[Alue]

It was kind of stupid, but when he felt the earth shake, he just simple rolled over. Alue had been sleeping when the land underneath him shifted, and he was too tired to care. It crossed his mind that there was in fact something bad happening, but with sleep still heavy on his eyes, he simply looked at the darkness that had once been the entrance of his den, shrugged, and rolled over. It wasn’t until things had truly settled, with everything in its new place, other pack members already standing up to find any pack mate who might be in trouble. Alue simply drifted off, not bothering to get up for at least another hour.

  Time had passed, and no one had yet to wake him up from the earthquake. As he stood up, stretching his legs, he wondered how long he had slept. Usually when he took a nap during the day, he woke up in the daylight. The wolfdog turned towards the opening of his den - now blocked with rocks and dirt and sticks - and felt his stomach drop. He then remembered that at one point during his sleep, everything had moved. He now knew it had been a bad idea to just roll over and ignore the danger, but now he was stuck. In a panic, he backed into his den. Alue felt that if he couldn’t view the blockage, then maybe it didn’t exist and would go away.

  It didn’t.

  With a panicked yelp, he started to dig at the dirt that was in his way, barely making any dents. When his nails went through the dirt and hit stone, he would start on a new spot. Instead of making any way out, he was just showing himself the pattern that rocks had formed in front of him, tightly packed together. If felt as if the air was being drained from his lungs. He pushed his body against the rocks, too shaken to actually put any muscle into it. “Help! Somebody, fuck, help!” His breathing was frantic, mind dizzy. He needed out and he needed out now.

[Charley]

After the meeting and call to rescue Arik branched off from his search party having seen a particularly bad area in his periphery. He didn't do groups very well and wasn't very good at letting higher ups know what he was up to. So he found himself alone looking where he was sure there had been a den somewhere around here and the fresh earth was a tell tale sign of wreckage from the quake.

He was sniffing around the area trying to discern a scent if anyone had even been here recently. He was just about to move on and see if he could rejoin his group when his heart skipped a beat for what perceivably might be no reason and made him pause. He strained his ears trying to catch the faintest noise and There! That's it! Someone WAS in the rubble!

"Hold on!" He shouted, "Keep yelling!" He could barely hear them through the earth. Trying to pinpoint the loudest point he could hear them was a struggle. Finally he just trusted his gut and started digging at the weakest point he could find.

Powerful and muscular shoulders worked as quickly as they could making his large grey dire paws dig deeply into the soil. Easily tossing rocks aside and shoving his huge bulk against a boulder trying to shift it away, grunting with effort. "I gotchya!" He exclaimed through heavy breathing, pounding against the boulder blocking the den entrance. He might need help here. Did he at least make a hole for them breathe?

[Ayliyra]

Her search continued only now it was interrupted by someone yelling an indication that someone was in trouble, as if the state of things here wasn't already a good indication of that, and she started making her way in that direction. Not at lightning speed as she wanted to make sure she didn't overlook anyone else that might have been here but the pace was fast enough. She almost wished it wasn't though when the blue marked male came into view. It was not what she had been expecting and with having her own injuries from being caught in the land slide it wasn't what she wanted to deal with either so her reaction this sudden situation, though she should have been used to unpleasant surprises by now, was to freeze eyes narrowing and ears swiveling back briefly as he reminded her of Starfleet and how unwelcome she was here, of the crimes the Blackfleet family had committed that she had been punished for, a reminder of how much she didn't belong here and probably never would really belong here. But those she supposed were things to contemplate later for now though she recognized Alue's scent and Alue was a healer which the pack was very much going to need so if that was who was trapped then she would have to work quickly. "Brawn isn't enough here, rescues require brains as well". She said perhaps a bit too bluntly as she tried to shoved her feelings of resentment and irritability at the entire situation and her own injuries down and away as much as she could while moving closer to assess the entirety of the situation and noting not just the soil but the rocks, namely the giant boulder, which was going to be a pain to move. They couldn't just bite and hold it to drag it out of the way but neither of them could squeeze between it and what may have once been a wall of sorts to fully throw their weight against it either. And aside from the hole already there she didn't know if they would be able to dig a clear enough path to get..yes the scent confirmed it..it was Alue..out.

That meant they would have to use the hole that was there..somehow. She wasn't sure how though..if she were a cat she could..or no even as a cat her paw might be too big to fit considering how big a sabers paws were but..maybe..cats and humans. She knew a bit about each so maybe if she could somehow combine them that would give her and..whoever blue guy was a way to get Alue out. They needed something that would be small enough to fit in the hole but sturdy enough to move the boulder and there was only one thing that came to mind that fit that description and luckily there was plenty of it within easy reach. "Stay here and don't touch anything I need to get something". She said to Arik before turning and quickly racing off to locate a suitable branch which didn't take long.

She was soon rushing back as quickly as she could while carrying the fairly sizable limb in her mouth. Once she had reached Arik, unless he'd come to help her with the limb, she would set it down. "We can use this to move the boulder. We stick one end of it through the hole and then we can push on the other so it will be like a cats paw hooking the rock and pulling it out". At least in theory anyway but given some of the other human things she'd seen, even if she'd never seen an actual human, it should work. Of course they would probably need to be careful to not injure the healer while positioning the limb but hopefully it wouldn't be that much of an issue because she had no idea how else they would be able to get this boulder and the rest of these rocks cleared.

[Mercury]

Mercury was starting to think she was cursed, and that she should have just stayed a dog after all.  No sooner than she had finally been reunited with her family, the very earth ripped apart.  The cataclysm bucked and rolled the landscape, and animals around her screamed.  Like during a fire, prey flooded the open spaces, and she had to dodge a panicked family of deer as they rushed to open ground where they would have more maneuverability. Mercury wheeled and following them, bounding and leaping when they did, and let them guide her to safety in this still unfamiliar landscape.  She burst through the trees and into a meadow.  A boulder jutted up from the landscape, and she made for it.  Even the minimal height it allowed would give her a better vantage, and more reaction time.

She had barely scrambled to the top of the large rock when the earth once again went still.  The tremors had seemed to last hours, but in truth it couldn't have been more than a couple minutes.  After all the activity, the land seemed eerily still, as though instead of sleeping, it was waiting.  Mercury's heart galloped in her chest as her instinct for survival slowly decelerated, her nostrils flared and her ears swiveled to catch the sounds around her.  She waited for the land to start again, expecting it to churn at any moment.  But all was still.  Slowly, the dark moon climbed down off the boulder.  She braced herself when her feet once again touched the earth, as though her contact with it would trigger an aftershock.  It did not.  She simply breathed for a few moments as her adrenaline left her system, grateful to have escaped unscathed.

But others would have not.  She immediately set off back into the forest, once again running through the trees.  Everywhere she looked the forest showed signs of the quake.  Boulders that had sat for decades had vacated, leaving gaping holes in the mossy undergrowth.  Trees had toppled and their roots now reached for the sky, while the branches entangled themselves in the earth.  While the destruction was not total, it was noticeable.  They didn't call them natural disasters out of a sense of cheek.  While she scanned along the trail for signs of her pack, she noticed Ayliyra running with a rather large branch in her mouth.  Mercury veered off her own path to follow, and came upon the scene just as Aylie was explaining her plan to a wolf who looked familiar, but not quite.  The last time Mercury had seen Arik, he had still been a pup at his mother's side, and it was hard to reconcile the memory of her pack from the group she now found herself a part of.

"We can use this to move the boulder. We stick one end of it through the hole and then we can push on the other so it will be like a cats paw hooking the rock and pulling it out".

"The branch is too old."  Mercury said, jogging up to meet them. "It is dried out, it will not be flexible enough to bend."

She looked around, swiftly spotting a few young birch trees.  Big enough around to be useful, but still slim enough to carry, she selected one on the edge of the clearing. Swiftly, she charged, slamming her weight into the tree with full force.  Ordinarily it would have injured her, for the tree's roots would have helped it to stay in place.  But the shifting of the soil had loosened the birch's hold, and it tilted sharply.  She bounded up and down onto the trunk, and with each jump more and more roots were exposed.  Soon the tree was far enough out that she dragged it, snapping the smaller branches and leaves as she did so.

"We should each have a pole, and spread them out to control the boulder's movement."

She may no longer be an Alpha, but Mercury was a natural born leader.

[Puffin [RP]]

His workshop was back in full force. Winter was on its way, and with it, snow. It would maybe be months yet before the first snowfall, he supposed, but he wanted his sleds in working order long before then. In the crisp fall air, he set to sanding the roughened edges of the runners and working oils into the leather fasteners to keep them from getting brittle. His stores of cured leather were back at his and Kestrel's den, however, so if he wanted to get to work on making new harnesses, he would have to go back there to fetch the materials.

And so he went. Kestrel was nowhere to be found, but she had her own work, so he wasn't concerned. As he padded from the den, leather in jaw, he felt the fur along his spine begin to rise. Stopping, he sniffed the air, curiously. And then the ground began to shake. He dropped the leather, darting for a clear place to stand, and watched with apprehension as the trees around him shook as though a harsh wind blew through them. He swallowed his fear, maintaining his balance as the earth shifted, and waited for the quake to end. He winced as a tree fell behind him. He heard something fall off a shelf in Kestrel's den, and the sound of pottery breaking. He listened for cries of help, poised to sprint towards anyone who called. As the tremors dissipated, he strained to hear anyone's voice.

"Hold on! Keep yelling!"

Puffin broke into a sprint, running full tilt, heart racing. He spotted Arik first, heaving against a large boulder. Wait, wasn't that Alue's den? Aylie stood with a branch in her jaws, and a black and gold wolf he could only assume was Mercury appeared with a birch sapling, two wolves of like minds. He forced his panic down. Closing the distance, he rushed past the Aylie and Mercury and thrust his forepaws into the earth to the side of the boulder. He dug furiously in the dirt beside Arik, knowing he did not have the strength to move that rock, and not knowing if Alue had the time to wait for them to fiddle with branches. His claws hit rock, and he frantically dug around it until he could work it loose. Rocks the size of his head he rolled away, one after another as they fell into the cavity he dug.

He could smell his friend, he was so close. "Alue, we're going to get you out, I promise." He dug another rock out, but before the small hole he created could be filled again, he recklessly thrust his head inside. Earth and stone fell onto his shoulders, but he did not falter. His forepaws churned in the earth, spraying it out between his hind legs. He rolled more rocks out, digging deeper until his nose finally reached the still air of Alue's den. His tail, curled tight with tension, finally began to wag, even as his body held up the small tunnel he had dug. Through the dark haze of the den, he could just make out the silhouette of his friend. "Hey! You alright? Think you can squeeze out under me while I hold this thing up?" he asked. His voice was strained from the weight he held, but he was no longer afraid. "Or you could wait for Aylie and Mercury to move that big boulder. They've got a plan, I think."