August 18th, 1894 - Padmore Park Sinkhole

Sage was on her way back to the hospital after dealing with a dog bite in Wellingtonshire. Fortunately the wounds hadn't been too deep and she had been able to clean and dress them rather swiftly. Without another urgent summons on its heels, she'd decided to take the long way round, through the park, and get a little bit of fresh air. It felt like she'd been working nonstop lately, which was good. Sage was in a better headspace when she was busy and life really wasn't all that bad these days.

It was a nice, warm afternoon and she thought it would be a lovely walk. Oh, how wrong she would be.

It started with a little rumble beneath her feet stopping her in her tracks. Then there was nothing at all. The ground collapsed from beneath her and she went down with it in a heap of earth. By the time she stopped, her voice was a little hoarse from the scream she emitted on the fall. Dazed and with a blossoming ache in the back of her head, Sage tried to assess the damage from the fall, but realized she couldn't move much of anything and she was definitely not upright.

Thankfully there was enough light coming from the top of the chasm that she could mostly see around her. Unfortunately what she found was that she was half buried beneath a piled of dirt and stones and she couldn't reach her wand, nor her satchel that had come disconnected from her... or perhaps were buried with most of her body. She tried to wiggle free, felt blood trickling down the side of her face and it made the ache in her head worse.

"Help! Is anybody nearby!?" She hollered, instantly regretting the ringing it caused in her ears.

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Noble Greengrass

  

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Sometimes Noble came to Padmore Park to look out for ingredients — sometimes he came to Padmore Park to get out of the house. Today was more the latter than the former, and he'd been starting to think about heading home when the earth started caving in. He slid down the edge of the sudden hole in the earth in fits and starts, trying periodically to scramble back up the dirt — and succeeded only in scraping up his hands.

By the time he landed at the bottom, he was bruised and scraped and there was a large rip in the back of his jacket — but he didn't think anything was broken. He spent several minutes blinking, looking back up at the sky — was it worth it to try to climb back out?

It was someone's voice that got his attention. He stood up and exhaled, instantly feeling the bruises and the bleeding in his legs from his attempts to scramble. ''I'm coming,'' Noble called back. ''Keep talking!''

  

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set by MJ

Oh thank Merlin! "I'm half-stuck and I can't get to my wand." She hoped the person could hear her clearly enough and follow her voice. It was hard to get a deep breath with the dirt squeezing her downward. "It's sort of hard for me to breathe." She continued, thinking that she wouldn't be able to keep this up for very long. She was afraid to move too much and cause the dirt above her to let go and then she would be completely buried.

"There's ah, some really big roots to my left," she continued after taking in as much air as she could, hoping the clues to her surroundings would help. "Please hurry!" This time her tone was a little more panicked as she felt some of the dirt beneath her slide some.

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Her voice was familiar, but Noble pushed that aside in order to better follow her directions. Big roots. His legs hurt as he walked on them, but he did not think that anything was broken. Big roots, he had to hurry — there they were. Noble stumbled over the roots as the dirt began to slide, and lowered himself to his knees — he grabbed onto both her hands with his own.

"Miss Whitby," Noble said, surprised. "I think we may have to run."

  

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set by MJ

Sage had never been so glad to see another human being in her entire life. "I believe I am most stuck." She said to Mr. Greengrass with a wry grimace. The dirt was up past her waist and though she grabbed onto his offered hands, Sage knew it was going to take a lot of effort to pull her from the compacting dirt. She was mostly on her side though, so at least they had that working for them. "It's getting hard to breathe." She huffed out, feeling the dirt pressing in with each breath she took. Sage knew not to panic, that would only make things worse, but taking the slow deep breaths she had been was increasingly difficult.

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Noble started trying to pull, but she didn't budge. "Alright," he said, half to sound confident and half to settle his own nerves. He didn't have enough time to think this through, so he was going to have to follow his instincts. "I'm going to grab around your chest. Can you try to kick?" Noble squatted on the ground and wrapped his arms around Miss Whitby's chest, ignoring that this was intensely awkward-or-intimate.

  

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set by MJ

Sage agreed with a distinct nod of her head, wrapping her arms around Mr. Greengrass' neck, allowing them the leverage they needed to get her free. She kicked as hard as she could, as though she were swimming through something thicker than water, and when she came free, she and Noble tumbled to the ground with a harsh thud. Sage was atop him in a manner that suggested anything other than a good rescue from the dirt, her skirts tangled around her legs and the air rushing through her lungs as they hit the ground.

"I am—" she gasped, "So sorry." She wasn't capable of moving much, though she felt bad for squishing him, she couldn't move from her current position, even as the dirt gave way and cascaded down toward them again. It wasn't as bad as getting stuck in it, and Sage took the first deep breath of the whole ordeal as she tried to regain her senses.

"Thank you," she added after a minute, still unable to coordinate her limbs to move from where they were sprawled on the ground.

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