From the Vast

Interlude IV: Hope

"Orion, where you go now."

The buzz of the surrounding drizzle muffled Ana's tired, heavy words. This weather was much too ugly for her to be left on her own again. Doubly so with her rest last night having been... strenuous. She rationally knew that one day she'd stop getting woken up by single raindrops impacting her shell, but that day sure hadn't come yet.

Ugly as the mountains from which she hailed from might've been, at least they weren't as permanently soggy as this place has been lately.

The Torkoal wasn't about to chase the Zoroark into the thick of the rain. Instead, she sighed out a plume of smoke as she inched herself further away from the nasty wetness, waiting for either him or Winnie to return.

"He go somewhere again!?"

"Yes."

At least food had arrived.

Ana looked up just in time to see the small berry be placed in front of her, immediately reaching to bite into it as Winnie sat beside her.

"Orion like, see pretty leaf, and chase chase chase, hmph."

"At least he happy."

As eccentric as Orion was, he had a charm to him, one the Breloom lacked so acutely that she wondered what did the Zoroark even see in him. On the other paw, she knew perfectly that her current crankiness wasn't helping either. Once life saw fit to finally give them all a break, they'd probably warm up to each other a decent bit.

Or, at least, so she hoped.

"He not happy ever!? He always smile, what world wrong he with!?"

The Torkoal was somewhat confident about what the Breloom had just said, but nowhere near as much as she wished she was. It would take time, much more than just the couple of moons they had all known each other for. Orion's weird, artificial language may have been awkward, but Ana knew that the significance of what it made possible was so much more important than her personal gripes.

Stilted as it was, it had still allowed her to find community and friendship outside the confines of her tribe's bigotry. Even if they all were to never amount to anything more than what they've already been through, she still had the Zoroark to thank for saving her from being forcibly assigned a mate or another.

And for that alone, she was more than willing to put up with any of his quirks.

"If choice always annoyance and always cheer, I know what I choose-"

*awwwwoooOOOOO!*

The howl hit them both like a Brick Break to the face; the brief confusion soon turned into a worried resolve. Neither of them had known him for long enough to truly know whether it was unlike Orion, but what they knew was that it worried them. Then again, disguising and getting away was the easiest thing in the world for him, and that sure didn't sound like a distress call-

But before Ana could give it all any more thought, she found herself suddenly lifted and carried right into the rain.

"WINNIE, WHAT ARE-"

"HE CALL FOR HELP!"

"NO, HE N-"

"WE COME NOW, ORION!"

The Torkoal's world had turned into a blur of browns and greens as hundreds of freezing stings barraged her body. Each of the Breloom's leaping steps had her wince, the sheer vertigo threatening to either make her erupt, throw up, or both. Right as she was about to lose the last of her composure, though, everything came to a stop, followed by her being clumsily placed on a soaked patch of grass.