Triss dragged Crux to the shimmering shore, where things were clearly going on. What, she didn’t know. But something! As a slowly learning healer, she was curious to see if she could figure out any of the odd going ons in the land. She also wanted to make her mother proud, and bring back knowledge and understanding to her alpha and pack.

So when they arrived at the shimmering shore, and saw that others had already started, she turned to Crux with a raised brow. “I guess we're digging.” Her eyes glanced towards his leg, but she would never dream of telling him he was incapable. He was Crux, he could do anything.


"Cryptis"

Crux had been intending to head north, try to speak to his siblings and invite them and maybe a few more of his family to his upcoming wedding. But then the ground had shook and the sky had gone red and it hadn't felt exactly prudent to go far. Even as he felt something tugging him north. Crux was doing his best to ignore it for now. Well he was ignoring the part of him that longed on a deep level to go north. Word of something changing nearby had ignited something else in him and he hoped sating that would help to stave off his desire to go north. So maybe he was so willingly dragged around by Triss for that reason. (As if he wouldn't have let himself be dragged around by Triss whenever she wanted.) That said he knew how quickly things could get nasty when things got weird, the long burn scar on his throat was proof enough of that. So maybe it was also a desire to be there, to try and protect Triss just in case.

None of that was to say he was pleased to find himself on yet another beach. The sand at least seemed to pack down a bit easier than the beach of his youth but that didn't mean he was going to move particularly well. He didn't miss the quick glance to his leg, where it might have irked him from others he found only a little fluttering of indignation when it came from Triss. Because he knew he'd have worried similarly for her if they were somewhere where the air was less than clean, and neither of them would try to dictate it as a barrier. Instead he narrowed his eyes at her playfully. "I'll have you know digging isn't that hard for me. Long as I get planted." There was a slight joking to his tone, he knew others didn't need to dig in the way he did. Which was what Crux was doing. He twisted his left ankle so that he easily packed down some of the sand, his right required a bit more shifting of his hips but eventually he felt secure.

"First one to find something gets a kiss?" He grinned at her as he suggested a little bet. But he also didn't wait for a response instead starting to drive his fore paws into the sand, churning up strange furrowed tracks as he dug. He wanted to win after all!

"Speech"

Ha! She'd take that challenge. Instead of answering, she started to dig harder. Throwing earth around and flicking some at him in the process. By accident, of course. She stuck her tongue out at him, daring him to do the same when everything suddenly shifted.


The ground groaned beneath her paws and she let out a startled yelp as the rumbling earth suddenly gave way beneath her. She tumbled down amongst the scattering debris and let out a yip. This time in pain as she hit the ground. She breathed in a lungful of fine particles in the same instance and immediately started coughing. She hacked and struggled, and felt the crystals in her throat inflamming. They cut into the fragile flesh of her oesophagus as She wheezed and struggled to breath. There was blood in her breath, and still the first hadn't settled. Panic started to set in and she desperately tried to croak his name “cr---”

Crux sputtered, pulling back slightly as Triss threw sand at him. He sent her a playful glare and was about to jump back in to digging when a loud rumble stopped him in his tracks and then, the ground dropped out from beneath them. Or rather Triss. Crux seemed to have barely missed whatever fault or other issue led to the collapse, though if he'd been deep into digging as he had been but a moment ago he likely would have fallen in himself, his weight shifted too far forward to stop it.

Instead he had to watch in slowly, too slowly, dawning horror. He stared blankly for a moment at open air, his mind struggling to catch up. And then all of a sudden, almost violently, it clicked and his gaze turned down. The air was still filled with dust and the dim red light could barely penetrate the dark. He tried for a moment to see where Triss had landed but he couldn't seem too... Was that her voice? Panic was about to overtake him but something else was quicker, he'd always thrived in stressful situations. Always found a strange clarity settle over him where others might lose theirs. "I'm jumping down." His voice was lifted to make sure she could hear it, and even as the words left his lips he was scanning for some way down into the chasm... No such luck. It left him with only one option. Fuck.

Crux took a deep breath and then launched himself downwards, unsure just how far he was going to fall or what he'd find once he was down there. And of course unsure he could safely land. No luck on that end, as his paws hit ground pain shot up his leg, the leg. He could almost picture one of the crystals cracking inside his joint, doing damage that could never be fixed. It caused him to buckle, carrying the rest of his weight down onto his chest. But he was in healer mode, and since it was just that one leg that buckled he could easily pull himself back to standing, even if his leg protested. "Triss?" He squinted through the dark and dust, an all too familiar sound his guide towards his fiancée. "Triss, breath." He knew it was a stupid thing to say, if she could she would, but he was trying to stop the panic that would only lead to more strained breathing. There! Crux spotted a small form in the dust and he moved as quickly as he could, coming to hunch over her, not crowding her to try and encourage her breathing but close enough to touch, to comfort. "I'm here, you're okay." They needed to get the panic dealt with first. Damn! He wished he had something to help her breath through the dust, a cloth or something.


"Speech"

She couldn’t hear anything past the hammering in her chest, and the awful, wet hacking in her throat. There was blood on her paws where was coughing into them. She still couldn’t breathe. She could feel her desperation rising and suddenly he was there. As he leaned over her, one clean breath dragged its way into her lungs, but the next did nothing, and nor did the one after that.

She collapsed at his paws, her wibbling limbs too weak to support herself as she continued to choke. A fine mist of blood spraying before her. She could feel the crystals in her throat, tightening, piercing. Tears welled in her eyes. Both from the lack of air, and the pain from the sharp crystals in her throat. Why couldn’t she breathe!
“Hel-” She tried to beg, but she couldn’t get a word out past the coughing and desperate wheezing. Was this it? Was this how she died?

"Cryptis"

((PP approved by Sea <3))

There was a brief moment of relief as Crux heard and saw Triss take in one cleaner breath. But then it was gone, and he was already moving onto the next step, though the wet red mist Triss coughed up nearly made him stumble, he hesitated, for just a moment before the part of him that kept the panic at bay slammed back onto the gas. He could have a break down about this later, once they were both okay! He quickly tipped his head back, calling for Riya who he'd left at home, mercifully they were not far. He hoped she'd arrive quickly. Then his attention was fully on Triss again. "Keep trying to cough." Crux wasn't sure if his words were even registering, it was half for himself anyways, a way to work through his thought process a little.

"Try to stay upright if you can." His tone was soft, as he leaned down and manoeuvred one of his paws to start lifting her back up, using his wrist to support her full weight if he had to. Her lungs, her esophagus and diaphragm needed the extra space being upright would offer, instead of constricting them she needed open air for them to fill in her chest and abdomen. His other fore paw went to her back. It was an awkward position, one that made his aching leg very unhappy, forced to lean back and sit on his haunches in a way he hadn't forced himself too in a bit, having started allowing himself the comfort of one leg sprawled more to the side. But he needed it firmly under himself now.

Crux gently searched for the space between her shoulder blades, found it, tilted his forepaw to the side to fit more easily between them and then wound back and with force slammed it back down onto her back, thrusting slightly upwards as he did. He repeated this action a couple of times. If there was blood in her throat they needed it out. Hopefully between coughing and this they'd clear it... If not...

Triss was so small, even giving her some slaps on the back felt like he might break her. The idea he might have to escalate to something even more potentially dangerous did not exactly fill him with confidence.

"Speech"

She could barely tell what Crux was doing. She was a rag in his arms, unsupported by her own body. But he didn’t seem to mind taking on the weight. As she wheezed and coughed, limp in his paws, he seemed to move her into a position to his liking, and then he was hitting her suddenly. A surprised meep escaped her, and a splattering of blood sprayed the walls in front of them, and then a clean breath came in. And then another.

Though she needed calm, and a clear throat and all those sensible things… she immediately burst into tears instead. Sobbing as she turned inwards, clinging to his chest, incoherent but breathing as he sobbed desperately into his fur. Spreading the last tinges of her blood into his coat. She had thought she was dying. She had felt it, felt the black fog at the edges of her vision. She had been close. Closer than she’d ever been before.


"Cryptis"

A little surprised sound, ironically a good sign, and so was the splatter of blood as Triss finally seemed to clear her throat. One breath, another and Crux found he'd been holding his own breath. Triss twisted in his grasp and threw herself at his chest and Crux leaned back, resting his spine on the wall of the tunnel as he lifted his forelegs to hold her gently, wanting desperately to squeeze her close but knowing she needed to continue to breath.

Crux breathed a sigh of relief, gently rubbing a paw along her back as she sobbed. He knew he ought to be trying to get her to take less shaky breathes but he also knew what she needed was comfort, was to let it out. Crux would provide her the space to do that, and give her what comfort he could. He didn't even mind the blood. "Shh, shh." He shushed softly, less trying to actually quiet her and more seeking to just reassure her.

Crux hadn't seen an attack that bad before, even when they'd first met which hadn't exactly been mild. He couldn't imagine what it felt like, to struggle so hard to breath and just not be able too, the fear that would course through you. He'd thought he'd been about to die once, but it had been a flash for him. A moment of panic, of boiling hot red rushing to meet him and a second of skin melting pain and then... Black. And then he'd woken up, panicked still sure but less certain of his own death so much as driven by pure animal instinct to run from the danger. And she'd found him, burned by lava that didn't exist and able to help soothe both his mind and his body. Crux would do his best to do that for her now. He craned his neck forward, gently tucking her under his chin.

"I'm here." He cooed softly as the adrenaline started to wane and he felt the throbbing in his leg, in his ankle really, and it started to slowly really sink in what had just happened. "I'm here, I've got you." He tried to keep the waver from his voice as the delayed panic started to settle in, dulled by the passing of the crisis but still alive.

"Speech"

She clung to him for a time, aware of nothing except for him holding her, and his soft voice in her ear. At last, she cried herself out. She hiccuped, and it burned coming past her ravaged throat. ”Do we have any water?” She croaked out. She knew then and there that speaking was going to be hard for a time. Not the first time, and likely not the last.

She had no idea what supplies had made it down with them, and now that she had a moment to think she found herself wondering what exactly had happened. They’d been digging, and then the floor had fallen away beneath her. “We fell?” she clarified, trying to remember the exact events. ”Gotta.. out.” Talking was only getting harder the more she pushed it.


"Cryptis"