Levi: Staying Alive

[Poppy Montgomery]

Is this table too small?

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 334px; height: 431px; background-image:url(http://i42.tinypic.com/5o9v5t.jpg)] “Shit!”

[/color]Poppy gasped, pressing herself against the cliff face. The boulder bounced down the cliffs with deafening cracks and crashes, down into the storming black surf below. Poppy stood there, frozen like a gecko in a flashlight beam with her fingers gripping for purchase on the flat stone behind her. Her eyes were unfocused; the buckling rainclouds over the sea under and east of these cliffs were nothing but a blotted charcoal blur. Slowly she gathered her wits about her, picking herself up carefully by the edges. She breathed out slowly through pursed lips, blinked widely, and spat out the bitter taste of instant adrenalin from under her tongue.

That had been a big rock- maybe a foot across. Easily enough to crack her head like a swallow’s egg. She snapped her head upward. “You trying to get me killed, boy?” [/color] she called up to Levi, who was traversing the switchback above her and might or might not have been the one who dislodged the boulder. Poppy laughed and shook her head, enjoying the jitters that shivered through her fingers from that little bit of excitement. She unstuck herself from the wall and went back to picking her way down the narrow path to Crusoe’s Cavern.

She had forgotten her slingshot in the cave this morning. when she had been hunting bats- she had actually shot down so many that her hands had been full and she’d left her sling by the blasted out fire hole. Like a stupid person. And all to be made fun of when she came back to the Sewers for bringing in rats again like she always did- rats, this time, with wings.

It had been quite fun- Poppy liked being the butt of the joke, because then she could be as vicious as she liked with her comebacks. Hilarious things had been said. Much laughter. And then she had patted her pocket to check for the slingshot- a little habit she had acquired since the keepers had given it to her- and had a heart attack. Unimaginable, how she could have let herself be separated from her most prized possession. Astounding, really.

The air was thick and buzzing with energy in anticipation of the storm. As the girl carefully stepped her way along the stone path to the cavern, she fretted about whether or not her beloved weapon was actually where she thought it was. It has to be… She thought. God forbid she'dd lost it, or it'd been stolen.

Poppy blinked and stopped; A bit of damp had fallen directly into her eye. A raindrop. She glanced up apprehensively at the sky and began to gnaw on her lip. She had convinced Levi to let her go to the cave tonight on two conditions: One, that he could go with her to say ‘I told you so’ when she tripped fell into the ocean to feed the shark retros, and two, that they get off the cliffs before the storm broke. If it was starting to rain now, that was a bad sign. Little sprays of raindrops speckled the rock of the torrentum cliffs like freckles. Poppy picked up the pace as much as she dared, paying little mind to whether Levi was keeping up or not; she was sure that he was just as uncomfortable as she with a yawning abyss on one side, and would thank her for getting the slingshot fast so that they could get home. The cave neared- she could see the funny brown patch in the stone that meant they were close.

Suddenly, a shower of pebbles rained down on the path ahead. Poppy stopped in her tracks and frowned. Levi was behind her now, not above her, so someone’s foot did clearly not shift those stones… Unless… Poppy craned her head upward, but there didn’t seem to be anyone on the path above. She heard the telltale crack of another boulder falling down the cliffs somewhere she couldn’t see. After staying still for another moment, she kept walking. The grinning risk-taker in her was apparently on leave tonight, and she did not fancy sticking about to see whether the next rush of stones would hit her of her friend on the head.

The little black maw of Crusoe’s cavern emerged from under it’s little overhang, and Poppy scampered gratefully inside. She pulled out the match she had filched from the Carna stores and lit it on it’s empty box. The light was almost inconsequential. Mostly, she felt her way along by memory, nudging stones through the blind darkness of the cave until she felt the familiar shallow dip, the soft chalkiness of soot, that meant she had reached the fire pit. Quickly, she dropped to her knees and began to feel around with outstretched palms. Several times she hit something that she thought was the slingshot, but was in fact a rock or a nub of burned wood. The wind and rain began to whistle loudly through the little entrance. She thorugh she heard more rockfall, but that was probably thunder. At last, Poppy’s searching palms found the cold metal of her shot, and she leaped up with a whoop of triumph. “Okay, okay, let’s go!” [/color]

The girl had begun to stride back toward Levi when, with a mighty thump, theearth seemed to give a sudden jolt and drop under her feet, and she was on her knees, and the ground was quaking harshly, and where was Levi? And cacophone of breaking rock-

And then all was still, and only the sound of the driving rain and the far-below surf.

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[Deleted]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 500px; height: 611px; background-image:url(http://oi40.tinypic.com/akwy88.jpg)] He was loath to admit it, but Aunt Penny had looked at him once and said, "That boy is a gymnast." Thus began long months of flexibility training, bars, and floor exercises. He was terrible at it. What he hated most were the balance-beam exercises because, quite frankly, he didn't have balance back then. Or now. His foot edged on a boulder, and the damned thing toppled over. He winced visibly. How did I get suckered into this? I'm going to end up smashing my best friend. Levi thought to himself, knowing the answer. It was that petite little squirrel shifter a few feet below him that had done it, edging her way down the cliff, cursing like a sailor at intervals. Her damned slingshot. How had she left it? Levi thought that the thing was attached to her hip, for God's sake! Oh yeah, she was also the aforementioned best friend, who may or may not be endangered by said falling bolder. "If I was, it would save me a whole lot of trouble!" He shot back, silently relieved that it hadn't crushed her. But he more careful after that. The bolder had been his fault, but you didn't put frickin grizzly bears on a ledge dozens of feet up into the air! He wasn't a circus animal! He sure felt like one, tip-toeing along the ledge, feeling his heart thunder up in his throat. His mind was going through an assortment of swears that his mother would have fainted just thinking about... He was about ready to close his eyes and chant the mantra, I know I can, I know I can, I know I can, but the end was in sight. Thank God. His hands were trembling from the sheer... well, stress of it. He tried to keep in good humor, but he'd never aspired to be a rock climber, and he sure as shit didn't want to be one now. He followed slowly after Poppy's more hell-bent pace. Quite frankly, he was freaked. The ocean below wasn't exactly the (occasionally) inviting coast of California. It was rocky and dangerous and the waves were being tossed by the oncoming storm. "I would rather be wrestling... I dunno, a hog... then doing this." He mumbled to himself, but he was finally setting one foot on more firm ground. He glanced at the angry harbor, and proceeded to make a beeline for the relative safety of the cave, the hood of his jacket up and his shoulders hunched, hands shoved deep into his pockets. "If we were smart, we woulda waited for tomorrow, y'know. And if it wasn't here anymore, we woulda made a new one out of some Y shaped branch and some string and called it good--" He broke off, listening. Levi wasn't exactly what you would call perceptive, but the hair on his arms bristled, and he turned to look out of the cave at the same time lightning flashed--and then a crack, not unalike thunder but deeper, darker, more resonant. Then the whole earth was trembling. "Poppy!" He made towards her and lost his footing, collapsing on hands and knees. He was filled with fear, trembling and terrible, both for himself and his friend. And then it ended. After a damn eternity, it ended. The crashes and the booms and the earth-deep trembling. He remained where he was, shaking like leaf, opening his eyes to what seemed to be near absolute darkness. Had the opening to the cave been closed? Had those frickin--he did not think the word frickin, but it's more abrasive cousin, and several variations--Keepers done this? Looked at a couple of wandering Carna and thought, hey, lets cause an earthquake! Bastards. He unsteadily rose to his feet. "P-Poppy?" He cleared his throat, thinking that he'd never hear the end of it if she caught the stutter. "Poppy? Ya okay?" Punctuated by the boom of thunder, he didn't know. Levi tripped in the direction he had last seen her, cursing. There was a full-blown Apocalypse outside. Or it sure sounded like it. ooc: yep, table is fine! sorry he doesn't have one yet D: also, hope the post is okay. kind of getting used to his "voice" xD

[Poppy Montgomery]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 500px; height: 600px; background-image:url(http://i43.tinypic.com/5e5p5g.jpg)] Out of that profound quiet- a quiet that would have seemed loud if not for the noise that had come before, came Levi’s voice. “P-Poppy?” he called, stopping and clearing his voice. On a normal day, Poppy would have grabbed onto that little stutter and stretched it over a week of mockery, perhaps giving him a new nickname- “L-L-L-Lev-v-vi” or something like that. But this day had rapidly left the jurisdiction of the word ‘normal’. So instead all Poppy grasped out of Levi’s voice was that he was alive and not gravely wounded. He would have hollered if her had been hit by something, Poppy knew. Had the keepers done this? They must have, they controlled everything in here. But why? Why target two kids on a cliff who weren’t doing anything in particular? Neither of them had died or been injured, so what was the purpose? Amusement? Could be. The ugly scars on Poppy’s back were proof that keepers could be cruel. Perhaps it had been an actual earth-made earthquake. The Menagerie was on real soil, as far as Poppy knew. Then the terrifying thought occurred to her: What if this quake wasn’t focused on them? What if the keepers had made it and directed it on the Carna, collapsed the sewers, and she and Levi had just felt the edges of it? The thought filled her with lukewarm panic. Levi called out again: "Poppy? Ya okay?" The girl checked. She surveyed her limbs one by one and everything seemed to be in good condition. Although Poppy knew that sometimes wounds don’t hurt until you look at them, realize them- especially after a shock. And she was in shock, she could tell that much- her hands were shaking like aspen leaves and her mouth tasted like metal and her mind was buzzing like a kicked hornet’s nest. For an instant, Poppy had the urge to answer Levi’s question with a groan, make him think she was wounded and then jump out at him when he tried to find her. She nixed that idea pretty fast. This was a serious situation- too serious for joking. She could properly freak him out, and she didn’t want that. Her was her best friend, after all. She really didn’t have the gumption in her now. So, “I’m- I’m fine I think. Are you? Where are you?” was what she said. With a jolt, she realized that her slingshot was not in her hand anymore, but after a second of frantic searching, she discovered it on the ground next to where she had fallen. She buttoned it into a leg pocket on her overalls and breathed out a long shaky breath before feeling her was towards Levi’s voice. She tripped several times over newly fallen rocks before the Levi’s dim silhouette and threw herself into his arms. “Shit, man!” she muttered, thanking god or the keepers or whoever was watching for not squishing her friend. For a moment she just clung to him and shivered, recovering. What had she done, dragging him here? It was scary when trustworthy things like the ground under her feet turned against you. The whole world seemed to be looking at her with narrowed eyes, and no hiding place felt adequate except someone else’s breathing body. She pulled herself away from him then and grabbed his shoulders. “Sure you’re okay?” She asked with round, shining eyes. “No squashed appendages? All limbs attached?” With that she let him go, and walked over toward the entrance, which had a new rock in front of it but appeared to be somewhat clear- clear enough to get through at least. Thank god for that. Poppy stared out into the driving rain, listening to the crackling thunder and the angry, roaring ocean. “I got the damn slingshot, at least,” she said. She turned back to him, covering her face with her hands for a moment and then pushing them up through her hair. “I’m sorry, Lev,” she said. `“This was a stupid idea. What do we do now? It looks like all hell out there but I don’t exactly love the idea of staying here and waiting for the cave to cave in on our heads – I mean, what if the Keepers send more quakes? And- oh, god, what if the path is broken up and we can’t get up without climbing? And- oh, jesus, I am such a dumbass.” She finished defeated. All this mess because she didn’t want to be parted from her little Y of metal. But she wouldn’t trade her life for a slingshot, and she sure as hell wouldn’t trade Levi’s . So how would they make it out of here?

[Deleted]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 500px; height: 611px; background-image:url(http://oi40.tinypic.com/akwy88.jpg)] He let loose a breath he hadn't noticed he'd been holding when she replied. "Yeah, yeah I'm good. And I'm... over here? I dunno, follow my voice." He listened attentively for her in the darkness, trying to get a grip on his nerves. He gave a shaky smile, one that he was sure she couldn't see. "This way, Pops. C'mon. Over hereeee. Followwww... myyyy... voiceeee." Shit, man. He was betting ten bucks on the fact that had something to do with her slingshot. (At least that's what he was hoping; the other idea was a sick combination of broken bones or bleeding cuts), but then he heard her stumble closer and stretched out his arms just in time for her to collapse into them. Levi held her close and tight, and even though he wasn't admitting just how much the whole ordeal had freaked him out, he was holding on to her like she was a lifeline. 'Course, that wasn't how you got out of a place like that, and she untangled herself and held him at an arm's length. Levi did a mental evaluation of her question. He didn't think anything was wrong, but he couldn't see and, quite frankly, his whole body was trembling. Then he realized somewhere. There was a part of his right arm that was not quite as cold as the rest of him, and quite calmly, Levi said, "Yeah, yeah. How bout you?" He let her walk off, although he was kind of concerned with the fact that his right arm was definitely slick and wet. And hot. That's what made him think it wasn't water. Levi hung back, gingerly prodded at his forearm, and winced. It was definitely blood, and it was definitely a slash, and it was definitely hurting. He tried to think of when he could have gotten it, and concluded that it was when he first fell and tried to catch himself. He was half-listening to Poppy and half distracted by the fact he was bleeding to death. Well, probably not really... but he was beginning to get a little panicked. "Um, Pops? Stop havin' a pity party over there, Jesus. You're not allowed to call yourself a dumbass. Only I can do that." He meandered over in that direction, keeping his eyes on his forearm. It was hard to tell just how bad it was, but by now the searing pain of it had Levi gritting his teeth. When he tried to flex his fingers he realized that they were all cut up, too, a little more than he had first thought. "We got ourselves another problem though, I think, 'cause my arm is bleeding all over the place and my fingers don't wanna bend right and I mighta just gotten blood all over those overalls of yours. Anyways, I don't think that they're gonna send another quake so quick after the first one. Prolly just wanted to see if they could get us stuck in here or somethin', and maybe we just outta wait for the storm to die down or... I dunno." Levi finished lamely. "Might be a way out farther back into the cave, or..." He shrugged, running out of ideas. His optimism was something that was hard to disconnect from Levi, but he was betting that Poppy knew him well enough by now to hear through it into the concern. He rambled when he was worried, and he was definitely rambling. What if Carna's all caved in, too? He thought, his mind flashing through the faces of his other friends. The thought made him nauseous.

[Poppy Montgomery]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 500px; height: 600px; background-image:url(http://i43.tinypic.com/5e5p5g.jpg)] "Pops?" Came Levi's voice, sounding a shade higher pitched and faster than usual. "Stop havin' a pity party over there, Jesus. You're not allowed to call yourself a dumbass. Only I can do that." Poppy grinned and shook her head. "Well, someone had to say it, and you were too slow," she responded good-naturedly, turning away from the storm and toward her friend. She opened her mouth to suggest bedding down here for the night, or at lest until the storm died, when Levi started to talk. "We got ourselves another problem though, I think, 'cause my arm is bleeding all over the place and my fingers don't wanna bend right and I mighta just gotten blood all over those overalls of yours. Anyways, I don't think that they're gonna send another quake so quick after the first one. Prolly just wanted to see if they could get us stuck in here or somethin', and maybe we just outta wait for the storm to die down or... I dunno." Poppy's insides had turned to ice water and her ribs seemed to constrict. She stood frozen. Levi only blabbered like that when he was freaked out. Or wounded. He was hurt! It was her fault, too. Guilt flooded over her like a frothy white wave, leaving her cold and weak. Poppy rushed back to him. She couldn't see his arm in the shadow, so she pushed him so he was angled toward the dim light coming through the cave's entrance. It looked shiny and black, slicked with blood. Her heart did a funny little flip-flop. She grabbed onto his good arm like a lifeline and cursed horribly, as though it could scare this situation away. "We can't stay here. We have to get out of here," she said quietly. "We have to get you to a healer. Right away." She cursed some more, dropping his arm and bushing her overgrown bangs behing her ears. They had to get him back to carna... but he was unbalanced enough on the path when it was dry and windless and not covered with loose dirt from the quake- and with two good arms. What if they went out on the path and he fell? They couldn't risk it. "No," she said slowly. "No, I'll go get Tain or some healer, and... and..." She didn't finish. And bring them through a squall to a breaking cavern? She was being stupid. "Could you crawl on your hands and knees?" She asked, at a loss. "Up the path?"

[Deleted]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 500px; height: 611px; background-image:url(http://oi40.tinypic.com/akwy88.jpg)] Levi was trying to think of anything to distract him... Or calm him down. He started remembering that another one of his aunts had taken him to yoga classes, and they would start out in a meditation pose. As his aunt reclined into downward dog or whatever the hell it was called, Levi would sit there crisscross-applesauce and breath in, and out, in, and out. It had been calming enough back then to put him to sleep sitting up, and sometimes at the end of the class he'd wake up snoring. He tried to do it now. Well... not snore, but breath like that. Inoutinoutinout. His breath caught though at Poppy's joke, something that was a cross between hysterics and laughter. Keep calm, you idiot! Calm. He needed to stay calm. Which was hard to do with Poppy freaking out. Levi didn't think he was dying. He just... had a little scratch, and was getting his blood on things, right? The teenager swallowed and held up his arm gingerly for her to examine. "I'm not bleeding out yet, Pops. An' ya don't need to be going on and strangling the life outta my good arm. He said it resolutely, and tugged himself loose of her grip at the same time she was letting him go. Then he felt bad, because really, she had reason to be freaking out and was just trying to help. So he tossed that arm over her shoulder and held her close against him, finding comfort in the way she fit familiarly in the crook of his body. "Lemme get this straight. You want me to crawl up a cliff I barely made it down during the day, when it wasn't pouring rain and when I wasn't a crip?" He wasn't going to admit that the idea scared the holy shit out of him, and so he laughed. When there was no bravery, fake it, right? "Maybe we could make it back on the base of the cliffs, walking on the shore an in the water? But then... well, its raining pretty hard out there, Pops." He looked down at his arm, waiting for a flash of lightning to illuminate the cave. A few seconds later, one appeared like the crack of a whip, and he saw it--it wasn't that bad, was it? He raised it, felt the pang of the wound, and tried to hide the grimace on his face.

[Poppy Montgomery]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 500px; height: 600px; background-image:url(http://i43.tinypic.com/5e5p5g.jpg)] "Lemme get this straight. You want me to crawl up a cliff I barely made it down during the day, when it wasn't pouring rain and when I wasn't a crop?" Poppy pursed her lips and looked away. Okay, okay, she was being stupid. How she hated being the stupid one. Usually it was someone else. But seeing her friend wounded, and it being her fault, was driving her to distraction. She needed to put her feet back on the ground and think like a rational person, like her dad had taught her. Anyways, Levi was laughing and light-hearted. Well... Well, Poppy would be kidding herself if she ignored the tinge of forced-ness in his light tone, but if he was really hurting, he wouldn't have the energy to put on a brave face, would he? Would he? No, Poppy decided. He wouldn't. They'd been friends for less than a year, but in a genocidal prison where kids were killing and dying, not to mention being snatched up by the keepers like toys from a claw machine, people made friends fast. She knew this boy. He would not be laughing if his arm was about to fall off. She forced herself to relax. "Maybe we could make it back on the base of the cliffs, walking on the shore an in the water?" Levi continued. "But then... well, its raining pretty hard out there, Pops." Poppy looked out at the storm. The wind was blowing so hard the raindrops seemed to blow upward at times, and the waves were warring with the stone of the cliff base like they though they could shove it away. It looked like they would drown out there in the rain alone, never mind the ocean. Poppy bit the inside of her cheek. "Okay," she said. "Lets spend the night here then. Doesn't look like we have a whole lot of other options." She looked back toward the fire pit. "I think theres some nubs of wood left over, and I have kindling in my pocket if you have any matches..." Suddenly, Poppy had a beautiful recollection about what else she had in her pockets. "Oh, Lev! I've got a last bit of that keeper goop leftover from this winter!" Her whole escapade with East this January... Well, they didn't talk about it a lot, really. But the keepers had given her a little jar of white paste to heal up these nasty burns that one of their henchmen had given her without their permission, and she had some left over in a little baggy, along with some strips of cotton from the scrubs they had put her in. Quickly, excitedly, she pulled them out of the pocket on her left thigh and held them out to him. "Look," she said. "We can patch you up!"

At long last. Apologies, hun.