Weeks into Months

It took just over a month to assemble all the furniture, made longer by the various other chores that needed attending to. Finishing the roof had had to be their main priority, and ended up taking rather longer than Knuckles had expected, as most building projects have a tendency to do. Three and a half months after they'd finally found a suitable site for their home Shadow and Knuckles stood back admiring the finished building. Tails had said the roof wouldn't stand up to a heavy storm right at the beginning, now Knuckles was inclined to agree with him. The house was modelled after the barracks at the Guardian School, built entirely of stone to limit the amount of flammable components. Somewhere in the construction of the roof Knuckles had gone wrong, it had a decided sag in the middle. He'd been up on top and jumped on it, it hadn't collapsed, so he guessed it was safe, but it would have to go on a long list of things to do. It would have to wait until next spring now, the summer was wearing on, and he was told the autumn rains came early up here.

They'd quickly fallen into a pattern of life, simple in its routine. Knuckles was surprised to discover he didn't find it in the least bit boring. Every day they had things to do. When it hadn't rained, water had to be collected. One of the things on Knuckles long list of works in progress was to channel the water from their local stream closer to their house so that they didn't have to walk so far. In winter it wouldn't matter, they could store all they needed in barrels collected off the roof. Food had to be hunted, for the most part they survived on what the lush forests surrounding their home could provide, anything else Knuckles would go down to the local human village and barter. The humans were surprisingly ready to exchange fresh rabbits and unusual mushrooms, annoyingly, normally found at the very tops of the trees, for various items such as tins of baked beans and tools. Knuckles would walk down to the village fairly regularly, at least once a week, until the local shop-keeper began to look for his coming. He always left Shadow behind however, afraid he could be recognised. Shadow didn't seem to mind, and was pleased to have the solitary time to wander the darker depths of the forest. He usually came home with a new and interesting bug to show Knuckles. Life was peaceful, and simple.

While Shadow spent his days wandering the forest in search of a species he'd never seen before Knuckles would often go to the Echidna colony higher up the hill from them. The colony was medium sized, providing a home to about a hundred or so Echidna. They had been welcoming, when Knuckles first introduced himself, since then he'd built up a strong relationship with many of its members, not least a young Echidna by the name of Sharay…

Knuckles had walked the path to the Echidna colony so many times he could do it in his sleep. Today the sun was shining; the weather was warm, but not unpleasantly hot. He listened to the birds singing in the trees, the parents teaching their young ones to fly. The forest seemed to be bubbling with life, under the gaze of the large mountain on which they lived. Knuckles smiled to himself, and thought what an idyllic home he had.

He arrived at the colony mid morning. He found Sharay working one of the small allotments, coaxing the vegetables to grow. She looked up and smiled at him, wiping the sweat from her face.
"Morning Knuckles" She said cheerfully
Immediately Knuckles took up a spade and began helping her in her work
"You don't have to do that you know"
Knuckles just smiled and continued to till the soil around the plants, working the fertiliser around their tender roots.
"So… how's Shadow…?" Sharay asked, trying to make conversation.
"He brought me home a snake yesterday"
Sharay chuckled "Did it bite you?"
"It was dead"
Sharay's laughter intensified
"He never brings home anything we can eat though" Knuckles leant on his spade and looked out through the trees surrounding the colony towards the lower ground. "What about you?"
Sharay shrugged "My father still insists that I learn all the leadership oaths… and Echidna legends" She rolled her eyes "He's terribly traditional…"
"An Elder must protect and guide they young ones of his village. He must lead them into battle, and be the last to flee. An elder must first heal, second teach, but never preach. The children must be allowed to make their own mistakes, and find their own way to the stars…"
Sharay raised an eyebrow at him "How do you know that? and why?"
"The Masters at the Guardian school used to take it, I heard it enough times to memorise it" Knuckles shrugged
"But the legends though… they're so boring"
Knuckles smiled "Personally I love them. I know most of the Guardian legends off by heart, some of the Echidna ones are virtually identical…" He grinned "and I know most of them as well" He shrugged and went back to digging "But I was Storyteller at the School my last two years, so it was sort of part of the job description"
Sharay watched him work for a moment "I don't like them; most of them seem just like silly fairytales with no relevance to the real world"
Knuckles paused in his work, and laughed to himself "You'd be surprised by how many of them have an annoying habit of coming true"
Sharay frowned for a moment "You sound as though you're speaking from experience…"
Knuckles looked round to grin at her "You could say that"
Sharay's frown intensified, so her ocean blue eyes seemed to fall into darkness "You said you've only been Shadow's Guardian a little while… What did you do before?"
Knuckles turned and stood up, what the hell, it couldn't hurt "I, was Guardian of the Master Emerald"
Sharay's frown turned into surprise, then as she thought more about what Knuckles had said returned to a frown. Knuckles could see her working it through her mind.
"But… I thought Guardians Bonded for life… how could you change Charges?"
Knuckles grinned "I'm weird. I got fed up with the Emerald and decided I wanted a change. I prefer Shadow, snakes and all!"
"You wouldn't lie to me would you?"
"No" Knuckles said, looking a little hurt
"It's just… I thought Guardians of the Master Emerald were supposed to die at their posts…"
"So did I…"
"Then why didn't you?"
"I dunno… Shadow and I are just unusual"
"What's so special about Shadow then that he needed to be Bound to the former Guardian of the Master Emerald?"
"He can burn things"
"So he's an arsonist?"
"Energy weapons"
Sharay raised her eyebrows in surprise "Is he dangerous then?"
"Only to everyone except me" Knuckles laughed.
Sharay's expression didn't fill him with confidence. Hastily Knuckles carried on:
"Nah, he's not dangerous really" He wasn't sure if Sharay believed him "Honest"
"No-wonder he needs a Guardian"
"Everyone who has a Guardian needs one" Knuckles smiled "That's how it works"
For a moment Sharay said nothing, simply went back to working the soil. Knuckles put away his spade and came up behind her
"C'mon, if you fertilise that potato anymore it'll get up and walk away"
"Its beetroot"
"Really… man… can't you tell I haven't farmed for a while! It'll be nice to start doing things like that again. Come for a walk?"
Sharay sighed and agreed.

Knuckles enjoyed his time at the colony, with Sharay and her family and friends. Seeing their faces gave his life some variety, and life at the colony reminded him of his old home, and happy life at the Guardian School. It was often very late I the day when he returned to Shadow at their house.

They devoted a great deal of their time to Shadow's training. Knuckles insisted that they spent at least half an hour a day working with Shadow's power, no matter how unenthusiastic he was. These training sessions were as difficult for Knuckles as Shadow…

They'd been using a small glade backing onto a sheer rock face since they'd moved in. It was as good a place as any. Here the ground was stony, so less inclined to catch alight. The area was lower than most of the surroundings, so cut off from obvious view, unless someone stood at the top of the cliff and looked down. As the area was surrounded by fairly harsh terrain Knuckles hoped no-one would be wandering around, and so the scorch marks burned into the ground and the rock wall would go unnoticed and unheeded. Their last line of defence was that Shadow's training ground was some distance from their house, unless they were seen there they were unlikely to be linked to it.

Shadow's training always felt somehow artificial. It was his emotion that gave the fire around him its true power, so far since they'd been Bonded Shadow hadn't really lost his temper.
"Come on Shadow, you can do better than that!" Knuckles encouraged as Shadow attempted to shoot his flames at targets painted on the rock wall. The yellow fire licking around Shadow's body made him look very much like Sonic in his Super- Form. Once Shadow had "warmed up", a terrible pun Knuckles had been forced to admit, Knuckles would throw rocks across the glade for Shadow to shoot down. Today he was making it difficult; Shadow was missing a lot of the rocks, and was growing frustrated. That was what Knuckles was going for. Shadow's anger made his fire more intense and made it more difficult for Knuckles to control him. Just as Shadow's flames began to turn from yellow to red Knuckles began to test himself.

It helped for him to visualise it. Knuckles liked to think of Shadow's power as the water behind a damn, with himself holding the floodgates of that damn open and closed. He would open those gates to allow Shadow to use that power, close them to stop him. So far he'd been stronger than Shadow, and been able to suppress the flames. He'd recently learned to keep those blocks up constantly, in the background, to hopefully prevent the little accidents that had left the evening meal and a tree near their house little more than a smouldering wreck. So far this had proved mostly successful. Knuckles could hold Shadow's power behind those mental gates, most of the time, and prevent the frankly terrifying outbursts Shadow had been subject to. However he was more than aware that he had yet to be truly put to the test. He also had a sick feeling that Shadow's power was growing, every day it seemed a little more refined, a little stronger, a little harder to hold behind the gates. Though this was something he encouraged in Shadow, as it represented his growing ability to control it himself he worried what could happen if Shadow's power continued to grow, what would happen if it got beyond them both.

Shadow was fighting him, attempting to break through the blocks, which was what he was supposed to do. After a few unsuccessful moments Knuckles dropped the wall and allowed Shadow to flame freely. Essentially Knuckles preformed the same function as the Sticks had done on the ARK, only without their excruciating pain. After Knuckles had practiced his restraining skills they went back to shooting rocks.

Knuckles threw another rock up into the air. Shadow reached forward with his power, focused it, and only ash fell out of the sky. Behind him there was a crunching sound. Shadow and Knuckles spun round. Standing in plain sight was a human, just recovering his balance as though from a shock. They stared at him for a moment, so surprised they didn't know what to do. Then just as Knuckles went to run forward the human bolted into the trees. Knuckles attempted to give chase but the young human was soon lost among the underbrush. Unhappily he returned to Shadow, who stood panting from the exertion of his training session.
Knuckles swore "We've been seen" He shook his head "We'll have to find somewhere else for your training… The best thing we can do is try to make this place look normal… and hope no-one believes him"
"Maybe… we could just tell the humans?" Shadow naively offered
Knuckles snorted "and have them haul you off to be their lab-rat again, huh, I'd rather die" He looked up at the wall "I'll get the targets… you try to do something with the ground… spread the ash and charred stone around a bit?"
Shadow nodded submissively.
Shadow watched as Knuckles skilfully climbed the sheer rock wall. He admired his Guardian's skill, fully believing no other would be able to climb in quite the same way as him. over each of their painted targets Knuckles would stop and using one strong fist scratch the targets from the rock surface, then attempt to smudge the mud and ash back over the places they had once been. Shadow on the ground did his best to destroy what evidence they could. After brushing the dirt from their fur they abandoned the place, attempting to look casual.