“This is a story of a girl & a boy.
A story of an adventure and the trials they face.
A story perhaps of love,
but above all, joy and perseverance.”

···

♪ ~ [Castle Town Market ~ Eric Buchholz ~ Hero of Time (Music From “The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time”)]

          ~I guess the first question is what is a Ring Bond? Well, let me show you~♥~

A charming town built in the remnants of an old castle
Cobbled roads covered in people and antique automobiles
Shop windows full of goods
Open air cafes enticing with aromas most delectable
A beautiful blue sky above
Golden loops all about spinning on their suspended axes
Red slipper-like shoed feet moving at tremendous speed
A pink hedgehog girl in a cute leotard of pretty white

         Streaking through the crowded city streets and weaving through the crowds, the pink hedgehog girl was barely visible. She was so fast as to almost not even be seen, no less heard until well after she passed. She wore a massive smile and looked out at the world with clear blue eyes full of so much joy. Her destination was not certain however and she danced and jumped about the scenery collecting the golden hoops that hung about in patterns varied from strait lines and arrows to circular groupings and more. As she ran through the half meter in diameter loops, they would vanish with golden motes of light shimmering for only a moment after marking where the golden loop had once been.

         “Hey Amy, if you slow down a moment, I’ve a freshly baked roll with your name on it!” a goat poked his head out from an open-air bakery counter and yelled at the hedgehog girl past the crowd of various humans and sapient animals.

         “It’s Rosy!” the pink hedgehog yelled back as she skidded to a stop and chased off a gathering of birds mixed with more mundane species and those that were more in line with the sapient animals with their larger heads and smaller bodies.

          ~Maybe that wasn’t very helpful after all, tee-hee~♥

          ~Maybe it’s better if I actually explain.

          ~Those golden loops I’ve been collecting are called Rings. I hope you can see them because not everyone can, though they affect every part of life on the world. Tee-hee~♥ They actually are the world really, though it’s kind of hard to explain.

          ~You see, the world is made of Rings, and they have an energy all their own. We can use it for all sorts of things like electricity and powering cars, trucks, and airships. But Rings aren’t always Rings. When they use their energy up, they become a part of the planet again in some form or another based on their memories of all the times they’ve been used. It’s really cool because it makes the whole world change all the time! Towns like this could be born overnight or get moved completely elsewhere just as easily. It makes the world so full of adventure and wonder. Wonders like how pieces of the world will start to resemble a Ring when sleeping Rings get close enough to waking up to become a Ring again. This results in the floating platforms you see all over the place and even the big naturally occurring loop-de-loops!

          ~The most wonderous wonder though is the Ring Bond!

          ~Remember that I said Rings have memories? Well, if you know how to do it, you can get a Ring to share your memories with someone else, even physical memories. That’s how I got my speed. It’s the physical memory of none other than my personal and world-famous hero, Sonic the Hedgehog! He used a Ring and shared with me his speed so I could actually keep up with him~♥ It’s kind of sad though because Rings used to make a Ring Bond become a part of the person receiving the other person’s memories and are lost to the world forever. Considering I lost most of memories because they apparently were absorbed by a bunch of Rings it makes me kind of wary of making too many Ring Bonds. Not that I know how to, tee-hee!

         ~Hm? You want me to get back to the story? Hmph! This is important too, you know! What? You want to know why Sonic would make a Ring Bond with me? Huh? You want to know why I’m not going to get that roll? Ooh~! Don’t break my daydream!~

♪ ~ [A Journey ~ Tamiya Terashima ~ Tales from Earthsea Soundtrack]

Stone canyon walls stretching towards the sky
Shelves and cliff alike covered in vegetation
Waterfalls spilling into pools and over ancient stone ruins
The cloud filled sky above reflected in every pond and lake
The sun eclipsed by a small planet resting in the clouds
A fragment of a Red Ring seen behind it
A turning cogwheel completing the incomplete
The same Ring around a star replacing a blue left iris

         “Is this really the time to be daydreaming, Amy?” a familiar, teenage boy’s voice asked Rosy teasingly and convinced her to open her eyes.

         With her right blue eye, and her left eye replaced by a broken Ring now three-fifths a turning cogwheel around a five-pointed star, Rosy looked at the blue sapient hedgehog who lulled her from her daydream. The blue hedgehog looked at that Ring and frowned as he placed a hand on his hip. Despite the reasoning, Rosy still flushed as she found him looking into her eyes.

         “Sonic, I’m happy to be pulled from my daydreams to find you looking in my eyes, but I feel like you’re looking at that creep instead. And it’s Rosy by the way!”

         “Yeah, yeah,” Sonic the Hedgehog laughed and stepped away from Rosy to look at the eclipse above. “Rosy to keep us positive like you, and the Rascal to remind us that you’re trouble prone. You know I’ve known you since that nickname–”

         “Ooh~! It doesn’t matter Sonic!” Rosy threw down her arms and performed a frustrated little hop. “I remember me and you, but I don’t remember my life at all, so it doesn’t matter. That that silly nickname of mine can keep us from giving up in this situation–”

         “I wonder how many times you’ve told me that, Amy Rose,” Sonic interrupted Rosy and spun about to stop her with his pointer finger by pressing it against the tip of her nose. “I’ve lost count now.”

         “Well, I can’t help it,” Rosy huffed, her cheeks puffing up before she finally relaxed and stepped away. Clasping her hands behind her back, Rosy swayed her body back and forth playfully and smiled at Sonic. “The Rings will always remember, so it’s fine. Though it would be nice if the ones here would stop taking what memories I make here from me.”

         “Yeah, the Far Lands are weird that way,” Sonic agreed and again turned his attention away from Rosy. “Rings absorbing and storing people’s memories. It’s just not natural.”

         “You say people, but it’s just you and me here Sonic. We haven’t seen anyone else for as far back as I can remember. Even though there were so many in my little daydream, so I haven’t totally forgotten people at least. How long has it been though?”

         “Hard to say,” Sonic shrugged, his response coming a moment after an unusual pause. “I can resist the memory loss because of my familiarity with Rings and their abilities, but the loss of our sense of time… Heh! Just makes the adventure more fun!”

         “It does!” Rosy agreed and rolled back the cuff of her glove to look at a small Ring around her wrist. “And thanks to you managing to change this Ring so I can use it like a diary, it’ll be a great story for when we finally get home. Ooh~! I wonder what it’s like!”

         “You’ll like it,” Sonic smiled before dropping down to stretch his legs. “But don’t expect that Ring to stay accurate to what you put in there. I’ve never done anything like that before, making… what are you calling it?”

         “An Engraving Ring,” Rosy laughed before pointing at her left eye and the odd Ring in it. “It’s a much nicer Ring than the one in my eye at least. We really need to find the one here and get rid of it so my eye goes back to normal.”

         “Right,” Sonic smirked toothily. “Then how about we finally put your daydreaming behind us and get to running again so we can find it.”

         “Of course!” Rosy shouted excitedly and ran off together with Sonic through the canyons, cliffs, and chasms of…