There were a few things that Sara has always been told by her father: Stay vigilant. Trust nobody. You don't know what could be hunting you. Don't leave the safety of the camp after dark. Her father treated them like a mantra, always repeating and living by them like his very being revolved around following each of them to perfection. All of these rules were painfully drilled into her head from before the time she could even understand them.
Sara didn't originally mind her father's, Tails', rules. She grew up amongst whispers of evil men hell bent on their destruction. When she was younger, she used to hear all types of stories: those of strange, egg shaped men with cruel grins and insatiable appetites for death, stories of friends, turned enemies, that now prowled in search of their last loose end, and most of all, of betrayal. Sickly, stifling betrayal that seemed to make Tails' blood run cold every time he tried to explain it to his daughter.
"They abandoned us, Sara," Tails would always plead to her. "Everything we ever had before this was torn away from us. If you give them the chance, they'll do it all over again, and this will all have been for nothing."
For the most part, at least, Sara believed him. Above all of the fox's stipulations, there was one that she despised most.
Sara kneeled down, checking one of her traps she set up a few days prior. Gently, she lifted the twine around a rabbit's leg with her slender, aged hands. It was one of the many mysteries that surrounded her life: For as long as Sara could remember, she's had this human form, complete with wrinkled, aging skin and silver white hair. Her pale white skin, though mostly unblemished by major scars, looked worn and ancient, like it should have carried the evidence of a lifetime. According to her father, she was just over ten years old, but she neither looked or felt her age. Maybe it was her genetics, being born from a fox, or some other mysterious factor. Right now, neither of them had any idea.
Sara detached the twine from its post, and swung the rabbit over her shoulder. She wiped her brow, looking up through the forest canopy. A glorious mix of blues and whites, just barely tinted by sun beginning to set, stared back at her. She had to get back soon, before her dad lost his mind.
Sara shed her aging human flesh to reveal her true hedgehog form. Idly, she stretched her stiff hedgehog limbs. As she jogged in place and got her blood flowing again, she couldn't help but smile. The life, the speed, the power, that this form gave her was unmatched. With practiced grace, she took her aging skin and folded it neatly, placing it safely in her backpack.
She looked down at a puddle near her feet and smiled. In its dark, though crystal-clear reflection, a purple hedgehog stared back at her, a slight grin on its face.
Tails would undoubtedly disapprove of such a compromising act. Lucky for her, however, she did not care at the moment. For now, what Tails did not know could not hurt him. Given this, she thought it was only fair to. . . stretch her legs a little.
Sara grinned wildly, and took off into the forest. Trees flew by her as brown and green blurs, her body following suit as she tore through the undergrowth. The air she cut through blasted her face and body, causing her to laugh against the wind. The freedom of this form, of all the power right at her paw tips. . . it was a shame that she almost never was able to use it. The things she could do with it were nearly unimaginable.
It was almost funny. All Tails wanted to do was run. But when given the ability to outrun any other person, he wouldn't even consider using it to do so, let alone fighting back. A deep, recurring thought pulsed through her brain, just long enough to register before being pushed back down.
Tails is a coward.
Tails was always running. Always hiding from a mysterious past full of shadowy enemies. Always haunted by nightmares of supposed past crimes and horrors. Sara didn't know whether she should scoff or try, again and in vain, to comfort her caretaker.
She knew, deep down, that the orange fox could be happy. Tails told stories of him and his friends, spending long nights together in a cabin in the woods, or chasing each other up tall, grassy hills at sunset. She remembers a few good days, in those early years, when her father was less paranoid of the demons that haunted him. He seemed like the kind of person who would rather laugh with friends about long old inside jokes, not hide for ten years on the run from his friends turned hunters.
He deserved more than this. They both did.
Sara zoomed back to camp at max speed, screeching to a stop right before barreling into the small clearing that they were living in. Gently removing the rabbits she snared from her back before calmly walking into the campsite.
"I'm ba-,"
Sara stopped dead in her tracks. She lifted her gaze slowly, only to be met face to face with the muzzle of a forty-four caliber Desert Eagle. Carefully, she lifted her gaze from the round maw of the barrel, following the aggressive, angular lines to an orange, shaking arm, before finally meeting eyes with the person wielding the weapon.
Tails looked at her with wide eyes, his whole body shaking from the tips of his tails to his boots. Remarkably, he was still able to level the gun at her chest. Sara held her breath as Tails did his, and for a few, tense moments neither of them dared to move.
Only when Tails' finger started moving itself to the trigger did Sara speak. "Dad," she said slowly, warning laced with calm in her tone. "It's me."
Tails blinked out of his trance, lowering his handgun by a few inches. Without a word, he eyed her purple hedgehog form with suspicion shining in his eyes. Remarkably, he didn't quite lower the weapon from her silhouette.
"Dad?" Sara repeated.
"Save it. Put your skin back on."
"But-"
Tails stares at her, cold and strong as ice. "Don't-," he says, his voice threatening to break on the last syllable. He quickly collects himself. "Don't make me repeat myself."
Sara looked down at the floor, shame and anger building behind her eyes. She hated when her father did that. Her father, for all his advice and complicated metaphors, was weak: He didn't understand that the world was built for them to rule. That he was better than their hatred and malice, that they should reclaim what they lost. Most days, she didn't say anything. She knew how it went, and at this point, it would be illogical to even try. Tails, for whatever reason, lost faith in himself and this world, and wasn't coming back from the pits of despair. There wasn't anything she could do to change that.
But Sara wasn't feeling very logical. Instead, she stood her ground silently, eyeing her father with defiance. After a few seconds, Tails lowered his gun.
"Fine," he said, turning around and pacing around the small clearing. "Pack your things. We're leaving again."
Sara stared at his back in shock. "What?"
"They're close. They're close- I can feel it," he mumbled, just loud enough for Sara to hear. "The forest, the whispers. . . we need to move before they see us."
Sara looked at her father, trying to keep the hurt from showing under her defiance. "But we've only been here a week." she said, her voice low.
Tails snapped his gaze to hers, looking at her sadly in one of his moments of clarity. It was a look she knew well, from their earlier days on the run: a tired mix of love, fear, and pity crossed his orange features, momentarily breaking through the dark cloud of paranoia that embraced his thoughts. His eyes, even if just for a moment, lost that fearful dullness, as he looked at her with the eyes of the father she wished she had. The one she thought she remembered.
They were used to moving like that, the two of them. They would fight, yes. Sara would try to coax that understanding out of her father the best she could, and at the first glimpse of the man she once knew, she would think that he would finally understand. They had their own wobbly, half-broken way of movement that kept them going. They've been doing this for as long as Sara could remember, with varying degrees of extremity.
She wondered, coldly, if her father ever matched up with those golden memories in her head. She remembered the orange fox as kind, shy, and loving, haunted by far away demons that would sneak into his mind whenever a moment of quiet lasted too long. She remembered Tails as a man who sacrificed everything for her. Who kept both of them safe for her sake. Who's moments of clarity outweighed his moments of weakness. Originally, that was the man that she wanted to follow to whatever temporary safety Tails would find.
Sara wanted to follow that cycle, now. She wanted to try and understand her father as he tried to understand her. It was so tempting to fall into that familiar dynamic, and leave this location behind her with her father at her side.
"Oh, Sara. . . I'm so sorry. I-I. . . I know you deserve better than this," Tails said, walking up to her. "But we need to move. You know I wouldn't force this on you if we didn't have a choice, right?"
Sara didn't immediately answer, instead reaching in her pack and pulling out her shedded human skin. It was lifeless in this state, with no body or soul to control its movements. It was hopeless without its backbone to keep it upright. Just a flabby shell of loose material meant to keep what's underneath hidden.
Sara looked up into her father's eyes, and in one revolutionary movement, instead of putting it back on, she threw her wrinkly old skin to the ground.
"Sara!"
"Don't you 'Sara' me,' she snapped as her head shot up, "I've had enough of this… this cowardice! YOUR cowardice!" The anger had overwhelmed her shame.
Tails' eyes widened, almost stumbling backwards in surprise.
"Sara?"
Tensions were rising. "NO! SHUT UP! All we do is hide, and shiver, and cower, and it amounts to nothing! Absolutely nothing!"
He began collecting himself, however. "Sara don't think that I don't know what-"
"I do not THINK you do not know, I KNOW that you do not know how I-"
"That's not what I-"
"I DON'T CARE, TAILS, I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF THIS WORTHLESS CRAPHOLE, AND, AND I, YOU-"
This was the last straw. "YOU'VE HAD ENOGUH?! I'VE RAEISED YROUE ASS FOER OVRE 10 GDODNAM YAERS, YUO THKIN I HVAENT HAD ENGOUHH?! I"
Whether or not it was created intentionally, Sara's fragile ruse instantly crumbled. But Sara, her entire life, hadn't been a quitter, and she wasn't gonna start now. She might have been destroyed by facts and logic, but she had her own trick up her sleeve:
Sara's eyes bristled with tears. "Y-y-y-y-y-you've never unders-s-s-s-stood me, T-Tails!" She screamed wildly, similar in tone and ferocity to a washing machine filled with bricks. "I hate you!"
"You've got to be fucking shitting me, Sarah. I'm not fucking stupid." Tails said, deadpan. But this only made Sara angrier.
"You know what, Tails? I'm going on a walk." She scowled. "I might be back, or maybe I won't. Don't. Get. in. my. Way."
Without giving time for Tails to make a rebuttal, Sara ran into the forest. As she ran, its calming sound began to surround her, leaving the noise and the chaos of their camp as a distant memory.
She and her father have fought before. It was almost never this bad, as they screamed and she flailed like one of those gas station inflatable people, but at the end of the day, she's always crawled meekly back to camp.
Where was there for her to go, after all? With all of their enemies searching for her, almost nowhere was safe. Every few months, Tails would rush wildly into camp, eyes wide, mumbling about how "Eggman" or someone else was just around the corner, and they would pack up and leave. Already, Tails was starting to get nervous about their current spot. Something about "being watched" or whispers of people following them in the dark, shrouded by the mist of the forest night.
However, similar to how Tails had just hit his breaking point, Sara had hit hers. She would not make the same mistakes her dad, no, father, had made. She considered him a dad no longer. Tails was barely a mere guardian at this point, let alone a dad. Where had all the happiness gone? In her early days, they at least had some fun together, but now it was all hide, run, hide, run, escape, hide, get food, hide.
It had been getting progressively worse over the past year, with Tails becoming more paranoid, Sara more agitated, and both of them consistently restless. Maybe she was the reason. Maybe if Tails never had her in the first place he wouldn't be so concerned. She was certain she would rather be captured by this "Eggman" than endure this any longer herself.
There was no more thinking to be done. Only actions could make a difference now.
This is for your own good, Tails, She muttered to herself. There was no point in hiding her tears anymore, but she stifled the crying noises just in case, and took off. She ran, and ran, and ran.
She eventually came to a cliffside, overlooking a small lake a few dozen feet below her. With a not so careful motion, she sat herself down on the ledge, resting her head on her furry paw. Sara blinked, closing her eyes to hide the tears that pitter pattered to the forest floor. She curled her purple, fuzzy hedgehog fist.
Stupid Tails, with his rules, and fears. He doesn't know anything about the real world. She thought bitterly. Maybe that's why he ran away. Because he was too much a coward to fight for himself.
Sara looked down at her 'real world,' watching the ripples in the lake form and dissipate from her disconnected position. The forest was quiet apart from the sounds of her tears hitting the moss covered rocks.
Is there anything out there better than this? She asked herself. There has to be. I have to find out. Without Tails.
Just as she came to this conclusion, a gunshot ripped through the forest, almost causing Sara to fall off the ledge in shock. The sound was distant, muffled slightly by the trees and foliage, but it was still clear above all the other sounds around her.
She heard Tails use his Desert Eagle exactly twice before. Once, she had gotten herself in a chase with some sort of half-bull, two-thirds man creature, only ending with Tails scaring the creature off with the report of his weapon. The other time, Tails had to fight for his life in the face of death. Both times, the loud, angry bark of his distinctive weapon brought the fights to an end, and saved both of their lives. She would never forget the shaky, uncertain feeling that the hand cannon left her.
Sara's blood went cold. She knew the sound of her father's weapon. The gunshot she heard coming from the direction of her previous camp, was not the same sound.
She acted on instinct, immediately tearing in the direction of the camp. Unfortunately the combination of blind had rendered her hedgehog legs not very balance adept, and the forest wasn't exactly an open field. Obstacles littered the scape as she weaved through the maze of trees, but as Sara ran faster and faster, she became less careful, and inevitably tripped.
At such speeds, it's miraculous that the impact wasn't fatal, but as the old saying goes, those sticks and stones still broke her bones. A rock to the toe and a branch to the skull rendered her instantly unconscious.