Merry
Littleroot Outskirts
The treecko sighed and jumped on his trainer's shoulders, patting their head with a paw. Before starting to panic as an attack of what looked like asthma sent Merry coughing and crumbling on themselves.
Considering the current circumstances, it's probably worth mentioning that they, in their old body, never actually possessed any sort of respiratory issue. They had no form of lifelong or long lasting illness to speak of whatsoever, so long as you leave out allergies to a drug they didn't ever have a need to use. By all rights, it would be entirely correct to say they had a clean bill of health. When it came to some kind of cough, even the most violent ones they ever had were quite short and only resulted from water going down the wrong hole. \
Their experience with those types of health issues were equally low when talking of others, as outside of a single short lived friendship from middle school, they didn't actually know any peers that had those issues, and even including the one they did know, they never witnessed any form of asthma attack personally. The only experience they actually had was seeing a single one happen through a video.
So to say they were surprised when a cough sent them to their knees in pain would be putting in lightly.
Its also likely worth bringing up that pain was a rarity in their life. The worst wounds they had suffered were two lacerations, both of which were accidentally self inflicted, on both the thumb and the lower leg. And though there likely should have been significant pain to both, she barely felt any at all. Meanwhile worst pain she had suffered had come from a needle scraping on a bone.
If she were in any state to talk, she would easily claim this to be the worst pain she had felt in her entire life, and it wouldn't even be a contest.
After finally stopped reeling from the suddenness of the episode, they tried the only thing they knew about stopping an attack like this, controlling your breathing. They weren't actually sure if it was a legitimate solution or just misinformation spread about helping with asthma attacks, but it was the only thing they had, and considering they were at the point where their every cough was beginning to make them see stars, she had to at least give it a go.
While that whole mess was taking place, Treecko had been quick to act when she was loosing her footing when the attack started, and had done his best to help his new trainer not fall flat on their face, and if he's being honest, he's already pretty far past just being concerned! But he didn't have any idea what was happening to his trainer, so he could only really look on worried and hoped that they would be able to deal with whatever had happened on their own...
He tried looking around for anything, and apparently there were a few more humans around, but he ignored them for now, and his eyes landed on the bag closest to his trainer. Maybe he could grab something from in there to help?
In a couple of quick steps, he made it to the bag and started looking through it to find something to help.
The sight of all the colorful Pokemon around me, including the inflatable eldritch plushie cuddled with me, is just so amazing, though I mentally take note not to look under Noire's blanket-like covering since it's likely not meant for mortal eyes. Still, it feels that despite the troubling parts of this whole situation, things will be fine…
And then I hear coughing, and see the Treecko's new friend suddenly looking faint. "Are you okay?!" I worriedly ask.
If they were in any state to speak, perhaps if the pain was centered on a limb rather than their lungs, which they very much need to form sentences, they might have responded with a pained, but sarcastic "Do I look fine to you?" and would find themselves giving the other person an awkward apology after the pain passed, as they would quickly find the earlier words to have been quite rude and unnecessary.
Unfortunately, however, the violent cough raged onwards, only barely mitigated by their attempts to control their breathing. Through the dizziness and stars, they wondered if the problem with their approach was slightly off, as while they were doing their best to control their breathing, they weren't actually taking very deep breaths at all, which would likely help significantly more with the current problem instead of the rather short breaths they had been taking.
Treecko, meanwhile wasn't having very much luck. He realized, trying to look through the bag, he didn't actually know what any of the stuff in it was or did, and with the horrible coughs coming from his trainer, that fact was doing the exact opposite of helping his stress levels! There were some berries he could see and he did know what kind they were, sure, but those wouldn't be much help when his trainer couldn't chew anything or swallow at all!
He needed something else, and all he could really find were a bunch of human made items that he had no idea how to work, or even what they did!
Moving around the items in the bag, he did eventually spot something that might help, if only after the cough had passed, but that was better than nothing. It looked like a bunch of water in some kind of container? Treecko knew he'd need to fiddle around with it to get the right end of it open, he hoped it was at least designed with some kind of cap, and quickly snatched what he knew was an Oran Berry out of the bag to help ease the pain his trainer was feeling after the cough passed.
At least it sounded like their cough was getting better, if only slightly...
She could hear Merry's coughs lessening slightly after a while, simply calming down. And Merry was still breathing so it was ì not an Asthma attacks. Which was good.
Even as her new strategy began to bring the coughs down started working, or maybe whatever god was in the sky above decided they'd had enough, they could easily say that was the worst experience they'd ever had, when it came to pain. Their throat felt completely raw, breathing was hurting, and the coughs, though less frequent now, weren't helping in the slightest with either.
At least the stars they were seeing were going away now, they thought they were gonna pass out some moments ago, with how many they were seeing...
They saw their Treecko trying to open a water bottle he had plucked out of that backpack, clearly concerned along with having a bit of trouble getting the cap off the thing. It didn't take him too long, thankfully, and when he stepped closer to hand them the bottle they were quite happy he had.
Grabbing the bottle, they took a few greedy gulps of water to try and lessen the pain in their throat, though they quickly decreased to sips after being not so gently reminded by her throat that swallowing was pretty painful with a raw throat. After drinking a good half of the water bottle down, they took it away from their lips and found themselves panting out of exhaustion. An episode like that really took the wind out of their sails, huh?
As they gave themselves a moment to recover, their Treecko held out the Oran Berry he'd grabbed, hoping it would at least help somewhat with the pain.
Taking it and handing back the water bottle, they realized how weak their arms felt then. Whether it had something to do with how much shorter everything seemed, or because of what just happened causing their strength to leave them, they didn't know, but they also didn't really care at the moment.
They were a bit more focused on how, apparently, Oran Berries taste a lot like blueberries but significantly more bitter. They made a face at the taste, but did their best to power through it and swallow it down. It didn't take long for her to begin to feel at least a little better, and as such, decided to continue chowing down to get her throat to a bit of a better state and before.
The cough still wasn't completely gone, but by this point, it had at least significantly lessened in both frequency and severity.
The two sat in the background for now, one munching away at a berry, and the other providing support on the side.
Though, if you were to ask Treecko about his feelings on it all, he'd just say he's more than a little concerned that his trainer might just have a heart attack out of nowhere...
