Silent Ambiance

Ambrose was still becoming aquainted with the castle. There was so much to see: the library, classrooms, dormatories . . . It was almost too much for the sane mind. Luckily, that was something Ambrose didn't have to worry about, so he set off exploring, making a mental map as he went.

He glanced around this particular floor with a bit more caution than the others. Furniture covered-up with white sheets scattered the rooms when he glanced inside them. It was clear that this floor was abandoned and had been for some times, but in some places, the thick layer of dust had been brushed off with a careful step or a slight brush of a hand. He wasn't the only one that had been here; it was now just a question of if they were still here. . . .

Ambrose chose a room at random and walked inside it, closing the door with a steady crreeeaaak just enough that the doorway seemed closed but was acutally not shut. He then turned his attention towards the room in question.

What do we have here. . . ?

Paintings. Dozens upon dozens of paintings.

As Ambrose walked around, pulling off the occassional white sheet from the golden frames, he had to admit to himself just how hard it was not to appreciate their beauty. He was an appreciater of art, sure, but it was always scupture (yes, coins are considered three-dimensional art, albeit a tad smaller than most works of art) that drew his eyes, definately not canvas. Still, gazing upon the various landscapes, portriats, and otherwise, Ambrose started to see just how appealing some scribbles on a piece of parchment could be. Of course, he would never admit that. . . .

One piece in particular caught his eye: that of a rolling landscape, of plains on-high, and a trinkle of light pouring in from the clouds. There was nothing fancy about it, no gold leaf or pizzaz. It was just . . . there.

Ambrose raised a hand and carefully brushed the years of dust from the oil canvas, careful and delicate in his work. One had to be careful with how he handed any art. The painting was still in remarkable condition, though. Perhaps he could take it with him--

A CLANG rang in the hallway. Ambrose was suddenly not alone.

Quickly yet deafly, he hid behind a white-covered sofa, peering at the door with unease. Who's there?

Terri had attempted to make a nice, clean entry through one of the windows of the castle. needless to say, he'd failed miserably. he saw an object suddenly closer to him very quickly as he slid across the floor. he attempted to thrust out his wings to slow his momentum. suddenly, a lard clang echoed through the hallway as he bonked into something metalic....some candlebra of sorts, he supposed. Terri muttered grumpily under his breath, rubbing the top of his bright, orange-haired head. as he started to get his bearings, he heard a voice from a room that branched off the hallway he was in. slowly, he walked toward where the voice had come from. curiously, he pushed open the mostly shut door, peering into a room filled with paintings and sheet covered furniture. he cocked his head to one side, trying to figure out where the voice might have come from.

Terri pulled his wings the rest of the way in, peering about the room.

Ambrose inhaled quickly as the figure walked inside. He seemed normal enough, but then he pulled his wings inside the door frame . . . Wing simular to Yuuki's. She had mention that there were other winged people at the castle, but he hadn't believed her.

Ambrose crouched down a bit lower in his hiding spot. If anything, he wan't going to be seen as a spider resting on top of the couch and have to go through all of the trouble of explaining himself out of it. He was rather tired of going through that. . . .

Terri chuckled lightly, rubbing the sore spot on his head as he spoke. 'alright, who's in here?" he stretched his wings a bit again, feeling restless, before he pulled them back in.

Ambrose watched the winged-boy carefully, unsure of how to proceed. Of course, the boy asked a very simple question, but it was how exactly to answer that was the problem. . . .

". . . Ambrose," he answered. There: short and to-the-point. It got rid of the entire "EEK" process, anyways. Still, one didn't always speak the truth, so Ambrose emerged from his hiding spot as a gesture of trust, brushing some excess dust off his shoulder.

Terri gave a light laugh as the red haired boy came out of his hiding place. "you were behind the couch?" his eyes moved about the room, seeing all the paintings. they were pretty cool looking...he'd have to remind himself to tell yuuki about this place. "so what's with all of these?" he asked, motioning the the paintings. "it looks like this whole place is used for storage, but these paintings are actually pretty neat...." terri trailed off a bit--at least he wasn't as hyper as usual, mostly because he'd just been flying a moment ago. terri hadn't seen ambrose in his spider form at all, and had no idea about anything that may make the other boy different.

There were visitors. Two large, colourless eyes peered out from atop a wardrobe in a dark corner of the room. He watched with bated breath at the the winged figure in the room, allowing his own wings to wrap tightly around himself like a coat. A small, scurrying insect caught his eye, and his twig-like fingers twitched slightly as he watched.

Dust blanketed the surface of the wardrobe, some of which stuck to his fur. Spider webs intwined with his limbs - giving him much the appearance of an old, forgotten toy. He heard a name. "Ambrooose," he repeated, his voice low and quiet. There was another presence in the room, a red haired boy. Luppa watched quietly from his place as they conversed, but he could help but stick his head out slightly. The spider weebs peeled away from him like skin, and a tendril of drool left the dilemma's hanging mouth as he observed them, almost hungrily.

Ambrose agreed with the winged-boy. "They really are interes--"

A faint voice spoke from the gloom of the spider webs. Ambrose whipped his head around, suddenly alert. He forgot almost completely about the strange orange boy. The voice . . . said his name.

"Who's there?" Ambrose challenged, reaching to the side of his pant pockets and easing out one of his trusty plastic forks. It could be someone he knew, or perhaps someone harmless, but in the good chance that it wasn't . . . he was ready.

terri raised his eyes at the sound of the odd voice coming from the top of the wardrobe. he saw ambrose pull out...a fork? either way, the tension in the room cause the small lightning bolt over his eye to glow a bit, and electricity to crackle at his fingertips, unconsciously. he stepped forward slightly to get a better view of the wardrobe, curious as to who else was hiding in here.

Two faces peered in his direction, and the creature froze. Had he been spotted?! His first instinct was to flee back into the darkness from where he came, but his limbs were rooted to the spot and he stared in what might be interpreted as pure shock.

Despite this, a question was a question, and the dilemma felt obliged to answer it. "Luppa luppa...!" he hissed, before bursting into quiet cackling. A badly aimed glob of spit splattered before the pair, and the light from Terri's lightening would reveal a rather toothy grin smiling down at them.

'Luppa'? Where had he heard that name before. . . .

Ambrose looked up just in time to see a flash of a toothy grin, syliva dripping down. The teeth practially glowed in the darkness. Pair with cackling, the who scene was rather frightening. To anyone except Ambrose, that is.

"So, that's how it's going to be, eh?" he muttered underneath his breath, grinning wildly. He immediately threw the plastic fork precisely where the girn was, not planning on missing. He never missed; the wardens could vouch for that.

As the voice spoke to him, the grin only widened in anticipation. A friend! Or, more like a foe. Right now, Luppa wasn't keen on putting in the effort on differentiating the two. The smile was returned, and the previously low raspy cackle morphed into something of a childlike giggle. With that, he began to crawl towards him, peering for a closer look.

His humour didn't last long. The fork was precise - and he was unable to react as it inadvertently zoomed into his already open mouth. He let out a shriek as it hit the back of his throat, and his grip on the top of the wardrobe slipped. He lost his balance, falling and landing on the floor with a small 'thud', sending heaps of untouched dust in the air.

Looking down at the dilemma, one would see his eyes rolled back and his limbs twisted at awkward angles. He would twitch occaisionally, but otherwise appear motionless.

Ambrose watched as the thing fell down from its hiding spot. He coughed a little as the dust flew every which way it pleased. Only when the dust cleared could he get a good look at the owner of the toothy grin.

"Damn it . . ." he groaned, knealing down next to the twitching figure. It was the same thing from the beach, Luppa, and one of the sanest people-creatures-whatever in the academy. Damn.

Ambrose was not one for apologizes, but he could at least feel sympathy for his victim. Deeming the creature to be alive due to it sometimes twitching, Ambrose sat down next to it, not sure what else to do.

After a few moments had passed, the creature blinked its eyes, before his pupils darted around in an attempt to recognise its surroundings. No such thing happened - the sensation was almost like crash landing on an alien planet with on of its inhabitants peering down at him. His gaze focused on the red haired boy.

Scrabbling, he picked himself from the floor, his tiny, thin limbs clattering against the floor as he less than gracefully rose to two feet. His gaze was never taken off the boy, and his coat was raised in an almost vampiric manner, as if he were using it as a shield. A hacking cough escaped from his lips, and a fork, wet with luppa-drool, clattered to the floor. "Oooww," he breathed, his voice whining, but his gaze anything but forgiving. He pointed. "You! Ambrose intruuuder! What is..?" His head twitched. "What is meaning?! The meaning?!"

Ambrose was quite alarmed at Luppa's reaction but remained steady. At least he remembered Ambrose's name . . .

He spared a glance for the spit-up fork. The poor thing. He picked it up carefully, shaking off the spit and placing it inside his pocket. Waste, want naught, or however the hell it went.

"The meaning is miscalculation," he admitted, holding out a hand to help Luppa back up on his, erm, "feet".

"Miss.. calcu... lation..." The dilemma narrowed its eyes in perplexity, rolling the new word around on his tongue like a new taste. Was it like a calculation... but a missed one? Eventually, he found himself bowing his head slightly to show his approval of the word, even if the boy had not inquired it.

He grinned widely at the offered hand, and both of his thin, frail claws grabbed for an immediate hold on them. Of course, at the mere sight of the hand so close and eager for him, he couldn't help but drool involuntarily. Eyes widening in anticipation, he couldn't stomp himself from attempting to stuff the whole hand into his mouth, not to bite it, but to merely 'taste' it.

Ambrose took the nod as a sign that the creature was all right, which was good for both of their sakes. After all, he had been needing a sane conversation for a while--

Ambrose pulled away his hand quickly before it was devoured. What the . . .

"That's where I draw the line," he told Luppa frankly. It might have been some sort of greeting from his culture or whatever, but that didn't mean that Ambrose had to be submitted to it. He wasn't trying to be rude, just . . . truthful.

"Uhn..!" Luppa flailed his arms pathetically as the hand was yanked away from him before he had the chance to taste it. His tongue lolled helplessly from his mouth as he looked up to the boy with a pleading desperation evident in his wide, disappointed eyes.

"There are no lines!" he cried, running forward to tug on the boy's trousers. It was almost as if he were a child who'd just had his toys taken away, and a his arm continued to attempt to stretch towards the hands, despite it being out of reach. "Just a- just a small taste! Only seconds, it would take! Seconds made of smaller seconds with even smaller seconds in them!" he whined, apparently not caring whether he made sense or not.

Ambrose continued to pull away his hands while talking as calmly as he could. Traditions must be highly valued in its culture . . . Unfortunately for Luppa, Ambrose could not care less about such things.

"I must concede that there are no lines in life," he started, happy to have such sane conversation, "And, despite how small the incriments of time would be, I simply cannot allow you to 'taste' my hands." He needed his hands; they were his tools, his means of craft. He had to protect them.

He attempted to pull off Luppa from his legs, but failed. The creature was strong. . . .

Luppa's determined expression faltered as Ambrose seemed to decline his approaches. "N-no taste?!" he shrieked, salivating horribly over the floor. As Ambrose tried to tug him off, he let out an irritated and confused hiss, his large eyes darting around in disorientation - independant of each other.

However, after his grasp slipped from the boy's legs, his attention focused on the hands that pried him off - eyes narrowing with certainty and focus. "Not a scrap of skin," he grumbled darkly, "escapes the tongue! None of it! A stranger is Ambrose, Ambrose is stranger! No inbetweens!" Not caring whether his riddled, strange explanation would serve to either baffle or enlighten the boy, he leapt towards the boys hand, planning to grapple onto it with both of his.

He was a stranger now? But, they had met before, on the beach-- no, he was in his spider-forme then . . . Luppa didn't meet "Ambrose".

"I might be a stranger to you, but you are no stranger to me," Ambrose informed the creature. "I am the inbetween, Luppa!" He dodged its reaching grasp, then dashing towards the other side of the room, right in front of the painting with the house. Its sight was warming, but Ambrose ignored it for now, facing the incoming creature.

A loud, dramatic gasp was let out at the revelation, as if his whole life and philosophy and been turned on its head. "Inbetween the lines..?" His eyes narrowed as Ambrose dashed to the other side of the room. Yet the darnkess and his sub-par eyesight meant that the boy was nothing more than a blurred figure.

"Running makes the legs weak! The air we breathe is the air we dance," he warned, unbuttoning his coat. His wings stretched out to either side in a eerie fashion. The room was too small for him to fly fully, but he tried anyway. After running up, he leapt, aiming towards Ambrose's face with a mid-air glide.

Ambrose was glad for the understanding, but then Luppa quickly changed the subject against him.

"The air is free, though-- we may run as we please!" Ambrose reasoned back, about to dodged the creature's aerial assult--

The painting. He couldn't leave it defenseless, could he? It was practically his now . . . No, it was his. Part of his treasure horde. And, he protected his treasure no matter the cost.

Ambrose braced for impact. . . .

"No running in the corridors!" A delirious sneer crossed Luppa's face, almost as if he was trying to be threatening, but wasn't aware that he was doing so. Ambrose hadn't moved from his spot - he was in the perfect position. Although Luppa's aiming skills were a little lopsided, he did manage to successfully land on the boy's face. The impact would've felt like a cotton ball - Luppa was neither heavy nor did he possess any strength to fear. However, upon landing, his wings would try to wrap around the boy's head, hoping to blind him.

A lick was given to the boy's hair. "...Red... A field of strawberries, yees." He twitched. "NO! Berries, without the straws, please." He licked his lips at the thought. The dilemma seemed to be distracted by his own thoughts - any hold that he would have on the boy would be weak.