She draped the vine over his back, and tried to tie it around his belly, but it was hard to knot a vine with just your mouth. Others came to help her - there may have been too many cooks in the broth. Trauma might have felt an uncomfortable number of jaws jabbing into his soft underside as various kin contributed:

"- like this -"
"- no, wait, it's not -"
"- lemme just -"

But at last the knot was tied.

"Are you ready?" this time, it was her brittle voice again.

@Ruriska (poor Trauma ;A; time to put that theory to the test (j/k))

Surrounded by this many strangers poking and prodding him, Trauma had never been more uncomfortable in his life. He tried not to growl and shy away too much but his tail was definitely lowered and his hindquarters kept drooping.

He was beginning to think he preferred dying alone of dehydration and starvation when her voice (now weirdly soothing) returned.

“I’m ready!” Anything to end his suffering.

(@Jun put him out of his misery!)

"Alright," she said.

"HEAVE-" ok this was definitely not her voice, "HO!!"

Quite a lot of voices joined in on that one.

"HEAVE-" the voices, and also the pulling, were quite insistent, "HO!!"

It seemed Trauma was stuck quite fast indeed, that two insistent heave-hos were not enough. But the braid of vine still held, and his would-be rescuers could do this all day.

"HEAAAAVEEE-" and then it broke - just kidding "HO!!!"

Wait - was that - was Trauma actually budging?

@Ruriska

They were HEAVING and HOING very insistently and even being as stuck as he was, all of a sudden Trauma felt his shoulders shift against the rock.

“It’s - it’s working!” He cried with burgeoning hope and pushed back towards them, trying to add his strength to the endeavour.

It happened quite suddenly... the vine broke! one moment he was still caught fast and then next he was flying backwards, popping out of the passage in a sudden rush to land sprawled at the hooves of his saviours.

@Jun

Hooves, limbs, and some bodies too, bowled over by the abrupt pop - but Snow Glass Apples was not among them, for she was not foolish, and had placed herself fifth or sixth in the line.

She dropped the vine and stepped over, gently prodding bodies apart.

"Congratulations," she tinkled, when she'd separated him from the pile, "you're free."

@Ruriska

He didn’t get up right away, he simply lay within the tangle, vine wrapped, chest heaving with grateful full breaths. He was free.

From the ground Trauma looked up at the frost-voiced doe and formed only one coherent thought. Pretty.

And his big fluffy behind gave a little waggle.

@Jun

( LE FIN! )