In Dire Straits

Her face itched, well mostly her muzzle, and it had been itching for awhile now so she had been rubbing it on anything and everything she could trying to get it to stop itching before finally deciding that the weird tree and bush things weren't enough. She needed rocks. Yes those should be able to get the itching to stop and the best place for rocks was the mountains which she was supposed to check on anyway so she headed up up up..she was multi-tasking! Going further than she had really intended to go up above the snow line in her enthusiasm to find a rock and her enjoyment of the snow and overall colder temperatures that there were at this height. It was so nice she dropped onto her belly and began rubbing her face in the snow instead rather than waiting to find a rock. She was having quite a bit of fun which was distracting from the uncomfortable itchiness of her muzzle..until the tremors began. Tremors and snow. She knew that danger from her previous home. Avalanche!

She needed to get down and to safety but where was that?! Snow ate everything! She started running forgetting about her muzzle that for a brief moment seemed even itchier now than it had been before her focus was now on where she was putting her paws and trying to find a path down in her mad dash to she had no idea where. But as fast she was going moving in literal leaps and bounds it wasn't fast enough and she heard it coming and knew she couldn't do anything about the rumbling, tumbling, whirling, swirling snow as it swept her off her paws and carried her kicking and screaming, when she could scream, down the mountain for what seemed like an eternity before..Splash! It all stopped. She was dizzy and sore and felt more than a little sick to her stomach and to make matters worse she was in water..slushy squishy water with snow walls all around her.

At least she could breathe though, she'd gotten lucky on that..at least for now. But as she began working her to dig enough room to allow her to roll over so she could stand up it caused snow to fall on her and into the water adding to the slushness that she had no idea how to deal with. Maybe someone else did and they'd be able to get her out of this hole and out of the water..but would anyone know she was even here? She twisted her head as much as she could and it looked like there was a small opening above her so maybe someone would hear her if she called for help? Maybe? But she didn't want to call too loudly since she had no idea if she was still in an avalanche zone or not and didn't want to find out the hard way either. Maybe Sansa would come and find her though? Yes. Sansa would come and look for her. With Sansa looking for her she wouldn't have to be loud to get found. Yes. That was good. She would still help her Sansa to find her though. Yes. "Sansa! Sansa!". She began calling as loud as she dared waiting and listening in between for pawsteps that would signal rescue from this not-snow snow and not-water water.

Hopefully rescue would come sooner rather than later.

Sansa felt unsteady on the soil beneath her paws even though it was still and sound; very few things frightened the bacchus dire, but a giant slab of mountain sliding down towards you at breakneck speed was something that sure accomplished that. Thankfully she had been rescued rather quickly, and as was Sansa's nature, she set out immediately to help look for others that might have been buried beneath the rubble. Strange times were those when the very earth itself turned against you, an enemy they could not fight with tooth or claw. Sansa did not like that feeling.

She had broken away from the other search parties, large dinner-plate paws stamping down loose earth and debris as she combed over an area that had collapsed. There was a large trail of debris that had fallen from quite a ways up the mountain, and it made the wolf curious. There were a few Nardiri who enjoyed visiting the snowy areas high up on the mountainsides, and if someone had gotten trapped up there.. Large body began to make its way up the mountain, thick bacchus dire pelt making the whipping, icy winds only a minor nuisance.

Then, over the wind, she heard it: "Sansa! Sansa!" It was Tallulah, Sansa would know the cat's voice anywhere. Snow began to gather on her underside and legs, but she had been born for weather such as that; the Hydra pushed onward. "Tallulah!" the grey titan bellowed, bounding in the direction she thought she'd heard the amur leopard's calls coming from. Golden gaze landed on a massive snow pile, a mixture of snowy slush and overturned rocks. It did not look very steady, but the woman climbed slowly, testing areas before putting her weight down. Sansa allowed her nose to lead her, closing her eyes and focusing intensely - through the snow and ice, she could smell Tallulah's scent. Finally, the grey and charcoal woman found the opening above the trapped leopard. "I'm getting you out!" Sansa yelled in hopes that Tallulah could hear her, and there was no hesitance or second-guess in the Hydra's tone of voice. Sansa would get her out.

After assessing her situation, Sansa found only one solution: dig her out. That's just what the bacchus dire started doing, too, great big paws scooping snow away into a mound behind her. As paws steadily chipped away at the ice and snow, Sansa realized that she was more worried for Tallulah's safety than she had previously realized. Shaking the thought away, the Hydra kept digging; now was not the time for thought, but for action.

Buckshot

He had been concerned that his dad Adolph was....oh...gone from the earthquake.  But the news that his young son was missing freaked Buckshot so much he ran off with barely saying goodbye to his family.  He knew he shouldn't have left them abruptly.  He knew.

But Aeneas was his weakest child.  He was like his daddy.

As the dull brown male raced in the direction he smelled his family run from, another sight caught his eye.  Sansa.  Shutter!  She could help!  She may have spooked him, but he knew she would work to save a child.  However, as he followed her up the mountain, he reconside reconsidered whether straying too far for help was making things worse.  Aeneas may have been suffering or worse because of his decision.

Buckshot sighed, and began twisting to left, until he heard Sansa.

"Tallulah!"

...   ...

Oh no.

Buckshot gripped the ground.  He loved the small cat.  But his son needed him.  She was like a daughter to him, but Aeneas was his son.  He turned back to Sansa's form, now digging and calling for the cat.  Sansa never acted like that.  It was almost like...when Tallulah went into the river to save the deer.  How he nearly lost it when he thought she wouldn't make it.

There were tears as Buckshot closed the gap between him and the bacchus, and just as he joined her in rapidly digging Tallulah out, he could only think...

Forgive me son.  Wait for me.

It was so wet..so cold..or..was she cold? She was so tired it was hard to tell whether she was cold or not and the slush..seemed as if it wasn't there all the time but she couldn't figure out why. It was so hard to think now and getting harder. Eventually she was left calling out Sansa which felt right but her brain could no longer tell her why anymore than it could really tell her why the sounds she was hearing felt right. She tried to focus on the sounds, to figure out what they meant and eventually she heard what sounded like..Tallulah?..it felt right..felt..important but..but..she couldn't hold on to the thought long enough to finish it. She was so tired..so so tired. And the sounds above, where had they come from? where had the Sansa sound gone? came the faint glimmers of thoughts her brain tried to form and hold onto long enough to answer failing even as it do so, sounded so nice, so steady, so comforting somehow though she wasn't sure why. Maybe..maybe she would take a nap. Yes. A nap would be nice. She closed her eyes and there was nothing but darkness and a steady shushing sound about. Her mind was even still trying to form thoughts, but it was trying less and less even the subconscious could not fend of the exhaustion forever. There was something though..something that her tired brain struggled to grasp, to cling to as tightly as it could, to anchor itself to something, to try and strengthen itself. It was such hard work though and so much of it was being done by the subconscious now. But as more snow was removed from the very still form of the feline body laying at the bottom of the hole being dug, allowing for more oxygen to enter the brain began to slowly regain its energy. For the subconscious to form the concept to hold on..and to begin pressing the concept towards consciousness.

It was a slow path though but it was gaining ground and then there was something other than darkness, more than tiredness. It was a vague awareness but her mind was still unable to recognize what it was an awareness of..it was too drained by the limited oxygen, the cold and the throbbing pain that had come earlier with the nausea, which was also no longer registered, to realize the frantic efforts of rescue being made by Sansa and Buckshot to get her out of the hole and to somewhere she could be warmed up and tended to by a healer.

((so Tallulah..is gonna need a healer since she hit her head on a rock when she fell and so basically as a combination of mild concussion, limited oxygen supply from being buried and hypothermia from laying in slush water..not sure if any healers are able to post here though so..she can be carried to the..the meet up thread that I have forgotten the name of..oops))