The poor thing had been running on nothing but adrenaline and determination, collapsing at the first sign of a compassionate claw.

Without her basket, Sneasler’s only recourse was to scoop the human up and run the both of them to safety, but that could mean two very different things. Palkia’s pack would know how to help, but she couldn’t smell them on this one’s pelt; if he didn’t belong to them, the odds that they would accept him were staggeringly low. Conversely, she was in charge of her own den and wouldn’t turn the human away, but his species was so much more fragile than Pokemon were. While she could lend a safe space, there was no guarantee that she would know how to mend what was broken.

The winds whipped around her, ruffling her fur intensely, and the human in her arms gave a pitiful shudder. She didn’t have time to stand around weighing her options; the storm would blow in before she knew it, and while she could weather it if need be, the human would not. Resolute, Sneasler chose a direction and began her trek. She didn’t allow herself the luxury a second thought.

If she could get him through the blizzard, she could attempt to sway the pack; her care wouldn’t be perfect, but she could keep a single human alive for a few days. For now, her priority had to be getting them to her den.

To Sneasler’s immense annoyance, the human’s trembling didn’t stop. It made holding onto him more difficult than it needed to be, and, in turn, forced her to clutch him more tightly to herself. So close to her face, she couldn’t help but sort through the scents that clung to him, and her conclusion was… anything but conclusive.

Some scents, she recognized-- ghostly flame, iron and an overwhelming abundance of frost, among others-- but some were utterly alien to her senses. There was also the undeniable smell of other humans, though nothing like those of Dialga or Palkia’s packs, or even those few stupid enough to wander alone.

By the time she stepped foot in her den, she’d learned something new: the human wasn’t shaking to spite her, he was cold. She didn’t know what he’d expected, traversing the Icelands with such a flimsy hide, but the act of holding him steady against her chest had seemed to help, and she wasn’t arguing with results.

Half-dead on her feet from the increasingly treacherous journey, she’d wasted no time in dragging him to her nest and curling up, purposefully resting her head atop her guest. If it worked to keep a wily kit pinned, it would work here; the physical contact had already done him some good.

The strange smells lingered in her nose and on her palate when she parted her jaws to scent him one more time, but made no more sense than they had over the course of their trip. Whatever. She would deal with that in the morning.

---

When she’d first chosen her den as the lesser of two dangers, Sneasler had been grateful that her nest was empty. This was primarily because she didn’t have to split her attention between an injured human and a clowder, but the two separate parties had also been a concern; if there were no kits, she didn’t have to worry that they might harm the human, or vise-versa.

Even if there had been any Sneasel lingering in her nest, she was beginning to think that wouldn’t have been a problem. The human was incredibly docile. It could have been the persisting injury, but he hadn’t tried to dislodge her once over the course of the night, and accepted her every action without complaint. Granted, she had to convince him that, when she handed him a berry, it was meant for him to eat and not hold like a particularly ambitious Sudowoodo, but he was beginning to cotton on faster.

Outside, the blizzard raged; she’d barely headed it off when she’d returned the previous night, which meant there was little choice but to wait it out in here with her denfellow. It could have been worse, Sneasler guessed. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d taken in a stray at the last moment, and would only last a short spell.

After only a day, the smell of her nest already hewed to the human’s hide; he would reek of it by the time the storm lessened. Would it help the pack accept him? They liked her, and she’d taken this one in. That had to count for something, didn’t it?

Oh, she hated pack politics-- they never made any sense. Rather than entertain its absurdity a moment longer, she flopped forward into her nest and buried her nose into the fur of her arms. Distantly, she was aware of the human shuffling nearer and not even trying to be quiet about it, but that was a minor point of interest.

He idled at her right side and, after some deliberation, gently rested a hand along her upper arm. Her head snapped up and, instinctively, he leaned away from the sudden movement, but reassumed his stance a moment later. She could have yowled in frustration as he offered her the sitrus berry she’d pressed into his grasp some time ago, but didn’t get the chance as he set it down and, with a questioning note, raised a hand to the side of her face, waiting.

She stared for a few seconds and then huffed for him to go ahead and do whatever he wanted. Even if he intended to be, he wasn’t a threat; he was a hurt human with nothing but the pelt on his back, and she was one of Arceus’ blessed. What was he going to do? Shiver her to death?

The hand that connected with her had none of the velocity of a Force Palm, but a similar paralytic quality. There was a surprising ease in the way his fingers worked into the thick fur of her cheek, and while a human’s claws were kind of pathetic, they were ideal for this application; the dull scrape through her undercoat was… really nice. Without meaning to, she felt her vocal chords rumble in appreciation, and didn’t bother to silence herself.

Eventually, Sneasler decided to lean into it and pushed herself forward, resting her great head on his lap. If she had to be stuck here with a human, at least it was one who knew how to show his gratitude.

They would still have to work on the berry thing, though.

---

In time, Sneasler decided that she liked the human. When the storm ended, she sought Palkia’s pack out, but didn’t surrender him to them. It was just as well-- she could smell the distrust, and knew he’d be safer with her. The young leader, at least, was worth the head on her shoulders, and bowed to Sneasler’s demands; by the next morning, a human stinking of bitter herbs turned him back over to her, his fragile skin patched with white bits and one arm lashed against his chest.

He smelled vaguely like the pack, now. Enough to confirm that he’d never had any meaningful contact with them prior to this. There was also the astringent tang of vivichoke cut with bugwort, and it was disgusting; Sneasler tracked the worst of it to his head, where someone had shorn the fur hidden beneath his crest in order to apply more of the white. She didn’t pretend to understand.

The contact had been brief, and the foreign scents faded quickly. As the smell of his pelt began to thin, the other humans’ fading one by one, Sneasler came to a troubling realization: he’d clearly been part of his own pack, and she hadn’t caught any of their scents in all this time.

Occasionally, humans broke away to live on their own, but this one didn’t have the nature for it. Too friendly. Too social. Even though the other humans had rebuffed him, he’d still made the effort to reach out. The only other option, though, was that he’d been cast out, and that just… didn’t make sense. The problem was that he was so friendly and even tempered. What self respecting pack didn’t value those qualities?

There had been a lot of scents clinging to him, originally-- more than the handful of close ties humans tended to maintain, but most of them were distant. It had been a little bit like the young leader, actually, whose duty to the other humans could be sensed in their lingering essence.

Maybe… maybe that was it. Sociability and composure were ideal traits, excellent for keeping the peace. If her human had held a leadership position, it was possible he’d been usurped and thrown to the elements, and she doubted he would have fought back. It would explain why she hadn’t caught so much of a whiff of the other humans along the peaks, in spite of their undeniable presence on this one.

Fine. It didn’t matter, anyway, because he was hers now. Her scent was the strongest on his pelt, and she’d put a great deal of effort into covering up the bugwort stench. If he wanted to smell like fire or iron, too, that was up to him, but nobody with a nose would be able to mistake who he belonged to.

Slowly, even the most ingrained of the human scents began to wear away from his hide, but Sneasler wouldn’t forget them.

---

With an ease she should have expected, the human found a pack amongst Pokemon and, begrudgingly, Sneasler accepted that she had to share. The young leader, as the single voice of reason in Palkia’s pack, allowed her human to become her warden. Sneasler never let Gligar hear the end of it.

Time passed. She fostered a litter and watched them grow. Gliscor evolved and wouldn’t let Sneasler hear the end of it. Her warden revealed a delightfully stubborn streak and immediately leveled it against the human from Dialga’s pack.

The sky broke, and was mended.

And one day, not even a season later, Sneasler caught wind of a scent she only vaguely knew-- the one that had been so thoroughly integrated into her warden’s pelt that she’d nearly mistaken it for part of his own.

She didn’t approach, but when she founds its source, she watched. She listened. She scented.

There were more smells that she didn’t recognize, but everything she’d bothered to put to memory was there on the new human’s hide. And oh, wasn’t it interesting that this one wore the same crest that hers did, the same arm marking, the same stripe around the neck.

The young leader had adornments on her head, arms and neck. So, too, had her predecessor.

How dare this one encroach on her territory? Were they looking to undermine her warden once more? To remove him as a threat to their leadership? If they wanted control of their pack so badly, she would send them back to it-- but they would not, under any circumstances, hurt her warden again.

And if they tried it, they would have to weather her.