Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Angel Island, for all its beauty, had never been calm and quiet. In recent memory and further, there never seemed to be a time where the floating isle could rest and recuperate. At times it may have seemed tranquil. Like when the breeze, bittered by the winter months, blew its way through the trees and rustled the last of the leaves on their branches. Or how the only thing the flittering Chao seemed bothered about was bundling up and keeping themselves cosy during the night.

All there really was to feel was a sense of peaceful serenity that came once in a blue moon. There was nothing that lurked beyond the edge of his home, no unseen enemy, not even a weekly plot by Eggman to cause disaster and destruction.

Sometimes it just felt like the island was holding its breath and waiting for some new disaster to crop up. Or maybe it was simply the Guardian's own nerves for once getting the better of him.

Yet the ever-present world-ending events that came one after another could explain the feeling away as a result of the stresses of always seemingly being in the middle of the mess.

The one leading the resistance.

The first one to disappear and end up on Starfell-

Knuckles pulled a chilled breath in, letting the air sit for a short moment before he let it out again. Nothing bad was happening, nothing bad would happen. There was just the soothing sensation of chaos that hummed beneath his fur; that lent its warmth to him and wrapped around slowly soothing thoughts in a semblance of an embrace.

Angel Island was breathing, and Knuckles couldn't help but match each cosmic intake and exhale as if his home flowed through his very veins.

There was no disaster coming, but the brief respite provided from the momentary meditation was needed; since from that morning all the way until the present evening, he hadn't been the only one residing on the floating island's surface. A day that had meant to be used for chores and cleaning around the Master Emerald's shrine, even some menial tasks back at his home cottage, had come to a grinding halt the moment his day had been invaded by a set of brothers that had refused to just leave him be and let the resident Guardian go about his planned routine.

However, Knuckles could admit that now the excitement of the past few hours was winding down, the day had not been lost.

Sonic and Tails taking advantage of their open invitation to his home usually resulted in a buzz of adrenaline and then excited exhaustion, followed by a gradual decline into an enjoyable tiredness that made sleep come easier. Knuckles could already feel his mind slowly shifting into a dozing fog, even though he wasn't allowing it to take hold just yet. He was content where he was, laid down on a clear part of the tentatively frozen ground where the surprise snowfall had been melted away by the warmth of a fire they'd all built together. 

Stores of dry wood around the colder season was a must, and the crackle and warmth of the growing hearth just to his side was drawing the day to a close and chasing away the snow that had started to drift down in large, fluffy and near silent flurries.

If only he could get some peace and quiet, and his entire island back.

"Hypothetically speaking, say I did it, would the snowball hold its shape all the way down to the surface, or would it break apart?" Sonic's voice shot out as Knuckles gradually allowed himself to zone back into the middle of whatever conversation had been started. With his eyes closed, he could hear the crunch of pacing footsteps which meant Sonic was walking back and forth, presumably talking with his hands as he continued the train of thought that had seemed to grasp at the hedgehog's attention, "It's going fast, right? So it wouldn't hold its shape- or maybe it would." The thought was cut off in favour of another, "Just imagine the noise as it hits the ground, it would either be the best crunch, or something really lame like a splat-"

Along with the sigh that managed to escape from Tails, who must have been watching the whole situation. Then, after a beat of silence, "It wouldn't exactly reach high speeds, a snowball is pretty light." The fox added, a small hum escaping out, "I suppose it would depend on how compact the ball was. Along with the size- Anyway, it would be dangerous to try, Angel Island is really high up and we can't risk it landing in the wrong place, and we'd have to be on the surface to even see the results."

The regular unusualness of the conversation at least made his time with extra company entertaining.

Which meant adding to the topic would, proverbially, fuel the fire. Knuckles kept his eyes closed but turned his head into the direction of the noise, allowing the warmth of the fire and its light dance against closed eyelids to meld with the calm hum saturating his tiring body as he added his piece, "We're over the ocean right now so you could test your theory safely. But the landing would be more of a splash."

"He awakes!" Sonic called out, energy permeating every word as the crunching footfalls drew to a halt, "And what's that I'm hearing? Permission to throw snow over the edge of the island?"

Maybe adding to Sonic's own curiosity may have not been the best idea. Chaos knows that at the first chance the blue blur would get, he'd put into action any unusual little plan he set his mind to. A shoot first, ask questions later mentality.

That wasn't always the best method, even if Knuckles was also privy to that same process.

"Permission not granted, permission actively denied actually." Knuckles cracked one eye open and looked up at his two friends from where he laid on the ground, face carefully neutral, "I don't want you giving the Chao ideas on how to keep themselves entertained."

"Come on, Knux. Just one little snowball-"

Tails' slight and barely hidden chuckle at the situation definitely didn't go amiss.

There were times when Knuckles had to remind himself that he was the one who had given both Sonic and Tails an open invitation to his home. One that they seemed to be willing to take advantage of more and more, one that he was ever so slightly regretting as he turned his head a little more and watched as Sonic crouched down to start patting part of the undisturbed blanket of snow into a rough ball.

Then, the burning of something sweet wafted over into the echidna's direction.

At the same time, Sonic dropped his snowball in favour of a mad rush towards the smouldering bonfire as the sugary tint to the air began to turn sharp with an all too late shout of alarm, "My marshmallow!"

"I did tell you to not leave it over the fire, Sonic." Tails admonished with a slight grin, watching as the hedgehog picked the stick from the edge of the fire, one that had been poked into the frozen ground at an angle, to look over the crozzled blackened lump that was now stuck to the end. Still smoking and from what Knuckles could see, flickering with toasted embers. Definitely not appetising in comparison to the few treats he'd already eaten himself earlier on when the evening had been young.

"And now it's all gone!" Sonic lamented.

The fox shifted in his seat before tilting his head back to look up at the darkened sky, "You've eaten more of them than either Knuckles or myself combined. We bought two bags up here and we're half-way through the last one."

"I'm sure the fire has eaten more than the three of us." Knuckles added, before watching as Sonic's gaze flicked around the surrounding area of the hearth until he finally tracked down the remaining treats.

In the blink it took for Knuckles to try and shake the last pull of sleep from his eyes, Sonic was on the other side of the fire and sticking a fresh pink blob onto the end of his stick before this time he carefully shifted into sitting down on the ground, watching closely to ensure nothing got burnt again whilst exposed to the lick of the flames.

It wasn't the most comfortable seating arrangement in the world, but when needed they managed to make do. Tails was seated on an old and arguably decrepit bean-bag, one that Knuckles had pulled out of the storage closet in his cottage to make their seating around the bonfire at least a bit more bearable. Fluff poked out of some of the torn holes and a split seam had only grown with each passing day that Knuckles had put off fixing it.

Now, sodden with melted snow, it was probably the best place to sit even if after this little impromptu, what would Sonic call it? A sleepover? The bean bag would get stripped for materials and repurposed as opposed to letting it suffer for too much longer.

Sonic seemed content enough seated, flitting between eating marshmallows straight out of the bag that Tails seemed to be passively trying to keep hidden from his older brother; and throwing sticks onto the fire to watch them pop with moisture and slowly burn and crumple into charcoal. A fire they'd all been adding to for the past few hours and was exuding a growing warmth that did clear a patch of snow enough for Knuckles to also be content with laying on his back on the ground, attention much like Tails', was focused up on the nights sky and the stars that twinkled in his vision.

The day may have been hectic, may have been interrupted, and Knuckles may have gotten nothing done that he'd planned for. 

But it was a good one.

The snowchilled clearness of nighttime seemed to bring about more enjoyment in the form of the crackling warmth of a bon-fire, paired with the burning remains of something sweet that had fallen into the flames not a few minutes before, and conversations that held no weight and filled the air with a calm ambience, even if it did sometimes make the Guardian question the reasoning of one blue hedgehog.

Just in his peripheral, Knuckles watched as Tails lifted a hand to point at the glitter of celestial bodies throughout the sky, finger slowly tracing through the piercing brightness of thousands of tiny lights dusting a background of nothingness, "Being over the sea does explain why the stars are so nice tonight."

Sonic nodded passively, his own attention directed to the flames before him and the marshmallow that was slowly turning brown, as if he didn't want to make another mistake, "Oh- yeah. Uh huh. They're great. Totally awesome."

Knuckles looked at his two guests, and definitely didn't miss the smirk that passed over Sonic's expression.

Along with how Tails' focus immediately shifted, "I can't believe you're in one of the most mysterious and amazing places in the entirety of Mobius, and you're focused more on not burning your marshmallow and the logistics of a terminal velocity snowball." His voice shot through the content silence of the night. 

The crinkle of plastic packaging and a light laugh was given in return, "Hey, you're the one who asked what would happen if I ran and threw a snowball at the same time."

"What does that have to do with-?"

"We're on Angel Island, and you're the one who wanted me to test snow physics. That's something we can test anywhere."

Tails gave a deadpan expression in Sonic's direction, "You're the one who wanted to drop a snowball to hear the landing noise. Besides, there's nowhere on the surface where the stars are this clear. You can see even the faintest ones," he grinned and clasped his hand in midair, "It's almost as if you could grab them."

Knuckles knew that feeling. Even if the awe that came with viewing the stars and the nights constellations so closely had worn away over his time being what felt like a hair's breadth from the abyss of space, there were the odd nights where the world still did surprise him with a sight that spawned wonder. Like a particularly beautiful and bright sunset as the sun dipped below the horizon of the island, or when there was frost covering everything in the morning after an unusually cold night - the nebula above the group was one that deserved to be stared at. 

Sonic, eventually, seemed to join them in glancing up to see the spectacle. He at least also had the wherewithal to pull his snack out of the fire and eat it before he was too distracted, and Knuckles clocked the moment where he was fully enraptured. Eyes focused upwards, pupils wide, the light of the stars reflecting in the chaos green of his eyes. Along with the fact that his skewer slipped from his hand and gradually became kindling as the flames took it.

The group drifted into a calm silence as all they did was stop and look at the display that was above them.

These rare moments were ones that Knuckles found himself cherishing, even if he initially had woken up that morning wondering why he allowed visitors, even his friends, to run amok on his home; by the time their visits had begun he wasn't sure what he'd been so unwilling about. 

Maybe a childhood full of being alone to such a degree that he hadn't even understood the prospect of loneliness until he'd started to actually make friends explained it? Growing up under the warm light of the Master Emerald had been a challenge that he'd stepped up to, but it hadn't been something that was entirely normal. The idea that beyond the edge of his island, there wasn't anything worth exploring because everything he needed was on his home. Food, shelter, safety, his duty and birthright; but a crash-landed human and two surface Mobians sometimes had him thinking through his formative years in a new light.

Along with the fact that he no longer had to be on his own, and Knuckles did enjoy the time he spent with his friends; even if he found that beforehand he wondered why he'd ever extended the invite - followed by what came afterwards, a day filled with relaxation and fun and laughter and for once, not being alone. Never having to be alone again.

Even if, on a technicality, he'd always had the Master just at the edge of his awareness with her budding flow of chaos energy and what could only be described as a warm embrace. Loneliness was an experience which varied from person to person.

Being alone is something Knuckles never understood, until he no longer was.

So sharing something as simple as the night sky with two friends that had stuck with him for a few years already, spending time with others was something he always looked back on with enjoyment and appreciation. Even if sometimes he wanted a quiet island and not a shouting hedgehog.

"The stars are incredible." Knuckles found himself mumbling after a long stint where there had simply been the sound of calm breathing and the crackling of flames off to his side. He wasn't even sure if anyone was listening, or even if Sonic or Tails had drifted off to sleep over the past few minutes, but even then he still continued, "In ancient times, Echidna used them for guidance. The young would be taught about the constellations and where the lights hung in the sky, so they could always find their way home. The dark would never be able to lead them astray." He glanced over the constellations above them with a small smile pulling at his mouth, "If you knew the night, you could never really get lost."

"That's… Really cool, Knuckles. Just thinking about the fact that the ancient Echidna established refined star maps and- wow," Tails whispered, almost as if he was trying not to disturb the way twilight had settled and how the stars laid in the darkness above. Knuckles' attention perked as he listened to the fox shifting around on the beanbag, maybe getting comfier, maybe turning his attention over to the echidna who still remained looking upwards but was no less attuned to what was going on around him. After the movement quieted, and a few breaths of silence followed, Tails' voice carefully surfaced again with a mix of curiosity and what could have been a hint of embarrassment, "How would you- you know, read the stars tonight?"

Knuckles glanced over from his position on the floor to find the youngest draped on his stomach, looking in his direction from the other side of the fire. 

Any opportunity to learn, it seemed.

So he turned his focus upwards again, eyes flicking from one star to another, tracing out the invisible lines the connected different constellations together as he figured out where to begin. Eventually, Knuckles gestured up towards a particularly bright and easily distinguishable star just to his left. A good place to start, and easy to find. "That's the northern star. It tends to be brighter than the celestials around it." A thought came to him, leading to a slight and short laugh escaping. It seemed unusual to think about, what with what had been established by the modern era of research, "There are stories about how the north star was hung from the sky by the embodiment of chaos itself." He waved his hand loosely, counting one, two, three, down the constellation that was mentally linked together, "Or my favourite, being the story of the Archer. The constellation you can see now."

Knuckles spared a quick look over at Tails who had his gaze fixed on the stars, one eye screwed shut as he seemed to be trying to pick out the pin-pricked lights above. He was listening though, as focused as he was elsewhere. Tails' ears twitched, his fingers fiddled with themselves as seemed to be following Knuckles' verbal guidance.

Knuckles still stood up though. Watching how Sonic's own attention moved in his direction, especially the silent huff of a laugh that surfaces when the echidna purposefully went the direction that required him to step over the barrier that was the hedgehog in order to lay down next to the bean-bag and rest his head on an area of escaping fluff as he tried to guide Tails' eyeline. "The bright one. If you see the line of three smaller stars-"

"I don't- oh, I do! Those are really close together." Tails switched sharply, clear happiness lacing his voice as his eyes remained fixed on the night sky.

Knuckles nodded and lifted one hand and pointed towards the trio, "The star above that is the north. The head of the Archer, if you want to think of it like that." He moved his hand an inch. "The three you just saw would be her neck, chest, and waist." A glance from the corner of his eye showed Tails to be staring up, so Knuckles continued, "The bow is harder to discern. It's only a triangle to the right. But once you see her," Knuckles rested his hands back onto his chest and traced the constellation on his own with trained eyes, "she's hard to miss."

There was a moment where everything drifted back into silence and the group of three were simply laid back observing the pattern above them. Until Sonic broke the enchantment with a quiet laugh and if Knuckles could guess, a tone laced with what could almost be described as interest with the chuckled words of, "Looks like you've got a challenge for the title of nerd here, Tails."

Knuckles could practically feel the weight of the eye roll from the fox next to him and allowed a grin himself. The jab had been expected. 

"You can't tell me you're not interested in this." Tails huffed.

"I never said I wasn't," Sonic smiled and rested his chin onto his hand as he flipped over to look in Tails' direction, "It's…" There was a short pause, as if the blue blur was actually taking his time to pick the words he needed out of the air before saying them. Eventually, Sonic seemed to settle on an easy and casual, "Fascinating."

"Is that from your word-of-the-day calendar?" 

"Hey! I can be all wordy and stuff when I want to be." Sonic shot back quickly, "Besides, no making fun of me. Not when Mr. Rugged and Anti-Social right here," There was a grin and a gesture into Knuckles' direction, "Knows space facts."

The echidna kept his attention upwards, the softness of the beanbag cushioning his head as he adjusted where he laid until he was more comfortable, and with a glance out the side of his eye could see where Sonic was sprawled over the snowy ground and seemingly unbothered by it's cold, "I know a lot, Hedgehog."

There was a noise of acknowledgement from the hero's direction, along with a calm, "I don't doubt that. You just never share anything you know." 

The point of sharing information even though it would bear no weight or relation to a situation was something Knuckles was sure he'd never manage to get his head around. Neither was it a habit he was going to get into. The social chit-chat that he'd learnt from interacting with two Mobians who seemed to never want to stop talking enough to breathe properly, had in turn gotten the Guardian used to slipping in anecdotes or passive information into the conversations.

But random facts? Knuckles appreciated the air of mystery that seemed settled over his shoulders, "You never ask the right questions."

"Oh~" A sound that could have been attributed to a laugh seemed to escape Sonic's mouth, "So is it question time?"

Knuckles pushed himself up into a sitting position, at least to be able to level his gaze over in his friends direction with as much effect as possible - though finding Sonic with his head resting on his hands and his legs kicking in the air behind him as if he- Knuckles couldn't keep the sudden need to grin off his face as he could only imagine Rouge taking up the same position. As if waiting with rapt interest for the most interesting bit of information in the world. 

"It's not question time." Knuckles stared deadpan at Sonic who only continued to smile, "Go burn a marshmallow."

"I have a question!"

"Tails has a question, Knuckles."

Knuckles had to resist the urge to visually look as pained as he felt internally at being ganged up on, but turned to where Tails was now also sat up, crossed legged on the lump of material that had been all but abandoned.

This is what he got after years of friendship? His day invaded and his night used as an interrogation.

He wouldn't have it any other way, though. A few years back he couldn't have fathomed being close enough to even one person to so willingly tease and gang up on them.

The fact that both Sonic and Tails were at the stage where they could push his buttons and Knuckles welcomed it? It was a far cry from his younger years.

"Why is that constellation called the Archer?" Tails' question broke through his thoughts easily enough. Even still, Knuckles found himself looking at the fox as his brain slowly took in that there had been an actual question to be asked. There was genuine interest behind the others' eyes, and that wasn't surprising in the least.

If there was information, Tails would want to know it. Every little bit.

"Is it specifically an Echidna thing?" Tails continued after a moment, his brow scrunching as his brain ticked over more aspects of the conversation topic. "Mobians have their own set of constellations too, for birthdays or specifically just for the identification of star clusters." His hand went to his chin and he rested an elbow against his leg, "The Echidna were extremely advanced. Both in technology and scholarly- there are benefits to knowing star maps, measurement of time and season - there's even some ancient examples of a grid system used to track the stars over the sky, though they're stored in museums and you can't exactly walk in and ask to take a closer look-" The extended rant was pulled to a quick close as what remained of the beanbag that wasn't being taken up by the fox and echidna was filled as Sonic dropped himself down onto it and successfully toppling Tails off his mound and disrupting the tangent of thought.

"You said that the stars were hung by Chaos?" The hedgehog questioned himself, passing a grin in Tails' direction as he at least shifted over a bit to allow the younger to sit back down where he'd been beforehand. "That's pretty rad, Red."

"A chaos being." Knuckles corrected passively. Though he waved his hand at the details, content to sit and observe as Tails seemingly continued to work through his own thought process which in turn inevitably would come to a conclusion about whatever thought was going through his head.

Yet Knuckles' previous answer wouldn't end up answering Tails' original question. He wasn't much of a storyteller, there was a large difference between reading from the books from one of the islands many underground libraries, and retelling something from memory when he hadn't actively thought about the story in a good long while.

He took a moment to rush through the story in his head, pulling a slightly charred stick out from the edge of the fire and digging one end into the slightly thawed out ground next to him, marking out the basic layout of the Archer constellation to fill the short gap.

"That's one version, anyway. The Archer and her constellation is another." Knuckles put the stick down once all the stars were marked and connected up with rough lines, "It just explains why the stars are in the sky. A bedtime story told to the young."

Knuckles looked up to find that Tails had fallen quiet in his internal conversation with himself. Sonic had gone still too, attention also fixed briefly on the pattern on the ground followed by focus as he spoke. When it seemed that the story itself wasn't going to get elaborated on, the hedgehog made a gesture to continue with a nod over to the crackling hearth, "No better time for a story than around a campfire."

Knuckles found himself shrugging, "I wouldn't say it's really interesting. It's short, and one of the less exciting tales."

That explanation didn't seem to dissuade the interested staring that was fixed on Knuckles' face, all as if silently wearing him down to explain the children's story in that bit more detail. 

There were times where he forgot that a few of the stories that Knuckles was sure were common knowledge were in fact only ones that were known by him. That Echidnan tales were fairly different and a lot more closely guarded than anything Mobian. 

Or maybe Sonic just really enjoyed talking, and Knuckles was content with stoic silence.

It seemed that, this time he wouldn't be able to blow off the topic of conversation. Knuckles spread his hands loosely, "The Archer is a guide. There to show those who are lost back to their homes, the constellation that holds the brightest star in the sky, the first pattern most children are taught to look for in the dark- it's an old story."

One he could get lost in, at least. So he laid back against the grass with the fire's warmth to his right as his eyes traced over the map of a clear night, "A few thousand years ago- two thousand, give or take a few centuries, around when the Echidna were gradually… Declining in numbers, there was a mother with a single lone child."

Knuckles lifted a hand and gestured to the star dotted sky and so many more constellations than he could hope to explain over the night, "This all used to be a void of black. No light, no nothing. Just darkness."

There was a quiet noise to his left that at least sounded like Sonic slipping carefully off the seat and onto the ground. Knuckles didn't spare a glance over, though he was sure enough that the two brothers must have been staring upwards too. "In order to ensure her child and other young would never get lost, she decided to leave a path in the stars. One night, she drew her bow, wove candlelight into the fletches of her arrows and fired them up into the dark. Where each one struck the night, a small dot of light appeared.

So she continued, again and again, with each night that passed she would add to her map in the stars. A gift to make sure that all would have a guide to follow back home, should they be waylaid by the creatures in the dark."

Knuckles could have mistaken the quiet that followed for sleep at the less than exciting tale, if not for the calm breathing bleeding into the silence. Knuckles turned his head on the ground to see that both Sonic and Tails were staring at the stars, one with eyes flicking between each glowing dot, and the latter with a furrowed brow as Tails fiddled with his gloved fingers. His thinking face, as Sonic would have put it. A thinking face that slowly seemed to shift to contemplative confusion.

Sonic blew a low whistle from where he laid, sitting up on his arms to look in Knuckles' direction, "And you said that was one of the boring stories?" He scoffed, "Knux, you'd better start telling us about an exciting one, like, right now. Immediately."

"I know it wasn't very action packed-" Knuckles started.

Only to be cut off by a waving hand, "I didn't say it was boring. Fire arrows becoming stars? That's so cool! Tails, can you make me a star arrow-?" Sonic swivelled over in his brother's direction with the impossible request, only for the favour to seemingly fall on deaf ears. 

Tails' brow was still creased.

"Hey, lil bro?" Sonic tapped the fox on his shoulder to grab his attention. Which he did, Tails blinking and turning to face the walking disruption.

"Huh, wha-?"

"Star arrows." Sonic said, as if it was obvious.

The confusion definitely didn't let up on that idea. Tails tilted his head, "Realistically speaking, they sound impractical. Not to mention the strength needed to fire an arrow into space at all…" he trained off for a second, before switching his attention over to Knuckles as whatever he'd been thinking about seemed to gradually slot into place, "I have another question. I think, anyway- it's probably me thinking too much."

Sonic grinned and picked some stray grass from his quills, "Question time!"

Knuckles couldn't suppress his eye roll, though managed at least as he nodded to Tails, "Question time."

The fox smiled and chuckled, at least before his expression became pensive once again. Eyes drifting down to fiddling hands as he spoke. Stated. "You said the Echidna went extinct two thousand years ago."

"I did." Knuckles nodded in confirmation, "Many books and murals reference a calamity."

"And you're seventeen." Tails said slowly.

Okay, Knuckles was already getting lost.

"I am." The echidna confirmed with a nod, watching as the fox's brow only seemed to crease deeper.

"Knuckles could just be really old." Sonic provided after a moment, before reaching over and tapping the now slightly confused Guardian's knee to catch his attention, "Tails is calling you old," He turned to Tails in turn, "he was probably around when that Paca- Pacha-"

"Pachacamac." Knuckles provided, before he reached over to the nearest target and lightly smacked Sonic on the shoulder in retaliation, "and I'm not that ancient."

"But like," Tails cut in quickly, grasping the two's attention just as promptly, "Those times don't add up? The Echidna went extinct thousands of years ago, and you being here now-" Tails gestured briefly in Knuckles' direction, "Even after a near extinction means that… maybe somewhere, some other Echidna are still around. Maybe?"

Now, that made a little more sense. It wasn't as if there hadn't been theories before on the nature of Knuckles' presence on Angel Island; he needed only one hand to count the times when it had become a topic of conversation. He could use the other hand to count the equal number of times that these conversations had been pushed to the side in the face of a new world-ending situation where the query had been briefly brought up.

Everything seemed to be related to the Master Emerald, and the Chaos Emeralds in turn. All of which would tie back to Knuckles' own ancestors, meaning inevitably the demise of the echidna race would be present in his mind.

It wasn't anything he could change, and whilst the thought of that loss had once caused a lot of pain, it was something Knuckles had accepted. He wasn't disconnected from their culture and traditions, he had books with handwritten texts, stories that he loved, traditions to uphold.

The echidna may have been long gone, but that loss and hurt that had stung like shattered glass once upon a time was now smoothing at the edges with the unbounded support from those he now had as friends.

Even if that wasn't something Knuckles would say to their faces any time soon.

The time spent on Starfell, experiencing the Ancients and their own downfall and seeing the Koko that remained- It had all been a reminder of Knuckles' own knowledge of the clan that had come before his time and how talking about it came just that little bit easier.

Maybe that was why all Knuckles found himself doing in response to Tails' new query was to shift around until his legs were crossed beneath himself, spreading his hands out as if there wasn't much else to add, "I'm the last Echidna, Tails. I'm the only one of my kind." 

Tails' brows only seemed to furrow deeper as he leant forwards, "How can you be so sure of that?" He asked, though there was nothing accusatory behind it. It was curiosity fueled by an unusual situation that for him, didn't have a clear or logical explanation. "There could be others somewhere, there's none on Angel Island but-"

"The Echidna went extinct fully, approximately two-thousand seven hundred and five years ago." Knuckles stated plainly. There was nothing at all harsh about the interruption, and the timings were more or less fact. He gave a light shrug and rocked one hand back and forth, "Give or take a decade or so. All historical logs stored on this island ended around that time, nothing was built or made."

He couldn't help but let out a quiet sigh against the silence, "They just… Slowed and stopped. Everywhere. Both here and down on the surface." 

Chapter Text

Tails' expression shifted minutely, into one Knuckles was more used to seeing during this topic of conversation. Being alone wasn't unusual, for him it was his normal. For any onlooker, the idea of being the final member of a species must have been a sad sight, though the sudden and slight show of sadness drifted away when Knuckles offered a smile and reached over to ruffle some of the snow off of the yellow fur it had collected on, causing the fox to pull away with a less than annoyed yelp of protest and a unhidden grin. 

"But what about your parents?" 

Knuckles paused in a partially crouched position as he'd been readying a small and unformed snowball in one hand to try and strike home on a kit who also seemed to be ready to fire an attack back. His focus switched over to Sonic who was staring between the two, hands held up in mock surrender with a sheepish look on his features. As if the words had slipped out.

They probably had, ever the mind moving faster than everything else.

Knuckles brushed the abandoned snow off his glove and tilted his head at the question, "Sonic," we've been over this before. You've asked and I answered, "You know that I don't-"

"-Remember your exact birthday, I know. And even if you did, it wouldn't follow the Mobian calendar." There was a look at Tails which moved quickly back into Knuckles' direction as if the bug that was this conversation was catching, "but you were born- hatched, whichever, and that means that at one point there were two other Echidna."

"Who also had their own parents." Tails tacked on with a click of his fingers, not unhelpfully, but in the effort to sway the topic elsewhere to more enjoyable subjects, the window to do so seemed to be growing smaller and smaller.

A confusing timeline of events definitely spawned questions.

Questions that Tails would inevitably ask.

Questions that Knuckles was silently surprised hadn't come up beforehand.

Questions where the answer was obvious- the Echidna had gone extinct. Entire family lines had ended. An ancient clan dooming themselves due to the greed and power of a minority, succumbing to poisoned vices and hubris.

The Echidna had gone extinct two thousand years ago, both Sonic and Tails knew that. Knuckles had told them as such beforehand, they'd learnt about the mistakes and downfall of Chief Pachacamac and how Lady Tikal had given her life to seal Chaos away in the Master Emerald. They knew all of this.

So what weren't they understanding?

They had all died. Thousands of years back.

And Knuckles was-

Knuckles' train of thought visually faltered, though it wasn't as if the pair had noticed as slight and sudden understanding dawned on his own face. They seemed distracted in their own conversation, talking between each other with animated hands and a back and forth that built on each new point that was coming up.

As the Echidna stared until his brain clicked back into gear and the words the two were rushing out gradually began to make sense. Sonic held out his hands as he counted over his fingers, "Parents of parents make six echidna total. Then fourteen."

"And so on." Tails nodded and scratched the side of his head, "All the way back for two thousand years." He huffed out a breath, "It doesn't make sense…"

"Duh, none of this is making much sense." Sonic acknowledged plainly, before dropping down onto his back against the chilled ground with a thump though didn't seem bothered by it, instead he draped one arm over his eyes in what looked like a show of defeat, "There would be loads of echidna around then. Not just our resident Knucklehead here."

Knuckles didn't grace the jab with an answer, just watched as Sonic turned to his direction so the green of his eyes were visible from beneath his arm, with a smirk gracing his face and a raised eyebrow barely noticeable, "Maybe he is just old. Are you really seventeen, Knuckles? Or are you holding out on the secret to immortality?" He was making a joke of it.

This was just a normal, if confusing conversation to the two of them.

For a moment, Knuckles found himself staring before a hand was lifted in his peripheral vision and the sharp click of fingers snapped him back into reality.

Sonic had sat up, just a little closer than he had been before, movement shown by the marks in the snow that Knuckles didn't remember being made. Too busy caught up in his own mind that the hedgehogs joke about age only now fell into place.

"You okay, Knux?" The question was laced with concern, and Sonic's eyes reflected it, "You seemed a little lost in your head."

They didn't know.

Knuckles cleared his throat and nodded slowly, "I'm good, I'm fine. Just thinking-" 

"That's dangerous." Sonic said, though the small laugh that followed seemed strained. "Though if you don't want us to talk about this, we can stop, put a pen in it for another day, or-"

"According to your estimations and our shared perception of time, I'm older than you," he pointed at Sonic, "but younger than Vector. I don't have the secret to immortality, and the echidna went extinct years and years ago." The summary was easy enough, and it at least resulted in the pair relaxing slightly, as if they'd been concerned they'd taken the topic too far. Brought up things too deep, unearthed something that had never occured to the echidna.

Yet the only ones in the dark, apparently and much to Knuckles' own internal surprise, were Tails and Sonic.

Trying to make a timeline match up when there was no possible way it could. Attempting to bridge the gap between thousands of years ago, and Knuckles' own birth because it didn't make sense.

That was the whole point. It couldn't make sense.

All because Knuckles had never actively spoken in detail about himself since… Well, it had never been the topic of conversation. The context of Knuckles' own existence had never been relevant to any question or scenario the team at any point had found themselves in.

So why, or even when, would any of this have ever been brought up?

Tails, at least, took the answer as permission to tentatively continue the talk, curiosity carefully held back by a now slightly cautious demeanour. As if now he was choosing his words more carefully. "Yet thousands of years later, here you are." Tails gestured casually towards Knuckles, head tilted to the side as he settled his hand back in his lap, "You have to be hearing how weird this sounds, right?"

Just explain it.

"So, parents-" Sonic tacked on quickly. They would just end up going in circles at this rate.

The fire chose this moment to spit out an ember, which dragged Knuckles' attention towards the smaller bundle of flames haloed by glowing embers and the remains of charred kindling that was doing it's best to keep the warmth and light alive. He could use this, take a moment to feed the fire and strengthen its flames and power. Knuckles let his mind settle as he went through the motions of standing up and collecting a small bundle of twigs and thicker logs to place on the hearth. It was a practised dance, the smaller pieces being tossed as close to the centre of the fire as was safely possible and the larger pieces settled on the top. It was all dry and would take with ease. The increase in warmth hit first.

The humming underneath his skin, the airy embrace curving over his shoulders and the swell of comfort that came along with it was enough for Knuckles to know that it wasn't yet the fire that was helping to soothe him. If he glanced over the treeline, the green glow from the emerald alter was visible against the blackened night. The light was faint, but Knuckles could feel the buzz of chaos around him, flowing into his chest when he inhaled, rising from the ground where he stood, flickering in the fire before him.

It was almost like the Emerald was giving him permission.

Or more a silent peptalk- the push that Knuckles apparently needed to be able to amend the confusion his friends were experiencing. Even if the explanation would… How would Amy put it? Pull the rug out from under them. 

Change how they looked at their Guardian, maybe-

Turn what they thought they knew on its head.

It took barely a minute to ensure that the fire wasn't going to go out on them, especially as the sky had seemed to open with a flurry of thicker snowflakes languidly floating down to the ground and settling over the top of the white blanket that was already there.

Knuckles turned and lowered himself back down to the ground, noting how both Sonic and Tails' eyes followed the movement, and how they remained fairly quiet until he'd settled again.

Knuckles let out a sigh, closing his eyes to briefly revel in the comfort of the calm chaos within himself. "I don't have any parents." He said slowly, looking over at Sonic with what he hoped was an open expression, "And there have been no Echidna since the calamity."

"Got it." Sonic nodded, taking the information in with the same confused expression that wasn't abating even then, "No parents." Then his face fell into one that seemed a bit more victorious, or at least, Knuckles watched as a look of playfulness settled into place. "I've got a question."

Knuckles lost the battle with himself and rolled his eyes. Neither could he help a small smile from tugging at his mouth. It was still, apparently, question time.

"How're you here?" The question was plain, deceptively simple.

Yet one that held a lot of weight, and one that Knuckles had never even thought about answering until that day. It had never been important to know, not something prevalent to the fate of the world. Just a thing that he'd never thought of bringing up.

Knuckles blew out a soft breath and watched as the snow that was drifting in front of him swirled in the sudden disruption. 

"The Master Emerald." He stated matter-of-factly.

For a second, all there was to be heard was the crackle of flames to his back; strengthened by the abnormal silence brought about with the snowfall. There was a moment when Knuckles, had he been looking elsewhere, would have presumed that Sonic and Tails hadn't heard his answer; though since he was looking in the directions of his two friends he was able to see that they were still paying attention.

Staring.

The silence perpetuated for a short moment longer, before it was serrated through like a knife into a fruit as Sonic seemed to blink out of his stupor, "You… What?"

"The Master Emerald." Knuckles found himself repeating slowly. It was obvious enough, wasn't it? He'd answered the question. "You asked me how I'm here."

"I know what I asked, but that-" Sonic waved his hands out in front of himself as if he was trying to pick the words he needed out of the air, or trying his best to get his thoughts in gear. Or something… Knuckles just watched, as Tails' nose scrunched in what must have been concentration on something running through his mind, and Sonic grasping at proverbial sentence structure as he figured his next line of conversation.

Eventually seemingly settling on a pragmatic, "Knuckles, I know you're the Guardian and stuff, very important to the balance of the world and duty-bound to protect and defend chaos." Sonic's voice dropped lower in an apparent mock imitation of the Echidna before him, one of which Knuckles had to hold himself back from commenting on since Sonic didn't give him a moment to respond, what with an attempt at a disarming smirk as he continued, "You were raised by the Master Emerald, I get that. But what Tails is saying is that you, at some point, had two parents. Even if you can't remember them."

A point which apparently connected into whatever had been running through Tails' own mind as he jumped in easily, "And if you keep going back, with each parent having their own parents, then logically there must be loads of Echidna about. But there isn't." The fox scratched the side of his head, trying to make sense of the situation, "Instead, there's ancient murals and archeological finds. It's common knowledge- well, it's presumed that there are no Echidna left. We know that's not true." Tails waved a hand in Knuckles' direction. "You're here, but there's no others and it's just… It doesn't make sense. Something had to bridge the gap between Tikal and Chaos, and you." 

Knuckles remained quiet, and remained watching and listening as Tails sieved through his own mind, "Even if you were raised by the Master Emerald and have never met your parents, you had to have had some. Like I did, like Sonic does."

Then suddenly, for the Guardian, understanding dawned in the form of realising what the two were trying to get at.

They were trying to make sense of the situation in the only logical way they could; and why wouldn't Knuckles have a set of parents? Why would anyone assume otherwise? Knuckles had never corrected that train of thought, never explained that him not having parents wasn't an issue around the fact that memories of his younger self had faded with time as everyone's did eventually.

He'd said that he didn't have parents.

Sonic and Tails had taken it one way, that he no longer had nor remembered them.

Where in fact- "Oh- you're… You think-," Knuckles let out a slightly weighted breath with the realisation that the matter at hand wasn't about whether the Echidna are still around or not, hidden somewhere in the far reaches of Mobius-

It's simply about how Knuckles himself exists when all logic pointed to the fact that an extinct race couldn't possibly, in tandem, have a living descendent millennia later. 

Still, both Sonic and Tails were looking at him with clear confusion as now, Knuckles was the one who was trying to pick his words from the falling snowflakes in the air around him. His brow creased as his thoughts turned inward to try and pick out the best, or at least the clearest way to explain the situation.

Even though he'd never even thought about bringing the topic up extensively; on some level there had always been the assumption that if he'd had to actually talk about his birth and existence, it would have been in the heat of battle in order to save the world - where lives were at stake and the knowledge would be paramount in protecting everyone.

Not sitting around a campfire on a regular and relaxing night after an action-packed day with friends. Where the most pressing things were the depleting marshmallows and how fast a snowball would fall.

Knuckles spread his hands slightly, glancing over between both Sonic and Tails as he spoke, "I'm the first Echidna to exist in over two-thousand years." He started, clearing his throat when the look of confusion didn't seem to shift from their faces, only serving to grow deeper. "There have been exactly zero Echidna since the original wrath of Perfect Chaos and the downfall and extinction that followed."

How was he going to explain this simply?

"The Master Emerald was in need of a Guardian." Knuckles said slowly. "Whether that was due to some unexplainable primordial knowledge of the future, I don't know. But with what's happened since Eggman first crashed on my home; it seems a protector was needed. So I was created. The first Echidna since the calamity."

Now, the silence that followed was near deafening.

Until a slightly confused, "What?" Broke through the apparent pause that the world had taken in that moment. Tails' expression settling into something Knuckles could tell was subtly analytical.

Only for any focus and line of thought the fox had gained in those few seconds were brought to a halt at the much higher pitched, "What?" As Sonic's gaze, unlike his brothers, didn't shift away from staring in Knuckles' direction.

Knuckles, who found he could only stay seated where he was with his hands still splayed out and resting on his knees from the previous explanation, looking back at the hedgehog with a little clear confusion of his own. He'd answered the question asked of him? "... What? You asked me how I was here, I answered. The Master Emerald."

Chapter Text

The answer seemed to knock Sonic out of his previous stupor. "But like," He stood with a quick shake of the head that looked to be more something to loosen his quills as opposed to a refusal of the questions answer, subconsciously his hands rose too since if there was anyone who spoke as much with his hands as he did with his voice, it would be Sonic himself. "In all seriousness, and not in some nifty, out-there story about how little baby Echidnas are born- how're you here?"

"Hatched," Knuckles corrected easily, passively almost, as he moved his gaze between the two spectators for a short moment. He may not be the most open individual in the world, if being okay spending most of his time alone on a floating island was anything to go by; along with being reluctant enough to have guests on his island even if he had known them for years. Though one thing Knuckles knew of himself was that he wasn't a good liar, nor was he one to be dishonest to his friends.

Even if omission of specific bits of information did occur sometimes, if he had the clue to solve whatever world-ending issue of the week then he'd never even think about keeping it to himself.

But information about himself? That has never been of importance to the fate of the world.

It was a sudden realisation that Knuckles had never really had a reason to go into much detail about himself at all, maybe that was why Sonic seemed a little wary?

Knuckles had never lied, but he wasn't entirely open either. Something he maybe needed to work on and improve with time, but for now there was another situation to deal with.

Like a Sonic who looked more than ready to start taking and pacing, with the speed of which his foot was tapping against the ground. Knuckles met his friend's gaze and raised a brow, almost like a quiet challenge, "When have I not been serious, hedgehog?"

It seemed, at that point, the influx of previous information began to settle in with startling clarity.

With how Sonic's eyes widened fractionally, and how Tails' attention didn't shift away for a second and maintained focus as the words seemed to settle into place inside the fox's mind, Knuckles could only watch and wait as time ticked by and the silent fall of snow seemed to be the only thing shifting around him. At least until Sonic seemed to reanimate from whatever shock had encased him, mouth hanging open and the crunch of the white blanket beneath short and back-and-forth steps falling quiet being the only indicator that apparently his body wasn't sure how to react. His eyes, as Knuckles could clearly see, were moving rapidly over where the echidna was seated. The solid green gaze roving and barely staying in place for a millisecond before shifting elsewhere, almost as if his eyes were trying to pick out visible explanations for what Sonic had just heard, but his brain was still racing to make sense of the words said.

"Wait… you- you're-" Sonic started slowly, carefully, near abnormally cautiously. Though his words clearly weren't coming in the way they wanted.

At least until Tails jumped in with a mumbled and simple, "That would make sense…"

That seemed to kick Sonic back into gear as he whirled around to stare at his brother with uncoordinated hands, as if he was trying but failing to keep what looked to be shock out of his face. Honestly, Knuckles hadn't known what to expect, but a fumbling and short-circuiting hedgehog seemed about right. "What part of this makes sense?" Sonic started as he waved in Knuckles' direction, "Knuckles just said, with a completely straight face, that the Master Emerald-"

"He's the Guardian." 

"I mean, yeah, I know that. We all do, it's just-" Sonic stopped and turned around to the echidna, who looked back with what he at least hoped was a neutral enough expression. "You're not joking?"

"He's connected to Chaos Energy in a way that no-one else is. He's the last of his kind when all records show that the Echidna haven't existed for thousands of years." Tails explained, and whether he was trying to parse through the information to help Sonic's own mind connect the dots, or whether he was trying to make sense of it all himself, Knuckles wasn't entirely sure.

Though he was content to sit and listen as they took the new knowledge in. Even if there was still something that was flitting around at the front of his mind, over what Tails had said. 

He'd explained the past of the echidna before, from Tikal to the present day, so the fact that they'd never brought up something which they seemed to see as a large discrepancy was… Unusual, to say the least. Knuckles lent forwards just a little, though even the small movement seemed to grab the attention of his two still conversing friends, "You both knew about the calamity, and the Echidna causing their own destruction," it was phrased more like a question, even if Knuckles knew that it was fact. "I've told you that. So how did you think I was here?"

"I… Knuckles, we-" Sonic paused for a moment, his walking around stopping as his focus was pulled elsewhere. At least now, the snow actually had a chance to settle in the shoe-prints that now exposed the dirt beneath. "You don't exactly talk about your childhood or anything. Besides, it's not anyone's first assumption that their friend was… Chaos, Knux," the hedgehog wiped a hand down his face in an attempt to shield a wince beneath it, "You just sat there and listened to us try and logic your existence." At that, there was at least a genuine but no less embarrassed chuckle, "And here we were thinking that you had a mom and dad."

Knuckles tilted his head slightly, "I guess presuming I have parents was more… The normal train of thought to have."

The small group lapsed into some form of quiet, even though Knuckles was sure he could still feel the pressure of unsaid words in the air around him. As if there was so much more to say, so much to explain, so much extra information on the tip of his tongue that he wanted to provide and share, yet he found himself sitting and watching as both Sonic and Tails seemed to be trying to compute everything they'd already been told.

He couldn't really begin to imagine what was running through their heads, and he honestly didn't want to think about it too much either. Yet, the feeling of being watched and analysed, the sensation of weighted discomfort in his chest didn't seem to want to shift away.

This was the truth that Knuckles has lived with for his entire life. It was who he was in his entirety, the knowledge that he was a small part of the Master Emerald herself wasn't anything big to him in the long run. It was his normal.

Yet, now he realised that what was normal for him, was possibly something outrageous and world-bending to his friends.

Friends he'd had for almost half a decade.

Friends who Knuckles had fought alongside and spent time with, who visited him at his home and filled what would be boring days with fun and excitement enough to make him fall asleep as soon as his head hit his pillow.

He felt guilty. 

He'd sat on this information because it had never been needed before, when maybe it was something that was something that was shared anyway.

Knuckles suddenly found his gloved hands all the more interesting as the quiet stretched on. Even the fire had seemed to quiet down, each prevalent click of a second passing by.

"I am very sorry that I didn't share this with you sooner." Knuckles found himself saying to at least fill the silence. "Or at all. It never seemed important, well, I knew it was important but it never became relevant to anything so I didn't mention it-"

"So, like, you're… What? Exactly?" Sonic asked suddenly, thoroughly cutting off Knuckles' own train of thought as the Echidna stared up at the hedgehog who was standing just before him, his face a picture of passivity. 

Tails, meanwhile, looked almost horrified. "Sonic, you can't just ask that!"

Knuckles definitely didn't miss the way the corner of Sonic's mouth was trying not to twitch upwards. It was an out provided to get him out of his own head before his mind decided to spiral that bit too far, and Knuckles was more than willing to grasp onto the calm and casual acceptance that had been thrown his way in a manner only the blue blur could accomplish. Knuckles offered a slightly smile back, "An Echidna"

"But the Master Emerald created you?" Sonic continued, waving off Tails' shocked expression and instead deciding on playing the devil's advocate. 

It was an easy enough question to answer, anyway. Knuckles nodded slowly, gesturing to himself, "The Master knows no species better than she knows the Echidna."

Sonic seemed to approve of that answer, if Knuckles was reading his expression correctly. That, and the low whistle he gave as a response was telling enough. Though whether he was preparing to ask another question in a further effort to get Knuckles from falling back into his own head and worrying about a now unchangeable situation or past decisions, Tails beat him to the punch with a whisper, "You really were created by chaos…" Quiet disbelief tracing each word, eyes wide as he scooted just a bit closer, away from the beanbag and in the direction of where Knuckles was now seated on the ground.

All as if the realisation had just dawned, and any and all previous logical thinking had fallen away in favour of simple, childlike awe.

A feeling Sonic also seemed to also identify with, since he couldn't hold in the also quiet remark of, "It's crazy, isn't it?" To which the hedgehog himself reeled at as he brought a hand up to cover his own mouth and turned rapidly to face Knuckles with a shocked expression as his hand dropped away not a second later, "I'm not saying you're crazy- or that this isn't, like, true or anything; I'm just trying to wrap my head around it all. Let me just-"

Sonic forced a breath out and seemed to take Tails' abandoned perch on the snow-soaked bag as a good place to sit himself down and just think. It seemed, at least, the hedgehog took a second to mellow out as the situation settled on his own shoulders.

No jokes, no shock, no mind-bending world shifting freak outs. Sonic was allowing himself a moment to think, fingers steepled together, brow furrowed and eyes focused on an unknown point in the heart of the flames before them all.

It seemed both brothers took reality settling in, in completely different ways.

Knuckles could appreciate that this wasn't something they'd easily be able to take in their stride; but watching as Sonic gave himself silence made his own fur and quills ruffle and skin crawl in apprehension of what could come next.

It wouldn't be anything bad. It couldn't be. Sonic didn't have a bad bone in his body, yet for Knuckles that worry was still there.

Apparently, it has always been there, ever since he'd thought about but decided against actually telling his friends of his younger years. The fear of allowing someone to actually know him, for the risk of losing what had been built.

It was still there, even with the secret now out in the open.

Still, Knuckles stayed where he was and waited for Sonic to make the first move on his own time. Which thankfully came sooner rather than later in the form of solid eye-contact between bright green and a cautious purple.

"So you were… Really, actually, entirely seriously created by the Master Emerald?" Sonic pointed loosely over to the distant treeline to his left, where a green glow was barely visible beyond the darkened silhouette of the forest that was blanketed by the night, "The big green chaos rock, not even a mile away?"

"I am." Knuckles nodded.

He could be open. It was nothing to worry about. Everything was going fine, everything would be okay. Even still, Knuckles couldn't look away as Sonic continued to keep his attention in the Echidnas direction.

If anyone deserved an explanation, it would be both Sonic and Tails. He couldn't leave them with the only details that they had and call that the end of the discussion. 

That wouldn't be fair.

So maybe sharing more would release the slightly lightened pressure off his chest at the prospect of other people also knowing the truth. So it would no longer be something he carried around on his own.

Knuckles took in a calming breath, and began slowly, "As Tails said, I'm connected to chaos in a way nobody else is. I protect the Master Emerald and keep it and its power from being abused by the wrong people. Whilst I'm not exactly perfect," he could easily count over his fingers the amount of times where he'd in fact lost the Master Emerald, or even seen it shattered; something that left a particular sharp point of pain residing in his chest no matter how long it had been since the Master had been made whole again.

Knuckles brought a hand up to rub lightly at his Guardians crest, just carefully, where the ache sometimes resided. He couldn't explain what it had felt like to watch the gem shatter, but he remembered feeling almost sure he'd shatter alongside it…

That wasn't something he needed to think about. There were other more important talks, so Knuckles rested his hand back onto his lap and continued, "My connection to chaos is how I maintain its order." Knuckles gestured to himself, "It's how I do my job. How I'm able to keep the power in check." He couldn't help a soft smile from surfacing on his face, "It lets me sense and protect the Chaos Emeralds, it's also how I'm able to know where both of you are as you walk across my island."

Chaos was woven into his very being in a way that was nearly impossible to put into words, yet Knuckles could feel it all the same. Through his body, through the entire world.

Knuckles clasped his hands together in front of himself, "Order and Chaos are both interlinked with one another, and I am the order born from chaos. Quite literally."

There was a short beat of quiet, until Sonic lent forwards with a wide grin, "This is so cool, you know that?"

Knuckles could feel the moment his mind decided to stutter, "It's… Cool?"

"You're literally the kid of an ancient chaos relic, what's not cool about that?" Sonic looked as though he couldn't imagine any other reaction. There was a slight sound of disbelief at Knuckles' questioning, though overall there was more awe than shock at the response, "I can't believe you didn't tell us this, you Knucklehead. What, did you think we wouldn't understand you? Accept you?"

There was a moment where Knuckles felt any words that were trying to come out get stuck behind a sudden lump in his throat. Even as Sonic got up, only to move to crouch and then sit himself down on the ground directly in front of Knuckles. It looked more like the hedgehog was priming for a moral boosting speech that was normally a precursor to a possibly disastrous and world-ending battle, not used in the dark of the night upon a floating island out of the way of basically all of civilisation. Knuckles eventually, thankfully managed to clear the choked sensation in order to get out words that now seemed mediocre and almost silly, "You just… Never asked."

"You don't need to wait for the right questions to feel like you can tell us about these things." Sonic sighed and edged closer, tapping his fist against Knuckles' knee to keep his attention, "We're your friends, no matter what; you're stuck with us like gum on a shoe." His smile somehow managed to grow ever softer, "You don't have to share everything with us, but you can always tell us anything. No matter what."

Tails made his way over to the small group that had seemingly built up, seating himself just beside where Knuckles was sat and then scooted that bit closer, his twin tails moving through the air before they settled over his shoes, away from the ground. Knuckles was more than ready to tell the fox to go and drag the beanbag over, but this wasn't a moment he was willing to halt even if it meant Tails was risking a cold.

They all were, especially with how much the snow continued to fall.

"Besides, you're part of a team of people who don't exactly scream normal," Tails mused easily. "Sonic runs faster than sound, we're friends with a time-traveller and a fire princess. Shadow is a science experiment-"

"Tails is freaky smart," Sonic butted in, "Amy knocked you into a tree that one time; not to mention the fact that I can't even lift her hammer. She's scary powerful."

"I- hey! Someone has to have some brain cells in this group." It seemed that Tails had at least clocked what Sonic had said about him, since he reached over Knuckles' legs to push at his brother's shoulder with enough force to knock the hedgehog over, at least until he righted himself with snow stuck to his quills. "Anyway, what we're trying to say is there's nothing you could tell us that we won't accept you for."

"Basically, we're all weird. But that's why we work." Sonic provided helpfully alongside some brief finger-guns, and Knuckles saw the impressive eye roll that Tails gave in his peripheral vision, one that the hedgehog at least seemed to miss.

Knuckles chuckled lightly to himself. The idea that these two had ever been his enemies seemed like an entire lifetime away, so the fact that such a deep-rooted friendship had even managed to spawn seemed next to impossible. Yet, here he was, spending time with those he was close to like he'd known them his entire life as opposed to only a few years. Talking, being open, sharing stories about a species that had long since passed and allowing that little bit of a legacy to live on, if just that bit longer.

Why had he ever been so nervous about this? The fear, looking back on it, just seemed pointless. If at the time it had more than made sense.

Since now it was out in the open, a pressure that Knuckles hadn't even realised he'd been carrying within him had decided to finally let up, drifting away with each bit of understanding and acceptance shown his way.

"So… What does it feel like?"

A noise of confusion and questioning escaped before Knuckles could reign it in, he turned his attention down to the fox at his side. A look at Sonic's direction only gained a shrug in return.

"What does what feel like?" Knuckles asked, not cautiously, but with Tails it could have been anything.

The expression Tails gave was one that made the question seem obvious, though Knuckles knew he probably still looked the picture of puzzled, something which was eventually picked up on as eventually, he was given an explanation.

"You're a creation of Chaos, Knuckles." Tails clarified with an unbidden grin, "What's that like?"

Oh.

Knuckles tilted his head, "Like-.. Well, I'm as normal as you and Sonic are."

"We're not normal, Knucklehead." 

"I'm aware of that," Knuckles reached a hand up and batted it lightly in the air where Sonic had been situated, only the hedgehog moving at the last second prevented the passive tap from connecting, "but you know what I mean. I experience things the same way anyone else would." Knuckles mused, though it was more to himself than anything, even if Tails had asked the question to begin with. He did seem a little let down, however. As if he expected something more than confirmation of normalcy. 

But what else could he really say? He interacted with the world normally. Sure, sometimes social cues went out the window and sarcasm passed over his head like the wind blew through the trees, but he was learning and getting better with it. Spending his formative years seperate from society meant he had a little bit of catching up to do, and that didn't even take into account his reluctance to delve into Mobian technology. Yet, he was normal. As normal as Sonic and Tails at least.

Which was normal enough.

Still, Knuckles took a pause as Tails still continued to look up at him as if he could sense that there was more information there to uncover and learn; it didn't take long for understanding to dawn as to what he was actually trying to get at.

Knuckles just had to figure out how to put it into words.

"You mean how it feels to be connected to the Master Emerald?" He asked, mainly for confirmation.

The nod received in response was enthusiastic and unmissable. 

"You've mentioned small things before." Tails noted simply, "You've said you feel the Master Emerald. You can talk to Tikal within it, you know when something is wrong with chaos before it happens, just… how?" The fox asked, managing to move ever closer until Knuckles was being hemmed in on both sides, whether purposefully or not.

This wasn't a conversation he could exit out of, and he knew if he did then the comfort he had with the subject would probably go with it.

There was no better time to talk than the present, after all.

Knuckles let his eyes settle on the crackling flames before him, allowing the warmth to seep in, then turned his attention to Tails and carefully hovered a hand over the white crescent on his chest, "Sometimes, it feels like I… that I can feel the world sing." He started, testing out the words for a moment, an attempt at grasping the right ones he could use to explain what he needed to someone who would probably have no possible frame of reference for what he experienced. "Chaos Energy is within everything, not everyone can use it but everyone has that little bit of energy inside them and," Knuckles let out a breath, eyes dropping shut as he allowed himself to drift just barely into the hum within, "It's music. It's life and power and just… When I reach out and touch it, it's like I'm plucking at a lyre that's woven into every single corner of the world."

He could feel how his fingers were twitching in his gloves, even if the analogy wasn't so much a physical one. Yet, chaos still hummed against the barest of touches, a sensation Knuckles could feel flow through him even though he knew Sonic and Tails wouldn't feel it themselves. It was like the air that moved into his lungs, like electricity in humid air just before a thunderstorm rolled in.

Like the smell of grass after rain, or the nip of frost in the early mornings.

It was all impossible. Yet Knuckles felt it all.

Knuckles let a light puff of air from his lungs as he opened his eyes again to see that both Tails and Sonic were looking at him with unabashed focus.

"It's life." Knuckles added with a smile, "My connection to the Master Emerald is like… Tugging at those strings and feeling everything call back. I can feel the trees and know they're getting ready to drop their leaves for the colder months, all the way down to the stone and cold marble of the Hidden Palace. I can feel each blade of grass in my home, all in the same way the Master can.

It's a cosmic connection to the universe." He knew, at least he was sure, that if he reached out and allowed his focus to brush against the bright spark of chaos energy that resided within Sonic that the hedgehog wouldn't feel it. All it took was a brush against thin air and the bright and roaring chord of chaos chimed back against Knuckles' ministrations.

It was familiar. It had been familiar for years now.

Knuckles pulled away after a second and let his focus settle back into his body, the sensation of chaos drifting to the back of his mind as he took in his now captive audience. "You've always wondered how I find you both so quickly when you're on my island." He spread his hands with a smirk, "There's your answer. You both have innate Chaos Energy- as do all Mobians, you both stand out like a sore thumb."

It seemed to take a second for Sonic's own focus to snap back into gear, a slight scoff escaping his lips, "So you're saying that you know we're on Angel Island because-"

"Because you're like a pebble in my shoe." Knuckles smiled as Sonic's expression just turned from impressively surprised to humorously offended.

"We're like what?" Sonic questioned, seemingly all previous conversations getting set to the wayside in favour of this slight against his person.

The echidna couldn't prevent the breath of a laugh that escaped, "A pebble. Or apple stuck in my teeth- a fly buzzing around my head-" 

"Okay, wow." The hedgehog huffed, "Tell us what you really think, Knux."

"- That one ray of sunlight that manages to hit your eyes when you wake up in the morning," Knuckles mused further.

Only for the next moment, and a rush of air and a shift to his axis later, and Knuckles found himself on his back soaking up a fresh pile of chilling snow against his back along with the realisation that he'd all but been tackled off his perch by a blue blur who was now standing above him with his own partial and slightly crumbled and distorted handful of snow. Knuckles struck first.

The laugh that escaped him as the snow he'd grabbed and thrown himself struck home against Sonic's face enough to have the hedgehog stumbling back and landing hard onto the already frozen ground managed to cut through the air.

Then, Sonic brushing slush from his eyes and looking absolutely perplexed as to what just happened almost had Knuckles lose it a second time.

Laid on the ground, Knuckles took another clump of snow in his hand in preparation for Sonic to get back up and try his attack again. Only for Tails' head to poke into Knuckles' peripheral vision and almost gain a face full of snow himself for his troubles. The instinct was short-lived though, as Knuckles dropped his frozen weapon and watched as the fox rested his head onto his arms as and looked down at an echidna who had yet to move from where he'd fallen; seemingly ignoring the battle that had been going on.

Besides the cold, Knuckles found he was content with staying sprawled out where he was for the time being. 

He could watch the embers from the fire rise up and fizzle out into the sky from his new orientation.

"Have you always known?"

Knuckles nodded his head towards Tails as he kept part of his attention on Sonic, just out of the corner of his eye. "It was never kept from me. But the circumstances of my birth doesn't mean I'm any less an Echidna than you yourself are a Fox." He shrugged as he casually rounded off a ball of snow in preparation of Sonic making another attempt, though it seemed the hedgehog was content with staying where he was and listening.

If Knuckles had known that talking about his past was a surefire way to actually get some quiet when around his friends, he would have mentioned everything earlier.

Or maybe not. Definitely not. The nerves would have remained no matter how hidden they had really been, and Knuckles had been content with what he'd shared with people who wanted to listen. Both Sonic and Tails now knowing that a little bit more didn't make him any different from the person he had been the day beforehand, they just now had more details.

They'd already listened to so much, and they were willing to hear more. Actively wanted to know more- Knuckles set the snowball down at his side and turned his head to look sidelong at Tails, "There were a few things that I was born-... Or, well, created already being aware of. Before I could even really comprehend anything else. My role as the Guardian, for one." Knuckles loosely counted over his fingers, "That I was born of the Master Emerald. Being alone on an island with an Emerald as a child meant I had to learn fast in order to survive to the next year, so there are things I've never had to learn, it's just always been there."

When Tails' brow creased just lightly, Knuckles was sure he'd inadvertently said something wrong. The art of reading expressions had never been something he'd picked up on, but Tails seemed almost sad. Face drawn, cheek resting over crossed arms as the fox kept his attention in Knuckles' direction as if he was taking the time to parse through the words he wanted to use to bring up something wrong.

All the while, Knuckles was working through his own explanation, the word choices he'd used, the story he'd given, anything that could have caused his friend to begin to look upset.

Until.

Knuckles winced internally and pushed himself up so he was looking more directly towards Tails, "I'm not alone anymore, though. And it never really bothered me."

"But-" Tails started.

Only for Knuckles to reach a hand forwards and hold it over Tails' mouth. There was no strength behind it at all, barely any contact, yet the fox went silent anyway. The echidna sighed, "I was on my own until I was fourteen, I never knew the meaning of lonely because I'd never had anyone." That only seemed to make Tails look sadder, so Knuckles quickly doubled back, "I was fine back then. In the same way I'm fine now. I have friends, I'm not on my own anymore, but back then I didn't miss anything because I didn't know there was anything to miss."

Eventually he smiled and dropped his hand away, making sure to at least try and catch Tails' eye until the fox also gave a smile back too. 

The crunch of snow had Knuckles whipping around in Sonic's direction with his hand quickly moving to his discarded snowball, only for the hedgehog to hold his hands up quickly and instead sidestepped around where Knuckles was seated to take up space just beside Tails, one hand resting and then ruffling the fur on his head.

For a moment, Tails looked like he was going to move the hand away, until he seemingly resigned himself to his fate.

Sonic, for only a brief second, looked a little forlorn himself. 

They both cared so much. Too much.

Especially about a past that couldn't be changed.

"I've already told you, you're not getting rid of us now, Red." Sonic grinned all the while. The underlying notion that, by default, meant that Knuckles would no longer be on his own like he had been when he was younger went unsaid.

Still, the fact that his friends seemed to be willing to shoulder the responsibility of a situation that had already passed wasn't something that Knuckles wanted to burden them with. Even beneath Sonic's grin, it was surprisingly easy to read the thoughts running rampant through his head. Through Tails' too.

The what ifs. What if they'd found the island years earlier? What if Eggman had never crashed upon its surface?

What if they'd never met all those years ago?

Chapter Text

Knuckles shook his head minutely to get rid of those thoughts. He didn't need to dwell on that, not when the night had already become a nice, yet extremely enlightening one.

Sonic, ever the quick witted, seemed to pick up on the tangent of thinking too, "So… You're a demigod, right? Like Perfect Chaos?" 

Knuckles felt the moment his mind stuttered as he attempted to take in those words. Even still, an extremely intelligent, "What?" Escaped before he could think otherwise. Though that was enough to kick his brain in gear as the question and understanding finally settled, "Sonic, Chaos was a Chao that was given power by the Master Emerald."

"And you were created by it!" Sonic said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Which, now, it technically was. Amongst that small group, however. "Does that mean you're stronger than Chaos?"

"Sonic-" Knuckles sighed.

"It explains why he can punch the Chaos Emeralds out of you, though." Tails nodded along to Sonic's theory, before something seemed to dawn over his face with wide eyes and pin-pricked pupils as a now curious and excited expression whipped over to the echidna's direction. "Wait- Knuckles, now we know how your connection to the Master Emerald feels, Chaos must have felt the same way too, right? At least in some way?" 

Knuckles blinked owlishly as his brain rushed to catch up with what Tails was saying, "I- maybe-? But why-?"

Though any effort came to a loss as Tails quickly picked up his train of thought and powered on before any sense had been made, "Chaos turned into Perfect Chaos when it had collected all seven Chaos Emeralds. It could control water, make hurricanes-."

"Chaos isn't a violent creature. Being around Eggman would cause anyone to… Well," Knuckles waved away any continuation of the thought with one hand. If there was anyone who knew how infuriating the Doctor was, it was that small group around the campfire. "The spirit naturally cares a lot, it is fiercely protective over the island and those that live here, it would defend the Master Emerald to no end." He sighed slightly, "Our experiences of the Water Spirit haven't exactly been positive. Chaos' powers were actually quite tame, it kept the island healthy, its water clean and pure."

"And it tapped into Chaos Energy to do that, right?" Tails asked after a moment. Knuckles just gave a slow nod as the fox continued, "It was given powers by the Master Emerald."

Whether the second statement was framed more as a rhetorical question or not, Knuckles provided a short answer anyway, "It was."

"And you were created by the Master Emerald." The fox continued.

Knuckles at least knew when to be wary as he provided another nod to the affirmative and a short and cautious, "I… Was." His eyes narrowed just slightly, watching as Tails just provided a slight smile in return as if that would easily counter Knuckles' own budding confusion. 

At least until Sonic cottoned on before Knuckles did himself, if the sudden wide grin was anything to go by. An expression both brothers seemed to uncannily share. Now, it was much to the Guardian's chagrin at their apparent ability to wordlessly communicate, "Do I even want to know what you're both thinking?"

Sonic and Tails shared a further look, the hedgehog's hand still resting on Tails' head as he lent closer towards where Knuckles sat, practically teetering off his impromptu seat, "Do you have any cool powers?"

Knuckles didn't know why he was surprised, yet somehow that question had come out of nowhere. Or at least, it hadn't been one he'd anticipated hearing any time soon. 

With the talk of Chaos and it's powers, maybe it was only natural that those conclusions were also drawn for Knuckles too. As much as the parallels between himself and Chaos were more… divergent. Cut from the same cloth, yet even then somehow the material was fundamentally different. Chaos had been something before it had become Chaos.

Knuckles had just always been himself.

"Maybe not anything water related, that doesn't seem like your kind of power," Sonic mused briefly, his free hand moving up to rub at his chin, "You're strong enough to create earthquakes though."

"But he can sense weather changes, rain, thunderstorms-" Tails mumbled quietly.

Sonic nodded, "Maybe the Master Emerald is just a fan of water powers?"

"But Chaos didn't use the Master Emerald when it transformed into Perfect Chaos."

"But it was created by the Master Emerald. Or, it was given power- the Chao was given power- Whichever, it's water powers had to have come from somewhere."

Knuckles stood up as Tails and Sonic were both still conversing about the logistics of powers between each other. A subject he was content to at least listen to in the background whilst he picked up a slightly charred stick, knelt down on the clear and fire-cracked ground circling the hearth, and started carefully moving the embers around to help them maintain heat.

"Can you see Knuckles with any type of water powers?" Sonic's jokingly-grouchy voice met Knuckles' ears and the echidna couldn't help but chuckle at the level of implausibility that seemed to be emotionally intertwined with that one statement.

Tending to the fire, throwing some smaller twigs into the flames, feeling the warmth flickering against him; it wasn't harsh in any way. It was comfortable, even as close as he was. A result of Knuckles not properly maintaining the fire in the snowfall, probably, but it wasn't anything too hard to rectify. The process was practised, it was something he'd done so many times he had no real way of counting them. Skills and execution were displayed in the muscle memory Knuckles had for stoking a strong flame. Dried twigs taking the fire and feeding it more, orange embers pushed closer to the centre of the mound, the eye-stinging smoke going ignored after years of exposure.

"Knuckles can glide, though." Tails noted after a stint of silence.

Knuckles smiled, even facing the fire, maybe an explanation would help, "Chaos was given form and power by the Master Emerald," he confirmed, talking into the heat as he carefully placed a larger log into the fray, "But it's abilities get stronger when exposed to the Chaos Emeralds. It protects the Master, it doesn't use it." He listened as the conversation behind him grew quiet, "It's the same for myself, in a way. I don't delve into using Chaos much at all. It's my job to protect it. I keep the balance, the order." Knuckles pulled his poker out of the campfire and watched as the tip smoked and glowed against the night sky. He placed it onto the ground and looked over his shoulder to where Sonic and Tails remained seated.

Sonic tilted his head curiously, a look Knuckles would have anticipated more from Tails, who looked no less interested in the topic. "But… You can, right?" The hedgehog questioned, "You can sense chaos, you've stopped my Super form in its tracks, you can move this entire island through the sky."

Tails nodded alongside the words, "You can commune with Tikal, and that one time you went against Rouge and summoned lightning-"

"I choose not to use it for myself," Knuckles gave a slight shrug as he turned his back to the fire and faced his friends. "Not much good has come from my kind using chaos energy, or seeking it out with the intent to use it. Besides, I'm the Guardian, I guard." It was simple enough, at least.

Still, Sonic and Tails' excited expressions did mellow out just that little bit. They didn't seem let down, not exactly; just understanding in a slightly saddened manner. As if they hadn't been expecting much to begin with, they were aware of how Knuckles treated the power he had to protect. With both a caution produced from the past misuses of the chaos and the consequences that came about because of it, and the fact that if there was a need to use chaos, then Sonic was usually there to fill that role.

Knuckles let out a small breath as he looked over the two brothers for a second, each of them giving a short nod of understanding. Taking the statement at face value, not pushing any further with something that Knuckles had voiced he chose not to do. Immediate acceptance. No arguing, no whining. No nothing.

Not that Knuckles had expected anything else from the two of them.

Maybe that was why he couldn't help but feel anything but at ease in that moment. There was the warmth of the fire on his back, the odd chilled touch of snow as it still continued to drift down from the sky, and two friends in front of him who took everything in their stride.

Even as Knuckles had probably, over the past half hour or so, flipped what they'd thought they'd known on its head.

It was a small, almost imperceptible chime within his chest which made him shift just a little bit, moving until he was knelt on his knees with his hands resting loosely against them. It was warm in a way that the fire could never truly be, a comfort that spawned internally and worked its way outwards until each inhale and exhale the echidna made felt like power flowing through him. Being extracted from the island's air, seeping up into him through the earth below him. That constant melody that never desired to be listened to during Knuckles' daily life hummed around him, and it didn't take much focus to reach through the lyrical connection and find the Master Emerald at the other side of it. A comfort in the face of the raw power that the gem contained, a safety net that was less giving him any form of extra energy, but more a little shove and approval.

Knuckles let out a slower breath this time as he leant forwards just barely to place his hands flat against the ground before him. He knew he had the attention of the group, he could feel as the unique chords of life were guided in his direction. Though he didn't need to read chaos signals in order to see that Sonic and Tails were now unabashedly watching. Knuckles gave a slight smile, "Though, if it would sate your curiosity and stop you from pestering me in the future,"

Knuckles allowed his eyes to slip closed, feeling his hands flat against the chilled ground, it was no effort to let his mind reach down into the surface and pull, just barely.

Even still, the feeling of everything reaching back almost made Knuckles cut the connection there and then. It wasn't foreign, nothing about chaos energy would ever be foreign to him, it was literally woven throughout his body just as his blood flowed in his veins and his heart thumped in his chest.

But purposefully reaching out and inviting the sensations in, for a moment, the ring of chaos interspersed within everything that resided on Angel Island always seemed so immense. Even if it was for a second, even if Knuckles was able to breathe through it as the feedback settled down, it would probably be something he'd never get used to.

Knuckles opened his eyes to see that his audience had moved themselves closer, both Sonic and Tails seated on the ground with the flicker of orange that was the fire whipping in the dark behind him, dancing in their eyes and throwing glowing embers into the air to drift amongst the snow.

There was also a slight, subtle green glow interspersed through the light. Knuckles knew where that was coming from, since he could see it himself. He could feel it too. The indisputable flicker of chaos energy that moved through him, up from the ground beneath him allowing the power to flow like a lazy river through his gloved hands. Where the contact was made, his palms flat to the earth, there was a calm curl of light that was exuded. It wasn't much, and had it not been for the night then the odds were it would never have been noticed otherwise. Yet both Sonic and Tails were staring down at the visual power with wide eyes, the world drifting into a palpable silence around them all.

That just allowed Knuckles to let his mind drift that bit further, eyes slipping shut. The chaos itself wasn't being syphoned from solely the ground. It wasn't being syphoned at all, really. There was no give or take, Knuckles wasn't allowing the energy of the world around him to deplete. He was borrowing it, pulling on the musical chords and listening to the tune of power that called back. A little energy picked from a tree in the nearby forest, a slight bit more pulled from the ice-caps that were experiencing the worst of the snow's downfall. The bubble and raucous tempo of Hydrocity always held the sharpest and most identifiable flow of energy, it was the string on the proverbial instrument that Knuckles could pluck and know he'd get a lot of feedback in return.

The Master Emerald, this time, would be the one maintaining the order. 

Knuckles, he could allow himself to wallow in the chaos energy at least just for a few seconds. He wasn't trying to achieve much, if anything at all. He didn't want to make the ground shake, he wasn't going to wield chaos like Shadow or Silver preferred, he was simply letting it move through himself. Allowing it all to form a small ball within his chest that expanded ever so carefully with each calm puff of air he took in.

He wasn't trying to do anything big. If anything, he wasn't trying to access that much chaos at all. Knuckles just need a little bit more than what he usually carried within himself. Once he had enough, all he had to do was revel in the calming knell of the Master Emerald residing at the edge of his awareness. Then, he released the careful hold he had on the music just beneath his chest, the energy rolling and cautiously chiming and tolling below his fur in an unrushed effort to rejoin the world again.

The symphony of energy slowly leaving and returning back to the source that was the Master still resolutely in her stone shrine.

A sharp intake of breath, this time, came from Sonic instead. Knuckles watched, eyes cracked open and only a little unfocused with a meditative mind still blanketed with an orchestra of chaos, as somehow, the hedgehog's eyes grew that bit wider as the green glow slowly began to overpower and dispel the warm tones of the flame to his back. 

"Knuckles, what the-" Sonic whispered, his own question going unfinished.

Knuckles knew what they were looking at. He'd seen them before, always in private, and only really when he'd allowed himself to directly connect to the Master Emerald. It was sometimes an involuntary result of accessing chaos, but it was something he could cause easily enough.

The Master Emerald knew the echidna best, after all. There was no species she truly knew more about. Sought after by the warmongering Chief Pachacamac, protected by Lady Tikal who gave her life and her form to become a part of the emerald itself.

Not every echidna had them, but the vast amount did have some form of markings. Some had white curves over their arms, bands around their quills. They had dots and diamonds and sharp points etched into the fur on their heads, pale colourations a contrast to the usual hues of reds and oranges and pinks. Knuckles' own most apparent one was the crescent moon on his chest, and on the surface that was his only marking that had developed from a tuft of fur when he'd been much younger.

In comparison to the echidna of the past, having a single marking was unusual. Especially at Knuckles' age at least. They grew in over time, they appeared during the teen years and only grew paler and more numerous as time went on.

Visually, it was something that Knuckles lacked. The Guardian's crest was the only one he really ever needed, and it seemed to be the case. But add in some chaos energy to an echidna that was created from the Master Emerald, and it resulted in some peculiarities. 

Knuckles had markings, but only slightly. He let his eyes float down to his arms, ignoring the clear gawking looks he was gaining in that moment in favour of looking over the patterning he knew was there.

They weren't white markings exactly. More a side effect of high levels of chaos energy buzzing within him and looking for an escape outwards. There were bands carefully looping around his arms, one just hidden below the cuff of his gloves, the other part way up his forearms. The fur, red at its base, the ends seemingly glowing against the dark of the late hour. Akin to when lightning and energy danced down Sonic's own quills when he ran, chaos energy laced and ornamented Knuckles' body with markings he knew by heart.

The half-moon crest glowed just faintly, extra luminescent lines outlining it and carving downwards over his torso. The small crescent shapes over his shoulders, flickering softly at the edge of his vision. Then there was the arrow shape he knew rested on his forehead, the slope of energy that curved from the outer edge of his eyes down onto his muzzle.

The fur in bands and spirals glowing at their tips over his dreads. The odd intermittent and seemingly random spots where his fur flickered with escaping chaos, Knuckles was aware of every inch that was marked and aglow with the bright tone of energy, stealing away the illumination of the fire and casting the area in a soft incandescence.

If he had been a regular echidna, the patches most likely would have been as white as the snow that settled around them. Yet, he was anything but.

"Holy-" Sonic started, but Knuckles just lifted a hand from the ground and held it out in a silent request for continued quiet. 

Chaos was a finicky thing, after all. The last thing Knuckles wanted to do was to risk losing control, even if he was only taking in a small amount. 

Even if he was fully conscious of the fact that the Master Emerald, in it's own ethereal and boundless awareness, was keeping the chaos energy in order. There were no flares of power, no risk of overload, no temptation to take just that little bit more of the electric feeling he had brushing against his fingertips.

There was only calm.

A practised, near anomalous order to the chaos flowing through him. An almost artificial focus to his mind that any chaos energy always did its best to poke and chip away at.

Which is why Knuckles felt the moment the power slowly began to pour through his fingers like sand, drifting down and out of his body and back into the ground beneath where he knelt; all to rejoin the island again and spread out through the other life that flourished there. He could feel the electric buzz of energy depleting, the warm embrace of the controlled chaos slipping free and away until Knuckles' mind settled back into reality as the brush of a cold wind ruffled his quills and fogged his breath.

Knuckles lifted a hand to rub at the side of his head in an effort to get himself focused on the here and now, to let his head switch away from observing the world through the unexplainable lense of chaos energy and back to viewing everything as a regular Mobian would. No sensation of cosmic pressure, no innate understanding and image of the flow of power arching over his field of view. Just back to the normal, average look of the world.

Back to stone cold, palpable silence more so than the snow that was drifting down around them. Back to the slack-jawed expressions that he was sure had been worn by both Sonic and Tails more that single night than ever before in their lives.

Knuckles rerouted his hand and rubbed at the back of his neck in a slight snow of nervousness. He cleared his throat, taking the time to blink the slight fuzzied glare that still remained in his vision but was gradually fading away. "There. One thing I can do with chaos, I know it's not a hurricane but…" There was a short glance down at his own arms, where the previous glow was already absent from his fur, "I think it's pretty cool. The markings never really grew in." He explained after a moment, offering a shrug at the two seemingly still shocked onlookers, then continued carefully, "Though I do sometimes find white fur but it's barely ever anything significant, so I figured I was just stuck with the one." 

Knuckles rested a hand absentmindedly over his chest, before in the blink of an eye and a rush of air later and his arm was being pulled up by sudden hands turning the limb back and forth and Sonic appearing beside him with a now near awestruck expression.

It took a second for Knuckles to realise Sonic was looking for any possible missed signs of the markings that chaos had etched there, only the flicker of soft green light was all gone leaving the expected red fur in its wake. Much to the hedgehog's chagrin as he twisted Knuckles' arm a bit more in his search in an effort to find something that was now absent.

"Hey- ow, Sonic they're-" Though his words were cut off as his face was grasped with two hands and the offending blue blur was staring directly at him, cheeks getting squished as a result. "The markings are gone, they were a by-product of the Chaos Energy." Knuckles continued with words muffled by the hands on his face.

"Your eyes were green!" Sonic said, voice laced with amazement.

Knuckles nodded and took hold of his friend's wrists to pull his hands away, taking a brief moment to reposition his jaw before answering with an easy and slightly obvious, "Chaos Energy." He shifted a little where he was knelt until his legs were no longer trapped underneath himself and losing circulation, but crossed on the ground.

Then, with Sonic's attention shifting away from staring as if Knuckles had just grown a second head, first following the adjusting movement of the echidna but then staying fixed downwards with a slight expression of mystification passing over his face, brows furrowing, confusion palpable.

It didn't take Knuckles long to follow his line of sight and see what was now being stared at.

There were many other effects of chaos after all. It flowed through everything, it was intertwined within the world.

Chapter Text

So it seemed only natural, in the same way it replenished energy and revitalised tired bones and exhausted bodies - how it was an incomprehensible well of power that provided people the ability to teleport and travel through time and for a chosen few, invincibility; that chaos was able to do something a little smaller.

But no less impressive and beautiful.

Knuckles knew there was a small smile on his face as he looked at the area he was sitting in, noting the small stems of grass and greenery that was trying its best to poke up through the frozen and previously barren soil. There were even dots of colour, small unopened buds flourishing slowly before each of their eyes, under the shroud of a sunless sky, where not even a minute before the ground that they were breaking free from had been decimated by a week's worth of morning frost only for it to then be cooked and cracked and burnt by prolonged exposure to the heat of the fire at his back.

Knuckles could feel it growing with the way the grass was tickling against his legs, paired with the light and calm buzz of chaos flowing through these new blooms as the earth had been saturated with a higher level of energy than what it normally would have been.

Knuckles could hold himself responsible for that, at least.

"You can make plants grow?" Tails mumbled out as he moved forwards and sat down too, his namesakes wrapping over his legs as he stared at a daisy that had decided to use the remaining pool of energy to bloom into a stark white petaled flower. 

No matter that there was no light and the only warmth being the burning power of the crackling flames.

"Chaos makes the plants grow." Knuckles corrected easily, reaching a hand over to gently poke at the head of the new flower as the growth began to slow, ignoring how the lyrical trill of power buzzed up his arm like the strum of a guitar and settled far too easily into a small knot of pain at the back of his head. 

Perhaps he was out of practice, but it wasn't every day he decided to wield a small shard of cosmic power.

Headaches were in no way new territory when it came to the Master Emerald. They weren't common, and with time and experience they'd faded, but sometimes they were par for the course. 

It's not as if Knuckles showed off on the daily.

"What I did before was just me pulling on a bit of Chaos." He stared, watching carefully as the area around him slowly became more and more green only to be warring against the flakes of snow that were settling amongst the colour. "That brought a lot of energy into one place, which made the grass grow. And the flowers," The more Knuckles stared down at the small bud in front of him, the more he tried to focus on it through the dark and the chime of energy that still seemed intent on settling around the small group, the more his eyes refused to focus beyond a slightly fuzzy-around-the-edges blob of white. His eyelids were growing heavier too; the headache, just that little bit more prevalent.

It wasn't anything he couldn't handle.

Until, at least, Sonic's face popped up in his line of sight and Knuckles had to blink to clear his head. Only then did he realise he was absently massaging the side of his head and glaring at the offending flower as if it was the source of all his woes.

"I'm okay." He confirmed before Sonic could begin to say anything. Knuckles could feel the wince, but he dropped his hand down, "I didn't intend to make this happen, there wasn't any point." He lightly chided himself, "It's winter. It won't last."

Sonic didn't seem to want to take the confirmation of wellness to heart, but he accepted it nonetheless since it was clear that trying to argue whatever point he had against his friend would be futile. Knuckles knew that too. Even still, the hedgehog dropped himself down on the ground just in front of where the echidna was seated, the small and now squished blades of grass allowing their tiny dregs of chaos to leech back into the earth and flow into their still living compatriots, Knuckles found himself staring again.

"You sure you're okay, Red?" Sonic questioned after a moment. "You're looking a bit spacy."

"Just a little tired," Knuckles blew out a weighted breath, laced with budding exhaustion, "It's been a while since I've had to do this."

There was a raised eyebrow, "You've done it before?"

The buzz of chaos energy was beginning to lessen, the grass finally slowing its reaching crawl up towards the night sky. Knuckles brushed his hand over the flourishing blanket until he reached the edge a couple feet to one side where the ground became cold and barren again, "Someone had to heal the scars left by Eggman." 

Of which there had been many. Sure, the most offending damage had been the absolute carnage the Death Eggs' descent onto Angel Island had caused, it had destroyed so much in that one moment and the island still suffered for it so many years later. Age-old trees had been felled, the earth cleaved open in areas, causing cliffs to break and crumble. It had burnt swathes of nature to cinders. Knuckles could remember that, all the burning, the ash lingering in the air for weeks after the issue had been dealt with, not to mention the shell and shrapnel from that damn airship that he was somehow still finding pieces of when traversing along his home.

Back then, fixing the damage caused had seemed almost insurmountable. In a way, it had been. Angel Island was still damaged in areas, no amount of plant life growing or rerouted rivers could hide the marks scarring the floating isle.

But there were areas that Knuckles could deal with. Badnik damage that could be healed with the right amount of chaos focused into one area, the fallen trees couldn't be given their years back but new ones could sprout in their place to replenish the parts of the forest that had been eradicated. The cracks in the ground could be covered and softened with native moss, the teetering and crumbling rock faces could be secured with crawling ivy. The landscape had been changed, permanently so, though he'd done what he could to fix what had broken.

Even still, looking back on all of that, Knuckles sometimes couldn't believe how naive he'd been. 

Or he could; spending his whole life being raised by the Master Emerald didn't make for the best socialisation.

Knuckles could feel the last of the palpable chaos sinking away through the ground, leaving the green area as now a more regular patch of grass. As unusual as it looked surrounded by snow, anyway. The flowers that had only just bloomed not even a minute ago were shifting imperceptibly, leaves and petals curling and ever so slowly closing up due to the darkness that was surrounding them.

"Though it's been a while, there isn't much else I can do to fix what was broken. Some marks will always be there. So I haven't had to… Move Chaos Energy for a while. Purposefully, anyway." He reached over and gently poked the closing bud as the last bits of the daisy white disappeared and the colour was overtaken once again by the warm flare of the flames nearby. Knuckles was doubtful that they'd open back up in the morning if the weather stayed as it was, cold and getting colder. Along with a day of freezing rain and possibly more snowfall that he could feel hanging up and woven into the atmosphere, just waiting for it to fall down to the ground. 

Angel Island was set to hang in a colder climate for months yet, otherwise the warmer seasons would stay all year around. Animals needed to hibernate, leaves needed to fall. Life needed to be reset. 

The flower had barely been given a few minutes to flourish.

"Plus, there's never much reason for me to use Chaos anyway." Knuckles looked over at Sonic, though the role the hedgehog played in tandem with how chaos was tied into his life went unsaid. "I can get by well enough without it."

"Yet you use your powers to grow plants and make pretty light shows?"

Trust Sonic to condense a whole conversation down into a mere sentence. One that even missed the overall point of the conversation, even.

It drew a small smile from the echidna all the same, any thoughts on previous failings fading to exactly where they belonged. The unchangeable past. Knuckles rolled his eyes at his friend and answered in what he hoped sounded like mock-offence, "You're the one who asked me what I could do. It was the easiest thing I could think of."

Sonic seemed to take that reaction as his own victory as he sat back with a grin, his head tilting lightly to the side, "So you can do more than just that?"

"Of course." Knuckles moved his hand away from massaging the ache in his head to spread them as if it was obvious; and it must have been. He was literally tied into the power of the Master Emerald, it was woven through his body like the island's air breezed into his lungs. Like the chords of power brushed against the edge of his mind. 

Though Knuckles wasn't annoyed at the question, he couldn't be, he knew it was said in good humour. It was Sonic pulling at his strings, trying to cause a distraction. A rise. Only, the pressure in the Echidna's head shortened his temper, "I'm directly connected to the Master Emerald, I can do a great many things. I just choose not to."

No sooner had the words left his mouth did the weight of the statement. Knuckles could feel the pressure settle on his chest, and he was sure it was palpable to the rest of the group as he quickly rectified with an immediate, "It's not a power I would ever abuse. It gave me life, and I know what happened to the Echidna that came before me, I-"

"Hey, chill, Knux. You're the last person who would ever take advantage of this power." Sonic offered a thumbs up. Knuckles realised, along with the goofy smirk that laid across his friend's face, that whilst he'd picked up on the heft of what Knuckles had said, Sonic didn't seem all that bothered by it.

Or, not so much unbothered. More, understanding. "Besides," Sonic continued easily, "You have me to do all the cool chaos stuff, the Chaos Emeralds love me. You can keep on punching holes into the side of mountains and leading armies of revolutionaries."

Knuckles definitely wasn't able to keep the eye roll off of his face, though any tension he could feel prickling his fur fizzled away as a huff of a chuckle managed to break free.

How he'd made a friend in a hedgehog that somehow happened to be both his polar opposite along with one of the few people who understood him.

Tails bent forwards to pick one of the last blooming flowers from the ground, twirling the stem between two fingers and staring closely at it as if he was expecting it to grow a head and legs and start running away.

Chaos could do a lot, but Knuckles wasn't sure it would be able to do that.

In the midst of the fox's staring, and Knuckles' own attention being focused on the group's youngest, Tails mumbled, "Is this proof that you don't have any water powers?"

Knuckles decided at that moment to humour the fox. At least to prevent Sonic from getting his own remark in, which he seemed successful in doing as he watched as the hedgehog's mouth opened only for Knuckles to speak first, "Water abilities wouldn't suit me. I'm more for having my feet on solid ground."

"You live on a floating island." Sonic said quickly.

The smile that graced the nuisance's face as Knuckles slowly turned to look at him didn't once seem to drop away. "My point still stands. Technically all Mobians live on a floating rock."

"So we're getting into the technicalities of this-?"

"Absolutely not." Knuckles said as he crossed his arms over his chest. "I don't have water powers. End of conversation."

"Because Chaos is the Spirit of Water." Sonic ruminated slowly, all the while Knuckles wiped a hand down his face. There was no winning this situation. "Does that make you the Spirit of the Earth? Of plants? Nature?"

"Sonic," Knuckles sighed, "I've already told you-"

"I know, I know." Sonic nodded rapidly as he seated himself into a more comfortable position, first rapidly tapping his fingers on his knee before he moved to sit on his hands to keep them still in an effort to maintain his focus. "High Chaos levels equals plant growth. You moved the Chaos, not grew the plants." He recalled plainly, "I'm just curious. This is all really interesting, and I want to know more- I want to understand more."

Anything Knuckles was preparing to say in rebuttal to whatever Sonic managed to come out with, all seemed to fizzle away at the overt display of curiosity and the fact that he wanted to know even more.

All in one moment, the fact that Knuckles had always been reluctant to share anything; the idea of drawing any form of attention to himself was more a case that he was content with having his own space, it became all the more clearer that it may have been some form of subconscious method to avoid the possibility of rejection and hostility from the people who had managed to worm their way in and intertwine themselves with his once very quiet and lonely routine.

It had been a lie by omission for years, and all Sonic seemed to be interested in was learning more.

Now, Knuckles found that he was willing to share. He'd already shared so much already. Maybe it was the night, maybe it was the day he'd spent with his friends, maybe it was the fact that both Sonic and Tails were looking at him with faces absent of any form of judgement.

It was relaxing.

Knuckles quickly glance over the treeline in the distance, noting the near imperceptible flare of green from the resting Emerald.

It was freeing.

Sonic expression moved to careful and caring in a heartbeat, and remained for every moment Knuckles seemed to be working around a reply. 

"Remember, you don't have to hide anything, Red. You also don't have to tell us things you don't want to. We're here, whenever you're ready. If that's never, then-"

Knuckles pushed himself up from the ground without much of another word, much to the slight surprise from Sonic who's train of thought seemed cut off by the movement. Further, by the fact that Knuckles didn't seem to be paying the hedgehog any mind as he turned slowly in place, scouring the area that circled the fire for a moment in search of something unknown.

At least until whatever that was being searched for was found, and Knuckles found it fast enough. Even if the packet had accumulated a little bit of snow, overall the contents were more or less okay. The near empty bag of marshmallows had all but gone forgotten. That was probably why there were still a few left in the bottom, some of which were promptly pulled from the pack and eaten once the echidna had moved over to the other side of the flames to retrieve the snack.

"Hey, those are mine-" Sonic said, all as Knuckles turned back in his direction with partially chewed food in his cheek, wiping icing sugar off on the side of his leg.

"Ours." Knuckles clarified after a moment longer of chewing, and there was a minor feeling of victory as he watched Sonic's eyes follow his movements as he pulled another one of the very few marshmallows free. Knuckles wrinkled the plastic, "You bring this far too sweet and preserved garbage to my island, I'm the one who gets to finish them."

Knuckles walked back around the fire and retook his place on the ground, the found food cradled in one hand, using the time he had eating to think properly on what he wanted to say in response to Sonic's previous reminder.

It took another marshmallow - a pink one, before he was sure he had the right words. At least, he hoped they were right. "I appreciate the sentiment." He began slowly, "And I do want to try and be more open. You're my friends, and I went too long with this information under wraps. Besides, now that you're both… Aware, and that the Master seems content with the fact that you know, it'll- Well," Knuckles cleared his throat and pushed another marshmallow into his mouth, talking around it. "Maybe it'll be of help in the future."

Sonic's eyes flickered to the side, just as Tails' did, attention for a second fixed in the general direction of where the Master Emerald resided, an eyebrow raised, "Nothing seems any different, though." The hedgehog questioned.

"You're not attuned to Chaos- or, well, you are. More than a regular Mobian. But there are just some things you can't see. Or feel." Like a swell in his chest, close to a warm room on a cool day. Fruit tea that had steeped just enough. Comfort, in every way. "Trust me, the Master Emerald is okay with you both knowing this. She seems… Happy, almost."

Knuckles didn't need to be watching Sonic to know to pull the bag of treats away from him as he tried to use the moment of slight distraction to his advantage and claim something he'd already eaten the majority of by himself.

Resigned to defeat, Sonic let out a huff of a breath and pulled away, though his hands were still free and clearly ready to make another attempt.

Until his hand paused in its preparative twitching, and a slightly confused smirk surfaced, "Did you… Technically ask your mom for permission to tell us?"

Briefly, Knuckles didn't have a clue what Sonic was actually talking about. They'd already had an entire conversation about the negative possibility of him having parents, it shouldn't have been something they'd need to rehash again so soon.

Until realisation dawned on the echidna with his own perplexed expression and creased brow, "... Is that what people do?" A snort from Tails' direction seemed to be all the answer he needed as confusion switched to a deadpan glare at Sonic, "You know, I was thinking about maybe teaching you how to refine your connection to Chaos but now," It had been a passive thought, something to think more on at a later date.

An idea that was proverbially thrown out the window at Sonic's words, "I don't need to ask anyone's permission to do anything." The brush of chaos, like a small jolt of energy flickered through him but was brushed to the side and gone in an instant. If Knuckles could see the Master Emerald, he'd be glaring daggers at the green rock too.

If the headache caused by the manipulation of chaos energy had already dispersed, he was sure he'd be getting a hedgehog caused one soon enough.

"Wait, Knux, don't be like that-"

There it was.

Knuckles held what remained of the pack of marshmallows over to Sonic with a slight smile, "I'm kidding. Just not tonight. Another time, we'll make a week of it."

Sonic tilted his head, "A whole week-? Are you telling me I have no control over Chaos?"

"You've got no discipline." Knuckles shook the plastic wrapper, "Now take these before I eat the last of them."

At that, the last few treats were claimed in a flash of blue, who wasted no time in eating a couple remaining sweets quickly before passing the remainder of the bag over to Tails. Sonic brushed his hands off on his lap, "So, other than insulting my amazing chaos skills,"

Knuckles suppressed a sigh.

"Are you going to tell us anymore? Any other cool powers, oh Guardian, Demigod of Order?"

The fire popped at his back as Knuckles pulled in a, though unneeded, steadying breath as he fixed his attention on his friend, "Sonic, I swear, if you continue I'll throw you from the island, you won't learn anything else and both Tails and I will find out how fast a hedgehog falls." 

He could hear Tails' unhidden snickering just at his side, something which he chose to ignore if not for the way Knuckles could feel the corners of his mouth turn up.

It didn't help that Sonic looked as though he was holding back laughter too.

Knuckles was sure to look away before his own expression broke, turning towards the movement at his side as Tails scooted closer with the grin ever present; at least he looked as though he was trying his best to school it too. 

"How about other stories?" The question didn't seem so out of left field as Tails ate through his own portion of the last of the snacks, "Like the Archer? Any other cool Echidna tales lost to time?" 

Even through the unbound curiosity and further questions that Knuckles could clearly see bubbling under the surface of his two guests, it was clear that they were holding back with what was being asked. Almost as if they could tell that the night was properly trying to set in, with the excitement fading and being replaced with growing tiredness, and any and all heavy questions were being pushed to the side.

For now, that was.

Knuckles was more than sure that this would definitely not be the end of the previous conversation. Not by a long shot.

The logistics of being a creation of the Master Emerald was not a topic that would get dropped and forgotten. Much to Knuckles' chagrin.

Much to his relief, too.

It was a nice feeling, knowing that he was no longer alone in his knowledge.

Knuckles gave a short nod in Tails' direction, after a second of contemplation, "It depends on what type of story you want to hear."

He was content to just sit and wait as Tails seemed to think through possible themes he wanted to hear about, only for Sonic's face to edge into his peripheral vision with a clear smirk, "It's story time again?" There was a pregnant, physically intentional pause, until Sonic could clearly hold it back no longer, "Master of Chaos, son of the Emerald-"

A lump of what could arguably have been called snow thumped into Sonic's face and toppled him backwards before he could get another word in edgewise. It wasn't a hard impact, Knuckles was sure of that. He was also sure that he'd thrown mostly sludge, the remains of slightly melted ice, a result of the flames nearby and the easiest and fastest projectile he could get his hands on to make his friend stop talking.

Sonic sprang up just as fast as he'd gone down, shaking the iced slush from his face and fixing a good humoured but no less menacing stare in Knuckles' direction.

One which was easily returned as a challenge to even attempt to strike back.

Knuckles was the first one to pull away, not stand down exactly, but renew the talk that had been interrupted. He didn't need to watch Sonic to know where he was, he had chaos to tell him if the hedgehog was trying to creep closer. Tails still seemed to be thinking, his own signature of chaos calm and turned almost inwards as the fox mumbled quietly to himself.

"There's quite a few tales. Some I've read, some I just," Knuckles gestured loosely to the side of his head with a dampened glove and cleared his throat, "Have always known."

"Any ghost stories?" Sonic asked, still taking a moment to brush the ice out of some misplaced quills. Knuckles raised a confused eyebrow as Sonic clarified, "We're around a campfire, it's dark out." He wiggled his fingers in a vaguely menacing manner, "You have to have something spooky stored away in that head of yours."

"There's one, though it's fairly far-fetched. I wouldn't really class it as scary, either." The echidna weren't exactly one for horror stories. Especially when the last few decades of their species had been used to commit information and stories to paper in the hopes that one day it would all be found and preserved. Only important details would be committed to the history books, so to say. Some stories slipped through the cracks of time, little paragraphs scribbled down on some falling-apart parchment that had somehow survived millennia. Meaning that the stories that could still be found and read in modern times were more… Lessons. Morals. The tales that parents would pass onto their children. 

Nothing scary, just childhood stories. Myths and legends, even some prophecies.

Very little horror.

Though whether Knuckles had read the tale in one of the small libraries dotted over Angel Island, or it was just part of the knowledge he never actually remembered learning, he'd just always known it; there was something that may be fitting for Sonic's love of the abnormal.

"It's about a spirit," Knuckles started easily, the words flowing from his mouth as if it was a tale he'd told many times before. As opposed to this being the first. "One that was so powerful that it had to be scattered throughout Chaos itself, lest it surface again and destroy the world." The average thriller story, it seemed. If it was anything like the movies he'd been made to watch whenever he managed to take a day or two down on the surface and got dragged into a marathon. "Though that's a regular day for us."

Tails at least, seemed to reanimate with the interest that was brought about with those few words, "You can't just say all of that, and not tell us more, Knuckles."

"Yeah, man!" Sonic had made himself comfy too, attention fixed on the partial tale that Knuckles had shared, clearly a prompt to continue. To share more. "World ending Chaos Spirit? Sign me up."

Knuckles barely managed to hold onto the laugh that nearly escaped. Instead, he gave a light, and slightly bewildered shake of his head. Mainly to himself.

How Sonic seemed so interested in everything at all was always baffling. How even the sound of a powerful fictional creature got what must have been a third wind of adrenaline flowing.

Knuckles had shared so much in such a short amount of time, yet they still were willing to sit and hear him talk for longer? Sonic was still able to keep his focus and now have his brain drag him off to the other side of the island the second boredom struck.

If Knuckles had been unable to feel the slight swell of appreciation at their interest, he would have only been left with confusion as to why they were both still listening. Still prompting with questions and interacting, even as Knuckles watched as Tails tried to hide a large yawn behind his hand. Though the fox didn't draw attention to it, Knuckles allowed it to flow past. 

One story, then they'd sleep. It had been a long day, and a longer night, after all.

"This isn't something you want to come face to face with, Sonic." Knuckles noted with a slight smile, "Legends say the creature used to be an Echidna that dove too far into Chaos and became corrupted. Who was so intent on learning more about the energy that he gave his life in pursuit of knowledge."

No matter the building tiredness between the group, exacerbated by the warmth of the fire and the calming quiet that snowfall always seemed to bring to their surroundings, Sonic and Tails still continued to listen. Continued to watch.

As much as Knuckles could appreciate some time alone, there were times where he also understood that maybe having people to share his time with wasn't so bad either. He could understand the appeal of having a small group of friends.

"And what remained of the obsession slowly formed into an armoured demon with total control over Chaos itself."

Especially being the last of his kind in all of existence, and the sheer impossibility of ever actually finding someone like himself, those who were simply like-minded seemed to be enough. Even if Knuckles spent a good portion of his time arguing back and forth with an over-energised hedgehog, he could appreciate that after over a decade of being on his own, he would no longer be lonely.

Sonic and Tails would just invite themselves to his island. He couldn't stop that.

"Quills as dark as night, eyes flooded with power and hidden behind a golden mask. It wanted to keep the world pure. And, like the Echidna of the past, sought to rule over both Albion and Mobius alike. Before it disappeared, anyway. No one knows where it went, just that it's gone."

He wouldn't.

"Trapped in the ether of Chaos. Waiting until it's whole again to surface and remake the world in its own image."

The Echidna were storytellers before they were warriors, after all. They weren't meant to be isolated from the world. 

Knuckles had friends to ensure that.