//------------------------------// // Chapter 29 Recovery (M) // Story: Spike the Knight // by vadram //------------------------------// Recovery Spike pulled himself out of the pit of bubbling sulphur, every exposed piece of flesh every open wound hurt like nothing he had ever felt before. “SLEEP,” the voice said and Spike fell like a boulder. Despite all the pain he fell asleep instantly, it was like the wounds were not even there. A small smile was now plastered on his face, two words came out of his mouth before he began snoring. “Rarity” and “Canterlot.” Back at the caves Apple Bloom awoke. She was looking around taking in all the destruction. “Oh my head,” she said rubbing the back of her head. “Spike, what happened?” No answer came. She looked for the baby dragon but could not find any trace of him. “Spike? Spike, where are you?” She was walking around the clearing in front of the cliff that housed the manticore’s caves, before heading back towards the tree line. “Aaa!” she screamed placing one of her hooves to her temple. “Sweet Celestia! My head!” Despite the pain she finally reached the treeline, taking a quick look in her saddlebag she saw that everything was still there, including the shell filled with manticore venom; she had no memory of putting it in there. Even if she had no idea where Spike was she started galloping through the woods, with each step she more and more of the manticore repellent was falling of her, revealing her white coat with yellow stripes. She galloped as fast as she could. After a couple of minutes she reached what was once a field of bright glowing blue flowers, now there were only long scars in the ground, as if somepony went through, pulling a giant four bladed plow. Apple Bloom went down one of the ditches and continued moving, this time more slowly as to avoid the few poison joke flowers and petals that were still scattered on the ground. After she cleared the field she continued her gallop, towards her unknown destination. A sharp pain now appeared behind her left eye, it felt as if something tried to push the eye out of its socket. The smell of sulphur filled the air and caused her to cough. Not long after she found Spike. He was laying on the ground near a sulphurous lake. As she got closer she noticed the shape he was in, large parts of his scales were missing revealing his pink skin, in some places even that was burned or missing altogether, a few small puddles of blood formed around him, mostly from small wounds that were caused by the many manticores that latched on to his body. All of them stopped bleeding, either by the blood coagulating or by the cauterizing effect of the sulphur bath. One wound however did not close, and it was by far the worst. Despite his short neck, compared to the rest of his body, Apple Bloom could see that a sizeable part of Spikes neck was missing. She took a closer look at the wound, and noticed that no major artery was pulled or torn, however several smaller ones still bled even after the cauterising effect of the sulphuric bath. Spike was in luck. If one would just look at his face one might think that nothing was wrong; he had a large smile plastered all over his face, and generally looked happy Apple Bloom pulled out a long piece of cloth from her saddle bag and tied it underneath his arms in order to pull him away from the toxic fumes that emanated from the lake. It took her awhile but eventually she put enough distance between them and the poisonous lake that she could breath easily. After untying the cloth, she tore off a piece of it and soaked it in a mixt of substances she had on her. Most of the substances she mixed were completely alien to her and the resulting concoction effects were impossible to know, but she mixed the ingredient, soaked the cloth in it and tied it around Spikes neck. Somehow she knew that he would be fine. Next, she placed her hoof on his forehead to take his temperature, she had no idea what a normals dragons temperature should be but she felt that it should have been much higher than it currently was, this worried her. Next she moved onto his face. The poison of a manticore is not only toxic but also highly corrosive. If Spike were a pony it would have burned his face clear off before killing him, however he was no pony. His scales protected him from the acidity and his metabolism and immune system managed to counter the effects of the poison. If he would have been just stung by the manticore he would have been more or less fine by now, except for a hole where the stinger would have punctured his body, however he hadn’t been stung, but had received a jet of its venom straight to the face. The scales were darkened from the burn and some had fallen off, but that was not the worst part, no, the worst part was that a large part of the liquid hit him in the eyes. She opened both his eyes to inspect the damage, the right one only showed that only one or two drops fell into it. “This one should be fine.” But the left one was another story, the eye was severely damaged and barely held in place. Apple Bloom tore off another piece of cloth and folded it until it was three layers thick. Again she soaked it in ingredients she knew nothing about before tying it around Spikes face, making sure to cover the left eye as well as some of the exposed pieces of skin. He was still down for the count. At first Apple Bloom could not tell if he was sleeping or unconscious. She tried poking him, turning him around, even screaming at him, but he seemed unresponsive. She considered that he may be out cold, but then a thought popped into her head and her expression changed. At first she blushed, then she smiled, then she blushed again before leaning towards Spike, she was still red but she had a devilish grin on her face. Her heart started beating rapidly and as her mouth got closer to Spike she became redder. Closing her eyes she whispered in his ear. “Hey Spike, who do you think has a softer flank, me or Rarity?” As she finished saying those words two things happened. First, she violently pulled her head backwards putting her hooves on her mouth, and secondly Spike opened his right eye wide, since the left one was covered by the makeshift eyepatch, and jumped back and crawled away a couple of feet. “I... I...” He was at a lost for words. Apple Bloom turned around, not wanting to show her face to Spike, and also not wanting to see his face. “Good... I see you are awake.” She tried to calm down. “Spike we need to get going, there are only a couple of hours of sunlight left.” “I... I... I still can’t see well. My vision is still blurry and...” He was interrupted by the pain in his body returning. Apple Bloom walked towards Spike and he reacted by taking a couple of steps back. As she reached him she turned around, and just as in the cave she told him to grab on. Spike did just that, just like before after a few blind sweeps at the air she finally grabbed something. Again it was soft, he tried to focus on the mysterious object that he now squeezed in his hand. It was not easy, at first all he could see colors that seemed to flow into each other, a chaotic mix of whites and reds, with small patches of yellow and two large brownish blobs. She started walking and Spike could feel the object being pulled from his hand. He followed in the direction it was taking him. He continued to try to regain his vision, slowly things came into focus. First the colors stopped moving, then they started forming shapes. The browns blobs were the first to make sense: The brown blobs separated, revealing that they were connected by a thick line. Spike quickly made the connection that those were Apple Bloom's saddlebags. A long thick red mass stood above, or in front of them, above it and slightly to the sides two smaller white patches of color could be seen in front of a green background. Looking down at the red mass he saw it surrounded by white, below it a splatter of yellow surrounded by even more white. The saddlebags were on either side of it, the brown strap covering a good part. Below that a thinner reddish mass with a bit of purple towards the end that seemed to trail out of sight. Connections started to form in the dragons brain, the bigger red mass should have been Apple Bloom mane, while the other, longer and thinner one should have been her tail, and the purple should have been... his hand. “Aaah!” He screamed at the sudden realization of what had he been holding onto all this time. He let go of her tail. “Spike what’s wrong?” She asked turning towards him. Spike could now see her face, sort of. Her red mane still covered her forehead, but her ears as well as most of her face were mostly white, as opposed to her normal pale yellow. Darker yellow markings, he could make out a few distinctive markings, her muzzle and nose were colored, a crescent moon could be seen on her forehead partially covered by her mane, three smaller marking were underneath her eyes, and... "... her eyes..." Her left eye was fine, bright orange as it had always been, but her left was not, it was a dark cyan. She still looked like Apple Bloom but she also looked like somepony else. “Zecora?” Spike asked in confusion. “Huh?” She responded. “It’s me Spike, Apple Bloom.” “Right, Apple Bloom. Sorry I am still having trouble focusing.” “It’s alright Spike, Just a small hike, And we will arrive, At the ursa’s cave.” “Apple Bloom how are you feeling?” Spike asked. “A little weary, And not very cheery, But do not worry, If we hurry, We can save our friend, And this whole ordeal will end.” “I think she is getting worse.” “She is,” the voice replied. “Oh, poor Apple Bloom.”