Down the Drain

Romi

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Whatever Angelo had expected to be doing that day, it sure as hell wasn't this. He'd come to take a simple enough stolen (or, as far as he was concerned, lost) item report. He'd done his work, headed on his way back out of the college... and, well, now he was halfway down a drainage pipe.

It wasn't like he'd chosen to get into a drainage pipe. Not at all. But he'd been walking, and he'd heard a weird noise, and then all of a sudden he'd been on a damned rescue mission, because there was a tiny little critter doggy paddling at the bottom of the drain. It was deep enough that he didn't think he'd drown, but whatever animal it was (hedgehog? porcupine? He wasn't entirely clear on the difference) was far too small to have any hope of touching the bottom. He had no idea how long it had been in there, and he had no idea how long it was going to last, but if he was going to guess, it'd be a pretty short amount of time.

He'd forced up the drain himself, shoving his fingers into the edge and lifting it physically, and then... well, then he'd run out of plan. There wasn't really a plan. He had no idea how deep the drain went, so he didn't want to risk going in feet first, which meant he was going to have to lower himself in face first, and try and reach it. It shouldn't be that hard of a reach, but... well, it wasn't exactly the smartest idea.

Smartest idea or not, it was the only idea he had. No one else seemed close enough, so he lay flat down on his belly, wiggling himself forward until his head, chest, and arms were in the hole.

Time to go fishing, and he dipping his hands in the water, trying to catch the poor thing before it drowned.
 

Cloudie

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Lidiya Savakis

There was a man stuck in a manhole. Actually Lidiya wasn’t even certain they were a man, (there were certainly plenty of various beings of various genders in a multitude of shapes and sizes on Manta Carlos), but she was assuming from the large build and rather muscular parts of the person that she could see. Which, to be fair, wasn’t that much. Their arms and head seemed to be stuck inside the drain, and their amazingly long and fluffy blond hair covered the entire expanse of their back. Though from the distance that Lidiya was at, maybe it wasn’t hair nor a person at all. Maybe some odd unfortunate animal had the misfortune to fall down into an open manhole? Well, regardless of what it was, Lidiya felt at least obligated to go over and check out what it was and perhaps offer help.

Upon closer inspection, Lidiya could indeed confirm that it was a person, with amazingly fluffy blond hair, halfway in the drainage hole. They seemed to be making some movements but weren’t saying anything. That was probably a good thing, right? Usually someone would call out for help. Then again, they might have been newly stuck and not yet at the point of panic.

Stepping a bit closer to the, now that she properly looked over the person, extremely muscular figure, Lidiya called down to where the person’s head was presumably. Which was in the manhole they were stuck in.

“Excuse me. Are you okay? Do you need me to call the police to help you out?”

Honestly, she could probably lift the person out herself, but she was very much reluctant to use her strength anymore. And if the person was badly stuck, pulling them out with her strength might hurt them, something she was deeply scared of doing. Better off that she left it to the police or someone more qualified to help out.

 

Romi

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Angelo very nearly cracked his skull. Someone spoke, he jumped, and he only just missed the side of the fairly narrow drainage pipe. He did hit his head enough to make him let out a little noise of protest. It didn't really hurt, but he was damned startled, and the little thing scooted away from his hand. He reached up, bracing himself against the wall with one hand. He was going to have to be very careful to make sure he didn't slide in.

"Yeah, I'm fine!" He called up. Fine minus the bruise he was going to have on the back of his head, anyway. "There's a... thing down here. Just going to grab it. Don't suppose you could grab an ankle?" The idea of calling the police was... okay, well, Tybalt would give him hell if he fell into a damned pipe trying to rescue something. He couldn't blame her for not knowing he was police, considering his badge and everything that identified him was halfway down the pipe.

He shifted his other hand, still bracing himself, and dipped his hand under the water. The poor thing was getting tired, and by the time he went for it, it was easy to scoot the exhausted little hedgehog into his hand, where it collapsed, panting gently. Obviously it was tired from the sheer amount of swimming - but now Angelo was going to have to pull himself back out, a rather painful experience.
 

Cloudie

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Lidiya Savakis

Bang!

The person jerked, startled by the sound of her voice probably, and had hit something (his head?) on the wall of the pipe. Lidiya felt the guilt pool into her stomach. She had caused them to get hurt from her actions. It seemed like even without the supernatural strength she had, she’d still end up hurting people. No wonder she had to be sent to Starlight Academy before high school.

The sound of a deep voice broke her out of the self-guilt tripping and Lidiya turned her attention back to the man (surely that deep voice belonged to a male?) stuck in the hole.

Oh. It would seem that he wasn’t as stuck as she had previously thought. Though, it seemed that he might be close to falling in as he was asking for her to grab his ankle? Lidiya hesitated at the request, she didn’t want to accidentally grab him too hard and cause another injury, but eventually knelt down behind the man to grasp both ankles in her hands. Well, his ankles were rather large and sturdy, so she probably wouldn’t hurt him too badly right? Then again, she had the capabilities to lift a full grown ox (or two?) so she couldn’t let her guard down and lose control. Adjusting her grip to a hopefully firm but gentle hold, she waited for the man to finish up what he was in the drain for.

There was a bit of movement and shuffling before the man seemed to have settled down and completed his task. But if he was retrieving something from inside a drain, head first no less, it would probably be much more difficult getting back out with his hands occupied. She should probably help pull him out, but...she really didn’t want to hurt him again. Yet it’s wasn’t like she could just leave him and go find another person; that would be irresponsible and cruel. With a resigned look on her face, Lidiya decided she would exert some of her strength (and hopefully not hurt him again) to help out. But before that it would be best to inform him as to not startle him again.

“If it is okay with you, I can help pull you out of the manhole if you’re done?”

Yes, and once she pulled him out she would definitely offer to tend to his injuries. It was only right as they were her fault in the first place. Hopefully he wouldn’t be angry at her though…
Lidiya pushed that fear into the back of her mind as she slowly removed the man from the manhole.
 

Romi

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The voice above him sounded pretty feminine, but the grip was firm enough that he didn't feel like he had all that much to worry about.

Getting out was going to be a long and bruise worthy process, mostly involving him trying to make sure the poor hedgehog didn't slip while he shimmied his way back out. Or, that was the plan - right up until his would-be rescuer offered to pull him out.

Well... alright, that actually worked pretty well. Angelo wasn't going to pretend like he was above getting a helping hand, and he shifted a bit to let himself be more in the center of the drain, so as to avoid scraping up the side.

"Go for it!" He called up, hoping they'd go carefully. He wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Considering how weird the island as a whole was, someone being able to actually lift him out wasn't even that unusual.

He came up without too much trouble, wiggling as needed and pushing himself away from the walls to make sure he wasn't going to bang his head or scrape anything. Once he was up past the chest, he managed to pull himself out the rest of the way, one arm tucked against his chest where the little hedgehog was curled, shivering gently against him.

He probably needed a shower, he was going to have a hell of a bruise on the back of his head, and his knees probably could use some neosporin, but he looked more or less fine as he glanced up, finding... a girl. A pretty young girl. Alright, not who he'd expected was pulling him out of the drain, but he wasn't going to protest.

"Thanks. Had to get the little guy out of there before he drowned." He gestured with his free hand to the creature cradled against his chest.
 

Cloudie

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The extraction had gone smoothly, or as smoothly as pulling someone out of a manhole can go. Despite being considerably larger and taller than Lidiya was, she had no trouble lifting the man out. With some wiggling and maneuvering from the other man’s side, Lidiya was able to bring him out the majority of the way before he took over and heave himself out the rest of the way.

Now that he was fully out of the drain, Lidiya was able to get a good look who she had just found in a drain. A rather handsome and muscular blond man sat on the ground before her. His wildly fluffy hair was a bit bedraggled from the excursion down the pipe, but it still looked impossibly soft and much like a fluffy woolen sheep(and Lidiya really would love to pet it but she would resist because that’s impolite and weird). His face seemed to be rather scarred, and Lidiya avoided lingering too long looking at the scars because that would be rude. Instead she averted her eyes down and noticed his clothing. His uniform to be exact, and to be even more precise, a police uniform.
‘Oh. Oh my. I must have seemed dumb suggesting to call the police when he was a policeman.’ She flushed a bit at the thought. Opting to push that thought in the back of her mind as well, Lidiya decided to make good on her decision earlier of offering care.

“You’re very welcome. I heard you hit something earlier when I called out to you. I’m very sorry for that. I have some healing skills if you don’t mind me offering help? I also have a first aid kit wi-” She stopped mid sentence when the man gestured towards something in his arms.

‘Wha-what is that? I’ve seen one before. It’s so tiny! It’s too tiny!’ She panicked internally at the sight of the small creature the man was holding. Her face blanked out as she slightly stiffened up in alarm. Small animals always brought a sense of dread to her and reminded her of her past mistakes. Anything smaller than a corgi was just too dangerous for her to handle and she tended to avoid them at all costs.

Unfortunately she had stopped mid-sentence, and proper manners would dictate that she apologize and finish what she came for.

“Ah. Sorry. I meant to say that I also have a first aid kit with me if needed as well.” She finished off in a rather stiff monotone as she opted to make eye contact with the man and avoid looking at the tiny spiky animal at all.

 

Romi

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A girl. A very young girl, at that. He'd been expecting someone in early college, and instead he'd have put bets on the girl being sixteen at the most. She was tall enough for that, but her eyes were awfully big, and the ears were throwing him off. They were definitely not human, although he wasn't quite worldly enough to have identified them as 'cows ears'. He'd never been to a farm, and he really had no exposure to large animals.

"It's fine." He said, waving off her concern. "I mean, I've probably got a hell of a bruise forming, but it's pretty much all in a day's work." He didn't always go crawling down sewer pipes, but when he did, he basically expected to get banged up doing so. It wasn't anything that a few bandages couldn't fix.

He saw her staring at the hedgehog, and managed to completely misread her interest. He shifted his arm, letting the exhausted little thing rest in his palm as he held it out.

"I think it might have been someone's pet - I'm not sure they're native." He was really going to have to check with someone who had been on the island longer, who might know for sure. "Seems pretty docile though." The little thing was basically staying perfectly still, although he wasn't clear if it was truly behaving, or simply so tired it couldn't be bothered to move.
 

Cloudie

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She could barely comprehend his words, declining her assistance casually, through the silent panic she was going through. She was in that state of quiet panic where you can still function, if a bit stiffly, but it feels like she’s submerged underwater and all the sounds around her are overlapped by the constant swish-swoosh of the waves. And so she can still hear and see him there speaking and maybe she sort of understands that he’s denying her aid, but she’s still staring straight at him with a soft blank look tinged with worry.

She’s trying very hard to suppress the fear by steadfastly ignoring that there’s a small (And, Oh m y go d, it’s so small and too tiny. It would fit snugly in her hands, and if she just curled up her hands around it and lightly squeezed, it’d probably snap like a twig. The bones shattering underneath her strength and that shrill little noises it would make in its pain, and just remember how the bone snapped through the leg of that bunny and the blood seeping out through the wound and Lidiya ran and ran for her mom. And the tiny little cries it made while it weakly struggled in her tight, t o o t i g h t, grip as tears welled up in Lidiya’s eyes as sheer panic forced her to cry out and wail for her mommy to come and help her. And then the flailing got weaker and finally stilled and by the time her mommy got to her the body was already starting to cool down. And no matter how much Lidiya pleaded with the best healer dryad in the forest, there was nothing they could do to bring back the d e a d.) creature less than 5 feet away from her.

And then the man, of course with no harm meant, mistook the pause of panic she had taken seeing the animal (because what normal 12 year old little girl would be scare of such a small and cute little thing. No, most little girls would be enchanted by the sight of the cute little hedgehog curled up in an adorable little ball [and take that and juxtapose it with the buff man holding it with such tender care and it was enough to make older girls swoon as well]) as a glance of interest and he held up the little hedgehog up for her to see easier. Directly in the line of her vision that she had been discreetly trying to point away from it.

She completely froze. The sounds of the waves in her mind increased and drowned out all the other noises from the outside. Her face blanked out again and her eyes widened and seemed to go out of focus as she tried to internalize everything. She was precariously close to hitting the breaking point of her panic and inside her mind she was trying hard to focus and tamp down on the rising adrenaline that signaled a pending rampage. Turning towards the one constant that had always helped calm her down, the chords to Ave Maria haltingly drifted through her head interspersed with random threads of hysteric thoughts as she withdrew into her mind.

‘Aaaavee Maaaaariiiia- (the soft little body that could be c r u s h e d so easily) Grraaaatiia pleena, Mariiiiaa gratiaa plenaa- (the small black eyes that would glaze over in d e a t h) Mariiaa gratia plenaa~’

Unbeknownst to her, tears had started to form in her eyes as she recalled the traumatizing death of her past.

 

Romi

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Angelo might not have realized what he was doing when he was doing it, but it was awfully hard not to figure out something was going on after. She was giving him the thousand yard stare - looking right at him, but not really looking at him at all. She was looking right through him, which wasn't exactly something you usually saw on kids so young.

Assuming she was even that young. For all he knew she was a thousand year old demon or something, knowing the island.

He couldn't tell what was causing it though. He couldn't have named it either - panic attack? PTSD flashback? But he knew what it was. He knew she needed calm, and... well, for whatever was causing it to go away. Him? The drain? The hedgehog?

Well, he could only keep one of those things from sight, so best plan was to try that one. He sat down, pulling the front of his shirt up a bit to make a little nook, and lay the hedgehog gently in there. That would keep it from going far - it was too exhausted to make any real escape attempts, and it was so docile he was having a hard time believing it was a wild animal.

With it out of sight, he turned his focus to the girl, face serious even if he tried to keep his voice quiet and even.

"It's alright there." She was crying, and generally that meant someone was going to be in need of comforting. "No danger here."
 

Cloudie

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So lost in her own mind, Lidiya didn’t notice the policeman pull the hedgehog out of her sight and sit down in front of her. The tears that had started to pool in her eyes began to slide down her cheeks as she stood stock still and unseeing. Thankfully (or unfortunately as she was now reliving her worst memory in her mind) the process of being stuck in her own memory meant that she had successfully avoided a panic fueled rampage.

Out of seemingly nowhere, she heard the sound of a baritone male voice. And maybe it was because she really missed her father, but even though the voices sounded nothing alike (this man’s voice had nothing on the deep bass tones of Basilio Savakis, not to mention that a New York accent was not at all like a Greek accent) Lidiya immediately associated the voice with her father. And if her father was here, that must mean that she was safe and everything would be okay.

Sinking down to her knees in relief, Lidiya gave up control and let the tears freely fall down her face. Still not entirely ‘all there’ in the present, Lidiya looked up at the man with watery eyes and mistook the large masculine form. Shaking with the effort of crying, she sobbed out, “Papa, I missed you so much.” Her voice stuttered with hiccups from sobbing. “Papaaa!” Still in a state of confusion, she reached out to hug the man she thought was her father.
 
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