...Since it's a sad, cold, wet Sunday, inspiration led to an appropriate piece. It's been a while since I did a simplified picture at my own behest, so I did exactly that. It's good for these feels pieces.

And speaking of appropriate, whenever I've done one of these watercoloured pieces for Chai, I've accompanied it with a little lore release, so...



The little hat sat in the rain. The little Umbreon sat nearby. They both withered slowly under the onslaught, cardboard and fur both waterlogging, slowly...

He couldn't read it, but he knew what it meant. He had heard the people singing earlier in the day. So many happy sounds... so many smells of such delicious food... and his lean gut had ached at him, screamed at him to feed. They had so much... and he had so little... He had considered approaching them then... but no, too dangerous. He'd had too many things thrown at him and had to escape too many trainers to want to risk it. The life of a stray was dangerous.

So here he was, sitting on the cobblestones, sheltering from the rain, trying to marshall his underfed, faltering body to survive just a few hours more... hoping that the people would throw out some scraps of edible food, and soon.

And wondering. Wondering what it must be like. Warm houses, happy faces, good food... He was sure he had that, once, if not for very long.

He had only the dimmest memories of sheltering in a beautiful Flareon's fur, in a wonderful house. Safe and dry. He hadn’t known the importance of those two things back then. He’d taken them for granted.

But that hadn't lasted very long. That Flareon was unwell. Her warmth was a little less, every day. A man had said in words that the little Eevee had barely understood that she should have never laid that unwanted egg.

And then one day that beautiful Flareon was gone. And there was only the angry man. And fear.

And the anger and the fear had grown faster than he had and as little as he was, he'd had to run away.

He wondered when his birthday was...

...but knowing now what it had cost him, he realised he didn't want to know.


Any characters not credited to other authors here are mine. The Café Plaisir setting is currently run by the talented:
 Dark_Violet

Café Plaisir was originally created by:
 PaliBakuFun
To whom we're all ever grateful for this fun facility of filth.

For a full, chronological timeline including all shorts and related stories for Cafe Plaisir: October's Jaunt, Road Trip and Year of October's, click here!