Ceremonial Mastery on Island Space Ships

They were already walking away when Knuckles remembered what he would have done after his interrupted meditation had his friends not arrived to distract him and he stopped in his tracks, causing Sonic behind him in file to almost walk into him, only to step around him with namesake speed and a sound of surprise, which in turn led to Tails walking into Knuckles instead.

"Hey! What's up?!"

From at his side, Sonic tilted his head at the echidna. "Yeah, what's now?"

"I forgot something. Sorry. I won't be long, but there's something I gotta do." When he turned back to the temple, Sonic, arms crossed, exchanged a look with Tails, who shrugged at him, then both of them trailed after Knuckles.

Seeing him head back into the temple, Sonic led out a soft chuckle. "What's up with the shiny rock? I'm sure you can leave it alone for a bit." It didn't sound quite as mocking as the words were made out to sound, there was a bit of curiosity there, too.

Distantly Knuckles realized this time it was his friends who didn't know what to expect, and he decided he wasn't going to spoil all surprises by explaining his every move when it wasn't necessary.

"You'll see later." He smiled at Tails. "You are going to like it." The fox raised a puzzled brow, and Knuckles grinned and turned to Sonic. "Not sure about you." He shrugged. "Wait here."

He left the others at the base of the stairs, not looking back to see if they stayed or followed. Partly because he didn't want to make it look like he didn't trust them to stick to a simple request such as this, partly because he didn't need look when here, right at the shrine, so very close to the Emerald, the energy was bright and rich in the ground and Sonic in particular was such a vibrant flicker of disturbance in the Master's field.

They did stay where he'd left them, though, and Knuckles made up the stairs on his own. He stopped next to the Great Emerald, turned once on the spot, trailing his look over the treetops around the clearing, over the hills and the volcano that rose in the island's center back round over forests and distant clouds behind it, then he reached out a hand to brush over the Master Emerald with the tips of his fingers, ghosting over the smooth surface before resting his palm flat against it.

He didn't look for the bright green light, instead he sought the sun already quite high in the sky above even while he slowly dropped to one knee, laying his second hand down against the stone ground. He took a breath, deep and calm and clear, and reached out.

The Emerald power sang under his hands, sharp and crisp, but serene and at ease. Knuckles listened, felt, watched, twisting the energy around himself and pulled, not for battle or strength, but for direction.

The energy responded all too easily, curling and shaping in his grasp, and he trailed its path, sinking it deep into the island below. The ground tingled, shifted, rose too slowly and turned too gently to be felt with anything other than that vague sense of chaos.

He turned back to the sun, guessing its path along the sky as good as he could, pulled at the energy again, lining it up, then he watched it, waited for it to settle into the new dynamic, then he let go, slowly, gently. No urgency here this time. He watched another moment to know it was stable, then he pulled back and stood.

His steps were light and easy when he made his way back down the stairs, the echo of Emerald power vibrantly singing under his feet.

Sonic and Tails were watching him, curious and questioning. "What was that about, huh?", the hedgehog asked.

"What did you do?" Tails spoke almost at the same time. "Something wrong?"

Knuckles grinned. It came easy now, when he was still light with the echo of the calm energy under his hands. "Nothing wrong, don't worry."

"Then what's with the magic tricks?" Sonic gestured up at the altar. "You don't do glowing and blinking lights for the show now, do you?"

"True. You'll see later."

"Is it a secret?" Tails' large ears were perked and his double tails twirled behind his back in a way that told Knuckles he was thinking hard.

Sonic grinned suddenly. "Since when isn't anything shiny rock a secret?"

Knuckles smirked and turned to leave. "Exactly. And it's not a shiny rock, hedgehog."

"Aww, Knuckles. Come on, tell me. It's party day! No secrets!" Now Sonic was pouting as he realised he was spot on and Knuckles had no intention whatsoever to inform them about what he'd done.

The echidna grinned to himself. The secret would annoy the impatient hedgehog all day. "No."

"So, tell us about this Alignment. What's it about?" Sonic, again, sounded genuinely curious.

"We figured it's maybe a bit like a new year, just... Bigger? More important?" Tails was watching him expectantly.

Knuckles stopped walking next to a partly overgrown wall that stood tall enough still to sit on, and that's what he did while he mulled the description over. "That's close, I suppose," he mused then. "The cycles, or periods, or eras, maybe, between two Alignments can be very long. That's why it's the most important cycle. Our calendar knows many different cycles. Short ones, like the time between two full moons. Seasons, traditionally marked by the solstices and equinoxes. A year is made up of all seasons, the seasons are made up of several moon phases."

Tails had sat down next to him. "This is similar to our calendar counting weeks, months and years."

Knuckles nodded. It was weird having to explain something he'd taken for granted. "Other cycles are longer, or of varying lengths. The Haab', is made up of eighteen months, each of which has 20 days. At the end of the year there are five additional days, called the "unlucky days". The Tzolk'in is a cycle of 260 days." Looking at his friends revealed Tails was wearing a concentrated frown and Sonic looked like when he'd encountered something new and was trying to figure out what to do about it. "You don't have things like that?"

"No." Sonic shrugged lightly. "Way to make it complicated."

Knuckles was about to rebuke, it wasn't actually very complicated, but it was Tails who spoke up first.

"Well, we have other time periods we keep track of. Even much longer than a few months. Like, decades." He flicked his ears thoughtfully. "People often think of a decade as a distinct time period, and the beginning of a new one is sometimes considered more special than a normal new year, too."

Sonic's head was tilted in thought now. "True," he said. "Not so weird then."

Tails looked between the other two. "Technically, we have even longer time periods we keep track of. Centuries."

Sonic nodded, turning back to Knuckles. "Is that what it is, maybe?"

"The start of a new century? Or, a millennium?" Tails' double tails were spinning excitedly behind his back.

The red echidna mulled the term over for a moment. Close enough, perhaps, so he nodded. "Something like that."

"And your millenniums are based on events in the sky. That's kinda cool, you know." Knuckles wasn't yet sure if Sonic actually meant that when the hedgehog turned to Tails, a suddenly thoughtful expression on his face. "What are our millenniums and other things based on?"

"Math." Tails shrugged. "Well, millenniums, centuries and decades are. Someone once started counting, and now when there's a "round" number of years elapsed, we call it a decade, or a century. Our months are based on what used to be lunar phases in an ancient calendar, but it was changed around over time and they added days and months, and it no longer fits. The only thing that's still based on something observed in nature is the length of year. And day, obviously."

Sonic grinned. "I didn't think I'd say it, but your thing sounds less random than that, Knux."

Knuckles still wasn't sure if it was meant as a compliment or not, but before he could decide, Tails was looking at him with that curious frown again.

"Do you celebrate other celestial events? Eclipses?"

"Eclipses are considered bad omens in the old writings. They're days you're told to not start anything important and stay on your guard." Knuckles wasn't sure if he believed in that; he'd seen a few eclipses of moon and sun and all the terrible things that had happened to him had never happened on one such day.

Sonic was looking at him weird, and Knuckles prepared to defend himself, but Tails obviously still had questions to distract them with.

"What about conjunctions, then?"

Knuckles blinked. "What?"

"Conjunctions," Tails repeated. "Alignments of two planets, you would probably call it?"

"Ah." Knuckles smiled. "Yes. Sort of. It's not an important event like this. They're more like..." He shrugged, fumbling for a word in his friends' language. "Slightly special days?"

"Holidays?", Sonic suggested.

Knuckles shrugged again. "Maybe?"

Sonic suddenly frowned. "Are we underdressed?"

"What?"

"It's a holiday." The hedgehog's hand waved at Knuckles' spines, at the paint and the feathers and pearls playing in the gentle wind. "You dressed up, and we're all... average looking here. Should we have thought of wearing something special?"

Knuckles blinked at his friend. Yes, he'd prepared a more festive look for himself, but that had been before he'd known he'd have visitors, and now he actually was feeling weird about it. It wasn't anything like surface fashion, wouldn't he look really weird to Sonic and Tails? But the hedgehog did look sincere... Knuckles shrugged. "You didn't know. I... I almost didn't bother wearing anything myself anyway."

Sonic and Tails exchanged a stricken look that implied they understood the reasoning for Knuckles' hesitation. Tails' large ears were curving backwards, but it was Sonic who brushed it off and smiled suddenly again. "Well, it's good you did, it's absolutely more festive. Got some more feathers? Maybe we can make ourselves more presentable, too."

"It doesn't look... weird to you? You never wear anything like it..." Coming to think of it, did Sonic even have anything like formal wear for his own culture? It seemed unimaginable. Knuckles couldn't picture him in anything but running shoes.

But Sonic shrugged. "Nah. You forget how much we travel. We see all sorts of traditional clothing from all over the world." He studied the feathers. "You know, this sorta even reminds me of a few other things I've seen."

For all his lack of tact on most occasions, Knuckles suddenly thought that Sonic was right, and he'd not taken into consideration that while Sonic habitually made fun of all sorts of things, he sure did get around a lot, making friends left and right. He had to be an expert of dealing with unfamiliar cultures... Maybe that was why Sonic and Tails always seemed to find it easier dealing with him than the other way around? So far they were taking everything unfamiliar in stride and with a startling enthusiasm. Maybe it was practice and exposure as much as their nature?

"So, do you?" Sonic's words startled him out his thoughts.

"What?"

Sonic grinned, but it was Tails who answered. Also the little fox was back to looking enthusiastic again. "Have more feathers? I want a cool feather crown!"

The old people had worn things that would probably fit that description, but... "Actually, feather crowns are kinda for ceremonial masters and high dignitaries."

Sonic laughed. "Well Tails, you better work on your ceremonial mastery then."

But Tails wasn't laughing; he was studying Knuckles with a thoughtful frown. "Aren't you?"

The echidna blinked. "What?"

"Someone of high dignitary position. You're the Guardian. Isn't that important?"

Knuckles stared. He'd not thought to really consider it in much detail, but yes, he was "High Guardian" in the old language, and it had been a well respected position. "It is."

Sonic gestured. "Maybe you should be wearing the feather crown then." There was a spark of mischief in the hedgehog's eyes. "I thought we were underdressed, but apparently you are, too."

Should he point out that he'd barely found the motivation to do just this little decoration for his spines, that it had seemed pointless, even if he'd consider himself important enough to wear a crown? "There used to be many different versions to "dress up", as you'd call it, I think it was really complex and all sorts of little things were important… but all of that was when there still -" Knuckles found himself faltering over saying it out loud, but set his jaw and soldiered on. It was nothing new after all. Nothing they didn't know already, for a long time. "-when there were still other echidnas living on the island." He stared down at his feet. Not new or not, suddenly, the feeling of abandonment was back in full force.

There was moment of silence, his low of mood probably obvious to his guests.

"You have no idea where they could have gone, do you?" It was Tails who broke the silence, and when Knuckles looked up at him, Tails was watching him, all innocent, gentle and concerned blue eyes.

He might have let himself snap and shout at Sonic for a question like this, allowed some of the sense of helplessness and loss to translate into the far more easily handled anger, but he couldn't do that to the little fox.

"No." Without anger to clutch to, the admission felt heavier on his lips. It wasn't new, whatever had happened to make him the last one here had happened years ago, and it served no purpose to dwell on it. Normally, he tried to avoid it, because it didn't achieve anything anyway. But Tails was looking all stricken and sad on his behalf, and it wasn't an expression he could stand seeing. "There are… legends," he said, clutching to a sentiment, to a hope from his own childhood. If it had served him, maybe it would do for Tails as well? "Legends that say some of our people have gone to the stars." Inadvertently, he felt his gaze flick up to the sky, bright blue with the near midday sun. "Maybe to another planet. When I was small, I used to look up to the stars and wonder if one of them was looking back at me."

Tails didn't say anything, and when Knuckles looked back down, the blue eyes were still wide and unsmiling. Sonic was smiling, but not in the way that would reach his eyes.

Still, it was the blue hedgehog to break the next bout of heavy silence. "You know, maybe they are. Space is huge. Plenty of space for planets to live on, or for something cool and insane like an island floating through space like a giant space ship."

Tails gave an incredulous chuckle. "Giant island space ship."

Sonic shrugged. "Hey, why not? Apparently thousands of years ago, they somehow convinced this island to float. Wouldn't it make sense by now they can take their islands to space?"

"Well... Now that you say it..." Tails blinked. "Maybe it's possible? You would have to solve the atmosphere problem, so you don't lose all your air to space, and have a system large enough to be fully autarkic, but with technology advances, it could be feasible? Angel Island isn't autarkic, its atmosphere interacts closely with the surrounding atmosphere of the planet at large, but then again, autarky isn't required here and would bring no benefits."

Knuckles frowned. "What?"

Sonic was grinning fondly, the red echidna wasn't sure if at him or at Tails. "I'm not so sure, but I guess Tails thinks with some newer technology, we can turn your island into a space ship."

"No, I just said that -" Tails cut himself off, but he was smiling now, too. "I just mean that it's not impossible. Your people had some really advanced technology, in particular for their time. This island, or something like Sky Sanctuary, this stuff seems like it shouldn't even be doable. But it was done, and most of it is still here. That at some point between the creation of the Floating Island and right now some of your people would've been capable of space travel doesn't seem that far fetched to me."

Sonic smiled. "See, even our resident genius thinks they could still be out there." He gestured up at the sky. "You know, maybe they're looking at us right now and are quite disappointed because they expected a cool party and all we're doing is sitting around on an old wall moping."

"I'm not moping, hedgehog," Knuckles grumbled, pushing up off the wall.

The blue hedgehog was still grinning, and the Guardian belatedly realised that Sonic was probably trying to make him get up, but he couldn't find it in himself to be mad at being manipulated. "If you're not moping," his friend continued, "then you better get round to explaining some awesome traditional party stuff to us so we can get started and give everyone up there so good a show they're going to regret not coming to attend."

It was said with such vigor and what sounded like spite on Knuckles' behalf that also the echidna suddenly found a grin on his face, and anew motivation to actually do something to celebrate at all. "Alright." If Sonic could do spite, so could he.

Speedy's note: There is fanart of this chapter now, beautifully painted by micazee on Deviantart! Make sure to check it out! deviantar micazee / art / A-Rich-History-856520471