Chapter Text
The trees lazily swayed around her in the field where she lay amongst the lavender, painting the damp ground purple.
She looked upward toward the sun, staring straight at its molten heart and daring it to blind her as it shone brightly in the endless expanse of deep cerulean, dotted with ships of clouds adrift in silence.
The fresh spring wind whipped by softly, weaving through her quills and permeating the air with the soft scent of the lavenders around her and petrichor.
She watched as Flickies flew from tree to tree, chirping happily; the animals were scurrying around, scavenging and playing with each other as well.
It was peaceful and silent.
Mostly.
Her ears, longer and better at hearing than the average hedgehog’s, could pick up Chao sounds and laughter from a nearby Chao Garden.
Shadow sighed and blinked the tears that had formed in her stinging eyes away, a mild consequence of attempting to stare down the sun.
Her thoughts drifted in her head in lazy arcs, yet one looped back to her heart: death, which she imagined not as silence, but as the sweet stillness of spring.
It wasn’t the first time that she’d thought of it. Death was a concept that plagued her thoughts and dreams from the first breath of dawn to the final sigh of night, every day.
It was a concept just as lost on her as mortality was—a being who would never experience it, no matter how much she welcomed it.
Others feared death, viewing immortality as perfection that they strived to attain. That was partly why she was made. Aside from being created to be the perfect weapon and the key to all manner of medicine, she was to be the key to immortality as well.
Human avarice was the catalyst of her existence. They saw themselves fit to play God for their selfish endeavors and hence doomed her to an eternity of pain and loss.
The implications of her own immortality were not lost on her. She was well aware that once they started approaching their thirties, her friends would begin to show imperceptible signs of aging while she stayed looking like she’d barely entered her twenties.
In her eyes, there was nothing better than aging with those you hold dear and eventually passing on—off to pursue other adventures with them far away from the mortal plane.
Yet others see perfection in being able to live forever. Whatever their motivations, be it to walk the Earth and explore its beauty until its end or to amass fame and fortune, she did not care.
Immortality belonged to the gods—those timeless stewards of balance and sky—not to mortals who could not carry its weight without breaking. It would not be natural.
They were meant to live and die, to experience the sacred rhythm that gives each heartbeat its value and each choice its consequence.
In their impermanence lay their true perfection: the ability to cherish what is fleeting, to love what must eventually be let go, and to participate in the ancient dance of renewal that sustains all life.
Their mortality was not a flaw to be corrected, but the very signature of their lives—the precious limitation that made each sunrise a gift rather than an expectation, each connection a treasure rather than an inevitability.
Shadow shifted slightly to pull her arms from behind her head and rest them on her sides like a starfish. She couldn’t fathom why anyone would want to live forever, to see as the people they met, loved, and lived with eventually moved on to their next great adventure.
The sun was now in the middle of the sky, indicating that it was noon.
She thought of Maria. Was she happy wherever she was? They had talked about death once, back when she lived on the ARK. Maria had said she imagined death to be a friend that came and took you from your suffering, but also an enemy to those who were wicked and tainted the Earth.
The blonde girl had also introduced the concept of the astral plane—where one goes after death before they join those who have passed before them. She said it takes the form of the place you loved most while you were alive.
Shadow hadn’t understood much of what she’d said back then, but now she did.
She wonders if her unnatural beginnings would affect her artificial immortality. Would she die with the Earth when its time comes, or will she be doomed to outlive it?
Suddenly, her ears twitched toward a steadily increasing sound of footsteps approaching at a speed only one other person could achieve: Sonic.
Shadow closed her eyes and heaved out a deep breath before opening them again when the footsteps suddenly stopped and a strong gust of wind blew by her.
Bright green eyes peered down at her, their owner sporting a goofy grin. Two Chao, one black and one blue, sat in Sonic’s arms, clearly disoriented by the speed but unharmed.
“I didn’t wake you, did I?” Sonic asked cheekily.
Shadow rolled her eyes grumpily but welcomed the intrusion regardless.
“Of course you didn’t. You wouldn’t catch me sleeping anywhere you and your immature friends could find me easily,” she replied with little bite.
Sonic dumped the black-and-red Chao in Shadow’s lap as she sat up and plopped herself beside her, beginning to talk about the Chao Garden.
Shadow let her speak as she played with the Chao. She would sulk about death later. There was time enough for mourning things that hadn’t yet come to pass.
For now, she let herself fall into the warmth of the sun, the scent of lavender clinging to the breeze, the soft chattering of Chao and the familiar, irritating comfort of Sonic’s voice.
Shadow didn’t know what the future would bring. Whether it held endless loneliness or something gentler, but that didn’t matter today. Everything she knows is still around her and she would live in the present until time comes for her to confront the future.