She first came to them as a lone druid, desperately looking for her lost children.

They thought her mannerisms odd, but then again, who wasn’t odd in this merry band?

She was strong and skilled though, able to brutally maul any opponent with devastating ease. Her agility was a thing of beauty, as she danced her bloody way through anything foolish enough to threaten her. So it was but a footnote, and she was accepted quickly.

So what if her tracking method seemed ill-suited, for a human lass? She clearly made it work, able to spot most any traps in their way, no matter how dark or well hidden. To say nothing of how she seemed able to always see through any ambush attempt.

If she was desperately, hilariously ill-suited for any kind of handiwork or chores, even in spite of her prodigious dexterity in battles… Well, she wouldn’t be the first one. Their thief was still unable to stitch anything without losing a full pint of blood, after all.

And if she tended to prefer her meal meaty, and bloody… to not say raw. Well… Why ask questions you’re not sure you’d like the answers to?

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She was one of them, and it was enough. Even if they swore she could see through walls, and her eyes kept lighting up during the night.

They still weren’t prepared for her to bolt awake, one moonless night, and just grab the captain out of his bedroll, his snoring violently stopped as she sprinted through the woods, his form roughly thrown on her shoulder.

The vigil was stunned, rubbing his eyes to check that he wasn’t hallucinating from the lack of sleep. Of course, he quickly woke the rest of the troupe afterwards… But what were they to do? Her tracks - well, their tracks, technically - stopped a mere dozen feet away from the camp, and it was dark enough they were more likely to lose each other than to find them again.

To boot… Well, she was one of them. Even now, with this new oddity, they were iron-clade in their belief that the captain wasn’t in danger… Not from her, at least. But they worried still, for them both.

It was only at dawn, as the sun shyly started to peak above the hilly crests around, that they finally saw movement near the edge of their camp.

What a surprise it was, to find the Captain with a flabbergasted look on his face as he rode to their camp on the back of a Luxray of all things, a Shinx peacefully snoring on his lap as his arms securely steadied the young cub.

As the lightning lion transformed before their very eyes into their familiar companion, they could only shrug. It was odd, for sure, but it did explain quite a few things, didn’t it?

And she was one of theirs. As they were hers.

Even if the captain was hers in a very different manner, it looked like.

The thief won the bet, it turned out. Everyone else thought they’d crack much earlier