The Fox and the Seedrian: Frontiers
by milesprower06
Prologue
Cosmo Prower made her way down the dirt path south through the Emerald Hills, carrying along a small portable cooler, which was how she normally took home frozen groceries, unless it was a larger run, in which case she would have taken the hoverbike. Normally, she wouldn't care if a couple frozen products got a little thawed on the walk home, but this was a special item.
They usually took turns doing the heavy lifting on this night, and this year it was Tails' turn, but she still wanted to get something meaningful.
The sun was on the final stretch of its journey across the Mobian sky, inching towards the horizon, turning the sky deepening shades of orange as dusk approached. The path went along the coast until it turned sharply to the right, and began weaving through the trees as it ascended, giving any experienced hiker a decent workout. The descent took almost half the time that the ascent did; going down to the outskirts of Topaz Harbor only took about forty minutes on foot, because one could go much faster going down than you did going up.
She came to the crest of the hill, and the trees began to clear, giving way to a pair of structures, one far larger than the other. The large steel and tin-roofed structure was the hangar for her husband's aircraft throughout the years, containing every single tool imaginable that it would take to maintain them, and it was the one part of the property that hadn't seen a lot of change, unlike everything else.
Before they had come into each other's lives, the fox's living quarters had been a crudely simple wooden shack, with what could barely be considered sleeping quarters and a small kitchenette. That had been replaced with what stood next to the hangar now; a one-story plexiglass house made up of hundreds of individual panels, each one adjustable to be entirely transparent, completely opaque, or anywhere in-between. It was the perfect way to let natural sunlight in absolutely anywhere in the home. The size of the dwelling could still be considered modest, but there was more than enough room for themselves and their daughter.
Behind the house was an enormous tree, the centerpiece of a miraculous garden that the fox had planted in the year that it took Cosmo to slowly regenerate from the power of the Chaos Emeralds. The alien tree almost had an ethereal glow to it in the fading light of the evening, and it was the only one of its kind on Mobius.
Miles 'Tails' Prower's real estate didn't end there. Behind the garden, under the hill that gradually descended to the beach of the Sapphire Sea, was his underground lab and launch bay for his largest space-worthy craft. From there, he, along with his longtime human friend Christopher Thorndyke, and their robotic assistant Bokkun, ran Topaz Harbor Technologies, a scientific and technological endeavor to better lives all across the planet. Chris didn't live up here with them, but with his wife Helen much closer to Topaz Harbor, as next door neighbors of Tails' best friend Sonic and his wife Amy Rose.
For their part, Cosmo, Helen, Amy, and their close family friend Cream ran a flower shop in downtown Topaz Harbor, selling the most beautiful floral arrangements that one could find on this side of the continent. So with the males working with nuts and bolts, and the females working with bouquets, they had created a comfortable life for themselves here.
It had been one of the most peaceful periods Mobius had known in over half a century.
Excited at the possibilities of what her husband had been up to leading up to tonight, Cosmo came up the front walk, and opened the front door, smiling softly at the dim lighting of the small entryway, and the rose petals that had been sprinkled on the carpet, leading down the hall and turning into the kitchen. Undoubtedly Tails had heard the front door open, so there was no need to make her presence known. Taking her shoes off, she walked barefoot across the rose petals, went down the hall, and turned into the kitchen, seeing her twin-tailed husband waiting there at the dining room table, smiling warmly at her.
He got to his feet, and stepped towards her, tearing up a bit at the eight-pointed Polaris pendant she was wearing around her neck, remembering the night he had given that to her when he proposed. He stepped forward again, offering her the small bouquet of ten roses; one for each year they had been together.
"Happy anniversary, my love," Tails greeted her, embracing her as she set the cooler down, immediately returning the embrace, taking in the warmth of his fur. Once she parted from the embrace, she took one of the roses, and held it under her nose, taking in the fresh fragrance.
"Here's to eleven," Cosmo said, leaning in and kissing her husband.
"I hope the walk made you hungry," Tails said.
Looking down at the cooler, Cosmo leaned down to pick it up, and was going to take it over to the counter, but saw that the dining room table had curiously not been set for dinner, so she just picked it up, set it on the table, and opened it, reaching in and taking out the two pint container of hand-churned mint ice cream, offering it to her husband.
"In case you didn't have dessert planned," Cosmo said with a smile.
Tails smiled warmly at the anniversary gift, which had come from Topaz Harbor Creamery, which arguably made the best ice cream on the coast. The two of them never went all-out or crazy expensive for their anniversary gifts, preferring smaller, more personal and romantic ways of showing their continuing affection for each other.
"Well, I might have, but if it's not enough, we always have this. Thank you so much," Tails said, hugging her again, careful not to press the freezing container between their two bodies. He went to the freezer to put away the container of ice cream, along with the ice packs that had been keeping it cold on the walk home, while she went to the sink to quickly fill a vase with water, and slid the ten roses in, setting them on the dining table. They wouldn't be there for long, not because they were eventually going to wilt, but because she'd take them out to the garden and replant them, where they'd be absolutely no worse for wear.
One of the perks of being a plant-manipulating seedrian.
After that, Tails offered his wife his arm at the patio door. She slid her arm around his, interlocked their fingers, and he slid open the patio door, walking her outside towards the garden, and her eyes widened when she saw what he had done.
The path of rose petals continued out to under the canopy of her tree, where a small table for two had been set up in the grass. A pair of candles were flickering in the gentle breeze, and it looked like salads had already been prepared. They walked up to the table, and Cosmo was taken aback at just how elegant everything looked.
"Were you really at work all day? No way you did this just in the time it took me to get home," Cosmo teased playfully.
Tails smirked innocently.
"I was in the lab all day, I promise… And maybe Amy has been sneaking over here for a few weeks giving me lessons on making food look fancy," he said, pulling her chair out and waited as she sat down.
"Fancy is certainly one word. I'd say we're at a five-star resort by what's on this plate," Cosmo praised, taking in the precise placement of every cut piece of fruit, every split nut, and how the vinaigrette dressing had been expertly drizzled over the greens.
"Well, our garden certainly seems to help the atmosphere as well… As does the present company," Tails said, blushing lightly. Cosmo felt her cheeks warm as well as she picked up the glass container of raspberry vinaigrette dressing and drizzled it over the assorted greens and toppings. Then she took her fork and began collecting fruits, nuts, and greens for her first bite. He always was a sweet talker when he wanted to be.
"You sure Lily didn't help with any of this?" Cosmo asked.
"Nah, you know how's she's been lately, unable to stand mom's and dad's 'mushiness' and all that," Tails answered.
"She's just at that age, sweetheart. When she finds that special someone, I think she'll come to understand," the seedrian assured him.
Tails knew Cosmo was right, as he started into his salad as well. They were a tight-knit family, but Sonic, Amy, and Vanilla had been warning him for a couple years that there would come a time when Lily would want less to do with her parents, and more time to herself and her own hobbies and interests. He found the most trustworthy advice usually come from Vanilla, as Sonic and Amy were talking about things that they hadn't experienced yet; their daughter was five years younger than Lily was, and their chats usually reiterated what they had been reading in parenting books, that Tails had generally already read.
To the credit of their parenting, Lily had taken after her mom and dad quite handily; she loved flying, working on her own plane, and gardening almost equally. Flying the Tornado III had been one of the greatest thrills of her childhood, and the small amount of plant-manipulating agrokinesis that she had kept from their trip to the seedrian homeworld of Green Gate had only continued to blossom further as she had gotten older; nearly half of the expansive garden in the back yard was from her hands and powers.
"So where is she tonight, if she's not near any of this lovey-doveyness?" Cosmo asked.
"She's over at Sonic and Amy's, babysitting Aurora," Tails told her.
Of course. The four of them had been married on the same day, at the same time, right next to each other, at the Altar of the Emerald. So Sonic and Amy were also celebrating their tenth wedding anniversary tonight, and knowing Amy, she had gone all-out.
From the amount of flatware on both sides of their plates, Cosmo knew this wasn't the only course as she finished the final bites of her salad. As if on cue, her husband got up, collected both plates and salad forks, and quickly took them into the kitchen. A couple minutes later, he returned out to the backyard with a pair of plates in his hands. Cosmo's mouth immediately watered again as Tails set the first plate in front of her, and she looked down at a hot, juicy filet mignon medallion, fresh mashed potatoes and gravy, and steamed asparagus.
"You certainly went all out tonight, sweetheart," Cosmo commented as he set the second plate down at his place at the table across from her.
"Did you honestly expect anything less for a night like tonight?" Tails asked in return, winking at her, getting a smirk from his wife. He grabbed the bottle of wine that had been chilling in the bucket of ice on a smaller table right to the side of the dining table, put a corkscrew into the top, and pulled the cork off with a pop, and poured the red wine into the glass next to Cosmo's plate.
"From the Emerald Hill Vineyards, bottled in the year that we met each other," Tails commented as he nearly topped the glass off, before moving it over to his own, before sitting down, and picked up his glass and held it towards his wife.
"Happy anniversary, Cosmo."
The seedrian smiled at the fox sitting across from her, as she picked up her own glass, and gently clinked the rim against his glass.
"Happy anniversary, Tails."
Sonic walked down the dirt path to the home that he shared with his wife, Amy Rose, who was walking alongside him, and was just as inebriated as he was, due to the bottle of Emerald Hill Vineyards in her right hand, which had barely a quarter of wine remaining in it after their anniversary dinner downtown.
"Wish I could run as fast as you," Amy said, leaning on her husband for balance. "I could probably work that amazing meal off in no time."
Sonic chuckled.
"Well, with how much of that bottle we've downed, I doubt I'd be running anywhere right now," the blue hedgehog replied. "Right now I'm just hoping to not regret this absolutely phenomenal evening in the morning, if you know what I mean."
Sonic felt Amy nod as she continued to rest her head on his arm as they passed Chris and Helen's house and went up the front walk to theirs. Sonic reached forward for the door handle, turned it, and slowly opened it, and Amy leaned up on her own power, as they wouldn't be able to go through the front door side by side.
Right inside was the den, with the only light on being a tableside lamp next to the couch. On the couch, sleeping soundly, was their babysitter they had hired for the evening, Lily, Tails' and Cosmo's nine-year-old daughter, who was all too happy to do the hedgehogs a favor for the evening and get away from her parents' mushiness.
"Did we really stay out that long?" Amy softly asked as they saw the fox-seedrian positively passed out on their couch.
"Yes, yes we did," Sonic replied, glancing at the clock on the wall, seeing that with eating and dancing right up until closing time, as well as taking their time on the walk home, that it was only thirty minutes to midnight.
"Well, no reason we can't leave her be until morning, come on," Amy said, gently pulling on Sonic, taking him further down the hall, leaning into the kitchen to set the nearly empty bottle of wine on the counter. "Let's go check in our little bundle of joy."
After quietly stepping forward to turn off the lamp on the end table, the pair of hedgehogs went further down the hallway, towards their bedroom, and stopped at the door before theirs, finding it halfway open. They peered into the bedroom, and saw their lilac-coated, four-year-old daughter, Aurora, tucked snugly into bed and slumbering.
"Not nearly as mischievous when she's sleeping," Amy whispered.
"Well, let's just make sure we don't end the night by making another one just like her," Sonic replied, snickering.
"You're incorrigible!" Amy replied in a hushed whisper, playfully shoving her husband back out into the hallway. But in their current state, she had to admit that the blue hedgehog had a good point. Their daughter could be a handful sometimes, but what child wasn't? It was all part of starting a family. "But good idea… Let's join these two and get a good night's sleep."
Arm in arm, Sonic and Amy continued down the hall, and quietly entered their own bedroom. They both climbed into bed and slid under the covers. Sonic leaned over and kissed his wife.
"Happy anniversary, sweetheart."
A/N: This story has been simmering in my head for around the past eight months, and I eventually got around to getting the start of it written out to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Sonic X on April 6th, 2023.
With my MLP content that I'm working on over on Fimfiction, it will likely be awhile before this story is finished, but putting into my writing pipeline along with my other stories, I'm hoping I can get at least one chapter out a month. If it's like my other stories that are likely to go over 30k words, it will probably take me the next year or longer to complete.
If you come along on this ride with me for the next installment in the lives of Tails, Cosmo, and their daughter, then I'm thrilled to have you here! Thank you for reading, and once again happy 20th anniversary to Sonic X!
-milesprower06