Fang's laughter was uproarious and intense, bouncing off the walls of his personal office where he kept his most precious treasures, piled one on top of the other, expensive paintings, bags full of gold and gems, all piled up as if they were trash. And at the center of it all was his new acquisition: a hulking red Echidna and a seemingly crazed Badger, both bound and gagged, unconscious and unperturbed by their captor's loud laughter. Behind them were Fang's main colleagues: the silent polar bear and the unhinged woodpecker. The former remained frowning as usual, while the other was browsing among the glittering gems, totally absorbed by the sparkle.
Anne stood to Fang's right, behind the mahogany desk, holding a tray with a pitcher of ice water. She looked tired and lethargic, dodging the water with her eyes. It had been a while since she quitted maintain her smile, although she didn't worry, since on one hand, she was too tired to do so, and on the other, Fang was too distracted laughing to notice the people around him.
Anne glanced at the captured. The echidna seemed to her to have seen it somewhere, when she was a child, perhaps before The Union, although any memory prior to that event always remained hazy, as if it had been centuries ago. Badger, on the other hand, did not recognize her at all. Both were sound asleep, as the Woodpecker had said, they had been sedated, so their capture was no problem.
"What a stroke of luck! Now good things are coming," said Fang as he paused laughing.
The polar bear made one of its usual terrifying sounds, apparently it was its way of communicating, neither Anne nor anyone else besides Fang and the bird could understand it at all.
"«What do I want them for?» It's not obvious? an exchange!", Fang rose from his large recliner and approached the echidna, resting his hand on the head. "The Kingdom of Acorn has these two knuckleheads on file, and I'm sure they'll be willing to pay big bucks to have "The Red Beast" and his gal companion handed to them on a silver platter. Just think about it: land, jewels or even... an ore of that prized Meta-Quartz of theirs," the weasel rubbed his hands together as he imagined the possibilities.
"Oh, you mean those stones that sparkle really, REALLY bright, boss? It would be nice to have one as a birthday present.", the bird was saying his usual nonsense.
The polar bear gave another of his snorts, sounding doubtful.
"And why wouldn't they give me Meta-Quartz? Sounds like a fair deal to me. And if not, we can also wake this brute up in the middle of his capital and let him cause as much chaos as he wants before he gets wiped out. It would be like literally killing two birds with one stone."
Anne couldn't say for sure, tiredness played tricks on her senses from time to time, but she had the impression of seeing the echidna move, as if reacting to what Fang was saying. But she put that thought aside when she saw that the others didn't notice anything.
"Take them to the safety depository, big guy," Fang ordered the Polar Bear. "And when you come back you bring me-"
The bear interrupted Fang with his snort, motioned with his head indicating Anne, who was nodding and struggling to stand.
"What? What about her?" asked Fang.
"Right, why is she here, little boss? Isn't it time for a drink of water?" the bird asked.
"So what? She surely already drank."
The bear gave a snort of doubt and reproach.
"Bah, I see her fine! She looks just like all the other idiots working. Besides, not drinking water one day is nothing, More saving for tomorrow!. They should be thankful they have at least something to drink every day so they don't die in the desert." Fang approached Anne, who tried to shoo away her tiredness and disguise what little energy she had left. "Don't you agree, girl?" the weasel asked as he pinned his gaze on Anne, demanding her approval.
"Y-yes Master Fang. I'm m-much obliged," the hare said awkwardly as she tried to sketch a smile.
The bear gave another reproachful snort, this time angrier.
"Yeah, that girl looks more wilted than a lone poppy in the midday doldrums of the inclement desert," said the woodpecker. All present stared at him between confused and shocked. "What? I like to read poetry when I get bored of using my head as a hammer. I have hobbies too, you know?"
The polar bear shook his head and insisted on his reproach to Fang.
"Fine! whatever! If you insist so much...", Fang snatched the tray from Anne and then approached to his desk, abruptly picked up his half-drunk glass of water and put it in front of the girl's face. "Drink!"
Anne stared at the glass without fully understanding what was happening. The polar bear crossed his arms and frowned even more as Fang pushed the glass further and further against Anne's face.
"Come on! If you're as thirsty as the big guy says you are, drink the hell up and don't waste our time!".
Fang was a disaster at eating and drinking. Most of the food-related incidents that occurred were entirely his fault, although he preferred to blame others. Anne being Fang's "favorite" spent more time at his side, so she had a record of how disgusting the weasel was, swishing the water around in his mouth to pour it back into the glass, running his tongue over almost the entire rim of the glass... The very idea made the hare's stomach churn. Anne put her hands between her face and the glass and tried to push it away as much as she could.
"N-no need, Master Fang. I'm fine-"
"Cut the chatter already drink at once!" said Fang before grabbing Anne by the back of the neck and pressing the glass against her mouth, forcing her to open it and drink from the water forcibly.
Inside the poor hare there was a struggle between its survival instinct, which wanted to drink the water once and for all so as not to drown, and its deep disgust and rejection, which preferred to die by drowning. She managed to reach a consensus: she closed her throat and windpipe completely, kept the water in her mouth, arranging it in such a way as to disguise it as well as possible, and mimicked swallowing, although in the attempt she felt some of the water pass through, which almost made her gag, but she had enough willpower to avoid it. In the end, when Fang let her go and the glass was empty, Ana sat up and tried to fake the best smile she could, without showing her teeth so that the water wouldn't leak out.
"She finally drank water. Happy?" exclaimed Fang in the direction of the bear.
The latter did nothing more than turn and leave the office, slamming the door behind him.
"Bah, who understands him? Bean, go get him, we haven't finished discussing what we're going to do with these two. And you girl, to show your gratitude to my benevolence, take these two sleeping beauties to the security depository, end of the corridor, left hand, and come back soon," he concluded as he took a seat in his recliner.
Bean helped Anne to carry the echidna and the badger to the front of the deposit, spitting out a string of nonsense all the way, to which Anne paid no attention, as she needed to concentrate in order not to drink the water she still had in her mouth. When she was in front of the depository and Bean left to look for his companion, Anne took it upon herself to place them in a suitable place among the stolen treasures, and it was only after she was done with it that she ran to the nearest expensive porcelain jug she could find in order to vomit up the water.
She released the entire contents of her mouth into the jug, spitting out whatever was left, but the horrible feeling would not leave her. For a minute she contemplated inducing herself to vomit, but remembered that she had barely eaten her morning breakfast and could not afford to vomit what was still in her stomach. She lay motionless for a moment, leaning over the porcelain pitcher, trembling and taking deep breaths to keep from bursting into tears.
"Hey... Are you all right, girl...?" a female voice was heard behind Anne's back.
The hare immediately turned around, fearing that it was one of her coworkers, but instead she found herself face to face with the Badger, who had been unconscious and tied up just a few seconds before. Incredulous and still trying to process what she was seeing, she turned her gaze to the bottom of the depository and saw the echidna fully awake and untying his bonds.
Before Anne could scream, Badger covered her mouth and held her tight.
"Ssshhh! Hey! Hey! Hey! Calm down! We won't hurt you!" the badger whispered trying to calm the hare.
The echidna, now free of his restraints, walked towards the exit, passing the two girls.
"Hey! A little help wouldn't be a bad thing you knucklehead!" reproached Badger.
"That damned Fang deserves a lesson...," the echidna replied coolly, the anger was palpable in his voice.
"I totally agree! but wait a minute, ok? Wait...", the badger began to rummage through her clothes until she found a photo, which she showed to Anne. "Hey, tell me: do you know the hare next to the coyote? Because you look quite similar, although your fur is different...".
Anne looked at the photo carefully and froze. That photo had been taken years ago, after The Union.
"Robert...," mused the hare with a trembling voice, full of fear. "What did you do to my brother? why-?".
"We didn't do anything to him. He sent us, for you," interrupted the echidna.
"«Us»? Didn't you want to stay out of this?" the badger joked.
"Shut your mouth-"
"No, YOU shut your mouth! if you give the poor girl one of your interrogations you'll scare her to death."
The echidna let out a snort and simply crossed his arms and gave the girls space. The badger then released Anne to talk normally with her.
"Alright girl, I'm Sticks, the brute over there is Knuckles, and yes, we're coming from... Robert? Is that what his name is? I just remembered I didn't even ask his name, hehe. What's your name?".
"A-Anne.
"Ok, Anne, nice name. Hey, I know the picture is old and people change a lot over the years, but I didn't know they could change their fur color like this."
"It must be a seasonal thing," Knuckles interjected. "It's winter time, and you come from the north, don't you?"
Anne nodded.
"Okay, that's very cool. I wish I would change my fur, it would distract the secret agents who are constantly watching me-".
"Sticks...," the echidna tried to bring her mad companion back to reality.
"Yeah yeah, we'll deal with those agents later. So, 'color-changing girl', Rob mentioned that you're both from the same orphanage, no other relationship other than that, you guys just decided to be siblings?".
"... Yes. I... I used to get picked on a lot by the other kids at the orphanage, because of my cut ear, and he was the one who stood up for me."
"Gee, don't they remind you of a couple you know?" asked Sticks to the echidna.
Knuckles just gave a small half-smile.
"Well, your brother is... alive, which is already a lot. He asked us to rescue you, though to do that we first need to know what exactly this place is. Can you tell us about it?"
Anne stared at her two unusual "supposed" rescuers. Although she still harbored a slight doubt, deep in her chest she began to feel a warmth that she had not felt for a long time. The memory of her brother, which at other times had only depressed her, now filled her with hope. Then she took a deep breath and tuned into her memories, seeking to recount what others had told her:
"Here there was a spring, or rather there «is». The spring supplied water to a large oasis, full of trees and lots of vegetation, those who have been here longer told me it was beautiful. The first nomads came to it a couple of years after The Union, they came from the East, I think from a place called Shamar or something like that, a place I had never heard of but would like to visit someday. They knew a lot about how to survive in the desert, so they knew very well how to take advantage of the oasis and the spring as a whole. By those years they were able to form a very large community of nomads from all over the world. They were surviving, but they did it with joy, because they had where to get the resources, and even though they were many, they never lacked, or so I have been told."
"Was it Fang who wiped out that Oasis?" asked Sticks.
"No, it was The Freedom Fighters."
Sticks turned to look at Knuckles, who had begun to frown.
"What was it that happened?" the badger asked again.
"They... arrived at night. Many have told me that this is how they always arrive, some say to avoid the embracing sun, others say it is to take their targets by surprise. They arrived claiming that, under a decree from a Queen no one ever heard of, and by order of a Minister of I-don't-know-what, all the resource-rich lands belonged to the crown. The nomads had the choice of becoming citizens of the Kingdom and enjoying the resources or surrendering the lands and withdrawing without resistance. There were some who did agree to be part of the Kingdom, but others did not. Those, I was told, were brutally repressed, forced to leave the oasis and disperse. After a while, some of those who left were able to return and discovered that they had wiped out everything, the crops, the water... they had left nothing but the spring. Those nomads who remained had hoped that with the spring alone they would be able to revive the oasis... But then the Master...", Anne stiffened trying not to tremble. "… Then Fang arrived. It was just the three of them, Fang, the Polar Bear and the Bird. The Nomads were more, and though they had been defeated by the FF, they were not weak. But... That Weird Stone..."
"What Weird Stone?" immediately reacted Knuckles. "What did it look like? What-?"
"Knux...," Sticks interrupted him. "She wasn't there when it happened, she's just telling what she was told."
"But what did they tell you about the stone?" the echidna insisted. "What color was it? What did it look like?".
"I-I don't know...".
"Knuckles, that's enough!" The badger planted herself in front of the echidna. "Let her finish, then we'll take care of the rest."
Knuckles' face turned from anger to slight guilt before he looked away and turned his back to the girls.
"What a time we're in that, of the two of us, I'm the more reasonable...," Sticks turned to Anne and motioned for her to continue her story. "You were saying?"
"... Fang used the power emanating from that weird stone to subdue the nomads who had remained. He forced them to dig the spring to extract as much water as they could. When he saw that he needed more people to work, his colleagues went to get more. That's how..."
"That's how you ended up here...".
"... When The Union happened, the orphanage that my brother and I belonged to was mobilized by The Restoration. But the ship we were on... I don't know what happened, whether it was an accident or an attack, the point is that we crashed. We wandered for days in the desert until we found a small settlement that had formed around a water well. They took us in and gave us something to eat, drink and sleep. We were part of the community, we helped turn the settlement into a small village, in those days...", a slight melancholic smile came across the hare's face. "It was the first time we both felt like we were in a family. Those were hard times, but nice...", the smile immediately disappeared. "Fang came one early morning, threatened to wipe out the village if we didn't give him our valuables. We naively believed that, if we cooperated, he would leave us alone, but that was not the case. He kept coming, asking for more and more things, it got to a point where he was basically charging us some kind of tax, just so he wouldn't kill us. Then he said he needed «Workers» and... I ended up here".
"Why you and not your brother?".
"Because...," Anne began to hug herself. "Fang demanded so. My brother protested and begged to be taken instead. But Fang wanted me from the very beginning. I know from the way he saw me then...".
"And what the hell does he want you for?" interjected Knuckles approaching the hare.
When Knux was close enough, something about the girl caught his attention. He could notice how underneath the makeup and outlandish clothing several bruises and still healing wounds were hidden. The echidna's breathing began to quicken. Without another word, he walked towards the exit of the warehouse with a quick and determined step.
"Wait Knux! We don't know-!" the badger tried to reason.
"I don't give a Damn! I'm not going to let that damn rat breathe another second!".
Then...
The sky was melting into tears all around them. The rain was falling furiously; the drops, as big as coins, were falling with such speed and forcefulness that it became painful when they hit the skin. It was the middle of the afternoon and the overcast sky remained black as if it were midnight. Near the horizon the sparkles were shining, fighting each other, the sound of their impacts arriving seconds after the flash, traveling at the speed of sound to the ears, threatening to deafen the unwary and shatter the windows.
In spite of everything, Amy and Knuckles couldn't have been happier. Before arriving at the house and when the rain was already taking hold, the pink hedgehog was running around looking at the sky, mouth open and sticking out her tongue, savoring every drop of rain. Knuckles, for his part, was trying to remain more composed, but couldn't help the smile on his face and the occasional goofy giggle. Upon arriving at the house they immediately went to the kitchen and took all the pots, jars, containers and glasses they could find into the yard. What they couldn't move, such as the bathtub, they filled with water from the already full containers. Because of the torrential rain, it didn't take long, but then Knuckles noticed something...
"It's not enough!" he shouted to Amy amidst the uproar of the rain. "All we collected isn't more than a couple of weeks' worth of water! And we don't know when it will rain again!".
"But there are no more containers left... What...?", Amy looked around as all the containers they had taken out were already overflowing. "What are we going to do?"
Knuckles threw himself to the ground and pressed his right ear against the ground, proceeding to hit it with moderate force. He kept moving in that position for a few meters until he gave up in frustration.
"I can't hear anything over the rain and...!", the echidna turned his gaze to the sky and could notice a slight decrease in the influx of water. "Damn! The storm is about to end...!".
Knuckles stood thoughtfully for a moment, kneeling on the ground, in the same position he was in when he gave up digging the holes...
"That's it! Amy!" the echidna ran to meet the hedgehog. "How big is the water tank? how far does it go?".
Amy was confused for a moment but immediately scanned the entire yard with her eyes and tried to tune in to her memory of when the tank was built.
"I think... here!" the pink hedgehog replied stomping on the ground.
"Step aside!" exclaimed Knuckles before leaping up and landing in a headfirst dive towards the ground with both fists extended above himself, driving them into the ground and starting to dig in.
On land it began to fly all over the place, gathering in the air with the water and forming mud that splashed everywhere. Even Amy couldn't avoid being hit by the disaster, although she was too busy watching what the echidna was doing to care. Within seconds the flying dirt was replaced with stone and then cement, until a loud thump followed by a deep echo was heard below the murmur of the rain.
"Amy!", Knuckles' voice seemed to come from inside a cave. "We need to create a funnel to channel the water!".
"I... I think I've got something!".
The hedgehog went as fast as she could into the house and within seconds came back out carrying a huge tarpaulin.
"Where did you get that?", Knuckles asked.
"The Restoration. Now, hurry up and get it settled!"
After thoughts:
Did you panic? did you think I had fallen into another hiatus? I'm trying to see if a bi-weekly rhythm suits me to be more regular with postings. But as I said, no promises.
On the other hand, in an exercise of frankness and transparency, I must admit that I screwed up with Anne's fur color. In The Red Beast chapter I said that it was "Coppery", i.e. like a redhead, but then I got stupid and put in Drought that it was white. It just so happened that there are Hares whose fur changes color with the seasons, but that was pure luck. I need to reread the whole fic so far and make a note of the details that may screw up the continuity. Maybe I'll find more mistakes that I should fix somehow, I'm afraid that this will happen again but with more critical points of the story. I'm scared shitless!
Advice for not screwing up like me? If you have a long time without continuing a story, go back and reread it from the beginning and, if you need to, write down everything important... or everything in general!
It would also be nice not to have taken so long between Thirst and Drought... but well, whatever happened, I have to move forward.
And since we are being so transparent, this chapter turned out to be very long, so I divided it in two. It's not the first time it happens and it's always good, because I have two chapters already finished that only need correction and it gives me more time to write the next one. So: all fine.