Pieces of Solaris

Simple & Foreshadowing Changes

"I appreciate the effort Amy, but..."

After squeezing Elise into one of Knuckles's old bathrobes and using what was left of her torn dress to cover her torso and buttock, respectively, Amy had gotten Elise to a clothing store. It took some time to find things that Elise was able to wear due to her size and how uncommon her human frame was around here, but Amy was a fashionable genius and did eventually find something that could fit Elise's frame. Elise's thoughts on Amy's fashion sense were not as accepting, and she had mixed ideas about what Amy wanted her to walk around in.

"You look pretty Elise!" Amy gushed, "Be proud, show it off, make some boy jealous when you tell him you're taken!"

"But... I'm not taken, I don't think..."

"You will be soon enough!" Amy declared. Elise let out a discomforted little groan and looked at herself in the full length mirror.

Amy had found Elise a white dress that was cut about an inch or two off her knee- the bottom skirt of the dress was decorated with a mixture of white porcupine quills and blue bird feathers, the bodice boasted a sweetheart neckline and adorned with a gold trim. Her sleeves were off the shoulder and cut asymmetrical to the palm of her hand, the edges of the sleeves were gold trimmed as well. For shoes, Amy had found a pair of heeled ankle boots colored blue with a little white mixed in at the sole. The accessories had been Amy's favorite part of the whole redressing, not that she ended up giving Elise a lot- there was a corset styled belt colored a gold-ish brown, and a necklace with a rather simple design that resembled bird's wings.

Elise didn't like it very much, but it was better than going around naked... right?

"Come on," Amy then said as she took Elise by the wrist, "Everyone's waiting outside to see what you look like!"

"They... are...?" Elise said in fear as Amy dragged her out the door.

Sure enough, Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and surprisingly Sticks were outside waiting for Amy and Elise to come back out.

"Introducing," Amy said in a flourish, "The now properly dressed, and five percent cuter, Madame Elise of She-can't-remember-where!"

Elise refused to look at anyone as they silently made their judgment on her new look. Something about Amy's introduction seemed familiar, but it didn't make the situation any less embarrassing on her part. No one said anything to her new appearance either, which slowly started to make Amy feel insecure about herself.

"You look good." Sonic finally said, sounding rather truthful. Unintentionally, Elise's face flushed a deep red color.

"Thanks." Elise mumbled with a teeny tiny smile. Sonic scratched the back of his head with an apparent mixture of shame and embarrassment.

"No problem." he mumbled back sheepishly.

. . .

"Oh, do it again!" Eggman told Silver ecstatically like a little girl shown a magic trick. In reality, the hedgehog had demonstrated some of his abilities that could be used in Eggman's plan to capture Sonic. Poor Silver, working off the one assumption that Eggman's arch enemy would know where Elise was when he wasn't even sure the mad doc was in the right mind to begin with. Then again, he was a mad doctor...

"I'm not doing that again." Silver told Eggman in a blunt and irritated tone. "Unless you want to get thrown off your precarious little hill, of course."

"But then you won't be able to find your cursed princess." Eggman rebutted. Silver let out an irritated grunt when he saw the truth in what Eggman was saying, and he said nothing further in the discussion.

"Excuse me, mister Silver," Orbot said, poking Silver once to gain attention, "But are you aware that your shadow is quite... peculiar..?"

"My shadow?" Silver asked, looking down. "What could be wrong with my shadow? It looks the same it always does."

"Well," Orbot began, "Despite the fact that the lighting is too poor in this room for any of us to visibly have one- yours seem to, um, not match your own silhouette."

Silver looked at the robot like it was losing a few bolts then looked down at his shadow. Sure, it did seem odd that it was fully visible while everyone else's weren't as distinguished, but he did not see a difference in the shape.

"My shadow looks fine." Silver insisted.

"Okay then..." Orbot agreed uncertainly, sure that he wasn't processing the information wrong. The hedgehog gave the robot a quizzical look before turning back to Eggman's next plan. Not that Silver believed it was going to accomplish much, but standing idle wasn't going to find Elise any faster either...

. . .

Sonic was walking back to his house when Sticks attacked him.

"What the...! Sticks get off!" Sonic demanded as Sticks pinched Sonic in every place imaginable.

"The demon is getting to you!" Sticks declared. "You're giving it what it wants!"

"What demon?! Sticks, get off of me NOW!"

"Not until that demon's influence on you is broken and it's gone for good!"

After a good amount of struggling, Sonic was able to get the crazy badger off of him.

"Don't you see it?" Sticks frantically demanded. "The demon wants control of your mind so you like her and then it can use you to set it free! Don't let it control you! Don't blink, blink and you're dead! Don't think about it! The demon will destroy us all if you feed it after midnight!"

"Look, Sticks, I know this... demon is freaking you out," Sonic started to say in an attempt to reason with her, "But there isn't a demon around here. The only one new is Elise, and she sure isn't demon-like at all."

"She...! It...!" Sticks started to say, but let out a frustrated growl instead.

Sonic looked at Sticks as she tried hard to keep several opinions and even more choice words inside her head.

"Fine." Sticks growled. "If you're going to be blind, don't come crying to me when fire falls from the sky!"

"I wouldn't have it any other way." Sonic told her. Sticks gave Sonic a rather horrifying glare as she let out another growl in anger.