//------------------------------// // Recovery // Story: Red Dead Revival // by Crimson_Moon //------------------------------// Day 12 Looking back on things, I'd say this is where it really began. I woke up to a new world and i just didn't know it, all I saw was a forest in every direction. Still, going from dead to near dead was better than nothing i guess. That TB hurt for a while after that. That is, until ol' Bloom finally got the guts to tell her older sister about me, camping in the woods. I got a lot that I owe that kid, seeing as how she taught me how to take my first steps... "-ster?" A voice ran out, barely audible to Arthur. Must've blacked out, ears are ringing... he thought, slowly recovering from his earlier spell. "Hey lady-" he wheezed out. "I can't see well, but I need you *coughs, then wheezes* to get some herbs for me." His vision still blurry, Arthur pointed to the brown blob nearest to him, hoping it was his satchel. "They look like the ones in my pack. What I have *hacks, then spits* isn't enough to get me movin' again." "-ure mister, j..st hang on!" The other voice echoed, not quite coming clearly through his ears. Oddly, they felt different but he put it off as another symptom. He couldn't tell how much time had passed before the girl returned. His vision was much better, but the gunslinger's overall health was going in the opposite direction. On account of the dizzy spells and fading in and out of consciousness, it was hard to tell how long it had passed since the girl left. Seeing her approach, Arthur tried to stand up again, but fell like the previous times. "You can't st... up like that, you'll hurt ...rself! Here, let me help." She dropped what looked like her bags and walked over to him. Am I seeing things right? When it got closer, the blob he thought was a young girl was in fact a talking horse. "Y-you're a horse." Well Arthur Morgan, looks like you gone died and entered some sorta talking-horse-filled Purgatory... "Applefeathers, y.. .... be delirious! Just Sit d..wn and tell me what to do with these herbs I got!" The horse walked "Trotted?" over to her saddlebags amd brought back the herbs Arthur told her to get in his delirious state. Hacking out another small cough, he motioned to his bag. "Get the rest out and start grindin' with my mortar 'n' pestle. Once you got that done, I'll need your help setting up camp; it's starting to get dark." True to his word, the sun had begun to set and at a noticeably faster pace than back home he noticed. "What's your *coughs, then spits out blood* name, little horsey?" Arthur wheezed out. "Applebloom, mister." She said between grinding the herbs and starting a fire. "And that's filly to you, not 'horsey'! I'm a grown pony, not some foal!" "Does it really matter much?! I'm *coughs* dying!" He yelled, clutching his. Chest. Getting agitated flared his lungs too much, sending him wheezing and coughing blood, but surprisingly, he was still able to gasp out orders; more than likely a skill he picked up from having to talk to his gang during gunfights, he reckoned. "Now hurry, and get my percolator on that fire you set!" He wheezed, the gunslinger's breaths growing raspier by the minute. Least I can hear a bit better now... he thought, not sure how long that would last either. Doing as told, she set the metal container on the fire and let it heat. "Now get the herbs in there as well as some water from my waterskin here." He patted the thigh that held the skin, though it felt strange as he did. Waiting for the water to boil a bit, he motioned to Applebloom to help him up. Guiding him closer to the fire, he reached down for the cup in his satchel when he noticed it- a saddle brown stump that used to be his hand. "WHAT IN THE SAM HELL!?" "What? What's wrong, mister?!" "WHERE'S MY HANDS, DEVIL CHILD?!" He motioned with his hooves. "What in the hay are hands?! Did you lose them? What do they look like?" Frantically she trampled around, trying to look for his hands. It continued for a few more minutes before the pandemonium started another coughing fit in Arthur. The illness draining the poor outlaw, he laid down near the fire, wheezing and gasping for air. "D-*coughs* don't worry about it, kid!" He wiped blood using his new hoof, the crimson red a grim contrast against his new color tone. "No use lookin' for those anymore. Not sure if I could even still hold my guns anyhow..." He said, looking at his new appendages. The filly felt pity and stayed with him for a bit, despite her curfew ending at sundown. "Big sis'll kill me, but I wanna make sure you're alright." She grabbed the cup Arthur was reaching for earlier and poured the boiling hot cocktail they made earlier into it. "What's your name, mister?" She asked, helping him sip from the cup. "Arthur," he coughed, clearing his throat a bit. "Arthur Morgan." Sitting down on all fours, she laid next to him. "Well, Mister Morgan, this is the wrong place to be camping in the middle of the season." "Oh yeah?" He managed to cough out a small chuckle. "And why's that? All I see is a friendly forest!" "You must be delirious if you think this forest is friendly!" She giggled, though stopped when she saw the look on his face. "You really don't know, huh?" He nodded. "Well, this here's the Everfree Forest and it just happens to be everything but friendly! What with the swamp gas, cockatrices, bugbears, and even an Ursa Minor or two!" His face, Muzzle?, paled at the thought. "Don't rightly know what those are aside from the swamp gas, but you're right in them not soundin' friendly!" He coughed then sighed. "Don't much have a choice anyhow. Thought this was my home, or close to it. Turns out it ain't neither, heh!" He stared back over to the small filly looking downcast. "Ah, don't worry too much about it. Besides-" he coughed up another small puddle of blood. "Don't matter much on account of my TB anyways..." "TB?" She cocked her head curiously. "What's that?" Right, horses don't get infected that much with it. he thought. "Well, it's like an illness of the lungs, I guess." He nudged Applebloom to give him another sip of the remedy, coughing slightly as he did. " It gets in there and sits for Lord knows how long. The last doc that checked me, well he didn't really give me an... Optimistic look." "What did he say?" She said, starting to tear up. "That it was gonna be...slow. Possibly painful" He sighed solemly, hating to have to tell a kid this but that was the world he lived in; Kids died all the time from diseases where he came from so it wasn't a big deal. Here though? Here, he reckoned it was different. It was then Applebloom started crying. "Hey," he coughed again, trying to hug the filly to console her, but his limbs were still unresponsive. "No need to cry over me! I hate to admit it, but it's high time I left and went... Up there." He nodded towards the sky. "My time's up kid, I just gotta make it as painless as possible." "B-but I-I n-ne-never g-got to s-show you m-my fr-friends." she choked out between sobs. "I know kid," he sighed. "I know..." Seeing this made him think of John's son, back in West Elizabeth. If that boy knew what was going on, no doubt that he'd be crying too. Life was rough for that family, but Jack? He was practically the only sane one left of the bunch. Twice as educated too, on account of all that reading he's done. "Zecora." the filly suddenly said, her sobbing stopped and replaced with a hopeful smile. "The what now, kid?" "Not a what," she got up, putting her saddlebags on. "A who! She's a Zebra and knows all kinds of stuff about foreign diseases! Maybe she's heard of TB!" Arthur stared at the hopeful kid for a few seconds, bewildered by the fact that she could turn the waterworks off so quickly! "Ah hell!" He shrugged his shoulders. "Why not? I've been given a Hail Mary in the shape of this place, what's one more gonna hurt? Go get her, kid! I ain't moving anytime soon!"