Disclaimer: I do not own any of the recognized characters or gameplay patterns within this fanfiction. Sonic the Hedgehog, Tails, Eggman, Blaze, and all related characters of such are owned by SEGA. All original character's are owned by me, unfortunately.

Existence 10.4

Tails froze in front of Blaze, meaning the cat had to cautiously step around the two tailed fox. Spark did crash into him a second later.

Blaze stared at the swallow in front of her. He was an odd color, much like her own except darker. Much darker. He had four eyes, two eyes on top of another pair, and his actions seemed stilted in a way, as if he was practicing something.

"Ah, one of the ladies of the hours! Please, sit down, lass. You two lad, put your mouth back together. Lightning lass, please make yourself at home, sit in front of the hearth for a while and warm up. You look dreadfully cold. It usually lasts for another four and a half days before it goes back to being normal, if but cold, weather," Zephyr said quietly. He motioned to one of the well made chairs, each with thick legs, impossible to tell from the floor. As if it was made from the floor, rather than added later.

Spark stared at him for a moment before she moved to do as he asked. Blaze heard her give a sigh of relief as she felt the warmth come over her, and Blaze wouldn't be too far behind in normal circumstances. But she recognized Zephyr's voice...just as Tails had.

Cautiously, she hopped onto a chair, letting her bare feet hit the floor. They weren't tall, but they were sturdy and didn't creak. Tails did a second later, leaving the third chair available for Spark whenever she chose to.

"Would you care for anything to drink? Tea? That other drink that has...what was it, coffee? Coffee. That's a strange word. Coffee. Cough. Ee. Coffee," Zephyr said, the words coming out joyful and quiet. As if he was having fun with saying the words themselves.

"No, no we're good," Tails said, his eyes narrowed. Blaze caught wind of a slight snarl to them, a low growl that reminded Blaze of a Tails from before Ikan'Thoa, during the desert run.

"Ah. And you, lass?" Zephyr asked her, a large smile on his face. Despite the obvious threat signals that Tails was sending him, he seemed immune to them.

"Nothing."

"Very well, nothing I can do. Make yourselves at home, I suppose. Would you like for me to hang up your cloaks? They're always rather wet at this point," Zephyr grinned. Neither Tails nor Blaze could say anything before they suddenly found their cloaks torn from them in a whirlwind of warm air, hooked onto a set of posts next to the hearth.

Blaze narrowed her eyes. "Please let us answer. I was going to say no," she said. Tails gave her a look that said he would have argued that point on her. Their cloaks were wet, she knew that, but she wasn't going to trust them.

"Oh, I know. You always do. Then the lad here argues with you, and you say yes, inevitably. And you're always so shy about yourself. You have nothing to be ashamed of, you're quite beautiful," Zephyr said. He didn't quite say it as a compliment, but rather as a pure statement of fact.

"You're using tenses weird. Always have. Should have. Will be. Future tense," Tails noted quietly.

Zephyr grinned. "And there it is. I know that sometimes loose lips sink men's ships, but sometimes they're there so the smart ones can figure things out even faster."

"You're locked in the Tides," Tails said, almost accusingly.

Zephyr blinked, but the grin didn't fade. "You're not wrong there, lad. I am, in fact, 'locked in the Tides', as you so put it. I like that phrasing. Locked in. I should use that next time."

Spark shuddered from the hearth, despite the warmth. Zephyr gave her a quick glance, and Blaze felt a small tornado of warm air fly over towards her, heating up her fur. Despite the warmth, it was just now starting to thaw out some of her back fur. Water dripped down, staining the wood below her. "You're also an aerokineticist," Blaze said absently.

"Not as such, no. Good guess though. From what I know, I exhibit many of the signs of such," Zephyr acknowledged.

"You were following us. On the beach. It was your voice," Tails accused.

"It was my voice, yes. But I was not following. No, never follow. I am much like Deep, or Rock. I am anchored, and my voice fades from distance. I can, however, much like them, understand many of the basics no matter the distance."

Deep. She'd heard that name before. He was the one that had said it. "You're the air primordial. Rock must be the earth one, and Deep...the water?" Blaze asked. She'd never heard that the primordials would have a name.

Zephyr grinned. "What gave me away?"he asked, smiling wide with his four eyes glinting in the soft light. "I am, in fact, the primordial being of the air and aether."

Tails took a deep breath, starting to shake. Blaze couldn't blame him. Was that because he was face to face with a being older than even the Sol Emeralds? Who could do anything, break anything...and was also trapped in the Tides, as the tale of Captain Monsoon said?

"The way you talk. The way you speak of the past and future as if they're the same," Tails muttered. "You remember."

Zephyr nodded, the grin slowly dropping. "With complete clarity," he answered. There was a soft bell ringing in the kitchen, and his head immediately turned that way. Right, birds didn't have ears, did they? But if he was a primordial, wouldn't he have ears anyways? Or maybe..."Would you like some dinner? I have a roast cooking right now, the sentient pig wandered here again."

"I think you had us at roast and food," Spark murmured, staring at both Tails and Blaze. The cat blinked, wondering if it was showing on her face that easily that she was hungry. She tried not to show it, but fish wasn't the most filling, especially dried fish.

Tails' mouth was salivating though, and Blaze could tell it was probably not intended. Zephyr grinned again, disappearing almost as fast as he stood up.

Within a moment, the plates were down, and in front of each of them was more than a generous cut of meat. It had been a sentient pig, not a sapient one, Blaze could tell. A small bowl of clean water appeared next to them as well. "For your hands," Zephyr explained as he sat down in front of them.

"Why? Why do all of this...If you're a primordial, shouldn't you be against us?" Blaze hesitated to ask. Spark had already dug in, her hands still dripping from the surprisingly warm water. She was more than ravenous, going after the large cuts as if she hadn't eaten anything filling weeks. Which was, admittedly, the truth. Tails, Blaze was happy to notice, was staring at Zephyr waiting for an answer.

"That's both an easy question and a hard one. Deep always did prefer working the angle of cynicism, whereas Rock did the waiting game. Me? I've always been more of an optimist. As for why we want to help-"

"Help? Didn't the water primordial almost kill us? Multiple times? It fractured my shoulder, parts of the Grace, and..." Tails said instantly.

"Help," Zephyr reminded. "For now, though, I think you should all eat. It's been several days since you last ate real food, from what I recall. I'll explain after the food. Rest assured, I am not going to hinder you. Rather, I am already doing what I can to help you," Zephyr said, all four eyes blinking at once. He took his own cut of the roast and bit into it, letting out a cold chuckle. "Of course, it's gone cold. Young pyro?" he asked, a small grin as he stared towards Blaze.

She stared back, a small fire in her hands as she engulfed the roast enough to warm it up, but not cook it. Immediately the smell of the warm pig wafted into her nose. She was careful to not add too much heat; not wanting to overcook it. Tails took a quick sniff of his, and Blaze waited until Tails gave a quiet nibble. If the fox couldn't smell anything on there that was poisonous, then there was probably nothing there.

It was kind of shocking, to be reminded how much he never needed his nose before, but how much he, and her, depended on it now. If this was back in the Sol Empire, she doubted she would have even checked. She gave a quick nibble, letting the warm juices run down her throat, and she had to withhold an unsightly moan of satisfaction. It was seasoned to near perfection, and with her heating up on the table itself, 'perfect' was almost too little of a word.

Tails, at least, was still eating with a fork and knife. She wasn't, however, and she looked to realize that Zephyr hadn't given out forks and knives to either her or Spark. Why only Tails?

"I see the young pyro has a question. As you have asked since the second and beyond, the lad here is the only one that remained in a non-feral state of mind. Admittedly, that's not to say you and the other are feral, but rather you two are a bit hungrier than he was. I've never figured out why," Zephyr answered. Blaze hadn't asked.

Spark leaned back, patting her stomach contentedly as she closed her eyes and rested. Blaze wasn't far behind, but her mind was already too active to fall asleep. The small sparks in the vixen's hand showed that neither was she, honestly. She was just making a show of it. But why? Because she didn't trust Zephyr?

It took another few minutes for Tails to finish, the last of them. Zephyr was still gnawing on what looked like a thigh bone, almost picked clean. "Why would you help us? If we're trying to end the Tides-" Tails started.

"And that's why. That's exactly why, right there," Zephyr said. "How much do you three know of the Blooming Tides, and of their curse and blessing?"

"Not much. We haven't seen it-" Tails started.

"No, you have. Just not yet. The fact you are here says at least that much," Zephyr grinned. "Spark?" he asked, turning towards the vixen. Blaze narrowed her eyes. That was the first time he'd referred to any of them by their name. Usually it was 'lass' or 'lad'.

"The Blooming Tides causes a..." she said quietly, before she started in Ikan'Thoan, "a recursive time loop on any sapient close to it."

"Very good, I see my story of Captain Monsoon isn't lost over there," Zephyr responded in perfect Ikan'Thoan. Blaze's eyes widened. "But that's not the full story. The full story would only apply to those closest to the Blooming Tides. If it was the truth, there would be no Ikan'Thoa. No, the truth is much, much worse. The Blooming Tides exhibit complete control over time. In the hands of a non-sapient, not a problem. Time keeps going in one direction, never changing.

"But there is a sapience there. In the Blooming Tides. A sapience that acts similar to one of us, a primordial of time, so to speak. However unlike us, we have no reason to...cause unnecessary antagonism with the natural world. For millennia, we haven't."

"But the one in the Tides, does?"

"Most effortlessly. Have you noticed how primal the village of Ikan'Thoa is? How extreme it sounds? Forced mating, killing the parents of powerful children so the children get raised in the mindset of the elders...it is horrific. But it cannot change."

"Because the elders won't let it." Blaze wasn't sure who spoke it first, whether it was Tails or herself. Maybe Spark did. All she knew was that someone had said it, or maybe all three of them.

"Because the Blooming Tides won't let it," Zephyr corrected gently.

-Side T-

Tails felt like his head was going to explode. The Blooming Tides, sapient? Forcing Ikan'Thoa to be as horrific as it was? For what? What could possibly be the reason?

"Why?" he forced himself to ask. It was hard to get air through his mouth, it was so dry. What Zephyr was saying didn't make sense, but the seemingly primordial spirit of air seemed extremely sure of himself. And even if he was lying, Katia's prophecy had said that they should.

But that was walking into the hands of fate. Not for the first time, and definitely not for the last, Tails wished that Sonic was there. Sonic would know what to do, whether that was attack Zephyr for lying or head straight into the Tides to end their threat. Nothing would stop him; not even a time loop. Hadn't he even beaten the Time Eater like that?

Zephyr sat down again. When had he gotten up? "That's the question, isn't it? The Blooming Tides has complete control over time, so why it would only create a time loop? And how? And how large is it? The loop is two hundred and fifty years, in which the Tides then goes and loops again, eliminating everyone born after that point, and starting a new cycle."

"Why?"

"Couldn't begin to know. However, each sapient has a different structure to their loop. Some are knowledgeable. The original Lightning was. The second Fire, is. Needless to say, the second Fire is also quite insane, having to remember being born and living before. A few others. Many times."

"I...the village is only two hundred and fifty? It seems...much older."

"It does, doesn't it? It's not, though. The Tides affect buildings just as much. The first Lightning built it up, but there's only so much you can do when you only have a few dozen years. It doesn't affect the Special Zone, nor does it affect worlds outside this one."

"We're caught in the cycles, too, aren't we?"

Zephyer nodded solemnly. "Yes. About six months or so. Every six months, you two loop again, causing your current incarnations to die, and for you to be reborn as you were exiting the Special Zone in the Lake of Awakening."

Tails stared at Blaze, who matched her stare back. They'd been looping too? Every six months...that meant that every other loop would be the same winter madness. Did that also mean that every time they looped, they rebuilt their house? How many times did they have to rebuild?

"But then...we..."

"Every time. Rock's counted how many times he's seen you, and it's a fair few dozen. Each time you re-loop, you rebuild that house of yours, and he watches as its eaten away by time, just in time for you to have to rebuild it. And yes, you ask that every time we meet."

"So then...those images that I saw, in the cave. Those were...other loops?" Tails asked. He was almost hesitant. It meant that he'd lost out to his hormones in those loops, probably many times. That also meant the death of...he was only fifteen, he shouldn't even be thinking of having kids yet!

"Other ones, yes. I've seen you come here before with four of you, sometimes only two. Most of the time with three. Sometimes with her, sometimes with the other."

Tails paled. He felt Blaze's stare on him, as if threatening to burn him if he mentioned anything. "Those were other time loops, Tails. That's all. We did all that we could this time," Blaze said.

She thought he was mourning Katia still. And knowing that she could have lived, had they just chosen their lives a little differently, a different roll of the dice...

She wasn't entirely wrong either. Other possibilities. Other choices that they, that he, had made throughout their time. Would that...no, that couldn't have been possible. Except that it was, because those images were of when they had arrived on the beach. He felt sick. His stomach was threatening to get rid of everything he'd just put in it. Had they...simply by waiting too long, killed other-

"Time is a funny thing. It is entirely of sapient invention, but it is a wholly an unearthly construct," Zephyr said after a long minute. "In that it is the basic building block of everything, and yet there is no force that can wholly measure it. A clock can at least tell it, but for something that the whole world revolves around, you would think it's force would be measurable."

"I think that's just Tails having a mental breakdown due to realizing that his unborn kits will never be born. And never have been," Spark commented idly. Tails' mind raced. How did she-

"Ah. Yes, that would do it," Zephyr said.

"I'm sorry. What?" Blaze said quietly, her eyes narrowed at both the eldritch bird and the vixen.

"Possibilities of other timelines, when you consider what my original mission was, it's not hard to realize what he might have seen. Same with Katia's mission. Not that unbelievable."

Tails mind was blank. She...had already known? Of course she had, she was Spark. Spark was always the...his head pounded against him, a sledgehammer against his skull. Memories and memories washed over him.

"You can stop trying to think now, Miles Prower," Zephyr said quietly. Tails' mind cleared up instantly. The headache went away, and the memories vanished faster than he could categorize them. The swallow hadn't controlled his emotions, nor his mind just...let him clear up.

"How..." he managed to get out.

"I am a primordial, Tails. Deep and Rock could do the same thing, assuming they would bother. Rock has to make his own method of communication, and Deep can only talk underwater."

"You keep mentioning Deep and Rock. I'm guessing they're the water and earth primordials. But what about the other two? Fire and lightning?" Blaze asked. Her eyes narrowed at Tails, and he got the gist instantly; she and him were going to have to talk a bit later. Especially about those memories.

"Ah. For that, I need to tell a bit of a story," he grinned. Spark instantly sat down on the table, her legs curled up over one another, her ears facing forward, a look of eagerness on her face. "I see she's ready."

"It's not a short story, I'm afraid. There were five of us, yes. The worlds were new, and the passage between them was even newer. But we, older than the oldest of worlds, knew the secrets between the worlds. For eons and decades, millennia and ages, we scoured the worlds, eager to find the newest place. We always aimed for places of natural beauty.

We had differences of opinions. Of course we did. Deep always longed to see the darkest of oceans, Rock the highest of mountains and lowest of valleys. I preferred the windy crevasses of a desert eroding away the rock by force of wind alone. Boom, our thunderous brother, he liked the storms. The coastal variety, with plenty of raging winds and thousands of bolts.

But in doing so, we came to agreements. We would search the worlds for different ones. We would find what was best for us, and simply watch. Eons would pass in an instant, for we were beyond time itself.

Unfortunately, Boom and our fire sister disagreed. She preferred volcanoes, or the little islands with constant eruptions to build them up, or the raging wildfires of a lightning strike in a forest.

They preferred the quick varieties of nature. So they split, as we always had done, searching for another world that was nothing but what we had thought best. Rock was the first one here. We first discovered something was wrong when they didn't show at the requisite meeting area. It was just myself and Deep. Curious about our lost brethren, we chose to walk the worlds once more. Doing so, Deep was the second one here. He found Rock easy enough; it was simply trying to find the tallest of mountains and know that he had put down his roots. Deep questioned him, and all he murmured was that of the Blooming Tides.

Curious, Deep checked the world's waters. With a name like that, it had to be in his domain. And he found it; a small cove with no water, yet acting in tune with the tides themselves. He tried to reach back to me, as I was trying to find the other two.

I never did succeed, by the way. Deep, too, was trapped here in the time loop. But as a primordial, time was something he had plenty of, that and patience.

So he, like Rock, settled down to the depths. Hundreds of thousands of loops later, I came into the picture. Having not found either of our other two number, I found Rock and Deep talking about their loops, and of the prophecies that surrounded this world long before we arrived. They told me of the Blooming Tides, and that was when we saw you two the first time. You threatened us, and were still new to the ways of this world. Sorry for that by the way. I know you don't remember it, but it looked painful.

We decided to scatter to the winds. Rock chose to keep watch over your entrance ways, seeing if you two also looped. Deep chose the deep waters near the Blooming Tides.

And I...I chose to help. The first time you came here, I was surprised by the path. You two froze on the mountain, during the blizzard. The second time, I chose to take a small cabin, offering you shelter from the weather. You four accepted, only to perish due to injuries unrelated.

"That's all good, but it doesn't tell us what happened to Fire and Lightning. Boom, you named it?" Blaze asked. Her eyes were narrowed, as if she was expecting a different answer.

Tails on the other hand, was trying not to have another meltdown. They had looped many times, and several times they'd died. How many times had they done this? And how many times had he sent messages out to Sonic and the Sol Empire? Would they know that something was wrong when they received a countless amount of messages from this world?

"Ah, yes. I forgot where I was going with that for a moment," Zephyr grinned. "Happens when you get as old as I am," he said, raising his eyebrows as he looked expectedly towards Blaze and Spark.

Blaze didn't raise to his bait, but Spark did. "Oh? And how old is this?" she asked, a wide smile on her face. Blaze had to withhold a sigh.

Tails was still deep in thought. He could hear the conversations going on, but he wasn't listening all that well. Sonic had never truly responded to them, had he? If he had, it was one of the first ones. Maybe it only responded to the loop they get out in? In that case, because they did get a response back, with an answer, maybe they would get out, eventually. Maybe not right now. Maybe they were supposed to loop again. But eventually.

Honestly, that thought helped raise his spirits a lot. They were probably going to die. And when they did, they would just re-loop in again in a few months time. Without any knowledge of what they were doing.

He should probably apologize to Blaze then for having her go over that really uncomfortable conversation so many times.

"I am eight years old! Turned sideways," Zephyr announced with a grin. Blaze gave another sigh, and Spark tilted her head.

"He means infinite," Tails answered a moment later. "Also, Blaze, I'm sorry."

Blaze blinked at him, her arms crossed. "For...what?" she asked.

"For making you go through that really uncomfortable conversation so many times."

Blaze sighed. "Oh yes! That was a fun one to listen in on. You explained it a new way each and every time you had to try. It was actually fun, trying to guess which aspect of your life you'd ask about first!" Zephyr continued to grin, his four eyes blinking in unison.

"This is my life now," Blaze said softly. "But at least we're still alive."

"And I think we will be. We'll get out, Blaze," Tails said. "Sonic and the Sol Empire haven't said anything about receiving a countless amount of messages from us, and you know that Sonic would. But they responded just the same. The fact that we got a response says we will get out. It may not be now, it may be another loop from now, but we will."

Blaze took a deep breath. "I hope so, Tails. I hope so..."

...

That's the Blooming Tides. The title of the fic, hinted at since arc 1. Now the real question is; is he telling the truth, or is he lying?

Until Next Time.