The Leaning Towers

Knuckles carefully tested his grip on the rockface, then when he was sure it would hold his weight, he let go with his right hand to pull his tools from the bag slung over his shoulder.

Below him, the crevice fell a good fifty meters at least, sharp, dark rock carved out by water going down this way every spring with the snowmelt. The blackness of the stone betrayed the island's volcanic origin. It wasn't far to Lava Reef, where the heat in the island's core still bubbled to the surface.

Carefully Knuckles worked to fit the pieces for the support of a new bridge into the wall. The volcanic rock was hard, but could be porose and crack under strain or pressure.

When he was done, Knuckles pulled himself back up over the edge. A few meters away, the ropes and wooden planks that would make up the new bridge already waited to be installed. A bad storm a few days prior had sent the previous one down to the bottom of the crevice. Like with many things on the island, he wasn't sure how old it had been. He had not built it; it had been here as long as he remembered. Had his parents? Someone else? He had no idea when his people had vanished from the island. All that he knew was that he'd never found a trace of them or their departure.

The island was full of ruins, the remnants of buildings hundreds to thousands of years old. Whatever people had lived in more recently, if it wasn't the ruins, he'd found no evidence. He didn't remember finding more traces when he was younger. He remembered searching, lots of searching, shouting into tunnels and down holes and crawling into spaces that he had no chance of fitting in anymore now that he was grown, but there had been nothing to be found. It was as if whoever had decided to leave the island - leave him? - had taken careful measures to cover all their tracks.

It seemed hard to imagine that anyone would leave a child, even the destined Guardian, all on his own up here. Even with nothing but the safety of the Emerald in mind, many of the mistakes he'd made as Guardian that had endangered the Master Emerald had ultimately been down to the inexperience and naivety of youth. He'd probably acted more wisely with anyone around for guidance who would offer their experiences and wisdom.

He'd considered maybe an illness, a natural catastrophe, something like that, but that didn't explain the lack of traces of recent habitation on the Floating Island.

Knuckles' gaze dropped down into the dark crevice again, where far below the tattered remains of the broken bridge hung precariously between boulders and the rare, sturdy trees that had found a crack or two to grow roots in the steep slopes.

The bridges were traces of his more recent ancestors' lives, he supposed. They were made of wood and rope, mostly. Out in the open like this, all year round exposed to the weather, they could last twenty, thirty, maybe fourty years. Longer inside or in protected spots, but it seemed unlikely the construction would last a century.

Some of the more temperate zones further down the mountains had growth patterns of fruit bearing trees and other plans that were too organized to be natural, and probably also too organized that the last time anyone had gardened there could be as long ago as the date of the building of the ruins.

Knuckles sighed. He knew he wouldn't unravel the mystery of how and why he'd come to be the last echidna today, covered in mud and with lots of work still to do. He'd made no progress on finding answers researching in the old library, or on his more eager, or desperate, searches as a child. It was pointless to dwell on it, here and now.

The Guardian threw a brief look to the far horizon. From up here, lots of the island stretched out below, green and vibrant with the colours of summer. Today only a few clouds clung to the island's edge and base, and further out the surface of the planet was a faint ocean blue spotted with the green and brown of land. The day was relatively clear, and the horizon was an actual, slightly curved line between the surface and the cyan of sky above.

In just a handful of days, as marked down in the calendars of old, the Five would appear high in the night sky over there, once the twilight revealed the stars, heralding the beginning of a new era, by the reckoning of his people. He'd read about previous Aligments, how the festivities attracted clans from all over the island as well as from the surface, back when echidnas still lived there. He'd set himself up to learn and consider the philosophy, as one ought to, and once he was done here he'd start on his preparations.

It was one of the oldest holidays of his people, one that dated back to the days long before the Great Flood, long before echidnas had been isolated on the island, just a small, dwindling tribe left of a once numerous and powerful people. A custom from the time when they had been still the warlike people history remembered them as, constantly at quarrels with other tribes, or even within their own ranks. Back when conquest and war had been their ways, and there were enough conflicts to put at rest for the duration of the holiday, for a brief period of peace to honour the beginning of a new era.

Knuckles didn't really understand the mentality of conquest; he was a child of the dwindling tribe, of the last few generations of echidnas hidden away on the Floating Island, and by then the main philosophy had been of preserving, of Guardianship, of safekeeping the island, the Emeralds, the people, too. He knew his history, but that didn't mean he could feel it. He had read the texts, and seen it with his own eyes in Tikal's visions, but the entire philosophy didn't line up with that of more recent times, the hiding and guarding and waiting that was the tone of the more recent writings, and that was after all the philosophy ingrained in Knuckles too, even if he didn't remember being told. It didn't even matter if he remembered who had taught him, or when, because he was sure of his purpose if nothing else.

But, the Alignment had still been celebrated and looked forward to in the few writings left by the generations alive somewhat closer to the time of his hatching, a symbol of hope, too, for that there would be a future for them in this coming cycle.

Months ago, when he'd first thought of the upcoming holiday and what he'd do about it, he'd looked forward to it. Alignments were so rare, it was luck to see one in your lifetime, but now, with the date creeping closer and closer, he was feeling less and less like there was any point in celebrating it.

A few years ago, he might have spent an extra effort on the distant hope that for the most important holiday in the span of centuries, someone would come back for him. Now, he no longer believed that.

But this tradition had been upheld over thousands of years of echidnas living on Angel Island. It wasn't going to die before him.

Knuckles frowned. If he were to say that aloud to anyone, like, to Sonic if he should try and annoy him again, that would sound grim, he supposed. Cynical. But it was the truth, wasn't it?

With a deep breath he pulled himself out of it and returned his attention to his bridge building material. He'd not come up here to wallow in self-pity after all. He still had work to do.

The desk was in a state of controlled chaos. At least that was what Tails had called it earlier. Sonic, who'd done actual Chaos Control, wasn't entirely convinced as he made his way across the workshop, two plates of food in hands, and took in the scene in front of him.

There was paper scattered all across the desk. Scribbles, notes, printouts of things, flowcharts that did nothing but look confusing. The rightmost corner housed an uneven, leaning tower of books taller than Tails that sat rather precariously close to the edge. One large book lay open in the middle of the desk, taking up most of the space although Tails didn't even seem to be looking at it. The fox was staring at his computer screen, chin resting in his right hand, right elbow atop a pile of paper that was inching closer and closer towards the leaning tower of books.

"Tails."

No reaction. The fox was reading something on his screen, and so absorbed in it he didn't hear Sonic. It wasn't that he merely ignored him; Sonic could easily tell the difference. He knew Tails like, close to forever.

"Tails!"

Sonic shook his head. It was amusing every time again. He leaned past his brother and just put one of the plates down in front of him.

The words had been not enough to rouse Tails, but the movement in his peripheral vision was. He jumped, his elbow pushed the stack of paper the last bit of the way until it met the leaning tower, sending it sliding the critical inches further over the edge to where it tipped out of balance.

Sonic took two lightning fast steps around the chair with Tails in it and shoved the books back onto safe ground. Safe desk. Whatever.

He rounded on his friend in the same second, eyebrows raised. "You need a fence around this thing."

Tails blinked at him. "What?"

"A fence." Sonic waved his free hand at the tower, now even more uneven after his shove at it. "So your controlled chaos doesn't fall off the desk."

"Oh." Tails frowned. "Sorry. I was busy. Did you want anything?"

Sonic shrugged. "Not really. Or, yes, kinda. I'm trying to be a responsible roommate."

"Huh?"

"I brought you dinner. It's nine. Unless you ate some of your books, you should be eating something."

Tails' gaze dropped down to the plate in front of him as if he realized only now it was there. "Oh. OH! Is that Paolo's Lasagna?" He looked up. "Did you run two hundred kilometers to pick up dinner again?"

Sonic shrugged. "I can run moderately fast."

Tails laughed. "Understatement, from you. I'm impressed."

"You're easy to impress." Sonic grinned, holding out a fork at him. "Here, before it gets cold."

Tails nodded eagerly at that. Sonic pulled over a rolling container to sit on for himself, and a few minutes passed in silence as they devoured the lasagna. Tails actually finished before Sonic, which was a good sign he'd been half starved and had forgotten about it again. Sonic, who spend what felt like half his time being hungry, could never really wrap his mind around the concept that you could forget to eat.

"Thanks." Tails smiled.

Sonic swallowed his last bite. "Welcome." He hopped off his improvised seat and instead sat his empty plate down on it. "So, what've we got?" He gestured at Tails' chaotic towers of knowledge.

"Unfortunately, not much, especially not in terms of hard facts." He turned back to his screen, setting his plate down to the side, on top of the paper stack that had nearly felled the leaning tower. Sonic reached around him and took the plate to sit next to his own on the container, safely out of reach. Tails followed his actions and had the decency to grin sheepishly.

Sonic just waved at the screen and books. "If not hard facts, what else we got?"

Tails eyed the book tower. "Mysteries. Ancient riddles. Lots of "we don't really know's". Ruins and relics and cryptic inscriptions from thousands of years ago." He span around in his chair to pluck the topmost book off the leaning tower to flip it open somewhere near the middle. "Here, this is what a lot of Ancient Echidna ruins look like."

Sonic leaned in to get a better look. It was a two page photo, of a jungle. It was mostly green. There were some rock formations in between, pale grey under lots of green. They were straight enough to maybe justify the guess they'd been part of a building once, but it was impossible to tell what kind. "Honestly, if I ran past that, I'd think it's just some rock."

"Good you're not trying to work in archeology." Tails grinned. "But really," he studied the picture, "that's what most sites that are thought to be former Echidna cities or temples or settlements look like." He flipped a couple pages, stopping at another image, this time showing a pyramid-shaped building sitting on a clearing, with jungle in the background, but only partly overgrown. "This is what the best preserved sites look like, as in Mystic Ruins. This was a temple once. Sites in this good condition are extremely rare." He looked up at Sonic. "This one was a sun temple, or that's what scientists think today. The Echidnas really did astronomy. This temple was build so it aligns with the solstices and equinoxes. The sun would always set in specific spots on those days. There's another temple that has a stairway build to reflect the orbits of different planets. They were really great at astronomy. They knew the planet is round, they understood the differences between planets and stars, they tracked the returns of comets and correctly calculated their return. All sorts of cool things, especially considering the time period."

Sonic nodded. "So you did find out something," he noticed.

Tails frowned. "Yeah. Sort of. But that's mostly where it stops. I couldn't find anything about holidays they celebrated. Or what sorts of things they observed in details. I know they studied the sky, but I know nothing about what it means, and that would be the relevant part. What kind of holiday is this? How would you celebrate it? Should we bring gifts? How long does it last? Why is this celestial event a special event to their culture?" He waved at his books. "I don't know. It's like I spend days reading all of this and it was super interesting, but I don't know anything for real."

"Huh." Sonic stared. He understood what points Tails was making, maybe better in this specific case than at other times when the fox got frustrated in his pursuit of knowledge that often ended up not really satisfying his curiosity. But this here, this was personal. "It's a lot of paperwork for "you don't know anything"," he said carefully.

Tails sighed, looked back at the temple picture. "It's not nothing exactly. It's just… The Echidnas were one of Mobius' first cultures that grew advanced enough to develop architecture that allowed building large structures like temples and cities like this, to do math, develop writing. They settled in a large area, for thousands of years. Relics and artwork have been found nearly everywhere on Mobius, but we don't know for sure if they are always a sign that Echidnas lived in this area, or if they traded with other cultures living there. We know they were a warlike people that quickly gained influence over a large territory and remained probably the dominant culture on Mobius for a long time."

Sonic nodded. "And then they disappeared." It wasn't that Tails was telling him all new things here; they'd done their first Echidna research after running into Knuckles the first time, and then again after Chaos flooded Station Square and Tikal had dropped them into visions of the past.

Tails nodded back. "Yes, about four thousand years ago. Some of their cities have been found in a state that suggests they were destroyed very quickly. Archeologists thought it might have been a natural catastrophe, but by now we know it was Perfect Chaos who nearly wiped them out after Pachacamac tried to take the Emeralds." He looked back at the book. "We know that the survivors must've taken Angel Island to the skies and that's why they vanished from the surface, but what remains down here and has been studied is thousands of years old. Even things that were not destroyed by Chaos have been weathered by time. We don't actually know that much about what they lived like. Or what holidays they upheld."

"You know, we could just ask Knuckles," Sonic noticed softly. He knew Tails wanted to be prepared, but if he wanted knowledge, they had the best source right there, and Knuckles would probably appreciate being asked. He was proud of his heritage; surely he wouldn't be mad if Tails expressed interest in some of his culture's inner workings.

"I know." Tails shrugged, fiddling with the book. "I just… I don't know. Looking at all this, at all this stuff we don't know, all the mysteries… I want to… I would really like to know, but I don't want to be insensitive." The blue gaze flicked up to meet Sonic's. "He's the last. I know he's sad about that. What if… what if I ask things and it just upsets him? Just drives home that there's nobody else left, that all of us down here don't even really know anything about his lost people anymore? That before long the bit we can guess will be forgotten, too? It's making me sad, Sonic. What will it do to Knuckles?"

Sonic sighed, watching Tails' drooping ears. "I don't know." He reached out to rest a hand on Tails' shoulder. "But I know other things."

Tails looked up at him.

"Both of us don't have family. We don't really know where you come from, because you were so tiny when I found you. We don't know which culture you belong to, by heritage I mean, or if your relatives are still there somewhere, or if you're the last of your kind, too. Do we?"

The fox frowned. "No, but that's not –"

"Not the same?" Sonic shook his head. "No, it's not. And that's not what I mean. Does it matter, if you're the last of your kind, your family, from your village, wherever that might've been? Does it make you lonely that you don't know?"

Tails blinked. "No." A tentative smile appeared on his muzzle. "Because I'm not alone. I haven't been alone since I met you."

Sonic squeezed his shoulder. "Yeah. And I haven't been alone since you little two-tailed furball started following me everywhere."

"Hey!" Tails frowned in only half serious indignation.

Sonic grinned. "What I'm trying to say here… We don't need to know a lot about whatever it is Knux' people celebrate there. We don't need to be Echidna culture experts. We just need to be there, because that's what family is for."

Tails nodded, snapped close his book, and smiled back at him for real now.