Chapter 27
The gathered witnesses to the execution stopped dead in their tracks. Storming in from the door was their Princess, making her grand return like a thundercloud, adorned in dust and dark ash; her crown abandoned in the forest nearly a week ago.
Every knight and servant in the room turned and bowed to her. They each did their best not to stare, but she was such a sight that a few could not keep their wide eyes from lingering behind the shield of their visors.
The King's sword clattered to the ground.
"Amelia!" he said, hurrying across the foyer to his daughter.
Amy walked into the room feeling more like an intruder in someone else's home than a resident returning to her own. She did her best to stand tall despite the discomfort, but still, the castle didn't fit her right as she moved through the open door, leaving the silent and stony Shadow to trail behind her.
Something like affection stirred inside her as her father hurried toward her, arms outstretched. For a brief moment, Amy saw him like she had when she was a young girl: larger than life; towering and pillar-esque, holding up their family and the world around them with all the warm sainthood of a folk hero.
For a wonderful second, she was shocked and touched by his open display of worry. But when he reached her, the King hesitated. The fond memory faded, and the duality of her father settled back on Amy disappointingly. The truth, she knew, was that he didn't know what to do with her and likely never had. She didn't really want to hug him, but he seemed too afraid of the absolute state she was in to even try.
"Father," Amy said, offering him the smallest nod. She couldn't bow - she was so tired that she'd tip over, she was sure.
"Oh, Chaos," the King said, looking her over in shock. "What happened? What did they want? Are you…?"
"Stories for another time," she said quickly. She didn't feel like explaining everything to a man that she knew never really listened - not while she hadn't the slightest clue if Sonic was still alive.
Her stomach flipped anxiously at the mere thought.
"Are thieves being brought in from the raid?" she asked in a rush of panic. "Where are they? You know, I was thinking that we should really wait to sentence anyone…"
Sonic blinked as he watched the hazy pink angel move into the room and talk on and on in clumsy, circular lies. He smiled. Amy talked like that - she always stumbled over herself when she got too passionate or worried or angry. Maybe - the thought struck his battered head painfully - the pink angel was her? Could he be so lucky? He thought he might reach for her, just to see if she was real, but he would never be able to touch her. She swayed slow and soft, too far away from him to be happy about it. He thought, without any sort of hesitation or awareness, perhaps he'd just call to her. Yes, that'd be easier.
"Amy?" he said happily, not sure how loud it came out.
Her head snapped toward him the very moment he started to speak, and he smiled. The angel…it really was her. And she was looking at him. The knowledge alone made him feel so, so much warmer.
Amy's mouth fell open when she heard his unmistakable voice. She hadn't seen him before, slumped on his knees behind her father and a handful of knights. But there he was, small and looking utterly lost in the grand, stone room.
Annoying, soft emotions filled her veins and flowed all the way to her fingertips as she met his eyes; relief, exasperation, and desperate, insatiable longing. To her great distress, she didn't feel very angry at him. In fact, her first instinct was to run to him and crush her body to his; her lips to his -
"How dare you!" the King roared, turning back toward Sonic. All the knights in the room put their hands to their swords, ready to slit his throat at the wave of a hand.
"Oh!" Amy gasped loudly. The sound flew from her in a panic that Sonic might have blown their cover and sentenced himself to a swift death with just one word, but she realized her mistake. Adrenaline shoved her into immediate action.
"Oh! Oh!" she gasped again, turning her reaction into one long, despairing moan dripping with melodramatic disgust. The swords and the movement in the room paused again, much to her relief, as she pulled her hand to her head and wailed unconvincingly, grasping tight to the nearest arm.
That arm was Shadow's. He was right behind her on instinct, but Amy felt him stiffen as she grabbed him. His eyes locked on hers, and she winced. It was painfully obvious: he knew she didn't need help. He knew that she was putting on a juvenile, embarrassing display of theatrics. And to cover for a criminal, of all people. Her kidnapper. She could feel his distaste seeping into her skin from where they were connected - strong hand gripped tight to tense arm.
"Oh - oh my!" Amy cried, pointing at Sonic with a finger that shook just a bit too hard. "That - that horrid man! What's he doing here? Take him away - at once! I… I can't stand to see him!"
The King softened and rushed to her side, gesturing for servants to help the poor lady.
Sonic's face fell, hurt that Amy was apparently scared of him. Her shrieking made his ears ring, and he couldn't understand why she was so upset. Perhaps, he thought in fear, his punishment for what he had done had just been prolonged. This reaction of hers was the right one, finally setting in after a fluke delay. She did hate him, she did want him to leave her alone - that made sense, even if it split him open inside. He opened his mouth again to ask her what was wrong - what he could do - but Amy wailed over him, loud and shrill.
She did it to cover whatever he was about to say. Amy could see Sonic's pupils were cavernous - huge and dark and swallowing his bright green irises. He was not well, and he had to be moved somewhere safe before he blew their cover or got himself killed - fast.
"Darling, wouldn't you rather I take care of him now?" the King asked her soothingly. "He can't be allowed to live any longer, for the sake of this Kingdom - what he's done to it -"
"No!" Amy shrieked, throwing herself off of Shadow and toward her father. She put on her best pout and tried to sound broken - emotionally dependent on getting her way. Rescuable.
"I don't want to see him anymore!" she said, sobbing dryly. "Take him away, take him to the dungeon! A quick death is too good for him - he deserves to rot!"
She had no idea where she was going with her requests but she had no choice but to press on, hopeful direction would find her.
"You're right," the King clucked, putting a kind hand on hers. "We can't take care of this quietly, not with the whole Kingdom buzzing about what happened at the ball. This man should be made into an example for any other thief or peasant. Remind them that the crown is not to be trifled with. Tomorrow, perhaps, we'll have a public execution -"
"No!" Amy cried again, as two knights moved to pick Sonic up from the ground. She reached a hand out for him instinctually, but redirected herself back onto the arm of her father.
"I mean - I don't think that's quite grand enough a death for this criminal, father. It really was so awful in the camp," Amy recovered, adding an overly-done tremble to her voice. "It was nothing but… suffering! Nothing but torment! I only wish… I only wish the whole Kingdom could see his demise! I only wish that his executioner were someone worthy of the task!"
Amy gave her father's arm a hard squeeze. She watched him, searching for signs that she needed to offer him any more hints. She had stumbled on a terrifying, magnificent plan. If only she could lead the King straight to her idea - make him think that he had come up with it.
Her father considered the criminal sitting dazed on his floor for a long, terrifying moment. Amy held her breath, stealing glances at Sonic so she could get ahead of him if he tried to speak again.
Suddenly, the King lit up with a smile.
"A show, eh?" he said with dark delight. "In two weeks, the whole nation will be gathered to witness the Tournament - how's that for a show?"
Amy gasped happily, doing her best to sound surprised by his suggestion.
"Yes," she said. "Yes! Let him be a prize, of sorts - a prize for our next symbol of excellence to win the honor of dispatching."
"It might be just what we need," the King murmured. "The ball… Well, it exposed an uncomfortable crack in the armor of this monarchy to have you carried off like that. To let the Champion deal with this criminal in front of the whole Kingdom would certainly put the fear of the crown back into the lower class."
"Yes!" Amy agreed with a true smile. "That's perfect! Let the Champion deal with him as they see fit - let them decide how best to repay him for what his thieves did."
"Very well," the King said with a nod. "If it will make you… happy. Though, I do not think even that is justice enough for you."
He patted her hand. His best available offer of kindness to her.
Amy returned the gesture half-heartedly. She hadn't thought much of her father during her week of captivity. He was bland, he was willfully small-minded. He would never see her for who she was. But - in his own way - he loved her, and growing up he had made every concession for her that he had thought he could. He had given her what he was willing to, which of course was not enough, but - at least - it was something.
But the duality of her bitterness toward her father was too complex for her to think through - not while Sonic's head was near literally on the chopping block and she was already exhausted beyond the point of comprehension.
"You're right," she sighed in agreement. "It may not be true justice, but the Champion… they'll bring me some peace."
"It's settled, then. Get him out of our sight!" the King commanded.
Amy did her best not to stare as they hauled Sonic away, but she couldn't help stealing one last glimpse. Sonic, on the other hand, made no such efforts to be subtle. His head fell back over his shoulder so he could keep looking at her until the last possible moment. Their gazes met, once again brief but eternal, and in that split second, Sonic smiled at her.
Amy knew he was just concussed. She knew he wasn't fully aware of their situation. But his familiar, lazy grin made her heart beat hard. He smiled at her as though he had not a worry in the world. He smiled at her like she hadn't just wagered his life as easily as pocket change. He smiled, and inconvenient stars blinked back to life in her eyes. She wanted to reach out for him, to hold him, to yell at him, to weep for him. She wanted to talk for hours about what he had done and what she had felt and how they would move on. But they didn't have that time. All she had was his life, once again, in her hands. And even after everything, his life was not pocket change. Not to her.
"I'll visit you tomorrow. We'll speak more on this later," said the King as Sonic disappeared from her sight.
Amy blinked and tuned back into him. He seemed to be doing his best to sound understanding and delicate.
"Don't bother joining me for dinner tonight," he said. "You've been through too much. Rest. Your father commands it."
Amy dipped her head in acknowledgement and left without another word. Without Sonic nearby, all her adrenaline drained rapidly - and her father's stifling presence was no help, either.
As she made her way back to her room with Shadow in tow, she stopped a small cluster of knights in the courtyard. They were all battered and ash-covered from the riot in the camp. They looked distinctly exhausted, but still every single one of them stood and bowed to her, shocked that the Princess would care to speak with them.
"Any of you," she asked, "tell me, was there a red echidna or a fox boy among the arrested thieves?"
"No, your majesty," a knight spoke for the group, slack-jawed. "No, not that I recall."
Amy thanked them with visible relief. At least Tails and Knuckles had escaped, she hoped. She turned away to finally head to her room and stumbled, suddenly overcome by exhaustion and nausea.
Shadow was there to catch her - as he always was. This time, her vulnerability was no act. He took hold of her arm in a hard grip to keep her upright. Amy would've wrenched herself away if she had any strength left at all, but her knees shook under her.
"Sorry," she mumbled, doubled over her empty stomach. She put on a brave face and tried to shake him off.
"I'm okay, I can make it," she lied, sounding sharper than she had meant to.
Shadow didn't bother to argue. He draped her arm over his shoulder and kept his eyes forward as he hurried her to her room. Amy studied his face with cold resignation as he practically carried her along the corridors, fearing for the first time that his stubbornness might rival her own. Perhaps, she thought with dread, he could hold a grudge far longer than she had given him credit for.
Soon enough, they made it to her door. Months ago, Shadow would've bade her goodnight. Not a warm goodnight, necessarily, but a goodnight nonetheless. And Amy would've smiled at him, and something - anything - would've flickered behind his eyes, and she'd feel safer because she knew he would be there, just outside her door, all night long.
Shadow helped her across the threshold of her room and let go, making sure she was steady enough to stand.
"Shadow," Amy turned to him, reaching out to try and grab just a few extra moments with him. She was exhausted, but he was hurt and she simply couldn't stand that thought.
"Your lady-in-waiting will be along shortly," Shadow said, taking one big step back out into the hallway.
"Shadow," she pleaded again. Her voice broke - she used her last bit of strength to beg him to forgive her with just his name. Just one last word.
But the door was already creaking closed behind her. Shadow disappeared into the hall and bolted the door shut on her with all-too-loud finality.
Amy turned from the door with a shaky huff, intent on finding a place to collapse. But as her eyes wandered over the strange room that she supposed had once been hers, she found that nothing in it called to her. The bed was too big, too plush, too intimidating. The bed would swallow her whole. The chairs were too familiar, too warm, too sad. There were one too many chairs for her to fill on her own.
She took a step forward and - to her surprise - simply sank to the ground, unable to keep herself conscious any longer. She didn't fight it. When she hit the floor, Amy felt only immense relief.
To her, the cold stone felt a little like compact dirt. The ground was familiar. The ground was rough. The ground was all she could bear. Between a castle that did not fit her and a camp that pressed too tight on her throat, Amy finally found sleep in the one place they shared between them; laid to rest, like a wanderer, alone on the floor.
Cream opened the door to Amy's room, doing everything she could to stop from weeping with joy in anticipation of seeing the Princess again. She tumbled into the room, expecting to find Amy sunken deep in bed. Instead, she tripped over something laying heavy in a heap on the floor, and cried out in shock.
"What is it?" Shadow appeared in the door before Cream had even finished her shriek.
"Oh, Miss Amy!" she wailed, falling to the ground next to the Princess. She pulled Amy into her lap and held her shaking fingers in front of the Princess' lips, relieved beyond imagining when she felt a soft, warm breath brush against them.
Shadow knelt by the little maid, his movements swift and controlled, though his heart raced.
"It's alright," Cream whispered fiercely, visibly trembling. "She's asleep, just dead asleep. I just - I got scared is all - she must not have made it to bed, and I was startled -"
Shadow closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and moved aside the unwelcome bolt of fear and remorse that had shot straight through his stomach at the girl's cry.
"Collect yourself," he commanded quietly. "I will move her."
Cream nodded and wiped her tears on her apron.
Shadow shifted Amy into his arms and stood, embarrassed to have to hold her like a common child - and in her room, of all places.
He handled her like a servant handling a rather unpleasant heap of rubbish, holding her at arms length and depositing her as quickly as he could into her bed. He turned on his heel and hastened to the door - eager to be free of the charged air in her dark room that, for some reason, felt all but suffocating to him.
"Oh, look at this," Cream gasped quietly.
The sincere pity in the maid's tone made him freeze mid-retreat. With just pace left between himself and the door, Shadow stopped and dared to look back over his shoulder, his gaze cast down at the floor.
"Poor dear," Cream whispered.
His ruby eyes flicked upward just long enough to see the maid's fingers hovering over the dark bruise at Amy's neck. He looked away.
Before, he had been too angry to look at Amy - to really look at her. His anger, in that moment alone with her in the forest, had convinced him that any hell she had been through during the week was one of her own foolish making. But to see her for what she was, exhausted and bruised, he felt the tiniest crack split into his carefully built wall of self-righteousness.
"She must've been through so much," Cream said as she pulled a quilt up around Amy's shoulders. "She must've been so… scared, out there. And so brave."
Shadow moved toward the door - eager to outrun his own guilt.
"Wait!" the maid called to him softly with an outstretched hand. He did.
"Thank you," she said, her voice heavy with emotion. "Thank you for bringing her back, sir. This Kingdom… the people in it… we have no future without her."
Shadow offered the young maid a bow in exchange for her quiet, kind thanks. He recognized the rabbit girl. She had kept him fed without fail for the week. She - like him - believed in Amy.
Had believed in Amy.
He stood and watched the Princess' chest rise and fall just a few more times to satisfy himself that she was alive and well before finally freeing himself from the heavy atmosphere in the room.
As he closed the door once more and took up his post in the hallway, Shadow could feel the thread tying himself to Amy stretched tight. Something deep inside of him was hurt. Was unhappy. Was splitting apart. It took all of his effort just to ignore that something and focus on keeping watch.
Perhaps in spite of him, his mind did not quiet the way it usually did when alone in the unnerving hours of the night. Instead, Shadow spent his shift wide awake and stuck deep in his own ruminating.
He thought hard and unflinchingly on his very nature; how he had always thought he was nothing if not a man of honor. A man who lived to do what was right. A man who did what had to be done. And he had always thought Amy lived the same way - so fiery in the face of injustice, was she.
But now, he knew decidedly that she did not always do what was honorable, or what was right, or what had to be done. She had jeopardized the whole Kingdom for a criminal. She had forgone engagement just to avoid a bit of unpleasantness. She had chosen to lie to him because she knew he would tell her nothing but the truth: that she had made her choices using her heart, and not her head.
And hadn't that always been her problem? He knew that, and still he was angry at her.
Shadow shook his head, alone in the hall. For 10 years, she had built something up in him that he hadn't realized was there until now, when it was stretched too tight, tugging him back toward her. Tethering him to the impulse to forgive.
But to him, forgiveness was something earned. She had chosen her second, and it was not him. So to honor her - an impulse which also seemed written into his nature - he would fight her in the arena. It was a fair and logical solution to his moral predicament: let them duel for their satisfaction like honest men did. If he won, then the blue thief would be his to deal with. That lit a fire under him - yes, he would like to see that man's head on a stake.
But his win would come at a cost to her, too, he knew.
He closed his eyes to try and black out an unsettling vision of the future should she lose. A vision so vivid as to feel like a premonition of her, lying in a heap on the floor like she had been earlier, but without the assurance of her quiet snores and heaving chest to calm him.
He opened his eyes and took a long, deep breath in.
She might win, he reasoned with himself.
Yes, perhaps - unlikely, but perhaps - she would win. Perhaps she would run him into the ground in that arena. Perhaps he would get sick, or make some unprecedented misstep, or meet someone he could not beat in an earlier match. Perhaps she would win, and perhaps underneath all his anger and self righteousness and disappointment - right where that cord bound them together… Perhaps he wanted her to.
His eyes widened. That… thing, he realized - the thing she had planted and cultivated inside him over all their years together - it was hope. He was shocked to realized that he sincerely hoped she could win the Tournament, and - even more terrifying to him - he hoped that her win would be enough to earn his forgiveness.
Amy woke to a pair of glassy, hazel eyes peering down at her.
"Oh, Miss Amy!" Cream sniffed. "I was so worried!"
The lady-in-waiting wrapped her up in a delicate hug and held tight, burying her face in Amy's torso and then pulling back, nose crinkled.
"You're quite the sight!" Cream plucked at the mucky threads of Amy's outfit. "Your beautiful garment… Oh my, Rouge will not be happy!"
"She's still here?" Amy asked, dazed and confused. She didn't recognize where she was. She should be waking up in a freezing tent, legs numb and back aching - not a cush bed.
Cream hurried to pull open the curtains. Amy winced as the unfiltered light hit her eyes.
"Yes, she said that she had to stay and revamp your wardrobe - what with you being the Queen soon and all," Cream said with a knowing smile. "But I suspect she really wanted to stay and make sure you were alright."
She took Amy by the arm and pulled her up to help her out of her week-old rags. Amy watched the last remaining bits of her party clothes hit the ground with glazed eyes. It made her too sad to see glimpses of the beautiful red fabric underneath all the mud - glimpses of the outfit that had at one time been her great triumph, turned into her prison uniform.
Something slipped off of her neck. Amy's hands flew up to grab at the thing, but too late. Whatever it was, it was gone. She operated on too lengthy a delay to comprehend, watching without really seeing as Cream placed an innocuous chain with a tarnished ring hanging from it onto her vanity table.
"Is this… real?" Amy asked quietly, feeling completely separate from everything around her.
She heard Cream make a sound behind her - some soft and pitying acknowledgement of her question, which struck Amy anew as if she, herself, had not been the one who had asked it.
"It is," Cream assured her kindly. "It is real, Miss Amy. You're safe."
Amy blinked, suddenly aware that she was being carefully guided into a steaming bath. Her heart clenched as the hot water engulfed her. Cream was wrong, her mind argued back. It was true that she was not in the camp any longer. It was true that she was not near Scourge. But she did not feel safe - not by any means.
The steam pooled into beads of sweat under her bangs and rolled down into her eyes in dirty streaks. Amy's muscles fought to stay tense, and her brain scattered confusing signals through her body. Fear kept her heart wrapped in an aching grip, convinced that she couldn't relax without falling to pieces.
Cream handed her a jug of cool water, and urged it to her lips.
"Drink," she said. "One thing at a time, your majesty."
Amy did as she was told.
"There's a rag to your right," Cream instructed as she stood and gathered Amy's old clothes into a woven basket. "You can use it to wash with, but be gentle near your neck, Miss. I suspect it will still be tender for quite some time. Mama will be along later today to get a good look at you - she'll have something to help ease the ache, I'm sure!"
Amy squeezed her eyes shut, overwhelmed by the heat and the dizzying smell of rose and the voice of someone kind and safe. She took a deep, full breath for the first time in a week, feeling so small; so different. The air didn't quite fill up her lungs like she had hoped. Something heavy still pushed on her chest. Her frustrated tears fell one at a time, sending ripples through the bathwater.
"Sorry," Amy said. She set the jug aside and pressed her hands to her eyes to try and stopper-up the impending downpour. "I don't mean to be… emotional, I think I just… forgot what kindness felt like -"
"Oh, Miss Amy," Cream said, drawing in an audible, emotional breath. She set down the basket and flew to the tub to reach over the edge and wrap her arms around the Princess.
"It's alright," the girl assured her. "It's alright now. Was it… so terrible for you - out there?"
Amy choked on the weight of the question and the gentility of Cream's sweet, falsetto voice. She didn't want to tell Cream about any of it. She didn't want her to know that bad people existed out in the world, doing bad things. But she couldn't possibly hold all the darkness alone any longer.
"My mind," Amy began, and her voice split into a sob as she tried in vain to explain how impossible it felt to exist in her own skin. "My mind lives in the worst moments. My body still thinks it's in danger. I close my eyes, and… I'm still there. Or not here, at least. I'm in some dark place, falling, and he's…"
He was always there, in her mind. The person from her dream, releasing her to plummet off the cliff and into the ocean… Scourge, pointing down at her as she fell.
Amy shuddered and tried to wipe his presence from her mind; his hands from her neck.
"I can't relax, I can't forget," she cried pathetically. "I still feel so… angry. And scared. And stupid. I still feel so close to death - at least inside. And for a few moments…"
Her fingers flew to her neck. She realized she had hoped to grab onto something that was no longer there. Instead, she pressed painfully on the bruise that she still felt with every swallow.
"I really wasn't sure if I would survive," Amy whispered, her mind far away. "I'm… not convinced yet that I did."
Cream gave her a squeeze, and the embrace was so warm that Amy broke down before she could even stop herself.
"There, there," Cream soothed. "Rest assured - you are here. You are alive. Lay back. Try to rest."
She settled herself behind the tub and rubbed soap into the ends of Amy's quills with her fingers, patiently pouring warm water over them until it ran clean.
"Listen to me as best you can manage, Princess," Cream said. "I'm just a girl, and I cannot promise you much, but I can promise this: one day, you will no longer feel like this."
Cream's voice was quiet and sad. The same small voice one might adopt to apologize, really apologize, for something that simply cannot be undone - no matter how desperate the regret.
"You will never forget what it felt like," she said, working gently and diligently through the knots in Amy's quills. "Not a person alive can go back and erase their darkest experiences - heartbreak, terror, anguish, regret… But every day that you live and fight on is another day that you put between yourself and everything that happened out there."
Amy tripped over her own breath, rubbing her eyes hard just to feel the pressure on her temples as she grieved the person she had once been, and now lost to her forever. Cream's apology came as if on behalf of the very nature of being alive. It was the most delicate, most genuine apology she would ever be offered, Amy was sure of it. Delivered to her from the person who had most consistently offered her kindness and council - delivered from the one person so innocent and wise as to be a messenger sent from Gaia herself.
"I promise," Cream said, "that there will come a time when so many days have passed, that the world feels like something you recognize again. And you feel like someone you recognize again."
Amy bit her lip to stifle another loud, angry sob.
"There are still so many hard things to come," she said, so tired of heartbreak that she clutched her hands together at her aching chest to try and ease the hurt. "It feels like… I'm not breathing anymore. It feels like I'll never breathe again."
Cream shifted to her knees to look Amy in the eyes, taking her face in her hands gently.
"You're a fighter, Miss Amy," Cream said with simple conviction. "Trials will come, but you are the only person who can decide if you are ready to give up. So do not give up, please! Live, and fight on!"
"It feels impossible -" Amy said.
"I know it does," Cream whispered. "I know."
She pressed her forehead to Amy's, and together, the two women cried. Sometimes in silence, sometimes aloud. And just as her young friend had promised, eventually Amy exhausted her tears, and felt the white grip of fear on her heart slacken the tiniest bit.
Amy laid back. Cream made her drink water, and then took up her brush again to continue detangling her quills.
Amy took as deep a breath as she could and looked through the windows in her room, out at the bright, cold daylight crowning her Kingdom.
"I just… I have so many people," she said quietly. "So many lives I'm holding in my hands."
Cream listened, working with saintly patience on the week-old tangles in her quills.
"There are so many threads connecting us," Amy said. "So many other obstacles hiding between the lines that I don't even know are there yet."
Her head fell back against the edge of the cedar tub, and she closed her eyes.
"How do I keep them all safe?" she asked no one in particular. "How do I keep myself safe? How do I decide who deserves what, and why do I get to? I've made mistakes… I trusted myself before… what if I can't -"
"Now, Miss Amy," Cream chastised kindly, "just because it hurt, doesn't mean anything you did was wrong. You made the most informed choices that you could, you took risks that you thought were worth taking. And I knowyou had good reasons for taking them. Things feel big because you haven't had time to think them all through - to process - but now… you're safe, you have time. Close your eyes and think everything through. Answers are there if you give yourself the chance to look for them, I know it."
Amy wiped her nose, unconvinced, but nodded in understanding all the same. She fell silent, willing the thoughts and the answers to come.
She didn't speak much for the rest of the day. She didn't leave her room, didn't see Shadow, didn't dine with her father. Instead, Amy paced, searching quietly through all the dark corners of her mind. She hoped that in them, she would find something recognizable - a sign or an idea that she could build a new sense of direction and purpose on. She stood in front of Sonic's chair many times throughout the day, considering with the seriousness of a death sentence whether or not to risk sitting in it, throwing herself on it, nestling into it.
In the end, Amy dared not touch the chair. She didn't want to risk ruining the invisible presence of him that the chair's undisturbed existence afforded her. As long as she didn't touch it, his ghost could sit there, in the chair and in her mind, for as long as she liked.
Where was he, she wondered? Was he alright? His gravity was too strong. She orbited the chair and the thought of him all day long. She wondered about the fate of her shredded pin, which surely Cream had unknowingly thrown away with the rest of her ruined clothes. Whenever the last silk petal had fallen, what choice had it been on?
Did he love her, or did he love her not?
As the sun set, Amy found herself standing on her balcony. She rested her elbows on the bannister and slumped forward, keeping silent watch over her Kingdom as the oil lamps blinked on one by one in the villages below. She felt the sting of something bittersweet in her heart. What a glorious mess that she would inherit from her father. What a broken, crunched-up, special place her Kingdom was.
She hung her head, closed her eyes, and savored a shallow breath. The smoky, crisp smell of wintertime made her nose burn.
Eyes closed, Amy reached out in her mind once again, hoping for something to anchor her own sense of self to.
And, once again, she was confronted by only a vast, numb, emptiness swallowing every single one of her senses. Her heart, her mind, and her body were awash in quiet, in stillness, in nothing. The blankness inside her felt anything but peaceful. The blankness was so total that it seared. The blankness threatened to keep her separate from her body for eternity.
In that moment of emptiness, Amy wished more than anything that there was someone else out there who knew what it felt like to be her. That way, they could tell her. They could understand how it was possible to be both numb and on fire at the same time. They could know that the crushing weight of the future was physical - it was something alive in her body.
But she was the only person in the world experiencing her own pain, and the knowledge of that loneliness was too much for her to bear.
Amy opened her eyes, teeth grit in frustration, and knotted her hands into her quills. She groaned. Where was it? Where was her answer? Shouldn't the power to keep living be something innate inside her, if only she searched and wished and thought harder?
She turned back to head into her room, perhaps finally ready to give in and surrender to the pull of Sonic's chair.
As she moved, a sliver of gold light glinted off the glass in her balcony door, catching her in the eye.
Amy blinked and held up a hand to shield her eyes, looking with wonder at the tiny golden light hitting her palm. She curled her fingers around the little star in her hand as if to keep hold of it, and followed the thin beam all the way back into her room like it was a pull-thread faithfully leading her out of the maze that she felt she had been lost in for eons.
She walked, trance-like, until she reached the source of the light thread.
Staring up at her from her vanity was Sonic's ring, gleaming in bright, mischievous gold among the waning colors of the sunset.
Amy's heart skipped a few beats in her chest as she touched the ring. The way the light glinted made her think that somewhere he must be winking at her. Or making an ill-timed joke. Or grinning his inane, charming grin that never failed to steal just a little bit of her breath away.
She climbed into her bed half-smiling and held the ring between the forefinger and thumb, turning it about in the last light of day like she had done months ago when first she had discovered it.
An eternal love… sent from him. Hers to watch over.
Amy held the ring close to her heart and closed her eyes. It felt warm and heavy and real in her hand. She took another breath; felt her lungs expand.
Fine - she had nothing left of herself to give? Then, Amy decided, she would just have to borrow.
She borrowed cunning from Sonic, and refused to give up hoping that there was always another way. She borrowed strategy from Tails, and laid all the pieces at play out on a war map in her mind. She borrowed annoying, bullish resilience from Knuckles, and looked back on her journey to help her find where next to go.
She borrowed gentility from Cream, calm from Blaze, confidence from Rouge, optimism from Sliver.
From Shadow… Amy shrank. She didn't have a right to borrow from him - not when he had already given her so much.
She slipped her mother's ruby ring off her finger, strung it on the chain next to Sonic's, and pulled them both on over her head.
Amy was a woman born from her mother's sorrow, and sacrifice, and courage. She did not need to borrow from her mother, she had only to honor her. Amy heard Cream's wisdom echo loud in her mind again. Now, they were clear, kind words not delivered from Gaia, no. Delivered instead, from her mother.
You are the only person who can decide if you are ready to give up. So do not give up. Live, and fight on.
Amy gripped tight to her rings, pulling them so hard that the chain stung the bruise still purpling on her neck.
The rings reminded her that there were so many pieces of her that weren't hers at all. When she had been drained of life and self, those were the pieces of her that remained: the pieces of the people she loved so dearly that it made her want to weep.
Amy squeezed her eyes shut tight and borrowed as much power as she needed until, finally, she had gathered enough strength to begin to forgive herself.
She forgave herself for forgetting that she was wonderful. She forgave herself for forgetting that she had so much more than just Sonic to fight for. She forgave herself for ever thinking that she was not to be trusted with her own thoughts, feelings, and choices.
Shadow was wrong - she hadn't been silly or stupid or misguided. Sonic was wrong - she wasn't something that he had the power to lose or destroy. Her father and Scourge were both wrong - she couldn't be backed into their imaginary corners or defined by their imaginary rules.
Amy was right. Loving Sonic wasn't a mistake, even though it had hurt her.
Because she had loved him, she had learned an invaluable lesson. On that night, when her heart broke and her body froze in his arms - when she got back up and dragged his feet through the mud straight into a den of her worst nightmares, and during every second that she sat alone in the cold with Scourge - Amy had learned exactly what she was made of.
She was made of the kind of stuff that would scorch the very ground of that arena.
Amy's eyes flew open. An impulse, as thin and true as a beam of golden light, brought her hope searing back to life.
The answer that she had found was far from perfect. In fact, the answer scared the living shit out of her. But it was an answer, nonetheless, and one that she did not shrink from even the slightest.
She had already wagered one thing on the outcome of the Tournament, Amy realized. Why not, then, she wondered, wager everything?
The next day, Amy left her room exactly once. She hoped to find a way to sneak into the dungeon to visit Sonic, but Shadow made it more than clear that no such thing would be happening on his watch. Amy sighed and asked him if they would at least continue training that evening - the Tournament was in two weeks, after all.
To that question, Shadow responded with a long, condemning silence and the eventual proclamation that "to willingly fight a foe before the time of a duel is to willingly expose all of your strengths, strategies, and weaknesses to him."
Amy had returned to her room promptly after that - to rest, but also to avoid him and his unrelenting cold shoulder.
After dinner, her father came to sit by her bedside.
Amy laid buried in her quilt, clean and warm in fresh, heavy clothes. She watched the tassels hanging from her bed posts twist idly in the stagnant air of her room. Tied to a stake… laid up in her bed... The tastes were very similar in her mouth, she thought.
She steeled herself to hold her tongue - to roll over and give up in front of the King. It would take all her effort, but she knew her maneuvering with her father was crucial. If she played her cards right, she could line up the pieces so that they all fell right into place just as soon as she won the Tournament.
If she won the Tournament, she thought.
The King took a deep breath, opened his mouth, then shut it again and went back to staring out her balcony window.
"The thieves…" Amy said quietly, skirting around having to mention Scourge, "they said they sent a ransom note - did they?"
"Yes," the King said. "We arrested the couriers of the note immediately and continued our tireless search."
Amy wrestled with her disappointment and only half-succeeded in preventing an angry outburst.
"What if… just paying the ransom had saved my life?" she asked, vile curiosity winning out against her better judgment. She knew that she would never have been returned even if the ransom had been paid, but the King didn't know that.
"The Kingdom cannot be bargaining with criminals, Amelia," he chastised. "The search party found you, that's what matters."
Amy bit her retort back and took a moment to recollect herself. She looked at her father. He had once said something about messes… something about solutions. There was still one problem that she had no answer to, and that was Scourge.
"How do you decide who is worth losing and who isn't?" she asked him. Spilling blood for power was something he knew about. Dealing with Scourge might be the only thing he could ever give her usable advice on. "How do you decide who deserves what?"
"My darling, everyone is expendable," the King said honestly.
Amy closed her eyes, hurt to hear it put so bluntly. No, of course he would be no use to her in deciding whether or not Scourge should live or die.
"In a dark Kingdom, in life," the King droned on solemnly, "there will always be someone else to replace the knight, the servant, the peasant. But there will only ever be one me. Self-preservation, dear. Everyone - everyone - lives in service of our line."
Amy pulled her quilt up to conceal her grimace.
"I… think you're wrong, father," she said quietly, eyes on the ceiling. "There will be another King. Then another, and another. And one day… nothing you have done will matter. History might not even remember your name."
She turned her head and looked at him, quite sincere in her premonition of his future.
"I find that unlikely," the King said through gritted teeth. "But there will not be another King until you choose one. I had such angry Lords on my hands after the ball - you can't imagine how hard it was to handle all of them."
Amy's fists clenched white around her quilt. She grabbed hold of the rings at her neck, and refocused her efforts on the task at hand - leading her father straight into her plan.
"Yes, the Lords…" Amy said, speaking slow to make sure he followed her train of thought. "I suppose you'll be wanting to talk about husbands?"
"Yes, though I must say I didn't see many a promising man that night," the King said. He ran a gloved hand through his great mane of dusty rose quills. "When the commotion started… you won't believe how many of them cowered like children under the dinner tables."
"I actually would believe it, father," Amy sighed. "I must say… It was hard to tell if any of them were truly exceptional. And don't you think…"
She turned away from him and tried to sound casual - completely without agenda.
"Don't you think that the next King should be someone exceptional?" she asked. "A real symbol of the nation. Someone who represents the Kingdom's justice."
"Of course," the King agreed easily, trailing off.
Amy waited, and when he said nothing else, decided he needed another push.
"I'd even wager my hand in the Tournament if it meant someone like the future Champion would become King," she said with yet another loud sigh.
The King took a sharp breath in through his nose. Amy dared not move, dared not speak a word as he worked through that idea - one she had so cleverly hoped to transplant and pass off as his own.
"It's not a half bad idea…" he said after a long pause. "If only we could guarantee that the Champion would be someone of high standing…"
"Well, you have the final word when ruling on questionable hits, don't you?" Amy asked innocently, thanking Gaia for Tails' little evening history lessons. "Unless, of course, a previous Champion is present - but certainly they would never rule against their King. "
"It would be something quite spectacular…" the King muttered. He turned to her, his voice teetering on the edge of excitement.
"But - don't you want to choose, my dear?" he asked tactfully.
Amy shrugged and sighed. The ability to choose her own husband had been one of the small luxuries her father had afforded her, she'd give him credit for that.
"I've resigned myself," she said with a wave of her hand. "After what I've been through, everything feels so…trivial. The Champion would be as good as any - and better than most."
"Indeed," the King mused. "I'll… think on it."
"Perhaps," Amy said, well aware that she was pushing her luck, "such a big event would be just the kind of excitement the Kingdom needs to come back from the ball. It's almost… romantic, isn't it? The Champion, redeeming the Kingdom and its Princess by winning her hand, the title of King, and the honor of dispatching the criminal responsible for all of our trouble."
She added a dreamy little sigh for good measure, and feared she had gone just a step too far.
Amy watched in her peripheral vision as the King glanced back towards the door, to where she knew Shadow stood on the other side.
"Indeed," the King said. "The Champion… the future King…"
He suddenly snapped to attention and looked at her, straight on.
"Do you hope it will be Sir Shadow?" he asked bluntly. "He is the favorite this year, after all."
Amy's eyes went wide. She would've sat up, protesting eagerly, if she weren't so surprised by the question. Instead, she simply scoffed. In truth, she hadn't thought of that, if only because she knew that Shadow would not - could not - win.
"Not at all," she said, her voice high with unmistakable surprise.
The King sighed, sitting back in his armchair. He looked out the window, his voice far away.
"It is not unheard of for those kinds of… bonds… to develop between guard and ward," he said, choosing his words carefully. "But you must understand that Shadow is not a viable candidate for the throne. He is powerful, yes, but he allies us with no lands. He strengthens no political bonds. He is not born with the ruling privilege of a noble. If we were to decree this - if we were to bestow your hand and the right to rule upon the Champion - Shadow could not be allowed to win."
"I… understand that," Amy said. The way her father spoke of someone's right to lead made her stomach turn. Shadow would make a very good leader, Amy thought. She just didn't want to marry him.
"But you don't need to worry, father -" she hastened to explain. Amy had one more thing she had borrowed from someone - something precious leant to her by someone whom she had never even met - for just this moment.
"There are many fine Lords who will enter." Amy smiled to herself like a girl keeping a silly, harmless little secret.
"I know that… at least one of them will be a very strong contender," she said.
"Oh - you… have one in mind, then?" her father asked off her look.
She took a deep breath, pausing like she was debating at length whether or not to trust her busy father with something as trivial as romantic infatuation.
"To be honest, father," Amy said shyly, "I was thinking of… a Highsong."
Dylan of Highsong, to be exact. The man who had gifted her a dagger like gifting her the rights to his very name. It was perfect - she would have to sign up for the Tournament as someone else, and neither she nor her father had seen him before - at least not at her ball. The man clearly didn't care to take part in even the most significant of noble rights and rituals, so surely he would only hear of his name being used as a guise by the Princess after she had already won. And just as soon as she did, she'd send him some gift in sincere thanks for his unwitting part in her great coup.
She was willing to take such a risk on one simple fact: he didn't seem the type to show up after she had won, claiming that he had a right to her seeing as "Dylan of Highsong" had technically won the Tournament. He hadn't even shown up to the ball to try and win her hand - he had made it more than clear that he simply wasn't interested.
"I've heard that Sir Dylan of Highsong will be entering," Amy half-lied, "and he… made quite the favorable impression on me."
"A Highsong, you say?" said her father with genuine interest. "Yes… A very fine family indeed. They have many suitable sons… last I heard, they also have one that is notquite so suitable, but every family has its… oddities."
Amy closed her eyes so she wouldn't roll them. Dylan was more than likely that oddity - just like she was - but her father didn't need to know that. Any noble family would find a son who cared not to marry a Princess "odd." In her eyes, that just made his name all the better to borrow.
"You'd… be happy, then? If Dylan of Highsong won?" her father asked, point-blank.
"Yes," Amy said without hesitation.
"And you believe he'd make a fine King?" he asked.
"Absolutely," she agreed.
"...Very well," the King said with a satisfied nod. He took a deep breath and then repeated the phrase; a quiet affirmation of some unspoken choice he had made.
Amy broke into a grin, almost certain that he had tipped himself over into exactly the square on the game board that she wanted him in. Everything was back on her shoulders now, and she felt comfortable with that. Certainly, there were much worse shoulders in the world than hers - on her own back was really the safest place for the world.
Her life, Sonic's life, the title of King, her hand in marriage, the future of the Kingdom… If she had done her job right, everything rested on the outcome of the Tournament.
Amy took a deep, anxious breath. Now, all she had to do was win it.
The King stood with a nod, satisfied and lost in thought. As he reached the door, he stopped and turned back to her, one hand hovering over the handle.
"You're certain that your Highsong will win?" he asked with wide, curious eyes.
"Oh yes," Amy said, her voice clear and confident. "I'm positive that he will."
