I do not own most of the characters seen here. I did make up a few for the purposes of the story, but do not plan to make money from "any" of this story. So please just relax and enjoy instead of trying to sue. I don't think you'll get much out of it. :)

They made a stretcher for Longclaw. Together, it and she were so bulky it took them days to find broad enough paths or cut such through the jungle to get her thus restrained to the beach the echidnas had pulled their canoes up onto, when they'd arrived. They fed and gave her water on the journey, as well as checked her wound, but she felt their scowls on her every moment even when she couldn't see them aimed at her. She let herself sleep through most of the hours of those days.

The old leader was very careful to observe her condition throughout. He did so without scowling or smiling. She could feel more respect and concern in his lingering gaze when it met hers, how he held his chin up as he approached and walked away from her, and the calmness he spoke with when he ordered the others what and what not to do for and with her.

They reached the beach with their canoes lined up on it at sunset of the fourth day after Longclaw had sent Sonic to earth. Having so little to do, but sleep and worry, since had not helped the owl warrior from imagining how he might be faring badly on earth without her. He could have been discovered. He could have eaten the wrong thing and be sick perhaps dying. He could have curled into a ball and stopped trying to live altogether after the attack and losing her. A part of Longclaw also worried even thinking so much about him before so many wondering about him would let the secret slip from her mind into theirs. No one looked and her and shouted, "The Hedgehog's on earth!" in her waking moments, though, only in her nightmares.

After setting her stretcher down into the sand, the echidnas dug a deep hole in the latter. They put a deep stake into that and then attached a chain to it. Then they refilled the hole with the heavy sand, their breathing and sweat testified to the difficulty of their labor. Finally, after her wings had long gone numb, they put a cuff, linked to a chain tied to the stake deep in sand, around one of Longclaw's ankles, and untied her so she could spread her wings and rise from her stretcher.

Careful to not move the side with the arrowhead and most of its shaft stuck into it, Longclaw stood by increments and stretched out her wing on her opposite side as her wound. After a meal the echidna had put together from ingredients gathered on the island and fished out of the nearby sea, some of which they then fed to Longclaw, they set off in their boats under the stars. They did so after retying her to the stretcher and loading it into the center of one of their canoes.

After island hopping to reload on supplies during their journey for days, they arrived at an island where a famous master of healing lived. The chameleon used various medicines and techniques both those invented on their own planet and those scavenged from invaders' supplies and learned from their captured survivors. The echidna carried Longclaw to this healer's hut on the stretcher and laid her and it out before him. She saw his surgery tools and smelled the coconut wine he sanitized them and his hands with before he covered her beak with a cloth doused in chloroform.

When she awoke, the arrow was out of her and the cavity it left behind while throbbing was no longer bleeding. During her recovery, she had more time to worry about how Sonic was doing in another world and scowls were sent her way by both her healer and captors. Even the old echidna leader's brow was more furrowed and his tone harder when he looked her way as she grew stronger and less pained ... physically. More than a month after the arrow was taken from her side, they moved her off the island again. This time she was chained to and allowed to stand up in the center of another canoe. Some of those who'd helped captured her had already moved on, but most had stayed and now left with her.

Again, they landed on several smaller isles to restock on coconuts, water, and fish before arriving at what she assumed would be her final destination ... alive that is. Finally, Longclaw saw an island on the horizon, a long flat island with trees lining its shores with short stretched of sand parting them from the sea. She could feel in the stiffness, alertness, and silence of the warriors taking her there when they saw it too something had changed. The owl warrior looked to the echidna leader and asked, "What place is that we row toward now?"

His voice was level, deep, and grim as he answered. "Judgement Island."

Ah …

Longclaw knew of it. It was the stuff of threats, where all traitors were supposed to go. Though there were never many traitors among her people, so few knew of it beyond its reputation. No emeralds were kept there. But anyone suspicioned by the guardians of those gems of trying to reach one to unleash or gain its powers, be they warrior or simple villager, were brought here as were other rule breakers when it came to the various laws about what to and not do when guarding or even going near a Chaos Emerald. Longclaw had known this would be her destination if she lived long enough. Somehow, it was smaller than she'd imagined it.

No metal stake was placed in the sand for her this time, when they landed. Instead, both her wings where bound and a metal collar was placed around her neck. Finally, both her ankles were loosed. After the boat lurched beneath her, and her talons dug into her perch, as the canoe she was in collided with the sand, she was told to "hop" out.

The echidna warrior walked beside her as a lower ranking warrior walked ahead holding the chain connected to the metal collar around Longclaw's neck. Longclaw tried to set a pace that kept some slack in the chain. The one holding the other end did not quicken their pace to pull it tight and drag her along. For that she was grateful.

Finally, she was brought to a perch in the middle of an open space in the middle of a group of huts in the middle of a clearing within the trees she'd been walking through on a thin path. Her ankle was chained again to the perch, but then her wings were loosed. Without being asked she used them to launch herself up to land on the perch.

New faces came out of the huts and walked up into the village and toward from other paths. They stared up at Longclaw now perched above them. From their scowls, she knew she was not above them in their thoughts, however. Among the new scowlers, were more echidna, foxes, and a few owls perched on the roofs of the huts watching her from much higher up than her own new perch. She also spotted chameleons in the trees glaring at her.

She had almost gotten used to all the hate and disgust aimed at her thus far from the warriors who had captured her, even from her own healer. This increased acrid attention, caused her to decide to close her eyes and picture Sonic. He was only a child. Just a child who left his mother's side and had then gotten lost rolling around in the woods without her. She hadn't gotten to him in time. Then she'd dropped him. She'd tried to take responsibility for all of this by raising him for years. It had been hard, all this was still hard, but it was right. Children, especially those as young as him, ought to be protected not hunted. That was the true calling of a true warrior.

She reopened her eyes, lifted her gaze slightly, and just as slightly straightened herself on her perch. Standing too straight and puffing her chest out would draw extra ire from those watching to no real advantage to Sonic nor herself. Do not look too proud or too strong, nor too weak or ashamed. Just innocent, because you are.

She swept her gaze over the crowd trying not to linger too long on any face, before spotting something that made her forget this strategy. Near the back of the crowd glaring at her, was a female fox who was not. She wore no armor, though her straight wide powerful stance screamed "Warrior." She also had large blue eyes and a gaze about as emotionless as Longclaw's own neither scowling nor smiling. And in her arms was cradled a fox cub. Hanging down out of her arms holding him hung "two" tails. At first, Longclaw thought she had somehow missed seeing a second, twin cub in the fox-mother's arms. But no, the cub she held had shining gold fur, was alone, and had two tails.

Seeing she had caught Longclaw's singular, surprised attention by the owl's widening eyes fixed on her and the child in her arms, the female fox looked down away from her. She also hunched over slightly to block her babe from the owl's sight. Longclaw sucked in a short breath. For the first time in years, her mind started wondering about someone else's life and fate besides Sonic's and her own.

The leader of the echidna then gestured to Longclaw with his spear. "This is Longclaw once guardian of the blue emerald like us," he gestured to the echidna with him wearing their blue feathers in their headbands, "She betrayed us by letting one who nearly touched the blue emerald, was caught up in its glow, and changed by its powers live and even carried him away from us."

No one in the crowd gasped, but most there drew up and away from the newly arrived prisoner, while wrinkling their snouts and narrowing their eyes further. Longclaw looked away and down at the ground. If things went as she'd heard they did here, she'd have time to deliver her own speech and defense at her trial.

The echidna leader went on. "In four days time she will stand trial and answer our questions."

Longclaw had to hold back a shiver. She knew of some things they might do to get her to answer their questions. After these final words by the echidna leader though, the crowd even her guards there or gathering supplies since she'd sent Sonic away, left. However, she saw the fox warrior without armor, holding a baby, stay and stare at her till the other last two spectators standing some paces from the female fox in either direction, turned to leave, the fox also dropped her gaze Longclaw hadn't dared meet again, and walked away as well. Longclaw finally noticed the female fox's ankles were connected by a short chain that kept her from taking more than a short stride.

What do you think now?

God bless

ScribeofHeroes