She had woken up several times over the years; the taste of ash fresh on her tongue, the heat of flames at her heels. She would push up and forward until the chrysalis shattered, but there would rarely be any fresh air for her outside of it. If Kera had to guess-- and Kera was quite good at guessing --the ominous crashing followed by blacking out for an inexplicable amount of time meant that there must have been rubble on top of her chrysalis.
Which was great, because Kera lived alone and no one was going to go looking for her and dig her out anytime soon.
If Orion was still intact, Kera did not know. If her neighbours survived the fire, she did not know. If the caves themselves were in ruins and this were a different kind of hell that was in store for Kera (for being the catalyst in getting people murdered by an angry goose, probably), Kera did not know, but it seemed increasingly plausible with every passing failure to escape.
Kera did not like this fate for herself. Every time she opened her eyes in the stifling dark she reared up as hard as she could to break out; but never did she manage to get very far without something falling and collasping onto her and, eventually, she would pass out again.
When she awoke again, two and a half years after her initial blackout, she decided she needed help. She'd had more than enough of this routine-- she reared back and she kicked until she felt the familiar crumbling of the chrysalis followed by thick, charred stones shifting on top. She'd have to be quick, or she'd be fucked or another few months.
Heavy forepaws lifted and, like she were digging out of a grave, she shovelled what pebbles she could from above.
Thalia'd just been sort of wandering--as she tended to do--and staring at things. She'd mostly been looking at the charred buildings again, making up stories in her mind of all the ways it could have happened.
They weren't the real ways, but--it was still good inspiration.
She was so lost in her own inner tales that the actual sound of a real voice jolted her, and for a moment she didn't know if it was real or imagined. Silver eyes blinked as she skidded to a halt, the click of her hooves falling still.
"...Hey?" she tried, and hesitated before calling out more loudly. "HELLO?"
That way, she thought, and broke into a jog, and then an all-out sprint. A frown twisted her face down, worry in her heart--she didn't even stop to think it might be some kind of weird-ass trap. Instead she was concerned, and as she came to the pile of rubble that had been shouting (what??) she quite literally skidded to a halt.
For a moment, she stared at the rocks. This was the right place, right-?
"Uh. Hello?" she tried, again, hoping for some direction.
@Kera
Kera paused-- a voice? --and angled her ears. They didn't go very far. There was already something on her head weighing it down. A very distant, frustrated part wanted to start shouting and screaming and swearing at the disembodied voice for, it sounded like, just sort of being there and not helping-- the part that knew better kept Kera calm.
She was close, at least-- even if she went back into her chrysalis again, now someone knew she was here. Someone knew she needed help. Even if she blacked out, she would wake up somewhere else.
@Thalia
Thalia listened, staring down into the rubble.
"-Fuck!" was Thalia's alarmed, less-than-eloquent response to Kera's pleas. She scrambled down into the pile, and began hauling at the slabs of crumbled stone for all she was worth. After a moment she realized it wasn't possible: she wasn't big enough, wasn't strong enough on her own to just lift slabs of rock.
She glanced around, looking almost desperately for something she could use to wedge up the rocks from below, using leverage instead of brute strength.
"-Fuck!" she repeated again, breathless, finding nothing but more broken bits of rock--and none large enough for the task. For a moment she went back to flinging out the smaller stones, hoping at least to clear some air for whoever was beneath. "I'm trying! I'll try!" she called down, too-loud, hoping Kera could hear her.
@Kera
Well, at least the person on the other side was aware of the gravity of the situation. The other noises didn't seem very hopeful, though. Her ears strained and she could hear pebbles being thrown back; which at least meant something was happening and it wasn't time to throw in the towel yet.
Her paws found something softer and she began to dig with the hope that the combined effort could help bring fresher air into the mound of rubble-- but within seconds her paws were scraping against hard slabs of rock, nails scritch-scritch-scritching loudly.
There had to be a better strategy.
@Thalia
Thalia paused--she actually paused--at the question. Which was, in retrospect, incredibly stupid and when she realized this, she dug faster as if to make up for it.
"I can make rainbows," she snapped, not annoyed at Kera but rather at herself. A flash of multicolored light wasn't gonna help anyone, here.
She gritted her teeth. "Just a minute! -I'm not leaving!" she shouted down, and then took off at a scrambling sprint. Kera would probably hear her hooves exactly 'leaving.'
Thalia dashed left, then down an alley, and right--and finally found what she was looking for, a longer, thick wedge of stone that had fallen with one of the other buildings. It was little more than a longish, thin brick, but it would do. She hefted it up and ran back, arriving back in the battered ruin with hair hanging in her face and her chest heaving with heavy breaths.
She jammed the piece down, wedging it under the larger stone that kept Kera trapped, and--straining and grunting--finally heaved it away.
It was a start, at least--and as she stumbled forward, she threw her weight into it and flung that piece heavily to the other side.
Then she blinked down into the gap she'd made, panting. "-Hey," she greeted the shape below.
@Kera
The air was becoming oversaturated with Kera's heavy breaths and she planted her broad head against the shell of her chrysalis, uncomfortably damp and humid. Though she had little in the way of surviving memories of what would come next for her, the wolf knew it was going to be anything but pleasant: slowly suffocating until her gemstone overtook her body.
Kera knew it would go by easier if she relaxed, but all she could focus on was the clipping of distant hooves on rock as they seemed to grow louder and louder even as the sound of her breathing filled the little cavity until there was nothing left.
She was lucky, however, to have only just began choking when the slab lifted and, like floodgates opening, cold, fresh air hit her face. There was only a milisecond's pause before her scarred muzzle was jamming through the gap and she hungrily gasped for the air of Orion which, to her, might as well have been ripe oxygen from the surface itself.
Her lungs had been left out to dry, it felt like-- it hurt, even, for her aching throat to gulp down so much without second thought --but it was only once she'd had her fill that she pulled her face back from the gap and offered the vaguest of nods.
A few beats passed by before Kera's paws replaced where her muzzle had been, as she began scooping smaller rocks and dirt backwards to widen the gap.
@Thalia
Thalia peered down, blinked, and then broke into a brief and brilliant grin. "Hey," she repeated, in greeting--then, realizing she was repeating herself, she coughed and awkwardly scratched at the back of her head. "Rainbow wouldn't help much. I'm Thalia, nice to meet you," she went on, leaning down and grunting as she hoisted out another stone. "I'll have you outta there in just a minute, okay? I got you," she went on, doing her best to sound confident.
Really, she was sort of afraid of accidentally dropping a brick on the poor dog's (wolf's? -she didn't know) head. But she wasn't about to say that. Fact of the matter was, though, it sort of showed in Thalia's voice, as much as she didn't want it to. She was trying very hard not to sound like she was afraid of leaving Kera trapped there, and wound up sounding exactly like that, instead.
"So, uh--how'd you end up in this situation?"
Record scratch, and all that.
@Kera
It should be noted that Kera was definitely not very reassured by Thalia, who sounded as though she might accidentally re-tomb her at any given moment. The fresh air was enough for now, though-- it would keep her alive much longer than she had been in the last few years.
Her question, though?
Speaking of.
@Thalia
She struggled with the next one, having to really put her back into it--but so far as she could tell, this was the heaviest remaining. After this, they'd have an easier time of it.
Hopefully.
So when Kera asked her question, Thalia was probably out of sight, for her: yanking a column of broken stone away, heaving it off into the corner. A moment later, her (dirtied) face reappeared, lit with another bright grin. "Only on the weekends," she answered jauntily.
Thalia only vaguely knew what a weekend was.
She paused to wipe her face with the back of one hand. "If you got hit by the fire, I mean--how long ago was it? I know a dragon fucked this place right up awhile back," she went on, and braced herself against another, smaller bit of rock.
Little by little, she was peeling away the stones keeping the poor wolf trapped.
"I mean, I don't know much more than that. Supposedly some bigwigs came down--up, I don't know--from 'The Creator' and burned stuff, and killed some people?" She--admittedly hadn't paid the best attention to that story, mostly because she'd been relatively drunk at the time. "I think it was related." Somehow.
Thalia paused for a moment, and squinted, trying to remember; but nothing came. Definitely something about a dragon, though. "I like your title," Thalia offered, and glanced down as she worked. "How'd you get it? If that's all right to ask? And--uh, are you hurt?"
I probably should've started with that, she reflected wryly.
@Kera