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“Perfect place for an ambush...no response...just check on him real quick…” Shadow barely took in what Tails asked him to do. He needed an excuse to get out and running, and quickly took the task Tails asked of him. He felt the wind whip through his quills, a feeling he’d gotten used to, but never took for granted. He slowed down, looking for the location Tails mentioned. He said it was a large cliff side, with plenty of waterfalls. Those weren’t rare in Green Hill, but apparently this cliff specifically had a large amount of flowers. Shadow presumed the directions he was given were right, seeming as the cliff mass had almost a field of sunflowers taller than him. Shadow carefully sifted through the sunflowers.
The one difficult part about this short-term mission was finding Sonic himself. According to Tails he had some kind of hideaway here, that wasn’t easy to find. Shadow boosted over the sunflowers for a second, to see if there were any creases in the field indicating a possible hedgehog within, but all was perfectly still. Shadow lowered carefully, trying not to burn the flowers, and continued to an opening. It was a pretty small waterfall, but big enough to lead into a river. Shadow stuck his feet in, letting the river naturally clean the dirt off his shoes.
He took a second to take in the sounds of nature around him. This mission wasn’t that much of a worry for him, even if Sonic was in trouble, it wouldn’t be anything Shadow couldn’t handle. The sounds of flickies singing and the river flowing against rocks was another thing Shadow never took for granted, it was incredibly different than the hums, beeps, and shuffling footsteps he was used to being in the background, that or the complete silence. The natural harmony of the planet was very calming. What wasn’t was the sudden and cheerful, “Hey! Lay off, buddy!”
Shadow’s ear flicked in the sound’s direction, he knew that voice anywhere. Had the waterfall been any larger it would have completely covered up the sound coming from near it. Shadow approached, seeing a small hole leading behind the waterfall, he peeked in, seeing a small cave. He quietly passed through, peeking out of the exit, seeing a circular clearing. A trickling waterfall led to a still lake, taking up most of the clearing, the rest being covered in grass and colorful flowers, with a few trees. But the most striking thing about the clearing was the mass amounts of chao, who at the moment, had completely surrounded the blue hedgehog.
“What’s the deal? You have plenty of food.” Sonic was holding up some kind of sandwich high into the air, out of the chao’s reach. The chao sung a chorus of noises, all while waving their arms at Sonic, who lowered his head in defeat. “Ok, fine...you guys can have a little bit.” Sonic broke off half of his meal, and started spreading pieces of it to the surrounding chao, who were absolutely delighted.
“He’s alright then, don’t know why Tails was so worried.” Shadow whispered to himself, ready to turn around and leave.
“Hello?” Shadow turned around, to see Sonic staring at him, the hedgehog just realizing who was there. “Oh, hey Shadow! Didn’t expect you to show up.”
“Tails wanted me to make sure you were ok, and I need an excuse to get out, that’s all.”
Sonic laughed. “Tails worries too much,” he passed a piece of food to the chao next to him, and patted them on the head as they waddled away. “Sure you don’t wanna stick around? This is a nice relaxing place.”
“My job is done, bye.” But before Shadow could fully turn around, he felt a pressure on his leg. He looked, and a small chao was hugging his leg, and smiled up at him. “Uh, oh.” Shadow tried to gently take the chao off, but they grabbed onto his arm, refusing to let go.
“Looks like you’re stuck here, it’s illegal to get them off.” Shadow sighed, before walking into the clearing, and sitting down in the grass, chao still stuck to his arm. As soon as he sat, another chao made their way onto Shadow’s lap, curling up and eating the sandwich piece he got. Sonic laughed, leaning against a tree. “You really are a big softie, huh.”
He replied with a “ Humph”, as a young dark chao started biting on one of Shadow’s quills. “No, no, no.” Shadow released the dark chao, placing him gently on the ground. “Quills taste bad and will hurt your mouth.”
“Talking from experience?”
“Shut up.” he gave the dark chao a scratch on the head, before it wandered off to chew on something else.
“It’s ok, I chewed on my quills while quilling too, we all did.” Sonic chucked, watching Shadow’s annoyed face glare at him. Another chao approached Shadow, snuggling up next to the one already in his lap. “You really let them walk all over you, huh.”
“What can I say,” he said, scratching a chao on the head, “I share the love everyone has for chao gardens.”
“I mean, fair.” Sonic said, looking around. “This one’s actually natural.”
“Hm?”
“Before chao gardens became something you could sell, chao would find natural places like this to live, all that’s needed is some calm water and solitude, along with the other basic needs of course.” Sonic tapped the tree he was leaning against. “This place is probably older than both of us.”
“Are you sure?” Shadow said, with the ‘I was cryo-frozen for 50 years’ look on his face.
Sonic thought, tossing the half of the sandwich he had left in his hand. “...Yeah I think so, natural chao gardens are usually pretty frickin’ old. Some around 4,000”
“That’s definitely before my time.” he replied, watching some chao cuddle up against Sonic’s foot. “I’m sure they’re glad to have company after being secluded for so long.”
Sonic slid down to the grass, letting the chao situated itself leading against his legs. “That’s the one downside of solitude I guess.” He said, petting the side of the chao’s face. “In the end, chao still need a lot of attention.”
“ Mhm .” Shadow pet the chao still attached to his arm, watching it give a big, toothy grin in return.
The clearing fell silent, as both hedgehogs were preoccupied with the chao around them. Suddenly Sonic gasped, and bent down to a crawl in a patch of flowers, some chao watching him curiously.
“What is it?” Shadow said, getting up and walking towards Sonic, who was grinning ear to ear.
“They finally grew!”
“Huh?” he crouched down next to the blue hedgehog to try to see what he was looking at.
“Oh, I, uh. During my travels I like to pick up different flowers from those areas.” Sonic said, “I’m no gardener, but in this place all you really need to do is shove the seeds in the ground.” He shuffled around the colorful flowers, highlighting a certain patch of orange and yellow ones. “I picked up these marigolds a while ago, long story, and they finally decided to show up.”
Shadow caught eye of the marigolds, and gently ran his hand over their petals. “So this is what a live one looks like, huh?”
“I mean...yeah-wait a LIVE one?”
“They could never figure out how to grow stuff on the ARK, vegetation wasn’t their forte I guess.” He bent down to the same position Sonic was in. “Marigolds was one of the flowers they kept trying out, seeing so many dead ones was always depressing.”
“Woah.” he replied, watching Shadow continue to gently touch the petals of the flower. “Didn’t expect that.”
“That it was hard to grow plants up there?”
“No, that you’d just bring it up that casually, usually you don’t talk about it.”
“Oh.” Shadow paused. “Me being raised on the ARK is a fact of my life, I don’t see why I would hide it.”
“Yeah, I guess it’s more that you don’t talk in general.” Sonic sat up, looking around. “Guess the calming nature of this place makes even you relax.”
“Don’t get things wrong, hedgehog. I’m never relaxed.” Shadow sat up as well.
“Never? Don’t you like, sleep? Take breaks?”
“I always have some awareness of my surroundings, can’t let my guard down.”
“Well ya should sometime.” He said, standing up and coyly placing his arms behind his head. “Trying to save the world 24/7 is stressful, talking from experience.”
“Please, you’re always laid back.”
“Nah, that’s just my charming personality.” Sonic winked at Shadow. “I can have my guard up too without showing it. But I also relax when needed, good for the muscles.” Sonic started wandering around, hands still behind his head. “You can try it now if ya want, no one really knows about this place, not like we’re gonna get ambushed.”
“Tails thought otherwise.”
“Tails worries too much, he could use some relaxing too.” Sonic turned back around to face Shadow, one eye lazily open. “You can’t leave right now anyway.” He nodded to the chao on Shadow’s arm, who seemed to be falling asleep with a heart over it’s head. “Take lessons from that little guy.”
Shadow made his way out of the flower patch, and fully laid down on the grass. A few chao surrounded him, laying against him.
“That’s the spirit!”
“I’m not doing this for you .” Shadow said, looking at the streams of sun flowing in from the mountain cliffs.
“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Sonic plopped down next to him, sliding down till his back was on the ground, his quills spreading out across the grass. He got the same courtesy from the chao, as some laid up against him. “I don’t care though, as long as you get to experience this.”
“This?”
Sonic raised his arm gesturing all around them. “ This . The most beautiful part of this planet is just being able to chill .” Sonic sighed, closing his eyes. “Nature themself created this clearing, these nice sounds of the waterfall, the green grass, the chao, the sunlight at just the right place. And this planet has so many of these accidentally perfect hideaways!” Sonic opened his eyes, looking up at the sky. “Honestly? Any place here is perfect as long as you can see the stars.”
“You think so?” Shadow said, gazing up at the sky as well.
“Yeah, as much as I like the sunlight on my face, nothing beats staring up and the ten thousand stars above, each one working together to create an art piece that will last millennia.” Sonic laughed. “Sorry, guess I got a little wordy on ya there.”
“Not like I can stop you from talking.”
Sonic laughed. “Fair enough, but man I've been looking up at the stars since I was a kid. Always found it calming.”
“Calming?” Shadow replied, looking over at the hedgehog next to him. “Most people find it existentially terrifying.”
“Same reason I find it calming. It’s nice to know this universe can and will go on without me ya know? And it’ll still be just as beautiful.”
Shadow looked back up at the sky, watching the rays of sun pass behind the cliffs. “She always saw it that way too.” Sonic turned his head to look at him, staring blankly into the sky. “She’d always say stuff like that. ‘The flowers may come and go but that’s what makes them beautiful.’ She was always sentimental like that.”
The blue hedgehog turned to the sky again, letting out a deep sigh. “Guess us sentimentals talk pretty similar, huh?”
“You barely talk about it through, both you and Rouge.”
“Rouge?”
“Oh yeah, she gets very deep about how pretty those rocks are, but i’ve gotten used to it.”
Sonic chuckled. “Honestly? What did I expect?”
“I’ve had a lot of people share their thoughts with me over the years.”
“You’re a good guy to talk to.” Sonic replied. “You’re a good listener.”
“Am I?”
“Yeah, you only talk when needed...I-I guess.”
“I didn’t know you were so perceptive about your rivals.”
Sonic laughed again, but this time there was an air of nervousness behind it. “Yeah, I guess I am.” the nervousness melted away for a moment. “I mean, why would we be rivals if I wasn’t interested.”
“What does that mean?”
All the nervousness seemed to flush back. “I mean...you guys are interesting. Us being rivals means we have to have a good rapport”
“...Yeah.” He closed his eyes, taking in the sounds around him. “So this is what relaxing is, huh?”
“Yup.”
“It's been a while.” he said, letting his body go fully numb for the first time in years. “I can’t say it’s bad.”
Shadow opened his eyes. It was dark out, really dark. He looked around, and remembered where he was. He must have fallen asleep in the clearing, relaxing could be dangerous it seemed. As much as he wanted to get up, he felt the chao that were sleeping against him, and decided against it. He turned to look at them, and silently gasped in shock. Instead of the chao that were there before, the entirety of Sonic was laying against his side, dead asleep. Shadow looked around, considering his options. Most of the chao were asleep in the grass, although some were still laying against him and the fast-asleep blue hedgehog.
He stared into the sky, it was full of twinkling stars. Stars that were all working together, each one working together to create an art piece that will last millennia. Shadow looked again at the hedgehog against him. Sonic had somehow gotten over Shadow’s arm, presumably by rolling over in his peaceful sleep.
Shadow decided it was best not to disturb Sonic’s sleep, and closed his eyes.