Blood Makes Noise [2430-1-1-Sun-8:30pm]

[Olive]

"Oh!" She couldn't help but keep making sure to keep glancing around her. She still felt uncomfortable in these surroundings. And she was getting cold and had no idea what time it was. "We're running away!"

She hopped over a curb. "Well, not really... Sol wanted to leave Antheia cause he'd been there so long and hadn't seen his family in forever. And I came along for fun! He wasn't happy at first, cause I never asked and snuck on his shuttle, but he'll see I'm gonna be an awesome side kick!"

[Klove Makem]

Klove couldn't help but smile. It sounded like her story was similar to his. "He'll get used to it. Soon, he won't know how he got by without you. I left home too. But I was younger." And Grace hadn't been leaving to see her family, but to make a run to Heimdall. But it was same in all the important ways.

He noticed her shiver and frowned. Antheia was a lot warmer than Terra, and the Inbeween was a lot warmer than the Below, which never got any direct sun. All the heat down here was from the giant smelters, and those were at least a few miles away. "Wait a sec." He stopped and set down the cooler, pulling his jacket off and handing it to her, "Here, put this on."

[Olive]

She looked at his jacket in surprise. "Aw you don't have to do that! But thanks!" She took it and carefully slid her arms into it, not used to clothes with full sleeves. "Gosh, I thought we were closer to the sun. It should be warmer, shouldn't it??"

A hover vehicle whizzed past her, causing her to yelp and hop out of the way. "Boy he was in a rush!" She went back to skipping a little. "So do you live here?"

[Klove Makem]

"It is warmer. But we're down low. The sun can't reach these places. They never get warm." He watched her fiddle with the sleeves and smiled a little. "Up above, you'll notice a difference. But down here..." It wasn't that cold, but he was used to space, and he was used to Glacies. He picked up the cooler and continued on their way.

"No." He shook his head. Living in the Below? What a nightmare. "I'm just here with my captain. We're getting supplies and then heading out again." It was getting late. Grace would probably be back at the ship by the time he arrived.

[Olive]

"Ohh but you know the city," she remarked, pulling the jacket tightly around her. "So I guess you come here often then, huh?"

She glanced up again, squinting. It would really suck to live in a place where metal was higher than the trees and there was no sky in sight. "So, how do we get up? I wasn't paying attention when I... got... down..."

[Klove Makem]

"Yeah, we're on Terra about... a quarter of the time. It's the best place to get jobs and supplies." And new crews, but that wasn't something worth talking about too much. Most ships kept the same crew for a couple of years, but smuggling ships had a high-turnover rate.

He stopped in front of the elevator. "This is how we get up. Though you probably came down through the cargo elevators, and the free street ones." He fed the appropriate number of coins into the elevator and selected the docks as his destination. Klove didn't usually use the pay elevators, even though they were quicker. It was easy enough to make your way up for free. But that would take an hour, and as much as he wanted to keep talking with Olive, he figured this Sol guy would appreciate it if he got Olive home safe and quickly.

The glass elevator descended to meet them and the doors opened up. Klove stepped inside and set the cooler on the ground, grabbing onto the rails. "You should hold on. This one goes up pretty fast."

[Olive]

Olive peered in curiously, inspecting the glass walls. Yep, it looked familiar. Only, nicer than the ones she'd been in before. "Ohhh, this is an elevator! Yeah, I was in one of these! The floor moved down..."

Cautiously she stepped one foot in, worried the floor would move without her permission, and then happily hopped the rest of the way in. She glanced at the bar along the walls, and then took hold of them like Klove. "How fast? Like space ship fast? Cause that's pretty fast!"

[Klove Makem]

"Not spaceship fast but... it'll feel faster. Just keep holding on until we reach the top." He waited until she was braced and hit the green 'go' button. The doors slid shut, the elevator made a humming noise and then promptly shot up into the air, moving faster than any of the other city elevators. With a pay elevator, they would be no stops until it reached the proper floor, and as such, it could go as recklessly fast as it wanted between.

As it zipped up, the Below quickly slid out of sight, swallowed up by buildings, clothes strung out on lines, awnings and balconies, and whatever else people could cram into the space between. Light from streetlamps gave way to lights from homes and businesses, and the odd small blimp decked out in strands of Christmas lights. Klove watched it all disappear with a bit of relief.

[Olive]

There was a jolt as the elevator started moving and began to pick up speed, but Olive managed to stay on her feet and stay relatively steady as they headed upwards and away from the dark ground level. "Oooo," she couldn't help but say as she watched all the lights zip past. "I like the ones with windows!"

She marveled at the city flying by her. "The humans have built so much... this must have taken forever!"

[Klove Makem]

"Grace said it took them centuries. Once they ran out of room to go out, they didn't have any choice but to go up." And up they had gone. They were at least five hundred feet up, and there was still plenty to go. Some of the largest buildings were miles high. At least this area wasn't so clustered with them. The spaceport meant there had to be room for the ships to fly out.

The numbers turned as they shot through floors, ticking off almost as quickly as seconds. Beside them, another elevator shot by, going in the other direction. "That's why they built ships before anyone else. They were almost out of room going up. Now they're going out again."

[Olive]

"That must be why they need to make farms on Anthiea," Olive pondered, thinking about the nice humans who built little homes in the prairies and set up small crop fields. "For food! And for humans who like plants instead of all this metal." She tapped her hoof on the floor of the elevator. "They're good at it. Sometimes the fauns trade with them for their vegetables, cause mostly all that grows in the trees is fruit."

She glanced out at the vast city again, looking thoughtful. "As long as they don't make Antheia like this. Not all of it. I couldn't bear that!"

[Klove Makem]

"I think Antheia will be safe." At least, safe as long as the humans didn't get desperate. Grace had told him about Terra's history, the wars for resources and the genocides that had happened in the past, back when there had still been things to fight over that weren't covered in concrete. He'd asked her once what would happen when they filled up the solar system. She said either they'd invent a way to travel fast enough to reach new systems, or they'd starve. "It took years and years to get like this."

The elevator dinged at them, a warning that deceleration was happening in ten. "Keep your grip. We're going to be stopping soon."

[Olive]

"I guess here it was just Humans being humans," Olive stated. "On my planet there's other people to tell them to slow down!"

"Oh!" She quickly held back onto the railing. The city was looking nicer again, back to more pleasant, cleaner metal, and a little brighter. It seemed the sun wasn't completely down yet. This was the part of the city that looked a lot more like the small space port on Antheia. Well, not the size of it, though...

[Klove Makem]

The elevator finally came to a stop, doors sliding open. They were on the docks and the diversity of the species had quickly jumped back up, the mostly human population giving way to elves, fauns, centaurs and assorted goblins. Klove picked up his cooler, resting it on his shoulder, and stepped out. He waited for Olive to follow him.

"Humans are weird." He said, picking the conversation back up, "They grow bigger than their environment. They're the only ones who do it. Except vampires." He barely held back the venom in his voice. Vampires were a parasite that made human expansion look harmless. It was only the venom floating in his veins, and the veins of every other werecreature, that kept his species from being wiped off the face of Nox. If they could have, they would have drained the planet dry centuries ago.