artificial.

The girl caught up to him at last. "What was that?"

"I do not know," he said. He spoke as he connected, "That sound is the same as when you came here."

"Well, I know this place. We aren't ten kilometers from home."

"Home?"

"Where I live," she said.

Knuckles pondered it. He didn't "live" anywhere—everything on the island was his to play with. But if she had a designated space to "live", it meant some sort of organization. It was as with the termites—they had places they were assigned to and seldom strayed.

Knuckles felt himself growing excited again. Was there really a group of echidnas? Did they have a "home" like an echidna termite mound? He longed to see it. He felt a pang in his chest, and when he looked to his insides, found a great void.

Is this where my people are supposed to be? He wondered. Have I been missing my people all along, but only realized it now? Is this right?

He had to find answers; even more urgently than he wanted to figure out what was changing his jungle, he wanted to know where he could find more echidnas. To get there, though, he'd have to rely on the girl. "Where is this "home"?" he asked.

She pointed. "This way." Before long, they came to a clearing. However, this was like no clearing Knuckles knew. The ground was perfectly leveled rock, unyielding before Knuckles' feet. Nothing grew there, not even the grasses Knuckles loved; the grass was confined to the sides of the rock. Then again, the grass seemed rather tame, too; it grew to a certain height and no more.

"It's not a long walk," she said. "Like I told you, only about ten kilometers."

From his experience, Knuckles now knew that trying to get definitions out of her was like trying to explore the hydrocity inside the island: one tunnel led to another, and if you didn't already know your destination, you were doomed to wander forever. Without something—anything—as a common base for these new terms, Knuckles knew he would just have to wing it.

They walked on for a while. The clearing just stretched on in both directions, exactly as it was at one part for all of its length. It dawned on Knuckles that perhaps the clearing was built. There was no way things naturally grew like this.

"Did echidnas make this clearing this way?" he asked Myla.

"Yes, of course," she answered, a puzzled tone in her voice. That meant this was common knowledge, Knuckles thought. "It's called a road," she continued.

"But why is it here?"

"It's easier to get to and from places over a road. There are lots of roads in parts of our territories."

"What are territories?"

"Other places that have echidnas."

Knuckles' eyes widened. "There are more?"

"Yes," she said, laughing. "What did you expect?"

"You are the first echidna I have ever seen."

She stopped, turned around. "The first?"

"Other than myself, yes."

"Not even your mother and father?"

Knuckles knew those words, but only because they applied—a little—to the animals he cared for on the island. "If I had them, I do not remember them now."

"If you had them…" she laughed nervously. "Everyone has them. How else can you be alive?"

Knuckles didn't know. He traced back his memories and could find nothing of 'before'. He knew that all animals grew from small to large, changing along the way; but if Knuckles had, those memories were lost, for in each of the memories he had, he looked, felt, and acted like he did now.

Except within the last two days.

"Let us continue," he said quietly.