Uninvited Guests

The orange light of dawn filtered into the cave that Knuckles had build into a cozy shelter when the echidna woke from sleep. He rolled over, groaned, closed his eyes again. He'd meant to sleep in today. It was a holiday, and he was going to stay up late into the night, but after a few minutes it was clear he wasn't going to doze off again. He felt restless. Still curled up under the covers, he sensed out for the Master Emerald's energy. The temple was only a few minutes of walking away, and the energy was close and bright here. It was calm, too. Undisturbed and secure.

Knuckles sighed, rolling onto his back and blinking into the early morning's light coming in through the small window near the ceiling. He'd made it himself, sealed a large slab of clear quartz into the wall to keep the weather out but let the light in. Through it, he could catch a blurry glimpse of sky, and what he could see was a bright cyan promising a fair day ahead. That was something at least.

He pushed back the covers and climbed out of bed, taking in the mess he'd made of the room yesterday. The table held several bowls of preparations for paint, for murals or writing on stone as well as body paint, including a type that looked whitish now, but contained enough dust gathered from the crystal walls in Lava Reef's caves to glow a bluish green in reaction to the Master Emerald's field. It would be most visible in the dark of night. It had felt pointless in a way, because nobody else was here to see it, but he would not welcome the new cycle without looking the part.

Next to the bowls of paint sat a box filled with feathers, pearls and bands, and next to those was a still unrolled scroll with last night's reading. Old philosophy, potentially prophetic, and unfortunately rather cryptic. It contained enlightening advice to mind when entering a new cycle, such as "you may need to sacrifice something you thought of worth in order to save something that is more valuable". That was one of the last lines Knuckles had read yesterday, late at night, sitting next to his fireplace for light. It wasn't that none of it made any sense at all. He knew it was something about change, about adapting, about changing values, but he wasn't a philosopher by nature. He was a practical echidna. Stuff like that was just hard to wrap his head around properly, and it wasn't like anyone was there to teach him. Back in the day, a young echidna would have teachers and mentors explaining this sort of thing. As it was, he could tell it was supposed to be important, but that didn't mean that it made much sense to him.

He picked up the scroll, tidy, ancient glyphs on ancient, fragile parchment, and rolled it back up to set aside gently. It wasn't the scroll's fault he didn't really understand it.

After a quick breakfast, Knuckles set up his mirror. It wasn't completely flat and things got distorted towards the edges, but it worked well enough, considering he'd made it from a part of a broken Eggman robot. Mirroring materials were nearly nonexistent in nature and he didn't have the facilities to create anything like it himself. He studied his reflection. Much clearer an image than the surface of a pond in any case.

He spent nearly an hour braiding feathers and bands into his quills in the traditional way and painting the old patterns onto his brow, sweeping lines of whitish paint. He finished with circles around his dreadlocks near the top and solid bright white quill tips, then picked up the silver bracelets and pulled one around each upper arm. They were as ancient as most of the relics on the island, but he'd polished them back to near perfection yesterday. Now, they gleamed in the morning sunlight, the silver metal shining nearly as white as the body paint markings.

Knuckles studied his reflection, and tried a smile at himself. The echidna in the mirror really looked like today was a big day. Maybe looks should count for something?

He frowned at his reflection. He'd really looked forward to today. He'd gathered the materials for the paint, he'd planned out the foods he was going to indulge in, he'd planned out his day, there'd been dozens of things he'd wanted to do, he'd spent weeks trying to find the best spot on the island to view the Five peel out of the twilight. But those last few days… He didn't really know why he bothered anymore. In a way, it seemed pointless. There was no-one here.

But he couldn't change that, and he'd been here by himself for all this time. It shouldn't matter.

He shook his head, gathered up the bowls of wall paint. In honour of previous Alignments, it had been tradition to paint a mural or at least write down an inscription, symbolic, prophetic or in some other way commemorating this great cosmic event. Knuckles was no scribe, but he could write, if not really paint well. Maybe he ought to try later. It wasn't that anyone was there to complain if his glyphs were untidy or any drawing he tried ended up crooked. That was, if he could even make up his mind what he wanted to set out as something symbolic or at least important for a whole new cycle.

Leaving the cave, he took one of the footpaths towards the hills and down to the nearest entrance to the island's underground tunnels. It would lead him right down into the mountain, to where the tunnels passed between Hydrocity and the Hidden Palace, to where the walls held several murals and important writings already. If he were to create an image, it should be there.

For now though, he left the bowls of paint at the entrance and slowly made his way back towards the Emerald shrine. He took his time getting there. He was in no rush, walking around would maybe clear his head. The morning was already several hours old when he finally climbed the stairs and settled down on the stone ground of the altar's platform, the Master Emerald a solid warm glow in his back.

It had no actual connection to the event or festivities, but they asked for contemplation or meditation, and the Emerald was Knuckles' center, his focus. If he was trying for the required state of mind, this place was better than any other.

He took a slow breath, deeply in and gradually out, leaned his head down until his long quills fell all around his face, partly blocking out the bright summer sun, and listened to the hum and tingle of the Master's power just a few steps behind him. Save, stable, contented.

On the long run, could it stay that way? It was one of Knuckles' primary concerns, probably it was natural it would be the first to come to mind if he sat down specifically to think about the bigger picture, as was part of the ancient tradition to do.

For now, he could keep it safe. In the last couple of years, several attacks on the Emerald had been made, it had been lost, too, but it had always been retrieved and restored. Sometimes by Knuckles' own work, sometimes, that first time even, it had been Sonic who'd done it, who'd brought it back, and wanted nothing at all in return.

Knuckles had never expected any sort of assistance or backup or support in his guardianship. That was, historically, a situation without precedent. He was the only echidna on the island, the last of his people, and thus also the first to entirely handle the burden and responsibility of guarding the most drastically powerful and dangerous object in the world entirely by himself. In the old days, there had been warriors in the cities around the temple, the Guardians' family, too, people to help with things big and small in daily life and in battle, but as the last one, Knuckles had never had that safety net to rely on.

On the contrary, he was so used to work by himself that other people tended to make him more nervous than anything helpful. Trust didn't come easily, not after that first disaster of trusting Eggman of all people, and maybe he should have made more steps towards Sonic after he'd saved the Master Emerald, but he had not, and it had been easier, quicker to distrust him again than to consider him a friend or just an ally, at least before Perfect Chaos.

It wasn't the only misunderstanding on his behalf, and maybe, Knuckles mused, maybe he should make an effort in this upcoming cycle to not repeat the same old mistakes. He knew they were his friends, a Guardian was allowed to have them, too...

What didn't stop the Emerald from being endangered, there was a reason it always needed a Guardian, and sometimes Knuckles was terrified what would happen to it after his death. In the cosmic line of things, it didn't even matter if he met his end in battle, to protect the Emerald, or if he got to live out his years until he was old and grey. His lifetime was just a blip on the endless stream of time, and there would be no one to follow in his footsteps. There were no echidnas left. Part of Knuckles still, kind of, silently hoped and wished the old stories were true, that some of them had gone to the stars, and would some day return.

If not, would the Emerald choose a Guardian from another race? Chaos powers were nothing unique to his people, perhaps another Guardian could be found. Perhaps, one day, that would be his duty, too.

Behind him, the Emerald pulsed up, sending a gentle wash and tingle of Chaos down his spine. Knuckles blinked his eyes open in surprise. There was a presence, announced now in the Emerald's energy, but it was no danger, no urgency. Not the instant jolt of panic that would startle Knuckles when a stranger, possibly an enemy, entered the Emerald's wide field. This was more a calm notion, familiar.

Still, there went his peace and quiet for contemplation of past and future. Knuckles climbed to his feet with a sigh. He should have known Sonic wouldn't give up so easily. The hedgehog was most persistent when he wanted to drag someone into his ideas.

By the time Knuckles had descended the stairs and crossed out of the circle of pillars, he could clearly hear the engine of his friends' biplane, and after another moment of waiting, he could see it, too. Red paint, right now. Tails must've repainted it again; last time Knuckles had seen it, it had been blue.

He liked the bright red better.

The biplane dived down, barely missing the treetops of the surrounding forest, before coming to land on the meadow the red echidna still stood on.

Sonic perched atop the wings as usual, waving eagerly at Knuckles as the biplane rolled past his position and came to a hold. Tails was quick to silence the engine, turning back to wave at Knuckles as well.

The Guardian settled for a nod in greeting.

Sonic was already off the plane and across the field of grass in a second, a blur of blue and a sharp gust of wind. Then he was in front of Knuckles, wearing a grin on his face. "Hi there! You doing well?"

Knuckles shrugged. "I suppose. I was-" He was about to explain they were interrupting, and what were they even doing here, surely they'd have a celebration to attend somewhere down on the surface, but Sonic cut him off.

"Hey, we thought you'd be busy! You said you'd be busy." The hedgehog folded his arms.

"I was busy, Sonic," Knuckles grumbled, mirroring the crossed arms. "Until someone came and interrupted me..." He sighed. "What do you want, Sonic? I'm not going to come along on a trip with you, I told you that, and in case you finally caught up to the date, I also don't intend to come with you for any festival on the surface. I'm gonna celebrate here, okay?"

Sonic took back a step, raising his hands at him, palms out flat. "Whoa, easy. We're not here to drag you anywhere, or to interrupt. Tell him, Tails." The latter was spoken to the little fox who had finished parking and powering off his plane and now came up to Sonic's side.

Apparently Tails had heard enough of the exchange to figure out what was going on, because he smiled and nodded at Knuckles. "We're really not trying to talk you into anything, or drag you anywhere, as you put it. When we suggested the trip, we didn't know it was an important date to you."

Knuckles stared at him. Tails was the smartest person he knew, for the fox to say he didn't know something as fundamental as when the Alignment announced the beginning of the new cycle...

"I don't even know what you said this time, but I think you already lost him, Tails, from the face he's making. You didn't even need science talk, how do you do it?" Sonic was shaking his head and smiling.

"You... didn't know?" Knuckles stared, trying unsuccessfully to stop himself from making whatever face Sonic found amusing.

"No. You really confused us when you told me there was an event." Sonic was still smiling, but no longer mockingly so, more fondly, like he'd occasionally smile at Tails, too.

"You see, I don't know if it was in the past, maybe way back when the Old Echidnas were the prominent culture on Mobius at large, but this "Alignment" as you call it isn't a celebration we have on the surface today."

The echidna stared at Tails. "No?" It was the most important calendaric event in centuries!

Tails empathically shook his head. "No. You see, all cultures have unique traditions."

"I know that." Knuckles went back to folding his arms.

"And this one is uniquely Echidnaen." Tails shrugged. "It took us a while to figure that out, but we thought..."

"We thought no celebration is made to be held alone. We dragged you into some of our celebrations, and so we thought we'd come up and celebrate with you, whatever it is." Sonic smiled.

"If you want us." Tails wasn't outright smiling; he was looking timid enough that Knuckles was sure he'd expect rejection.

The truth was, Knuckles had been fully prepared to celebrate in whatever capacity he was able on his own, simply because there was no-one else here. But the truth was also that it was a community celebration by tradition, an event that used to reunite clans that lived far apart, that brought family and friends together and that was put down in the records of history as a time to forget, even if only temporarily, the conflicts between rivalling groups.

Part of him wanted to say no, wanted to allow himself to go back to wallowing some more in petty self-pity. Another part almost desperately wanted them to stay so he couldn't go back there. He wasn't sure which was the weaker part. Did it even matter?

His confused silence lasted a moment too long for Sonic and the hedgehog shrugged at him. "Unless we're wrong and your folks are the bunch for solitary confinement during holidays and our presence only interrupts your sitting under the Emerald in silence." He gestured sloppily towards the shrine, but the tone wasn't all mocking, there was a question there, too, and something that sounded almost like acceptance? It was probably testament to an open-mindedness the hedgehog didn't get enough credit for if he was going to allow the idea that someone would want to spend a holiday in silent, depressed contemplation... It seemed unimaginable Sonic himself could ever do that sort of thing.

But the expectant look was still on him. "No," Knuckles finally said. "It's not solitary. There used to be people coming from everywhere, back to celebrate with their clans. There were... quiet activities, but also dancing and singing." He looked between his friends, who were smiling now, and shrugged, suddenly feeling lost and desolate again at the thought of the songs of old, forever forgotten by time. "But I don't know any of the songs. I never heard anyone play them, or sing them..."

Tails was biting his lip, thoughtful and as unprepared for Knuckles' downtrodden mood as he was himself, but Sonic shook his head, stubborn smile still plastered to his lips. "Well, it's good we came up then, 'cause we can party, sing and dance with the best of them," he announced, drawing one arm around Tails and slapping at Knuckles' shoulder with his free hand, and when he continued it was with the rare gravity and utter conviction you normally only heard in his voice when the world was coming to an end around them. "We'll manage. I promise."

Somehow, all Knuckles could do was nod.