Orion didn't sleep the night he brought Tyrunt home.
He tried.
He lay still on the cot, blanket up to his chest, fire burning low, and the soft rhythmic sound of Houndoom breathing nearby. Everything around him was familiar. Safe.
But his eyes kept drifting to the shadow curled up near the back wall.
Tyrunt slept with its head buried under one arm, tail twitching occasionally. Even in rest, it looked tense. Like it wasn't sure if it was supposed to sleep or prepare to bolt.
Orion understood.
He didn't sleep either.
The next morning, he didn't touch the Pokéball.
He didn't wake Tyrunt.
He just sat across the room, chewing a piece of dry root, and watched the fire crackle while the creature slowly stirred.
Tyrunt blinked at the embers for a long time before noticing him. When their eyes met, it didn't growl. Didn't snap. Just stared.
Confused.
Uncertain.
And, maybe, beneath all that — scared.
Orion didn't move. He didn't try to approach. Instead, he tore a chunk of smoked meat from his pack, rolled it across the floor slowly, and waited.
Tyrunt flinched when it landed near its claws.
Then, slowly, it sniffed.
And ate.
Reid didn't come back until late afternoon.
When the door opened and Orion instinctively tensed, Tyrunt jolted upright with a rumbling hiss. Its claws dug into the floorboards, tail slamming once against the wall.
Orion raised a hand, low and calm. "Easy."
Reid stepped inside, eyes flicking from Orion to Tyrunt. He didn't say a word.
Tyrunt stayed frozen, watching the stranger, confused by his stillness.
It didn't know Reid wasn't a threat.
Yet.
Reid shut the door quietly and crossed his arms.
Orion stood. "I found him."
Reid didn't move. "What is it?"
"A Tyrunt."
Reid raised a brow. "Never heard of it."
"Because it's extinct."
He explained everything.
The fall.
The hidden cave.
The frozen chamber.
How it had been weak. Starving. How it hadn't fought when he offered food.
Reid listened without interrupting. He didn't ask dumb questions. Just let Orion lay out the whole picture.
When Orion was done, Reid finally approached the creature — not directly, not fast, but in slow, purposeful steps. Tyrunt lowered its head and growled softly.
Not a threat. A warning.
Reid stopped.
"Not wild."
"No."
"Not tamed either."
"I know."
"You planning to keep it?"
Orion didn't answer right away.
Then: "I have to."
Reid studied him.
Then the creature.
Then the Pokéball on Orion's belt.
"You realize what people will do if they find out."
Orion nodded. "That's why they can't."
The next few days were a balancing act.
Tyrunt didn't leave the cabin.
Orion kept it calm with food, warmth, and space. No sudden movements. No loud noises.
He didn't try to train it.
Didn't give commands.
He just talked.
Softly. Casually. Narrating his tasks. Letting it get used to his voice, his scent, his movements.
Trust wasn't given.
It was earned.
And dragons didn't give anything easily.
He started reading again.
Late at night, by the fire, he dug through every book and scrap of material Reid had ever let him collect.
Rock-types. Dragon-types. Fossil revival projects. Behavior journals. Mythology pages.
Tyrunt wasn't just a Pokémon.
It was a link to something older.
Bigger.
He found old diagrams from a paleontology zine—a speculation issue on ancient Pokémon recovered from fossils. Tyrunt was listed among them, marked as successfully revived in certain League labs, but only in artificial conditions.
Reid had seen revival fossils before. He'd never seen this.
This Tyrunt didn't act like the lab-grown ones. The revival specimens were raised in controlled environments. Their behavior? Domesticated. Trainable. Engineered.
This one?
Wild.
Sharp.
Resistant.
Real.
Orion flipped to an old environmental science section in a half-torn journal. One entry caught his eye.
"Cryo events triggered by legendary elemental entities have long been proposed in ancient Pokémon extinction theories..."
He read it three times.
Then sat back and stared at the ceiling.
If what he had found was real…
Then maybe Tyrunt hadn't been revived.
Maybe it had never died.
He jotted notes into his journal.
Theory: Tyrunt frozen, not fossilized. Colony may have been trapped in an unnatural ice event. Legendary involvement? Articuno?
He scribbled arrows between ideas.
Fossils = dead, revived. This = alive, preserved.
Tyrunt survived because:
It was touching stone (Rock-type = stone = survival?)
Not in the center of the freeze blast
Too young to fight, so it wasn't in the frontlines
He underlined that part.
Too young.
That was what stuck with him.
This wasn't a warrior frozen in time.
It was a kid.
Displaced.
Just like him.
The next morning, he brought Tyrunt outside.
Just to the clearing. No leash. No commands. Just fresh air, sunlight, and space.
The dragon sniffed the wind like it had never smelled clean air before. Its legs were shaky. Its steps uncertain. But it didn't run.
Orion sat nearby on a rock and watched it explore, head swiveling, tail flicking cautiously through the dirt.
He didn't speak.
Didn't interfere.
When Tyrunt finally turned back toward him and took a slow, clumsy step forward, Orion didn't move.
It came a little closer.
Stopped.
Sat awkwardly.
Orion didn't reach out.
But he smiled.
That evening, Reid watched from the doorway as Orion brushed snow off a low stump and offered Tyrunt a piece of dried fish.
It didn't snatch it this time.
It took it slowly.
Still wary.
Still half-distant.
But the gap was closing.
"Most people couldn't do this," Reid said later, by the fire.
Orion looked up from his notes. "Raise a dragon?"
"Raise that dragon."
Orion flipped a page. "I didn't choose it."
"No."
"But I'm the one who found it. Or maybe it found me."
Reid snorted. "You fell on it."
Orion smirked. "Details."
They didn't talk more about it that night.
But before bed, Orion looked once more at Tyrunt curled in the corner near the fire.
Still tense.
Still wary.
But not afraid.
Not anymore.
Somewhere deep in his chest, Orion felt something settle.
Not peace.
Not safety.
But possibility.
And that was enough.