This chapter is a little short but I hope it ties a couple of things together nicely. I do not own sonic the hedgehog or any of the characters from the games, movies or comics but I do own this story and the other characters, I hope you enjoy it.
Things Whispered Only In The Shadows
Ch5. Emeralds
The day continued as if nothing unusual had happened, as if I weren't wearing a gold ring from a dream, and possibly another world, around my wrist. I was curious as to what it was, what it was for, and what it could do. Being a crafter, I knew when a ring was more than a ring, figuring out how much more was a different matter altogether.
I found myself working more towards finding the purpose of the ring than actually working on assessing the supplies and crafting. Finally, frustrated and needing a break, I went back to my room to let off some steam and hopefully forget about the problems I was facing before training tonight. It wasn't like I could have archived anything if I had tried to craft with so much on my mind, after all crafting was a delicate skill used to manipulate the energies of objects and channel them into materials to create powerful tools and armor.
I gently stroked the scarf around my neck that my parents had put so much time and effort into. I couldn't even begin to fathom the concentration needed to put so much power into something made from materials that a normal crafter would never have used. Metals, gems, and stones were the ideal conduits for crafting because they were uniform and sturdy unlike the gossamer threads intricately woven into the silver sleeve. I couldn't deny that it was sturdy and reliable but it was so light and airy that it was easy to forget.
I flopped down onto my bed and pulled the end of my scarf loose to watch the beaded edge drape over the bed. I watched the steel grey stone beads for a bit, letting my eyes wander as I relaxed. My gaze fell on the table I had left the bag on with the yellow fragment emerald, and its larger twin sitting right beside it.
I bolted upright and grabbed both of the emeralds, one in each hand, stumbling out of the bed and almost into the door. Attempting to regain my composure and my footing I settled for sitting in a chair as tears welled up in my eyes.
I gingerly tucked the two yellow emeralds away, making sure they wouldn't fall out if jostled them around and headed down for tonight's training. When I got down the mountain I greeted the old fox, still in a daze. "Maxis?"
"Yes Whisper? Is everything alright?" He sounded as concerned as he looked, putting a gentle hand on my shoulder.
I nodded slowly, "Yes, I think so. I've just been thinking... how powerful are the real emeralds compared to the fragments?" I hopped he wouldn't ask why.
He went from concerned to surprised and concerned in an instant, then thoughtful and relaxed some. "Well, a great deal more powerful I would assume, after all they divided a world in to two, four hundred some years ago and could also recombine them once again, whereas the fragments only have the power to temporarily connect the worlds, or travel between them."
I let it all sink in for a while before asking another clearly suspicious question. "Would we still need the fragment emeralds if we could find the real emeralds?"
He almost chuckled and eyed me curiously, I held my breath. "You sure do know which questions to ask to make an old fox suspicious. No but like I said before, the real emeralds are in the original world." My face turned red from holding my breath like a lifeline and he must have taken it as me blushing from embarrassment.
Maxis patted my head and went over to see what kind of trouble the boys had gotten into, I could hear Fel cussing from across the clearing. As soon as he was out of earshot I gasped for air. I couldn't believe I had lied to him, or at least kept that kind of secret from him, no, from them. I hadn't told any of them and even though I knew that I should and that it wasn't too late to tell them, I didn't want to explain what had happened in the dream. The very idea of becoming that sad, frightened little version of me was terrifying, and to tell them it was all a part of a dream. They would all laugh or worse think that I was making things up and just didn't want to tell them how I had really gotten it.
"Hey Whisper!" I visibly jumped when Fel interrupted my train of thought. He laughed, "You had such a serious look on your face. Come on let's get moving, suns already setting." the orange cat waved me over to the edge of the clearing and didn't look back.
"Oh! Wait up!" I couldn't dwell on it too long, I had training to do and distractions would land me in bed for another week. I trotted after them and another night began.
- Three years later -
The forest leaves stretched out in every direction beckoning me to discover the secrets hidden beyond. Of course I already knew what lie beyond the dense foliage. I had trained here for almost four years, longer than my brothers had bothered to stick around, and knew the mountains and valleys like my own back yard. Of course they kind of were my back yard since I lived in the temple nestled between the highest peaks.
Talon and Fel had gone off in search of the fragments just days after completing their training, I on the other hand had stuck around to brush up on my skills alone. I didn't want to get caught off guard and not be able to rely upon my own strength, and I wanted to get some secret training in with the real yellow emerald. Talon had taken the fragment with him for 'safe keeping' even though he and Fel couldn't use it. The old fox had ceased to observe my progress every night, shortly after the boys had left on their glorified treasure hunt, and now preferred to spend his free time studying the temple and the surrounding ruins looking for more clues to aid us in our fight against Salem and his growing empire.
I ducked as a tree sailed past my head and crashed behind me, leapt sideways to avoid a massive clawed hand, and spun around the enormous figure of an alpha Were-beast. This was my hunting ground and the intruder was not welcome here. The sound of stone sliding into a hardened leather sheath was followed by the pained cry from the injured alpha. I rarely killed now, I didn't have to, well not often anyways. I could easily get my point across without endangering my life or theirs. The injured Were-beast tucked its fluffy tail between its legs and beat a hasty retreat back to its own territory, it would think twice before expanding this way again any time soon.
Today the boys were returning with the spoils of war and hopefully another fragment emerald, if not then we were one step closer to having to steal Salem's emeralds out from under him. I snickered at the thought of him waking up to find he had been robbed of the only things keeping him in power.
"So that is where you have been hiding." Fel had matured as much as Talon had even though he hadn't changed appearance wise. "You do know that a better hiding spot for you would have been somewhere with a little less green, you know what with the purple and black motif you got going on." But Fel was still Fel no matter how much he had matured. On the other hand his synthetic orange fur and dark brown and black stripes made him harder to spot in the tangled undergrowth.
"Relax robocat just because you had a hard time finding her doesn't mean you get to rub in the fact that she doesn't blend in as well as we do." If I hadn't been expecting him I would have jumped out of my quills. Talon was sitting on the branch above me, green on green and silent until otherwise desired. I took a pebble from my pocket and chucked it at his head, which he dodged expertly by sliding down to the branch in front of me, smiling all the while.
"Good to see your little vacation hasn't dulled your reflexes, if anything I think you may have gotten a bit better." I teased, then tossing my bag over my shoulder I turned and nodded to Fel, "Race you back slowpokes!"
It took all of three minutes to cross the forest and make it back up the mountain before waiting another four before Talon, and eventually Fel made it there as well. Memories of losing so many child hood races to Talon had wiped clean any chance of mercy, although I did kind of feel sorry for Fel once in a while. "What's the matter can't keep up Talon?" I had waited years to say that to him, and now that I could say it all I wanted I decided that once was more than enough to get my point across.
"So I see you got faster," Talon couldn't hide his surprise at the sheer scale of improvement and I couldn't help but soak up the moment.
"Dude. Faster's an understatement, she made a sonic boom halfway here."
"And I was taking my time." One more jab.
"But can she hold it for more than a couple minutes now?" Counter jab. Nice one.
"I will take you on anytime, anywhere and for any length of time you think you need to win." I could run at supersonic speeds for almost an hour now and even though I could only hold my max speed for about five minutes he didn't need to know that.
"So guess who found a fragment emerald. Go ahead, guess." We shook our heads and rolled our eyes, waiting for him to finish gloating. I couldn't blame him really, I could easily outshine him by showing him the one I found, but if I told him I had a real one I would have a LOT of explaining to do. "This guy, that's who!" Yep, still the same old Fel. We congratulated him on the way into the temple, laughter lightening the mood and a little hope helped.
Making our way to the sanctuary where Maxis was doing the majority of his research of late, we ducked and dodged as various books and research papers flew across the room. The old fox was in a frenzy looking for something and not finding it, I told him to organize his disaster zone months ago but he insisted that he knew precisely where everything was. I dodged a particularly heavy looking book as it sailed past my head. I heard Talon curse a couple of times after getting hit and Fel was making us both look like armatures, strolling through the onslaught as if it weren't even there, not a single thing touching him. "Hey, long time no see old geezer. What you looking for?" Things stopped flying at us as the grey fox turned his attention to Fel. His face lit up at the sight of his protege and eventual successor.
"Good to see you again Fel, and you as well Talon. Say have either of you boys seen a box about this big lying around? Or perhaps it was a satchel..." The level of concentration he showed at his own question was amusing to say the least and slightly disturbing. Maxis never forgot what he was looking for until he found it, if he found it, and certainly not something so important that he would tear the place apart looking for it.
"What was in it?" Talons curiosity always got the better of him, if there was something to find he wanted to know. "Maybe it fell out or something, we could help look for it."
"No, no it can wait, now that you two are back we can eat a proper meal together. You must be starving after your journey." I snickered again, the way he said it made it sound like they couldn't scrounge up a decent meal on their own while they were away.
We all made a b-line for the dining table almost tripping over one another in the process. The room seemed a lot smaller now that we had grown, but that was fine, in fact it made the room feel all the more full of the people we cared about. Maxis had truly outdone himself this time, by the time we were done we were so full we didn't want to move, let alone make our way to bed. But like always Maxis sent us on our way, too full or not we headed up the long flight of stairs.
My room felt warmer that night, the good kind of warm where the world seems right at least for a little while. I drifted off thinking of the small family that had pulled itself together around me from the fragmented pieces of things that used to be and how it had made something new and strong, not quite whole yet, but strong.
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