Disclaimer: Pokémon is not owned by this author, nor are the characters or creatures associated with the Pokémon franchise. These are property of Nintendo. However, original characters (Beryl, Beryl's family, the unique characters amongst the Joy family, etc.) are the creative property of the author, Jeston Del Dulin. No copyright infringement is intended. No money was obtained by the author from this story.

It was a cold day in Blackthorn City.

January 2, 2009. It was a day that a good many people in neighboring Mahogany would remember well. It was the day that Team Rocket attacked, taking over the Pokémon Center and Radio Tower, transmitting signals that would make the Pokémon there grow aggravated, accelerating their evolutionary cycle. It was an acceptable evil to them (as were most evils, for that matter). The town was under martial law in a mere few hours, the Mafia-like operation having been plotting this for years.

However, Blackthorn City on the other side of the mountains was recovering from a ferocious snow storm. It was known for its particularly mediterranean climate, opposite of Mahogany Town on the far side of the Ice Path, which is why the Dragon Pokémon were able to grow so powerful and numerous there. However, accompanying a chain of otherwise unnoteworthy weather was a blizzard that coated the landscape with snow and ice, forcing any and every Pokémon with a weakness to cold into any shelter they could find. The caves of the Dragon's Den quickly filled, each and every one of the Dratini and Dragonair crowding them thickly alongside Zubats and Golbats.

It was near there that a young man named Beryl Finnegan was sledding on one of the hills. He would come to one hill, then sled down it. Immediately after, he'd find another hill, and sled down it. Then another, and another. Before he knew it, he was far distant from his house, and it was getting dark quickly. Of course, he didn't notice the onset of the darkness, absorbed as he was in the snow. His eyes adjusted to the dark as it settled upon him, the shimmering snow making it all the easier to maintain vision.

Beryl Finnegan was a relatively tall boy for his age, but also relatively stocky, with bright blue eyes that hid behind round glasses and brown, muck-colored hair. On this particular day, he wore a large parka, snow pants, gloves and a stocking cap, with snow goggles covering his bespectacled eyes.

He hadn't brought anyone else along—he rarely got along with people his own age, and enjoyed the company of himself. Besides, so many of them were out training Pokémon, an act that he looked upon with horror. He was fourteen years old at this point, and the idea of even attempting something like forcing animals like that to fight each other, demanding that they do battle like pawns in a grand chess game, appalled him.

It took Beryl a good long while to realize he'd gotten far, too far away from town. Fear overtook him. The snowy landscape around him, hill upon hill up on hill seemed totally endless. He panicked, looking around fearfully. This is why my parents need to get me a cell phone said the selfish, still-childish portion of his brain, having not yet recovered from the hungry consumerism that Christmas provides.

In the primal, still animal and survivalist portion of his mind, Beryl knew one thing: shelter must be found. The cold was becoming nearly unbearable, the snow having long ago begun soaking through his socks underneath his boots, as the snow does when you don't have your boots situated just right in the snow.

At first, he started walking in the direction he thought the city was. It was hard to tell, though, and he quickly lost track of where he was once more. The chill wind had covered the tracks his sled left in the frosted hills. He didn't think that sledding back would be appropriate because, despite its speed, he quickly realized that he was unable to see much when he was sliding down the hill at speeds his simple human eyes couldn't handle.

His sled was soon blown out of his hands by the return of the snow storm that claimed Blackthorn City not but a few days earlier. The blizzard was back, and with a vengeance. Beryl quickly gave up on any pretense of finding his way back home, and just started sprinting. He sprinted long and hard, his lungs filling with cold winter air, his boots now full of the same snow that surrounded him, making him fear frostbite with a kind of terror he'd never known before. He ran, until he it a wall. It was a rock wall, high and menacing, and, in all likelihood, part of the mountain range. He thought to himself that, if he were to follow it, surely it would get him somewhere with shelter. After all, these mountains were pockmarked with caves all over, right?

Beryl wasn't sure how long it took him, but he knew that it wasn't soon enough by his measure. The icy storm pushed him into the deep indentation in the mountain, forcing him into a roll that launched him a five feet in. He tumbled, insanely cute stocking hat over coat over legs, skidding to a halt in the middle of the cave, barely out of the range of the frigid wind and snow. The cave was cold and dark, and he could barely discern anything over the sound of the storm outside and the blackness inside.

Then he heard a peculiar noise. It was a sort of high-pitched whimper, barely distinguishable from the howling wind outside. Beryl crawled deeper into the cave, trying to see what it was that was making the sound…

And he found a Dratini. It didn't look too old (if he knew anything about the creatures he'd recognize it as an adolescent), and it was crying. Its tears had made a puddle underneath it that had frozen solid already. Beryl warily crawled over to it, hoping to offer at least a little bit of assistance. After all, they were sharing a cave together now.

"Hey there little fella…" Beryl said, and the Dragon Pokémon immediately raised its eyes to him, "Hey, what's wrong?"

He was met with a growl. It's hard for an adorable Pokémon like the Dratini to growl, but it did a pretty good job considering who it was trying to intimidate.

"Whoa there little guy," he was met with the Dratini then uncurling itself and standing on its tail in an instinctive show of power: "I'm bigger than you," the Dratini was saying, "don't mess with me, buddy."

The show of power was promptly spoiled by the ice puddle he'd made for himself. The Dratini slipped and fell, releasing a grunt of pain as it did so. It looked up at Beryl helplessly, as it curled back into its section of the cave.

Beryl hiked his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them.

"So, um…" he said, trying to make conversation. Nevermind that he couldn't understand a word it was saying; it's always nice to make an effort. "You lost, too?" he asked.

The Dratini looked up and nodded sorrowfully. Another tear dropped onto the pile and froze.

"I'm sorry," Beryl said, averting his eyes away from those of the Dratini as he said so, "I really am. It's cold in here, you know?" He looked up at the cave, its ceiling covered with massive, stalactite-sized icicles that looked to him like menacingly sharp teeth in the mouth of some huge cave Pokémon. He probably should have looked into learning a bit more about these things, seeing as how he lived in a major Pokémon-training city. But he avoided learning about Pokémon for the simple fact that he didn't care much for training Pokémon. It was like a national pastime in Johto, and he was at the age where he believed conformity to be the least cool thing you could possibly do. Conveniently, nonconformity meant less effort had to be put into learning and working, so Beryl was allowed be lazy and stay in the loving arms of his family. Those loving arms seemed distant and far away when faced with the unyielding blizzard outside and the nonexistent charms of his recent Pokémon acquaintance.

Beryl swore that the temperature was still dropping around him, the chill becoming too much even for his cavemate. "Listen, um…" the Dratini perked up, being the only one who the human could have been talking to, "I think we should… Get together for warmth. I know it's not wise, but if we don't, we could both die of cold here. It's best if we—whoaheynow!"

The Dratini had finally given up on any pretense of protecting itself, having decided that the human—while pink, fleshy and weak—had a point. Beryl opened his coat, and overalls, allowing the snakelike tail of the Dratini to wriggle its way inside his clothing. "Aa-aah!" he said, feeling the now frigid appendage brush against around his nether-regions before reconfiguring itself to wrap around his torso and the back of his leg.

He zipped up the overalls and coat, and they both felt almost instant relief from the cold, the two of them sharing body heat now. And it was in that relief and comfort that they both fell asleep, letting the warmth wash them off into slumber.