Cream woke up in a complete panic. Her last memory was that of a demonic looking hedgehog biting her ear and not letting go only for her to be picked up by another member of the Royal Family Trembling she wondered what was in store for her next. Why couldn't they just leave her alone?
Sitting upright she nervously surveyed her surroundings which seemed to be a room in some sort of infirmary. Sniffing the air she was surprised to smell herbs instead of medicine. Looking around she noticed that more species of plant than she had ever seen before in her life had representatives in the various plant pots scattered around the room.
Still studying the plants she gently reached for the section of her ear that had been paining her so badly earlier only to feel someone grab her hand and gently push it back to her side. She turned and found herself staring into the eyes of the light purple hedgehog that had rescued her earlier. Even through her sudden panic she noticed that his eyes were a weird pink color like something that belonged on a white lab animal.
"Don't worry, I'm not going to hurt you." Cream simply stared back into his eyes and then started crying again. Concern filled the purple hedgehog's gaze "I'm sorry did I startle you? Is your ear still hurting?" Sniffling through her tears Cream looked up back into his eyes "Whatever you're going to do get it over with! Why won't you just leave me alone?" The purple hedgehog backed away from her suddenly refusing to meet her eyes "I apologize for the trauma you've been through I think it's best that I left you alone." With that he left the room through a door that had been camouflaged by vines and gently shut it behind him.
Cream cried herself to sleep in the strange plant filled room, wishing that she could go back to doing her job, and that this strange purple hedgehog would leave her alone. Meanwhile the lilac colored hedgehog stood just outside the door listening and then left hoping that the young rabbit would feel better soon.
Rose was summoned for work at noon. A royal guard came to her room and knocked on the door. When she opened it he simply signaled for her to follow him. She followed him wordlessly into an assembly of some sort which they quickly walked through and exited through a side door.
The side door lead into an elaborate chambered maze. The guard turned to her. "Wait here until a member of the Royal Family gets you." With that he left through one of the chambers. Rose surveyed the room again which looked more like a cave than a room and wondered where Cream was.
Sitting patiently she didn't have to wait long before someone she recognized approached. Unfortunately for her it was none other than Fleetway. At least she noted as he approached that he appeared to be disarmed as he wasn't carrying his battle axe.
In fact he didn't even seem to notice her, but appeared to be looking for someone or something else entirely. He looked right at her then but his eyes seemed to be looking through her at something that wasn't even there or wasn't visible to her eye. Trying not to attract any attention to herself she stood stock still and observed.
Fleetway was obviously confused "Why are you running from me?" Rose couldn't help but glance in the direction he was looking at but saw absolutely nothing. Fleetway took a tentative step forward almost if here were afraid to startle someone away. "What did I do wrong? I'm trying to be good!" Rose was now convinced that she was in danger and moved quickly out of Fleetway's line of sight watching him carefully. He never even seemed to notice her movement.
"Ebony come back I miss you." Rose watched as Fleetway took off with speed that was impossible for anyone other than Sonic and Shadow and chased his invisible friend Ebony in and out of the multiple chambered area. She could only watch dumbfounded as he ran himself into a state of exhaustion and then collapsed in the corner gasping and still holding a conversation with himself. "Giving in? I'm not giving in into the Chaos. Who told you that?"
Then in an impossibly quick change of consciousness he turned and looked directly at the spot where Rose was hiding. "You get from behind there. Who are you hiding from?" Stepping from behind the rock she stared into Fleetway's insane eyes wondering what was wrong with him. Was he currently dangerous? As if answering her question he immediately entered a state of confusion. "Who are you and where are we?"
Rose discovered that she had just answered her question from earlier "What could possess someone to do something like that?" Fleetway quite possibly might not even remember that he murdered that guard earlier she thought to herself. To test her hypothesis she asked him: "Why did you kill that guard earlier?"
Fleetway looked at her and then got up and ran from the room while yelling at the top of his lungs that he "Hadn't killed or injured anyone. Stop telling Ebony lies about me!?" Rose was shocked at the sudden turn of events but was secretly glad that Fleetway wasn't in whatever mood he'd been earlier when he'd killed the guard. Fifteen minutes later he came back with company.
It was the purple hedgehog that had helped Cream earlier. Rose glanced at him and then noticed that Fleetway was carrying his battle axe and wondered to herself what was about to happen. The mauve colored hedgehog looked at her and spoke "Miss Rose I understand that you were supposed to wait here until I came to get you and I apologize for my tardiness." Rose was speechless.
"Now that I'm here we can go over the rest of your duties for the evening." He glanced at her. "If that's ok with you." She could only nod as she kept a weather eye on Fleetway. The purple hedgehog followed her gaze and sighed. "Fleetway perhaps it would be best if you went and supervised the construction of our latest turrets?" Fleetway left saying they were going to need live targets for target practice with the turrets after they were constructed with a pointed look at Rose.
Completely ignoring Fleetway the Lilac Colored hedgehog spoke to Rose. "For the rest of today your duty is to exercise the king's dragons." She looked at him as if he were crazy for dragons didn't exist or did they? "You are not to feed them, give them water, or clean their enclosures for those duties have already been taken care of, it is your job to ride them around the enclosed flight track for a minimum of one hundred miles each. Understood?" Rose nodded. "The dragons have natures that reflect that of their keepers, so be very careful." With that the mauve colored hedgehog lead her on a walk that seemed to last miles until they reached a door with a pair of guards dressed in all black that radiated a coldness like nothing she had ever seen before. "These are two of the king's guards they will lead you to the dragons." With that he nodded to the guards who blind folded Rose and led her on a march.
About an hour later they removed the blind fold revealing a huge meadow with a pebble track in the center of it. The entire meadow was enclosed in a chaos energy field that prevented anything from getting in or out. As she looked on a curious dragon roughly a hundred times her size with yellow scales and red eyes trotted over to her on all fours and nosed her like a puppy.
The guards turned and left. The dragon laid down on it's belly and looked at her expectantly and then yawned showing a mouthful of fangs. Each fang was bigger than she was. Carefully studying the dragon she approached it. It had bright yellow scales like the petals of a sunflower, cherry red eyes, and a very friendly demeanor in fact it seemed to be smiling at her as she mounted.
Once she climbed on she realized that she had no idea how to ride the dragon, as it had on no gear, as such she had no idea how to communicate with it and was simply along for the ride. It proved easy enough because as soon as she stopped shifting the dragon lifted off and flew around the pebble track exactly four hundred times before landing. She discovered that she actually enjoyed the sensation of flying but had no idea what the next dragon would be like.
Just as she dismounted from that dragon a guard brought over another dragon this one had on a head halter and had smoke curling from it's nose. "This dragon is the personal mount of the war prince and won't let anyone else ride it. He killed his last rider." The guard told her. She studied the dragon it had very long legs, a long whiplike tail, and a very narrow head, but by far it's oddest feature was a strip of fur running from behind where she assumed it's ear would be all the way to a plume at the end of the dragons tail. It's scale were a metallic purple that seemed to change to color depending on how the light hit them.
"You have the option to try to ride this one or just run him around the track and wait until his owner comes back and exercises him." Rose thought about it and then took the head halter from the guard and swung onto the dragons scaly back confident in her riding ability. The dragon turned it's long snakelike head around and looked directly into her eyes before it reared on it's hind legs like a horse took off high into the sky and then flipped upside down. Rose was left dangling from the head halter for dear life. The dragon then looked at her again hissed and bit through it's leather halter in a single decisive bite then watched her as she began to fall to her death.