In the next few days, the weather turned harsh, freezing winds blowing out of the north, coupled with a winter storm every other day, or so it seemed. It was then that the pair of them began to sleep side by side, instead of apart. For warmth, or at least that was what they told themselves.
On one such day, Fanta woke before Charcoal, which was an accomplishment in itself. He had never seen her sleeping, truth be told. He would always fall asleep first, and wake up second. He glanced at her before curling up again, thankful for her warmth.
She's cute he thought. He paused his thoughts for a moment, trying to wrestle that notion out of existence, or pass it off as anything but a small seed of affection. Fanta tried for a long while, but eventually gave up, right around the time that Charcoal was waking up.
"Are you ready for today?" Charcoal asked. A snow storm had blown through, and she was going to teach Fanta how to deal with a relatively new landscape. "Come on then."
Charcoal said, standing at the entrance to the cave, which was now an upward sloping tunnel through the snow. Thankfully, Charcoal had the presence of mind to keep a single piece of stone that could block off most of the cave from the outside, so the cave wasn't snow filled.
"Coming." Fanta said, following her out, into a blinding plain of white.
    "How can you stand this?" Fanta asked, eyes shut tightly.
"You'll get used to it." Charcoal said, nudging him forward. He cracked his eyes open, walking cautiously.
They made it to a shelters part of their mountainous home, a bowl in between three mountains and a ridge. The storm had broken, mostly, on the mountains, and there were still bushes and grass to be found here.
"Go find your berries." Charcoal said. "I will hunt." She stalked off, leaving Fanta to take in the bowl, still covered in snow, but not up to his ears.
He began padding to one of the few places berries grew in abundance. He made it their, to find the fragile bushes still alive, protected by a dense layer of bracken, and thorny shrubs.
    Fanta walked to his favorite one, a bush of cheri berries, and picked a pair, along with an oran and a sitrus. He turned, only to come less than an inch from hitting Charcoal. She had a sly grin on, and smelled faintly of blood.
"Good hunting?" Fanta asked. "Aye." She said, not saying more because killing, and hunting other wilders made Fanta queasy.
"Then what next?" He asked.
"Next we fight." Charcoal said, not giving him time to breath before she lunged.
Before Fanta had tumbled down the mountain, he would have been swept off his feet and pinned. But after, with a few weeks of training, he managed to postpone that fate by nearly half a minute.
Not that much of an improvement, but good enough for him in the given time. The fight ended like many others, Fanta on his back, Charcoal, paw on his chest keeping him their, ready to singe Fanta's fur. Charcoal leaned down, and whispered in Fanta's ear. "Forty-three nil."
Shivers went down Fanta's spent with her that close, and though they did, the odd feeling that had been with him from the beginning of the day only grew stronger.
"I think you're pretty." Fanta said, after Charcoal had let him up. He immediately closed his mouth, mentally berating himself.
Charcoal turned to him, thanking herself for practicing how to give away no emotion, and said. "Really, now why would you think that?"
"Well, I... I mean, you... You're..." Fanta stammered over his words, trying to find the right ones. "I'm?" Charcoal prodded.
"You're smart, and you saved me, and your eyes are this really nice shade of brown." Fanta said, that spilling out all at once.
"Let me tell you something, Fanta." Charcoal said. "I, personally, don't like people gushing over me. But, I think for you, I'll make an exception." And with that, she stalked off, leaving Fanta, still trying to find words to respond to find his way home. He did, and that night was, surprisingly, no more awkward than others that they had slept curled up together. Charcoal even slept with her head resting on Fanta's ruff, which confused the eevee even more.
    Charcoal woke the next day with Fanta still asleep, legs splayed out, breathing deeply, and occasionally twitching. She rested there for a moment, enjoying the softness of the eevee's mane. She rolled off of him, standing and stretching. She glanced at the mouth of the cave, thankful that there was no more snow.
She shot a quick blast of fire at the pile of sticks that she always maintained, put out last night for fear of running out of fuel. She turned to leave when she heard it. A small whimper. She turned back to Fanta, to see him twitching violently, but curled up further.
She approached him, not sure of what to expect. Fanta gave the same whimper, this time followed by a few inaudible words. Charcoal leaned down to hear what he would say next. She only heard a pair of words, but that was enough to guess at what he was dreaming of. "...Leave me..." He said in his sleep, in the voice of one who had been betrayed, one who had been abandoned, a voice that's sadness nearly broke her heart.
Charcoal lay down next to him as he drifted deeper into sleep, resting her chin on his shoulder. She thought of what she would say to him, what she would do, anything that might comfort him. Fanta awoke not a minute later, blinking at her blearily.
"What?" He asked as she stared at him, with sad eyes. "You were dreaming."
"About the night before you and I met." Charcoal said.
Fanta ducked his head. He hated talking about his trainer, and was slightly embarrassed that he had dreams about that night. "It's nothing." He said.
"Not to me." Charcoal said, still with her head on his shoulder.
"Don't worry about me." Fanta said. "I'm alright."
Charcoal allowed him to stand, but kept staring into his eyes. "It's only been two weeks." She said. "But know life after you came here isn't going to be the same for a long while."
"And is that good, or bad." Fanta asked.
"That's for me to decide, now isn't it?" Charcoal said, suddenly snapping back into herself. "Now let's move, we're wasting daylight." She walked from her cave, gathering herself.
    Fanta followed, our of the cave and onto the snow covered landscape. "What are we doing?" He asked.
    "Food first, then we're going to see how high up we can go." She said, turning from him.
"Food first you say." A deep, rumbling voice said from the snow. "Well, I do see two tasty morsels standing in front of me."
And slowly, like a nightmare come to life, a tyranitar arose from the snow. It towered over them, green and black scales glinting malevolently.
"Charcoal." Fanta said, sounding much calmer than he actually was. Tyranitars had enough power to require a redrawing of a map, and he certainly did not want to be anywhere near the giant lizard like thing in front of him when it decided to throw a temper tantrum.
"Yes?" Charcoal asked, very open to suggestions.
"I heard Snowpoint city is nice this time of year, want to go check it out?" Fanta suggested.
"You know the route?" Charcoal asked, slowly backing away from the Tyranitar.
"As well as you." Fanta said, turning and running as soon as the words were out of his mouth, pelting through the snow, ignoring the Tyranitar behind them's laughter, though not that of the prelude to the explosive force of his hyper beam.
Pokemon had never had a word for it, so they are called it what the humans did. And it certainly showed why Tyranitars could rewrite maps. Luckily, both Fanta and Charcoal managed to dodge the blast, and clamor out of the crater that had appeared in front of them, and they had a few moments to run unmolested as the Tyranitar recovered.
This time, though, the Tyranitar didn't aim at them, instead shattering a boulder, actually a rock shelf on front of them, turning what had been open ground for the two to run into a storm of razor sharp rocks. Fanta heard a cry of pain, and nearly flipped over as he stopped, sashing back to Charcoal, bleeding from several wounds, but otherwise able to run. Charcoal was a different story. A rock shard had lodged itself in her haunch, which didn't bleed much, but kept her from running. Fanta pulled it out, shouting "Run!"
    They both did, though slower than before. Luckily for them, the Tyranitar did not want to give chase. They slowed as they crested a fifth ridge, stopping on a snow cleared boulder. Charcoal was panting, and bleeding worse thanks he had been before. Fanta looked at her leg, and then shook his head.
"I think we're going to need humans for this." He said. "If we don't get a healer, human or otherwise to look at that, you could be crippled. Or die of infection."
"There are no healers in the Cornet range, at least not in this part." Charcoal said. "We have to get to Snowpoint."
    Fanta nodded, still eyeing her would. "We won't make it there today, but tomorrow." Fanta said. Charcoal stood, padding onward.
    When they stopped for the night, Fanta curled up around her, shielding her from the wind. Charcoal heard him whisper. "I'm sorry."
"For what?" she whispered back. "You lost your home." Fanta answered. Charcoal paused, and then finished the night with. "I'll take you over a home anytime, Fanta." They slept after that, in the cold open, using each other's warmth, and presence to ward off the cold and dreams.