Lost and Found

Chapter Seven: Entertaining Guests

As he followed Cookie into the forest, Matthew shivered slightly at the change in temperature as he looked around at the lush greenery. "Wow... It's really pretty in here. And you've been here since that jerk abandoned you?"

"That's right," she said with no small amount of pride. "It took me a while to figure out what to do, but Diamond-I mean Mawile helped me out at first by bringing me food and helping me figure out what was safe to eat, and then I met you and..." She fell silent as her pride softened to a feeling of warmth. "...you've been a big help too, Matthew; thank you for everything you've done for me and Mawile."

"Hey, I promised you I would," he remarked off-handedly as he ducked under a branch. "That's the main reason I was gone so long; I was talking to Professor Gottum and then Mr. Hart, trying to make it so they could both visit you at the same time."

"Well, I'm really thankful." They arrived at a small clearing, where what appeared to be a large blanket had been hung over a low-hanging branch, its edges weighed down by rocks of various sizes. Nearby, small cans hung from various branches, holding berries and nuts and leaves. "Well... This is my tent."

"That's pretty impressive," he murmured as he circled the makeshift home, and while she didn't know what 'impressive' meant she could tell from his emotions that he liked what he saw. "And you did this all yourself?"

"That's right."

He shook his head with a smile. "Amazing..."

"W-Would you like to come in?" she offered.

"You sure?" He squatted to get a better look inside; on one side of the tent was another long blanket, laid out like a rug, and on the other side was a pile of leaves, along with a cup that she must have found abandoned somewhere. "I'd be afraid of knocking down your home."

She stepped into the tent and patted the long blanket. "You can lay on this; the leaves are my bed."

He sighed with a shrug. "All right, if you say so..." He carefully crawled into the tent and rolled onto his side to face his hostess, who had moved to sit on her bed. "Is this gonna be okay with my legs sticking out like this? I'm not going to be bitten or anything, am I?"

"Not while I'm around."

He chuckled at her matter-of-fact statement as he shifted slightly to prop his head upon his hand. "So you have this place under control, huh? That's cool." She cast her gaze to the floor with a light blush, and he took the chance to look around the inside of the tent again, and he felt a sense of awe at what she had to have done to survive on her own. He shifted his gaze back to her downturned face and reached out with his free hand to lightly caress her simulated hat with his first two fingers; she twitched at his touch but otherwise held still, not wanting him to stop. "You're amazing, you know that?"

"Wh-What do you mean?" she said, trying to keep from throwing herself at him in response to his touch; she didn't want to risk scaring him away.

He made a point of looking around the tent again. "I know you had some help, but to be able to live on your own this long and set all this up...?" He shook his head with a snort. "I don't think I could do anything like this."

"Th-Thank you."

"Where did you find all this stuff, anyway?" he asked with a glance at the cans hanging just outside the entrance to the tent nearer his head. "That's pretty clever, using cans to store your food and stuff."

"Th-Thank you," she said, frustrated at her repeated stutter. "I just found them lying around the forest and the picnic table."

"Abandoned..." he mused. "There's something poetic about that...I guess."