He was warmed, by the warmth of his own thoughts, and the cider, it felt nice too, as he gulped it down, nearly burning his tongue, watching as the stars were fading away fast and the throes of morning was beginning to awaken…
He heard a knock on the roof of the house, the glass window on the ceiling that always shined through the sun room, the knives of light pricking through their eyes, opening.
Rouge had prepared more cider, the warm apple broth beginning to resonate inside the pot, and she peeked out of the crevice, and sat next to Sonic staring at the stars, her hands folded and tucked beneath her legs, the long stretch of morning beginning to spill out in the sky, the pink and yellow paint emerging…
She thought she had told Sonic too much. Too much of everything.
"I'm sorry," she said. "But Shadow can't come this Christmas. He's…very busy. Very busy with a lot…of things. Stop waiting for him, Sonic. He isn't coming."
Sonic could only grin at her, his teeth so pearlish, so opalescent. "He's coming. I know when he is. He is the scar of the morning sky. He told me that. He told me when the sun arrives, he will be there too."
"How long have you been waiting there, Sonic?"
He looked away, his cider cup becoming cold, the steam rising away from the plunging moon and into the bright golden arteries of the sky. He wasn't sure if he could give her the exact answer. So he said, "5 hours."
"I've been making you cider all night long for you to just wait for Shadow? Come inside hon, it's too cold out here. He isn't coming. He won't come for…" She stopped, her irises titillating. She wasn't sure if he would ever be back.
He shuddered. His scarf wasn't enough. But he knew he wasn't going to wear Rouge's sweaters she painstakingly made with her own hands thickened with her fingernails. But he couldn't stop staring at the sun. It promised too much.
He saw birds rising from their roosts, the black wings enveloping the blue chasm of the dawn. He never has seen so many birds, so many ravens especially, swarm the trees, with their wings looking doused with ink.
They were the Indian pen that had added the final touches to the painting. They colored in lines around the sun, to show the intensity of the heat, the red face that had welcomed Sonic into this world, blushing, crying, tickling him with the eyelashes.
Shadow was an angel, he told himself. He had lived in the sky, every time the morning had bled from the sorrows of night, he appeared, and he could feel his face being stroked softly, the angels calling him, heaven beginning to crack open like a gaping mouth, one that had sung of the ultimate sorrows, the ultimate joys.
Sonic had flew towards them, his wings that were birthed by his kiss. His cider had spilled on the house roof, cold and never drunk.