Sprigatito

  The world had been loud and then quiet and then loud again.

  She remembered the box. The gentle rocking that meant travel, that meant going somewhere new. The other scents around her—other Pokémon, other boxes, the sharp clean smell of the humans who brought food and water and spoke in soft tones.

  She had been scared, at first. Taken from the warm place with the big windows and the nice humans, put in a box, loaded onto something that moved. But the moving had become familiar, and the fear had faded into something duller. Waiting. Just waiting.

  Then the world had screamed.

  Metal shrieking. Glass breaking. The box tumbling, over and over, her small body thrown against the walls until she didn't know which way was up. Sounds she had never heard before, terrible sounds, and then—

  Silence.

  She had crawled out through a crack in the broken box, her legs shaking, her heart pounding so hard it hurt. The world outside was wrong. Trees everywhere, no walls, no ceiling, just open in a way that made her want to hide. The big moving thing was broken, pieces scattered, smoke rising from somewhere she couldn't see.

  The humans were gone.

  She had called for them. Called and called until her throat hurt, but no one came. Just the forest sounds, strange and frightening, and the growing certainty that she was alone.

  She'd found a space under one of the fallen boxes and pressed herself into it, making herself as small as possible. If she was small enough, maybe the scary things wouldn't find her. Maybe if she waited long enough, the nice humans would come back.

  They didn't come back.

  Time passed. She didn't know how much—time was hard to track when you were scared and hungry and alone. The light changed, moving across the forest floor in patterns she didn't understand. Her stomach growled. Her throat was dry.

  And then she'd heard footsteps.

  Not the light quick steps of a forest creature. Heavy steps, like the humans at the warm place, but different somehow. Wrong. She'd pressed herself deeper into her hiding spot, trembling, hoping whoever it was would pass by without noticing her.

  They hadn't.

  A face had appeared at the edge of her hiding spot—a human face, with strange flat features and no fur except on the top of their head. The human had spoken, sounds that she mostly understood but couldn't quite hold onto, and their scent had washed over her.

  Wrong, her instincts had screamed. Different. Not like the others.

  But also... not threatening. The human's voice was soft, like the nice humans at the warm place. Their movements were slow, careful, the way you moved around a scared Pokémon when you didn't want to frighten them more.

  And their emotions—

  She could sense them, in a way. Fear. Confusion. Loneliness. The human was scared too. The human was lost too.

  Like me, she'd realized. They don't know what's happening either.

  That had changed things. Not completely—she was still scared, still wary—but enough. Enough to listen when the human spoke. Enough to watch when the human sat down and made themselves smaller, less threatening.

  Then the human had done something strange.

  They'd pulled out a flat thing that glowed, touched it with their fingers, and suddenly there was sound. Not words. Not Pokémon calls. Something else entirely—a rhythm, a pattern, voices that rose and fell in ways that made something in her chest feel warm.

  Music. The human had called it music.

  She didn't know what music was supposed to do, but she knew what it did do. It made the fear smaller. It made the loneliness less sharp. It was like a blanket made of sound, wrapping around her, telling her that maybe—maybe—things would be okay.

  The human kept talking while the music played. Their voice was gentle, and their words were... kind. She didn't understand all of them, but she understood enough. The human was offering something. Friendship. Partnership. A promise that neither of them had to be alone.

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  She'd crept out of her hiding spot, moving slowly, ready to bolt if the human made any sudden movements. But they didn't. They just sat there, patient, waiting for her to decide.

  Her paw had touched their leg, and the human had let out a breath like they'd been holding it forever.

  Safe, she'd decided. This one is safe.

  The walking had been hard.

  Her legs were short, and the human's were long, and the ground was uneven and full of things that tried to trip her. But the human had slowed down when she fell behind, had waited when she needed to rest, had spoken to her in that soft voice that made her feel less scared.

  They called her Sprig. She liked that. It was shorter than her real name, easier to say, and when the human said it, there was warmth in their voice. Affection.

  Mine, she found herself thinking. This human is mine now.

  It was a strange thought. She'd never had a human of her own before—at the warm place, there had been many humans, and they'd all been nice, but none of them had been hers. This was different. This human had found her when she was lost and scared. This human had played music to calm her down. This human had walked beside her through the strange forest and never once made her feel like a burden.

  She would keep this human. She would protect them.

  (She was small, and they were big, and she wasn't sure how she would protect them, but she would figure it out.)

  They'd walked for a long time. The sun moved across the sky, and the air changed from warm to cool, and she'd started to get tired in a way that even fear couldn't fix. But just when she thought she couldn't walk any more, they'd found a road.

  Road meant humans. Humans meant safe.

  And then another human had appeared—a female, with dark fur on her head and a green Pokémon beside her. The green Pokémon had looked at her with curious eyes, and she'd looked back, trying to decide if it was a friend or a threat.

  The green Pokémon had smelled like forest and determination. Not unfriendly. Just... different. Another kind of Pokémon, from another kind of place.

  Not a threat, she'd decided. Just different.

  The two humans had talked while she listened, catching words here and there. Lost. Transport. Amnesia. She didn't know what all of them meant, but she understood the important part: her human was explaining their situation, trying to get help.

  Good. Help is good.

  They'd walked together after that, the four of them—two humans, two Pokémon. The female human was quieter than hers, more watchful, but not unkind. Her green Pokémon had tried to play once, darting ahead and looking back invitingly, but she'd been too tired to respond. Maybe later. When she wasn't so exhausted.

  And then they'd reached the place with all the lights.

  The town was overwhelming.

  So many scents. So many sounds. So many humans and Pokémon, moving and talking and living their lives in ways she couldn't begin to understand. She'd pressed close to her human's legs, taking comfort in their familiar scent, their steady presence.

  It's okay, she told herself. The human is here. The human will protect me.

  (Even though she was supposed to be protecting them.)

  They'd gone to a big building with lots of paper and strange machines, and there had been another human—older, with a loud voice and excited eyes. This human had looked at her with an intensity that made her nervous, like she was something special, something unusual.

  She was unusual here. She'd figured that out during the walk through town, from the way other humans and Pokémon looked at her. Her kind didn't live in this place. She was far from home, far from anything familiar.

  But her human was familiar now. Her human was home.

  The older human had asked questions, and her human had answered, and then something had happened that she didn't entirely understand. The older human had given her human a small round thing—red and white, smooth and shiny—and her human had looked at her.

  "Ready, Sprig?"

  She hadn't known what ready meant in this context, but she'd known what the question meant. Her human was asking for permission. Asking if she wanted this, whatever this was.

  She'd bumped her head against the round thing, because yes, she wanted. She wanted to belong to this human. She wanted to stay with them forever.

  There had been a flash of light, and then—

  Warm.

  That was the only way to describe it. The inside of the ball was warm and soft and quiet, like being wrapped in a blanket made of peace. All the fear, all the exhaustion, all the worry—it faded, just for a moment, replaced by a sense of rightness.

  This is where I belong.

  Then the light had come again, and she was back in the world, on the soft thing next to her human, and everything was the same but also different. There was a thread now, a connection, something she could feel in the back of her mind that said yours and mine and together.

  She'd settled against her human's side, content in a way she hadn't been since before the crash.

  My human, she thought drowsily. Mine.

  Later, outside in the dark, she'd felt her human's sadness.

  It was a quiet sadness, not the sharp kind that came with immediate pain, but the deep kind that settled into bones and stayed there. Her human was looking at the lights in the sky, and their thoughts were far away, in a place she couldn't follow.

  She'd heard the music again—different this time, slower, more mournful. Her human's eyes had been wet, though no tears fell.

  Sad, she'd thought. The human is sad.

  She didn't know why. Didn't know what they were missing, what they were mourning. But she knew what to do about it. She'd shifted in their lap, pressing closer, offering what comfort she could.

  I'm here, she tried to say. You're not alone.

  The human's hand had settled on her fur, gentle and warm, and some of the sadness had eased. Not all of it—she didn't think she could fix all of it—but enough.

  I'll take care of you, she promised silently. You took care of me. Now I take care of you.

  It was what partners did.

  The music played on, and the stars wheeled overhead, and Sprigatito fell asleep in her human's lap, dreaming of warm places and gentle hands and a future she couldn't imagine but was excited to find.