Warrior Eevees #2: Pearl's Shadow

19- The Name

"Ready for tonight?" Reed asked.

"Definitely," Pearl nodded to the older Vaporeon.

Season cycles had slid by. Pearl could not remember the Lake Tribe being so happy or peaceful, or maybe she had just felt happier and more peaceful than she ever had before. Things had happened to the Lake Tribe, of course. But there had been no challenge Pearl had not felt prepared to meet, with her Tribemates at her side.

Shore, for example, had left the Tribe only a few moon cycles after the Mightyena had been driven off. She had simply left on patrol one day, north through the Wildlands, without saying goodbye. Pearl had sent patrols to look for her, but there was no scent, no pawprints. If she had been attacked, there would have been blood found. She must have swum away on her own power.

Pearl never knew quite how to feel about this. On one paw, she had lost her other sister. But on the other paw, her relationship with Shore had never quite been like her relationship with Leap.

"I just don't understand," she had sighed while fishing on the shore with Silent. "I never figured out what I did to her, and now I don't think I ever will."

Silent had stuck his foreleg into the water, fishing for a particularly plump Finneon he had spotted, narrowing his eyes in thought.

"I don't think you did anything to her," he had sighed. "I think she just was just jealous of how much attention you got."

"Attention?" Pearl asked.

"If you haven't noticed, Pearl, your fur is a little unusual," Silent pointed out. "And you always got along with Leap better than she did, and then you saved her life and after that Geyser wanted to be your friend, and everyone thought he would be the next Tribe leader. But then you became the Tribe leader instead. You've had an eventful life, Pearl."

"I always wanted to get along with Shore," Pearl stated. "I never wanted this."

"Like I said. It wasn't your fault. Plus..." Silent spent another long moment digging through the mud with his paws. "Shore didn't get along with anyone."

"Why not?" Pearl pried, hoping her friend would have the answers.

"I don't know, Pearl. Maybe she was too busy being angry at you to focus on anyone else. Maybe she saw everyone as competition. Maybe she just... Didn't."

"Do you think she's happy now?"

"I don't know. I don't think she could ever be happy in a Tribe, though."

Pearl remembered every moment of the conversation and turned it over and over in her head when she was trying to sleep at night over the moon cycles. She had spent so long berating and beating herself over her relationship with her sister that it seemed almost impossible that it could possibly not have been her fault. But Silent was so good with Pokémon...

You've had an eventful life, Pearl, he had said.

Maybe that was why she was so peaceful now. Less 'events.'

Things continued to change, of course. They always did. Floe had her kittens. The Forest Tribe sent a patrol to their camp, requesting that the border be moved with a veiled threat. It had been a warm spring day. The ice on the lake had broken. The Forest Tribe's pelts had clung to their ribs. Their legs had trembled.

"The Lake Tribe does not hunt land prey, certainly not in the springtime," Hollyhock had said in a strong, steady voice. "It is wasted territory."

Geyser had been sitting beside Pearl as he often was, and the ridge along his spine had lifted. He had thrown Pearl a very sharp glance, obviously willing her to protest.