ARSONIST | JOINING?? FIRE

[ROACH]

[align=center][div style="max-width: 500px; text-align: justify; font-family: arial; font-size: 9.5pt; line-height: 1.4;letter-spacing:.1px"][ ☠ ] Throughout Roach's entire short life, pain has been his way to measure success. The more he dealt, the safer he was. The more he took, the stronger he was. Either way, he was more and people did a lot less harm. Something that once hurt didn't anymore; something that once made people laugh now made them bleed. He had to be strong to survive. Maybe his world had been separate from this one, but in his, nobody protected the weak and the small. Scars already create ridges along his body to prove it.

Today's the day when all of those scars and all of that pain finally pays him back. Heat sears through his skin and scorches his fur, the smell of it choking the clean air out of his lungs. Every tug away from the fire tightens the leash around his throat, linked chains digging and biting into him while every step to loosen it brings him closer to the blaze. Roach doesn't know how to settle. When he had first been dragged to the tree and told to stay, he had expected the other back in a few moments. He could smell another group nearby — close enough that their border was clear even now, with smoke darkening the air, but far enough away that their passing forms pay no mind to him — and he'd assumed that they were here for another toy, or maybe a simple report.

But each minute that ticked by and dragged the sun closer to the horizon had left bugs crawling around under his skin and between the pads of his paws. His heartbeat kicked up and up until the only reasonable thing had been to struggle. And from there, a spark. The small embers caught quickly on dry grass and dying wood. Roach could only yelp and snarl as the flames grew higher, licking at the lower branches and brown leaves that hung on them. Then they fell, pieces drifting onto his back. And they grew, and grew. He panicked, could anyone blame him? The young lion is snarling and roaring as he struggles with the chain, his weak, tired noises carrying across the border.

It had only taken a moment. Just one short moment and the perfect set of circumstances and fire licks at his paws, draws unless he chokes, burns at his face when he doesn't. It hurts. Everything hurts. The pain has kept him alive for this long, everything aches. He had only ever been able to control the pain when he could focus, and focus came from pain on its own — like this, though, all he can do is spiral. The chain chafes more as Roach struggles, his head beginning to spin and vision blurring with it. His struggles will mean nothing, the chain is looped around a thick branch too far above his head and has grown hot from the same fire that has left patches of bare, blistered skin on his back and paws. He's starting to see the futility.

That's never happened before.

/ uh idk what this is i just kinda ran with an idea. the tree is far enough away from others that the fire won't spread easily from this exact area, but roach has a chain around his neck with the other end wrapped around the burning tree, he has a few feet of slack, just not enough to be safe. so he is stuck.

[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"]If Ambroise's job were different, he might have had a similar scale. There was no giving- not like how those were "free" gave pain. He took it, either when they were all drunk off their ass and wanted some entertainment, or when they got into trouble over their heads and he had to keep their wounds from killing them. They could handle the pain, most of the time. It was usually when he pulled a warm rag over the wounds left by intoxicated teeth on those who wore collars that he wanted to take that pain, even though they, also, were fully capable of handling it. Ambroise would say they were better at it than the raiders were, because the slaves had to be durable in a way the raiders did not. Because they were not free to feel it.

All in all, regardless of what other people thought of him, Ambroise preferred to take and curb the pain. Physical pain, at least. That was all he'd ever known, but he also knew too well how capable he was of inflicting it, how easily death could come to his claws when he didn't control himself. He'd made a promise to Mila's corpse that it would be the last time, that he could be more than what he was made to be.

Promises to dead women were easy to keep, with her shadow over his shoulder.

Let everyone here think he was an asshole -he was- that he didn't give a shit. Most of them left him alone, except for Orpheus, who hadn't learned just yet, and so he was glad to keep to himself, to avoid all of it. He considered leaving, to finally give in and retreat to the mountains, cold be damned. He could play a hermit easily.

Couldn't desert a kid to die by fire, though. Ambroise wasn't that far gone, not so tainted by his life in that alleyway to lose all sense of compassion. He could never tell whether that was his fortune or not.

No more thinking. Ambroise sprang forward, gaze following the chain, which stretched up to a branch. He wouldn't be able to take it into his mouth, unless he wanted to burn through his tongue- he didn't. The lion instead put himself between the child and the tree, wrapping himself in the length of chain free, gritting his teeth through the searing burn. And then he pulled, hard. And kept pulling, a growl low in his throat, the branch weakened by the fire but still holding solid.

Ambroise wasn't going to lose to a branch- he wasn't going to let a child die because of a damn tree. So he threw more of his weight into it, carved his paws through the dirt, until there was a deafening crack he felt in his bones. The lion staggered backwards, the chain falling from his shoulders, but he would take care of them later. The child was in danger of smoke inhalation and severe burns.

"Can you hear me, kid? Could you might walk?"

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[charactercemetary.]

Fire. If Kris hated one thing, it was fire. The chocolate kitten was thinking of getting out of dodge. However, the chocolate kitten stopped when they heard a voice. Asking if someone was alright. Oh, no. That meant someone could be burning or the like with that tree! Grasping the bag of herbs hidden in their green and yellow sweater, the kitten rushes to the scene. Two lions, one much bigger and appearing healthy for his size, the other one? Not quite, looking raggedy and small.

Kris has always been described as a natural leader. They were gonna lead now. Turning to the older, healthy lion, they meowed, "See if you can cut that chain around his neck. I'll be helping him. Hey, pal, you're gonna be alright, okay?" Crimson gaze falling to the lump of fur, they take out some aloe vera gel, in a bottle. Gently, they would try to apply it to his paws first.

//list of injuries please if treatment is allowed!

✧ don't forget, i'm with you in the dark

[ROACH]

[align=center][div style="max-width: 500px; text-align: justify; font-family: arial; font-size: 9.5pt; line-height: 1.4;letter-spacing:.1px"]The first thing Roach becomes aware of aside from his own fading breath is the tightening of the chain around his throat. He hasn't moved and his eyes can't focus — he only makes out the image of a hazy figure as air is choked out from his lungs. Mistakenly, he wonders if this had been the goal of the one who dropped him off, if this was their end goal. Get him weak and discard him. Roach manages a weak, feral snarl and shifts his stance in the ash-flecked dirt until his weight is pressed almost entirely on his hind legs to pull. Away from the tree, away from the stranger. Away from the chain.

But suddenly the pressure on his throat loosens. Like Ambroise, the bulky cub stumbles at the sudden lack of an opposing force — unlike him, there's nothing graceful about the way he tumbles and rolls, his back hits the ground with a heavy thud and the crackling of dry grass. Dazed and lost, all Roach can do is suck in air, blurry gaze unfocused on the sky above him. It was now a bloody red with golden clouds low on the horizon. As soon as his brain unfuzzes a little, he jumps to his feet. The heavy chain rattles again, just ever so slightly, as his weight stirs the portion of snapped, charred branch and drags it a few inches across the ground. Copper eyes had pinned themselves to the burning tree. Roach's mouth fell open slightly as he watched the leaves fall and the branches crumble away to black dust. His legs, suddenly weak under his weight, transform themselves into jelly until he sits.

For a long moment, he seems to struggle with processing what's happening around him. Although he looks at Ambroise when he speaks, the words don't seem to fully register. Rounded ears are pinned back against his skull and his eyes are wide, chest heaving through desperate gasps. He's not sure if he could say this was the worst thing he had ever experienced. Maybe it was. But he'd made it out. That was all that mattered. And it was this guy's fault — or... it was thanks to him. The person in front of him is big, maybe even bigger than the other lions he'd been used to seeing, and all of his scars meant something to him that most other people must not get. Immediately, Roach is aware that he can take what's thrown his way — can and will and won't back down — and he both tenses and relaxes at the realization.

Though he doesn't open his mouth to answer him, Roach doesn't really like to see someone else rushing into the edge of his vision. Miraculously finding his paws in an instant, the lion jerks away and lifts the paw far out of her reach, a threatening rumble tearing at an already sore throat. His head ducks down, jaws parting and snapping together again in front of Kris's face. No risk of contact, and that's intentional, but even exhausted the young lion doesn't dare to settle. "Leave me alone."

/ yikes sorry roach is an ass and likely won't let kris help him, but his most notable injuries are the burns on his paws, which are pretty tame, and a few more dangerous burns on his back that are bad enough to blister. the area around his throat will be very heavily bruised with the fur almost entirely rubbed away if the chain can be removed, and there are a few half-healed general cuts and bruises all over his body that aren't from the fire.
— edit for more clarification: there are first degree burns on his paws and second degree burns on his back, and the chain around his neck has been worn pretty tightly for a few months to the point that parts of it are embedded into his skin and is very painful in itself, but removing it would also be very painful for him.

[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"]Ambroise breathed carefully, stiffly; he couldn't see the burns the chain had left in his shoulders, but he was certain they would be similar to the boy's. He wasn't close to the fire as long, but the force he had needed had...grilled his skin, more or less; he just couldn't tend to them right now, not when the child was in worse condition. He was back on his feet quickly, though, and the scars he'd seen, the state of that chain in his neck- all of it had Ambroise convinced that however he got here, it was not unlike what he'd dealt with himself. He knew the signs of a life spent licking your own blood off the pavement for a bit of nourishment, and it was a bit like whiplash, having to face it somewhere that wasn't his reflection. He knew, at least, that this was a fighter.

He knew that when the pain came to make way for healing, the boy would make it. He had the look of someone who didn't entertain any other option, or couldn't afford any other outcome. Someone who endured for a lack of freedom.

Kid could probably recognize similar things in the gouges of Ambroise's face, which meant he would be both wary and comfortable. Around the kid who showed up, however- he couldn't say the same would happen. Hazel eyes flat, he made no move to follow a flimsy order, knowing full well what they were about to face. Or rather, what was about to be thrown in their face. A snap of teeth, in this case, and here he finally shifted closer, using a paw to attempt to move Kris out of the way. "A bit of advice: you mightn't should push into someone's space when they've been tied up to a burning tree." The boy wasn't some whimpering waif to be soothed and comforted- any sight of silk gloves would be offensive, wrong. Silk could still scrape.

He was in chains. Steel was best at first. It was familiar.

Breathing through the coiling of his burned skin, his gaze became firm, iron-edged. "You got two options, ravert: you let me look at your burns, or I tie you up and look at them anyway."
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