I do not own the characters you may recognize from the movies. Nor the Chaos Emeralds. I make no money from this, so please enjoy and don't sue.

The younger echidna raised his voice while waving his fists up and down. "She has endangered us all! And that danger is still out there! She must be tortured until she tells us his location and how to defeat him! Then she must be executed for breaking our code!"

The older echidna turned back to the younger. His frown deepened. "When you are facing a threat, you do not understand tread lightly. There is a reason we do not send in our full strength when invaders first appear. We nearly always lose the majority of the fighters who first face new enemies."

There was a pause of silence I shared with all there. The faces, heads, and hearts of myself, my accusers, and everyone in the crowd fell together. After about two heartbeats, the elder echidna continued in a softer voice. "The young hedgehog achieved what we try to keep all others from achieving: power from an emerald. To believe we can take from one trained by us," he waved toward me, "All we need to defeat this fast as a falling star hedgehog, when she wishes to protect him, is nonsense. If he does love her or has, we cannot throw away the potential of hesitation on his part to destroy her."

I flinched, as the echidna elder walked away again. I had hoped Sonic's power was unknown to them. Since I'd been asleep moments before I saw warriors had surrounded our hut, I'd had my fears Sonic had been running where they could see him. Now, I knew these fears to be true. They probably knew Sonic had a speed like invader-machines through the air. Now, they knew some of the problems of stopping him, they could begin planning to solve them. I almost sighed aloud, but held it in.

The older echidna turned to the crowd some of whom looked almost as angry as the younger echidna shaking before me with his face turned toward them. The elder's loud deep voice filled the space around us and ears of our observers. "We will keep her here under constant guard and if her oath rises to the surface of her heart again and she shares the location of the hedgehog with the power of the emerald pulsating through him, so be it. And if he returns, we shall send her to him. She will be told no more secrets and entrusted with no other missions until then. She shall remain here for the good of the universe."

"But she deserves to die!"

I startled at this shout from my younger accuser, not because I feared his condemnation, though I certainly had felt my feathers rise every time my mind strayed to what they would to do me to find Sonic and punish me for rescuing him, but I was genuinely startled he kept on arguing with his leader. The older echidna though, simply turned and spoke in a deep, even voice that carried without him having to shout, "If it were about punishment alone, I never would have tried to kill the hedgehog. He had to die so the universe could be protected. She has to live so the universe can be protected."

And then he strode away, and the younger echidna turned back to me teeth bared and clenched so tightly I almost thought they might break. I stared back wondering as much as he at the lessening of my sentence. I felt sorrier for him than myself. Though, I looked down at the chain around my ankle and began to consider my new future. Living as long as I could on judgement island like this was not much a future I craved either.

I glanced at the stands and saw while many had already risen and were walking away the same fox as before rose only now. When she stood on her feet, she locked gazes with me. After we remained so for one heartbeat, she also turned sideways and began to shuffle more than stride away with that short chain connecting her feet.

I heard a growling snarl. I turned to look at the young echidna as he glared at me for one more breath, before turning and striding away. Then I followed the shuffling fox with my gaze again. She was still carrying the baby fox with two tails.

. . .

My wings were bound again and the "lead" they had used before to take me there was reattached to the bindings. Then they unchained my foot and led me away to a hut for owls near the edge of the village. It was smaller than the one I had shared with Sonic on our final island home, but about the size of the one I'd lived in as a warrior before rescuing him.

. . .

Days of remaining chained to the doorway of my new hut later invaders came through a portal less than an hour's journey offshore from Judgement Island. I assumed this meant they knew the right planet, but not the right island to go to for a chaos emerald. However, this only meant the warriors of Judgement Island had to fight them like the island contained an emerald to convince them their error was correct and keep their attention far from the truth.

I felt odd staying behind, chained so I couldn't join them, untrusted. My heart did not long to deal out and watch death but lurched out of long habit to go with the others and do my part. It sank into darkness at being unable to do so not because I was resting to go with another wave of warrior, but because I was under arrest. I finally began to feel the shame they had attempted to put into me.

Remembering all my days with Sonic, his grin, his laughter, they way he buried himself into my feathers during a storm the blue power coming off him crackling more than the electricity outside had been enough to discount the multitude of glares aimed at me the last few months. Now, I was safe, left behind because I was not trusted to fly beside my fellow warriors in battle. Others died offshore without me, and I felt shame.

As I gazed at the flashes and red glow of burning from the war beyond though, a voice spoke from the shadows of the trees surrounding my hut. "I've grown used to it."

I turned my head and spied her the armor-less fox not carrying her cub. As I glanced at her arms hanging at her sides, she said, "He sleeps. Though he's a light sleeper and much is going on far away he'd be more likely to awake if I brought him with me."

"What do you want with me?"

"First, let me explain myself. I know what you must have been thinking. And you are probably right. I will not say I fell in love. I wanted to do what we are forbidden to do. I did not want the child. I thought I could continue my work and hide the fact I carried, I successfully did so. Despite all warnings, I didn't expect him to appear as he did when I gave birth to him alone Still, I left him where he could be found near the huts of fox villagers. I feigned ignorance when news of his being discovered spread. Still, I was discovered, when I was inspected with the other female fox warriors. After all, he did have bright golden fur and two tails. Why would he have those unless chaos emeralds were involved, and who were closer to their guardians."

"Why confess all this to me?" I was genuinely confused. Did she think as a fellow once warrior and prisoner despised for breaking our code, I'd better accept her breaking of our vows? I considered mine more logical. Even in her own delivery, she seemed to confess hers had come purely from desires we'd sworn to deny. At least once, she'd given into them instead.

She continued. "I didn't want him. But they made me care for him all the way to Judgement Island and ever since. He hasn't shown other than his bright fur and extra tail a sign of being dangerous. He's even younger than your hedgehog was when he fell on an emerald. My sentence has been set. As soon as my babe is weaned, I'm to be executed."

I drew back slightly. Despite my knowledge of the law, killing our own, even when they disobeyed, roiled my gut more than killing strangers invading our land only to put our universe in danger if their goal succeeded. She continued still further. "Despite him not showing signs of danger, everyone looks upon him much as they do you and me. As death waiting to grab them. As disaster waiting to fall. You have shown courage in caring for another child already seemingly more dangerous than he."

"You want me to care for him after your execution?" Clarity and an odd lightness came over me for the first time during our conversation.

"He is fussy. I've tried under the eyes of my guards to get him to eat more on his own and he hasn't liked it one bit. But I haven't tried very hard either. I'm not eager to die. After all this time with him, nearly two years since realizing he was within me, I'm not eager to leave him with those who fear him either."

I nodded. "After raising a child who'd fallen on an emerald and was changed because of it greatly, I don't fear raising yours. And it would be nice to have a purpose here besides protecting the last child I cared for with silence."

She released a deep breath in something softer than a sigh, but I still heard the distinction. Her shoulders fell as well as she nodded. For the first time, I heard warmth in her cool clipped voice. "Thank you." Then she turned and took a few steps away.

I looked down and realized the reason I hadn't heard her approach was not only due to my distraction by events offshore, but that she had wrapped the chain binding her ankles up with cloths. Then she stopped and looked back. "I just want you to know, I admire you. I betrayed our vow to be distracted by nothing while protecting the emerald out of lust. You still seem more warrior than ever protecting something … someone else not even your own flesh and blood."

I shook my head. "Fighting with chameleons, echidna, and fellow owls so long showed me we are one people with many abilities united in protecting our islands and our emeralds and thus the whole universe those we don't even know. To protect one small innocent hedgehog from a death he didn't deserve seemed no great departure from that."

The fox nodded. "Despite my own fate I feel sorry for you. You've been unjustly treated, but I am glad for my cub you are here. Thank you again."

Then she walked away to the night, and I heard the fussing of a child that quieted down soon after she left. Over the following days and weeks, she acted like we never spoke staring at me far less than before walking by without meeting eyes. But I overheard the child crying even screaming more. Finally, I heard the drums and knew she was to be killed. I heard less of the actual strike, but later overheard the wailing much and it went on and on till finally into the night as the stars shown a glaring, dragging old echidna warrior approached me. "The child of the fox we executed today. Now he cries and none of us can comfort him."

I raised my feathers and straightened my back a bit. "Not even the villagers?"

"Few of them have had children and they seem stiff and terrified of him, when we ask them to try."

I rolled my eyes. "Bring him to me." They did. My first interaction with the cub stomped my pride. If anything, he cried more after they placed him in my wings.

I don't think he'd been near owls before. But, I held him close to my chest, hummed, sang, and rocked him. I never had so much trouble putting Sonic to sleep even after he'd eaten poison berries only to vomit them back up. But finally, the fox cub's screams turned to sobs and his sobs turned to whimpers as he pushed his face into my feathers. Then he finally fell asleep. The wrinkles of the old echidna's face fell along with his shoulders, head, and back. I thought he wanted to thank me. He did grunt, turn, and walk away. And that's how I got a new child.

What do you think?

God bless

ScribeofHeroes