Healing Heart

It was nighttime, and it was cold. People were snoring in their beds and snuggling up to the comforting warmth of their thick blankets, and for some, to other sources of heat. Not everyone was asleep, however.

The two voices coming from the study were proof of that. The voices sounded undoubtedly feminine. Upon entering the room, one would have found the two princesses, Peach and Zelda, chatting animatedly by the hearth beside the flickering fireplace. Needles clicked as they talked; both of them were knitting what seemed to be scarves or Christmas jumpers in their laps, while yarn balls lay astray in baskets by their feet. As they were in the middle of talking about the latest political trends in their respective kingdoms, the window curtains suddenly flew open, much to their surprise.

"There's a draft. The window must have been left open," said Zelda, getting up.

"I'll get it, Zelda."

Peach, who was closer to the window, quickly got up from her seat and headed towards the flapping curtains.

Zelda sat back down and resumed her knitting, smiling appreciatively at her companion. "Thank you, Peach."

Peach returned the smile and turned to shut the window. She took a look at the weather outside. Blustery winds and fluttery snow fell upon the grounds, though not in a menacing manner. Combined with the darkened sky, the weather was instead somewhat somber. It was hard for Peach not to yawn at the sight; snow at night was typically a sleepy experience.

Having ascertained the conditions outside, Peach drew the curtains and was about to return when she caught a movement from the corner of her eyes. Turning back, she opened the curtains slightly and peeked outside. It took her a few moments for Peach to find what she was was looking for, but once she did, she cheered silently to herself. She was lucky to have found her object of attention so quickly; his blue and black coloring caused him to blend near perfectly with the midnight blue sky and would have made a search for him take possibly ages to complete.

Peach stopped her cheering immediately, however, when she saw her target more clearly. She stared outside for a few more moments. Then, without warning, Peach suddenly shut the curtains and ran to the wardrobe, pulling out her coat and scarf off of the rack.

Surprised by the commotion, Zelda stopped her knitting and stood up with worried eyes and a puzzled frown on her face.

"Is something the matter, Peach? Did you see something startling?"

"No, nothing. I've just forgotten to deliver something I left at home," replied Peach, as slipped on her winter attire. "I'll be back soon, Zelda, don't worry."

Zelda, though she did not look very much reassured, said, "Very well, then. I'll be waiting. Take care, Peach. It's going to become quite cold tonight."

"Thanks, I will." Peach headed over to the door and turned once to flash her friend a smile.

She left the room, closing the door carefully behind her.

Lucario plodded slowly through the night, the sounds of his footsteps being muffled by the light blanket of snow. His footsteps would have been just as quiet on a normal day, however. His padded, nimble feet made silent, stealthy movements simple for him.

He had his doubts about taking a walk today. The weather wasn't pleasant, and the temperature was going to hit an all time low tonight, according to the forecast he saw that morning. Still, rain or shine, snow or sleet, bad weather was not something that ever hindered Lucario from taking his walks before. He had a streak of not missing a single day for a walk, and this late into the year, Lucario was determined not to break it.

Holding his head high, Lucario looked up, feeling his hopes to see the moon dashed when all he could view were dark clouds muddling up the sky. Seeing the stars twinkle at night made him feel at ease, and was one of the reasons he always took his walks at night.

Lucario's feet slowed. The coldness was getting to his feet, despite his padded fur. His body was getting quite cold as well, and Lucario could feel it. He detested the thought of being cold, however; Lucario considered himself to be rather resilient when it came to tolerating cold environments.

Feeling his energy get sapped out of him, Lucario was about to change his path en route and head back home.

Then, his ears twitched.

If there was anything that would have made Lucario guaranteed to walk faster, this was it. This was also another reason why he wanted to take walks at night, so that he could avoid his ears twitching as much as possible.

Lucario sped up his pace. With his keen hearing, he could heard some footsteps rapidly approaching him from behind. As the sounds got louder and the person closer, Lucario slowed his own pace gradually.

"Hello, Lucario!"

Lucario was not surprised by the voice; he was anticipating it. He detected the woman's aura a long time ago, meters away before she had reached him, after all. Upon hearing the voice and signal, however, he turned around to see none other than Princess Peach running up to him amidst the falling snowflakes. Her cheeks were flushed red with cold and her eyes had a sort of eager brightness to them. She had her pink dress on as always – she must have had at least ten exactly the same – as well as a scarf and pair of earmuffs on. A plastic bag was resting between her gloved hands.

"How are you this evening?" Peach greeted.

Lucario shrugged. Whatever that meant, Lucario did not know. He left that for Peach to decipher.

"Oh, are you?" said Peach, looking interested. "Well, here's something to brighten up your day!"

Actually, it was night. Still, Lucario didn't voice his rebuttal. Not that he wanted to, anyways. Lucario understood human speech fully, but that didn't mean he wanted to respond to it. He very sparingly used his telepathic skills to converse with humans. Only in cases of emergency would he use it, and even then, cases that he considered to be emergencies were very rare. Most of the time, Lucario's lack of audible reply caused him to be, for lack of a better term, ostracized from the group. He felt he wasn't bothered by it, however, as it was his decision not to respond.

Unfortunately, Princess Peach was the kind of person that could carry on a conversation with someone all by herself. Lucario wondered on more than one occasion whether she understood those that talked to her in silence or if she was in reality talking to herself.

Peach rummaged around her bag, pulling out what seemed to him a mass of colored fabric. Without giving him a chance to raise an objection, Peach then promptly shoved her goods into Lucario's arms.

"It's a sweater! I hand-knitted it during one of my knitting sessions with Zelda the other day. Look, I even provided a sort of – er, covering for the spike on your chest. I'm afraid you'll still have to be careful slipping your arms through the sleeves though, since you also have little spikes on your paws," said Peach, pointing out the coverings as she explained them. "There are also coverings for the spikes on your hands, by the way."

Lucario stared blankly at the knitted sweater in front of him. It looked finely crafted and quite ingeniously planned out, he had to admit. He had expected something far worse (such as smelling salts), but he still felt a bit apprehensive towards this article of clothing. As far as he knew, no Pokémon ever wore those things called shirts. When he saw Peach's radiant eyes glowing expectantly at him, it became evident to Lucario that he had no choice but to try it on. Lucario wasn't exactly one to conform to society's conventions anyways.

He slipped it on easily enough. And much to his surprise, Lucario felt the sweater to be comfortable. It wasn't made of that scratchy fabric that caused one to itch at their skin – or fur, in Lucario's case – and had a certain elasticity that made movement feel flexible in it. Plus, the coverings for his spikes fit perfectly well. Though, comfortable as it was, Lucario couldn't help but wonder at how perfect the sweater seemed to fit him. Just how had Peach gotten a hold of his dimensions? He doubted anyone would have been able to calculate the size of his spikes so accurately. Did she measure him at night? Lucario repressed a shudder at the thought.

"There! That doesn't look too bad, now does it! Now you can finally hug someone, Lucario!" Peach said, apparently not noticing Lucario's mulling thoughts.

Lucario, puzzled at this statement, frowned. Noticing this, however, Peach quickly spluttered, "Wasn't your tendency for solitude because you couldn't hug anyone?"

Hugs. Lucario had never thought about hugs, mainly because he never gave or had one. He wasn't even quite sure how a hug went. He never saw others of his pack put their arms around each other while facing each other. Lucarios were generally solitary creatures, even though they hunted in a group.

"It'd probably be difficult to hug someone with that huge spike on your chest," Peach said. She put a hand to her chin in thought and added, "But it does make juicing fruit to be quite simple, I'd imagine. Though we have electric fruit juicers for that, nowadays."

Lucario wasn't sure how to meet an end to her statement. In compromise, Lucario bowed his head in gratitude for the princess' generosity. It really was kind of her to have made a sweater for him. He knew that the princess had a reputation for being a bubbly, benevolent being of sorts, but to go as far as to even accommodate him with such considerate gifts, that he did not expect, especially from a human.

"Oh, there's no need to thank me," said Peach, waving an airy hand at Lucario's bow. "Just seeing the look on your face was good enough thanks!"

Peach's smile faltered as she said this, and this lapse in consistency did not go unnoticed by Lucario.

"You know I'm not satisfied completely, do you? I can tell. You're very perceptive, Lucario," Peach said.

Lucario frowned. She was pretty perceptive herself if she knew that he knew.

Peach shook her head. "It's a selfish desire of mine, but I would like to hear you speak. Mentally, of course. Mewtwo told me before he left that you were rather like him before he opened up."

Lucario lowered his head. He knew what she was referring to – their shared power of telepathy. Mewtwo's powers far exceeded that of his own, however, so Lucario had always thought he would be even more wary of using them. Whenever Lucario used his telepathy, his target always exhibited a strong, negative, and almost always shocked reaction. His repeated attempts to get closer to humans around him – humans that dared to try to coalesce with him – always ended with disastrous results. As such, Lucario rarely attempted contact with anyone anymore, and that borne him the reason to take solitary walks.

But Mewtwo, a Pokémon with psychic powers almost certainly unrivaled, dared to speak with someone using telepathy, and to Princess Peach, no less. Lucario wondered how he approached it, and how someone like Peach reacted to it the first time. Was she the one that spoke to him first? Why did he speak to her? Was she shocked the first time he spoke to her? Did he try more than once to converse with her? These questions raced through Lucario's mind, and he kept his eyes on the floor as he thought about them and their answers.

After about a minute or so of silence, Lucario was stirred from his thoughts by the sound of her voice. Princess Peach's voice.

"I'm sorry, Lucario, if I made you feel doubtful of my happiness. I am happy. I was happy before I gave you the sweater, and I am even more happy after seeing you accept my sweater. Overjoyed, in fact. And, honestly, I have many things to be happy about. Anyone would be blessed to have a life like mine, and I try to always be thankful for it. I don't think I should spend too much time dwelling on matters that would make me feel unhappy. After all, life is too precious to squander without trying for happiness, don't you think?"

Lucario's eyes widened slightly. This time, it was Peach's head that went down. She examined her hands and her feet, feeling a bit unsure about how to continue. For the first time in a long while, she was at a loss for words, though not due to an external influence. She inflicted all that on herself. Peach considered her situation.

Peach seemed satisfied enough just watching Lucario try on and wear the clothes with comfort. Indeed, making people feel fuzzy made her feel fuzzy. It was a feeling Peach cherished and sought to create with others. She could have said that it was her job to take care of others, and it was partially true. Most of the people in the Smash universe had more knowledge than her in terms of fighting and tactical skills, but sorely lacked in other departments. Proper dress was one of them. It was only right that Peach helped to correct some of these behaviors. Teaching them about basic protection from the cold in winter was just one step on the staircase to victory, in her mind.

But was that enough?

Whether or not she thought that was enough, Peach didn't answer to herself. She had done what she wanted to accomplish. Right when Peach decided she was going to leave, she felt something touch her gloved hand.

Turning around, Peach found Lucario staring at her with those intense, sapphire ice-colored eyes of his. Their beauty was enough to rival Peach's own stunning blue irises, Peach realized. Peach made a mental note to later ask him how much beauty sleep he got to have eyes like that.

Then, suddenly, Peach felt herself wrapped in arms, her chin resting on a furry shoulder. A pair of padded paws found themselves around Peach's waist and around her back. She could feel the ends of the frayed yarns of her own knitted scarf and sweater tickling the sides of her face. She could feel the close warmth of another body pressed into hers, even through the fur was cold and covered the warmth of the more sensitive undercoat and body. She could feel her body shifted a bit to the side, still blocked by the spike on his chest, but now in a more tolerable position. She could feel the gentleness of the grip the hands had around her, though they held her with a firmness that felt as though they did not want to let her go. She could hear a slight, pleading whimper as she gently returned the embrace, patting him lightly on the back.

It was a mesh of all sorts of fleeting sensations, and after a few moments, Peach found herself standing alone in the snow again, watching Lucario's back as he headed back towards his home. She stared at him for a few moments longer, watching the snow cover his footsteps. She was about to turn around and go back to her own destination when she heard a sound in her mind:

Thank you, Princess Peach.

It took all of Peach's energies to not gasp; the deep, guttural voice she heard in her mind was not a hallucination, and it was not an unfamiliar voice. She looked up. The figure in front of her had stopped, and had his head turned towards her. Even through the flurry of snow, Peach could see the trace of a smile on Lucario's face. As he turned back around to continue with his journey, Peach looked at the ground. She said quietly:

"Thank you, Lucario."

Lucario's ears perked up, and so did Peach's smile.

A/N: Dialogue is a bit choppy at places, please excuse that. I need to work on it. Sometimes, the little things are what count, and I thought about how someone like Lucario would buy and wear clothes, given his unique physiognomy. Peach, I think, would be just the kind of person to think like that, and lo and behold, this was created. I hope you enjoyed reading it!