Chapter Text
They think themselves heroes, these people. Slayers of beasts and protectors of the innocent. He watches them with hollow eyes and thinks he could die from such stupidity – but then, he muses, so should they.
“Hey, any sign of it yet?”
“No, not yet,” someone says with half their face in their elbow. Ready as they were to start the fire, many of the townsfolk have since proven themselves ill-prepared for the aftermath. Smoke and the reek of death hang heavy in the air. “Don’t give up hope, though. I’m sure it’ll come out once we get started on the Robotniks. We’re saving ‘em for last.”
“But I thought the girl was already –”
“She was shot, not burned. We have to make sure there’s nothing left for the beast to take back.”
“Oh,” the speaker says, and nothing else for a long time after that. When they do scrape together the courage again, it’s with a question: “I understand the professor, maybe even his students – but her?”
“She helped the damn thing escape the fire, so, yes. Her.”
“I see... We live in strange times, indeed.”
Above the murmurings of the townsfolk, the crackling flames dance high and singe the stars.
::
He never does give them what they want. Not even as the sky dyes itself black with smoke and the townsfolk swarm around the pyre in wait. How appropriate, then, that their voices reach his ears like the buzzing of insects.
“ – we’ll just have to keep searching –”
“ – kill it – “
“ – I saw it then, the monster – “
“ – honorless – “
“ – abandoned her on the stairs – “
“ – the monster – “
“ – probably building an army of them – ”
“ – with teeth as long as – “
“ – those eyes – “
“ – monster – “
He takes a step back and waits for the feeling of movement to drag after him. It never quite does, but he turns and walks away regardless. Overhead, the clouds grow ripe with rain.
::
The distance he manages to put between himself and the fire is of little consolation, in the end. Even as the scenery changes from the woods bordering the campus to the lush fields and green hills beyond it, he can still smell smoke.
Unfamiliar trees tower over him. Moss-ridden gravel crunches beneath his feet. He thinks briefly of home, that mythical, faraway place that no longer exists, and feels the weight of heat and ash burrow into his skin. He staggers into a run.
They’re gone.
Maria, the professor and his students – all of them, gone.
A clap of thunder accompanies this realization. Failing to outrun the ensuing downpour, he wrenches his mouth open and twists his expression into one truly befitting a beast. Yet no matter how hard he tries to force the air in his lungs out into a scream, nothing of the sort follows. He chokes on a sob instead.
::
In a matter of weeks, the entire map seems to be crawling with them: a plague of mercenaries, bounty hunters, and knights, each seeking the glory of mounting his head on a wall. He ignores them for the most part, knowing better by now than to challenge anyone deranged enough to try and kill him, but he has his moments.
Moments where he trains his ears to the murmurings of these gnats and vermin; where, privately obsessed with their hatred, he stokes the flames of his own with impossible fantasies of revenge.
“I heard the old man robbed over a hundred graves by order of the devil,” the wind carries over the sloshing of boots through a river. “That’s how you can tell when the monster’s near. You’ll smell the stink of corpses and death from miles away.”
“A child went missing,” the grasses bend and sigh in the breeze. “They found her later that night mad with fever and speaking in tongues. The monster tried to possess her, no doubt. Rotten, evil thing. Who knows when it'll strike next."
The stories evolve on their own, twisting and turning in new, shocking ways but one:
He is a monster.
He will always be a monster.
And for such a crime, he deserves only death.
He runs faster; sleeps and eats even less. Eventually, he forgoes both luxuries altogether, and life – for all its abuses – goes on.
::
One evening, he is passing through a forest overrun with bright flowers and vines when he hears it: a scream. He skids to stop. Scenes from the fire appear before him in rapid succession, but rather than succumb to their fury as the cold sweat breaking out over his temples suggests, he propels himself into the trees to take cover instead.
“ – not getting away with it this time, brat! Drop ‘em!”
He frowns. This voice is new, and not at all like the one responsible for the scream. Curiosity getting the better of him, he swallows down the dread lodged tight in his throat and travels from branch to branch in slow, careful movements. His glowing eyes conceal themselves amongst the leaves.
“ – you’re seriously – “
“ – stupid bitch, always meddling with –”
Heart hammering in his chest, he arrives at the source of the noise and peers down below. As expected, it’s a group of people – three hunters, judging by their attire, and a smaller figure cloaked in red. The latter stands half-turned away from the others, a cage of Flickies clutched in hand.
“Are you stupid or something? I said drop ‘em,” one of the hunters, a skunk, growls out. “This is the last fucking time you mess with our traps, woman! If you want to leave this place in one piece, I suggest you do as I say.”
The figure in red doesn’t move, doesn’t even speak. The badger amongst the hunters barks out a laugh of disbelief and makes a show of loading his crossbow; she gives no reaction to this, either.
“Alright, this is your final warning. Drop the birds, sweetie. We’re not playing around this time.”
“No,” she tells him firmly.
“Drop. Them.”
“I said no.”
“Seriously? What’s with all this drama? We’re hunters , darling. This is what we do to survive,” the final member of the trio, a ferret, sneers. “And if you hope to do the same, you’ll hand over those Flickies and clear out, capisce? Disagreeing with our profession hardly seems a good enough reason to throw your life away.”
“Hunters? Oh, please!” Laughing, she holds the cage closer to her chest. “True hunters take only what they need, and have nothing but respect for the land that keeps them fed! But you? You three take and take just to line your pockets! A pack of low-grade poachers – that’s what you are!”
The crossbow clicks at the ready. “You think so?”
A furious edge creeps into her voice. “I know so.”
And from his perch hidden high above, a single, wearied thought resonates in mind:
She’s going to die.
This woman is going to die. Right in front of him, she’s going to die.
Scenes from the university unravel before him. Maria’s sickly face wreathed in smiles; the professor and his team of bright-eyed students marveling over him, the pinnacle of scientific achievement – a thick wave of nausea lurches in his stomach. He swallows it down and drags his sweat-soaked body away from the scene, shaking from the inside out.
This woman and her life are of no consequence to him.
He shouldn’t help her. He has no reason to help her, but –
Reaching down, the woman suddenly unlatches the cage in a single, fluid motion. The Flickies trapped inside take off in an instant: specks of color against the charcoal sky.
“Goodbye, little ones,” she whispers.
The crossbow fires.
“What in Gaia’s name –”
The arrow intended for the woman lies in pieces at his feet, its iron tip shattered from the impact made against his spines. Having landed in a crouch, he keeps his back to the hunters as he retaliates with a lash of his tail. It slams into the nearest of the trio, sending them flying one way before darting back and sending their partners in the other. Cries of terror, followed by groans of pain fill the air. He pays no mind to either.
The woman is looking at him.
Only the barest glint of her eyes remain visible from beneath the veil of her hood, but even so, he can tell that the weight of her stares falls squarely on him. His throat tightens.
“You…” She pauses and brings a gloved hand to her chest, as if to put something between them. “Who are you…?”
He opens his mouth, then closes it. He can hardly remember the last time he’s spoken aloud to anyone. As a result, his tongue feels heavy and strange between his teeth: a deadweight he wishes he could rid himself of in a single, furious tear. He takes a step back and clenches his fists instead, attempting to hide his claws.
“Who are you?” she asks again.
Watching him with what he could almost mistake for idle interest, the woman drops her hand back down to her side and moves forward. He takes another step back, heart skittering with panic, to which she responds by lifting her arms up past her shoulders in some pathetic display of trust.
“Don’t worry, I’m not like them. I won’t hurt you.”
“As if you could,” he spits. "Keep your distance."
“Why?” She smiles wryly. “Afraid I’ll hurt you?”
His ears flatten, then twitch at a clicking sound that catches his attention from behind. Rearing back to his full height, he turns to look over his shoulder with a scowl. One of the hunters is still conscious – naturally, it just has to be the one with the crossbow.
“Monster,” the badger rasps, finger curling shakily around the trigger. “Monster…!”
He turns around completely and the crossbow fires, hitting him with an arrow straight in the arm. Like before, it shatters upon impact.
“M-Monster! Demon! Just what manner of beast are you?!”
Behind him, he hears the woman swallow nervously. “U-Um, are you –”
“What,” he sneers without looking at her, “A monster?”
“No, I… I was going to ask if you’re okay,” she mumbles, shuffling from side to side. The weight of her stare makes his entire body bristle with tension, to the point where he barely even registers the next three arrows splintering against his spines. “Doesn’t that hurt?”
He says nothing for a moment. Then, with a tired sigh, “Just stay out of it.”
She offers no follow up; by now, the badger seems to have remembered her presence in the midst of all the chaos, and wobbles to his feet to aim for her instead.
“You… You summoned this thing here, didn’t you?! Witch!”
Losing patience with the situation, he grunts to the woman in red to stay put before closing the gap between them and the hunter. He clamps his hand down over the whole of the crossbow’s body. Then, after taking a second to admire the way the badger’s expression hollows out with fear, he crushes it firmly in his grip. Splints of metal and wood clatter to the ground.
“Get out of my sight,” he growls in a voice laced with eerie clicks and shallow breath. “Never show any of your pathetic faces around here ever again."
The badger nods shakily, rooted to the spot with fear. Unimpressed with the response, he reels the coward in by the collar nice and close. The woman behind him audibly gulps at the sight, but he ignores her – for now.
“Do you understand me, hunter?”
The badger gives a more enthusiastic nod this time around. “Y-Y-Ye-es…! I-I u-un-nn-der-sta-and…!”
“Good,” he scoffs, and he roughly shoves the fool back without another word. From there, the hunter races to collect his partners and drag them up into their wagon across the clearing. The trio takes off down a bumpy dirt path weaving through the trees, disappearing into the night.
“Um…”
He whips around in alarm. The woman in red is standing much closer to him now than she was before. He stifles a tremor and attempts to hide his claws again, pressing them tight to his palms.
“What do you want?” he demands quickly.
“Thank you for doing that.”
His quills and scales jolt at her gentle tone. “For…”
“For saving me,” she clarifies with an easy smile. “That, and for running those three off. They’ve been giving me trouble for a while now, but I think this time they’ll be wise enough to steer clear. I really can’t thank you enough for that.”
He swallows. Looking at the woman from up close, he can see now just how small she is compared to his bizarre proportions. Her head would reach his lower ribs at best – her head, which he could crush with all the same ease as the mangled crossbow at his feet. The violent thought leaves him uncomfortable in his own skin.
“I also, uh, wanted to ask for your name," she continues. He frowns at the request.
"My... name?"
“Mmhm." Reaching up past her head, she grabs the sides of her hood and pulls away at the fabric. A pair of soft, pointed ears expose themselves to the night, followed by a set of quills just short of sweeping over her shoulders. A hedgehog, he realizes. A small, pink hedgehog. She looks him up and down, her interest now fully apparent across her disclosed features. “I’d like to know what to call you.”
He takes a step back and leers at her – at her naiveté, at her innocence – in contempt. “I have no interest in telling you anything about me.”
“But –”
“Was saving your life really not enough? Now I must offer mine up to you on some pathetic pretenses of trust?” Snorting dismissively, he turns to leave. Enough time has been wasted here. “Be on your way. Should you run into any more trouble, I will not be there to save you a second time.”
Undettered, the pink hedgehog races around to cut off his path. She even goes as far as to flash her arms out at her sides in some bizarre attempt to keep him from leaving. Rolling his eyes, he simply picks another direction to head in. She repeats the action.
“What the hell are you –”
“My name is Amy,” the pink hedgehog says in a breathless rush. “Amy Rose. I live alone in a cottage on the outskirts of this very forest, and have for the past three years!”
He stops, if only to stare at her in bewilderment.
“It’s not so bad, though! There’s a little town I go to at least twice a week to sell all sorts of baked goods at. It usually takes me at least an hour there and back again, but like I said, it’s not so bad. I also do a little fortune telling on the side.”
His nose wrinkles. Oddly enough, he finds himself humoring the one-sided conversation with a vague nod and a shift of his eyes. “And…?”
“And… And I come out here as often as I can, too. Ever since I left my village, this forest and all the life it contains have kept me company. I’d do anything for it, really, so that’s why I…! Oh, haah, wow, um… Hooh…” Remembering too late to breathe between her words, Amy stops to swallow, gasp, and reorient herself with an embarrassed shrug. Her cheeks are flushed a red as deep as her cloak. “W-Well, that’s me! Nothing amazing, I know, but it’s a story to stand by and a story to tell, you know?”
He considers her for a moment. “And why tell it to me?”
“You felt like you gave too much for me to ask for your name, right?” She clasps her hands together behind her back and kicks the ground, shrugging again. “It only makes sense for me to give you something back.”
“I… see,” he mumbles. His eyes dart from the earnest curve of her smile to the dark brambles looming in the distance. “And just what have you given me, hedgehog?”
“Excuse me? I’ll accept ‘Amy’, ‘Miss Amy’, and even ‘Miss Rose’, but ‘hedgehog’ is absolutely out of the question! That is hardly any way to refer to a lady!”
“Alright, Rose,” he scoffs, looking back at her just in time to watch her cheeks redden and puff out in frustration. He crosses his arms. “Just what have I received in return for my name, other than wasted time?”
“Well,” and she pauses, her gaze turning thoughtful. “My life, I guess.”
His eyes widen the barest bit. He wants to call her a liar, wants to rip up the offering and throw it in pieces right back down at her feet. But then again, maybe he should give credit where it’s due – Amy has managed to avoid calling him a monster in the odd-something minutes they have known each other, and for that, she has earned his patience.
“I… would hardly know what to do with such a thing,” he mutters somewhere in between a few seconds and several lifetimes later. “I hardly even know what to do with my own. It would be a waste.”
“Nonsense! Just keep it, why don’t you?” Amy suggests with a giggle. The lack of fear in her voice is astounding, the genuine cheer to it even more so. “I’m not very close to the people up in town, so it’s nice to talk about myself to someone for a change.”
“Right. Is your method of conversation usually to hold others hostage?"
“Hey, I saw the way you took care of those hunters. If you really wanted to leave, you already would have.”
His lips tremble with the clumsy beginnings of a smile – the first in months. He puts a careful clip on the gesture before it can come to fruition. “Are you always like this?”
“Like what?”
“Strange,” he tells her, the snide tone he had been aiming for falling flat on its face. “Not to mention incredibly naive.”
Amy huffs out a breath of laughter through her nose. “I won’t deny being a little strange, but I’m about as naive as you are charming,” she replies. “Can’t say that I blame you, though. My womanly wiles have been known to fool even the wisest of -”
“Shadow.”
A pause. “Shadow…?”
“Yes,” he answers quietly. Then, glancing back at her, “My name. It’s Shadow.”
“Shadow,” Amy repeats, as if to test the sound of it on her tongue. After saying it aloud to herself twice more, she commits the name to memory with a smile and a nod. “I like it! It sounds nice.”
The claws of his feet dig into the ground, searching for some semblance of stability he knows he will not find in her presence. “You really are strange,” Shadow accuses with a disbelieving shake of his head. “Conversing with and paying compliments to a beast in the dead of night… I might even say you are mad.”
Her smile twitches at the corners before deflating completely.
“A beast,” she murmurs after some time, testing the word just as she had his name. “Is that what you call yourself, Shadow? A beast?”
“It is,” he admits.
“Oh.” She frowns and chews her lip. “Is that... what you like to be called?”
“Does it matter? Who and what I am is none of your business.”
“But –”
“I already gave you my name,” he reminds her pointedly. “You would be wise to know your limits, Rose.”
“R-Right. Sorry,” Embarrassed, Amy rubs the side of her arm and looks elsewhere. “It’s just… I’ve never called anyone something like that before. It feels a little weird, and besides, I… I think there are other things you can call yourself. Better things, too.”
He takes a step back at her words, suddenly put off by the nature of the conversation. It was a mistake to get swept up in her sentimentality. He will not fall prey to her delusions as well.
“Shadow?” Amy asks uncertainly.
“Better a beast than a monster,” he mutters, turning away from her stunned expression. The dark expanse of the forest greets him in turn. “This is where we part ways. I’ve wasted enough time here as it is.”
“W-Wait, before you go…!”
He sighs and looks back over his shoulder. Her protest was expected, to say the least. “What is it now?”
“Um.” Sucking in a quick breath, Amy smiles sheepishly and twiddles her fingers. “I was, uh, wondering if I could maybe ask you a favor…?”
The feelings building up in him until now roughly splinter.
“A favor,” he echoes coldly. “I see. So all that was just a pretense.”
“No, I just – it’s only a favor, Shadow. And a small one at that.”
“And why should I believe you? You just want to use me,” he snaps, baring his teeth. “Mistake me for a fool, but I am far from oblivious. Everything your kind is capable of, I know you are, too.”
Amy flinches, then scowls at the accusation. “You make it sound like I'm a liar."
"For all I know, you very well could be."
"What?!" Frustration getting the better of her, the pink hedgehog marches up the closest she has yet and jams a disapproving finger at his face. Of course, at her height, it barely reaches up past his neck. He jolts in surprise nonetheless. "You can call me strange, and you can even call me naive – but a liar? Absolutely not! I've been nothing but honest with you this entire time, Shadow, and I will not let you stand there and insinuate that I'm trying to take advantage of you! A favor with me is just a favor, you hear? Nothing more, nothing less! Get it straight!"
“Really, now? Then how about a little more honesty?" He backs away from her hand and circles around her, suspicious. Amy rolls her eyes. "Go on, tell me. What's this 'favor' you need so badly, hm? What use do you plan to make of me?"
"For the love of – I'm not trying to use you, Shadow! I just..." And then she trails off, her cheeks steadily growing flushed with either embarrassment or shame. Maybe both. Shadow slows his pace around her with a curious arch of his brow as she continues her confession. "I need someone to help me reach the other cages, is all."
"Cages,” he murmurs, eyes cutting across the clearing to the one abandoned in the grass. She had nearly been shot over such a trivial thing. He stops in front of her. “There are more…?”
“Of course there are! Those hunters from before have been over-trapping this forest for months now. I typically find up to a dozen cages every few days, which is just insane,” Amy explains passionately. Shadow nods in slow albeit skeptical acknowledgement. “I saw the way you leapt down from those trees. You can reach places I can’t, Shadow, and it’d be a huge help to have you.”
His eyes find the discarded cage again, then the shattered remnants of arrows littered several paces before it.
“Are these birds so... important to you?”
Amy balls her hands up into fists. “They are. Because if I don't look out for them, who will?"
Guilt churns in the pit of his stomach. He gnashes his teeth together against the feeling and digs his claws into the rough pads of his palms. “You will just have to do it on your own, then. I have no reason to help you any more than I already have.”
“But…!”
“Staying too long in one place is dangerous for me,” he says. “Whether or not you can understand that is hardly my problem.”
“If we work together, it’ll be over and done with in no time,” Amy pleads, folding her hands together as though in prayer. “Please, Shadow? It’ll take too long for me to reach all of them myself! They could die!"
He spares her a tired glance. From everything Amy has said and done in his presence up until now, he knows that she will only continue to go after the Flickies without him. Against his will, his mind conjures up images of her dangling precariously from extreme heights, debating with a smile all the different ways she might die in order to protect the caged birds in hand. He closes his eyes and thumps his tail hard against the ground to scatter such thoughts. Saving this woman was truly a mistake.
“How many more?”
“How many…?”
“How many more cages,” he snaps, reopening his eyes with a glare. The look somehow manages to fall apart before it even reaches her. He huffs irritably and crosses his arms to make up for it. “How many more of those damn cages are there?”
Amy’s smile of relief is short-lived. Tugging nervously at the fabric of her cloak, she looks off to the side.
“Wellllll…”
::
Several canopies and over a dozen cages later, Shadow finds himself growing weary of the pink hedgehog waiting for him down below. His every return to the forest floor results in her bounding up to him with a smile and extended arms, and while he knows the gesture is intended for the Flickies rather than himself, the sight makes him feel… odd, to say the least.
“That should be the last batch,” Amy calls up to him from her patch of moonlight. Sitting on her knees, she devotes herself to mending a damaged nest for the pair of Flickies currently resting on her shoulder. The smaller and brighter of the two repeatedly rubs its head against the other, cooing wistfully despite having been freed. He supposes the sight of their nest in ruins might have something to do with it, but then, being saved by a monster hardly sounds comforting either.
“How are you doing, by the way?” she adds thoughtfully. “You’re not tired?”
“Luckily for you,” he grumbles.
“What was that?”
He climbs his way down, the last of the cages cradled delicately in the crook of his arm. Busy now with the nest, Amy does not run up to greet him this time. His tail gives an involuntary flick of annoyance. “I was asking where to put these.”
“Right here is fine. Oh, but unlatch them first, will you?”
Shadow grunts and does as she asks, feeling every bit as pathetic as he knows he must look. Obeying orders from Amy, from someone he could easily overpower without breaking a sweat – he spares the empty cages a glance, wondering if madness comes naturally to those in her presence.
“I really can’t thank you enough, Shadow. I would’ve been out here all night without your help.”
“And six feet under, no doubt,” he mutters under his breath. Watching her fingers deftly weave bundles of twigs and grass through the nest, he then asks, “Why do you even do this?”
“Hm?” Amy eyes him with a tilt of her head. “Do what?”
“This,” he clarifies, sweeping a hand around over their handiwork. “What reason have any of these birds given you to devote yourself to them like this? Do they repay you somehow?”
She shrugs, returning her attention to the nest. “Not everything has to have a reason behind it, you know. Sometimes, people like to do things for others just because they can.”
“Hmph. Sounds like a waste of time.”
“Do you think saving me was a waste of time?” Amy asks idly.
His thoughts scatter in a numb panic at her words. By the time he manages to find them again, a bright series of chirps and warbles by his ear distracts him enough to forget what they were in the first place. One of the birds has returned. Amy gasps excitedly and sets the nest down beside her.
“Oh! I think she likes you!”
“Wonderful,” Shadow huffs, ear flicking away from the source of the noise.
“They’re an excellent judge of character, you know,” Amy hums. The bird soon settles on his shoulder, much like the pair on her own. He stiffens, and it hops from side to side.“They rarely get close to anyone they think would hurt them. She must be really happy that you set her free.”
Shadow watches the Flicky with a tight-lipped expression. It keeps moving. It keeps moving and he has no way of predicting where, why, and how. The realization leaves his tongue thick in his mouth.
“Does… Does it have to touch me?”
“Do you not want her to?”
He remains silent, and Amy pushes herself up from her patch of moonlight with a hand extended towards the bird. “Come with me, little one,” she coos gently, and the Flicky hops onto the curve of her finger with a chirp. Shadow quickly tenses his shoulders to discourage it from coming back. “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure she stays put.”
“Please.” His face suddenly feels hot. Not by manner of it blooming across his muzzle, but in individual pin pricks that leave him acutely aware of his every pore. He clears his throat and sniffs. “Keep… Keep the others away, too.”
Amy sits back down, red fabric pooling out from her body. “She was only trying to thank you,” she explains patiently. “She wasn’t going to hurt you.”
“I… I was hardly,” and then he stops, cutting himself short with an intake of breath. He feels dizzy. Hotter now, too. He swallows in an attempt to will the weight of heat away and restore his senses to use, but it only spreads down the nape of his neck and along his spine from there. His shoulders rise and fall with unsteadily labored breath. “I… ‘S not even what I was… going to say,” he slurs, closing his eyes.
“Shadow?” He hears the hiss of fabric over grass as she gets up again. “Are you –”
“I’m fine.” His eyes snap open to a world dyed all the wrong colors. He bares his teeth at it, at her. “Just fine.”
“A-Are you sure? You look a little –”
Amy reaches a distorted hand towards him. He bristles sharp and leaps back from it in a crouch, lowering himself down on all fours like a true, mannerless beast. A low, clicking growl follows. The unrecognizable shapes that were once Flickies on her shoulders scatter at the sound of it and into the night.
“Don’t. Touch me,” he snarls.
“O-Okay, okay! I won’t,” Amy says, unable to mask the strain in her voice. “I won’t touch you even once, alright?”
“Don’t touch me,” he repeats, panting. His chest constricts painfully around his heart and lungs, making it impossible for him to catch his breath. “Don’t touch me, don’t touch me, don’t… don’t…”
“Shadow –”
His eyes squeeze themselves shut. He can feel the weight of heat and ash on his skin, can feel it touching him. Burning him. His claws rake over the ground, leaving tally marks of distress behind. Ten little graves. He frantically digs several dozen more.
But then, Amy speaks.
"Shadow, can you hear me? I'm right here in front of you." Her voice reaches through the flames and pulls not with panic, but with purpose. “Listen, I need you to open your eyes for a second.”
He fights down the urge to scream senselessly at her and presses his face into his dirt-covered palms instead. Ever a thorn in his side, Amy only encourages him to try again.
“Come on, Shadow. You can do it. I know you can.” The sound of rustling fabric follows, prompting his ears to give a quick, involuntary flick. His salivating mouth runs dry. “Here, how about we do it together? Open your eyes on three, okay?"
He nods slowly. But by the time she begins her count, Shadow, unable to help himself, snaps his eyes open wide at the first audible breath she takes. Amy gasps, then giggles in surprise.
“I said on three, Shadow. But, hey, you opened your eyes! Just like I knew you could. So, here. I have something for you."
Peeking at her through the cracks in his fingers, he thinks he can make out her red cloak draped over the crook of her arm. He blinks slowly at it, confused. Then, thick-tongued and dizzy, he looks back at her and sees she is wearing only her nightgown.
“There’s no way you can wear it like I can, but it might help to have something stable right now. Can I put it over your head, at least?” When he tenses up in response, she quickly adds, “I won’t touch you. Only the fabric will, okay? Just… think of it as a blanket. It’ll make things nice and dark and quiet for you. Works every time for me, at least."
The pain festering in his every pore diminishes at her words. He nods helplessly, and the cloak falls over him in a whisper-soft hush.
“Better?” Amy asks.
Shadow takes a slow, shuddering breath in, then out. Fresh from her body, the fabric is warm and sweetly-scented – lavender, he notes with some detachment, the thought breaking through the woozy rush of his world winding back down. Distantly, he thinks he can hear Amy humming for him.
“W-Why’s… y’helping,” slurring his words again, he gulps down the taste of bile and tries to regain proper control of his tongue. “Helping… Me?”
“No reason, honestly,” Amy says, “Like I said before, sometimes people just do things for others simply because they can.”
“S’foolish,” he mutters.
She huffs out a laugh. “You’re the one with a cloak wrapped around your head, not me.”
His stomach churns with humiliation. “Will y’kill me after’s’this?”
“What? Of course not.”
“If I s’ask , w’you kill me?”
“Oh, come on.” Even through the veil of fabric, he feels Amy’s eyes fall over him disapprovingly. “You don’t really want that, do you?”
He thinks for a minute. Then, sitting back on his knees, he says clearly, “No. Not... Not now, at least.”
Amy suddenly goes quiet. Unlike her previous pauses, this one permeates the air with a strange sort of tension that makes Shadow’s neck hot and tingly again. Is she mad? Disappointed, even? He struggles in the dark to understand why such a thing matters to her. Before he can arrive at a conclusion, Amy gets up and walks away.
“Wait,” he blurts out weakly. “Where are you –”
“Can you stand?” she calls from some distance away.
“Well, I… I believe so,” he answers at half her volume, ears perking shamelessly at the sound of her voice. “Why do you ask...?”
“I want you to come with me.”
He frowns. “To where?"
“My home,” she says, the sound of her footsteps reapproaching him. “I told you before, didn’t I? I live alone, and far from anybody else. It’s safe there.”
“And I should go with you... why?”
“Because it’s going to be morning soon,” Amy sighs. “And because I’m cold, and can’t afford to get sick while I wait here for you to get better. So – hold still for a second, will you? I need to readjust the material here. I need you to see me.”
“Without touching,” he reminds her tensely.
“Yes, without touching,” she promises, and gently peels back the cloak just enough to reveal their faces to one another. Shadow winces, both as his eyes readjust to the moonlight and as he takes into account just how cold Amy must be. Her entire body is visibly wracked with shivers. Inhaling sharply, he tries to return the red veil to her. She responds by shoving a stick between them.
“What are you –”
“You don’t like being touched, right? Hold onto this while I guide us back.”
Shadow looks from her determined expression to the space between them, uncertain. “I never said I would –"
“If you stay here, you might die. Plenty of travelers cross this forest during the day, and in your current state, I doubt you’d want to tangle with them.” She prompts him again with a slight shake of the stick. His ears flatten. “Trust me, even just this once. I know I’m not easy to put up with, but I’m a woman of my word. I promise you’ll be safe.”
Sweat gathers at his temples. And yet, for all his turbulent thoughts and feelings, what he ends up focusing on the most is the soft, comfortable touch of fabric over his skin. He swallows down the defensive stutter lodged in his throat and gingerly takes hold of the offertory branch with his thumb and forefinger.
“Is it far?” he asks quietly.
“Not at all,” she laughs, tugging him to his feet. “By the way, can those eyes of yours possibly shine a little bit brighter? My lantern broke, so I’m trying to avoid leading us off any cliffs.”
“Tch. ‘Trust me’, she says…”
“Hey! Honesty counts for something, doesn’t it?”
“Certainly. I will try to remember that as we plummet to our deaths ten minutes from now.”
They weave their way through the trees. And whether or not Amy notices the warm pulses of energy he releases whenever she needs more light, she says nothing about it. Neither does he.