Chapter Four is where we get to the good stuff. We all know Sonic's type...
He could be alone up here. Above the Altar of Light, above the Grand Canal and the faithful Soliens gathering there, above the entire city, this church’s domed roof was the safest place he could find. It provided a great view of the Altar, but from this distance, the Soliens were small enough not to rile him up. The tall, winged birds drinking together on rooftop terraces were mercifully far away. Even the soldiers gliding through the skies were distant enough not to set him off. Strange, crystalline glints striated the firmament, which darkened with the passing minutes into a surreal blend of twilit orange and otherworldly amethyst behind the edges of dark clouds.
Good. Maybe he could actually calm down before he went to find Tails, or Tails found him.
If he didn’t pass out from heatstroke first.
The dark green surface of the basilica’s dome had soaked up sunlight all day; the cracking coat of paint radiated an almost tranquilizing heat. The poor boy could swear his brain was frying as he held his head in his hands. This heat was one thing, and it was driving him up the wall.
Blaming his rampaging hormones on the temperature alone, however, would be a boldfaced lie. In his teenage myopia, he couldn’t see an inch beyond himself. An impenetrable fog enveloped his brain; a terrible, writhing, nerve-wracking itch eating his whole body alive, keeping him where he was, with images he couldn’t push away. Without anyone around to see him like this, he didn’t want to fight off these thoughts. Chemicals surged in the neural pathways of his mind. Adolescent rushes. Sparks flying.
Too overwhelmed to know what to do, Sonic crossed his ankles, pressed his legs together and curled up, bringing his knees to his chest. He folded his arms tight around them, shrugged his shoulders, balled his fists, stretched his back, held a deep breath. He worked all of his muscles, tensing them as much as he could. Where a young hedgehog, all of three-and-a-half feet tall, lay splayed out not a moment ago, he’d now curled himself into a ball. Seldom was he completely static in this state; when someone did see him like this, he was hurtling himself through the air to smash into something in his way. The nervous ball jittered. His muscles couldn’t possibly tighten any further.
Then, all of a sudden, he relaxed, falling open with a sigh of relaxation. He’d successfully pushed out all the physical tension, and cleared out his mind while he was at it; his brain didn’t feel like it was melting anymore.
He blinked his green eyes. Finally, he could see the stained-glass window of Soleanna’s evening skies. Columns of smoke rose from chimneys of busy eateries, and the steam locomotives lined up by the Altar, headlamps shining upon it. In all its old-world beauty, Bennu was a sight to remember.
He watched it all, unbothered until he realized his cheeks were still hot.
Bennu did indeed look amazing, but the girls around here, bar nothing and no one, were the most beautiful things he’d ever seen.
His fingers wove themselves together over his chest, over his pounding heart. While he laid back and smiled with eyes half-lidded, it beat on and on and on…
Where had these girls been all his life? How was it possible he’d never heard of them? Why weren’t they on the covers of magazines? Did the media in the rest of the world really think there wasn’t one Solien who belonged on the covers of those “Most Beautiful Women Alive” polls they apparently conducted every other week? Who voted on those things anyway? That he never knew these girls existed proved none of the people deciding what was “beautiful” knew a damn thing! Had he died and gone to heaven? Every girl here was an angel!
The warmth in his cheeks just kept rising. All it took was the thought of them. They were taking his breath away, and he wasn’t even looking at one of them!
Dissolving in a fit of giggles, he laid on his side, using his duffle bag as a pillow. The forms of nameless Solien women danced behind his eyelids. Not a thought came to him for their personhood, only their physique. Their Humanesque proportions. Their inviting plumage. Their full, mile-long legs.
And most of them seemed to enjoy baring at least part of their legs, covering the rest in something accentuating their shape, their movement…
He must be the luckiest boy on earth.
Look, big guy! Solaris! Whatever your name is! Please, have a LITTLE mercy on me!
If their creator was up there now, he couldn’t possibly not be laughing at the abject silliness of this poor foreigner’s situation. A little blue miscreant wanted to come to his land, show up like he owned the place? Well, he’d have to deal with his people, all taller than Sonic by a factor of Oh, sweet mother of god.
Sonic’s heart crashed against his chest. With eyes glazed like an addict reaching an indescribable high, he let out a delirious groan, shivering with joy. Soleanna’s women were drowning him in a holy flood of dopamine.
This was the sum of all his hours since the adventure on the ARK, finding ways to keep these burgeoning feelings under wraps. The end result of a teenage boy’s many days and nights wired awake. Images imprinted on him at a young age were taking hold, manifesting colors and shapes, a new world in his head.
Sonic put his arms around his duffel bag, barely managing to touch the pinky of one hand to the thumb of the other. Something about the thought of not being able to put his arms all the way around a Solien girl thrilled him. Mobian girls weren’t in the same league; not even the outliers like Vanilla were enough for him. And the few who outclassed her in height were the likes of… Big the Cat. Or Vector.
Human women caught his eye precisely because they were so much larger than him; there would be more to cuddle and hold! It wasn’t his fault girls were so magical. Especially ones that literally stood above the crowd.
He pushed his face against the bag, grinning, giggling like a maniac.
Not a moment later, his smile disappeared. A crippling, unwanted feeling had suddenly come over him. First, it was a pang of sorrow in his chest. Then it clawed its way out, spreading into a cloud of shame. Ravenous, insatiable gloom.
If his younger self, just four years ago, could see him today, he would hate it. Eleven-year-old Sonic would be shocked and appalled. Where did he go wrong? Who did this to him? What unspeakable horrors would lead him to be so terminally uncool? Sonic the Hedgehog, Mr. What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get, always on the move, answering to no one, would become the kind of hopeless romantic who melted into a wallowing puddle of gooey schmaltz because of… girls?
Unforgivable. Utterly inexcusable. A betrayal of his own ideals of freedom from all the rules and laws that governed everyone else in this world. Had his younger self glimpsed this, he probably would’ve been the kind to go out of his way to avert this terrible future.
And if that’s what he’d think of himself, what would his friends think? Tails? Knuckles?
He went silent. He didn’t want to be caught dead like this. Not by anyone. Never in a million years. If he woke up one day to discover everyone else in the world could read his thoughts—everyone could see through him—he’d die of embarrassment. The “Sonic” everyone knew would be torched…
Calming himself with a deep breath in and out, he shoved his fears down. The boy his friends had all gotten to know was fading away; he had been for a long, long time. He once tried everything to deny it, even to himself. Running always helped him escape any conundrum he’d ever faced; he figured if he ran fast enough, he could escape this looming specter too. Keeping others at bay became the name of the game, spouting anything he thought would assure them he was still the carefree renegade they’d met years back. Time to crack that Eggman wide open! Let’s find that creep and show him the superpower of teamwork! Together, we can overcome all the odds! The secret is sharing our dreams! And other such campfire-counselor slogans.
And where did that desperate act of self-annulment lead him? Bullet Station, with hours to go before “The Doc” swore he would unleash armageddon.
Sonic cringed. Tails and Knuckles deserved better than what he gave them that day. He promised himself never to do that again.
He brought a hand to his heart. As scared as he was, he had to be honest with himself. Time went by, bringing changes to people and places. The hard truth was: he changed too.
And another truth he repeated to himself: it was all okay. If he had a tender place in his heart, a part of him that would blindside his friends, then as long as it wasn’t wrong or hurting anyone, it wasn’t bad to nurse it quietly. Since when couldn’t someone take time, figure himself out? Unless he changed enough to tell it to the whole world, he’d keep this private, give his heart the care and safety it needed in this difficult, awkward stage. And that didn’t make it secrecy. He wasn’t a liar, or a hypocrite, or a two-face. He just… wasn’t ready to share these new parts of him with anyone else. And he was fine with all of that.
Good? Good. Now, back to thinking about girls.
In all those nights where his thoughts went sailing off into uncharted waters, he’d never heard a siren’s song. If his mind explored to find a vision of who exactly he might be longing for, he couldn’t glimpse her face. She was certainly tall, impossibly so for a female Mobian; he had no doubt about that. Maybe she’d have hair down to about her shoulders, framing her face in a look soft and smooth. He liked that too. In fact, he liked everything about girls.
They had the softest skin, fur, feathers, or what-have-you; they must be so wonderful to touch and hold and squeeze.
They had the prettiest eyes; he could get lost in them, picking up on who they were just from a sideways glance, a nervous turn away, or a blink of surprise that he’d noticed her.
But most of all, they had the loveliest smiles. What kind of idiot didn’t feel the magic when a girl smiled at them? It set him afloat on air, filled the sky with light, sent a breeze whispering through his quills. The smile of an ordinary girl changed the world into a place where dreams were real.
Especially if she had lips that he could just…
“Ewww!” He broke out of his thoughts to laugh at himself. He didn’t actually want that! No way! Kisses were gross and weird.
Didn’t mean he couldn’t think about it, though. Thinking about what it meant made him smile. Fairytale-beautiful romance, the treasure of trust. At this age, it really did touch his heart, more than he’d like to admit. There was a part of him calling out, singing into the aether in hopes of one day hearing the song of another’s heart, singing back.
A sluggish logic tried to dispel the fog clouding his brain. This was the hard part: A long-standing clash, a conflict in his mind, continuing to trouble him. Now he had to actively think.
What was a boy to do when the things his heart kept telling him were so exciting, so alluring, so amazing, went against what real life taught him he could tolerate? Why did he yearn so badly for a girl’s touch that he lost sleep wishing for it, when a hand on his shoulder made him uncomfortable?
He had no clue. He couldn’t say why the idea of holding onto someone, and being held in return, enthralled him this much. He hated, hated, hated when people touched him, and always had.
But he just couldn’t help himself.
He did want affection, he admitted to himself in a lonely, vulnerable place late one night, free of judgment. He could even be honest with himself that he downright craved it. For the right girl, he could one day make an exception. He longed to be held, and to hold someone too. He wanted to lay in her long arms, touch a cheek to her chest to feel the beat of her heart; or stand up with her, twine his arms around her waist, and nuzzle her stomach. They’d be as close as two people in love could be, and he couldn’t wish for anything else.
He’d always thought of that woman as a Human. But what if she turned out to be Solien? What if her wings were free, and she wrapped him up, enfolded him, like that dapper man who pulled his date closer with a wing around her hips?
Sonic trembled. He hugged his bag tighter. How it haunted him, the lingering warmth of these fantasies.
In innocence, he dreamed of a perfect love. A special someone who just knew him; saw him, respected him. Who was she? Hell if he knew. There was no woman who checked every mark he wanted, that he knew well enough to say he loved her. He didn’t know what her face would look like at all. Neither could he put a voice, nor a certain look in the eyes, nor an irresistibly… kissable pair of lips to her.
He didn’t even know if she was Human or Solien. Just that he couldn’t get her out of his head.
None of that mattered anyway; it was the person under it all that did. He was willing to accept a lot. The only personal trait he really needed from her was respect for his need to run free. That was the foundation of any healthy love, right? When he longed for her touch, or she did, they’d happily be there for each other. But she had to be willing to set him free, and trust that he’d return; he’d do the same. If he loved someone, he’d set them free, and if she came back, it was meant to be. When they couldn’t be next to each other, they’d be together in spirit. Faithful, dedicated, open for one another. That was the love he wanted.
He opened one eye and peered towards the buildings around him, curious. What if she was here?
His pulse went through the roof. There was every chance she walked the streets of this floating city right now. Every girl here was tall and pretty, and at least a few of them probably weren't racist. She could really be here.
The White Whale. The Unicorn. The Once in a Lifetime. The elusive, legendary, Right Girl for Him.
If she dropped into his lap, would he know when he saw her? What could he do? With what Soleanna’s women were already doing to his head, he was probably going to be hearing wedding bells and making arrangements in his head at the next sight of one. What would he do if he met someone here and could never get her out of his head? How did two people get together anyway? What kind of crazy luck did they need? Two people falling in love with each other, overcoming their angst — it blew his mind that it happened at all.
Life had been good to him, but love was a risk. It was messy and complicated in a way that hurt his head to dwell on. Did he really want it? Did he really want to go out on that limb, knowing it could give out under him, and he’d hit the ground, breaking to pieces on impact? Did he want to be vulnerable on a level he didn’t trust any of his friends to see?
He pressed his hands to his heart. Something broke loose in him. A voice, cutting through the pointless noise of rumination, reminded him of his own strength.
YES! For god’s sake, I do!
The answer had come absolutely, undeniably. He couldn’t lie to himself. A long, deep inhale; a trembling exhale. All these years battling the Doctor, defeating monsters the size of cities, cheating death like a professional con artist, and the scariest thing in the world was his own heart.
Okay. He wanted love. It was part of his world now, never to be undiscovered or handwaved away with a petulant, immature, No, I don’t.
But again, how in the world was he supposed to look for it? When it came to girls, he figured no boy ever got himself in trouble by keeping his mouth shut and staying out of her business. What girl would appreciate someone coming up to her when she was going about her own day, enjoying life for herself?
Besides the ones who butted into his space, obviously. Screaming and shouting for him to be their baby, to marry them, to have kids with them. Usually doing so publicly, airing grievances about his free will to the millions-strong listenership of the most popular Top 40 station in the Federation. And then she alternated between dedicating spiteful breakup songs after he’d run from her at risk of getting attacked with a hammer, and lovey-dovey ballads preceded by a conciliatory prophecy of marriage and children, foretold by a tarot reading.
And Amy just couldn’t get why he kept rebuffing her affections.
He didn’t want to be unfair. Amy had a great heart after all, and he always admired that. Unfortunately for her, there were things he liked, things he needed for a girl to thrill him to fantasies of love. At a few inches shy of his own height, Amy Rose fell at the first hurdle.
There was nothing wrong with having an eye for certain things, even if they were physical; none at all. If a boy had his wits about himself and the apple of his eye, it really was harmless. But no one needed to know, and he didn’t need to tell anyone. He didn’t need to deal with the tremendous spike of nerves and anxiety that would come with trying to tell a girl what was in his heart.
He rolled onto his back, letting out a heavy sigh, arms to either side. He hadn’t done a thing, and he felt exhausted. Nothing he liked ever came from wasting time and energy thinking matters to death. No amount of running could leave him this drained. Time to stop with all this.
Not having a dreamgirl, or any tangible traits to ascribe to her other than really tall, sweet, and pretty, made it easier to go about life than if he did. At any rate, no one needed love like they needed to breathe. Cute girls with legs like the autobahn could reduce him to a swooning catastrophe for the rest of his life, and if he never really loved another person, loved their heart and soul, he wouldn’t regret that. There’d be more to live for.
If dreams came true, though, there’d never be an adventure greater than love. It could change his world forever, but no matter what, he’d still be himself to himself.
There. He could put a bow on the whole mental episode right there. It gave him a good avenue to quit worrying, and think about all those girls while he propped himself up on his bag, kicked his feet up, and watched the sunset. How warm their feathers must be. How she’d feel. And who could forget:
A boy could dream; with girls like these on his mind, he sure would. His cheeks flushed as he crossed his legs and stared off at the evening sun, soon to kiss the sea and sink beneath the horizon.
Hey, big guy. Great job with the girls.
With the light straight in Sonic’s eyes, a bright ring around the flaming sun seemed to wink. It got a chuckle out of Sonic, to think that from his own plane of existence, Solaris meant to say, You’re welcome.
Known for the unmatched beauty of its land, skies and seas, as well as the old-fashioned nature of its society, the isolated archipelago kingdom of Soleanna is just days away from its annual Festival of the Sun. While its avian people look forward to a night of national unity in the face of ever-worsening crises, Sonic the Hedgehog, with his best friend Tails in tow, is on his way to see the sights of a nation he’s never seen before.
Where Sonic goes, however, a certain mad doctor is bound to follow. Soleanna is the target of Eggman’s most diabolical scheme yet, and he’ll be damned if that blue nuisance comes between him and the first step to world domination yet again.
This time, speed won’t be enough to save the day. The gravest dangers to Soleanna’s people, and Elise, their beautiful but troubled Princess, come from within the kingdom itself. While Shadow and Rouge infiltrate the nation’s revolutionary underground on orders from G.U.N., Team Sonic will face their most harrowing journey ever, contending with Eggman’s army, Soleanna’s despotic regent, and the restive citizens of an outworn land on the brink of disaster.
Along the way, Sonic and Elise find something extraordinary in each other.
Catch up with Sonic and co. in Young Hearts Forever — A Sonic 2006 Retelling on AO3.
