Storm Scattered (Anniversary Lepicerin Bonding!)

The Wind Blows Under my Paws Male Skvader Lepicerin, Selvry



Mindspeech: Color #a1eef2

The sole male Skvader of his Colony, a rarity for the rank, Selvry simply loves to run. Even for a rank typically spoken of as being skittish he's quick to take to his feet and race away both from danger as well as to look for good foraging or shelter for the Colony. Selvry will typically challenge others to races for fun and when things are calm and he feels truly safe he's quite a jovial, if flighty, companion.

Frisk

Taking Caspurr along for the trip was definitely a good idea! The scent of rabbit – and scarred rabbit at that – remained thick in the area as well as visible signs of its passing. Here was a few feathers matted into the mud. There by a puddle were tracks, smears of imprints indicating that whomever the bunny was they'd tore through here at considerable speed. A clump of fur caught on the branches of a decorative bush.

There things would also take a twist for the troublesome. In its haste the rabbit had seemingly darted all around the cul-de-sac. Perhaps it was disorientated and upon running in by the road had been unable to find its way back out again.

Then another scent would reach the Astrum's twitching nose: blood.

Yes, there was an injury involved.

All the clues would eventually, after about an hour of sniffing and searching and following, lead to a haphazard pile-stack of debris. Empty crates, paper turned almost to mush by the rains, scraps of cloth from shop awnings, and various plant matter all glued together by mud might just have been the closest thing to a shelter in the storm.

If Caspurr's nose gave any indication somewhere in there was a rabbit. Now just to find them, and somehow get them out safely.

Frisk

For a long, long moment (probably much longer-feeling than it actually was for Frisk) there was no response from the stack of boxes and stuff.

Then... a small scratching sound. A creak of wood and a click as a small piece of metal was dislodged and fell to the ground.

And finally, finally a twitching nose was seen through a tiny triangle opening in all the mess. How the Lepicerin attached to it got into the space was another matter. He was about a foot tall at the shoulder and with wings, one of which was missing a good number of feathers and bearing a long cut from top arch to edge. Smaller, more superficial scratches marred the brown fur of his shoulders and back. Nothing looked too dire but definitely painful. He was shaking a bit, still quite distressed, but he'd approached. That was something. However it would be clear that while he'd gotten himself in, the storm had shifted the wood around him and he could no longer get himself out. Now how to get to him, or get him out, without bringing down the proverbial house on his head?

((Feel free to get creative here! Imagine the setup however you want. The only condition is that the currently available holes and gaps are too small for him to get out of on his own, and at least appear that if one piece is moved all of them may move or fall. But I'm sure you can find a way!))

Frisk

The Lepicerin just blinked at the sign language, but at the translating from Caspurr gave a tremulous nod, hunkering down lower against any falling debris with ears pressed close to his head.

The first piece of metal Frisk attempted to move slid out of the pile with a scraping sound but didn't disturb the mess further. But a few lower pieces trembled dangerously. Going from the top was definitely the right call even if it made for some heart-racing moments for the creature trapped within. Slowly, piece by piece, a gap started to open itself above the Lepicerin. The rabbit looked up as finally Frisk would be able to get a look at him. At about a foot and a bit fall, he had mottled dark brown wings folded tight to his mottled dark brown back and this would be one source of the blood that had been scented; the right one had a cut along its length. Were it not for the cut and the close proximity Frisk might not have been able to see them, truthfully.

Perhaps sensing freedom so close the Lepicerin started to get up but his head bumped a piece of metal and he ducked back down quickly; in that moment a cut on one hind leg would also be glimpsed. He probably couldn't jump out of the hold even had he been able to stand, at least without considerable pain.

The hole would soon be big enough for Frisk to reach in and pick the rabbit out, if they so dared despite the jags of metal and wood that remained. Or clearing more out was an option.

((If you want, you can continue clearing a larger hole, or you can reach for the rabbit and see if you can get him out. If you decide to go ahead and collect him, you can start tending his injuries. This will be the final round for your path.))

Orinda had been a resident of Teragaia just long enough to know that that bloody massive drum that beat its all-consuming cadence down from the Harper Halls meant something that was supposed to be largely understood by the populace. She had not been a resident long enough to have become fluent in more than a few words (from which she was attempting to branch into the language, but Harper-speak was as complex as the wisdom cubes that generated shipgirls and took about as much study to understand).

She understood "Bunny bunny village glue repairs". Little was she to know that that made about as much sense without context as it did with.

The drums shook the windows in the shop she was perusing, but the diminutive shopkeeper waved off Orinda's concern. "Nothin' short of the Illogical Field is getting my windows. They're rated for earthquakes, which I'm pretty sure that Harper drum qualifies as, and nobody who knows Kalatis is my landlady dares pull any shenanigans. Heh. I'm the one they should be afraid of, but it's hard to be intimidating at four-foot-six."

Orinda looked Asphir over. The organic claimed to be something called an "Avariel", or a "winged elf", for which Orinda had no knowledge base. Apparently elves were pointy-eared people, and Asphir definitely was that, and he did indeed have wings like a bird. Biggest part of him, really. Asphir Elandinai was a small, hollow-boned, sharp-angled thing. Fragile enough for something like Orinda to crush by accident. The very frail strength of him made her feel boorish and clumsy by comparison.

But he had a point.

What he didn't look was scary.

"You don't seem to be in a big hurry," Asphir observed after a few moments more. "I know Tomlin butchered the message, but there's enough in there to be concerned about."

"Bunny bunny village glue?"

The elf's face fell first in shock, then cracked with disbelieving laughter. "That's what you heard? Aeon's left nostril, girl, you need help. Starting with Bunny hunt! Lost bunnies in Village! Bring tape and glue for repairs!"

"Okay, that simultaneously makes much more and much less sense."

"Don't measure your sanity by the drumbeats around these parts, hon. About eighty five percent of the time, the drums are manned by Harper Tomlin and he couldn't get a cadence right if his life literally depended on it. Still, even Tomlin sometimes gets salient details in there. My guess is some kind of bunnies are in trouble and you'd best get to checking the village for any that are trapped or injured."

"You really draw all that insight from that garbled nonsense?"

"You'll learn too, in time," Asphir assured Orinda. "Tomlin is just kind of a way of life around here. He's a landmark, like a peculiar rock formation. And his cadences are always worth answering, they're just never accurate. After a while, you learn to translate more than the Harper drum alphabet. But enough of that! Get ye gone and looking for bunnies!"

Suitably chivvied from Asphir's Worldly Wonders, Orinda smoothed down her coat and looked up and down Mystic Lane for any likely places for scared or injured bunnies to hide. She also activated her sonar sensors, with absolutely zero faith that they would actually help her locate a missing or endangered creature (still, effort was effort, right?).

Frisk knelt down to scoop him up, stroking the soft fur. From what they could remember, rabbits enjoyed hay and certain fruits and vegetables. "You don't have to thank me for anything, Selvry," they finally spoke, their voice as soft as a whisper. "I'm not going to just ignore someone who needs help."

Caspurr padded alongside Frisk as they headed towards the nearest grocer to purchase some fresh vegetables for their new furry friend. The hay and grasses would be easier to come by, since those types of products tended to be sold in shops that offered a wide variety of different foods for one's creature companions.

Orinda

Yes, for any mundane human, with a mundane human's strength, the wedged in pieces of metal and wood would be all but impossible without some kind of tools.

For Orinda... not nearly as impossible, if a bit loud.

Beneath the sheet metal was a rather deep, if hastily-dug tunnel about a yard in size for the first couple of feet or so. Then it was half collapsed with dirt, metal, branches, and debris.

And a rabbit foot was sticking out of it, one that was likely attached to an equally large rabbit!

But even if stuck the bunny was alive as testified by the twitching of the foot at Orinda's voice.

I - I'm stuck! the female Mindvoice called. There's some sort of branch pinning me. Please help!