Muse the Umbreon [Inactive]

Muse started life off on a relatively bad note.  His mother, who belonged to a trainer who wanted nothing to do with an infant Pokémon to raise, promptly tossed the baby out into the streets of Snowpoint City, leaving him to fend for himself with not even a name to call his own.  Though so young, this incident would forever scar the youngster with a terror of abandonment.

The baby struggled to survive the bleak, cold life he had been thrust into with no warning.  There was nothing to eat, unless you dug it out of the garbage, and even then angry humans sometimes threw things at you for it.  He was ready to just give up one night as he was sitting on one of the piers of the city and staring at the water below, but a Herdier whose Unovian trainer had abandoned him at the city while visiting stopped the youngster.  He told the shivering child that life was not meaningless; if he was here, it was for a reason.  That reason would bring some light into his world, some happiness, some peace.  All he needed was someone willing to help him find it... and the dog then nudged over with his nose a sandwich as an invitation.

The Eevee jumped on the chance.  For the next few years, life grew wonderful.  Sure, the place was perpetually cold, it was true that sometimes they couldn’t find shelter or enough to eat, but the Herdier was the big brother that the Eevee never knew he’d wanted.  Gentle, comforting, encouraging, but firm, the canine treated the little one as he would his own.  The two searched for their reasons for being alive together, but Herdier (or Herdy, as he asked to be called) never rushed anything.  Just take your time, he would tell his charge, and the answer will come.

And Muse was content with that.  Until the day Herdy ate food even his stomach couldn’t handle, and died from food poisoning in little than under two days, only a week after Muse’s thirteenth birthday.

The death had been tragic, sudden, and just plain senseless.  For weeks Muse wandered the streets in shock, unable to accept that Herdy was gone.  The shock turned to rage: where was his reason!?  Why hadn’t it ever revealed itself!?  It had cheated him!  And then the rage dissolved, and there was nothing but loneliness and depression so crushing that the Eevee couldn’t move.  He simply sat down in the entrance to an alleyway, flopped over, and gave up.  There was no point in fighting anymore.

He was near death when the face of a little human boy bundled in a bright red snow parka loomed into view.  When he woke it was at the Pokécenter, and the Eevee was set to run the second he realized this.

Then the boy rolled in on his wheelchair, and the Eevee stared at all the tanks on the back of the wheelchair that were keeping him alive.  Herdy’s phrase of “everything happens for a reason” floated back to him, and as the boy rolled up to him and began to stroke his fur, then began to cry to his mother about how thin and sick the Eevee was, the young Pokémon realized that maybe, in a way, this really was meant to be.  So he closed his eyes, sighed, and let go of the little dignity he had left to allow the humans to treat him.

Andy took to coming to the Center every day, and often would sit with the sick Eevee for hours, writing quietly in his book while stroking him, or sometimes quietly talking to him.  It was then that Muse earned his name, for Andy commented that he always wrote better when Muse was around, as if the little Eevee gave him ideas without even trying.  When it was time to return home Andy insisted that Muse ride in his wheelchair, sitting on his lap, and he hugged the fluffball all the way home.

Andy’s elder sister Helen was delighted that her lonely brother had a friend at last.  She knew he was often excluded or mocked by his age group for the diseases they couldn’t understand, were afraid to learn more about.  To ensure that no one would ever again bother her brother, she began to help Andy train Muse.  The two adored the hour a day that Andy’s big sis would spend with them to help them train, and each day Muse recovered from his heartache a little bit more.  Gone were the days he would shiver in an empty box in an alleyway alone.  He now got to sleep in Andy’s bed, and became so attuned to the human that if anything went even slightly off with his machines at night, the Eevee would be instantly awake and in his parents’ room to wake them up.

But although Andy’s own emotional wounds began to heal, his body’s health would fluctuate.  One night Andy was rushed to the hospital.  He’d all but stopped breathing; his muscles were badly spasming.  The boy’s parents, sister, and Muse spent a horrifying ten hours in the waiting room, afraid of what may have become of the boy.  When at last they were allowed to see him, the situation looked bleak.  He was in some sort of coma, and the doctors feared he would either pass away or would never regain consciousness.  

Andy opening his eyes again, almost three weeks later, was one of the two factors that triggered Muse’s evolution.  The second was the open window, which allowed the moonlight in.

Half a year later, when Andy’s condition finally stabilized again, he and Muse resumed Muse’s training.  With his evolution came the option to learn new TMs, and Helen taught Muse two TMs.  It was the very next day when he was forced to use his knowledge and skill for real; he and Andy had decided to go rent some movies from the movie rental place around the corner to watch that evening and two teenagers decided they wanted Andy’s money.  They never expected an invalid to have a Pokémon who would fight tooth and claw for his trainer and Muse personally felt they were lucky they got out of their with their hides intact.

It was at that moment that he realized something.  As Andy hugged him, and cried because he’d been frightened, but also because they were now safe, Muse realized that Herdy had been right all along.  Here was his reason, right here.  Andy, Helen, Helen’s Pokémon, the humans’ parents... but especially Andy.  Andy had needed someone.  Muse had needed someone.  And they completed each other.  They had existed for each other.  With a start, Muse realized what Herdy’s reason must have been; the canine had been there for Muse, to guide him so that one day, this moment would be possible.  As he sat there in his trainer’s lap, snuggled into him, letting the boy cry into his fur, Muse felt that, finally, he was where he belonged.  He was at peace with himself.  And somewhere, in that place called the afterlife, Herdy, too, was at peace.

As a reward for saving their son, Andy’s parents bought two braclets.  One made out of a Dusk Stone, for Muse.  The other made out of a Shiny Stone, for their son.  His mother explained that there was an old tale that when two people who were very close each wore one of the bracelets, it meant that they had an unbreakable bond, and they would always find their way back to one another.

Andy and Muse brought one another out of their shells.  And as the  years went on, the two were so close, so in sync, that they merely needed to look at one another to get their point across to each other.  Though never the social butterfly that Andy turned out to be, Muse proved to be a very sensitive and well-tuned to the emotions of others, able to read body language very well and act accordingly.  His gentle nature earned him a few close friends; though one of them was from Helen’s team, two of them came from the houses next door.  

Andy’s condition continued to improve.  He had a home.  He had family, and friends, and felt as if he belonged.  Life was perfect.  But of course, the epidemic shattered that, just as it did with everyone else.

Muse had noticed something was wrong; the humans refused to turn on the television or listen to the radio.  They were silent mostly, and Andy clutched him as if afraid he would leave.  Muse did not know what had upset Andy so badly but remained loyally at his side, determined to soothe the young boy, who spent more time than ever in his room, writing his poetry.

In the middle of the night, Muse woke up, having heard a noise.  Confused, as not even Helen’s Cacturne was awake at this time of night, he went downstairs to investigate.  What he found made him scream in terror; a Fearow, feathers greasy and bloody, was walking around their kitchen.  And when he saw Muse, lunged.  At the same time, horrific screams echoed upstairs.

Muse could attest that he had never run so fast in his life.  He bolted, practically flying back up the stairs, and was greeted by Andy’s mother being devoured alive by a flock of undead Pidgey while Andy’s father surely suffering the same fate inside the bedroom.  Muse threw a shadow ball at the birds but the ones who weren’t killed on impact paid no mind.  With a half scream, half sob, Muse ran past the scene to Andy’s bedroom, just in time to see Helen with her Gardevoir teleporting away with Andy... leaving him behind.

Having little choice as the birds closed in, the Umbreon leaped out the window, thankfully breaking his fall with a thick bush.  He ran for the forest, running all day and night before hiding himself in a hollowed out tree, finally passing out.

The next day he returned and found that the two friends next door to him had perished along with their trainers.  The city was swarming with the undead and a heartbroken Muse had no choice but to leave.  If he stayed, it would have meant death.

He wandered the forest around the city, certain that Helen had simply panicked and taken her brother as far away as she could when the opportunity arose, but also figuring she would stay close to the city so that Muse could find them.  No such luck.  

Having not been alone in years, the suddenness of it all was jarring to Muse.  He began to talk to himself like he used to, and when he found Andy’s Shiny Stone bracelet in the snow, he had a total mental breakdown.  To his fractured mine, already fragile with the memory of seeing two humans who he’d loved very much being brutally killed, Andy’s bracelet meant that either he was dead, or that he truly had abandoned Muse.

When he was done and had returned to a calmer state of mind, he slipped the bracelet onto his other foreleg and trudged onwards, not sure of where he was going but knowing only that he had to find Andy, his reason for existing.

He stumbled upon a group at Lake Acuity, but was there for such a short time that all that was really impacted on him was that Famaer was a jerk, there was a friendly but child-like Feraligator, an injured little Eevee, a serious Arcanine, and a quiet, sad Sandslash.  Much to his dismay he was separated from the others during the storm, and with the years that have gone by since then, the memories are fading more and more; he remembers Famaer's cruelty well, but that's about all he recalls in any detail.  He's since wandered around, still looking for his boy.  He is beginning to doubt if Andy is alive.

• quiet
  

-he doesn't talk much, not really sure what to say; he's not used to making friends
-due to this he avoids most problems that the directly below would stir up

• judgemental in his ignorance
  

-he's had certain beliefs impacted on him due to Andy's parents being heavily Arceist
-though none of these stem from the religion itself; it stems from failed logic
-IE: judges humans who sleep around because of the risks involved, as he is unaware that there are ways to avoid such a risks
-judgemental against those of a non-straight sexual orientation because they supposedly engage in more risky behavior, unaware that the risky behavior is a direct result of abuses suffered at the hands of those who judge

• enjoys poetry and music
  

-finds comfort in them because they remind him of Andy 
-sometimes he makes up his own poetry and songs
-they are almost always silly and nonsensical, done on a whim
-he’ll even sing them out loud, especially if doing so will coax a smile out of someone

• longs for companionship
  

-badly fears abandonment
-would befriend even the scariest looking pokemon if it meant company
-he's not even looking for a friend at this point; just people who won't mind him hanging around

• depressed
  

-coming to terms with the state of the world is still hard
-he still fears that Andy and Helen ditched him to save themselves
-desperate to prove the fears eating away at his sanity wrong

• low self esteem
  

-self esteem actually used to be quite decent, having improved greatly during his time with Andy
-as of late it is teetering on the edge and it won't take much to topple it over

• not opposed to defending himself
  

-he may want companionship, but he doesn't take well to abuse
-he will argue and if necessary, fight
-moreso done out of a desire not to be hurt rather than truly believing he deserves better
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♏ [url=???]Famaer[/url]: Really really hates this guy.