Sylveon

"Hooo," the Sylveon whined, lowering his large ears and making pitiful baby doll eyes. He backed away from the Trainer he was with.

"What'd I do wrong?" the Trainer asked. Her excitement over getting this strange evolution to her Eevee (she'd been trying for an Umbreon) was quickly evaporating as the Pokemon was not happy with it. He kept looking down the road and was slow to respond. "You..." she double checked the name that had popped up from her search, "Sylveon, what's the matter with you?"

The Sylveon crouched down, looking at the ground. Maybe he was tired? They had been out battling and training a lot today; he'd evolved when she was trying to figure out how to work a new move of his into her strategy. Although she didn't recall any of her other Pokemon being worn out soon after evolution.

While she was serious about staying competitive and ahead of the game, she didn't want to push her Pokemon to exhaustion either. "Well let's go home for the night. Come on." She left him out of his Pokeball, so he soon fell in step quietly beside her.

At first. As they got closer to town, his mood picked up. His ribbon-feelers picked up and began swaying together. He stood up taller and raised his tail. Despite how he looked earlier, now he looked ready to stay up and active for a few more hours even though the street lights were on. Then what did the Sylveon want? Most Pokemon could be counted on and read easily; she could tell when most of them were hungry or tired. But then some were strange, not acting like the rest and a lot harder to tell what to do with. She just hadn't expected an Eevee to turn out to be one of the strange ones.

Before they got home, they came across her teacher at the Pokemon School. "Oh, now this is a surprise," the teacher said, smiling as she looked at the Pokemon. "This was your Eevee, right?"

She nodded, feeling a bit of that excited pride coming back. "Yeah, this is him. I was training him at night so that I would have a dark and lovely Pokemon partner to make an entrance in style. But he turned into a Sylveon, so the outfits I was planning don't quite work. But I think it'll be much more stylish now, and cute, for us to be together."

"I see," the teacher said, sounding disappointed for some reason. "Style and flair helps, but it isn't everything. Oh, but you should tell me everything you were doing with him. There isn't much information out on Sylveon yet."

She didn't really want to; having such an exclusive Pokemon was sure to make her stand out of the crowd. But being a person who helped discover something new, that might give her a more lasting recognition. "Sure, if I can think of it all. I've mostly been working on getting him stronger, since that's the easiest way to get an Eevee evolved unless you can find a stone. At least, so I've heard. But he learned a new move tonight, Charm, and while we were practicing that, he evolved."

"That sounds about right," the teacher said, nodding.

All of a sudden, the Pokemon began barking and ran off. "Sylveon!" the Trainer said, running after him.

Thankfully, he didn't go far, just to their house. Her younger brother was outside, in the process of taking the garbage out when the Sylveon bounded over and stood up on his hind legs briefly. "Oh wow, is that you Toffee?" the boy asked, dropping the trash back to hug the Pokemon. "You don't look like toffee anymore." He laughed when the Sylveon licked his face.

"Sylveon, don't be running off," the Trainer said, although the Pokemon just flicked an ear in acknowledgment of her talking. "Sylveon!"

"Don't be mad at him, sis," her brother said, without much force behind his words. "Um, he just wanted to say hi to me, I think."

"He's my Pokemon," she said fiercely, putting her hands on her hips. "I caught him and I've been training him. He needs to be listening to me."

The Sylveon whined again, dropping down on all four paws and lowering his ears.

"Hold on a moment," her teacher said, having caught up to them. "Didn't you let him watch your Eevee at times?"

"Well yeah, I did, if I wasn't training him," she said.

The teacher nodded, then went over to the boy. "And what do you do with him?"

"Huh, oh," he looked away and turned a little pink, not used to talking to many people. "I, um, I don't battle with Toffee, or any Pokemon, because I can't leave home for long because, ah..."

"He has diabetes and has to be careful of whatever he does," she said for him.

The boy rubbed his head. At his side, the Sylveon rubbed his head against the boy's side, making him smile. "Yeah, that. But he watches me when I do puzzles, so I talk to him about it. I brush him too, and the other day I gave him a bath all on my own. Messed up the bathroom doing so, but mom wasn't too mad about it. And if I feel good, we go walking around town. Toffee likes that."

"I see," the teacher said. "Why don't you take Toffee inside for now?"

The boy brightened at that. "Oh, yeah! Thanks." He pushed the trash can to the end of the driveway first. Then the Sylveon caught hold of his arm with his long feelers, walking inside with him happily.

"I did all the work getting him to evolve," the Trainer said, annoyed.

"Not all of it," the teacher said. "You still aren't that attached to your Pokemon, taking them in and out of your team all the time."

She shrugged. "Well yeah, that's what it takes to keep ahead."

"No, that's not quite it," she said, shaking her head. "There's still some things left for you to learn."

Several months later, the girl was with her family in their home, helping her brother convince their parents to let him travel around on a Pokemon journey. "I took Toffee to a special training course so that he can sense blood sugar levels," she said. "So when he smells that it's gotten in a bad range, he'll let him know if it's too high or too low, and he'll even know what will help him get better."

As usual, Toffee the Sylveon was by the boy's side, his ribbon feelers wrapped around his arm. "I'll be careful, I promise, and he'll be there if there's trouble. I've been trying to take longer walks every day too, so I can handle it."

Their parents were reluctant, but the fact that Toffee would be there and knew what to do was a good argument in his favor. In the end, the girl Trainer didn't get the Pokemon she wanted for stylish entrances. However, there were more important things than that, like seeing the excitement in her little brother and his Sylveon as they set off on a journey that the boy had been thought incapable of going on. That was a more wonderful thing to be proud of.

…

Sylveon Y entry: It wraps its ribbonlike feelers around the arm of its beloved Trainer and walks with him or her.

As I said, I went and got a Sylveon myself to write this story. But it was worth it, I think. Pokemon Amie is fun! I like how the Pokemon react to you when you get them affectionate enough. Also, when working with an Eevee in Amie's petting screen, try moving the stylus slowly by the Eevee, not on it. It'll start raising its paw and you can give it a hi-five. So adorable.