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Rainfall is rare in Destiny City in the winter time. There have been a few light showers between the occasional snow but it’s never been enough to be significant. In some places, it’s just enough for a thin layer of ice to cover the ground and make it a little slippery, but ultimately it’s not enough to worry about. In an inconspicuous place in town, you step into an ice filled hole and it shatters. The hole itself seems maybe three feet wide and if you’ve ever seen the hole before you know it’s only a few inches deep at most. Except, when the ice shatters, you fall, plummeting as if into a lake of frozen water. It’s pitch black beneath the ground and only pale blue lights shimmer above you. The darkness around you is never ending and you can’t make out the details of anything except the shrinking hole above you. Maybe you remember how to swim and pull yourself out, maybe you black out and feel someone else pulling you out--either way, your frozen, soaking body is pulled from the puddle. The chill is immense, but if you look at the hole after being pulled out, all you can see is the ground below. There’s no sign that what you saw was real--except for the water soaking you.
Soleiyu, like most cats--aliens or otherwise--was not a fan of water. There were times when it was acceptable--when he was prepared for a bath, for example. When he wanted one. When warm water had been drawn, when he had candles and music and could enjoy dipping himself into water. Where he could reach the bottom.
Where he could climb out of his own accord, and mewl pathetically until someone was suckered in to dry him off.
His bath last week, for example, had been charming.
His bath tonight--if you could call it that--not so.
Soleiyu was limited by his form; as a Mauvian he could not patrol like the senshi in his house did. And yet, he could not simply stay inside all day and tinker. (He could, but it set a bad example.)
Winter was the most pleasant time for him to get out; his long fur gave him an extra protection from the cold, and he very much liked how easy it was to blend in. Usually he loved this time of year.
Soleiyu did not venture into frozen water or lakes for a reason.
This pot hole was just a pot hole. A puddle, at best.
He had stepped onto it with the expectation of cold. He had not expected that the ice would shatter like brittle glass, sending him plummeting down a frigid tunnel of darkness. The cold was so sharp at first that it took his breath away and, though he would not admit it, so stunning that he forgot how to breathe, how to swim.
The pitch blackness of the world beneath the asphalt should not have existed and yet, here he was, swallowed whole by water that had no place in this world. There was a street above him--solid ground. Even if this had been a manhole, a sewer, an open pipe, it would not have opened up like this. He looked around him and saw nothing helpful.
He could see just fine in the dark, it had never been a problem before, but in the black water there was nothing. The only thing that hurt him was the cold and, perhaps, his pride; the water must have been fresh because it didn't sting his eyes but he wasn't going to waste the time or energy to open his mouth and taste it.
Soleiyu was a large cat, and with his fur so thoroughly soaked it only weighed him down more. He was not the best of swimmers, but he wasn't going to die drowned beneath Destiny City. With all the stubbornness he could muster he paddled his way towards the surface. In the time he spent below the water it seemed as though the hole had shrunk in size, but it may have very easily just have been his overactive imagination as he frantically clawed his way out.
It was almost painful--humiliating, mostly--to drag himself from the hole. He felt like a drowned rat and was terrified that he looked like one. Afraid the ground might open up and swallow him again, he trotted off to the side and shook violently, as if such an aggressive action might scare away the cold that threatened to consume him.
When it failed, he managed to return his glasses to his face and peer at the pothole from a distance.
It was frozen solid and, though he had a burning desire to investigate, the fear of disappearing into the darkness again was warning enough that he should give this location space. He should come back in the day time, with a flashlight and a chaperone.
Curiosity wouldn't kill him.
Tonight.
