"The elephants where so cool!" Tails chittered as they sat in the shade, eating their lunch. "I have never seen an animal like that before!"
"No animals like that from where you came from?" Tom asked, eyeing the little fox.
"No…no not at all!" he exclaimed.
"I do not understand the trunk…It is like a power appendage." Knuckles mused. "And their strength was impressive" He pulled some grapes off the stem and popped them into his mouth.
"Yeah," Sonic answered. "Hey, maybe you met your match there Knux! Too bad there are NO powers, huh? That could be a fun theory to test…"
Knuckles eyed him and she saw a small smile grace his lips. "Do not lie to yourself, Hedgehog." he answered. "You have no idea what my full strength is…not yet anyway…"
Sonic laughed at the empty threat and rolled his eyes.
Maddie smiled as she listened to her little family. Today had been going so well. Sonic and Tails were having a great time, and her eldest seemed to be coming out of his shell a bit. He was confused at first, but after a while he began to feed off the excitement of his brothers. She loved watching him interact with them. And as much grief as the two younger boys gave him, they seemed to truly understand him.
"What do you want to see next?" she asked, grabbing a bag of chips and handing them to the boys.
"I do not know, I will trust your judgement." her eldest spoke, meeting her eyes. "But I do not understand. Why do we not look out our window and see…the elephants…?"
Maddie and Tom laughed despite themselves, which caused his eyes to narrow slightly. She put her hand on Tom's arm and stifled her laugh. "Because sweetie, this planet is very big. It has many climates, and many animals, and most of them do not live around where we do. It's fun to walk around and see animals that we cannot see everyday."
"Hmmm." he hummed, but did not speak further.
"Lets see something that lives super far away!" Tails exclaimed. Sonic tussled his hair and offered him a chip.
"Yeah, something super cool. Anything super fast?" he asked.
Tom laughed, "Not as fast as you, my man."
"Well, duh!" Sonic laughed.
"Alright," Maddie started, reigning in the conversation with a smile. "The next area is down this path. Let's see some Kangaroos."