Beauty in the Sewer

Over the next two days, Claudius remained deep in the sewers, never daring to go up very high. This was an issue as there was less food to be found lower down, particularly meat, but he'd learned which roots and fungus were eatable as well as had a small stash of human food in his home. The human food was a nuisance as it always had some for of difficult-to-remove plastic wrapped around it, and he always ended up eating a small amount of said plastic. It would tide him over. He found himself actually missing rat meat, but he did not go hungry.

The noise... the noise... He could not escape the noise! The only place that was quiet was his home in the abandoned station. Everywhere else, the rumbling and banging and jackhammering echoed like demonic snarls all down through the pipes! It was only two days, but he felt he was going to go insane! The vibrations rattled his bones, making him feel like he was constantly tingling from the inside out. His eardrums hurt from the constant pressure of unrelenting soundwaves. It would not stop!

By the third day, he dared not step out, but silence prevailed. He slipped out a short distance, and the sound had stopped. Still, he dared not go up. So the third day passed. And the fourth.

Finally, it was Thursday morning. He had one day left.
 
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Amalie, in true Amalie fashion, obscured whatever plans Ingrid had to stay inside and finish odd tasks. Not cleaning, but sorting. Cooped up inside her room fussing over papers and screens was heaven wrapped in hell. She hated it with every fiber of her being. Gratification only blessed her when she deemed something 'solved' or 'debunked', and that happened once every...Two years? Monthly if she was having a good year. Which she never was.
Spending time with her sister instead of her usual company was an uncomfortable shock to the system. She was excitable and talked a lot. One Amalie deemed it 'safe' (read: Ingrid wasn't as begrudging about her visit), the questions were none stop. All the same ones she got asked every. Single. Time.

'Where do you work? Did you ever get back into floristry? Do you have a boyfriend? What about a girlfriend? Do you still keep in touch with your friends? How's Rebecca? Have you spoken to mom or dad lately? How did you lose your phone??'

Aside from fending off most personal questions with the pointed stick of deflection, Ingrid's days passed by rather uneventfully. Taking walks past the worksite to see the progress of the sewer maintenance was something she did daily- Sometimes even twice.
"Why'd you keep walking past here? We could've gotten home faster if we-"
"I'm sorry: which one of us has to live here, again? Hmm? Yeah, exactly. I know where I'm going."


It had been 4 days. 4 Days. Was she so out of touch that 4 days of friendly harassment was almost enough to drive her off the handlebars? Evidently.
Things had quietened down (as quiet as down-town could be...Filled with assholes), so it might be worth heading down there, later on, to see if he was around. It was Thursday, so he wouldn't be there tomorrow. Whenever she thought about Friday now, she could feel her back sting with an itch- The mental pictures gave her the heebie-jeebies.
 
Cautious step after cautious step led him up to the higher levels. Quiet. Still quiet. He could hear no sounds of construction or other work. That did not mean there were not still men up there measuring and working quietly. So he continued his slow, cautious pace.

Empty. The tunnels were empty.

He let out a low sigh of relief then cautiously walked forward to explore. The place was pristine and there wasn't a crack in sight. He actually checked to make certain he was still in the right tunnel. Yep. It was clean and almost shone in the yellowy light, an impressive feat for concrete. No cracks, no dings, no roots, not even an odd rock jutting out. No wires down the other tunnel, either. That was nice. They had moved those. He'd often wondered about that.

He continued his trip down the pipe, checking everything. So far so good. Down farther, it looked like things had just been cleaned up rather than the massive overhaul from farther up the pipe. Small cracks had been patched, plugs had been removed, everything looked good. He was almost happy that-

It was gone.

They were gone.

Destroyed.

He stood, swaying a little, feeling as though he'd been sucker punched. Then he sat down and let out an eerie howl that echoed down the pipes and filtered up through the grates. NO! His head dropped and he whimpered as he walked to the middle of the room that had once housed his murals and sat on the no longer raised grate. The glass was gone. His pictures were destroyed. Not even a shard remained.

He curled up in a little ball and whimpered softly to himself as afternoon faded into evening.
 
Ingrid exhaled a wispy breath, watching the warm air curl into steam before evaporating into thin air. Across the street from the main manhole she used, Ingrid shifted her eyes between the people around in newfound nervousness. Undoing city work in the name of anarchy, gangs, or other useless causes wasn't rare. The last thing she needed was somebody complaining about a homeless hoodlum messing with the sewer pipes. They assumed that anyway, but the brief silence after construction drew out the most annoying people.

"Huh, seems like a decent job."
The place didn't look like it was on the brink of collapse anymore. Impressive! However, as lovely as it looked now, she wasn't there for that. Ingrid wasn't sure if he would be up today, but the soft sound of distant whines gave her a faint idea. Knocking on the walls to send a quiet signal down the pipes, she headed off in the general direction.
"Buddy? You down here? If you are, could I get some sorta noise? I don't know these pipes as well as you."
 
She'd come. He could hear her. The faint taps on the wall were her signal, her way of alerting him. He knew what she wanted, but he couldn't bring himself to reply. With his snout tucked under the tip of his tail, he continued to whine as the dark blanket suffocated him. Why? WHY??? The glass hadn't interferred. He'd made certain of that. Why did they have to tear it out?
 
Ingrid could only faintly remember the direction she was heading, but after spotting the indicators of a ladder, she had a good idea. That one glass room! Why was he hanging out there? He usually waited around for her to show up. Was he planning on showing her something else? Better not. She didn't have a tin to give in exchange.

"What'cha doin' back here? I get it's a cool place to hang out, but I could've gotten a bit more warning-- oh."
Her initial reaction wasn't much: the immediate thought that came to mind when she saw the room looking different was that this was simply another one.
But, with a double-take on the way she'd come, and seeing her friend curled up in a depressed husk, it soon clicked in her mind what had happened.
"Ooh...Aw shit..."

Sighing in disappointment, Ingrid hopped her way down and sat beside him. It hadn't even crossed her mind that they'd take all that stuff away. It made her sad, yeah, but it felt shallow in comparison to whatever he must be feeling.
"Fuck, man. I'm so sorry. They must've cleared it under that 'no public art' rule, or somethin'....Ugh, assholes."
 
He knew it was childish, but he wanted to cry. He wished he could cry. Barring that, he wished he could borrow some of Ingrid's anger. He did not have the heart or spirit to be angry. The only thing worse than what they'd done here would have been to destroy his home. Here, they'd destroyed his soul.

Dramatic? Yes.

Unreasonable? Possible.

Did he care? Not one bit. He could not give a single speck of care.

He shifted slightly, curling up even tighter when Ingrid sat next to him. Not to get away from her, just from the pain. Her seeing it and remarking on it made it that much more real.
 
Wow, they really did a number on the place. Looking around, she couldn't find a single trace of what this room used to be: not even a speck of dust. Her lips curled upwards into an unforgiving scowl at the walls of the room, giving them evil looks as if they were the ones to blame. She might have even said something unsavory, if the mood was less...Sad.

With her vision taken by the room and its injustice, Ingrid's hand clumsily patted the ground behind her until she found his scales. Instead of patting his tail like a hound, she simply rested her hand atop it to let him know she was there.
From there, it was silence. There was nothing she could say to make it better, so it was best to leave it quiet for a while so he could mourn. It didn't take a genius to know it was a huge emotional blow: there weren't too many hidden treasures quite like this one. And now, it was gone.
 
Her touch slowly spread warmth through his cold scales. The silence did not feel so harsh any longer. The pain was still there, but her hand on his tail... it had a slow numbing effect. Someone was here, someone stood by him.

He did not open his eyes, instead picturing his room as he had seen it so often. This room was his vision, but he could still see it. He shifted his muzzle and carefully nudged her hand off his tail and onto his nose and rested there, leaning ever so slightly against her. Silence reigned.

He had no idea how long they sat there, but with a quiet sigh, he finally lifted his head. It was time. His heart felt heavy as he looked around, but the blanket had lightened significantly. He nuzzled Ingrid's shoulder gently then started slowly walking.
 
Movement was met with no protest. Ingrid was clueless on how to comfort, so being guided on it was more than okay with her. Helped her know she was doing something to assist in dealing with something so upsetting. What was worse? The amount of time it took that was now classed as wasted, the fact it would be impossible to come across that amount of glass again, or that it didn't need to be removed. She doubted this room was needed for anything.

Ingrid leaned into the nuzzle, holding her head against his, before stretching and standing up to let him walk past freely. Silence, to her, only seemed acceptable when sitting down: which meant she pressed herself to say something. Anything.
"It's...Ahm-- It's good to see you again.."
 
He paused in the doorway. She had understood so much. Far more than anything he had expected, or expected of her. This, the human Claudius, the dragon... everything. Could he expect her to accept more? To understand? Or was it cruel?

Making his decision, he looked over his shoulder and growled softly. He took a few more steps then growled at her again. Follow! He had something he wanted to show her. He started walking again, giving her one last growl before turning to go deep into the tunnels.
 
Oh, how she wished she could read minds. Every time there was a pause for thought, she wished she knew what he was thinking. Things would be a lot easier: and trying to guess what the growls meant would be a piece of cake. As a guide, she'd figured that when he was leaving he would quicken his pace. If he was walking and didn't mind her following, he'd do just that: walk. And if he wanted her to follow, like now, he would look back every few paces to make sure she was doing that.

Ingrid spared the room one last look around, before skipping a few steps to catch up. He probably just didn't want to be in there as a reminder, and she respected that. Strange that he was so urgent about it, though.
Stranger that it looked like they were traveling somewhere she hadn't been before.
"I'm hoping you know where you're going.."
 
A soft grunt was her answer. Of course he knew where he was going. What kind of a question slash statement was that? He knew every inch of this place. Except for the newly remodeled parts, but the path was the same even if the bits and pieces that made up the path were not.

He made his way down slowly, checking her often to make certain she was doing alright and not frightened. If he had thought of it, he would have brought something to help mark her path back, but he had not expected to get this far. Ever. Especially not tonight. Yet, it felt right, so he continued down, down, down the twisting path to a depth most people did not even realize was developed.

The huge iron disc on one wall differentiated the final tunnel. He stopped in the middle of the tunnel and gave Ingrid one last look before carefully rolling the disc aside. It moved with a harsh grating sound, more like stone than iron thanks to the calcification, revealing a round doorway big enough for him to walk through with ease. He did so now and moved aside so Ingrid could walk into the abandoned subway depo. The lanterns burned low, casting a soft, golden glow over the cavernous room but could not reach most of the vaulted ceiling. He watched her face, waiting tensely for her reaction.
 
Ingrid followed, but not without her reservations. They were traveling far deeper than she dared to venture- Even going past the point she reached when she was lost. Not even the stinging coolness of her trusty metal coin running through her fingers seemed to help ease her. She was tense. Full-blown panic was warded off by his presence, but she was still tense. The further they went, the worse she felt.

She didn't pay the doorway much mind at first, instead fixing her eyes on him with pleading uncertainty. The noise fixed that issue, and she realized they had reached the supposed 'end' of the labyrinth of tunnels. It was an awful noise, and it made her head instinctively twist to the side and shake. For a few steps, she traveled blind: her eyes squeezed shut while she rubbed her hears to ease the ringing.
When she did open them and look around, her face was something perplexed if anything. There were still levels of amazement, but confusion dominated the scene.
"W-Wh...How'd the hell you find this? This is like...Bunker level-territory. And its HUGE."
 
He purred softly, relieved that at least she hadn't run screaming. He'd worried about her for a moment, there, but here they were. He turned and closed the disc, but not all the way. He left a gap big enough for Ingrid to slip out with ease when she wanted to. Then he walked down amongst the pillars, his tail swishing behind him.

File cabinets, boxes, and other storage devices were just visible on the wall to the left, hidden among the shadows. The ticket booth stood proudly just a little farther down at the base of what had once been the stairs out, but that had long since been closed off. On the right side were his bath and cleaning station. Some boxes and sieves lay neatly organized there. There was not much else of interest in here other than the architecture, itself. Once upon a time, it had been a proud, glamorous room. Now there was a lot of dust, and the artwork had faded and the engravings chipped, but even so, it was surprisingly clean.

He walked to the water pipe and quickly rinsed himself before walking back toward the ticket booth. He waited there, letting Ingrid catch up when she was ready. He wondered if she would find the signs of human occupation scattered about his lair.
 
The emptiness of this place gave her a feeling she couldn't pinpoint. If she thought the upper levels felt like another world, this was another dimension. Taking initiative, she hoped he wouldn't mind if she wandered a little to examine the place. Trailing a hand across the faded walls, Ingrid noted that it wasn't as dusty as it should be. It couldn't have been cleaned by the workers: judging from everything here, this was no doubt his home. Which also meant he had purposefully led her to his home- For what? It wasn't that she didn't trust him, it just seemed...Strange to her. If she was upset, she stayed away from people.

Hang on. Where'd he go? Ingrid stepped back away from the dark room of mysterious cabinets she'd barely began exploring, to find her companion further down near what she assumed was the base. Deciding that was enough digging for a while, she made her way over to finally ask.
"What's the deal? You alright?"
 
He shifted awkwardly. This was going to be difficult... maybe he should have tried this the other way around, but then he would not be able to answer the questions she was undoubtedly going to have. This was his one chance. There was no good way or right time to reveal something like this. Might as well rip it off like a concealing coat.

The itching and pain rasped its way into his conscious, and he growled softly, nipping at his back. The trauma from earlier had kept it from his mind, holding it back and replacing it with something else. Now that distraction was gone, and his skin shivered painfully, rippling the scales. No, no, don't bite, don't rub. That never ended well, especially not in a breakable place like the booth.

Forcing himself to turn his attention back to Ingrid, he chirped to her, calling for her to join him in the ticket booth. He shifted back as far as he could, letting her have plenty of space at the front. There. Hopefully she would not mind his nest. It was a nice, soft nest made up of old clothes, some wrappers, and a few mattresses. Everything was surprisingly clean in here, if worn, but clean, and not smelly.
 
Ingrid approached long before she was called, frowning in concern when the scratching began again. It was a bit of work to clamber into the ticket booth and not fall over: she never was the most graceful on her feet, and the flooring of clothes and other street-comfy bedding. She managed, though, and planted herself down with a huff.

"Hey bud." Ingrid cooed in the softest tone she could manage. She gave him his space, but it was hard to not move forward when she saw the itching continue. She hated not being able to stop it. At least now, she was here to comfort him. She looked back at the door and debated something: how long should she stay? Until he wanted her gone, she guessed. Amalie would take care of the house-- Sure, she'd worry, but she'd survive.

"..You aint lookin' too great. I dunno what I can do, but, I'm here. Can't do much: but I'm here."
 
He reached out to give her a little nudge of thanks, but then yanked his head back in a hiss of pain. He snapped at his wing, growling. The appendages shivered and shook before he clamped them tight against his back.

A whimper escaped as he laid his head down and pressed his face into the blankets. Why pain?? Why couldn't this happen while he slept, or he just passed out, or anything other than feeling like his skin was tearing from his flesh? Not that complaining was doing anything to help. If anything, it seemed to make it worse.

Once he'd caught his breath, he stretched out his neck near Ingrid. All along his back, his scales shifted like the rustling of leaves.
 
Ingrid cursed under her breath, wincing at the unnatural way his scales seized and twitched. She'd seen it before, but that didn't lessen the disturbed lump in her throat. There was an obligation to save face and keep calm to make whatever-this-was easier for him. Her mind was swirling with desperate explanations, none of which were correct. Damn it to hell, she was useless.

Shifting her body weight so she was sitting on her side, Ingrid reached forward to cup his head in her hands. Touch had worked to soothe him before, so with a bit of luck it'd work again.
"It's gonna be alright- You're gonna be fine."
'I'd be lost if you weren't', her mind spat back at her. As painful as it looked, if it happened every week, it should be safe to say that, right? He'd surely be fine. Claudius said--
Claudius. This place had a few human touches: would he be here at some point? She hoped so.
 
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