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Silver doesn’t remember.
No one remembers but Mephiles, yet he continues to play this game. Is this some sort of divine justice for his past transgressions? It’s more like a sick joke. Ironic. Committed to a job no one else can do.
It matters not. One of these days Mephiles will strike. The moment he gets a chance, it’ll all be over for that repulsive, do-gooder hero.
A cosmic tug at the edge of the fallen half-god’s consciousness lets him know it’s time. The delicate balance of space and time doesn’t matter here in the stark, white void. If any mortal spends too long thinking on it, it’ll likely hurt their delicate little meat brain.
Mephiles shambles up and outstretches his crystalline limbs, forming a crude circle with his digits. As he moves them outward, a portal kicks to life in front of him and another behind him.
He doesn’t wait for the time traveler to emerge. Turning his spiny back to the portal he knows to be a gateway to “the past,” he faces the one leading toward “the future.”
The gateway behind him fractures the silence of the void.
Light spills out first— bright and sharp against the endless white.
Silver stumbles through with a gasp, scuffling forward to announce his arrival. “Okay… yeah,” he mutters to himself. “Still hate that part.”
The portal snaps shut behind him with a ripple of warped time, humming softly until the only sound reverberating through the white space is Silver’s boots connecting with the ground.
Silver straightens up and brushes dust from his gloves as he walks around to stand in front of the crystal clad creature. “Hey, Mephiles.”
The hedgehog regards him with a familiar sweetness that makes Mephiles want to shove the traveler through the portal without question just to get him out of his sight.
Silver takes a few steps backward, stretching his arms high over his head. He looks worse for wear— scuffed up, fur ruffled. And yet the same relentlessly optimistic smile spreads across his muzzle. The one that refuses to die no matter how many worlds burn around it.
Mephiles feels something thin brush against his paw. His gaze lowers.
The scarlet thread loops loosely around Silver’s wrist just above his bangles gloves, glowing faintly against the pale void. It trails across the empty distance between them before coiling around Mephiles’ jagged digits.
It reminds him of a marionette.
Silver the puppet.
Silver the plaything.
And Silver doesn’t notice it. Of course he doesn’t. Mortals tend not to notice the most important factors that seal their fate. Mephiles tilts his head, studying the thread with quiet fascination.
Then, almost idly, he tugs the thread with his opposite paw.
Silver abruptly takes another step forward.
Silver pauses mid-sentence. What he was going on about is a mystery Mephiles cares not to solve. The white hedgehog glances down at his feet.
“Did I just trip over nothing?”
Mephiles doesn’t grace him with a reply. The thread tightens imperceptibly between them.
Silver shrugs it off with a small laugh.
“Anyway,” he continues, bright again. He sinks down onto the smooth white ground of the void, posture loosening as though they were old friends.
For a moment Silver just sits there, the rise and fall of his chest is mesmerizing.
So real. So solid.
The only thing in this endless void that breathes.
Without thinking, Mephiles shifts his stance. Subtle, almost unconscious, angling himself slightly closer.
“That was…” Silver exhales slowly. “…a lot.” He drags a paw through his quills.
Mephiles watches the motion. His own claws flex once around the thread. And he listens without comment, acidic green eyes swimming in a sea of red, narrowing.
Though listening isn’t quite it. The crystalline timekeeper’s attention has already shifted somewhere else entirely.
He watches Silver animatedly regale his tale of how the Metal Virus nearly ended the planet. The silver hedgehog cycles through a myriad of emotions, at some points looking close to angry tears. It’s a wonder he feels this comfortable here— sitting casually in front of someone who wants to end his life, pouring his pathetic little heart out all over the polished floors.
Now that would be a sight.
A tad too vulgar for Mephiles’ tastes, though.
The long game is a far more fulfilling one to play.
Silver’s golden eyes narrow under a furrowed brow, shining brighter than the blinding void around them. He rests his paw on his knee and leans forward into Mephiles’ space. The thread slackens slightly between them.
Mephiles’ claws adjust in response before Silver shifts back once more with a wide smile— a smile that fades into concern, a memory pulling down the corners of his mouth.
His running mouth. “And then he just came straight at me, nearly ripped me in half! But! Right when he was about to grab me,” Silver continues slowly, trying to remember the exact moment, “something weird happened.”
That draws Mephiles’ attention back to Silver’s words fully.
Silver lifts one hand, flexing his fingers. “I felt my powers pull.”
Mephiles’ gaze drops.
The thin scarlet thread loops around Silver’s wrist, trailing across the empty void before winding neatly around his own jagged claws. And Silver continues, none the wiser.
“Like a tug,” he says. “Not from anything around me. It felt like my telekinesis just grabbed me and—”
He flicks his hand sideways.
“—yanked me out of the way.”
Mephiles’ digits tighten ever so slightly around the thread. He toys with the crimson ribbon often and even remembers fiddling with it at some point between Silver reentering the white space and his exit prior.
He hadn’t considered this outcome. “Shadow missed me by inches,” Silver says. “I didn’t even mean to move.”
Mephiles says nothing for a beat, tilting his head slightly. He’s not about to give away this little trick.
“You have a very active imagination.” Mephiles’ voice closes in from all sides, everywhere yet nowhere.
Silver seems satisfied with the explanation as he shifts back a bit, some of the tension finally leaving his shoulders.
Mephiles gives the red string the slightest tug, flicking his wrist.
Silver’s eyes widen for only a moment as he leans forward—
— clearly moving without realizing he’s shifted.
He looks up at Mephiles through lidded eyes, his muzzle tugged upward enough to reveal his slightly pointed canines.
Somewhat charming for an insect Mephiles claims to want to crush underfoot.
“Mind if I stay a few? I’m positive the future is back to normal. I kinda wanted to tell you about my new garden project.”
Mephiles’ claws tighten inconspicuously around the crimson thread. A disgustingly fond warmth blossoms in his chest.
Where his heart would be.
If he had one.
The thread glows faintly between them, stretched through the silent white void.
“If you wish,” Mephiles murmurs.