Oliver: Oliver

So, here's my entry for @Zamcio's contest! Below is all of the information needed, marked with numbers on the side- a wonderful idea that I stole from Espeon's entry Hope you don't mind, Espeon.

... wait, do I need to actually show more than his paws and tail? Oops.
I'm going to just go with this until I'm told not to XD I have a few other drawings, but I feel like this one fits him best

Anyways, this is my little Shinx, stoutly dubbed Oliver(2) for... no reason that I can actually think of. Huh. He is male(1), as evidence by his black back paws, and has the egg move Ice Fang, given to him by his father, a Piloswine. He was bred from a Luxray and Pilowswine of an old friend as part of a farewell gift exchange, and thus doesn't really know much of them at all, although the Piloswine has been reported to be incredibly fuzzy (4). Apparently he has inhibited a bit of that famous fluff, although certainly not as much as his father, and stands almost a meter shorter than normal- around 0.4 rather than 0.5, although this can be mostly attributed to his young age.

The little boy here has the hidden ability Guts(5) and was hatched in Sinnoh on the slopes of Mt. Coronet(3) in an expedition for a flower called Erythronium grandiflorum, if you want to be scientific, or simply the glacier lily, dogtooth fawn lily, or yellow avalanch lily, a stunning flower often found off the beaten path on sub alpine slopes, just as the snow begins to melt around them. Due to the cold nature of the mission, Oliver's egg was wrapped in a soft purple blanket and placed beneath a heat warmer, the former of which almost becoming a companion of sorts in the cold expedition.

The flowers were found shortly after his hatching, and Oliver still loves his blanket.


I hope this was alright, and I'm happy to give y'all another picture if needed. I created quite a few before I felt that this one captured who he is now the best- kind of silly, kind of childish, and a little bit unsure of the world around him. And yes, we do have a Linus on our hands- Ollie is not getting rid of his blanket anytime soon.

And, to wrap this up, here's a little excerpt of my brain in an attempt to make clearer the symbolism I so enjoy in whatever I do. I hope no one minds it ending up here as I know this is stepping into unneeded territory I just feel as if I cannot represent in art what I can in words- and maybe this is cheating a little, in those regards. Oh well. I suppose you can always just ignore it, but then I feel a little like I'd be cheating you.

The wind is cold in its fragility as it kisses our cheeks, and I hold Ollie, bundled in his blanket, close to my side. In our search for these flowers, I hope he hasn't become too attached to comfort and safety. It's important to step out of your comfort zone every now and then.

Still, his eyes are bright and pulse strong. When he's not secluded beneath the blanket, he's always staring at the sky. On our breaks, Oliver seems unaffected by the cold, tossing the blanket around and trying to bury himself beneath it with a smirk and a content whine, as if the world was one big game of hide and seek that he would always win.

Soon, my arms will ache if I hold him and he'll have to learn to be a little more on his own. But for now, it's fulfilling to feel his chest close to my own, and his breath tickling my cheek. There's a lot of emptiness out there, and a lot of darkness too.

There's a break in his play and I cast my eyes towards the sky with his, following the sparkle of his gaze to watch the sun paint the horizon. It is vibrant with the colors of the beginning. I cast my eyes back towards the little Shinx.

The light of the waking sun seems to scratch, as if it were a five year old with crayons, an innocent rainbow around the boy, who has retreated back into his blanket with a quirkish toss of his head, and for a moment, I realize that I have forgotten what it is like to be a child.

It's dawn.