are we not gonna talk about how rouge just decided shadow was a robot in sonic heroes after seeing the androids and she never spoke about it again? girl

The hummingbird represented a shifting reality.

The Iron Jungle was a towering fortress in the middle of nature itself. A billion verdant vines and hanging leaves waved in arboreal air. The jungle could silence the clocks if it so wished, for its place of root and branch was a dominion of earth. But, looking upwards, one would see the moonlight streak through the boughs in both brilliant and shadowy beams. Once-peaceful greens were now virescent riots against a backdrop of steel. Nature would reclaim this place, one day - it had already started, vines scaling the left side of the entranceway, mosses clinging and climbing the right like soldiers moving in to attack.

This was a place of duality, the centuries-old battle between industrialism and Mother Earth.

Sitting at the end of the deck that led to the entrance, Shadow was another dueling creature of heart and falsities. A place like this allowed him some space to reflect on where he had been, who he had been. There was still so much that didn't make sense. So many pieces that didn't fit. Would they ever fit?

"Is there something wrong with me?"

Sometimes, Shadow thought to himself when it was quiet, whatever it was that made him - they built him backward. There was a liar behind his eyes falsifying emotions so that nobody could tell he was malfunctioning - or perhaps they could tell and they were too kind to tell him.

There was something wrong with him.

A conviction that he had to do something. Protect something. He and Atlas were one and the same - cursed to hold weight he could not bear but still standing, not because he chose to, but because he had to. A world was a burden on his shoulders but in the ink of the night that spread out before him, the constellations said: endure. Endure, because what made you said you must. Endure, as the jungle around you endures the invasion of iron.

Shadow rose to stand, letting his gaze rest on the dark horizon a little longer. He was full of rage. Why? Because he was full of grief. Why? Why? Why? How many decades deep was this wound? How long had it sat untouched, growing raw, deep, black?

"Shadow?"

The hedgehog flicked an ear back before looking over his shoulder. Across from him stood the black and silver robot he had met before. How had he managed to sneak up like that? His first instinct was to grit his teeth, bare his fangs in warning - stay away, there is something wrong with me.

"That hedgehog again, of all places, right?" Silver spoke casually, moving closer to sit by the ledge of the steel base. He kicked his feet back and forth in the gentle wind. "Sorry to disturb you. You seemed a bit lost here."

"What do you want." Shadow asked, this time sounding a little winded and a lot defeated. He breathed a sigh, released the tension from his jaw, and closed his eyes.

Silver stretched one arm up above his head, releasing the tension from the bolts in it. "I know hedgehogs are territorial, but jeez... I just wanted to come sit. It's been a long day, you know?"

"Why here." Shadow murmured, folding his arms. "You could go anywhere but here."

"The reason's probably obvious by now. Look, I don't wanna lecture you, Shad. You're a big boy, you can make your own decisions and you know right from wrong..." Silver leaned back, sitting with his weight on his hands behind him. "But don't open the door to a lesser evil unless you're okay with greater ones slinking in after it."

Shadow opened his eyes and looked out to the night one more time. He said nothing.

Silver turned to face him, now sitting with crossed legs. "I can't make you act. I can't force you to be anybody else, I know that. But in doing nothing, you're complicit in all of this in small ways that become huge at the end of it all. You might think that it's all fine and dandy to move through this situation on your own, but look around you... you have the power to stop this, and you don't. Why?"

Shadow's jaw clenched again. Again, his ego was holding on; his ego thought it knew better. His ego said, no, the way things are does not make sense. No, it should be that way. My way. I know what I want and have a clear path to getting it. It didn't matter who else suffered along the way. He had suffered enough. It was now everyone else's turn to suffer as he had.

Shadow lowered his head, shutting his eyes again. "That is none of your business."

"It is when I live on this planet. You live here on this planet too. So where will you go when everything is gone? What will you do with everything you've learned when it's all destroyed?" Silver ventured further, tilting his head. "What if you learn that maybe... allowing this to happen isn't part of who you are, and you regret it all in that new light?"

New light. Shadow's eyes trailed up to the stars. They waved at him in small flashes of white and heaven. There was a small sense of longing in his chest now. He longed to return somewhere, somewhere that felt like home - but he had no idea where that was. All he knew, from feeling alone, was it was somewhere up there. So who cared what happened down below?

"You don't know and that's fine. Maybe you find that the skies call to you more than land does - my brother is the same." Silver continued, speaking for him in his silence. "He always preferred being up there. I bet it feels safer. Fewer explosions unless you want to count the lightning and stars exploding... and the occasional destruction of the whole entire moon. Nobody talks about the moon thing these days."

There was a star riding through the clouds, and Shadow silently said to it, "where do I go?"

They shared a small silence before Shadow regained use of his words.

"Don't pretend to know me, faker," Shadow murmured, softer than before, "nobody does and I want it to stay that way."

"Nothing wrong with anonymity. But I can see you're hurting. I told my brothers this too - you don't need to hurt alone. What hurts you?"

Shadow shot him a fierce look. How dare this kid ask him such a personal question.

Silver watched him and met his eyes. He could read the pain, the defensive anger, and the bristling of the hedgehog's spines. He was no stranger to loss, no beginner in the stages of recovery from it. The way Shadow's whole body tensed, the way he seemed to disappear into his head, the slight clawing of his fingers against his arm.

"It's grief, isn't it, Shadow?"

Shadow was gone a second later. He disappeared into the Iron Jungle of Eggman's base in a flash of black and red. He turned his back on the angels in the sky who reached out for him. Silver rose to stand, a little slower than usual, and moonlight lit up the black markings on his face.

"It's grief."

There was something wrong with Shadow that was also wrong with them.

That was the thing - loss made people behave in strange ways. Silver knew that well. He knew the anger. The pain. No, not just pain - agony. Agony and ego were not friends. They were rival animals on an endless chase. So, Silver gave chase. He kicked his jet engine into gear, clenched a fist, and shot after him into his father's stronghold. At once he was surrounded by Eggman's machines, several of which appeared confused about whether to target him or not. Silver privately grinned to himself upon noticing that. Eggman hadn't updated the older models to read him as a threat. Mecha would have scoffed at the inefficiency of it all!

Shadow, meanwhile, pressed on with a rage and conviction he had not felt so intensely before. He snarled as he tore through Eggman's mechs, destroying machines that stood much taller than him without so much as a flinch. The mission was clear. Weaken Eggman's forces to dampen his retaliation against the Black Arms. Lifting metal platforms and hurling them ahead to crush Egg Pawns was no effort at all with the adrenaline shooting through his body. Behind him, he could hear something approaching fast. Shadow decided to use Chaos Control to warp himself further ahead of them. He had no further business with the nosey Eggman robot here. He shut his eyes, drew the power of Chaos into his body, bringing a bright glow around his form-

And dropped into a room several hundred feet ahead. With his eyes still closed, Shadow slowly rose to stand, attempting to regain his composure. No more robots chasing him here, he could finally calm down...

That was until he opened his eyes and immediately saw something strange in front of him. His eyes trailed up, slowly, to find a machine that wore his face, his body, almost everything about him - but in steel.

"Huh? What the..." Shadow backed up several steps as his jaw dropped. "How can this be? Who are you?"

His blood ran colder the longer he stared on. His vision started to blur and blacken, and he felt himself falling dizzy with shock. No, this couldn't be right. He had to be imagining this. Maybe it was just one of Doom's illusions. Maybe it was nothing. His hope was quickly crushed when, over his head, Eggman entered in his Egg Mobile with an arm slung lazily over the side. He drove the Egg Mobile in a wide circle around his androids to address them as they stood stone-still. Not a single one responded or even acknowledged his presence. As if they were long dead.

"Listen up Shadow Androids. The Eggman fleet is strong but those black creatures are a formidable adversary! I must return to the base to devise a new plan."

Shadow watched, lost and cold as Eggman disappeared into the depths of his base. He stood before the android army with new fears. New questions. New sources of pain.

"Shadow... Android? Am I... an android too?" Shadow whispered to himself, feeling his hands shake as he moved them.

Shit. Shit. Shit. This changed everything.

Shadow turned and took off into the base, rushing through walls of iron and tree.

"I imagined that. I imagined the doctor too."

He took a sharp left and destroyed a row of Egg Pawns with a messy homing attack. All rational thought had long left his head. The fact that he had bled blood back in Glyphic Canyon was lost on him.

"That wasn't real. I can't just be..."

"One of them?"

Shadow was actually glad to hear that voice behind him. He slowed his pace slightly to allow the robotic double of his rival to catch up.

"You saw it, too?" Shadow asked with a forced monotone.

"I did. But there's a quick litmus test for that question of yours..."

Shadow did a double take, eyes wide with horror but hope. Silver reached over, grimaced a little at what he was about to do, and then lightly punched the hedgehog in the shoulder right over his bullet wound. Shadow hissed and went to retaliate, but quickly realized what the point of that was - he looked to his shoulder and saw new blood. It stained his black fur red instantly. Silver whispered an apology and pressed his cold hand over it hard, stopping the blood flow immediately.

"Sorry. Androids don't bleed red, last time I checked. I think you're clear."

"Don't touch me." Shadow hissed, drawing his arm back away from the robot.

"Sorry! Bleeding just isn't good for organics, so I was trying to help."

Shadow paused, frowning with his ears pinned back. Silver just grinned at him. The mismatched pair continued through the jungle fortress at a slower pace.

"I don't need your help. Leave me be." Shadow murmured but put no more space between himself and the robot.

"Speaking of help, why did you want to defeat my brother if you had no memory at all? You helped everyone else to do that."

"Because... Rouge. She asked Omega and I to team up to look for the doctor." Shadow responded lowly.

"Why did you listen to her?" Silver ventured further, curious. He dodged an Egg Pawn's bazooka.

"I... protected her, before. From Omega." Shadow clarified, skating around a GUN soldier who spun around to watch him flash on ahead.

Silver frowned. "Why?"

"Because Omega was going to hurt her." Shadow set his jaw.

"But why did you care if you didn't know who she was?" Silver continued to press him.

"Because... it was not right. She would have stood no chance against him. And... she became an ally to me."

Silver smiled a little. He rolled his wrist, gesturing for Shadow to continue with this line of thinking.

"We became a team. We battled a robotic copy of the doctor. I remember feeling... angry. It led me to believe that, perhaps... I wasn't real. Not like the others." Shadow recounted with a frown. "Before that, the fake doctor claimed that I had no past to remember."

"Fake doctor, huh..." Silver tilted his head in thought, all the while jumping over the head of an Egg Pawn. "Oh! That would have been my brother. I heard he put on a good show of catfishing as our dad. Don't pay any mind to what they said, dude. That was just my bro having a breakdown. Pay whatever he said to you no mind... my bro's a good person, they just weren't in a rational state of mind back then."

"Hmm."

"But the thing I'm getting at here is, you saved the world when you had even less of an idea of who you are. You literally woke up and just... chose violence, but the hero kind. So what's different now? What changed? Why do you stand by and let this happen now?"

"The memories," Shadow admitted hesitantly.

"When do they come?"

"When I'm alone, or when Doom is near."

"Ah, bingo! Alone. That's the common denominator here."

Shadow carefully put these pieces together in his mind. Isolating himself had brought these memories to the surface, which was both good and terrible. He would need to face them one day, but now he was facing them in the middle of a global crisis. Not exactly the therapist's chair in a white-walled room. Perhaps this had been the beginning of his descent into dangerous levels of apathy toward the world.

"It's okay to lack empathy, dude. Mecha? She didn't have one megabyte of the stuff when we first met. She's learned how to interact with others over time. She does what she believes is kind. But even if she stayed totally uncaring, that would still be fine. Empathy isn't what makes a person good or bad. It's how you respond to people in need that matters, you know?"

"Hmm."

Shadow moved to break through an Egg Pawn, but Silver quickly threw an arm in front of him and stopped him.

"Wait. They're my family. Please don't hurt them, they don't understand what's going on." Silver urged him, looking worried.

The Egg Pawn pointed its makeshift steel bar lance at the pair, pointing it at each of them in turn.

"Commander Silver?! Why have you come back?" The Pawn demanded to know.

Silver approached with his hands up. "Easy, easy. I'm not going to hurt any of you if I can help it. Please let us pass. Our dad wants to hurt Shadow and I need to tell him to stop."

The Pawn slowly withdrew its lance, earning confused looks from the other Pawns around it.

"There's no need to fight..." Silver continued, reaching out to slowly push the metal bar all the way down. "None of us need to. GUN will stop, I have connections. But you guys have to promise not to hurt the humans either."

"Commander Silver, I... we have our orders!"

"Please understand. Nobody has to die in this place. And once this is all over, find me here." Silver continued, promptly sending the Pawn's coordinates to his family's warehouse home. "I know you're protecting our dad's base, but you don't need to risk your lives for that. I'll get this sorted quickly, I promise."

The Pawn nodded. "We are outnumbered. It would be a good strategy to pull a truce."

"Exactly. One truce coming up! Tell everyone else! Thanks!"

Shadow followed after him, just a few strides behind. Silver didn't look back as he fired off ahead.

"Shadow, I know we're not friends-"

"Very astute of you, little faker."

"But we gotta work together to get through this."

Shadow could see Sonic in the robot. The way he promised to bring the different sides together. The way he walked up to someone armed and didn't flinch. The way he still strived to work with Shadow despite his closed-off grumbles and snips. It made Shadow think more. Just how much of Silver was Sonic? Did he struggle with identity as well? Perhaps he and the three robot brothers weren't so unalike in their struggles. Perhaps he had dismissed them too hastily.

He was brought out of his musings by the sight of Eggman's airship driving by, towards the inner base. He watched as the little robot up ahead seemed to fight his own battle with the sight. Longing for something, but determined to focus on the situation at hand anyway. As they neared the grand hall, Shadow felt the pull of Chaos tugging at his very core.

Eggman had a Chaos Emerald. He would be giving it up.

In the main hall stood a red, circular platform. The steel walls around formed a hexagon-like shape, closing any intruders in like rats in a cage. This was Eggman's design, and the two hedgehogs knew they had reached an important section of the base. Upon entering they triggered a motion sensor. From the platform rose a new machine, and Eggman sat proudly atop it in his cockpit. He beheld the pair with a mixture of surprise and outrage.

Shadow unfolded his arms. "I must speak to the doctor. Let me go first."

"Alrighty. If he looks at you funny, I'll bite him." Silver replied easily, letting Shadow take the lead.

Shadow stepped ahead of Silver to address Eggman himself.

Eggman was quick to snap at him. "Shadow and Silver? Why, you traitors... you two want to stop me? Move aside!"

Shadow clenched a fist with conviction. "Doctor, I need to know... those androids, the ones that look like me-"

"Yes, you are an android." Eggman lied quickly and easily, not wishing to hear the rest of Shadow's sentence.

"What? That's not what I-"

"You and Silver Sonic are my creations! But you betray me as you both stand here before me! I will destroy you both, turning you into scrap metal!"

At this point, Silver stepped to stand beside Shadow. He beheld the newest recruit with a mixture of intrigue and irony.

The Egg Breaker. Similar in build to the Egg Emperor that the heroes had faced upon the Final Fortress, where Neo had once piloted it. This copy, ironically placed, was painted a striking red, yellow and blue all over rather than gold. The machine now sported Neo's own painted colour scheme - either an oversight on Eggman's part, or a homage to his estranged son who had once piloted a very similar machine in his place. Looking higher, one would lay eyes on the man of the hour himself - Eggman, sitting in the open cockpit of the machine. The lack of protection struck the two hedgehogs as... odd. Either Eggman was overly confident, or he had a death wish in the midst of this invasion.

The devilish grin of this red, blue and yellow robot instantly set an equally as chaotic grin on Silver's face. He wandered up towards it without a shred of fear. It was like his older brother was smirking down at him from afar.

Silver stopped right in front of it and stood with a hand on his hip. "Hey, dad! What's the name of your pet? Does he bite?"

Eggman leaned down to look at him, smirking. "This, my dear boy, is my prized Egg Breaker."

Silver tilted his head, grinning back. "Ironic name considering the fact that we're here to break some eggs ourselves."

Eggman scoffed at him. "You get that one from that blue menace?"

"I dunno, where does my blue menace programming end? Are we getting psychological up in here?"

"No, we're getting smashy up in here, you little pest. I created you, Silver. I'll un-create you if you don't back down."

"Uh-huh. Un-create me if you think that'll save the world, but you know it won't."

"You think I'm in this to save the world?! No! The Eggman Empire can't exist without a city to build it in. This is for my own gain."

"There's a small part of you that disagrees," Silver argued.

"Are we getting psychological up in here?" Eggman repeated back mockingly. "Come on, son. You know who I am! You think I care for anyone else? I hate all of you equally, so I'm not weighed down by foolish friendships, and I don't feel bad about screwing any of you over for my own gain!"

"See? That's why I can't let myself forgive you, even though I know you want me to- I mean, for Chaos' sake, you just called me your son." Silver stated firmly.

"Why not forgive me?"

"You'll take advantage again."

"... Smart boy."

Silver's optics panned down to the Egg Breaker's frame, studying it. "Is this robot sentient at all?"

Eggman sat back with a laugh. "I'm sitting up here with my hands on the controls, so what do you think? I thought I made you craftier than that... and to think I just called you smart."

"Then it's fair game to us. Enough emotional chit-chat. Now, show us what this new pet can do!"

As the battle began, Silver monitored his opponent's movements. It immediately fell back on using lasers, which it fired at both hedgehogs in turn. So, Silver took time to scan it as he bounced around it, hopping from position to position. Curious, the Egg Breaker was capable of so much more than Eggman was directing it to do. It could throw bombs horizontally multiple times in a row. It possessed a spiked, ball-shaped hammer that could smash organics into a pulp and could regenerate as well for extra measure. But no, all Eggman asked it to do was shoot lasers from its eyes. Not the most original attack for a robot, but Silver digressed - what mattered more was the lack of close-range attacks. His attention wandered to the turrets and rockets scattered around the outskirts of the platform. Did Eggman want them to beat him?! Judging by his calculations, which he fumbled a few times admittedly, he guessed that this giant robot could be beaten in 45 seconds. Mecha would have given a prediction within milliseconds and with terrifying accuracy already.

"Get back here you little robotic rodent!" Eggman yelled after him.

Silver only laughed as he continued to zip between the machine's legs to disrupt its balance. "Guess who's back in the mouse!"

Shadow huffed to himself at his new companion's antics, focusing on finding a weak spot as best as he could. Turns out the fakers could be just as insufferable as the real blue pincushion-

"Behold, the power of my latest, greatest creation!" Eggman cackled with glee as a laser just grazed Shadow's side, barely singing his fur.

Silver hopped to a halt, concerned. "What am I, chopped liver- oh shit, you good Shadow?"

"Hmph. I'm the Ultimate Lifeform, this is just a scratch." Shadow dismissed him, now searching for a weapon.

Silver caught Shadow's movements and figured what he was looking for. "If you use a gun, you can take this big guy down in 23 shots. You take half, I'll take half."

"That leaves an odd number." Shadow argued for the sake of arguing.

"Then may the fastest hog win. You a good shot?"

Shadow took a Flash Shot pistol from the floor. "Don't take me for a weakling."

Silver took the nearest semi-auto rifle, clicked the top slide and checked his sights, admiring the gun's build. Not anything special like his personal weapon, but it would do for this exchange. "I'm something of a long ranger myself. I'll be the long-range guy, you be the lone-range guy. We're like a fucked up little duo with guns."

Together, the hedgehogs took shot after shot at the Egg Breaker until it cracked. The hulking machine toppled back against a wall and sat defeated, steam rising from its joints now.

Eggman slammed his fists on the controls in a predictable fit of rage and disappointment. "No! You horrid little- you destroyed my beautiful greatest creation!"

"You're doing the most up there. The utmost." Silver remarked, slinging his new rifle over his shoulder.

Shadow hopped up onto the cockpit and stood with his arms folded, looming over Eggman. He made a point of loosely aiming the Flash Shot at him.

"I need answers, doctor." Shadow spoke with a growl in the back of his throat.

"Alright, alright! Those Shadow Androids are part of my army and I didn't create you." Eggman finally relented, throwing his arms up in defeat.

"Then who did?" Shadow felt tension rack his body. The prospect of gaining more knowledge was an intense need.

"Bah! As if I would tell you. What have you done for me, except destroy my prized creation? Don't take me for a fool, Shadow."

Shadow tried another angle, prodding spikily. "Why do they look like me?"

"Why not?! Isn't it so delightful, Shadow? Mirror images of you! You should be proud! You're part of the face of the Eggman Empire!"

Shadow grimaced, disgusted. "I am not proud. This is not enough, doctor. I need to know more. Now speak, before I make you."

"You have a lot of nerve for someone who doesn't even know what day it is! Tell me, Shadow. Why did you bring my son into this?"

Silver pulled a face. He had used the same quip when talking about Shadow. Like father like son, he guessed. Just in a horrible, twisted, evil-doctor-who-wants-to-take-over-the-world's son way.

"I did not bring him. He brought himself," Shadow replied factually, "so don't change the subject."

Silver hopped up to stand next to Shadow, looking to him with a grin. "What can I say? Us hedgehogs have a habit of showing up uninvited. Double that chance if the hedgehog has a hobby involving keeping the entire world from certain disaster."

Eggman looked to both of them, his gaze flicking between them in a mixture of disbelief and amusement. "Hah! Well, this is an unexpected friendship. Well, as I always say the more the merrier! This only makes crushing you two more fun for me. I'm out of here!"

"Wait. You have something that belongs to me." Shadow leaned down towards Eggman with a scowl and his fur began to stand on end.

Eggman grumbled and tossed the purple Chaos Emerald to the floor. "Fine, fine! It's yours. Now get out of my sight, both of you."

Shadow's gaze quickly flicked to Silver, watching to see if he would make a run for Emerald, but he did not. Satisfied for now, he gave a nod and hopped down to claim it. With the Emerald recovered and Shadow out of the way, Silver kept his focus on Eggman.

"You're never gonna change. I'm at peace with that, I think. But don't hurt Shadow. Don't come for any of us whilst the world is at stake. We need all the help we can get, and that includes you. When you start taking over the cities for your stinky empire, we'll be there to take you down - just not right now. I've asked GUN to form a truce with your robots."

Eggman openly laughed at him. "Oh! This is rich! My boy, you think GUN will let me walk free during this?! You're just as naive as ever."

Silver jumped down from the Egg Breaker's frame to stand on the ground instead. "Of course not, but you're a lesser evil right now with some terms and conditions. The difference between you and the Black Arms invading the planet is... we can contain you. And when you do try to take over the cities again for the empire, we'll rise to stop you again. Comprende?"

Eggman was silent for a long moment. "How are Mecha and Metal doing?"

The child in Silver almost wanted to buckle and tell him. But he, like the iron construct of the base he stood in, remained strong.

"And that is classified info. Later."

With that said, Silver fired a missile from his middle finger to break a hole into the wall to his left. He gestured for Shadow to follow, and then the two jogged out into the open night once more. It was very strange that Doom hadn't appeared to distract or reprimand Shadow yet. Especially considering all these revelations. That couldn't be good, and both of them noted the lack of manipulation that was happening. A change from the normal pattern. Now, Black Doom had become unpredictable. Neither of the hedgehogs liked that. They would need to meet up with the brothers and then challenge Doom.

The two slowed to a walk under the moon, stepping over discarded guns on the way.

Silver stretched his arms up above his head, working his joints. His frame had become a little tense after that last exchange with his father. "So... you really don't like the idea of being an android, huh. Why is that? Being a machine isn't the end of the world."

"I would prefer to be real..." Shadow mused in a low voice.

Silver paused with one arm up now, considering the implications of that. "You are, no matter what you're made of. Your brain and my CPU are one in the same. We're both capable of the same thoughts, same feelings, same bullshit. Like I said, not the end of the world."

Shadow frowned in thought. "It leaves room for my creator to manipulate my memories. I do not know if what I see and feel is... real."

"And isn't Doom already doing that to you?" Silver pointed out. "Organics and machines can be manipulated in similar ways, if the machine is built with similar thoughts and feelings... so you'll figure out what's been programmed into your mind and what's real. You'll know because you'll feel it. You can't attach genuine emotion to something entirely made up with no basis."

Shadow fell silent, frowning harder to himself as he reflected. He knew the crushing weight of feeling that came with remembering her. If the robot was right, then that had to be real. The pull of Chaos was real. The conviction he had when he set his sights on something was real. The way he immediately acted to protect Rouge with no fear or hesitation was real. Maybe... what he felt was who he was. The default scowl on his face slowly faded with the realization. The grief he felt was real, more real than anything else he had ever felt, and it meant he did have something to fight for in her memory. He just had to figure out what that was.

Silver smiled by his side, watching Shadow think. "You're getting it now, aren't you?"

"Again, don't pretend to know me, little faker." Shadow shook his head, tossing the purple Emerald up and down in one hand. His eyes wandered to the bromeliads, the ferns, and the Monstera plants that climbed the trees, whose roots knew no confinement in any pot. If a god had a living room, this place would be just that. A jungle that stood grander than any cathedral, it was creation incarnate. He looked to the nurse tree, wherein little trees nestled close to them. The circle of living was right there, the old, the new, in the greatest sense of perspective.

Silver smiled beneath a utile tree. "I don't know you yet. But I have an idea of who you are, and I like him so far."

The hummingbird represented rebirth.