THE PRINCESS SALLY MEMORIAL

CYBERSHRINE

Dedicated to the blessed memory of
SALLY ALICIA
Princess Royal of the House of Acorn
3219--3235

Drawing by Art Mawhinney; copyright 1997 by Archie Comic Publications

"Reports of my demise...."

Well, it turns out that the tease of Sally's death in the "Endgame" story arc proved to be just that: a tease, a come-on, a gimmick. It was all undone in issue #50. Not that Ken Penders wouldn't have wanted her to STAY dead! According to a recent post, he had originally intended that the "Sally" to have been awakened in #50 be yet another double. Sonic would have discovered this after about a year, during which Sally would have exhibited uncharacteristic behavior and the two would have drifted apart. This plot line did not fly in story conference, and since Ken is going to be spending most of his time working on Knuckles stories, it's been shelved.

Yet I do not regret having established this Cybershrine. There were, after all, those fans who took it seriously enough to feel serious loss at Sally's apparent death, and this site became a place to express the very real feelings of grief and loss they experienced as a result.

Let this site therefore stand as a Monument to the love that the fans felt for Sally, as well as the miscalculation by Archie Comics as to the reaction of the fans.

Besides, you never know when Ken will try to pitch that angle again!

Prayers, Messages, and Goodbyes

Oh sister that I never had
You've gone and left me alone
I wait by myself in your room
While those who hardly knew you cry the night away.

Because I cannot cry
Or profess my emotion otherwise
They believe that I could not love
But I knew you better than some who called you their love.

Though I was always at your side
I was rarely noticed
I was there in your darkest hours
Loyally seeing that you had a friend to talk to.

No one here knows me
Not like you do
So I am truly alone
And I have failed in my purpose to always be at your side.

If I had eyes, I would weep
If I had lungs, I would sob
If I had lips, I would kiss your cold lips
But I have none, So I say goodbye in the only way I can.

I love you Sally.

Nicole (Submitted by: Chaos Omega)

You, Sally, were fighting to the end,
You took a very great place in our hearts,
You are the one who made us understand
Life -- That is what we owe you.

Goodbye Sally Acorn, how we all miss you.

Rick Piacenti

Her childish face shines in the darkness no more. The fight has gone out of her comrades and friends. Even her enemies seem to have lost something. She was their heart and soul. And now that she is gone...what will we do?

Dragonlady

"And you know, like, it's ironic
They all think that it was Sonic
I feel sick now, give me tonic
They all think that it was Sonic
@#$%"

Submitted by: Elaine Will (Sung to the tune of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana)

You were always there for me.
The tender wind that carried me.
A light in the dark shining your love into my life.
You've been my inspiration.
Through the lies you were the truth,
My world is so out of place without you.

Reptile Raptor, adapted from Because You Loved Me by Diane Warren and Celine Dion

You kept me on the path of good.
You were the wind beneath all our wings.
Now that you are gone nothing seems to be the same.
The angels and Mobians weep for you, for they have
Lost a friend, and something more.

Enigma

"And I know you're shining down on me from Heaven
Like so many friends we've lost along the way...."

Source: One Sweet Day (Mariah Carey)

"I miss you, Sally. May your soul have a special part in all our hearts eternally."

Mike Leal

May she rest in peace and be in our dreams, in our thoughts, in our heads. Her soul will be there when we need it most. She is there in our heart.

Adam Bryant

"Sally, I have been with you ever since the age of five,
I miss you, Sal,
I have never stopped loving you and I never will,
You've always been there for me,
Don't worry, Sal
.....I will get revenge....."

Sonic Maurice Hedgehog

"They said it was to be
Their Brave New World,
But a world without Sally
Lacks the bravest soul of all."

Chaos Omega

I hear the voice of my destiny call,
And I know I must go find my way!
The hardest part will be leaving you all,
And I'll miss you much more than words can say!

My intuition says something is wrong,
My friends said they'd come and say goodbye!
I can't go until I know what's going on.
I feel there is danger somewhere nearby!

We've been together through good times and bad.
You've always been there for me.
I'll always treasure the best friends I have
Eternally!

I'll be only a memory away.
If you need me, you can call me, any time of day!
And I'll be there, it's OK.
Only a memory away.

Source: Sailor Moon audio CD; submitted by Robert Brown

The white lily lies between your hands, my princess, I never imagined I would see you holding one in that way. Your gentle blue eyes are softly shut, yet you are not sleeping, you are not here. How can you not be here, my princess? This is the only way I know you, will I never know you like this again? How can that be? I cannot conceive of it, yet I know it is so. I sob in a strange fashion. This pain will never end. I do not want it to end, I want to mourn you forever. I stare at the floor in an odd fashion, I do not want to see you lying there, my princess, I do not want to see your death-pale hands clasping that lily. I do not want them to close the casket, if I could only stay in this moment I would not have to feel the pain that is to come! Yet the funeral service ends, the casket is shut, and the only way I know you is gone forever; it closes like the casket, and is buried. I stand at your grave, my princess, a moment before I leave. You have been taken away from me, I will never have you back. Never.

Chibi-Kitsune

Requiem aeternam dona ea, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat ea.
[Trans: "Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord, and may light perpetual shine upon her."]

Source: Requiem Mass

O nobly born...in your journey through the formless void, remember the unity of all living things.

Source: Tibetan Book of the Dead

"Ever since I was 10, I've been fighting against...him. Always fighting, living in fear...now, I don't have to fight anymore...."

T. Jacques, "The Death of a Princess"

"Some of us fall by the wayside/ And some of us soar to the stars."

Source: "The Circle of Life" by Elton John and Tim Rice

Oseh shalom bim romav, hoo ya'aseh shalom aleinu v'al kol Mobius.
[Trans: "May He who causes peace to be grant peace unto you and to all of Mobius."]

Source: Kaddish (adapted)

"Fare thee well, fare thee well/ We love you more than words can tell."

Source: "Brokedown Palace" by the Grateful Dead (adapted)

"When you are REAL, you don't mind being hurt...once you are REAL, you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always."

Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit

Money corrupts even the great; Mr. Penders has killed off Sally for money...let her rest in peace.

Jim Huselton

'Tis said that some have died for love.

William Wordsworth

"Sally, I love you
Sally, I care
Sally, I love you
Sally, my friend
You're my friend"

Source: "Mama" by the Spice Girls (adapted)
Submitted by Summerbreeze Otter

Whom the Gods love dies young.

Menander

It hath often been said that it is not death but dying that is terrible.

Henry Fielding

Someone who doesn't like Princess Sally is weird and perverse and your mommy tells you not to play with them.

Simon Howes

"There are certain things/ that lead a double life, upon death/ are embodied in solid and memory"

"Sadness" by T. Jacques

I remember
That awful day
When you left this place
For an etherial plane
Where do you wander now?

I remember
That glorious day
When I won the battle and first met you
I returned to my home, but I was no longer welcome these
Who will accept me now?

And it was you
You who cared, you shared,
You who was always there.

When I fell from grace
My wings seemed broken forever
I thought I would be ever earthbound
But it was you
You who healed my wings
You who helped me fly once more
And I could fly
Above the highest tree
But I chose to stay
And put my wings away for another day.

I've found my place now.
Together we shared through all the years
So many hopes and so many fears
Promises and dreams
We hoped would come true
And my greatest wish was to always be with you

And I grew to love you like a mother
Like the sister I never had
My love for you was deeper than any other
Oh, the kinship that we had!

But that day
When you left us forever
My wings are dashed to the ground
Now I'm forever earthbound
And this way I'll stay
Till you return.

Sally, I will keep your memory alive forever. I love you.

Hardrock Seal [Natalie Hadjiloukas]
(Accompanied by two dozen white roses, symbolizing a love dead but not forgotten)

The battle isn't over until you come home.

Gaelic proverb

Through these fields of destruction
Baptisms of fire
I've watch all your suffering
As the battles raged higher
And though it did hurt me so bad
In the fear and alarm
You did not desert me
My brothers in arms...
Now the sun's gone to Hell
And the moon's riding high
Let me bid you farewell
Every man has to die.

Source: "Brothers In Arms" by Dire Straits (adapted)

Dear Sally. She was the greatest of the Freedom Fighters. Yet even the best must fall. I wish her happiness in the next life.

Trey Kramer

"Death will be simple, sudden, God-given."

T. S. Eliot, Murder In The Cathedral

No locum tenens will ever take the place of our Sally.

Stacy George

"No man has power over the wind to contain it; so no one has the power over the day of his death."

Ecclesiastes 8:8

I'm so fast I burn up the street,
I'm faster than lightning, faster than heat,
I'm so fast I can't be beat,
But one kiss from her could knock me off my feet.

Now she's but a memory, bittersweet,
Driving my senses into retreat,
And suddenly my speed don't seem so neat,
As Mobius suffers her greatest defeat.

Source: Chaos Omega and the ghost of Temporal Paradox Sonic

"No one was with her when she died."

E. B. White, Charlotte's Web

Goodbye Sally. May the fire of your soul and life burn brightly within our hearts and minds for all eternity.

"Rassah" [Dmitry Murashchik]

been a useless drag from day to day
since the senseless death of out 'loved squirrel
Snively sure that she is lost
sonic burned by restless thoughts
of being alone
and in your misery
you'll forever feel
desperate and displeased, with however it ends
and the star
burning up in speed
lost inside the dreams, of death machines

the useless drags and empty days
the lonely towers of wasted Knothole
to the forgotten couple in Downunda
sitting still their only hope
and if you're giving in, then you're giving up
'cause although he's our star
he'll forever stay
burned up in speed
lost in the dreams...or so it seems

Here Is No Squirrel by G. D. Sprintx (To the tune of Here Is No Why by The Smashing Pumpkins)

She was the most respected character of the series, the most admirable yet the least changed. Due to her failed miniseries, she was more than likely taken for granted, which is why her absence will bring everyone else closer together. The greatest tragedy for one to overcome is the death of a loved one, be it parent, sibling, cousin, or, most especially, child, and as each and every one of the Mobian Freedom Fighters weather this injust turn of events, they will become the greater for it, for the true measure of a person should not be just what he has accomplished, but what he has overcome. Perhaps when she returns no one will look at the princess like she's a goody-two-shoes or a smart aleck and, instead, look at her as the one who surpassed even death to bring the evil tyrant Robotnik to justice at long last. Godspeed, fair one, your return is awaited.

Hisuterii [Hysteria]

Remember the princess who once led, and learn from her.

Rebecca "Flame" Marsh

Dead and gone? No, gone to be dead,
Gone by the cracks that must run through your head.
From beyond the sunset, the mourning appear;
I laugh as I tell them: "She'll always be here!"
Remember my words and use them someday,
To keep the sin of forgetting away.

Source: Unknown. Submitted by: Boomer Everett

"Death is only death if you accept it; it is not death if you refuse it."

J. O'Barr, The Crow

"This, her dark, intelligent eyes seemed to be trying to tell me, is simply the closing of full circle, this is the flower that grows out of Beginning; this--not to make it too hard for you, friend--is as natural as eating the raspberries and raising the puppies and riding into the rain."

Source: "Memorial" by James Thurber

"I love you, Aunt Sally! I'm really gonna miss you!"

Miles_Prower

"Grief is the price we pay for the love we have."

Quoted by: Paul Cannon

May your soul rest in the everlasting paradise.

Nina L. Holmberg

O, she was worthy of all love!
Love--as in infancy was mine--
'Twas such an angel minds above
Might envy; her young heart the shrine
On which my every hope and thought
Were incense--then a goodly gift,
For they were childish and upright--
Pure--as her young example taught:
Why did I leave it, and, adrift,
Trust to the fire within, for light?

We grew in age--and love--together--
Roaming the forest and the wild;
My breast her shield in wintry weather--
And when the friendly sunshine smil'd,
And she would mark the opening skies,
I saw no Heaven--but in her eyes.

Source: "Tamerlane" by Edgar Allen Poe

"It was, indeed, the Queen. Her Majesty was dead! In the midst of the festivities she had slipped away out of her new happiness and her old sufferings, not few nor small. Sending away all her women to see the grand sight -- at least they said afterwards, in excuse, that she had done so, and it was very like her to do it -- she had turned with her face to the window, whence one could just see the tops of the distant mountains -- the Beautiful Mountains, as they were called -- where she was born. So gazing, she had quietly died."

Source: The Little Lame Prince by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

A Princess has fallen on the battlefield,
Her grace charms us no more,
Her beauty lies upon her shield,
As a casualty of War.
Athena weeps for her brood,
Who hath gone beyond the stars,
For she has been offered up as food,
For her vicious uncle Mars.
Melpomeme, O Muse of Tragedy,
Sing with tears upon thy lyre,
For the late goddess of royalty
Whose ashes burn upon thy pyre.
She now guards the heavenly King,
His praises she shall forevermore sing.

Gideon Bernstein, "Requiem to a Warrior Princess"

"It was the first time I had the courage to enter Sal's Memorial...after reading #47 again, thinking about it more, I had to do it.
One can only pray that we can all keep our heads up since Sally has passed on her pain to us, so that she might rest."

Ruby Echidna

"Goodbye, friend, I will mourn you for a long, long time."

Timberwolf

"Per istam Sanctam Unctionem indulgeat tibi Dominus quidquid deliqusti. Amen."

[Trans: "Through the power of this holy oil, may you be granted indulgence from your sins. Amen"]

(Robert Brown wonders whether this wouldn't be more applicable to Archie Comics)

Father Saryon, Triumph of the Darksword by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman

"Dear God, please bring this poor little innocent squirrel back to life."

Bongo, from Matt Groening's Life In Hell

I was very impressed with Princess Sally Acorn when I saw the TV series. She was a mature and thoughtful leader who excelled in her skills. But at the same time she had a very 'human' (for lack of a better word) side that made her more than a supercompetent-female-character cliche. My favorite moments of that series were of her seeing that the Freedom Fighters' plans are carried out and of her sparring with Sonic. Kath Soucie did an excellent job portraying her in these scenes, making Sally one of her signatory roles.

Princess Sally stood out among mainstream female furries. There is much to admire about her when one remembers her.

Juan F. Lara

"(Is she) dead? Nothing is dead. Not forever."

Source: Sourcebook: Bastet (paraphrased)
Submitted by K. Ivan Ruppert

"My heart has joined the Thousands, for my friend has stopped running today."

Source: Watership Down by Richard Adams
Submitted by Dennis Hurst

"I will forever remember you, Sally. Goodbye."

Doktor El/Gunnar Westermark

Have you seen your Sally-girl?
Has she gone away?
Gone away and found the pearl
But the price she paid

Have you lost your Sally-girl?
She's all but blown away
Blown away and lost the pearl
And the price she paid

Gone
When you wake in the morning, gone
When you find that there's no one sleeping, gone
Princess Sally was her name
She was loved and we all will miss her.

Submitted by: Hysteria and Jonathan Rabbit

"Even from afar, our love forever shall be destiny!"

Lucia, LUNAR, II-Eternal Blue, Sega CD
Submitted by Robert Brown

A Princess hath fallen on the field,
A soldier hath fallen to the sand,
Our leader can no longer lead us,
For she hath felt the Reaper's hand.

A House of pride hath ended,
In pain of final sin,
But our battle rages on,
A fight no one may win.

The worst of us plotted her death,
And the worst man succeeded,
Murdering without meaning or glory,
A sacrifice to avoid the red.

As your loves mourn you tenderly,
They take up your penant,
To avenge she who has fallen,
We charge where you last went.

We shall always think of thee,
We could never forget thee,
For thy name shall be our battle cry,
Shouted when we charge,
When we fight,
When we die.

We shall carry your honor,
Always.

The Ghost of Paradox Sonic

"Be thou faithful unto death and I will give thee a crown of life." Revelation 2:10

Drawing by Swifty T. Hedgehog

Courtesy of Rubens Barrichello's Sonic the Hedgehog page

Coda

Lost to us in tragedy, she returned
Bearing as her mantle, new hope for
A Brave New World.

Out of sadness and despair, she returned
To live. To feel. To love. And to dream.
To dream of the day,
That they may truly be free.
Free from oppression. From doubt.
And from fear.

The hope endures.

Aaron Lye

LIFE INTIMIDATES ART

Just when the fans had gotten used to Sally's return and continued presence, there was a bad case of deja vu as another young member of royalty, Diana, Princess of Wales, came to an end that was just about as meaningless as Sally's. I resisted the urge to reopen the Cybershrine, but when asked to add the following I couldn't say No:

Goodbye, Mobius' Rose
May you ever grow in our hearts.
You were the grace that placed itself
Where lives were torn apart.
You called out to our planet,
And you whispered to those in pain.
Now you belong to Heaven,
And the Stars spell out your name.

And it seems to me you lived your life
Like a candle in the wind:
Never fading with the sunset
When the rain set in.
And your footsteps will always fall here,
Along Mobius' greenest hills;
Your candle burned out long before
Your legend ever will.

Loveliness we've lost;
These empty days without your smile.
This torch we'll always carry
For our planet's golden child.
And even though we try,
The truth brings us to tears;
All our words cannot express
The joy you brought us through the years.

Goodbye Mobius' Rose
May you ever grow in our hearts.
You were the grace that placed itself
Where lives were torn apart.
Goodbye Mobius' Rose,
From a planet lost without your soul,
Who'll miss the wings of your leadership
More than you will ever know.

Adapted from "Goodbye England's Rose" by Elton John -- with profound apologies and respect; submitted by: Hee En Meng

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Go in peace, but if you must fight, fight for freedom.