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I lay still on my pure white cushion. Nion was several feet away, and I didn't like it. I put it into terms that he almost apologised for what had happened before, but why would he do that? I couldn't put the pieces together. The constant aching of my back leg didn't help my mind but I sighed in defeat. Whatever was going on, I couldn't figure it out. Yet.

I continued to watch Nion before me, the bulb on the end of his tail swaying from side to side slowly, his breathing slow and steady. It was almost as if he wanted to sleep then and there, but it was still early morning. Or at least that's what I assumed from my brief walk outside. The sun was always blocked out by the skyscrapers that ran along the streets and roads on which I travelled down to reach the trainer's home. Home. As uncomfortable as it was, I missed my cave at the foot of MountCoronet. Being able to do nothing all day but watch the world go by. From the rumours I had heard was that trainers always wanted to battle each other to see who was the better of the other. I found such a thing barbaric at times. Pokémon fighting in the wild was usually either for food, shelter or pride. While trainers fighting their pokémon, who was really getting the pride out of winning? One of the many battles I had overlooked was when a Pikachu trainer went out hunting the Staravias. I counted the number that fell that day at over forty, until the trainer had tired out his Pikachu to exhaustion. The poor little mouse could barely stand up let alone walk back to the trainer's side. Although I did want to commend them for allowing me some silence for several months, yes, I believed that the Staravia population was out of control at times. But the slaughter that day was overkill.

Snapping back into reality I realised that the trainer was holding a small bowl, trying to get my attention with it. "- hungry?" Was the last word I picked up. "Unfortunately I haven't been able to buy another bowl for you, so you're going to have to share with Nion for the time being."

Share? What does he think I am? A common mutt? I placed my head in the cross of my paws and watched as Nion turned around to the bowl of brown lumps that was placed between our beds. As much as I didn't want to do it, I looked over the Luxray before me, since I was going to be living with it for a while, I may as well get to know what I was dealing with.

Nion, as he was called, seemed just like any other typical Luxray I had seen before. Pointed red nose, spiked back mane, blue streak that ran from both ears to the bridge of his nose, and the star-shaped ball that sat on the end of his tail. Typical.

"Are you going to eat something?" He asked me, continuing to nibble at the food between us. I stayed still for a moment, still admiring the plainness of his physique. "Why are you staring at me like that?"

Something I hadn't noticed, however, was his voice. It was low and rough, it was easy to tell that he hadn't lived an easy life like I had. "What if I'm not hungry?" I lied, wanting to keep as much between us as possible. Despite what he may've said earlier, I still didn't like him.

"If you say so." The male then turned back to the food, not wasting any more time talking to me. Exactly the way I wanted it.

Silence, exactly the way I liked it. I examined the room again, finding nothing that I didn't before. My captor had disappeared into another room leaving me alone with Nion. I wonder how long it would take him to figure out if he was going to name me.

I felt my stomach rumble, it felt like I hadn't eaten in days, but I wouldn't degrade myself to eating the lumps of brown stuff before me. Unfortunately for me, Nion was persistent.

"It doesn't sound like you're not hungry." He said softly, as if not wanting to sound offensive.

What is wrong with him? Less than a few days ago he wanted to rip my throat out, and now he's trying to... Something... "Why do you care anyway?" I wanted to know what he was up to.

Nion swallowed what mouthful he had left. "Because since we have to live together, I may as well try some pleasantries. But if you want to continue on despising me, then just tell me now, so I can stop trying." It was strange, he was only trying to endure what he is forced to go through, much like what I was. "So, you can either agree that it is for the better and forget whatever reasons you hate me for, or, you can continue like you are, and make both our lives a living hell."

He was so much like his master. But he, at least, was honest. I lifted my head up from my forepaws and sniffed the air. As much as I hated to admit it, the brown lumps did hold an intoxicating aroma. "Are there any berries around?" I asked, not wanting to even try what was before me.

Nion just looked at me, then glanced out towards the cluster of other rooms if not only for a second, then turned back to me. "No."

"So I'm forced to eat... 'That'?" I asked in return.

"Just because it looks bad, doesn't mean it tastes bad." Nion picked a ball up in his maw, and placed on the edge of my cushion. "Try one."

I looked at the lump for a moment, but as I shifted on my pillow it rolled towards me. I personally didn't want to touch it, not just because it looked bad, but because Nion had given it to me. Sure, it was probably a friendly gesture, after all we only had to be friendly to survive, but I thought it was a bit much. I flicked the ball with one of my forelegs, sending it straight back into the bowl.

Nion laughed slightly at my actions. "Nice shot." He said softly.

I scoffed at his lame attempt at a joke and turned away, not wanting anything more to do with the strange food. "Leave me alone." I responded. There were much worse things I wanted to say to him at that point in time, but, in the interest of making life just an inch more liveable, I refrained from speaking any further.

"Suit yourself." There was a slight pause where no sound was heard. "I'll leave you some if you ever change your mind." It was then that I heard the Luxray turn around himself and face his back towards me. I lay facing the dull cream-white wall, wishing that yesterday, or today... Whenever I was found, never came.

I lay still for several minutes, feeling my hunger become more and more noticeable with each passing moment. But, I was almost at peace once more. I dreamt of laying on the cliff-face just a five minute walk from my home, my old home. How much did I miss the whipping winds, the dreadful calls of the countless birds, the feeling of thick grass underneath my paws. A feeling of emptiness ran through me, one that wasn't hunger, but one that seemed to indicate that my life of solitude and silence was over. That I actually now had something to do. That something was going to happen. I felt my mind explore the regions of my mind that I usually held as empty space. I had lived one year of my life in nothing, and I almost knew that a change was going to occur. Like it was fate that I was found and random luck that I now happen to be a Pokémon bound to a master, running that last part through my mind over and over still made me feel sick. No, wait. That was my hunger.

I growled to myself for being so superstitious, like this never would've happened if I ignored the fact that I knew something was going to happen. I would give anything to have my old life back, but, that just wasn't going to happen. I was stuck here, with a Luxray that almost agreed to hating my guts, but played civil because he had to, and with a trainer that supposedly 'wanted' to find one of my kind. Wait, why would a human want to have an Absol? That, I wanted to find out.

"Nion?" I wondered what kind of response I would receive from him. But, to my surprise, almost immediately I heard a rustling and felt his eyes look into the back of my head.

"What is it?"

His action took me by complete surprise, almost as if h wanted to talk to me. But I shrugged the thought off, hoping that I had only taken him by surprise. "When we were fighting, yesterday?" I still had no idea. "You said something about your 'master' wanting to capture one of my kind." I turned my head around, only to catch his eyes staring straight at me, but once again, I ignored it, not wanting to create an argument with the one I had to live with. "Was that true?"

The Luxray took a deep breath and sighed, leaving me to think that there was bad news to come. But what bad could come from this? "Yes, it was."

"Yes, it was... What?" I asked.

"It was true. My master has been hunting and searching and I don't know what else to find one of you. I personally don't know what the big deal was about it. But ever since he'd heard about your kind when we started just over a year ago, I know that he's always been looking for an Absol."

"So, did he catch you a year ago?"

"No, he hatched me from an egg. I am but a year old yet I have already evolved to my final state. Sure, it was tough at times, but he always took care of me." He stopped for a moment to let everything sink in. "Although he had only been searching for a year, I could tell that he was losing hope. We came close once, high up in the mountains when he spotted one, only to watch as it bounded away into a wall of snow. Yesterday was going to be his final search for one, we were headed up the mountainside once more when I found you."

It felt strange to me that he was sharing so much information. Although now I knew that he was only just older than I was, and that his master became obsessed with my kind ever since he started as a trainer, and that Nion and I had lived completely contrasting opposite lives. But I was still puzzled by one thing. "How did you find me? My cave was out of sight through the rocky mountainside. You couldn't have seen me because I made sure I was completely hidden from sight on the inside."

"That would be my fault. As we didn't want to go through the caves again, we decided to climb up the side of the mountain. Sure, it would take a few extra days to get up and back, but we came well pre-"

"Just answer the question. How did you find me?" I had almost grown tired of his rambling. I had to admit, it was nice to have some company that wasn't myself, but it was as if Nion hadn't talked to another Pokémon in months.

"I found you because of how you lived your life."

"And what would you know about my life?"

"Because you spent most of your time sitting on the cliff face that we walked along, it was easy to pick up your scent trail."

"Wait, my what?" This clearly disturbed the Luxray, who immediately seemed reluctant to continue with his story, despite the abrupt ending. He turned away back to his previous position, his back facing me. I had no idea on what he had just said, but it seemed to be the key to how I lost my home and life. I made it to my feet, only to collapse back onto the cushion from exhaustion. I truly was hungry.

I sniffed at the bowl of brown lumps once more, finding the alluring scent to be all the more enticing despite what my mind said. I had no choice, it was either eat that, or starve. And I hated the feeling of starvation more than ignorance. I wanted to get answers out of Nion, but it would have to wait until later. Food was the first thing on my mind.

I reached out towards the bowl and picked up one of the lumps with two claws. The ball felt like it was going to break apart with the small amount of pressure that I had on it. I didn't want to think about what might've been in it, but I guess that if Nion wasn't dying from it, neither would I. Desperation had become high on my list of sustenance, so I was more than willing to try anything, once.

As I placed the ball in my mouth, it felt like nothing I had eaten before. It was like a moist less berry that tasted better than anything. I couldn't explain what it was about the lump, but, it was deliciously different, and so I shuffled closer to the bowl once more and started eating the food like Nion had done before me. I didn't care about anything but the food. Although I did feel a little bit off having to eat from the same bowl as Nion had, but that feeling quickly passed until I found the food gone, and my huger satisfied.

I glanced at the back of Nion, only to see that he was laughing, if not only slightly. "What are you laughing at?" I asked defensively.

"I told you they were good." Was all he said in return, this time though, he restrained from turning around to look at me.

I rolled my eyes at him, Nion being completely oblivious to it, but I would push him for answers on the previous topic. "So? What did you say allowed you to find-"

"Nion?" The trainer called, silencing me instantly. "Can you come here for a minute?"

The Luxray immediately bounded to his feet and headed towards where the voice had come from, leaving me alone on my bed. At least I felt at home with nothing around. I sighed. He knew something that I didn't like, it was how he said it... My 'scent' what is that and how could he find me from it? The questions were eating me up from the inside and I wanted answers. For once, though, it felt strange asking someone else for answers to questions that I never thought about. I had always known the differences between males and females, but only so much is filled in by instinct. I knew that there was more to it than what I knew, but the rest, would have to be taught by someone other than myself.

I lay there for what had to be minutes, wondering what Nion and my capturer were doing in the other room. Although Nion had spent his entire life by the trainer's side, I had spent mine with none other than me. I couldn't imagine how close they had become. It was unnerving to say the least, but I couldn't help but feel alone once more. The only way I had grown up knowing.

After another while, Nion emerged from the other room in a somewhat different mentality. Although he was eager to get away from me at first, it was almost as if he wanted to get back to his bed faster than he left. I was confused beyond anywhere I previously had been, but, when the trainer followed Nion out of the room was when I understood why the Luxray was moving at a fairly swift pace.

Nion lay down gently onto his cushion as the trainer picked up the now empty bowl of food and disappeared around the corner once more. I had had enough of talking. I knew that Nion knew things that I didn't, but I'm sure that he couldn't tell me how to live out in the wilderness without a pile of the brown things that he calls food. But I knew that he wasn't going to share the answer to my question, so I just left it be. I would ask again eventually. Soon enough so that he would still have the same answer, yet I would wait long enough for him to think that I had forgotten. He would be trapped.

I turned away from Nion, not wanting to spend any more time idly talking about why he was called to the other room. If it was something remotely important his answer would be 'nothing', which would then force my mind into question time on what he really was doing. But if it wasn't actually something that needed addressing, he would ramble on for what I could only assume would be hours. Either way, it wasn't worth my time.

I stared blankly into the cream coloured wall once more. Leaving me to think about what my life would turn into if this was all I was to be doing. If I would spend my entire life lying on a cushion talking to the answer that wouldn't speak, it was much like my life before, only that the answer had changed from being impossible to retrieve, to being held by an ignorant Pokémon that wouldn't stop rambling about nothing.

My life had been slow before, but now it was turning ridiculous. Although I had said more words in the hour I had been in this house than my entire existence, I still believed that nothing good was to come from it. So I wasn't bored alone anymore, now I had Nion to keep me company, as much of a help that he is anyway. But still, I was yet to test if his mind could outstretch mine. Although I had spent all my life doing nothing but thinking, it was something I had become good at. Although he had spent his life fighting and evolving, it would be difficult to tell if something important was ever going to come up. I question his actions, but all I received was words.

I sighed once more, wishing that I was amongst the grass and fresh air of my old home. But now nothing swept past me, nothing ran through my fur, nothing allowed me to feel free. I was trapped in a world that I didn't know, that I never wanted to know. A world that was different. And that wasn't going to change anytime soon.