A New Begging

[kcx]

Whoosh! Whoosh Whoosh!

A small figure went flying through the trees, knocking rain drops off the leaves that hung on the trees. A few twigs broke under the creature's feet, plummeting to the damped ground. There seemed to have been a storm the night before, and water still seeping from some plants and other life less objects. A large branch made a loud boing!, and the creature went into the air, reviling him self in the new-dawning sun: a Treecko, it seemed, and a lone one at that.

How odd? some would think, seeing a lone Treecko such as this racing through the trees, seeming to not want any company with it. For as well, if you saw a Treecko or any evolved forms, there'd be a probable 99.9% chance they'd be in a pack, together, living their lives and protecting each other. But this one seemed to be the 1.9%, skidding to a stop at an Oran berry tree's roots.

"Finally," the Treecko muttered. "Something to eat. Trek, my boy, you've done your-self well." The Treecko, seeming to take the name Trek, leaped up into the tree from the ground, going onto the lowest branch. As he leaped to each, he knocked off Oran berries by the dozen, soon landing back on the ground, making a pile of about three dozen Oran berries. He sat in front of them, and quickly began munching along, looking up every so often to check for intruders and newcomer, wanting his hard-earned berries.

[Éclair]

ooc||Heh, I apologize for the length. Was kinda in the mood for detail. . . ^^;;||

The boughs that had become the foundation for the leafy canopy allowed only a mottled mixture of bleak little glowing yellow shapes to dapple the forest floor. Asphyxiated shafts of wan morning sunlight strained through the occasional rifts in the trees, casting gilded impressions over the tiers of earth and grass like the fragmented beam of some huge movie projector.

Orxler couldn’t help but think the sheltered area beneath the natural awning appeared very inconsistent, almost like a mismatched quilt. With each sidetracked step the smallish Gligar took, hazy arteries of light would glisten momentarily on the broad span of his backside, and he couldn’t help but feel a sense of overriding vulnerability whenever he took the time to observe his surroundings: closed in all around him as they were. (He wondered briefly how claustrophobes felt in heavily wooded areas such as this.)

Way dissimilar to where he lived back in the mountains, that was for certain. . .

Ceasing his strut, he paused to ponder this morning’s agenda. He found himself situated beside a copse of fat little plants, a myriad of spiky green fronds projecting like bad hairdos from their flat tops. Orxler vacantly observed the ambience as he remained there for a moment, standing half-in, half-out of a small isosceles of light. Lush grass flourished thickly beneath his feet. He fell into a kind of semi-trance, silently musing, not really listening to anything or watching anything but the lawn that spread about before him: an ever-so welcoming blanket of verdant enticement, and were it not for the dew-garnished ferns, he’d curl up right there like a infant and nap the afternoon away, asleep under the careful sentry of the trees and in the generous company of the copious tropical flowers. Abandoning the notion—the earth was too wet for his tastes—he angled his head back a bit, directing withered daylight at his face. His blinked his heavy-lidded eyes through the glow that bombarded his vision, catching flickering glimpses of the trees’ sinister black silhouettes meshed across the ashen morning blue—inexhaustibly deep and rich in color at its zenith but pallid like a sickness near the scope of the horizon.

The day was colder than he would have liked.

Orxler furrowed the clear-cut shape of his eyeridges; an impartial frown, broken at the center, creased his forehead squarely as he took an irritable gander at his surroundings.

The Gligar turned his livid gaze down, perturbed, to the grass before him. He lifted a single skinny leg, bringing his foot down hard in the grass and scattering fragile globules of dew that glistened like airborne diamonds before soaking into the already damp earth.
Darn weather. It had put him in a pretty grumpy mood already. . .

Plip.

Orxler growled in light frustration, triangular ears splaying rigidly on opposite sides of his rounded skull. Not exactly pleased by the idea of rainwater hitting him in the head. It was almost as if it had wanted to get even for his minor attack upon the grass.
A low snarl escaped him as he wide white, irritated eyes cast a scowl up at the treetops, wishing to terrorize whichever more raindrops from falling anyplace near him.

An obscure flurry of motion caught his eye, suddenly.

Something moved quickly overhead, passing through the branches and over and out of view, to his right. The Gligar blinked.

He guessed it to be a smaller Pokémon, out on an early morning forage. Probably wise of the guy, too. Orxler didn’t think a lot of predators were skulking about at such a time of the day. The slippery earth made it difficult for any to approach without some sort of noise to be made, or to be able stop oneself from slipping and falling flat on their tail.

The figure landed off to the side, then rustled about, doing something.

Orxler recognized the speckled grove of Oran Berry trees there, perking up attentively out of subtle interest for the stranger. He rocked forward up onto tip-toe, peeking through the breaks in the tall foliage to catch glimpse of this Pokémon. Too far away to see much.

Not intending to stalk theindividual in hopes of making a meal out of him, Orxler attempted the best silence manageable with his maladroit body shape—after all, Gligars were built for stealthy, silent glides through the air, not creeping about on foot through the brushwood.

Nearing a promising barrier of vegetation and garbled vines, Orxler ducked in the hospitable shade of the bush. He supported himself on his knees, powerful claws extended so his pinschers could grasp branches for balance through the net of budding stems and leaves. He distinguished a creature, nearly the same green as the backdrop. Leering forward to glance through the papery leaves, Orxler observed long enough to identify the stranger.

A Treecko, eh? Not too exceptionally bizarre.

Except. . .

Hmmm. Interesting of the little bugger to be out an’ about so early in the morn. Wasn’t there a herd he should be getting to? Especially without parents supervising nearby?

Orxler contemplated the incidence briefly, hunkering down amidst the entangled mass of shrubs that bordered the small clearing, in order to avoid being spotted.

Maybe the Treecko was one of those rebellious, overbearing adolescent twerps that fled the evil clutches of dear mummie and dadums to escape restriction, or something. . . Or he could possibly be alone?

Huh, Orxler wouldn’t call that too pleasant. Someone his size shouldn’t be running around in this area without someone at least to make sure he wasn’t in any danger.

Eh, well, it was the little guy’s choice. No stopping him from doing what he wanted.

But Orxler felt in mood for some company. Although he could easily make a snack out of a pipsqueak his size, he wasn’t too thrilled with the prospect of something that moved faster than he did. Orxler wasn’t a fast climber that could speed from perch to perch, or an exceedingly adept sprinter or anything. And there was hardly any room to glide; in other words, not a lot of space to give chase. So. . . Yup, he was going to be a lazy ass and socialize with what could have been breakfast.

Oh, how his parents would have been proud!

Orxler cleared his throat, rising up onto his feet so his head poked out of the bushes that lined the small glade.

“Hey, sticky-fingers!” he called aloud, the harmless nickname meant no more than to, what. . . humor the little guy? There was a somewhat amused tenor in the Gligar’s voice, as he inwardly laughed at his own lack of incentive; he grinned, literally from ear to ear, exposing an array of dagger-like teeth that could have otherwise been considered threatening if it weren’t for his ridiculously non-threatening smile.

The Gligar stepped out of his covering, pausing as soon as he had exposed himself and lifting his large claws up in front of him as a way of expressing his lackadaisical attitude toward causing the Treecko harm. “I come in peace, or. . . whatever you may call it,” he chuckled affably, standing up straight as his shoulders heaved with his own hearty burst of laughter. “Oh, pardon my rude entrance there, buddy, but. . . Mind sharing some of those Oran berries there with another friendly famished Pokémon?”

Orxler was well aware that his approach was among those most anomalous for his species, but he didn’t need guidelines in order to make friends, if not meals. But again, he wasn’t hear to take a life for the sake of food. Simply, he wanted a nice tolerable guy to chat with, on this. . . less tolerable day.

[kcx]

Large eyes caught movment as a figure rose from the shadows, a voice disracting from his hunger and the oran berries that sat in front of him. Who was this guy? And what did want from such a Pokemon such as him self? Some Pokemon could be so weird. But yet, that's how it would be in the world. Just as Shift hade said to him long ago.

"It depends," Treck said calmly to the other Pokemon, trying to hold his anger and his words in his throat. "What do you want? Shouldn't you be off some where, foreging with your clan or what?" His nose wrinkled a bit, then took another bit of an oran berry.

Shouldn't he be off somewhere? the young gras type wondered. After all, he hade see many Gligar in groups, for some whee very small. He hae met a clan of them once. Got to spend the night with them during a harsh winter storm. They were very nice. This one on the other hand seemed not.

[Éclair]

Orxler sniffed inertly at the reproachful guise behind those words. He could tell right then and there that this guy wasn’t in the frame of mind for some friendly-friend-neighborhood-stranger tête-à-tête.

Allowing his breathe to flow restfully from his nose, the Gligar rolled his head back and gazed over shrewdly to the young Treecko, almost brokenly like the lifeless head of a ragdoll lolling to the side. The posture was simply meant to establish an imposing angle of sorts, and to show he wasn’t fazed with the apparent distaste in the grass type Pokémon’s words. His dark pupils flared, seeming to elongate and stretch vertically with the credible ascension of his cheekbones; his wide bright eyes yielded to the gratification in his features, curving upward in the shape of his high-raised eyeridges.

“Foraging? With a clan? Ehh, no thanks there, pal!” Orxler chortled blithely, his broad grin—full of serrated teeth and yet, an intrinsic sense of sociability—lengthening yet another exceptional meter across the width of his jaws, curling up at one end in a debatably sound simper. “That whole. . . groupie kinfolk-clan thing. . . isn’t exactly designed for an individual such as m'self. Heh, don’t get me wrong or nuthin’: I’m no outcast. Or anywhere near that livelihood. I’m simply unaccompanied. . . Ehhh, somewhat more along the lines of a hermit; and a hungry one at that.”

He finished with an unreserved bit of laughter. There. How’s that depend, ay boy-scout? He quickly kept the reflection to himself. Not intending to insult the Treecko’s introverted behavior anytime soon, he only continued to grin, and slowed his laughter to a halt. The thought had just kinda popped up in his head; Orxler couldn’t help if half of himself was always disagreeing with somebody. He cleared his throat a little, casting a generous look to the smallish stranger. “Sooo, that justifiable enough for you, greenie? Would that make me at least entitled to one ripe Oran berry or two now?”

He truthfully didn’t care much, if the answer was no. Would it matter if he were denied the right to snack on another character’s hard-earned foodstuff? Not really. If the kid wanted him gone, or simply got up and left without warning, Orxler would leave and just continue on with his day, as if nothing had happened. Not too disappointed by a minor letdown. In honest, he would appreciate the prospect of company if things turned out well. Only anyone normal, such as himself, would dare deviate from the routine occupation of a solitary being every once in a while.