Never had she ever felt something so deep, so strong. Her heart beat so fast that she feared it almost literally poured out of her chest. Not only did she feel a little special to Shadow, she felt more for him. Since they first met, she had been obsessed with him, but he wasn’t her love interest. She just wanted to come to know him since he knew so much about her. Those were things she needed to know, needed to understand if she ever wanted to find peace in her life. All her life she had been thinking, trying to figure things out, trying to understand things and gain more wisdom. She was a very intellectual being and had a strong craving for answers and knowledge. This was one of her strongest point as well as one of her weakest. There were times that she was thinking way too much and trying way too hard to understand things. It would almost drive her crazy and it caused her headaches. But there always had been two things that she never came to understand: what her life looked like before she was released and why she had been released by Shadow. She hated it being that way. And now here she was, laying in the grass, so close to the one whom she seemed to be connected with in such a strong, yet crazy way. There hadn’t been a time where she was this close to him as she was right now. As if he had finally let her in- partly. As if he would EVER completely let her in?! Mace, don’t be that stupid to think he would! She decided that she should use the moment to its best now that she was this close to him. The very few seconds that had flown by while she was overthinking this, he had been staring at her, slightly blushing and his breath halting from the tension between them two.
“Shadow, how did you know where I was and why did you come for me?”
As soon as she spoke, the blush on his face drew away and his eyes returned to their usual neutral state. The little smile that had been on his muzzle also vanished and she looked into the serious face she had become so familiar with in the last weeks. It touched her to see him like this, especially after the way he looked at her. He remained silent and turned his eyes away from hers to stare to the grass they were laying on. He didn’t like that she spoke during the moment and that she brought up the subject again, even though he could understand her. He knew how important it was for her to have these questions answered, but he felt like it may be that she was only using him to get those answers. She wasn’t interested in him at all. All she wanted were answers and he had promised to help her gather them. Some of them were simply in his memory and he hadn’t been telling them to her. What kind of douchebag was he? Since she really wanted these answers it only would be fair of him to give her the ones he had.
“Please, Shadow! I really need to know! You said you would be of assistance to gather more answers about who I really am and about my past!”
She was right. He backed away from her for a little and sat back in the grass, opposite to her. She crawled back up and also sat in the grass with him, piercing her eyes on his crimson orbs, trying to let him know of how much importance it was for her that he just told her what he knew about her.
“It seems you have no idea how I feel at all.”
He felt the emotion in her stuttering voice and saw the tears filling her bright eyes but, boy, was she wrong! If anyone knew how she felt, it’d be him, but why didn’t he simply tell her the things she wanted to know?
“Why don’t you answer me?! Why don’t you tell me?! I NEED to know!”
He simply froze at the sight before him. Maci sat in front of him with tears filling her icy blue eyes, looking at him trying to message to him the way she was feeling, hoping that he would understand see the urge of her desperate plea and help her.
Just when he took a deep breathe to talk to her, she stood up and clenched her fists.
“FINE! IF YOU WON’T TELL ME, IF YOU WON’T BE A REAL MAN, IF YOU’LL BREAK YOUR PROMISE, THAN I’LL LEAVE!”
“Mace…-”
“Don’t you ‘Mace’ me! Leave me alone!”
She shouted at him and he quietly rose from his position to stand up and look her in the eye for a moment to turn around and leave.
Something inside of her screamed ‘NO’ the moment he turned his back on her and left. She didn’t want him to leave her and at the same time she did. There were too much mixed up emotions inside of her and she needed to calm down, so she curled herself up into a ball and spindashed away from the lake. Tears streamed down her face as she felt so confused. The atmosphere had changed drastically this evening in an eye blink. She ran and ran to empty her head from all the emotions and thoughts and finally came to the point of exhaustion where she couldn’t go any further. While loudly letting out a whimper, she let herself collapse on the ground, beating her fists into the earth below her.
“WHY?!” she yelled.
Why? Why didn’t he just help her? He promised! They shook hands! He seemed so trustworthy, but how…? She simply couldn’t understand. She didn’t want to understand. All she wanted was to be angry at him for treating her like this.
And then she saw it. The bright white sparkle caught her eye and she silently rose from the ground and walked towards it. It had been a while since she saw one last time. It was beautiful and she walked closely and kneeled by it to pick it up. So this was a Chaos emerald? And she had been lucky enough to find one! Shadow would be thrilled if he found out! Shadow… A chill crawled down her spine, causing her to shiver when she thought about him.
A few moments passed by while she desperately cried to herself and her tears fell down on the shiny emerald she held in her hands. She looked down on it and slowly let the last tears fall down from her eyes as her breath was shaking. The light of the emerald comforted her and she started to calm down again.
“Why, Shadow? You promised you’ll help me!”
Tears streamed down her face and she cried so hard, that big teardrops fell down on her dress, making it a bit soak.
“Just… Just help me!”
“I feel so lost!”
“Maci?”
Was the emerald talking to her or had she gone berserk? No, emeralds can’t talk and this voice sounded familiar. While opening her eyes, her breathing became shaky again, her lips quivered and tears filled her eyes. Had he come back for her?
“You found a Chaos emerald!”
“Yeah…”
…
“Why don’t you give me the answers I’m SO DESPERATELY aching for?! You promised you’ll help me and I know that you know so much about me but you’re not telling me and I don’t understand. I thought that I could… rely on you...”
He stood in front of her, his eyes sincere as he slowly took a few steps towards her.
“I...I am sorry that I’ve been such a jerk to you.”
He lifted her chin with his index finger and glanced at her with his deep red, sincere eyes. She sniffed as she glanced back at him. Did he care? Would he help her? Would he keep his promise? The fragrance that belonged to him felt so familiar and so comforting, she couldn’t help but let out a whimper and clamp herself onto him. Her muzzle disappeared between his quills as she poured her face into his neck and cried, soaking up his fur, but he didn’t care and neither did she. She felt the touch of his hands as he put his strong arms around her and she started to cry louder. She felt so torn apart between sadness, anger, desperation, the wish to be here with him forever and the wish to leave him and never come back. She just wanted it to be stable and to be steady as she couldn’t take any more.
“Let’s go back home. We’ll finish this conversation another day.”
“Okay…”
A slight smile appeared on the girl’s face as she glanced at him with her watery eyes. They sparkled even more than they usually did. Shadow lifted her up in his arms and walked away with her.
