#silent savior

John goddamned Marston.

‘Well’, she thought hysterically, ‘why the hell not?’

She’d woken up as a dog in the desert. Why wouldn’t she be saved by a video game character? Much less one of her favorites? Really, it was probably the least strange thing to happen to her since all of this had started.

And everything was starting to come together, dominoes falling against each other in her feverish mind. The men that had kept her, had always felt familiar, as though she’d seen them once, but only in passing. The shed that she’d stared at, day in and day out, painfully familiar and on the tip of her tongue, but why would she have ever put it together? It was so far fetched that she would never have thought of it! This was Beecher’s Hope! Those men, the squatters that John tried to chase off, only to have to shoot dead. And so… did that mean she was in the game? In the very beginning of the epilogue?

No, no, not the very beginning, that would have meant she was at Pronghorn Ranch, and this was in no way, shape, or form, Pronghorn Ranch.

She was in a video game.

Unbelievable.

But his arms beneath her, forcing a wheeze from her lungs as he scooped her up, were undeniably real, the fabric of his shirt scratching against her stomach, muscles bunching and releasing as he slung her over his shoulder leaving her to slump, too weak to struggle, not willing to even if she could. She was… so hot… so thirsty... so tired… 

She woke up as he set her on the ground, finding herself much cooler than before. It wasn’t cold, and any other time she probably would have still considered it ‘hot’, but it was so much cooler than outside that it might as well have been Alaska, so she allowed herself to bask in it, closing her eyes despite the wood that dug into her stomach and made her groan, John’s voice a dull buzz somewhere nearby.

If she were stronger, had more energy, she would have gone out of her skin when his fingers suddenly pressed against her side. As it were, she flinched, opening her eyes to find that he’d knelt beside her while she was distracted, and though she eyed him warily his touch was gentle, so she laid still and enjoyed the first friendly touch she’d felt in a decent amount of time.

Now, though, without the sun baking her fur, the fear of the men, there was nothing else to focus on, and her thirst clawed at her mind. Her tongue might as well have been jointed wood, the inside of her mouth leather, and she licked her lips fruitlessly, seeking moisture that wasn’t there. Surely, John had to have some water on him? she thought, and looked up at him pleadingly, with what she hoped were puppy-dog eyes, although she hadn’t had much practice in emoting with her new face. Whether she’d succeeded, or if it was just coincidence, he asked “You must be thirsty, huh Lady?” and she could have cried—she’d have taken Guarma Rum at that point, or even straight up swamp water. Anything wet, so long as she could swallow it.

He left the cabin, and though she knew he couldn’t have been gone long, it felt like forever. But when he returned it was with a canteen in hand, and she could’ve kissed him, and the time it took him to putz around the cabin and find a bowl felt like even longer—she couldn’t take her eyes off of the canteen that never left his hand. The bowl he finally found and cleaned was disgusting, dented and so filthy that she couldn’t tell what color it may have been when it was new, but she’d have drank water out of one of the dead men’s skulls, so she watched eagerly as he poured water into it. The water was tinted yellow, and any other time she would have turned her nose up at it, but at that moment it looked like the most beautiful, delicious water she’d ever seen.

It smelled musty, as though it had been sitting in his canteen for a while, but she couldn’t care less and raised her head to drink—or, at least, tried to. Less than an inch off the ground and her muscles gave out, leaving her head to thump against the ground, and oh! but she felt weak, as though all her strength had left her the moment she’d been carried into the shack. A moment later, a hand cradled her muzzle, supporting her head and lifting it up, setting it down in the water and oh , but even that was refreshing. Even still, she hadn’t the energy to drink, and could only loll her tongue out, soaking it in the water; it wasn’t much, warm and metallic and stale, but it hit her throat like the finest wine and she could feel it slip down her throat, giving her the energy she needed to raise her head enough to drink, gulping down the water as fast as she could.

Movement from the corner of her eye made her hesitate, eyeing John, but he’d only ever been trustworthy and she’d never seen him harm a dog unless he had to, so she continued to drink, finding that she enjoyed the friendly touch, the gentle stroking on the top of her head. And, even if she hadn’t, she was too busy wolfing down the water to care, finding her mind slowly clearing, some of the ache leaving her muscles.

He topped off the bowl, stood and walked away with something called over his shoulder—she wasn’t paying too much attention, honestly, greedily finishing off the water before curling into a ball, eyes dragging shut as though they had lead weights attached and

There was a dog staring back at her from the puddle.

She felt a laugh threatening to burble up from her throat, and feared if she let it out she’d never be able to stop, would laugh and laugh and laugh until she died, suffocating on the sound, not able to breathe around it.

Maybe… maybe she was seeing things. It was hot after all, and she’d taken a few good blows to her head.

She blinked, and the dog blinked back at her.

She licked her lips, and the dog’s long, pink tongue did the same.

Bile rose in her throat, burning as it was little more than stomach acid, ‘Fuck, no.’

No, this was impossible, she refused to believe it. A person doesn’t just get turned into a dog!

But, too, a person doesn’t just fall asleep on their nice, soft bed, in their air-conditioned bedroom, and wake up on prickly dead grass in the scorching desert. Is waking up, too, as a dog so strange? No, no, she refused to believe it, and shook her head.

The dog shook its head, dark, floppy ears flailing this way and that.

Slowly, she leaned forward until her nose pressed against the water, and the dog did the same, their noses ‘touching’, the water rippling. And, oh, their eyes were the same, and she’d never seen one with such green eyes before. Of course she’d seen dogs with green eyes, but only ever pale, near sickly, never such a rich shade, so striking against the dog’s rich brown fur that it looked near brighter than on her, but she’d know her own eyes anywhere.

Bile rushed up her throat, suddenly, and she retched, and the dog did the same, but nothing came up, thank god, so she didn’t spoil what little water she had.

‘Oh, god.’

“Ain’t you scary lookin’?”

The snarling.

“Got you some sharp teeth, I reckon.”

The twisting.

“She’s real scary lookin’, ain’t she,”

The way they hadn’t understood her.

“Yeah, looks like she’ll be pretty loud. If anythin’, her barkin’ should be ‘nuff to scare ‘em off.”

She couldn’t deny it, could she?

She started to shiver, something ice-cold trickling down her spine. Her heart leaped in her ears, bounding faster and faster, and she feared it would race until it stopped, unable to keep up with its own pace.

Her eyes locked on the dog, trying to focus on anything but her heart, not wanting to fall in that loop of fear that would only making it go faster and faster, trying to take in what it looked like now, what she looked like now— "Oh, god, This… this is my life now, isn’t it? A dog in the desert, chained to a tree.” and then, a hysterical thought came to mind, and she giggled, the sound tearing from her throat, “Is it really considered being chained if it’s by a rope?”

She couldn’t put a breed to the face, though she’d guess some sort of shepherd if she were pressed. A massive one at that, from the size of its (her) head, blocky and almost octangular. An almost blunt, not-long-but-not-short muzzle, white crowned with a black nose. A white line streaked up between the dog’s (‘mine’, she corrected herself distantly) eyes from it, and she was vaguely amused to realize that the white went up more on the left side of her muzzle, the black from her lower lips and what she was determined to call ‘lipstick’ going up to line the outside of the marking. There were ‘bags’ under her eyes of black, and faint, faint eyebrows, the rest of its fur that she could see, though not much as the puddle was small and so she could only see her head a shade of brown that was almost orange, and from what she could see of her neck the white from her muzzle stretched down to the start of a white streak in fluffy fur.

‘Well,’ she thought, ‘at least I’m a pretty dog.’

Shock. She was definitely in shock. But what could she do? Scream and yell and deny it? What good would that do her, other than to get the attention of those men and risk bringing on their wrath?

So, remembering how thirsty she was, she stuck out her tongue carefully, snapping at the water instinctively when it lurched up from the impact. It came surprisingly easy, but that was instinct, after all. And so she drank and drank the few mouthfuls left, only able to stare mournfully at the brown dirt that was all what was left of the puddle when she was finished, and still thirsty.

They’d have to bring her water eventually, right? A dog can’t be a guard dog if it’s dead.

It was so hot.

She hadn’t the energy for energy. The energy to moan, to whine, to plead for water, if it were even possible for her to. An unforgiving sun beat down overhead, baking her within her thick furs, and she mourned all those poor dogs she’d seen growing up chained outside in the yard, wondered how they’d had the energy to bark and jump around as she went passed. Her tongue lolled from her mouth, near-white for lack of saliva, and she couldn’t remember when last she’d swallowed, each breath rasping, rattling in her chest. Her eyes scraped with each blink, focusing on nothing, waves of heat rising from the ground and distorting everything—not that there was much to see, no animals dared near the shack, and the three men never did anything particularly interesting.

She’d never known it was possible to be so hot.

How long she had been there, she doesn’t know. She’d passed in and out of consciousness, sometimes waking up to the sky dark above her, so cold she rattled inside of her pelt, other times melting beneath a sun so bright it was near white. And she couldn’t count the days through food, as they seldom fed her, little more than crumbs of hardtack tossed to the ground in front of her, water nothing more than the last dregs from their canteens splashed on her face, leaving her to lick off what didn’t evaporate from the sheer heat of her fur.

Horse hooves thundered near, and she forced her eyes open, pain thundering in her temples, and distantly she wondered if other dogs got headaches, or if it was just a her thing. They only opened a slit, little more than crescents of green in the dusty fur of her face, white turned tan from the dust thrown up by the rare winds, and did it really matter? It was probably just Bulldog or Rat or Sniffles as she’d taken to calling them, returning from wherever they went in the day, probably kicking puppies or stealing candy from babies. But, she realized as the rider got close enough for her to make out their figure, the rider didn’t look like any of the three, too lanky to be Bulldog, too broad-shouldered to be Rat, too tall to be Sniffles. ‘Who the hell are you?’ she wondered, and hoped he wasn’t a fourth to their trio, because she was fairly certain she wouldn’t survive another monster, if the heat didn’t kill her first.

They wanted her to bark if a stranger approached. Really, though, she didn’t care, and why should she? If he was a friend of theirs, how was she to know? If he was there to harm them, all the better. And, besides, she was fairly certain she couldn’t even wheeze, much less bark. If she could bark, she doubted she could bark loud enough for them to hear in that tin can they called a shack. The idiots didn’t realize that dogs need water to live, much less bark and play guard dog like they wanted, but she was curious, always had been the curious sort, so she dropped her jaw and tried to bark, though she’d never barked before so it didn’t quite come naturally, and only managed a pitiful wheezy sound, like a stepped on squeaky toy.

Wow.

That was really embarrassing.

She was glad that the sound had been quiet, because she might have just keeled over dead there of sheer embarrassment.

Closing her eyes, she sighed as the man dismounted, boots thudding against the dirt and approaching the shack. Sniffles called out to him, and they began to talk, the words running together like molasses in her tired mind, only opening her eyes out of curiosity when Bulldog and Rat joined in, voices raising aggressively. Bulldog was holding what she was almost certain was a gun, long and black, but it was hard to tell from where she lay.

Suddenly, seemingly without provocation but, considering that she couldn’t hear everything she couldn’t be certain, the stranger’s hand whipped out with what she thought was a gun, and she was right as a dull bang! bang! bang! followed, unlike anything she’d ever heard before, shorter and higher pitched than she would have expected, the air reeking suddenly of blood as her tormentors dropped bonelessly to the ground.

And that was that.

If she wasn’t so exhausted, wasn’t so out of it, she would have been horrified. Terrified, too, would have run screaming in the opposite direction, though where to she didn’t know other than Away. She’d never seen anyone die before, especially not so violently, and the blood-scent, even from so far away, was cloying and choking to her dog’s nose. But even if she had the energy, even if she could have gotten to her feet (her paws? she still didn’t know what to call them) she would have only ended up strangling herself with the rope, so instead she just blinked slowly and remained where she laid, letting her eyes drift shut, letting the man do as he wished.

Let him find her and leave her be, or find her and let her go. Even not find her at all and leave her to rot, to starve and die and desiccate in the sun. And that last thought drew her to the surface, so horrifying that she opened her eyes, stared at his retreating back, and how was he wearing a jean jacket, even a sleeveless one, in this burning heat? and tried to bark, but only managed another wheezing squeak.

As though he hadn’t just struck down three men, the man was mounting up, turning his horse and trotting it towards the main road. Fear sparked in her chest, pushed away the dull apathy that had set in who-knows-how-long-ago, and she knew, she knew, he wouldn’t see her, wouldn’t see her brown fur that she was sure blended in with the tan grasses, would pass her by and leave her to die.

How, she’d never know; whether by pure luck, divine intervention, or that he’d simply heard her, but he reined in his horse, standing up in his stirrups, hand going to his gun as he looked back at the shack, likely looking for a fourth man. His eyes skimmed over her the first time, not noticing her, and then the second time, too, before darting back to her, making out her silhouette for the first time. With a put upon sigh, he dismounted his horse and she’d never be able to put words to the sheer relief that filled her as he approached.

“Hey girl,” he murmured, drawling it in such a way that it came out sounding more like ‘gurl’, and why did that rasping voice sound so familiar? “You ain’t lookin’ too good.” Slowly, he lowered himself to the ground, resting on his heels, coming close enough that she could make out details, not just a faltering outline.

Old, faded scars on the side of his face

“I never thought I’d say this, but it’s good to see you, Arthur Morgan.”

Black stubble, shaggy, shoulder length black hair.

“John Marston, you best wash your hair before I do it for you!”

Dark blue eyes, furrowed in concern.

“Huh, I could’ve sworn his eyes were brown in the first game. ”

Her sluggish mind put three and three together, and she gasped, the sound catching in her throat and leaving her coughing and gasping, struggling to catch her breath.

As it turned out?

 Uncle reeked something fierce.

 And she wasn't being dramatic when she said that he smelled as though he’d shat his pants before rolling around atop a rotting skunk, then eating a dinner consisting solely of a barrel of onions. And, oh, you can’t forget the booze. So add a keg of booze with that.

 He had her eyes watering and her stomach heaving.

 Unfortunately, it was because of him that she discovered that she had the sense of smell of a dog, not just the nose, although she supposed she should have known that already, but when you’re half-dead you’re rather occupied with other things, aren’t you?

 Thankfully, it seemed that she had kept her human eyesight. Normally, that would have been a very bad thing, considering that she was near-blind without her glasses, but it seemed that her eyesight was as good as it got while she wore her glasses, nowhere near a dog’s eyesight. At least, she assumed so—she’d seen those photos where people had overlaid what a dog would see, and things didn’t seem blurry or washed out, but who knows how accurate they really are?

It took her days to grow nose-blind to Uncle’s stench. Sadly, she spent a great deal of time in close-quarters to him, seeing as the shack provided the best shade on the ranch, and she wasn’t much one for baking in the heat, especially seeing as she was still recovering. So they often found themselves sitting in the shade together, watching with no small amount of amusement as John hauled rocks around in that wheelbarrow of his, laughing at his rather creative cursing on the frequent occasions that rocks fell on his foot. She’d have helped him, really, she would have, but he hadn’t asked her to, hadn’t even seemed to consider it, and what could she do besides pick up and move a single rock at a time? Even if he did manage to figure out a way to hitch her to the wheelbarrow, she didn’t think she could have hauled it, she was still so weak and fatigued from days in the sun, and while she was slowly building her strength up on the scraps from his meals and whatever Uncle tossed her way (she wasn’t dumb enough, though, to drink the beer he thought it was funny to pour into her bowl; she’s dumb, not stupid). He’d been quick to declare her his 'new favorite drinking buddy', giving her a nice thump on the back that had knocked the breath from her lungs and left her wheezing, seeming to think that she was like him, a lazy lay-about who did nothing but eat and drink all day.

Night quickly became her favorite time of day, she’d admit. While day burned with the sun, once it set the temperature dropped dramatically, and she felt as though she came to life, energy thrumming in her veins and the sluggishness of the day shed from her as though little more than fur. John had quickly discovered it, forgetting to grab his satchel before sitting down only to find her standing there holding it, and he’d nearly flipped shit when she’d initiated a game of keep-away (although he had, eventually, started to laugh after tripping over a rock and face-planting to the ground). He’d taken to amusing himself by throwing his scraps at her as he sat by the campfire and watching as she tried-and failed, badly-to catch them.

 It was pretty fun. She was too large, too bulky, to twist and jump and catch them in mid-air, but that didn’t stop her from trying. It let her test her awkward new body, try its limits and see what it could do. No matter how hard she tried she always ended up crashing to the ground on her side but, well, it was the thought that counted, right? Besides! By the end of the week she was landing on her paws almost a quarter of the time, so, progress!

 And Uncle was particularly proud of himself for ‘teaching’ her to fetch him a beer. Not that any of them were actually teaching her anything, of course. She could understand every word they said (most of the time, at least, sometimes they drawled something awful and she could only wonder if they were having a stroke, or they used a phrase or saying that had died out before her time), but watching him get frustrated trying to figure out the words would make her magically understand what he wanted was hysterically.

 His face when John had called to Uncle to ‘pass me a beer’ across the campfire, and she’d gotten up, trotted over, grabbed one and brought it to him? Even funnier. John had definitely agreed, laughing so hard he’d stopped making sound, while Uncle had looked baffled, vaguely offended, and somewhat constipated.

 She’d always been rather lazy, and probably would have told him to get it himself Before, but it benefited her, too. It was easy to forget just how strong a dog’s jaw is, how strong a dog is period! until you are one, and she needed to work on controlling her strength, on controlling her everything, really, including her fine motor skills. So getting only a single beer (a fragile glass bottle) out of a bunch and carrying it without breaking it? Surprisingly hard, but she managed to do it and considered it a job well done.

'They can smell fear just by lookin' atcha.'

  'Don't panic, they can smell fear.'

 How many times have you heard that? Maybe not those exact words, but most people are told 'they can smell fear' or 'they can sense fear' at some point in their lives. Maybe when getting on a horse, or when working with dogs, working with children or even just on TV.

 Well, which one is it? Can 'they', whatever the 'they' you're talking about is, smell fear? Or can they sense it?

 In all honesty, she’d always thought it was a saying. If you were tense, the animal would be tense, of course. But if you were afraid, how could they smell it? It just hadn’t made any sense to her.

Just over a week after she’d met John—at least, she thought so, she hadn’t quite been keeping track of the passing time but a week felt about right—something woke her from a deep sleep. There was no noise, well, that wasn’t quite right. At first the lack of car horns and voices outside had disturbed her, she had missed that white noise, but she was slowly learning to look for the Hope’s own type of white noise—the hooting of the owls, the yipping and howling of coyotes, the chattering of the bats overhead.

 At first, it didn’t seem as though there was anything that had woken her. She raised her head from her paws, ears twitching this way and that, looking around as her heart pounded in her throat. Something was wrong, and she looked, first, for Uncle, finding him slumped near the campfire, bottle of whisky still clutched in his fist; John was stretched out on top of his bed roll, hat pulled down low over his head.

 Though everything looked fine, wrong itched in her bones, thrummed in her blood, and the need to move screamed from some part of her she couldn’t name, so she stood without her normal stretching or yawning, a whine she didn’t intend to make spilling from her chest as she began to pace around the campfire—was Uncle too close to it? But, no, he was close but not that close, even if he fell straight forward he’d just flop onto the grass, and the fire hadn’t escaped its rock circle, hadn’t set the dry grass alight.

 She paced one loop, then two, around the pair, before turning her attention outwards. This wasn’t her home, wasn’t safe, where danger was only something you saw on TV, that happened only to other people. Where all you had to do was lock your doors, where you could call the police and they’d be there in a heartbeat (okay, perhaps that was a bit of an exaggeration). This was the Wild West, where danger lurked at the edge of the firelight, stalked at your heels.

 Was there something watching them? Had she felt someone’s-some thing’s-gaze on her back? A snake? A bear, even a puma? They all spawned nearby, after all, and so she stilled, squinting and staring outwards, sweeping her gaze low across the ground, the grass was tall but not tall enough to hide a puma even if it was low to the ground, trying to stalk them, much less a bear. John had been working to pick up twigs, though, for exactly this reason, and a snake would have stood out, would have started to rattle or fled at her approach, and so she turned her gaze upwards again, seeking the gleam of firelight against a cat’s eyes; a black bear, the only type of bear she could think of that would have come this far from the forest, would have fled at her approach as well, they were cowards unless cornered but, no, no matter how hard she looked, how long she stared, she saw nothing.

 She paced around the pair again, legs stiff and fur standing on end, a growl beginning to rumble in her chest as her anxiety only worsened, staring outward, looking, looking, looking, staring at the grass, staring above it, seeking a snake, a puma, even a too-curious fox or coyote.

 Her fourth loop drew her close to John, and she couldn’t say why but he caught her attention. Maybe it was the way he laid, or perhaps she had subconsciously noticed a tenseness to his figure. Maybe he had made a noise so soft that she’d just barely heard it, or she'd seen him move out of the corner of her eye. As it were, he drew her attention, and she approached him as though he were a snake coiled to strike, fighting the urge to bare her teeth when the anxiety in her chest tightened, tightened, tightened until she stood at his side.

 Finally, she could see him. Could see the firelight dancing on his face, the shadow the brim of his hat cast on him. His face was twisted in a nasty grimace and, as she watched, his brow furrowed, and he bared his teeth, the grimace worsening, before he shuddered with a funny sound low in his chest. The coil in her own clenched tight and, without meaning to, she balked, dancing a few steps away from him. He stilled, fingers twitching, and she forced herself forward, slinking as though she were trying to sneak up on him though he were asleep, and pressed her cold nose against his neck in an attempt at waking him without waking Uncle.

 She recoiled immediately, heaving. He smelled of sweat, of some awful sort of body odor far worse than she’d ever smelled before, far worse than she’d ever smelled on Uncle, than she’d ever smelled on anyone, smelled unlike anything she’d smelled before, and what it smelled like she couldn’t put a name on. Shaking her head, the smell clung stubbornly, metallic and lingering, and as she reached up to rub at her nose with her paw she could only call it fear, her own anxiety ratcheting up until, finally, she jammed her nose into the ground, scraping it from side to side. She had to sneeze, over and over, to free herself from the sand and dirt, but it was well worth it because the smell was finally, blessedly gone.

 Fearful of getting that scent on her again, she approached him hesitantly. He was beginning to shift, and her own anxiety began to spike but, knowing this time what it was, she shoved it down (‘not today, Satan!’) and butted her head into his side in a manner more cat-like than dog, but she wasn’t exactly a dog, was she? trying to find his hand in the dark. Thankfully it was gloved so, when she found it, she had no qualms about shoving her head into it repeatedly, slamming it into his leg until, finally, it twitched, cupping before instinctively beginning to stroke her fur.

 He groaned, raising his head and looking around wide-eyed, before rubbing them with his free-hand, still stroking her head absent-mindlessly. John shook his head, hissing “Jesus!” as he reached to grab a nearby beer-bottle, throwing back what remained.

 Unable to help herself, she huffed, “No, just me,” though she knew he couldn’t understand her. Shame, really, because she was incredibly funny, at least if you asked her. John tossed the bottle aside, slumping back down onto the bedroll, and she followed him, curling up against his side.

 He shoved her away, scowling as he huffed “No Gin, bad dog! No dogs on the bed,” and she gave the ungrateful bastard a Look, though what look she wasn’t entirely sure, she still wasn’t used to emoting as a dog, which was surprisingly hard, and thought about pointing out that it was a bedroll not a bed, but he wouldn’t understand her either way, but he gave into her Look, whether it was pitiful, exasperated, or straight-up puppy-dog eyes, dropping his hand to let her flop her massive head across his chest.

For one of the first times since she’d woken up in West Elizabeth, it wasn’t raised voices that woke her, but soft voices and hoofbeats. It was hot, but not nearly so hot as she’d grown used to, and so she allowed herself to enjoy it, blinking slowly awake. She yawned, tongue unfurling in that way of a dog’s, before licking her lips, finding them dry and rank of morning breath—oh, but she missed toothpaste!

The voices that continued to speak outside were familiar, so she didn’t hurry as she stood, stretching luxuriously, bones and joints popping in a way that had her sighing—she’d been so stiff, it felt so nice!—before bracing her paws and shaking herself off, working out the last of the kinks in her joints. While the shack was more comfortable than the dirt, it wasn’t too nice on her bones.

“What were you thinkin’?” an old man’s voice grunted suddenly, and her ears had perked up as she’d raised her head to see a familiar freeloader standing in the doorway looking back over his shoulder, clearly not having seen her or, at least if he had, not paying her a lick of thought.

“I don’t know… she said she wanted it!” and she couldn’t help but to snort. Even when she’d been playing the game, however-long-ago, before she’d gone back to a Chapter Two save to roam because there was nothing to do in the epilogue and she missed the gang, she’d thought that had been damn stupid. Abigail had admitted that she hadn’t seen a picture, that she had only read about it in the newspaper (well, had someone else read it to her, but potato potahto), John could have easily gone and found another ranch, one she would have loved even more, one that wasn’t a shack in the middle of a field of dying grass, one that wasn’t near cougar and puma spawns, and wasn’t a stone’s throw away from a forest filled with Skinners, cougars, and grizzly bears. It would be more expensive, sure, but in the long run the cost would be far less, and even when she’d been playing as John and Jack was little more than a handful of pixels the thought of him near that cougar spawn made her anxious.

Then again, if he had bought any other ranch, the epilogue would be a hell of a lot shorter than it already was, but still.

“She ever seen it?” ‘Exactly!’ she thought, nodding her head. She’d never been one to hate Uncle like a lot of players did, never one to hit the antagonize button, preferred to just ignore him if anything—he was lazy, for the most part useless, but in the end he gave his life for the Marstons and so she couldn’t hate him. But here she agreed with him wholeheartedly. “What are we gonna farm here? Rocks?” and that brought a snicker from her chest, and she wondered idly what it sounded like—clearly they couldn’t understand her, else she’d probably have ended up shot, being a talking dog and all, though considering the strange things that John had seen maybe not, but those men from before surely would have set her brains to leaking out on the dirt. Trotting forward, she stuck her head out the open doorway, momentarily blinded by the harsh sunlight, only to find she hadn’t been missing much as she made out Uncle’s broad form, ass pointed her way, stooping down to pick up a stone.

“We?” John echoed, and for the first time she recognized the resignation in his voice.

“You don’t have a hope here, without a wise hand at the tiller.” she tilted her head as she looked between the two, realizing for the first time that she had no clue what a tiller was. Whatever it was, though, Uncle was useless at it, whatever it was, considering he was useless at everything except for the very end of the first game. Around the ranch he did nothing, from what she could recall, and only caused trouble in town. But she liked him because, in the end, he cared for the Marstons, willing to give up his life for them if he had to.

She took no small amount of amusement out of watching them argue, jaw hanging open in a dog’s grin, the drunkard of an old man simply saying ‘no’ as the young gunslinger tried to force him to leave. John was younger, much more dangerous, and could have hauled him off the property, so watching Uncle no-sell him was hysterical.

Living with them, she supposed, wouldn’t be so bad.

“So, you think I’m an idiot?” John grunted, glaring at Uncle as though he’d thrown horse-shit at him, not just a rock.

Yes.’

She ducked out of Uncle’s way as he walked into the shack, half expecting a blow, but he only raised a bushy eyebrow and laughed, “No… I know you’re an idiot!” moving to sprawl out on the floor and grab one of the half-empty bottles of whiskey the dead men had left lying around. She wrinkled her nose, trying not to think about what might be floating around in it, cigarette butts and dead flies and ants and other bugs, and who knew what else besides.

How in all hell had Uncle survived to be so old?

She retched as she saw something float down the neck of the bottle and into Uncle’s mouth, and hurried out of the shack before she could see anything else, stopping to look for John. He was scowling as he gathered up Rachel and Nell the… she was pretty sure IV, leading them by the reins to the tree she’d spent the last few days tied to, and just the sight of it had her fur standing on end, and though she knew he wasn't like them, and that they could pull their reins free from the low branch he was tying them to, it put a sour taste in her mouth.

Not caring to go anywhere near the tree, she waited for him to approach the shack before trotting up to him, wagging her tail and offering a friendly “whuff!”, finding it much deeper than she’d expected, although then again she hadn’t exactly been expecting anything.

John looked at her in surprise, eyebrows raised, and asked “So you stayed, huh girl?” and she lolled out her tongue, dropping on her haunches and thump-thump-thumping her tail on the ground to try and make sure that she came off as friendly—considering that John was a tall man, and she came eye-to-hip on him, she knew she was a big dog, and a big dog with a deep bark was an intimidating dog, and she’d survived days of starvation, dehydration, and near heatstroke, and didn’t care to be shot dead the next day by the man who’d saved her, thank you very much. Slowly, ready to jerk back if she tried to bite, he reached out, and she couldn’t help but to sigh as he scratched under her chin, oh, oh!, but that felt good! Her tail wagged violently enough to throw up puffs of dust and, as he dug his fingers in deeper, her butt began to move with it. That, that, was pure pleasure.

But, of course, all good things have to come to an end. And it was her own stomach that put an end to this one, rumbling so loudly that even John, with his weak human ears, could hear it. He snorted a laugh, withdrawing his hand, and she absolutely did not lean forward, seeking the touch, no sir, asking “Ya hungry, girl? Bet they didn’t feed ya much, did they?” And, okay, she really was. She hadn’t eaten since waking up in… Red Dead Redemption? The Epilogue? West Elizabeth? Whatever you want to call it, she hadn’t eaten since waking up in it, and now that she wasn’t so distracted by the heat and her own thirst, her empty stomach was screaming at her, was all she could think about.

A strange sound pulled her from her musings, flopped-over ears perking up as she watched John dig through his satchel—he could pull anything out of it or, at least, she thought so. Was this world following the game’s logic? Could he somehow fit fifteen squirrel carcasses inside it with plenty of room for other things? Or did it follow real-life logic?

If she didn’t find out from him, she’d have to test that, because the curiosity was killing her.

And then, joy of joys!, he pulled out a handful of dried meat. Her eyes locked on it as she began to drool, tongue lolling out and saliva dripping to the ground as though she were some common street cur, a whine spilling from her throat without her meaning it to. He chuckled, unwrapping the rags that held them together, and tossed it to the ground at my paws, throwing up a cloud of dust. Very, very slowly she looked up at him, glaring as though he had done so just to hurt her, though really she couldn’t blame him. Even though she’d been nothing but well behaved, she’d been half out of her mind most of the time he’d known her, so how was he to know that she wasn’t bad tempered? And, besides, feeding a stray dog can be dangerous; you never knew if they were food aggressive, and in a time without rabies shots being bitten by a stray could be fatal.

So, sighing, and still looking at John as though he’d betrayed her, she took the dried meat in her mouth and beginning to chew, finding it surprisingly hard— seeing as most of her teeth were different from what she was used to, and made for sheared, not chewing, at that. The meat was tough, dry, tasteless and filthy but she was so hungry that, at that moment, it was the most delicious thing she had ever tasted.

“If you’re gonna stay,” John said suddenly, and she gulped down the last few bites of the mystery meat (maybe venison? She’d never had it before, so she couldn’t say, but the meat had so little taste she wouldn’t be able to say what it was even if she had, “then I suppose you’re gonna need a name.”

‘Oh,’ she thought, licking her lips to try and get the sand off of her muzzle, plopping down on her haunches and looking up at him. Well, she couldn’t exactly tell him her name, could she? If she tried to write her name in the dirt then who knew what would happen? Sure, he was John, but even he would know that a dog shouldn’t be able to write!

...at least, she really hoped so.

Besides, knowing Uncle, he’d probably try to earn money by putting on shows of the ‘Amazing Writing Dog’ or something like that. No thank you.

Well, she sighed, bringing a hindpaw up to scratch behind her ear, she hoped he picked a good name for her or, if she was lucky, he’d manage to stumble across her real name. Probably not, her luck didn’t tend to run that way. As most could probably guess, considering she’d been turned into a dog, sent into a video game, and damn well nearly killed.

Although, considering he’d named his horse ‘Rachel’, she didn’t have high hopes for a good name.

He tried a handful of names - Brownie, which she refused to even acknowledge, Floppy, which was just insulting, Pepper, which she actually liked but surely he could do better? Wait, what was she thinking- Greenie? Wow, and she’d thought Brownie was bad. John sighed, running his fingers through his greasy hair, “Jesus, I’ve never met such a picky animal before!” ‘Well, get used to it!’ “Abigail named Jack, and Old Bob as old as dirt and a Bob through and through.” she looked up at him, and blinked slowly in a manner more befitting a cat than a dog. Still not impressed, John. Old Bob had had a mostly human name, Rachel had a human name, try a human name on her other than Pepper! Please? At least one? Cain had had a human name, it wasn’t like he’d never known a dog with a human’s name. And, she remembered, Rufus had a human-ish name too, so why was he so averse to giving her one, too?

Aw, hell, she remembered then that Jack-or was it Abigail?- had named Rufus.

‘Please, God, why me?’

He looked, suddenly, deep in thought, and she wondered what he’d come up with this time. Fluffy, maybe? Was she fluffy? Seeing herself in the puddle was only a vague memory, hazy and faint considering she’d only been half-conscious, so she needed to find somewhere to get a good look at herself.

When he spoke, it was under his breath, “What was the name of that woman in Jack’s book?” and she tilted her head in aroused curiosity—which book? In the game (at least, in the epilogue) she’d only ever seen him reading about King Arthur, but of course he’d have read plenty others off-screen, so all she could do was look at him like, well, a curious dog. “Gin… Guinev-Guinevere?”  The rather extravagant name was rough on his tongue, stuttered and awkward, a five-dollar word in a fifty-cent mouth, but it was a name she liked , much better than Brownie, Greenie, Floppy or even Pepper, and she feared what other names he might come up with, so she perked her ears and showed her interest, looking at him intently. She could live with that name, quite happily in fact. It was extravagant, far more-so than the one she’d had in her other life.

“Of course that’s the one you like,” he sighed, the surprised expression on his face turning resigned, “who comes up with those names, anyways?” 

“Not you, clearly!” and he better use that name, she refused to answer to anything else he came up with. “Fine, Guin… shit, you’re gonna need a nickname, that’s a hell of a mouthful. Ginny, I’ll call ya Ginny.”

Her head was killing her, and she felt like she was going to be sick from the pain.

And, as her head cleared, she became painfully aware that she hadn’t the faintest clue of where she was. It was far, far too hot to be her bedroom, where she could only just remember being last—her mind was swimming, memories of the last few days drifting passed in snatches, only the barest details clear, and she strained, trying to remember what she’d done last. She’d been in bed, she was sure of it, and even if the power had gone out there was no way it would be this hot, this dry, she’d been… reading? Yes, she was almost sure of it, she could feel the paper ghosting against her fingers, there and gone, though what book it had been she couldn’t say.

Though she was Texas born, the heat that raged around her was nothing she’d felt before. Her back burned, and she panted to try and catch her breath, the air painfully dry, her mouth the same, and a fleeting, somewhat hysterical thought passed, that a scorpion could crawl into her mouth and make a home there and be happy, and if she wasn't careful a cactus’s seeds would get on her tongue and take root and her frequent joke about her mouth being ‘dry as the sahara’ wouldn’t be such a joke anymore.

‘This is a dream.’

She thought, and surely it had to be. One didn’t fall asleep reading on their soft bed in their air-conditioned room and wake up baking in the sun.

But she’d never had such a real dream before, though she had an imagination many would describe, politely, as ‘creative’, less politely ‘over-active’. Never had any of her many dreams been half so real as this.

Ravens called overhead, and crows responded. Horses screamed not far away, hooves thundering hard and fast on the ground, something creaking after them—wagon wheels, maybe? was the only thing that made sense, that came to mind, even with her head still whirling, spinning and dancing, though she was slowly coming down to earth. Why the hell would there be horses and wagons in her bedroom though?

Then again, her bedroom didn’t have sand either. There was red-hot sand against her stomach and, oh hell, was she naked? It burned against her skin, felt like thousands of tiny little coals, and either it had burned through her pajama-shirt or she wasn’t wearing one altogether.

Finally, she opened her eyes (“Shiiiit,” and closed them again, the light burning them harshly, before opening them again, slowly and more cautiously), and knew it was definitely no dream.

Brittle, dry grass stretched out before her for miles, still and unmoving with no breeze to stir it, speckled here and there with rocks, cacti, dead and dying trees reaching out like a dying man grabbing desperately for salvation. Massive brown blurs that she could only think were bison from their shape and size and those poke-y things that she thought were horns sizzled off in the distance, and there was some strange sort of deer grazing only a few yards from her, short and stocky, one of them with odd, thorn-like antlers. Pronghorns, she thought, vaguely hysterical, though she couldn’t be sure considering she’d only ever seen them in video games and on Reddit a few times, and why she found that important she didn’t know.

Well, she supposed, if you go to bed and then wake up sprawled out and, apparently, undressed or, at the least, half undressed, in the desert, you focus on strange things.

Dry grass crunched nearby in a rhythmic pattern, as though someone were walking on it, and she blinked slowly, groaning at the feeling of sand scraping against her eyes. Hell, she hadn’t realized it was possible for her eyes to feel that dry, but apparently so, as they did. She licked her lips, and it felt weird, but considering how dry her everything felt it was expected, she supposed, considering that she was fairly certain she tasted blood from how the flesh of her tongue had cracked. Just turning her head hurt, pulse pounding in her skull, and tilting it back to look up was even worse, vertigo sending her whirling in a rush of twirls and spins, and she closed her eyes for a long moment before opening them at a rasping chuckle.

A man towered over her, ruffled and filthy. His hair gleamed with grease, matted and wavy in the way that hair only gets when it hasn’t been washed in ages, a worn face—one that belonged on a man much older than he looked to be—pockmarked and scarred, his shirt torn and yellowed with old sweat, and he stank to top it all off, like days worth of body odor.

At the moment, though, he was the most beautiful person she’d ever seen.

“S’cuse me, mister, can… can you tell me where I am?” She attempted to stand, limbs stiff and joints popping, everything hurting, but she didn’t even get her arms straightened out before they buckled and she went crashing to the ground, a strangled grunt forced from her throat from the impact.

A nasty grin twisted the man’s face, baring what few teeth he had, rotted and yellowed, stained with nicotine and who-knows-what-else. “Well, what’ve we got here?” he slurred in a voice long ruined by cigarettes, and before she could react his hand shot out and grabbed her, fisting her hair and lifting her up by it, tearing a yelp of pain from her throat. It was a strange sound too,  high-pitched and warped, but she didn’t have the time or wherewithal to think on it as she tried to twist her head to look him in his watery brown eyes, bending her neck too far but it didn’t hurt, came easily, gagging as she got a noseful of nicotine and alcohol.

“Ain’t you scary lookin’?” he reached up with his free hand to scratch at his scraggly beard (she wouldn’t be surprised to see lice or fleas in it), and she wondered if he was blind or simply as dumb as he looked. Her, scary? Sure. Barely over five feet tall, she didn’t think she’d ever been called anything close to scary. “Got you some sharp teeth, I reckon.”

Yep. Definitely dumb. Only sharp teeth she had were her canines, and they didn’t really count considering she’d chipped one ages ago and the dentist had filed it blunt. “Fuckin’ crazy asshole, lemme go!” he reached for her face, and she dug in her feet, tried to pull away—she didn’t want those filthy, dirt covered, nicotine stained hands anywhere near her face, much less on her mouth —but the back of his hand struck her temple and she whimpered, going limp in his hold.

Her head throbbed, somehow, even worse than before, an ache settling behind her eyes as her stomach churned of the pain. She couldn’t help but to open her mouth when he pressed his thumb against her lips, prying it open, and he hummed, running a foul-tasting finger along her teeth, must have been happy with what he found as he bared his teeth in that nasty grin of his, and she could only barely manage to ask “What… what do you want with me?”

Surely, nothing good.