Disclaimer – Well, Ah do disclaim.
A/N – Short and sweet and completely Orin's fault.
Snippet
© Scribbler, November 2004
"It's not like it means anything."
Knuckles turned his face away. The encroaching shadows picked out the mauve in his eyes. Sonic reckoned he knew how creepy that made him look. Knuckles rarely did anything without a bucketful of forethought. He'd once tried to explain the essence of zanshin, but Sonic had got itchy feet and gone for a run instead.
"It means a great deal."
"To your culture?" Sonic was sick of trying to figure out echidna ethos. Between reading up on far-off nations for the next treaty he and Sally had to referee, making sure his buds still knew he was their bud, and not using the wrong fork at dinner, he was all fingers and thumbs with delicate stuff. Every time he looked there was some new echidna custom he'd broken or insulted or blah blah blah.
Knuckles tipped his head backwards, staring out of the window. "No. To me."
"Look, Knux, you gotta go with the flow here. Relax - "
"I'm all too aware that's how you approach problems, Sonic. When you're not jumping into a situation feet first, you're ignoring it even exists."
Sonic sat up a little straighter. "Hey!"
"If I say the words 'Nack', 'at large' and 'is still', what do you think of?"
"I... okay, so maybe I can misjudge things. A little."
"Maybe?"
"You're still getting bent out of shape over nothing."
Knuckles turned to look at him, eyes narrowed. With gold rings on his headspines and moonlight illuminating only half his face, he looked like some ancient vengeful god. He hadn't changed from his ceremonial outfit, which brushed the floor over his bare feet. "I'd hardly call this 'nothing'."
Sonic sighed and folded his arms, careful not to let his crown fall off. He'd already dented it once, and had to get it fixed without Sally noticing. Cue three days of inventive reasons he wasn't wearing it. "It's not even like you're closely related. What are you – fifth, sixth cousin? They only asked you to do the ceremony because you're all bigwiggy."
Knuckles gave him a withering look like only he could. "That's not the point." If it had been anyone else, that might have sounded petulant.
Sonic knew the signs he wasn't going to win this argument. He pondered making his escape – a quick dash across the room, dive out the window, a mere twenty-storey plummet to the ground, and away. Of course, there would likely still be guests milling around outside. And the guards at the castle gates might be problematic. And he didn't like to think what Sally would do if he shirked his duties again after that incident with the priceless wall-hanging last week. Still, it was all that versus trying to talk down Mr. Woe-is-me-and-my-bruised-dignity. No need for three guesses which one was winning.
Sonic sighed and folded his arms. His right ankle tapped a staccato rhythm against his left thigh. "This from the guy named after a finger-joint."
Knuckles's relatives, distant though they were, had not been able to pass up having someone like him in their family when it came time to name their new baby. They'd travelled all the way across Mobius for him to do some freaky-deaky ceremony thing, and somewhere along the way Castle Acorn had been commissioned to house everyone. The relatives, progressive types who lived on the Southern Continent, had been determined to put a trendy spin on the name 'Lorraine', and so called their sproglet 'Murraine'.
Of course, Knuckles had done everything they asked and then retreated to the guest chambers to vent. And of course, Sally had dispatched Sonic to try to cheer him up – emphasis on 'try to'. Of those left, nobody in possession of a vocabulary had had the heart to tell them they'd come up with a synonym for pestilence.
FIN.