Thawing Frozen Hearts (Snowy and Chiaroscuro)

[SnowyWolf]

Eevee stretched out and yawned as the image of Terah faded from her vision. With her hind leg, she scratched at the growing matte on her neck, but it was futile. She couldn’t break up the matte, nor could she stop the itching. She missed the the daily brushing that she used to get from her late trainer. She missed the treats from her hand. Even if they were just dry pellets of cheap pokémon food without any flavor, they were from Terah’s loving hand, and that was all that mattered. She missed her warm smile, her soft touch, and her soothing voice.

But all of that was in the past. Terah was gone, and it was Eevee’s fault. She had failed at her one job as a pokémon. She had failed to protect her trainer.

In better times, she might have appreciated the beauty of the sun’s rays as they filtered through the trees, or the chirping of the swablu in the sky above them, or even the splashing of magikarp in the nearby stream. Instead, she only noticed the tree stump she had slept next to. The tree stump that loomed before her, standing proudly without so much as a scratch on it. She had been using it for target practice, but she had yet to land a single hit on it. It wasn’t that she couldn’t aim. The problem was that she could not even complete an attack. Imagine a normal type pokémon being unable to complete a swift attack! How pathetic! She could do it when Terah was training her, but she hadn’t been able to pull off a single one since her trainer died.

She growled slightly at the stump as she turned away from it and bounded gracefully down the hill to the shopping center below. She would return to the stump later for more training, but for now, she needed to find food, and the trash bins behind the shops were always bountiful. There were always humans who didn’t appreciate her making a mess of their trash, but her big ears would alert her if anyone approached. After making sure the coast was clear, she made her way to the nearest dumpster and jumped up on its rim, then sniffed at the odors coming from it. Much of it was rotten, but there was definitely some meat that wasn’t too spoiled. She dove into the dumpster to dig up her breakfast.

 

[Chiaroscuro]

Marcus Abram was having a fairly good morning. He'd managed not to oversleep his alarm or show up late for work. Admittedly, if you'd asked him ten years ago if this is how he saw his life going, he'd have balked at the prospect. He was going to be the best there was, beat the Elite Four, and all that. Of course, that was...before. Before the time he didn't really like to think about too much.

But, here he was, working for minimum wage, going to college for a practical degree that would guarantee him a nice and boring office job for the rest of his days. He wasn't quite content, but really, what exactly did he have to complain about?

It was with these thoughts in his head that he stepped out into the alley with a plastic trash bag in one hand. He didn't exactly cut a heroic figure; tall and gangling, with long sandy-colored hair that stretched down to his shoulders. He looked a bit like the sort of person who was at home at a grunge concert, and he was kind of dressed for the part as well, with a faded T-shirt that may at one point have had the logo for the Pokemon League and a pair of jeans that were fraying at the cuffs and worn at the knees. Of course, over this he wore a canvas smock with the store's logo printed proudly on it, which was almost a comically lame attempt at making him look professional.

As he made his way to the dumpster, his dark eyes narrowed slightly as he picked up a faint movement from within. Great. Scavengers. "Alright!" he boomed loudly, clapping his hand against a railing hard enough to make it clang and rattle loosely in its concrete base. "If there are any Rattata in there, you guys better clear out now!" As if to punctuate the point, he reared back to give the dumpster a hefty kick, but something gave him pause. Whatever was rummaging around in there wasn't purple. It looked...brown?

Frowning, he tentatively leaned forward for a closer look. Just what was in there, anyway?

 

[SnowyWolf]

Eevee perked her ears when she thought she heard footsteps approaching. She should have scrammed immediately, but she hadn’t been able to think clearly since losing her trainer. In spite of her nerves, she was driven by hunger. Her digging didn’t turn up the meat she thought she smelled, but there was a half eaten apple. She snatched it up in her mouth and poised herself to jump out of the dumpster.

Suddenly, her large, sensitive ears were assaulted by a human shouting and banging on the rail nearby. She dropped the apple and squealed a high-pitched, “Oh shit!” as she leapt up to the rim on the back side of the dumpster. She didn’t even turn to look at the human as she launched herself over the wooden fence surrounding the dumpster that was supposed to keep pests such as herself out. As she sailed over the fence, a breeze caught a piece paper that had clung to a sticky spot on her fur and blew it across the otherwise empty lot. She landed gracefully on the pavement behind the dumpster and ran for the nearby treeline. Although being compared to a rattata was a bit insulting, she couldn’t help thinking the comparison fit. Maybe Terah would have been better off with one of them.

When she reached the treeline, she hid in tuft a of tall grass. Only then did she turn around and peer thought the blades of grass to see if the human would chase her.. With any luck, he would leave, but she would probably have to hit up a different dumpster for her breakfast.

 

[Chiaroscuro]

Nope, not Rattata. His gaze followed the small fluffy brown creature as it sailed away. That's an Eevee! It's really rare! a little voice in his head blared, a voice he didn't particularly care to acknowledge. He ruthlessly quashed that train of thought, took a deep, shuddering, breath, and then glanced in the direction that it had run off. Then he started when something he'd just heard leapt into his brain. "Did...that Pokémon just curse? I could have sworn..." No, he was being stupid. It must have banged its leg on the fence while yelling, that was why it hadn't sounded normal. That was the only explanation that made sense. Still...

Looking around to make sure he wasn't being watched, he opened the bag and dropped a couple of Poffins on the ground. They were cold and spongy, but a lot fresher than anything in the dumpster - and they were mold-free, bonus! Then, with his good deed for the day accomplished, he threw out the trash, went back into the store, and tried to put the incident out of his mind. Key word, tried. Later that night, as he lay in bed, he spent a long time thinking about the strange scavenger he'd found in the alley. Once, long ago, he'd committed all kinds of useless facts to memory - A rare Pokémon that adapts to harsh environments by taking on different evolutionary forms - and it was starting to percolate back into his consciousness, much as he would have wished otherwise. Seeing one of those in the wild was like finding a gold nugget in a trash can. It just didn't happen to normal people. Surely, that Pokémon's trainer would be along to pick it up any time now. Satisfied with that explanation, he went to sleep grumbling about dumb kids letting their partners get lost in the big city.

The next morning, he was late. Late late late. But, even so, when the breakfast rush had subsided and he was able to take a break, he bought a fresh Poffin and took it out to the alley. There was no way that Pokémon would still be there, right?

 

[SnowyWolf]

Eevee eyed the man suspiciously through the grass as he took the poffins out of the bag and left them on the ground before returning to the building. It seemed to good to be true. Not only did he leave without chasing her, but left some food as well. She waited a few minutes until she was sure the coast was clear before darting across the lot to grab the food. She swiftly carried it back to her tree stump before scarfing them down. It was a bittersweet meal for her. It filled her belly and gave her some energy, but it also reminded her of her trainer who occasionally fed them to her.

Her meal was followed by yet another fruitless day of training. At the end of the day, the tree stump remained untouched. She knew she was executing the move correctly, so she couldn’t understand why it wouldn’t work for her. The fruitless day of training was followed by another night of dreaming about Terah. It was a rough night for her, as she relived the moment when Terah died, struck down by a psychic attack from an espeon, a creature that Eevee might have idolized under different circumstances.

The next morning, she returned to the shopping center in search of food, but this time she didn’t bother the dumpsters. They would still be there later if she still needed to scavenge for food. Instead, she hid behind a stack of pallets near the door that the man had used the day before. She suspected the man might try to catch her, as Terah had lured her in the same way, but she was willing to take the risk. Aside from being hungry, she subconsciously longed for human contact.

Her ears perked up when the door opened. Cautiously, she peeked around the pallets. Sure enough, it was the same man she encountered the day before, and she smelled fresh poffins as well. She took another step forward, allowing him to see her head, but remained half-hidden. She gazed at him with ears perked up and eyes wide open.

 

[Chiaroscuro]

Well, that was surprising. "You're still here?" he asked with an air of faint surprise. If its trainer hadn't found it by now, they were really dropping the ball. With a dismissive shrug, he crouched down, opened the box, set it on the concrete, and slid it a foot or so away from him. There was still an ever-so-faint wisp of steam rising off of the poffin inside, which was a vivid pink color. "Well, go on, you might as well eat it. I don't even like Persim Berry, honest."

And with that he stood up and went back inside without a backwards glance. He considered taking another look in the alley as he was leaving for the day, but decided against it. Things would probably work out, there was no need for him to get involved, he could just get on with his life. That night, he opened a cardboard box he'd promised himself he'd leave taped forever. On top was a lightly scuffed, long-dormant Poké Ball. He spent a long time staring at it, flipping it open and shut a few times, but there was no light within. It was cold and dead. With a sigh, he put it back in the box and went (eventually) to bed.

The next morning, he went into the alley with another fresh poffin, but this time he had a styrofoam bowl and a bottle of fresh water as well. After setting out the poffin and the bowl, filling the latter with some of the water, he stepped back to take a seat on the cracked stoop of the neighboring dry-cleaner's. He took a sip of water and waited, and it wasn't long before he saw motion out of the corner of his eye. "You're making me worry," he grumbled, although there wasn't any real heat to it. He almost didn't want to worry, and yet...and yet, here he was, like an idiot, getting involved in something that didn't concern him. Again. He really hadn't learned anything at all, had he? "Don't you have somewhere to be?"

 

[SnowyWolf]

Eevee didn’t move when the man set the food down on the ground, or even when he told her to eat it. She was indeed hungry, but she was also lonely. She had not had a pleasant encounter with a human, or even another pokémon in weeks. The day before, he had given her food from the garbage, which was better than anything in the dumpster. Today, he had fresh food ready for her. She wondered why the man should care about her, and she could only come with two possible reasons. Either he was intent on catching her, or he was very kind-hearted. Maybe it was both, but she couldn’t see herself as a very good catch.

This was her first chance to get a good look at the man. She didn’t care about his tattered clothes, as pokémon usually don’t judge such things, and even they did, she had no room to judge anyone’s appearance. She was interested in what was in the man’s eyes, and what she heard in his voice. She definitely did not see a fire in his eyes, at least not anything like what she used to see in Terah, but there was a faint spark, like his fire had had been snuffed out by pain and bitterness but hadn’t quite gone away. She wondered what had happened to make him feel that way. Maybe he saw the same thing in her.

After the man returned to the building, she quickly grabbed the fresh poffin and returned to her tree stump.

By the next morning, her mood was once again fouled by another unsuccessful day of ‘training’ and another restless night of recurring nightmares. Still, she returned to the shops in hopes of finding food. To her surprise, the man was sitting there, almost like he was waiting for her. She approached slowly until she was close enough to see that he not only offered her food, but clean water as well.

She still didn’t know whether or not the man was trying to catch her, but just in case, she thought she should spare both of them the disappointment. She looked over at the stack of pallets where she had hidden herself the day before, then turned to face it. She took a few steps towards it, then paused briefly, allowing her small body to take in energy from the air and from the ground. She took a single step back, then leaned forward and opened her mouth to unleash a barrage of sparkles that could obliterate the pallets. But the sparkles never materialized. There was only a shallow breath and a short squeal that might be considered cute.

When she finished making a fool of herself, she sat on the ground and bowed her head and let her ears droop. “I appreciate the food,” she said, “but if you’re looking to catch me, I’ll only disappoint you. If you really want a pokémon, you might be better off catching a magikarp from the nearby stream, but I’m pretty useless.”