I own nothing, but Bill, and this island and scenario for Sonic and Longclaw's world.

Please read and enjoy for free.

I stiffened. Silence stretched out between my Fox cub and me before he continued. "Bill and I were making some final alterations, there weren't many helpers around just two and us. They were helping him cause his elbow's been bothering him. I climbed a ladder to do something on top of the machine we were working on. Bill told me to wait, but I really wanted to get everything finished so we could try it out. I know, please don't look at me like that. I pretty much learned my lesson, cause I fell. I guess I even forgot to scream, cause no one saw. I didn't hit the floor, though. Instead, my tails spun around like what Bil says something called a "Helicopter" does. At first, my mouth just hung open as my tails spun around and my eyes stared at the ground below me. Then I thought to make my tails stop and landed on my feet. That finally made Bill and the helpers look, but I just grinned at them, and they went back to what they were doing."

My little fox stopped speaking and stared at me in silence like he'd been caught doing something naughty. Way back in my mind, my mother instincts wanted to comfort and reassure him, but my fear spoke far louder. "Tails ... you must never tell anyone this."

"I know. Why do you think I've only told you? I didn't even tell Bill. But ... it's awful hard not to do any experiments."

"I know, but you mustn't! And I'm proud you've been wise enough not to so far." I wrapped my wing more securely around him.

Tails sighed but replied softly. "Thanks, Longclaw."

I stared sadly at his hanging head. I let my imagination form impossible scenarios where we flew together through the sky my Fox Cub and I, but ... I hadn't even flown farther than my chain allowed me to for years. My fox cub, I feared, would not even be able to do that. Once he fell asleep, I stayed awake and mulled it over.

So, the chaos emerald his mother had guarded while she carried him had given him more than an extra tail. This was what the other guardians feared. He was indeed more like Sonic than I had hoped. His mind and its inventiveness "might" protect him even if this was discovered, but probably not. It was too great a risk to test it. I knew what the others had wanted to do to Sonic, what I had sent him to another world to protect my little hedgehog from. I turned my gaze to Tails again. He was older now than Sonic had been then. That night, I silently wept for them.

The next morning, I watched my Tails leave me to go help Bill check on their inventions after the storm. My heart pounded with worry. I wanted his busy mind taken off the temptation to experiment with his own capability of flight. Days passed without incident, but still worry gnawed my heart. I forgot to fear something else I should have known was coming.

Bill, was found one morning when warriors went to wake him, lying in his hammock not breathing. They later said, he was already pale and cool to the touch. How my little fox wept. Many did. I did ...

Bill and my fox cub had already created things together that helped guard our islands, our chaos emeralds, and had saved many warriors lives. So, they had told us all, when they sailed here to get damaged inventions Bill and Tails had made together fixed and ready for the next invasion. Bill may not have been born on our planet, but he had been respected and even loved by all of us, but especially my Tails ...

Bill was buried with honors usually only given to our greatest warriors and leaders. Tails' double tails, head, and eyelids drooped days and months after. His steps were heavy, and our fellow islanders complained the progress he made on the inventions Bill left unfinished had slowed. On another dangerously windy and rainy day that he stayed inside with me, he admitted to me he was sad and felt not only loss, but loneliness. I just wrapped my wing around him and thought of Sonic. How unlike, yet like my little hedgehog my little fox cub had become. Despite having more acceptance and purpose in this world than Sonic had had, much more, Tails was still lonely. And if any other than I here learned what a chaos emerald had done to Tails would he not also be treated the same as Sonic?

What do you think?

God bless

ScribeofHeroes