((Original lines by fini-mun​, colors by me. I’d meant to do this last Halloween but for various reasons it didn’t happen, so this year I was bound and determined to see it through. Thanks again to fini-mun​ for the fantastic pic, and Happy SonSalloween, everybody! <3))

Sonic’s senses began to return to him. He heard grunts and growls, a rhythmic pounding against dirt and grass. There was a thick scent of weathered oak, and he felt himself rising and falling as if riding a wave…surrounded by something firm yet fuzzy?

And then he saw her. Teeth like daggers, muscles as broad as tree trunks, fur wild and long…a beastly creature. But one Sonic knew only too well, not only because he himself had held such a form once, but because he could never mistake those deep blue eyes, even when they were as sharply focused and filled with fire as they were now.

“Sal…?” he muttered, finding it a bit difficult to speak at the moment (and slowly realizing he was being held in one of her massive paws).

The squirrel (wolf-squirrel…?) looked at him for only a moment before her gaze returned to the path ahead. “Sonic!” Sally said, the growling timber of her voice unable to hide the relief in her tone. “You’re awake!”

A blast of piercing blue light zipped past her head, narrowly missing the princess and prompting her to run a bit further away from where it had been with a sharp snarl, though her impressively fast pace did not falter. “Wha…what happened…?” the hedgehog asked, trying to blink away the dizziness that was still rattling around his head.

“Ambush,” Sally answered curtly, another laser blast landing a bit ahead of her and forcing her to again adjust her course. “Stun grenade knocked you unconscious. Would’ve done the same to me, but….”

She cut herself off, taking a strong leap ahead as another wave of fire made impact behind them. Sonic, however, only smiled. “But instead it just let out your wild side?”

Sally let out a loud little snort at that, her ears flattening a bit against her head. “I…I really thought I’d finally gotten this under control…” she said.

“Lucky for us you hadn’t, huh?” Sonic said, feeling his head finally begin to fully clear.

“This time….” Sally answered, knocking a dead log out of their way as they began to draw up on the safe cover of a nearby forest.

As Sonic’s vision grew back into focus, however, he only noticed the look on Sally’s face. Even with her eyes so sharp and her teeth bared, the sadness was unmistakable…but there was something else Sonic couldn’t help but notice too. “…hey, um…don’t take this the wrong way or anything…” he said with a softness that even surprised himself, “but…for what it’s worth…” A blush tinted his cheeks as he gently ran his hand through the thick, silky fur of Sally’s arm, “…I think this is a pretty cool look for you, Sal.”

That finally seemed to break the grim focus in Sally’s gaze, if only for a moment; her ears perked up, her snout relaxed just a little, and even as the shadow of the canopies began to cover them she spared a look at the little hedgehog she held in her hand.

“D-don’t get used to it or anything…” she replied, trying and failing to put some real bite into her voice.

But Sonic didn’t miss her little smile.

((BONUS! Original uncolored lines and alternate backdrop version under the cut))