It's a privileged experience to once again bear witness to something you walked away from.

The breeze through my quills nips a bit cooler, now. The trees, once lush and green, bathe in shades of red, orange, and yellow, borne from things other than the setting sun. Colours take flight as leaves break from their branches and float to the ground in piles, and autumn crunches beneath my feet with every step through Central City Park.

A group of kids climb all over the playground. A squirrel, a badger, a mouse, and a skunk laugh, scream, and chase each other in their game of tag. The squirrel meets my eye as I watch them play, and I wave.

"It's Sonic!" she gasps, and her cry calls the other kids to look my way. They stumble and tumble off the playground, toward me, and I take a few steps back to receive them. The squirrel holds her hand out for a high-five when she reaches me, and soon enough I'm handing out high-fives like candy on Halloween.

"Woah, aren't I popular," I chuckle. "What, y'all never seen a hedgehog before?"

A wave of giggles ripple through the group.

"It's been forever since we've seen you around," the badger boy says. A chorus of agreement echos from the others.

I rub the base of my nose. "What can I say? I don't get my rep from sitting still, do I?"

"Where do you go when you're not here?" the squirrel asks.

"Hm, hard to say. Never the same place twice—not in a row, anyway."

"Don't you ever miss it here when you're gone?"

"Sure, sometimes." I shrug. "But wouldn't that just be picking favourites?"

"But isn't this your home?" the squirrel asks. "You're here so often."

I consider her observation. I'm not sure if I'd call my last visit here being four months ago often, but if you factor in the proximity to Amy's place, Tails' workshop, and even Angel Island, for most of the year, I guess I blitz through here relatively frequently, at times. Still, I'd hardly call Central City, a metropolis, of all things, my home.

But then, what is?

"The world is my home." I smirk.

The squirrel furrows her brow at me, disapprovingly, but her mouse friend cuts in before she can challenge me again.

"I've heard people call you a… a…" The mouse stumbles over the word she's looking for.

"Dude, spit it out," badger boy says.

"I'm trying!"

"Try harder!"

"Leave her alone!" The skunk steps between the mouse and the badger and glares. After the badger backs down, the skunk turns to face the mouse. I chuckle softly at the way his face softens at her.

"Sadie," he says, "what's the word you're thinking of? Describe it."

"It's like when you… drift around a lot," Sadie says, her hands miming the motions. "I think the grownup I heard use it also said the word 'wonderer.'"

"People are calling me a nomad?" I cock an eyebrow.

"Yes! Oh my gosh, yes, that's the word."

Hm. I guess it's not the weirdest thing anyone has ever said.

"Nomad? What does that even mean…" Badger boy mutters under his breath.

"It basically means someone who can't sit cooped up in one place for too long," I say, "which I guess checks out. Things get too boring when you wait around."

"I've heard people say you're like the wind," the skunk says. He blows a loose, airy whistle through his lips. Sadie the Mouse laughs, and he meets her with a grin.

"That's more like it!" I wink at the crowd and earn giggles all around, but the squirrel pipes up again.

"Yeah, but even wind has to start somewhere. It doesn't just… happen." She crosses her arms and watches me with a pout. "It has to do with… temperatures, or something."

She's not wrong. Wind starts out on bodies of water. Warm air rises higher into the atmosphere, displacing cooler air and pushing it down and beyond, below. The rush of that transaction is what wind is. I'd commend any kid other than Tails for knowing that fact, except that I don't know where she's going with this.

"Wind happens when other things influence it," the squirrel says, "so where does your wind come from?"

My face falls as I blink my surprise.

When you drift as much as I do, you become so entrenched in every culture you witness. You throw yourself into traditions, talk to everyone, live as they do. When you drifts so constantly between spaces—between worlds—it's easy for everything to feel a little bit like your home, after a while.

But as I hold this squirrel's gaze for a second too long, the hint of a crater in my gut tells me it's easier for nothing to take its place.

She opens her mouth again, to pry in that annoyingly innocent way kids do, but I beat her to it.

"Right over… there!"

I sprint to a nearby, neatly groomed leaf pile and run loops around it. The more loops I draw, the faster the leaves whip up in a vortex, climbing higher into the sky. I skid to a stop as the leaves cascade down around us, and I make my escape while the kids run around in the raining leaves.

Hot chocolates and book covers and first dates all catch my gaze as my body rejoins society, some sort of unconvincing smile plastered on its face. I walk the beaten path for a minute more, willing my quills to get off the defence. The further I walk into the park, more and more trees coat the ground with a season's farewells. The lands hue deepens and warms as the sun gets closer to the horizon.

In the centre of the affair stands a large, white gazebo. Central City Park often herds folks to watch local bands and artists perform on weeknights and weekends. Tonight, an acoustic artist is playing a set to a small selection of onlookers.

My feet carry me to the wall of shrubs that divide the park in half. With a final peek over my shoulder, I survey the kids at the playground, again. The squirrel has long since forgotten me, now chasing the badger up the slide and across the climbers. Sadie the Mouse sits with the skunk boy in the remnants of the leaf pile I whipped into a flurry. The skunk says something to Sadie, then looks at her with a simple confidence belonging to a boy much older than him. Sadie puts her head on his shoulder, and the skunk's suave composure melts into a giddy smile.

With a gentle chuckle through my nose, the last of my guard falls as I slip into the brush.

Twigs of cedar sift through my fur and quills as I trudge through our clearly overgrown shortcut. I'd buzzcut the shrubs with a spindash, but I don't want to give my position away, just yet. I'll have to do it, soon enough, anyway, if we plan on getting out of here.

I poke my head out of the shrubs, ahead of the rest of me, to survey the area. Trees on this side shed their leaves by the mountaintop. The paved pathways have been maintained for safety, their detritus pushed thoroughly onto the patches of grass in between. Much of the grass around has been coated in nearly a foot of leaf-litter, and in some areas, even higher.

Amy sits across the auburn ocean, on our bench planted between two towering oaks. She's in a maroon turtleneck sweater, a dark purple skirt, and what I think are her normal boots. She's been here for a while, judging by the soaring leaf piles surrounding her.

Something is different, though. Not just her outfit, but her. I can't place it.

Quietly, I step out of the bush and gain some ground on her.

"Amy." I wave, walking over.

Something flutters in my stomach when she sees me. Warmth tingles through my arms and across my face in waves as her eyes find new light. Her lips melt into a lighthearted grin, then snap into a much cheekier one. I'm doomed before I can react.

Amy launches herself off the bench in a sprint toward me, her arms outstretched before her.

"Amy, don't…!" My arms thrust in front of me to shield myself from her pending attack. My leg steps back into a lunge to brace for impact. When Amy closes in and locks her fingers in mine, a hearty laugh bursts from my chest.

Amy's force against me anchors my feet into the earth, but I feel them slipping under the raw power of her strength. Amy's eyes stare into my own as she fights. Her spunk and spice and passion sparkle in her gaze. With another push, she gains a step on me, and I stumble back before my feet catch themselves again. Amy's giggle serenades the surrounding trees.

"Amy, don't you dare!" I plead, but my brazen smile and that stubborn flutter inside expose me. Amy laughs even harder, and before long, my feet slip from under me. Fallen leaves crunch under our weight as I land on my back with Amy on top of me. The leaf-litter tickles my quills, but Amy pays it no mind as she quickly regains control. When Amy aligns her face with mine and plants countless kisses on my cheeks, the leaves don't tickle as much, anymore.

Amy kisses faster the harder I laugh. When I plant my hands on her waist to push her off, she anchors her arms around my neck and pulls herself even closer to me. I fight for my life against this girl and my nerves before I can finally squeeze myself out to safety.

Amy stays limp in the leaves, cackling, while I stagger to my feet. She musters enough control to roll onto her back before melting back into a puddle of silly and love.

I groom my quills for the final minute it takes Amy to compose herself. When she finally stands up, she rests her hands on her knees, panting. However, just when I think I'm free, Amy jumps on me again. She cradles my head in her arms while she hugs me, and despite everything, I snicker at her suddenly gentle touch.

I pull Amy's arms off me and step out of her hold. My hands cradle hers, instead.

"You are relentless," I say. "What did I do to deserve this?"

Amy giggles sweetly as her gaze swims in my own. "I just knew you were back."

I pluck a leaf free from her quills and let it fall to the ground. "And how'd you know that?"

"Same as always. You know we're fated to always find each other."

I groan.

"I'm kidding. Tails told me."

"And you didn't even say hi?" I pull my glove back to reveal my communicator, checking for a missed notification.

"Sounds like you missed me," Amy sing-songs.

I side eye her. "I miss everybody."

She laughs. "Yeah, okay. Besides, I didn't have to text—you're here, aren't you?"

I blink. I smirk at her before I shake my head, chuckling.

"Like I said. We'll always find each other."

I can't remember when this started, when our encounters became less about chase in lieu of reunion. I can't remember when I knew I would always find her here, of all places, whenever I was back in her corner of the world. I can't remember when sunset became our time, when that shortcut became our shortcut, when this bench became our bench.

I can't remember when this coincidence became tradition.

I can't remember the rules of this game, if they were ever established.

I just know that this spot, this park, this moment, has been a constant in an ever-changing world for as long as I can remember.

I hold Amy's gaze for a second too long, but she doesn't pry. She waits for me to roll my eyes like I always do, so I deliver.

"Oh, whatever. Speaking of which." I jut a thumb over my shoulder, in the general direction of the cedar shrubs I walked through. "Our shortcut's a little overgrown."

Amy's expression dims slightly as her gaze follows my gesture. "Yeah, I noticed that…"

"Something wrong?"

"No! I mean…" Amy cuts herself off with a sigh. She plucks a red leaf from the ground and twirls the stem between her fingers. "This is just a bit different than how I imagined this going. I was expecting you to be back a while ago, honestly." Amy flicks the leaf away, her lips slipping into a sad smile.

The acoustic guitar's melody sifts through the cedar shrubs and wafts in the air between us, and Amy soon breaks eye contact to follow the sound. That difference in her, that challenge to our status quo, twinges in my mind again. I still can't place it.

"Yeah, my bad…"

"No, don't!" Amy's head snaps back to face me. She drops the leaf to grab my hands, leaving it to flutter to the ground. "Please don't apologize."

Amy goes on about pressure this and claim that and free spirit over there, and I let her get it out of her system. I've given up trying to understand every single one of her rambles because she usually finds her words eventually and simplifies her message, soon enough. Besides, the more her head moves, the more that niggle in the back of my mind eats at me. What is it about her that's bothering me?

What's missing? Or, what have I missed?

Amy's thoughts trail away as she eyes me with a pout, seeking acceptance.

"I… think you lost me, Ames." I chuckle. Amy sighs and lowers our hands. A soft giggle slips through her frustration.

"I just… I don't want you to feel like… you're on some kind of timeline."

And there it is.

My gaze softens. With a smile, I squeeze her hands lightly.

"Amy… I don't. I just don't want anyone to feel like I don't care."

Amy blinks at me before gazing off to the side. With a giggle, a wide but soft smile blooms onto her face. "I don't." I soak in her bashfulness and seize my opportunity at payback.

"Good." I tug on her hands softly and she stumbles a step closer to me. "Because I do…" I tilt my head down, bringing my face to her level. Amy turns her head fully away from me, now, eyes wide and her cheeks, flushed. With a soft, soft whisper, I deliver the final blow. "A lot."

Amy lunges back and shakes her head, but she doesn't release my hands. "Okay, stop."

"What? After all this, you're being shy?"

Amy whips her head toward me and opens her mouth to speak, but her defence catches in her throat. She drops my hands to cover her face. "Oooh!"

Amy dives into the sea of leaves around us.

"Oh, c'mon, Amy. Don't be like that." I step gingerly after her general direction. I only let my feet contact the ground after I'm certain it won't crunch a spare quill or leg. "Come on out. I play nice…" After a few more cautious steps, I bend down on all-fours to wade around in the leaves more thoroughly.

I don't understand how she just disappeared. These leaves are so loud that there's no way I'd not hear her move… unless she only moves when I move. I stop myself and listen to the air. Light wind persists throughout the park.

Wait. Is this a trap?

Amy pounces out of the ocean and tackles me to the ground.

The sun clings to the horizon in a losing battle against twilight. Amy rests her back against one of the legs of our bench, her legs drawn up to her chest. I lie on the earth next to her, leaves cushioning my back and framing my face and quills. Amy twirls another leaf stem between her fingers—this one yellow—and peacefully watches the leaf swish in the air. The street lamp above us, now awake for the night shift, shines its light through the blade, revealing the vast network of veins within. My eyes follow the blade's movement, imagining the gusts of wind it creates.

A gentle breeze wafts by us, and as Amy's quills dance in its wake, that niggle zings to the front of my mind.

I draw a sharp, deep breath through my nose. I get it, now, and I can't look away.

Amy meets my eye from over her shoulder and smiles. "Something catch your eye?"

She snickers, but I stare back at her blankly, unsure of my next move. Finally, I commit. "Your quills are longer," I say.

Amy raises her eyebrows as she reaches for a quill.

"Oh, are they? I hadn't noticed much, to be honest. I'm surprised you did."

I tear my eyes away with an irritating flush, huffing through my nose.

"How much longer?" Amy asks. When I glance at her again, her smile is kind, not coy. I take my time thinking about my answer.

"About an inch," I decide. "They used to rest on your shoulders. They don't, anymore." Amy studies her quills more. She runs her fingers through them, pinching the ends straight down.

Hedgehog quills don't typically grow longer; we usually shed before they get the chance to. Each hedgehog works with a maximum length, so to speak. That length only increases in a couple of bursts throughout our lives.

"Have you really not noticed?" I ask.

"It's not something I pay attention to," Amy says. "Are you sure it's not my sweater changing how they look?"

"Nah, they're definitely longer."

"Hm. Guess I had a growth spurt, then!" She giggles.

"Woah there, short-stuff. Don't get too chipper, now." I lift open palms in front of me in a 'slow down' sort of way.

Amy throws a fistful of leaves in my face. "You are such a pain!"

I laugh as I free myself from leaf litter, only for Amy, the second I meet her eyes again, to throw another leaf ball at my face. I laugh even harder, this time letting the leaves linger.

I move as much as I do because it'd be such a waste of this gift I have, if I didn't. The ground beneath my feet, the wind in my quills—it all means something to me.

But where does the wind come from? Man.

I've always thought of myself as the wind. Wind, personified, or as the conqueror of it, never at its mercy. But could there be something—somewhere, someones—driving what I do? How I live my life?

Can someone so free-flowing possibly have a tether?

Amy, this time, frees my face from the leaves. Gentle hands brush litter off my eyelids, away from my nose, and out of my ears. As I'm able, I study her snickering smile, her playful, apologetic eyes, her longer quills.

It's a privileged experience to once again bear witness to something you walked away from.

"What's home for you?"

Amy's face crumples with confusion, and her head points down more acutely to study me. I manage to hold my face study under her gaze, but the breath through my nose is slow and calculated—controlled.

"Sonic, you've been to my house." Amy cocks an eyebrow and takes a witty approach to her concern.

"Humour me."

Amy narrows her eyes, but ultimately heeds my request. She leans back on both her hands and watches the dark, autumn-coloured clouds.

"Home is a two-story cottage on the edge of town?"

She side eyes me for approval. When I open my eyes to her, she digs deeper and sees me. She tries again.

"Home… is in my heart, I think." She turns to me, head-on, and her eyes fill with such a love that I still don't know what to do with. She pulls a hand up to caress the top of my head. I flinch under her touch, this time, but more out of surprise than discomfort. Either way, she only does the gesture once.

"I like my creature comforts, yeah. I'm not sure what I'd do with myself if I went too long without baking something, or if I could never touch my fortune cards, again, but the thing that makes home for me is my love for those who are important to my life. As long as those people are around, I'm home."

My heart twinges at the word 'around'.

"And if they're not around?" I ask. "Then what?"

"Then, as long as I can share my life with them." Amy shrugs. I watch her, weighing the consequences of my next words.

"And if home changes without you?" I ask.

My mind clouds with selfishness as soon as I say it. I'm the one who moves like the wind. I'm the one who never stays put. I'm the wanderer, drifting from place to place. What do I expect—my friends to stand still whenever I'm not here? For Tails to stop getting smarter? For Knuckles to never find his wings? For Amy to wait around, raking leaves?

Amy blinks at me, studying the admission laced in my words. Then, she smiles.

"I think I have just the thing for you, actually."

Amy rises from her spot, crawls to the other side of the bench, and reaches underneath into yet another leaf pile. From the mass, she retrieves a book. I tilt my head at her when she hands me the book as she sits down.

The hardcover book sports an illustration of Sunset City that wraps around both sides of the cover. The front cover, instead of a title, bears some handwriting, and I quickly recognize the signatures of Amy, Tails, and Knuckles.

"It's a journal," Amy says. "A couple of weeks after you left, I thought it might be nice for you to have something new to read waiting for you when you came back. We all took turns writing in it, and after a few days, we'd pass it along to the next person. It took a bit of convincing of the boys—more so Knuckles than Tails—but it wasn't long before they were excited to get the thing back in their hands. We've been exchanging it for over a month, now."

Amy gazes into her hands, fiddling with them as she speaks. My thumb caresses the journal's cover, but I can't bear to look away from her. When she finally looks at me again, I smile at the blush on her cheeks.

"Amy…"

"Open it," she says, and I snap out of my trance.

A photo of the four of us is pasted on the inside cover. It's a selfie Amy took on Angel Island in the spring. She, Tails, Knuckles, and I lie on our backs, heads together, smiling into Amy's cellphone camera. Knuckles smirks, holding a hand above him to block the sun from his eyes. Tails flashes a massive, toothy grin, goofily so, to the camera, and Amy squints, laughing. I wink at the lens, offering a peace sign.

We took the photo only a couple days before I left. It was the last time we were all together.

I flip through the journal's pages to get a gist of their stories. The differences between Amy's, Knuckles', and Tails' handwriting are immediately apparent. Amy has the neatest penmanship, but also the softest line weight. Knuckles writes in all capital letters, thick and heavy, kind of blockish, but perfectly legible. Tails' handwriting is actually the worst: his letters are inconsistent sizes and scribbly. His brain probably moves so fast that his hands are constantly playing catchup.

They write comments on each other's entries, using the margins and always a different colour than the entry, itself. My thumb catches on a leaf of paper that juts out slightly from the rest, and flipping to the page reveals a pasted printout of a letter-tracing practice sheet. Amy wrote Tails' name in the top left corner followed by a heart. Knuckles even added an exclamation point next to it. Tails wrote "you guys are mean!" with a winky face on the bottom of the worksheet, but he still completed it—and quite well.

I cackle, smack the book shut, and hold my hand out for Amy to high-five. She quickly heeds my call.

"I'm sorry—it was becoming a problem," Amy pleads through laughter. I can only nod while I find my composure. When I collect enough to open the journal again, Amy scoots closer to me and rests her head on my shoulder.

Amy, of course, wrote the first entry:

Hello boys!

Oh, this is so cool! It's like I'm writing a welcome letter to the rest of our lives! I'm so excited to read about all your (mis)adventures. I'll start us off with something short and sweet.

When I was walking home after buying this journal, I ran into a bunch of kids who were having a water balloon fight. One side was very clearly winning the battle, so I joined the losing team to even out the score. I helped them rethink their strategy and even took a couple hits for the team! I left before they finished, but I think I left them in a much better place than before.

~Amy

Tails, next:

Hey!

Can we do water balloons? That sounds like so much fun.

I've been reorganizing my workshop. I finally installed a peg board that I can use to hang all my tools, which will free up cabinet space for some of my gadgets. I decided it was high time after Amy tripped last time she was here (sorry, again, Amy)!

I'm currently eating a plate of mint chocolate chip cookies. Vanilla's recipe, but I made them, myself! I've been working all day, so I think I'm gonna play a video game after this.

~Tails

Knux enters the archive.

I'm not sure what to say, to be honest. I've never done anything like this. Amy, you said to just 'think out loud' but it's a lot harder than that.

Tails, I will think about water balloons, but definitely not on my island.

I've been working on restoring some of the ruins for safety. Digging and mixing clay to secure structures. I've made a lot of progress in Hydrocity, actually. It's probably not the prettiest construction but it's been nice to work on a project.

The sunset right now is orange and pink, but I can still see the sun below the clouds.

See you guys soon.

~Knuckles

Page after page of my people being goofy and silly and themselves. They crack jokes, give each other advice, tell secrets, play games. The entries seem to get longer after this as they seem to settle into the idea, so I skim the whole thing a final time before I close the book.

I nuzzle the top of Amy's head with my cheek. "You're sweet." She wraps her arms around mine and giggles.

"Seriously," I say. "This is amazing. Thank you."

"Oh, you're just trying to butter me up," Amy mutters.

"I mean, it's cheesy as all get-out, but I love it." Amy glares at me though her lashes, but I jump back in before she can protest. "If this is 'buttering you up,' then you've baked me into a whole pie, Ames. Everything about this is perfect. I can't wait to read it all." I flip through the pages again. They've only filled about a third of the entire journal. My hand rests on the first empty page.

"That's the best part," Amy says. "It's your turn."

Amy pulls herself away from me to fish around in the cuff of her boot. When she plucks out a permanent marker and hands it to me, I gawk. They've lived their lives together, shared their lives together, and they've saved a spot for me.

Amy laughs as I snatch the marker from her hand and rip off the cap. I sign my name on the journal cover with the others.

"Knuckles was the last to write in it, so give it back to me whenever you're done. After me, it goes to Tails, then back to Knuckles, then back to you. I'm hoping we can at least finish the book, and if we decide we liked this, we'll keep on going."

I study the signatures of the people I cherish most in this world. My finger traces each of their signatures. It lingers on Amy's.

"Amy, where did this come from?"

"Isn't it obvious? You're a bookworm."

"Nah, that's not it," I say. "You chose a journal because I read, sure, but that's not the point of this. You could have painfully taught Knuckles to use a video camera, or got Tails organized enough to keep a scrapbook. You did this—all of you did—because you wanted me to see it. Why?"

Amy considers the question for what I sense is the first time. She's like me, in a lot of ways: very act first, think about it later. In time, she finds the answer on her lips.

"I think I realized how much life we've all been living, y'know? It's hard to find the time to catch each other, to catch up. I think I wanted to find a way for us to keep up with each other without anyone having to slow down because I don't think any of us like it when things get too slow." She props her elbows on her knees and shrugs. "It's obviously not a replacement for time spent together. That's why we're here, right?" She gestures to the twilight park before us. "But it's a memento for us to look back on and remember who we are."

"It's another way to share your life with us," I say, "and another way for us to share ours with you."

She glances away bashfully, then rekindles her gaze with mine with newfound comfort. "Yes."

Home changes as life desires.

Wind drifts. Leaves fall. Quills grow.

Tools work. Ruins rebuild. Tethers defy bounds.

Tears fall. Lips touch. Laughter sings.

Home changes without you, and it's a privileged experience to rediscover all the things you missed.