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The first time Silver came back from tending the garden to a plate full of apples he smiled and said thank you, but laughed it off. After all, it's only natural to associate people with what you've seen them with. What you know them to enjoy. It's safer that way. But he couldn’t help but admire the deep shade of red in each remarkably delicate slice, or notice how they matched Amy’s dress more perfectly than even a rose as she hovered nearby. The eager glimmer in his friend’s eyes also may have made the offer impossible to resist.
After the first bite, he allowed a little of his skepticism to wash away. Only a little.
The honeyed sensation on his tongue made him pause, at least. They were crisper than any of the ones that he had grown or contributed to. The thought made him a little wistful. Maybe after he finished the treat he would ask Amy where she had found them. At least if he knew where to look or how to tend them his friends could profit from the ever-adundant fruit.
He carried the last few slices outside with him, gnawing on the strips of skin. Cupping the last pieces of apple in one hand, he wandered between churned up soil and bushels of herbs and carrots to the small orchard beyond. The apple trees were dotted with a few ripe fruits, mottled and lighter than the ones Amy had gifted. In the late afternoon light they might have been a different variety entirely: all sunset and shine and bursting with ripeness as the branches around them fell back into the shadows. Silver turned his attention to the horizon. A few clouds splayed the sun’s rays into a fiery glow. Between the trees, he made out where the red sun melted into the red sky. When daylight died, so did his time tending to the garden.
The hedgehog looked to the unattended greens by the house and begrudgingly turned to the path instead. Amy should be leaving the rabbits’ house as well; as friendly as Vanilla was, she kept a tight schedule that placed tea firmly in the mid-afternoon range.
It could have been a whisper, or the wind, or simply one last chance to see the outline of the sunset, but Silver turned around. He looked to the darkening clouds, then for a sudden ripple of laughter that interrupted the quiet. Huddled together at the base of the sturdiest tree sat a blur of pink and golden. Tails gestured at the fading sky, and the pair laughed again.
Silver turned his attention to the pathway leading away from the glow of both the windows and sun. He would just have to thank Amy another time.
~~~
The next time he brushed the dirt off and strode into the room, it was more apples, a different variant this time. Whereas his and the first kind had had a tough skin but sweet inside, these newer apples were sour. The skin had already been peeled more cleanly off this time. Still, with every bite, a piece was easily torn away between his teeth. A couple scraps of green got stuck up there when Cream walked into the kitchen and immediately burst into giggles. He rolled his eyes but offered a chunk of apple in return. A gift, as well as a reminder that the fault was partially hers. She accepted it eagerly, then launched into a story about how she had helped pick the whole basketful that the carefully peeled pieces came from. Cheese notably stayed away, only briefly drifting through the room before vanishing again.
The chao didn't like the flavor of this one nearly as much as the others. They seemed to prefer sweets anyways, always clogging the kitchen when cookies or the richest of foods were being cooked. They helped out in the garden, though, and generally stayed out of mischief. That would be enough.
Silver amused himself with the thought that Vanilla’s selection of apple flavors was intentional.
His amusement died as he gagged on a particularly bitter chunk. Cream frantically asked if he was okay, and only subsided in her panic when he rasped out an affirmative. For a long time after the mishap, Silver could still feel a lump in his throat where the apple had briefly wedged. For some reason, he felt the lump return whenever he unfolded the crayon dazzled note containing a drawing of Cream and himself.
Out in the waxless sunlight, he wrote a lengthier note in return, containing his own drawings and plenty of green apples floating in the margins.
~~~
The third time, in the middle of the summer heat, he begrudgingly walked into the room for the same old fruit. Except this was entirely green pale green and not like the bright of the more sour apples. A melon. Like the apples, it was carved into perfect cubes, something Silver doubted that he would manage with any sort of fruit. Unlike the apples, as he delved into the pile, he found a few hexagonal and star-shaped ones. He ate a whole plateful in a matter of minutes and fortunately, when he had his fill, remembered the pressing need to say thank you to yet another unexpected gift. Neither rabbit seemed to be around.
He'd leave a note, he decided. This time it would be more intentional. He mulled over the words, testing them around a mouthful of delicious honeydew. Something about the precise geometric arrangement and the chipped, decoration-free edges of a well-used plate made him pause and scribble down a different name.
Over the next two weeks, rust seemed to melt away from every tool, and even the broken pump out between the trees suddenly provided clean-flowing water in place of a questionable trickle. When a bent rake with mangled spokes mysteriously vanished for a shiny new edition, complete with a comfortable grip on the handle, Silver gathered a bunch of sunflowers to conveniently leave by an unsuspecting tool box. Obviously he had to return the favor that had been returned.
Even when the warmth thinned out, and the early fallen leaves thickened into a natural rug over the bright squash and flowers, he found himself craving melons.
~~~
Reward or no reward, eventually he had other gardens to tend to, other friends to visit. The Restoration’s garden had been, well, restored. Trowel in hand, he set to work planting a new generation of seeds. A new crop that was planted a little less out of necessity. Apples were fine, but he had grown tired of them, and what everyone really needed was a few flowers. Temporary, but easy to plant again, something not years in the making. He relished the feeling of his fists and his knees in the dirt, natural, no metal, no twisted creations sent to wreck the landscape, or even much of the everyday. Only quiet and cool water from the watering can, the subtle shift of weight and texture in different kinds of seeds as they rolled over one another, almost eager to start the cycle anew.
Eventually, the sun trailed further across the sky and he remembered to step back and let the garden do what it would on its own time. The shack had been neatly renovated from a rather rackety looking piece of work into respite, almost large enough to substitute for a house. It’s not that Silver needed to live there. But he had definitely flipped through the air a few times to show Belle just how ecstatic he was and appreciative of her work. Plenty of his other friends knew about the shack now. They would stop by with extra tools or seeds. Occasionally, a visitor or a gift would seemingly magically appear.
This time, Silver was greeted by a cluster of small round fruits: grapes, except not any kind that had grown in the Restoration victory garden. Or wouldn't have been grown there in a very long time, anyway. They were a rich reddish purple, drastically different from the tiny green ones he had attempted to wind up a trellis once before. Now the only vines that decorated the garden were flowers. Beautiful flowers, intentionally chosen flowers that were lovingly woven around posts and arranged to hang from an equally delicate archway. But they were flowers, not food. Hope as a necessity, but not fulfilling any need beyond that.
The grapes exploded when his fang sliced them, perfectly fresh without having outlived their season. He didn't stop eating the grapes when he used his telekinesis to retrieve the tiny handwritten note that slipped away from the food. Cream's handwriting was improving, she almost never misspelled a single word anymore. Or was that someone else’s looped letters? Surely her hand didn’t press into the paper hard enough to crumble graphite along the lines.
Silver snorted and almost choked on a grape when he reached the tiny doodle (that, at least, was her doing): an image of him eating grapes. Not normally, though—he was levitating them using his powers to tear off each individual fruit and carry it to himself. He briefly hoped she didn't see an ounce of laziness in him. Not that she was likely to after eagerly complimenting his work on her own garden.
Wait a minute. These grapes didn't even have a vine; they had already been neatly removed from their stems. Probably washed, too, from the shiny surfaces.
Suddenly, the fruit felt strangely heavy in his belly. He would write another thank-you note. In times and places of peace, people had the time and decency to treat each other with respect. Every single moment that wasn't ripe with war or tragedy deserved gratitude.
~~~
Perhaps the worst part of conflict was never truly knowing when it had ended. Even a peek into the future, into where he should be, wouldn’t necessarily tell Silver that this time the fight was done for good. He simply saw the tears rolling across Whisper’s muzzle, listened to Tangle’s fierce exclamations of victory, and decided the answer for himself.
The trio made it out of the city’s bounds, far from the place as though it would solidify the deed. Between a few small pines and tall shrubs, they collapsed by the edge of a river. Silver vaguely calculated the distance, whether the thin strip of water connected to the one they had just left behind. Whisper didn’t pause for longer than necessary to deem the water drinkable and gulp it down.
Something in Silver’s chest unwound slightly, and he dug his scuffed gloves deep into the soft dirt. Unused to much growth, he realized. Light and unplowed, easily caught up and then left by the roots of shrubs and grasses that had yet to be packed down by wandering feet or industry. The leaves his palm hovered over darkened suddenly.
Whisper nodded, and when he returned the gesture, plopped down beside him. A quick glance confirmed that their friend was uncharacteristically still along the bank, but an occasional shout about the local flickies (also quite undisturbed) or how intricate tree bark texture confirmed that Tangle wasn’t still back at the ravine, in one sense or another.
On impulse, Silver wound fingers down beneath the root of some pale, tri-petaled flower. He carried the plant to where a small bunch lay among the rockier ground, far from the churning waters it had leaned over. Precarious. The soil broke apart slowly, but even at its toughest yielded enough for the plant’s longest roots.
Whisper watched on the entire process, making a pleased hum after Silver returned to gather water and awkwardly splash it across the vicinity. When he returned, she met his gaze and spoke for the first time since their departure.
“Why… gardening?"
He turned away from the flowers and told her everything. The inspiration to begin and keep the garden, scraps of hope that he could actually act on, gifted to him by friends. The first time seedlings poked through the dirt, he turned cartwheels midair until he was dizzy. The cycle of destruction and renewal he saw expand in real time in every garden he entered. How the future never felt so alive. How it only started to after he saw an ash-scarred patch of earth unfurl more life than it could have ever held before.
And when he guiltily explained the gifts that wound up appearing wherever he labored, an equally guilty wolf produced the handful of blackberries she had harvested and washed for him upon reaching the little oasis.
Tangle’s exhaustion vanished as soon as she detected the nearby fruit. Slinging arms and a tail around her fellow Diamond Cutters, she demanded more stories about gardens and plants and what flowers could be used for what (though she steadfastly denied having eavesdropped on the prior conversation). Whisper quietly agreed, and Silver pretended to be in agony as he described getting tangled up in a hose a little too eagerly. Each of them fought back smiles around mouthfuls of berries.
~~~
“Heh. This takes me back. Remember the first time you threw things at me?”
Sonic the Hedgehog sprawled comfortably across a makeshift hammock strung between a smaller pair of evergreens. He had attempted to use the apple trees themselves at first, but wouldn’t you know, that’s what preceded the first apple flying right past his head. More specifically, the catalyst had been him loudly shouting across the garden at his friend that he “couldn’t hear” him saying not to touch the orchard. Even the fastest thing alive didn’t dodge the second apple that came his way. It was at that moment that Sonic rethought the odds of one happening to fall from the tree so early into the season.
Silver exhaled, slowly dragging a nearby rake upright. “The first time I threw things at you was also the first time I met you, as I’m sure we both remember.”
Sonic threw his hands up, waving around a browned apple core. “And yet look where we are now! Close as can be! The best of friends.”
“Ha, right. Don’t tell that to Tails, I’m sure he’ll be green with jealousy… and that had better not be one of the crisps I see in your hands.”
The hammock creaked. “Hmm? And what will you do if it is, throw apples at me?”
Silver pretended to miss that remark entirely, nevermind that he stood barely a few steps from the offending hedgehog. The rake clattered across a comically large pile of tools, all freshly retrieved from under dead grasses and leaves, or behind the newly repainted shed (blue, much to his friend’s amusement; Silver had immediately reminded him that the source of the paint job seemed to be the oh-so-mysterious tool supplier, not his own choice). A small axe had joined the pile courtesy of a spindash through the ancient stump it decorated, though, so he refrained from too many snippy comments.
“Something tells me you didn’t learn anything from our… from what…”
“Our little training session?”
“Sure, a training session.” For some reason Silver had to fight more than usual to keep the corners of his mouth sternly curled down. “But speaking of which, I do have something for you besides apples.”
The ears peeking over the hammock pricked upright in alarm. “Uh-oh. You already have something else as ammunition, pal?”
“Not quite.” Silver whisked a small basket out from beside the tools and waved it in the air.
“Hmm. A little small to contain my doom, but maybe you’re just more creative and sneaky than the Egghead.”
“It’s a gift, Sonic.” Silver deposited it into the outreached hand.
Uncurling slowly, Sonic pulled himself upright to stare in disbelief at the fruit. He poked at the fuzzy skin.
“I heard you like them.”
More silence.
“A lot. A very trustworthy source on all things Sonic-preference-wise told me, anyway.” He kicked at the leaf-littered earth. “I know I forgot to bring anything to prepare it with or anything, but I just though—”
“Silver, it’s alright.” Sonic grinned at him. “This is amazing, thanks a bunch! Any chance the rest of the basket’s mine too? Just kidding.” He sank his teeth into the peach, that familiar grin still clear on his face. “Unless?”
Spines finally flattening some, Silver nodded. His mouth had gone dry somewhere along the panicked rambling. His friend messily wrenched apart half of the peach, and for efforts like those, he had to accept. The inside, where the pit had been torn away, was too watery, and the bit near the skin shouldn’t have stuck between the teeth so easily, but it was soft and sweet and perfectly ripened.
“No offense, but your apples have nothing on this.”
The psychic smiled as the world’s greatest hero, and one of his closest friends, eagerly dug into the basket for another peach to scarf down.
“I couldn’t agree more.”