COMPLETE: Cinder and Smoke

[Poppy Montgomery]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 497px; height: 675px; background-image:url(http://i46.tinypic.com/35d82vm.jpg)] Sleep lay over her like an evil thing- like a blanket over a small child that's too heavy and stops blood form circulating. Poppy dreamed- terrible dreams that could not be put to word or even puzzled out by thought upon waking. Dreams like a shadow with no light to cast it. The girl's jaw clenched, her brow knitted tight, her frozen hands flexing and twitching. Her breath came in shivers, but her body lay still and cold. After a time, the tranquilizers in her veins loosened their grip on her consciousness. Through the curtain of black sleep, Poppy became aware of a glow- of warmth, of light, of life, and she reached towards it instinctively, as she had reached for her father's hand one night many years ago when the sky split angrily in two in a summer storm. When her fingers, stiff and slow, pressed against that warmth she realized it wasn't life or light she reached for, it was skin. Consciousness. Poppy peeled her eyes open with effort- her eyelashes were sticky with sleep, and her lids heavy besides. It was dim, but there was light enough too see. Sunrise or sunset, she wasn't sure. Her hands were brushing against the arm of a man that it took her a long moment to recognize. The name came to her- East- and then the context. The keepers had taken her in for something, and she had been in the cells for a short time. She had been wounded. What... Oh, the Keeper. Keats. He had pushed her against a cage, shocked her to oblivion. She remembered now. Her head throbbed wickedly. Christ, she hated tranquilizers. Poppy looked up at the sky: a swirl of sweeping redwood boughs tangled with low hanging cloud and fog. She didn't know where she was, but the lack of salt in the air made her nervous. Also, she was lying on her electrical-burned back- why wasn't she in pain? That was when she realized that she was lying in the snow in those flimsy white scrubs. Her back had gone numb. Poppy's face furrowed in dismay. If they wanted to kill us, why didn't they just euthanized us in the facility? she thought. She propped herself up slowly. Blood rushed in her head, but in her limbs it felt thick and sluggish. She tucked her stiff hands into her armpits. The warmth burned them. Poppy tried to wiggle her toes, but they wouldn't cooperate. The girl chewed her lip. It wasn't that cold- maybe forty degrees, but her clothes were wet, and she was shivering so hard her bones seemed to chafe at each other. She looked over at East, who lay still beside her. She wondered how long they had been laying here. "East, she said, leaning over and shaking his shoulder roughly. For a moment, she was scared that he was dead, until she saw the clouds of condensation steaming from his mouth. "Hey, East. Wake up, buddy, c'mon, we're out." She turned to take in there surroundings. Nothing was familiar. Big redwood boles and smaller pines and oaks disappeared into the mist. There was no snow on the trees, but the ground was rolling, soft and white, and it made the whole forest glow in the dim, damp air. It was hard to tell what direction the light was coming from. And then, Poppy saw a stack of clothes sitting on a thin sheet of black plastic. She laughed breathlessly, a grin splashing across her face. Saved. Yes, there were her overalls, tights and wool shirt, looking neat and pressed and clean. Only her moccasins and her rabbitskin gloved were their old, soiled selves. The girl stripped down and pulled on each garment. Her fingers fumbled clumsily with the snaps and laces, but when she was done, she felt halfway alive again, dispute the angry pounding behind her eyes, and the way her overalls chafed brightly on her burned skin.

[Ray "East" Kraus]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 500px; height:700px; background-image:url(http://i45.tinypic.com/2nlsa5d.png)] The whole world felt like it was rolling under him. Every time he crested a metaphorical wave, his mind went black again, and whenever he fell down, down, down, he felt the nausea churning his stomach and the ache in his brain that felt like hell-- Something jarred him out of this state, making his eyes open lethargically. They felt glued together, or weighed down with lead, so that this happened far too slowly, and then once he did open them, he felt as though they were assaulted by the bright, bright gray of the sky. East groaned and rolled his head to the side, catching a glimpse of the girl that had woken him up a second before. It took him a long instant to recognize her, or better yet, to dredge up her name. Poppy. That was right. The Carna girl in the cage next to his, before--before. All he remembered was the sting of a needle. East turned away as she began to pull on her clothes, not so much for modesty sake... simply so he could pull himself into a sitting position, assessing his own body for a long instant. What was wrong with him? He felt sore, but not unbearably so, which was good. His stomach was still churning and his head was still aching, but those pains were manageable. He rolled his shoulders and then stood, looking around them. He... didn't recognize the trees or the general smell of the place, which was unsettling. He raised a hand to tug at the lobe of his ear, and then he let out a long breath. "Looks like we've got ourselves into a mess." He commented. East narrowed his eyes and glanced around them again. Then it hit him. "Ah, shit. I think this is Analoya territory." Which would be very, very bad. Because he couldn't defend himself worth a shit, his shapeshift was worthless (at least the last time he had checked, it was) and Poppy was... a squirrel. Uh. "Y'know if the Keepers did anything to you? Give you one of those cool mutation skills or something?" As soon as he asked the question, he began to wonder if he should have asked it of himself instead.

[Poppy Montgomery]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 497px; height: 675px; background-image:url(http://i46.tinypic.com/35d82vm.jpg)] When she turned back, East was sitting propped up in the snow. She leant over to snatch up the neat stack of folded clothes that weren't hers and therefore must have been East's, and hissed breath through her teeth. Her shirt tugged over the skin on her back- and those burns flared violently. Poppy sunk to her knees. they made little depressions in the snow, and she felt the cold damp seeping through her overalls. She'd never been hurt like this before- never this bad. her mood darkening like a sky in a summer storm, she snatched up East's clothes and snapped them at him. She put her hands on her knees and breathed slowly, crumpling and uncrumpling her face. "Looks like we've got ourselves into a mess," she heard East say. "Damn straight," she muttered, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Ah, shit. I think this is Analoya territory." Poppy shook her head slowly. Why would the keepers do this? She didn't buy that they were all sadistic freaks. They must have had some reason to throw her with a stranger man in the middle of a hostile, carnivore-invested forest. The girl couldn't track the logic. Her back throbbed viciously- the more she warmed up, the stronger the pain grew. She wiped sweat from her brow, gnawing on her lip. That was when she noticed the white plastic jar, peeking out from the snow that had been under the plastic sheet. Her eyes bugged out. she pulled it up and flipped wiped the snow from it. There were no markings on it except for a serial number and the words 'UNCONTROLLED VARIABLE CORRECTION" on the bottom. She twisted open the cap with a jerk, and looked in to find smooth white cream. Poppy's breath caught. She dabbed her pinky finger into the jar and then whipped it off on the bib of her overalls. "Y'know if the Keepers did anything to you? Give you one of those cool mutation skills or something?" East was saying. She realized that she had let the silence drag a little bit. "Uh,"she said, running a hand through her short, scraggly hair and never taking her eyes off the jar or her mind off the pain. "Not me. From what I understand that hurts like a bitch, and the keepers didn't hurt me at all this go. Well except for, y'know." Poppy stood slowly, grimacing but muffling any sound or whimper. She turned to East. "So I just found this in the snow," she said slowly. "And I'm betting it's for the burns. I mean I don't know but I'm willing to take the risk." She laughed in a frightened, shattered sort of way. She hurt "Will you...?" It wasn't really a question. Poppy shoved the jar into his large hands, turned around and undid her shirt and overalls. She peeled the fabric away from her skin with held breath. It was then that she remembered how East was fulsi, and the smartest course of action for him would be to pocket the jar and run.

[Ray "East" Kraus]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 500px; height:700px; background-image:url(http://i45.tinypic.com/2nlsa5d.png)] East had been too distracted with their surroundings, so that when she tossed his clothing at him he visibly flinched. He caught it out of reflex, and turned to glance at the Carna girl, maybe to make some snappish comment, but then he saw the way she was crumbled. His first thought was: and now I have an invalid to take care of. This did not show on his face, which became a mask of concern. But there was nothing he could do for her now, so he stood up and began to tug his clothes on, discarding the medical shawl gladly. He wondered if there was any advantage in sticking around her. He could leave and there would be nothing plaguing his moral conscious. He could sleep at night. But generally, two was better than one. He sighed a little bit, and looked off into the trees. It was a dark forest. He was trying to figure out a way out of this place, and he was concluding that walking was the only option. He still felt... weird, disjointed. Like there was something wrong with him. Before he could dwell on this for too long, Poppy said something else, and he turned to see that she had found a little container. He arched a brow. Were the Keeper's being merciful, or? He had heard that they worked miracles as often as they condemned shapeshifters. Of course, their miracle-working was usually on the basis of "entertainment" to some degree. Will you..? Before he could answer, she shoved it into his hands. "Um, yeah." He unscrewed the lid without batting a lash, and began to applying the cream, which was thick and milky white, to the burns on her back. He did so as gently as he could manage, figuring that they were hurting enough without the callouses of his fingers brushing them raw. "These are some nasty burns." He was stating the obvious, but he sounded a little surprised. East had touched the edges of his enclosure when he had been sleeping, at times, but what burns he had were only little singes, entirely manageable. For a moment, he marveled at how he had changed. Manageable. Before, pain had never been manageable to East. He had always found ways to fix it, even temporarily, and that meant everything from alcohol to expensive medicine. He finished applying the cream to her back, and for a moment he paused. She really was a beautiful girl, slim and maybe a little scrawny from the Menagerie, but pretty. East coughed into the crook of his elbow and then recovered the container. He handed it to her after a moment, thinking that she would probably want the remainder. He had nothing to gain from keeping it. He looked away from her and back toward the towering redwoods. "I have no idea which direction is home," he admitted. And then, remembering that they had two entirely different "homes", he corrected himself. "The Rings, I mean. I don't know which way the Rings are. If we could find the river that runs through here, I'm betting we could find Bellator territory, and the Rings are located just over the Lawaii mountains." God, he was getting a migraine. East rubbed at the back of his neck, and again that feeling of wrongness washed over him. Something was different, and his feeling of nausea had not subsided. He kind of crouched and kind of fell, and drive heaved for a second. But there was nothing in his stomach, and it just left him shaky and feeling worse than before. "Ugh." ooc: so sorry for the delay! hope this works.

[Poppy Montgomery]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 497px; height: 675px; background-image:url(http://i46.tinypic.com/35d82vm.jpg)] "Um, yeah,"

[/color]said East confounding her expectations again. Poppy closed her eyes as he applied the cream in cool streaks down her back. She winced now an then, hands twitching, when his fingers passed over certain especially raw parts, but held her silence to her chest as she held her shirt and the bib of her overalls. The cream was cool and silky, and although it brought no instant relief, her mind rested easier. The keepers wanted her alive. That was a good sign, right? East commented on her burns. Poppy chewed on the inside of her cheek, saying nothing. If he felt the need to talk about it, the burns must be pretty bad indeed. She wished she could see them... although that would probably make them hurt all the more. Poppy took the jar and dropped it into one of her pockets. "Thanks,"[/color] she said, offering East a sidelong grin. She turned from him again and gingerly pulled her shirt back over her head, settling it gently over the cream-slthered burns before bucking the straps of her overalls back over her shoulders.


"I have no idea which direction is home," [/color]he said, surveying the forest around them with narrowed eyes. Poppy nodded in agreement. "The Rings, I mean. I don't know which way the Rings are," [/color]he corrected himself. Poppy smiled. For the time being, they were from the same group: shifters. Comrades in an unfriendly place. It was nice that neither of them had turned tail and tried to make it out along, although that would no doubt be safer.

"If we could find the river that runs through here, I'm betting we could find Bellator territory, and the Rings are located just over the Lawaii mountains," he continued, like it was nothing. Just evade the ferocious giant cats of Analoya, dodge the trampling Bellator on their open planes, and not get shredded by the talons of the Lawaii. "Yup,"[/color] she said. No big deal. She knew that landscape he described; Someone had drawn her a map when she first got here.

"I'll go climb some tree, see if I can get a picture of where we are, or where we can find a river."[/color] Poppy said. She peered around through the clearing fog, the brightening day. There was a redwood tree trunk a hundred feet off that looked to be particularly massive. She took a few steps toward it, but then heard a sudden crunch in the snow, and when she glanced back, East was doubled over in the snow. Alarm squeezed a huge pump of blood through her heart, and in a flash, she was kneeling by his side, her hand on his back. He convulsed in an empty retch, and then recovered with a grunt. "Christ, East,"[/color] Poppy murmured, her black eyes seeking his. He'd asked her about the keepers, if they'd meddled with her at all, but she had never returned the question "What did they do to you?"[/color]
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[Ray "East" Kraus]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 500px; height:700px; background-image:url(http://i45.tinypic.com/2nlsa5d.png)] He wiped his mouth with the back of one handed, half kneeling and half on hands and knees. After the rush of nausea, he was just trying to regain his bearings--but the world dipped and turned, dipped and turned--until there was suddenly a hand on him, settling him some. His eyes remained closed for a long moment, and then he opened them again, only to think, no, that isn't happening yet. He breathed deeply, trying to regain his breath. He didn't register the question she had asked for several seconds. Once he did, his tongue was heavy and his throat was dry. "I don't know," he heard the quiver in his own voice, and hated it. Attempting to save face, East continued. "Sure as shit didn't improve my balance, did it?" Had he had the heart, he would have laughed it off. Instead, he reopened his eyes, and as soon as the abrupt dizziness that brought on subsided, he began to stand slowly. The ache in him had redoubled, that sense of wrongness finally beginning to unsettle him. Did they say that sometimes a critical patient could sense what was wrong with them before it happened? Was he some critical patient, some new experiment? Thinking like that wasn't going to help him. He tried to recall what they had put him through, but he drew up a blank. He just remembered the pain, and then... there was one point he had been overwhelmed with emotions, all sorts of emotions. Thinking about that made his head hurt, however, so he stopped to glance at Poppy, offering a weak smile. "I'll be alright," he mumbled, before remembering what she had said earlier. "But I'll be better when we get out of this place. It gives me the creeps. May as well get going." What, with the redwoods climbing up into the sky all around them, it was dark and chilly. He gestured to the nearest and largest tree, not prepared to show just how much effort the gesture was. I'm not in good shape, he thought around another wave of vertigo.

[Poppy Montgomery]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 497px; height: 675px; background-image:url(http://i46.tinypic.com/35d82vm.jpg)] East was quiet for a time before answering. He seemed to be working hard to pull himself together. Poppy rocked back on her heels. This was insane. They were going to die. Some lion was going to appear out of the fog and tear them both to pieces, and neither of them had the strength to run away, let alone put up a fight. Finally, East answered her, his voice unsteady. "I don't know. Sure as shit didn't improve my balance, did it?"

[/b]The joke fell, and left the weakness it had been trying to hide in plain view. And Poppy smirked a little. Men. Always so determined to look invincible in any situation. She didn't say anything, but just kept her palm on his back and her mind off over own wounds. They were a sorry looking pair, that was for sure.

Eventually, East spoke up again. "I'll be alright,"[/b] he said, "but I'll be better when we get out of this place. It gives me the creeps. May as well get going."[/b] Poppy nodded and stood. "Find a place to park yourself,"[/b] she told him. "If you see any analoya, charm them with your good looks."[/b] Poppy winked at him, and then turned and trudged off over the hard, late winter snow towards that big tree. She was tired and felt feverish and cold, but it seemed she had to suck it up and be tough today. Inhaling in a gulp of cool, damp air, she ran the last few steps toward the huge, ridged bole of the redwood tree, took a flying leap, and landed in her shift. Little black claws clinging ably to the bark, Poppy glanced back at East with her glossy black eyes, and then up the tree. Long way to go. She flicked a tufted ear and started the climb.

Poppy loved how fast her body could move when she was shifted. She skittered quickly up the tree, rounding around the branches. The tree seemed to be infinite, and poppy felt herself tiring. She stopped for a breath, sitting on a branch to catch her breath. She stared with glazed eyes at the tangle of evergreen needles that were all she could see. Just a short rest. Her back throbbed. She hated how her fur tangled in with the burns, but it wasn't like she was going to climb a tree as a human. She thought of East. She hoped he could pull himself together enough that they could move out of the carnivorous Retro area today. She hoped that the mountains weren't far. She hoped... And then she mustered the energy, and climbed and climbed. The tree trunk narrowed. Suddenly, she burst out of the dim canopy of the forest and into the open air. She stared out over the treetops, breathing. Okay, a little farther up. Then she would have a prefect view. Poppy skittered up, and up, till she was perched on the highest branch like a star on a christmas tree.

The forest rolled out from under her, black evergreen tops twisted through by long swathes of white fog. A low ceiling of clouds crouched above. Everything was still and absolutely silent. Poppy scanned the woods.She saw, far away, how the mountains rose, jagged and pale with distance. Wait- there was a line through the trees. A river! But it was heading east, parallel to the mountains. Poppy followed the line- it did lead to a break in the woodland between to hills. A sliver of silver, reflecting the grey sky. A lake! and behind, a bald patch. Poppy furrowed her brown, trying to remember the map. It seemed like they were far west in the Analoya's territory, closer to the Nilda. So... Further west there was a little mountain range, and then Fallen ring land. And north, there was Nilda territory, then Lawaii, then... Carna. The cliffs. Poppy shivered involuntarily at the thought. Home. A dream. Poppy looked west. She could see the little mountain range, closer and less formidable than the one to the north. The whole view looked so expansive. It seemed unimaginable that the Keepers could have put a lid on all this.

Poppy turned then and headed down, leaping from branch to branch. Down and down and down, into the trees and finally down to the forest floor. Poppy shifted into human form when she got there. She leaned over on her knees and pressed her forehead into the snow. She ached. Her arms, her legs, her very core. Slowly, she pushed herself to her feet. She looked toward East. He wasn't there- just a lithe, spotted cat. Poppy froze, her heart pounding painfully in her throat. They had been found already. Where was East? She couldn't see him. "East, run!"[/b] she screamed. She had no chance, but maybe he did. Poppy turned tail and fled.

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[Ray "East" Kraus]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 500px; height:700px; background-image:url(http://i45.tinypic.com/2nlsa5d.png)] He took her advice quite literally, with a cheeky smile that did little to dispel his pallor. East collapsed into the hollow of a nearby redwood, relatively snow-less with a good view of the surrounding area. After a while of attempting to "keep watch", East found his eyes drooping. He felt shaky and weak, like he'd just come off a bad trip. What I don't miss about college... He thought, in an attempt to lighten his mood, but all it did was condemn it. He leaned his head back against the tree and closed his eyes, deciding that he didn't give a damn just then. Let some tiger come and rip him to shreds, if they wanted to, and he dared them silently. As it was, he was disappointed, because there was no tiger and he had this feeling that he would be fine, like he always was. Izel had told him, once, that he had an unnatural ability to pull through. Resilient son of a-- He remembered. He remembered it abruptly, with snow soaking into the fabric at his ass and the bark of the tree biting uncomfortably into his shoulders. His eyes snapped open. After the injection, after his body had been shredded by their science, he remembered the second needle, the second scientist. "You want to stand back," a technician was told, immediately after he'd been shot with a very thick needle. It had forced him to shift, to writhe and collapse and twist and slough off his human skin. He suddenly tore out of it again, regardless of the vertigo. Instead of finding himself in the strangely disjointed, graceful body of an insect, he was peering through adept eyes and moving in a long, slim body. He peered down at one extended leg, and found it to be spotted. East turned a circle, once, twice, and then a third time. He saw his spotted haunch, his spotted tail, and his mind simply went blank. What... And then, inconceivably. Raimond can never call me butterfly-boy again-- Poppy came scampering down the tree, shifting at the base. He was suddenly ecstatic, a rare emotion for him. He wanted to tell her... tell her what? East didn't know, and he scrambled for words, but in the instant he stood up to pace for her, she looked at him with wild fear and screamed, "East, run!" She took her own advice, and booked it. East stumbled as he leapt after her, and then stumbled again--one long paw hooked in the snow and he had a noseful of it in a matter of seconds. He scrambled to his feet, shook his fur out, and continued to lope after her. One stride, two stride, three stride, and he closed the distance between them miraculously. "Wait, wait!" He rounded off in front of her, with the intention of blocking her path with his body--only, he received knees to the ribs for his efforts, and the two of them went toppling end-over-end. He was panting and gasping and then, as he dissolved into his human form, laugh with relief. He wasn't broken. They had just... given him a new shape. "I... I mean, they changed my shift." His eyes were bright, boyish.

[Poppy Montgomery]

If y'd like me to change the slap or anything else, ask and ye shall receive!

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 497px; height: 675px; background-image:url(http://i46.tinypic.com/35d82vm.jpg)] Her muscles felt like they were shredding, and her brain felt like a microphone that had bee turned up so high in it picked up only frequency. Her ears squealed a high, keening ring, All she could think, as she heard the soft hush of paws falling on snow, was that this one was finally going to be her last thought.The forest came toward her in slow motion, and her frantic steps took her nowhere. "Wait, wait!"

[/b] came a voice. Poppy twisted her face into a snarl, Yeah, 'wait, wait,' wait so you don't have to work so hard to wrap your teeth around my throat, sure, kitty. Suddenly, a flash of gold appeared in her peripheral vision, and something smashed painfully over her knees, and her face slammed into the snow. Was this the time when she died? Her legs lay over the body of whatever monster she'd tripped over. She whipped her head around to catch a glimpse of it/ It was a cheetah, and shifting- into East.

Poppy stared.She stared and stared. Cheetah. That was a cheetah. Now it was East. East was a butterfly. He sat there laughing like it was christmas morning. "I... I mean, they changed my shift,"[/b] he said, all grins and star filled eyes. Poppy sat up in a fluid motion and swiftly slapped him across the face. "You asshole. I thought you were going to eat me,"[/b] she spat, still out of breath. Her hands were shaking. She felt a trickle of warmth on her upper lip, and reached up to whip it away. Her finger came back smeared in red. ]"And you gave me a damn nosebleed,"[/b] the growled, holding his gaze for an intense second. Then the thunderclouds in her eyes broke up, and she had to covered an involuntary grin with her hand. She laughed with him then, and tipped her head back to look at the foggy sky, pinching the bridge of her nose with a melodramatic flourish. "God. They changed your shift. Y'might have warned me."[/b] She sighed, shaking her head. Keepers. They did the damnedest things. No explanations. The thought occurred to her that it was unfortunate that the Fulsi now had another set of sharp teeth, but she didn't voice that thought. She didn't want to bridge an unnecessary divide when they were stuck together until they got home.

Poppy swung her legs off of East's lap and leaned back on her palms. She narrowed her eyes and chewed on her lip. "You know what's messed up?"[/b] She said blithely. "What's messed up is that I see a cheetah and my first instinct is 'run!' I should work on that."[/b]

Poppy rolled forward and stood. She had now soaked her overalls through with snow, and she was shivering a little again. She shook out her hands. They always shook for a while after she had an experience during which she thought she was going to die. The for was lifting in the forest, but that only exposed more trees, more unfamiliar territory. Suddenly, she remembered that she had just gone up that tree and found out where they were. "Right,"[/b] she said, trying to be serious but still giddy from not actually dying. "Before getting eaten actually happens, lets get a move on. We're far west, so we can either head farther west over the smaller mountain range- I don't remember its name- into Fallen territory and then into no man's land, or go north, through Nilda territory and the Lawaii mountains, to Carna land."[/b] She stopped, considering, with her eyes unfocused on the ground. Her nosebleed seemed to be clotting already. It was just a bump, hardly even hurt. "I would say we should go west. Even though it's longer. The Lawaii mountains are pretty intimidating- I've seen them from the other side." [/b]She flicked her eyes up to East, asking for his opinion without words.

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[Ray "East" Kraus]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 500px; height:700px; background-image:url(http://i45.tinypic.com/2nlsa5d.png)] Ow, bad idea, bad idea. He felt where her knees had dug into his side as soon as he landed. After feeling like he'd been run through half (or all) of the genetic experiments in the dome, it wasn't exactly nice to add "bruised ribs" to the list, too. He groaned a little but sat up, preparing to rub snow off of his face, but Poppy saw fit to do it herself. Crack. He heard the sound and, after that, registered the feeling of a harsh slap. His head snapped to the side and his left eye watered, where her fingers had clipped him. "You slapped me!" He exclaimed, shocked. He'd been slapped before, but Christ. When he looked back at her, his eyes wide with a little bit of hurt. His cheek still stung. He was gauging how serious she was at being angry, particularly when her nose began to bleed, but by the time she was smiling East was stifling laughter without an ounce of guilt. "That's karma, working right there!" He declared, standing shortly after her. He wiped the snow off his jeans methodically, stretching his shoulders. He still ached and his head still hurt, but at least the nausea had subsided. Funny, that a tumble in the snow could do that. And not even the type of tumble you would expect to fix your problems, he thought a little sardonically, pushing his damp hair back from his forehead. "I'd fix that," he advised. "Y'know... cheetahs are usually pretty fast." So he was a cheetah, then? East filed that information away for later. At least he knew what kind of spotted cat he was, now. It would have been embarrassing if, at some later date, he told someone he was a jaguar and then proceeded to shift in front of them. He was still stifling laughter. It was an impossible day, he decided. First he was apprehended, stuck in tanks and cages and stuck with needles and IVs and electric probes, and then he was dumped in hostile territory to discover that they had completely rearranged his genetic code. Exciting few days! His thought still rambling, East looked away from Poppy and into the surrounding forest, where it was all too easy for things to hide. The girl seemed to mirror his thoughts, because she began to speak of ways to get back home. He was leaning toward the second suggestion, because it sounded like a shorter journey, and this he caught on the word Carna. He kept forgetting. They were enemies and all that. He kept his face attentive, but blank of emotion, when he turned to look at her again. His mannerism changed rather abruptly, from jovial and giddy to more serious. He shoved his cold hands into his pockets, not that it did much good, and bit the inside of his lower lip before replying. "Lets go west, then. Cut through Nilda territory, the lower mountains, and then over through the edge of Fallen territory into No Man's land." What he didn't say was that he didn't want to be stuck between the Lawaii mountains and Carna, once they reached the other side. It wasn't that he didn't trust her. It was just that East didn't trust anyone, in general, ever. Old habits died hard, as the saying went. "Which way do we start?" As she set off, East began to follow suit, feeling the cold in his bones. He was tired, and weary, and generally rather fed up with Keepers. Even the novelty of a new shift had faded into the background. He could be home, right now, wherever that would have been at the time. Maybe on a the beach, drinking margaritas with the locals and eating shrimp fresh out of the sea... his thoughts trailed off. "So where you from?" He asked, conversationally. If East was going to be spending time with her, he wanted to know more about her. His dark eyes flicked to her for a moment, and his expression was honestly curious. What he was thinking was, quite simply, you can learn a lot about someone, if you know where they're from. Stereotypes were often true, after all.

[Poppy Montgomery]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 497px; height: 675px; background-image:url(http://i46.tinypic.com/35d82vm.jpg)] The snow was dense and she didn't sink down too much with each step. Her moccasins offered almost no grip, though, and some of her steps slid across the surface. She kept her eyes on the ground. A twisted ankle would be a less than wonderful addition to her laundry list of new injuries. After a long moment of filling the silence of the forest with only the crunching of their footsteps, East spoke up. "So where you from?" Poppy jacked up her eyebrows a notch. Like that sort of thing mattered in this place? She would brush it off as a weak conversation starter, except for he sounded genuinely interested. So she shrugged, and said, "New Minneapolis," She added, "The refugee camp in Wisconsin." because reporters didn't come around ref-camps like New Minneapolis that often. Nobody outside really heard about them. The only time there were proper cameras from the outside world that Poppy could remember was during the Big Fire two years back. Suddenly she felt a pang of startling heartsickness. She had been taken in the middle of a witch hunt for shifters five months ago, and her whole family had been captured. She had been the only one who was in the Menagerie's age bracket; her parents were too old, and her brother too young. They were probably all euthanized and incinerated. Poppy hadn't thought about it in a while. Life in here was so fast paced, so frenetic and intense, that the past life faded like a photograph in direct sunlight. Now, upon remembering again, Poppy felt like she'd been hollowed out with an ice-cream scoop, that her skin was an exoskeleton and she was filled with the kind of silence that follows a a goodbye. "And you?" she asked, remembering the way the dusty pathways through the camp would turn to chocolate paste in the rain. "Say, if you could be anywhere else right now for an hour, where would you be?" The conversation flowed off of her tongue absentmindedly. Behind her eyes she flicked through old memories. West, and west. Nothing changed, and footsteps forward seemed to bring them past a reel of the same trees, the same boulders and clearings, but Poppy knew they weren't going in circles- she looked back at their tracks now and then to make sure. They were pin straight. For two bone weary travelers, they seemed to be keeping a good pace. The sun rose up and the mist lifted and wandered away. A wind picked up, sending the cloud bank above them whizzing across the sky and the evergreens around them roaring like a seas storm with the volume turned down. They walked and walked.

[Ray "East" Kraus]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 500px; height:700px; background-image:url(http://i45.tinypic.com/2nlsa5d.png)] East, with each step he took, tried to disregard the distance. But he was thinking about how he was not, by any means, a mountaineer or a hiker or whatever you wanted to call it. He would occasionally catch sidelong glances of her, but for the most part he just watched where he was heading. He didn't know what he expected her to say. She had an accent, but it was difficult to place and minor. American, at least. "New Minneapolis," she said, and then elaborated. East was guessing that he wasn't an idiot for not immediately recognizing the name. But... refuge camp? "Oh... Oh. That seems like it would have been quite the... um, adventure... growing up." He wondered if she missed it, but didn't ask. Home was better than this place, though, no matter where home was. East haphazardly kicked at a small rock, and watched it jerk ahead of them over the uneven ground. He expected her first question, because it was polite. But he did not expect her second one. East cracked a rueful smile. "San Diego, California." Not all that interesting, he decided. Easy enough to believe, and he remembered an alias who had lived there--Gage Turner, that East had always used to pick up the aristocrats in the bars. Aspiring politician, and all that. Saying Alps sounded less regal, somehow. Saying that he came from a dirt-poor family that lived without technology... well, it was embarrassing. And if he could be anybody, why not? He squinted his eyes towards the sky, through the branches, seemingly considering her second question. He didn't know whether to answer honestly or not, but then after a second he decided to play a game with himself, and her. Old habits died hard, as the saying went. "Probably New Mexico. Santa Fe. There's this church, called the Loretto Chapel. I don't know why. Just read about it, once, and figured it would be cool to actually see." It was something that Gage Turner would have said, not East. But he continued regardless. "A lot of the material to build the chapel was brought over from Europe, and it took years to finish." He knew it was a strange answer. He should want to see his family, probably. But he was half-certain that most of his siblings were in the Menagerie. And he was even more certain that they all hated him completely and utterly. A family reunion wouldn't be in his best interests. East laced his fingers through the loops of his jeans and continued to walk, deciding that everything around them looked the same. He turned to look at the girl by his side, smiling a rather cheeky smile, all of a sudden. "Food. If you could eat anything right now, what would it be? I mean... Mmm. I would kill for just a nice... I don't even know. My ma used to make this pie..." He trailed off.

[Poppy Montgomery]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 497px; height: 675px; background-image:url(http://i46.tinypic.com/35d82vm.jpg)] "Oh... Oh. That seems like it would have been quite the... um, adventure... growing up." Poppy just chuffed a laugh and shrugged. If you weren't rich or powerful or both, everywhere was an adventure. The camp had been magical sometimes... And brutal others. That was the world, though. Wasn't it? Maybe not in San Diego. Poppy didn't know. Maybe it was sunbeams and Icecream there. The only thing Poppy knew about San Diego was that they cloned all the orca whales for the zoos. A friend of hers had told her that, years and years ago. Poppy had never been to a zoo, but now she was living in one. funny how things worked out. Poppy was more interested to hear the answer to his second question. "Probably New Mexico. Santa Fe. There's this church, called the Loretto Chapel. I don't know why. Just read about it, once, and figured it would be cool to actually see.A lot of the material to build the chapel was brought over from Europe, and it took years to finish." Poppy's eyes shot sidelong at East. That wasn't what she was expecting . It was a bloodless answer. Actually, she didn't know if she believed him. But it would be weird to call him out. Maybe the man really got off on churches made of misplaced rock. She pressed her her lips together and raised her eyebrows in a half smile, half frown that said, 'to each their own,' He didn't let the silence linger. "Food," he said, "If you could eat anything right now, what would it be?" he asks. Before he let her speak, he continued enthusiastically: "I mean... Mmm. I would kill for just a nice... I don't even know. My ma used to make this pie..." he seemed to get lost in the desire. Pie... Poppy hadn't eaten pie since she was quite small. They had had ovens before, but they in all of Little Minneapolis, there might have been two ovens total. It was hard to bake things on propane stoves or over wood fires. There wasn't anything fancy... Oh: "Bread," she sighed wistfully. The girl groaned at the thought. Her stomach complained. it seemed to twist itself into balloon animal shapes at the thought of food. "Damn you, East, we're both hollow as buckets now. I could deal with a bite of anything." She gnawed on the inside of her cheek, moving her legs one in front of the other with increasing effort, and trying to ignore the ache on her back. Those damn burns. She had hoped the Keepers' paste would have healed them completely and instantly, as Keeper medicine sometimes did. No luck. Perhaps they were poisoning her instead. It seemed like they walked forever. Chatting sporadically, and falling into silence for long periods while they struggled with legs that were slowly turning to led. Were those hours passing? It was hard to tell. The wind ripped off the lowest layer of clouds, but there was another muffling the sunshine above. Time was amorphous without a clock and with the clouds diffusing the light so shadows were fuzzy and dim. Eventually, Poppy asked, "Do you think we'll be able to find food tonight?" there were some birds in the trees that poppy might have been able to pelt down, but stopping for hunting seemed like a frightening prospect.

[Ray "East" Kraus]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 500px; height:700px; background-image:url(http://i45.tinypic.com/2nlsa5d.png)] After he said it, he knew that it would probably sound like a lie. But... then that would just add to his ruse, wouldn't it? East was growing increasingly enthusiastic about the little game they were playing, and she was unaware of. Gage Turner, East thought, a little cockily. Would have lied about where he would go. He would say Santa Fe and be thinking about the family that he hates, he would be wanting to look mysterious and educated and-- East realized it didn't matter. It didn't matter if he played the part of some old alias. In the end, he was just... East... in the Menagerie. It made him feel strangely empty. Bread, she replied. East hiked up his eyebrows and glanced at her sidelong. It wasn't what he was expecting, but when he thought about it it made sense. If she had come from a refugee camp, she wouldn't have had access to luxuries. He smiled, and laughed lightly. But he felt her pain. His stomach was twisting into painful knots that basically said, feed me, in abysmal stomach growls. They continued for a while. Do you think we'll be able to find food tonight. East hadn't been watching the time pass, per se. He had been focused on their little chit-chat and their surroundings and the fact that he was a Ray Kraus that no longer had any point in playing a Gage Turner. "I don't know." He shrugged. "I'm a Scout because I'm a useless killer." Let her take that how she wanted. "We... probably should find something, though, or we won't be able to go much longer on completely empty stomachs. And we need water." He scratched at the back of his neck. "I'd say we're on the edge of Analoya territory... but they're pretty much hunted out, y'know? Lots of mouths to feed." What East didn't say, but left in the silence, was the fact that they would make nice snacks. "Whatcha think?" ""

[Poppy Montgomery]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 497px; height: 675px; background-image:url(http://i46.tinypic.com/35d82vm.jpg)] "I don't know,"

[/color] He replied with a shrug. "I'm a Scout because I'm a useless killer."[/color] The corner of Poppy's mouth twitched up. So probably he wasn't going to strangle her in sleep tonight. Or perhaps he was just trying to make her think that. The air around this man had a vague flavor of duplicity. "You have a shiny new pair of big teeth," [/color]she countered with a smirk and a raised eyebrow. "Might as well learn to use them." [/color]

"We... probably should find something, though, or we won't be able to go much longer on completely empty stomachs. And we need water." [/color] Poppy nodded. "And to stop walking for a little bit. I'm gonna need a break in a mile or so." she muttered, half ashamed. The ground had grown hillier as they walked, and her knees were protesting from the stress of crunching through the half-solid snow. Also, the lack of food was making her dizzy.

"I'd say we're on the edge of Analoya territory... but they're pretty much hunted out, y'know? Lots of mouths to feed." [/color] Poppy nodded. That was a good point. Also, she wasn't so keen on filling the woods of these ferocious retromorph big cats with the bright smell of the blood of stolen prey. "Are the little mountains we're headed into neutral territory?" [/color] She asked. "That would be fantastic." [/color]The girl sighed and kneaded her brown. “I could set snares tonight, but that doesn't guarantee anything, and we'd have to wait till morning. Jesus. My kingdom for a slingshot."[/color] Making a fire in these damp, misty woods was going to be a challenge if they managed to catch anything. "We'll be okay," [/color] she sighed. "I'm sure neither of us are strangers to going to sleep hollow."[/color] Poppy remembered the months between when she arrived here in the Menagerie and when she joined the Carna. Those were thin times. She went half a week without food once. Nasty. It wouldn’t take them that long to get back home, hopefully.

Home. Ah, home. She wished she could close her eyes and leave this silent, foreboding forest behind. Maybe take East with her and convert him to Carna, because she liked him. Hoo, boy, wouldn’t that be exciting! Poppy bit back a grin at the thought. Talk about stirring the pot and/or rocking the boat. Thinking about different people’s reactions to this took her mind off of her various injuries and mounting exhaustion. She imagined her friend Darryl hyperventilating, and the image made her amusement fizz over like vinegar and baking soda; laughter tumbled out of her. She clapped a hand over her mouth. Too late. Hopefully he would keep up his tall-dark-and-handsome mystique and deign not to ask her what she laughed about.

The hills were getting steeper. The pair of weary travellers started up a hill covered over in damp snow, and Poppy’s slick-bottomed moccasins gave out. Poppy thumped onto her hands and knees. “Shit,” [/color]she muttered flatly. She tried to stand, but her feet couldn’t seem to get any grip, and they kicked out before she put her weight on them. She froze, feeling absurd. With an overdone sigh, she crawled to the top of the hill gawkily on her hands and knees. When she got to the top, she stood and brused the gritty ice from her knees. She sighed at her own lack of grace and then turned to East with a tired grin. “We should keep our eyes out for shelter. As one can see, I’m not doing the best at staying upright anymore.”[/color]
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[Ray "East" Kraus]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 500px; height:700px; background-image:url(http://i45.tinypic.com/2nlsa5d.png)] East snorted. "I can also chirp. Cheetahs chirp, right?" He went on to shrug. "And run. I can run. Just 'cause I have teeth doesn't mean I have to use them." He flashed a wide, mischievous child, despite the fact he was cold and tired and hungry. "You and me both," East replied, trying to be chipper, but his exhaustion showed through. "Pretty sure I'll need to cut off my feet by the end of this." But right then being tired was one of the least of their problems. That was easy to fix, if it came down to it. He looked up at the aforementioned mountains, then, squinting. He bit the inside of his lip and thought about it. "I don't think so. I think it might be Lawaii territory." East paused. "But if we stick to the lower altitudes we should be alright, at least for tonight. And I wouldn't think that they would be as badly over-hunted as the upper portions of the mountain, if you want to try and catch something." They were nearing the lowermost portion of those mountains now, the ground getting increasingly steep. East caught a sound of choked laughter and glanced sidelong with a questioning glance, but he did not pursue it. He was trying to recognize their surroundings--he had gone on enough scouting expeditions in this direction so that it should have been familiar. He said nothing to her for a while, squinting into the dusk. He scanned the trees and the brambles, and there. It was a dried out riverbed, one that slanted up at a steep angle, and a large willow tree that looked slightly out of place. Under the tree was a cross. East didn't know what it was there for, he figured a grave, but it meant they were exactly where he thought. He was filled with new enthusiasm. "Hey! C'mon." East stumbled in that direction, lurching up the riverbed for a few yards until he came to a flatter portion of the slope, decorated with an assortment of rocks. It was covered in snow, but East could fix that. "There's an indention under this rock in the dirt, already dug out. If we bring the snow out it should fit the both of us." He looked at her briefly, and with what was left of his energy East shifted and began to dig out the snow. ooc: ajfdlkalj ughhh not a good post ;3; sorry for the wait, love!

[Poppy Montgomery]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 497px; height: 675px; background-image:url(http://i46.tinypic.com/35d82vm.jpg)] Poppy grimaced when East told her that the mountains belonged to the Lawaii. Hey, it’s just a night, she consoled herself. But living in a Ring had made her soft. And perhaps she could snare something for breakfast. The girl said nothing and trudged onward. The girl’s endurance was fizzling out. Her eyes felt sore and achy- actually, her entire body felt sore and achy, down to her beating center. The late winter sun was dim and sinking beyond the clouds and she felt battered all over. Which was because she was actually battered all over. Her thoughts ticked sluggishly. She asked questions of herself and then responded to them with their obvious answers. She continually forgot and remembered what the hell she was doing in analoya territory with some fulsi carnivore. Her back, soothed by the Keeper’s balm, began to throb again, although it wasn’t very uncomfortable; more like a vibrant reminder of her living body. Her living exhausted body. Suddenly, There was and explosion of noise and energy and enthusiasm from her travelling companion. “Hey! C’mon,” he said, lurching over the snow towardsa jumble of snowswept rocks. Poppy jogged numbly after him. “There's an indention under this rock in the dirt, “ he said, “Already dug out. If we bring the snow out it should fit the both of us.” With that, he got down to business following his own suggestion. Poppy dropped to her knees beside him, and began scooping out armfuls of snow from the area he was going after. It wasn’t easy work. The snow was dense and gritty this late in the season, and her fingertips were soon throbbing. But that was unremarkable- she was throbbing all over. For every armful of snow that Poppy pulled out, Easy pulled out two of double the size. Her chagrin at being so much more obviously depleted and weakened than East was soothed somewhat by remembering that she was injured in so many ways at the moment that it was almost comical. The pair of travellers pulled more and more snow from the hole, deepening it into a passable shelter. It had gotten colder as the dusk advanced, and theur breath now steamed like dragonsmoke. Soon, as darkness began to tiptoe meekly in from the eastern sky, the hole was as well cleared out as it was going to be. Poppy rocked back on her heels, and, for the second time that day, tucked hands that were too stiff and cold to move into her armpits She looked at the hole. She looked at east. She looked at the hole again. It looked cold and wet and entirely horrendous. But It was better than the open, although it didn’t look it. The thought of sleep beckoned like an advertisement in a craftily designed shop window, or like a pretty boy’s smile. Like corruption beckons the powerful. “I don’t think I’m up for setting any snares tonight, East. Sorry,” She said, but without shame. They had both had a tense, stressful, and nerve-wracking day. Such days should be killed off quickly, put out of their misery. Poppy pulled herself into the hole on her belly. The mouth was narrower than the indentation, and it wasn’t tall enough to move around on hands and knees, but there was enough space to maneuver around, and there was space for both of them. Perhaps too much space. Poppy pulled the cotton scrubs that the keepers had put her in out of her pocket and spread them out on the moist dirt floor. Then she flopped over onto her back, propped up on her elbows. “Are you an awkward person?” She asked blandly. “Because I am not an awkward person. It’s damn cold and I don’t give a shit, so we’re cuddling for warmth, kay?”

[Ray "East" Kraus]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 500px; height:700px; background-image:url(http://i45.tinypic.com/2nlsa5d.png)] East was accustomed to hiding some things. Like how damn cold he was and just how agitated that made him. And how much effort this was taking. And how much he wanted to be home, in his own bed. And how he was a little shocked he had just thought of Fulsi as home, when he hadn't in the past. He cut off his thoughts, because everything was done, and his bad humor wasn't about to fix anything. His eyes moved to the girl, briefly. Jesus, she looked half-frozen, and he was thinking that she had to be hurting more than he did. All East felt was the return of his nausea, probably from not having had anything to eat. And thoughts of food? They made him irrationally resentful for a few seconds. She couldn't set snares? It isn't her fault, East reminded himself, and calmed some. Besides, his word was done, and the opening to the den was there. He straightened his form and then proceeded to shift--when he did so, he found himself leaning back on his haunches in his human form, raising his hands to his neck to warm them some. He couldn't feel them at all, anymore--they had passed the painful part and entered dangerously numb territory. I should probably be worried, he thought, but didn't exactly feel all that concerned. He was so tired. "No worries. But whatcha say about getting in--" She had beaten him to it, crawling into the makeshift den. East was a little less enthused, now that he was looking at it. It seemed cold and inhospitable. But a gust of window drove him to crouch and crawl in after her (whole lot of grace in that, too, considering he hit his head more times than he could count, and he was pretty sure he had a bunch of dirt in it now). He collapsed beside her, raising a hand to gingerly wipe some mud off his face. He turned his dark eyes to her and smiled, ear-to-ear. "Nah, I'm not. I like cuddling." His tone was lighter, but he hesitated some before moving closer to her. It was a small space, but he stopped being hesitant once he felt the warmth of her skin and decided that he didn't want to freeze to death while they slept. So East fitted his body beside Poppy's, his arm around her waist keeping her close. "Elbow me in the ribs," he mumbled against her hair. "If I do somethin weird in my sleep." He thought that if he was smart, he might be more concerned about sleeping (just sleeping) with a Carna. Maybe she'd slit his throat or something. Maybe not. Either way, he was out in seconds.

[Poppy Montgomery]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 497px; height: 675px; background-image:url(http://i46.tinypic.com/35d82vm.jpg)] "Nah, I'm not. I like cuddling,"

[/b] East said breezily. She had suspected as such. Even having met him so recently, East struck her as anything, everything but shy. Still, the both of them hesitated for a beat before making any sort of movement. Poppy admonished herself for being schoolgirlish. This was utilitarian cuddling, after all. So she turned from her back to her side and wriggled closer. In this cocoon of muddy, damp chill, the heat of another body- and one bigger than hers for that matter- felt like a blessing.

For a moment after he snaked his arm around her waist, the girl fought against the urge to tense up and roll away again. There was a lot between them besides sexual tension. Well, the sexual tension was there too, clearly. That's what animals- bird, bee, human and shifter alike- were biologically programmed to pay attention to in times of crisis and stress. Not for nothing that East was attractive and strong. But that sort of stuff was easy to brush off and ignore. No, it was more the social programming of season upon season of being conditioned to despise this man and his kind. He was supposed to be slimy and inferior, greedy and stupid, because he was a Fulsi. His friends were the butt of Poppy’s jokes. Her safety was guaranteed by men and women who would commend her for strangling this shifter in his rapidly-approaching sleep.

And yet, here she was, calling this Fulsi boy by name, curling up in his arms. If a retro stumbled upon them now, they’d think she and East were some weird-ass Menagerie style Romeo and Juliet.

"Elbow me in the ribs if I do something weird in my sleep," he muttered dozily, interrupting her thoughts. Poppy guffawed, and then slipped into a yawn. She had the urge to make some catty comeback, but the gears in her mind weren’t spinning fast enough, and she gave up before she started. Too sleepy. Although, if he did ‘do something weird,’ Poppy imagined she would do more than give him a nudge in the ribs. Giving him a nice bloody nose would probably work.

The thought of throwing a punch in this little cave brought to mind a different scenario that made Poppy’s gut clench. What if he decided to kill her? Strangle her in her sleep? He could do it, easily. Poppy was no soft priss and could throw a good hit if she had to, but there was no way she could hold her own against this man, especially in a little foxhole like this. All he would have to do was roll over and press his hands down on her throat… He could do it right now if he chose. The thought filled her with dull, useless fear. It would be so easy, and if her dragged her body or even the story back to the Fulsi he could garner respect and power among his Fulsi friends…

It was hard to think like that when there was nothing she could do about. Anyways, East’s measured breathing told her that there was no danger, at least for now. She was here now, in a dripping, muddy hole with a battered body and a long way to go. She let her anxiety crawl out of the cave and fly away into the dark, cloudy sky. She nestled into him, leaning her head against his chest and letting her mind drift off to contemplations of what Levi would think of all this when she told him, and the gnawing emptiness in her stomach. Poppy didn’t even notice when her idle thoughts transitioned into sleep.

OOC// We done here?
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