Pokemon Fan Fiction / Pokemon Fan Fiction ❯ Charon's Pursuit ❯ A Model Female ( Chapter 8 )

Lily and Calien did not know what to make of it all.

Charon had waded back to shore, his paws bloodied and marred. His plan had backfired. The pichu, her face a ghostly white, was now so terrified of him that she even feared the idea of running away, lest she were to invoke the raichu’s wrath. All she could do was hang limp in Charon’s grasp, paralyzed by terror, glaring into his olive eyes.

The raichu lowered the pichu down to the ground, near the shore of the lake, and released her from his grip. “Sit here for now,” he spoke softly, his tone tainted by the pain festering in his paws. The Pichu said nothing in reply. She looked down to the ground, her chest tightening, the knot in her throat preventing any utterance. Lily, her pity for the pichu grown astronomically, attempted to approach the offspring, her mind tumbling over itself as it contemplated how on earth the maiden vulpix could soothe the pichu’s suffering. Calien, meanwhile, became quite upset with Charon, and berated him as he staggered off to a tree, out of view of Lily and the pichu, and sat against its bark. The raichu seemed detached from the material world as he licked clean his tender wounds.

“Charon! What on earth just happened there?” The male fox spoke, “Are you insane!? You stand there and let that offspring tear the flesh on your paws like some masochist, then you scare the living daylights out of her with a primal scream!? I do not have offspring of my own…yet…but I do know that is no way to earn trust, no matter how old the creature is!”

Charon said nothing, continuing to lick his own wounds.

“You are not even listening to me, are you?” Calien remarked, “Are you really that close-minded? Do you not realize that you are fueling the very stereotype that makes raichus like yourself eternal loners? You did not have to act as though you were on your own! Lily and I could have helped! You did not have to resort to intimidation!”

Charon finished up tending to his wounds. “My blood…is very bitter,” He muttered. He lifted his head and turned to look at Calien. The male fox was nearly struck speechless: Tears were rolling down the cheeks of Charon’s face.

“I have an idea,” Charon whispered slowly, trying but failing to fully suppress his wavering tone, “How about you assume that I already feel bad about it so that you don’t have to rub it in anymore? I had no intention to scare the goddamn pichu…things just went horribly wrong…ok? I’d say sorry if I could…but I don’t think she will…forgive me.”

The male fox sighed, feeling somewhat guilty himself. “What are you going to do now?” He asked, taking a seat next to the raichu.

“I don’t know,” Charon admitted, “I just don’t know. I don’t think I can go back to square one.”

“I suppose not,” Calien lamented.

Charon held up his wounded paws. They still festered with a bit of pain. “I’ve screwed things up for myself AND for that pichu. She’s not going to trust anyone now. She’ll never let me find her mother so I’ll never be able to find a female.”

“Are you going to migrate, then?” Calien asked.

“Maybe…but I have no idea where to go. I’ve only lived in the wild for a few months…and like hell I’d go back to where I used to be.”

“You were once in captivity?” Calien inquired curiously.

“Huh, I’d thought you’d assume that already,” Charon remarked.

“Give me some credit! I am knowledgeable enough to know that not all raichus in the wild had lived as former captives, as rare as it is.” The male fox said.

“That’d be a safe assumption, anyway.”

“I guess.”

More silence. Charon rested his paws upon his body. Calien sighed again.

“At this rate Lily and I will never get to copulate,” the male fox spoke sadly.

“Ugh…I’m really sorry about that,” Charon said.

“It is not your fault,” Calien explained. “It is her nature to care about offspring so much. In captivity she used to wet-nurse the offspring put in her box and cared for them as though they were her own. She was never allowed to have a mate, however…she was a model female, assumed to be a mother, for the humans to admire through glass-a visual perfection of the vulpine species. I suppose for her to lose her virginity would have tainted her image in their eyes.”

Charon began to grow uneasy, thoughts of the incident in the cave plucking at strands of guilt. He distracted himself by inquiring more about the fox’s history. “How did you get to know her?”

“I was born and raised as a pet for an aristocratic family. I met Lily for the first time when my former owner had taken me for a walk one morning in the summer. Seeing her beauty had set my heart racing, and my owner saw how I had fallen head-over-heels for her- if the season was spring I would’ve lost all control and begged to be her mate right through the glass.” Calien blushed, still feeling embarrassed about it, but continued. “The two of us went into the store and, much to my joy, my owner bought Lily for thrice her worth. At once we went home, Lily being carried in her box, and at the moment she was let out of her box to make herself home in the estate, I set out to woo her and court her to be my mate.

“Lily, at first, was very shy, perhaps even frightened of me, while I was a nervous wreck, my every action scrutinized and berated by me. Neither of us had spoken to the opposite sex before. Eventually, however, we gained each other’s trust, and we were set to bring forth our offspring in the mating season by the time winter came around. But then, Lily and I came to the realization that our litters would be taken away from us to be pets for other humans. The thought of bearing offspring only to lose them horrified Lily, so we made the hard decision to escape from the estate and stake out a living in the wild. We could not have chosen a worse time to leave our sheltered lives, however.

“Winter was very hard for us. The nights were cold, the food scarce (and hard-to-earn), and the fellow inhabitants very dangerous. For the longest time we had scraped a living without knowing of the fire we could expel from our muzzles. More than once we came close to an untimely end. Were it not for the few creatures that actually lent aid and conventional wisdom, we would have died tragically. But, as you can see, Lily and I managed to survive.
“Lily…I think the experience in the wild has made her stronger. It has made me stronger, as well. We have survived against the odds, and have become so dedicated to each other that I would not trade Lily for anything. But in a sense, she is still frail. I believe she is still nervous about the act of mating itself, especially ever since that time a broken arcanine attempted to force himself on her. Such a majestic, towering creature, reduced to such a perverse monstrosity…were it not for the thug, I am sure we would be mating regularly by now. But now, with that pichu in such a state of distress…I do not know…maybe I should be more stern-”

“No, Calien,” Charon suddenly interrupted, his tone solemn, “Don’t try to push her to do anything. You’re not in a goddamn rush to get this over with.”

“It is not that!” Calien exclaimed, “If we do not mate before spring is over, our litters would be born in the cold of winter! They’d have no chance to survive, and losing them all would break Lily’s heart. And if we do not mate at all, then there is a problem I do not know of. I seriously believe Lily is still nervous about the act…I should persuade her, but I would not go so far as to coerce her, Charon. That would be wrong of me.”

Charon grinned. “You’re quite the gentleman, so to speak,” the raichu commented.

“Is that a compliment?”

Charon sighed. “Yes, Calien.”

“Thank you.” The male vulpix said happily.

More silence.

“Lily and the kid have been really damn quiet,” Charon realized, getting up upon his hindlegs.

“Knowing her, I would say she is trying to console the offspring,” Calien speculated, rising up upon his four legs as well.

“Yeah, but so quietly? No, she’s got to be doing something else. We’d at least hear them talking.”

“I do not think the pichu would ever be in the mood to talk,” Calien pointed out, “But we should check up on the two, anyway.”

“Right.”

Calien and Charon slowly walked back to the shore of the wake. They creeped up to where Lily and the Pichu was left behind. Then they saw them.

“Why am I not surprised?” Calien said, sighing. Charon could do nothing but stare in disbelief. Before him was something that he had never anticipated.

Lily was laying on her side, her eyes closed, her face expressing a unique calm. The pichu had cuddled up close to her, soothed by the comfort of her warm touch. The pichu felt so secure with lily that she already was suckling the maiden fox, enjoying the milk that the offspring had been denied for a long time. Lily had embraced her motherly instinct and treated the child as her own. She had gained the pichu’s trust.

There was no denying it now. It was exactly as Charon feared. Lily and Calien would not be leaving him for a long time. He now had to depend on the very female he hoped to avoid if he was ever going to find the other chus before the passing of spring.

The temptation of the broken in Charon was going to live on.