IT TURNS OUT FINE | AMBROISE

[ORPHEUS]

[align=center][div style="max-width: 500px; text-align: justify; font-family: arial; font-size: 9.5pt; line-height: 1.4;letter-spacing:.1px"]When Orpheus was much, much younger — years younger than the delicate scar hidden in the fur around his throat, than the memories woven into every smile and the jewelry he wears so well — people used to say that he never learned his lesson. He spoke too loudly, moved too quickly, loved too freely and feared nothing at all. Even if someone got louder, moved faster, spat their love out like acid at his skin, he stayed exactly how he was until the day a chain had wrapped around his whole world had changed. First for worse, then for better when he could breathe again and everything got better. He didn't experience snowfall until after the bruises had faded; the whole winter was spent tucked between a tiger's big paws or curled up in his hood. Since then, it had meant something to him, sure. But not just Christmas. The value in picking others up when they needed it, even if they didn't think they did.

Sappy and pathetic, he knows. So Orpheus doesn't go around voicing that sort of thing, just pays attention to the way people talk and act so he can do a bit better later. So far it's Ambroise that has caught most of his attention, and with that his concern. He treats Christmas like a battlefield, and although the glares don't really scare him off, it's starting to intimidate the other people here. And it's not like he has any authority — over him or anyone else, really — but he's got plenty of concern. The smaller lion had trailed him for a while, using everything he'd learned from his dad to try and make it subtle. But eventually, he'd found him in a spot he frequented. It was quiet here, without anyone else nearby, so Orpheus simply places himself in the middle of the entrance to the room and clears his throat. "You have some time, porcupine?"

[AMBROISE]

[align=center][div style="max-width: 500px; text-align: justify; font-family: arial; font-size: 9.5pt; line-height: 1.4;letter-spacing:.1px"]It was just about the opposite with Ambroise. He learned his lesson quickly, on the first try; since a child, he was the oldest of the kids, did the most to help out his mom, and he knew that he wasn't in a position where he could afford to make the same mistake, or any at all. When he was picked off the street by assholes looking for easy labor, that reluctance to learn a lesson vanished even further under harsh blows and cages. Ambroise had learned how to mind his place, how to keep his head down, how to be rough. Dreams of easier, less violent days were useless, and yet- he'd gone and cared for Mila. Had loved her, even, and in the end, when she died, the only person he could blame for that was himself. Another lesson learned about the dangers of fire.

Ambroise should've retreated into seclusion somewhere, and would have if some part of him still weren't so weak. Likely the same part of him stirred by memories of his mother and his sisters, all excited for Christmas. He hated it, did his best to keep that soft-hearted chickenshit from poking out his head, so he stayed to himself, found the best spots for seclusion. Wasn't enough to throw Orpheus off. His apparent warmth irritated Ambroise, the way sunlight pissed him off when it shone so often in his face.

"Could you might fuck off? 'M busy." Staring at the wall, yes, but busy. Always too busy for whatever Orpheus wanted to say.
[align=right][url=https://beastsofbeyond.com/index.php?topic=9216.msg56850#msg56850]INFORMATION

[ORPHEUS]

[align=center][div style="max-width: 500px; text-align: justify; font-family: arial; font-size: 9.5pt; line-height: 1.4;letter-spacing:.1px"]It could be funny, how similar experiences could drive people in such opposite directions. As a child he had always felt like the low man on the totem pole so to speak, even if his siblings weren't too much higher up the list. His parents had seemed tired, desperate, angry — so he hadn't been picked up off the street. Most of his history's blocked out and empty these days. Brigand had spent too many days rebuilding his confidence and optimism for him to break down that dam and confront it all; there's nobody to cry against now. Maybe if he hadn't ended up under that careful care, he would have been as hard and rough as Ambroise. Instead, when he says that he never learned his lesson, he means that he'd never let it beat him. He learned not to put his paw in the fire or fall from a tree, but love still came a little too freely to be pushed back down. Orpheus thinks he could handle the loss, even if it keeps breaking him.

Then again, he hasn't healed from either. It's not breaking more bones, it's shattering the same old injury. Christmas is a time to relax and — heal, maybe? That sounds stupid. Again. But he tries to think about the good times, whatever those may be, because it reminds him that the world isn't all bad. A little rough, with a few special people with hearts like sandpaper and cactus needles, but they deserved love as much as the rest of them. Even when they're acting like this. The smaller feline doesn't flinch away from his words, just keeps watching him with soft eyes and a quiet tilt of his head. But he says, "No," with a calm firmness that leaves barely any room for an argument.

Ambroise will probably find a way, even though Orpheus wishes he would just give up and talk about it. "The only thing you're busy doing is moping, anyway." After a moment of silence, he risks opening the doorway again (not that he'd ever seem like much of a blockade to someone with his size and scarring) to take a few steps closer. His eyes never leave the other's face. "Why don't you like Christmas?"

[AMBROISE]

[align=center][div style="max-width: 500px; text-align: justify; font-family: arial; font-size: 9.5pt; line-height: 1.4;letter-spacing:.1px"]Maybe he did let it beat him. Was there much of a choice? Ambroise didn't have some strong hero protector to pull him out of the grime. For almost two years of his life he only knew the raiders and their bloodthirsty hierarchy, the kind that took a crowbar to any weaknesses until you were dead or healed enough thick scar tissue that the next beating wasn't so bad. Maybe he'd let them win. Couldn't do anything else when he knew they'd make a game of punishment- wouldn't even treat it seriously, like it mattered. Because it didn't. Nothing had, not until Mila. That lesson dropped him to the floor, in the end. The first time he'd really struggled against the chains, and the consequences were worse than anything else he'd endured. That was why Ambroise didn't win, why he accepted that he couldn't win- he could only survive, and pretend that meant anything when nothing did. Not anymore.

Let alone Christmas. Let alone this nosy shit who had a stupid level of stubbornness to push when Ambroise refused to move. An unstoppable force and an immovable object. Well, they could both bleed. The lion wasn't afraid of testing that if Orpheus kept poking at him the way he did, like he thought Ambroise was just a cactus who couldn't go anywhere. He still had his teeth, his claws; wouldn't be the first time he used them. "Real cute. Dumb defiance's a great look for you, darlin'."

The lion's upper lip curled a bit, stubbornly shifting around to leave his back to Orpheus, refusing to look at him and his earnestness. "Voila merde, maringouin." Ambroise stared harder at the wall, jaw clenching. "Tuat t'en grosse bueche. You might should oughta mind your own business. Not everyone wants to shove candy canes up de ass an' dance 'round an evergreen tree with pecans roastin' in de background."

[align=right][i]INFORMATION

[ORPHEUS]

[align=center][div style="max-width: 500px; text-align: justify; font-family: arial; font-size: 9.5pt; line-height: 1.4;letter-spacing:.1px"]For Ambroise, it hadn't been about winning or losing. It was just about survival, and that was alright. Orpheus — yeah, he was lucky. He got pulled from the worst of it and everyone would made it possible wound up dead sooner or later. There had been so much blood running down his own mental memory lane. Instead of learning how to survive the way that Ambroise had, he learned how to pick up the pieces and make things matter again. Now he sees it everywhere, as if it's the only thing worth clinging to. It doesn't make sense, to fear vulnerability and sleep in places nobody can reach yet desperately try to believe that something about them was worth being vulnerable for. Maybe if he threw himself at life with enough kindness, it would be reciprocated. Ambroise is disproving that so far, which is starting to feel intentional. Like showing him softness just makes him rougher. Does it hurt?

His expression is less open by the time Ambroise speaks, biting into the side of his cheek as his jaw clenches. Part of him likes the idea of a fight, just to prove that there's no dumb defiance here. (Maybe separately, yes. He may be able to quote Shakespeare and Brontë and Dickens, but he jumps into things without thinking and he'll get himself hurt for no good reason. He can be sweet right up until someone tells him what to do.) Can he change his mind and say maybe this is dumb defiance, even if that makes him bare his teeth right back when he hears it? Never mind the way butterflies start slicing their wings into his stomach at darlin'.

"I don't care if you want candy canes and Christmas trees." The smaller lion circles until he stands in front of him, head tipped up to look at him. "If you didn't celebrate it, you'd just say that instead of doing this." He gestures with a raised paw, waving it loosely towards all of him. "You just hate it. So what happened to you?" Orpheus tries to soften himself again, eyes relaxing before his jaw. Then his shoulders, his back, his hips. "Why are you getting defensive about me asking?"