A Preoccupied Mind

Henry frowned as the two moved on to personal stuff. He really didn't care. So much for making 'friends'. He was here to learn anyway. Looking around the rest of the room Henry decided he was growing bored of the setting. Maybe a change of scene and people would be nice. Maybe he could find Ambrose when there wasn't an annoying girl around. He had a feeling the boy would be pretty cool if he wasn't acting strange or around annoying little girls with cute frizzy hair. He tossed out a hand as he turned to leave, ""bye." He didn't care if they heard, but he felt rude just leaving.

Deneli thought hard for a moment. She did recognize it. Definitely. She looked briefly at Henry as he left. She wanted say bye, or rather, properly introduce herself and then say bye, but she was on a roll now and didn't want to get distracted. She was going to figure who's wing it was.

Deneli created a mental list of all the people she'd met with wings or wing-like appendages, but she wasn't sure she'd met many. There was Richard, that girl Jami had pretty wings, but they were different. The wing Ambrose had was small.. Then she remembered and her mouth became a little "o" in realization.

"It's the Prince's wing!" Deneli shook her head a bit, realizing Ambrose wouldn't recognize him by the joke of a nickname she'd given to him. "Why do you have Luppa's wing??" She remembered Luppa had only had one wing, but she'd assumed he'd always been like that. She thought he'd lost his other wing some time ago, but if Ambrose had it now, then it couldn't have been that long. She wanted to see the wing again, confirm that it really was Luppa's.

Ambrose didn't even hear the farewell. He was too preoccupied with Deneli's string of conversation. He didn't care what sort of forces ruled the world, but if They could just stop her from realizing--

Damn it.

Of course They wouldn't interfeer. It was far too entertaining to stop.

Ambrose froze in his tracks, his gaze directed towards the ground. His hands curled-up defensively into fists, shaking slightly. His skin seemed paler than before, almost . . . with fright. Slowly, he raised his eyes towards the wing-- but haulted before he saw too much. It was too much of a reminder, too much of a . . .

He tried to gather the words, but what could he say? Nothing. He was unconcious for most of it, but from what Disaster told him . . . still not much.

Luppa drowned.

It was his damn fault.

Deneli took Ambrose's silence to mean that she was right. It was Luppa's wing. But why did he have it? And for that matter, when did he get it?

Deneli's tone became reprimanding once more. "Ambrose, Luppa can't fly without his wing." A certain sadness could be heard in her voice. She'd felt bad that Luppa only had one wing. But here the other wing was. Maybe there was a way it could be salvaged. After all, her Uncle So-ho had lost one of his but he could still swim. Maybe flying wasn't the same way but...

Deneli raised an index finger to Ambrose, another scolding action. "You need to give it back to him. And" there was an emphasis on the 'and' so Ambrose wouldn't say anything before she was finished. "You need to apologize."

With each of Deneli's words, metaphysical daggers shot up Ambrose's spine. Yes, he couldn't fly. Yes, he needed to give it back. Yes, he need to apologize . . . Right on all three accounts.

How he wished he could.

With each of the orange-haired girl's demands, Ambrose slunked his head into and deeper, deeper into the recesses of his arms. She was right, for once: he was being 'mean.' He needed to do all of those things . . . but, no matter how he rolled the facts around, he couldn't. He simply couldn't.

Luppa was gone. That was a fact, an unbendable fact of his life now. Nothing could change this. Nothing.

He shoulders shook slightly, and, in probably the smallest voice he had ever emmitted:

"I know."

The voice was defeated. Devestated. Broken.

Deneli tilted her head at Ambrose in her famous method of showing curiosity or confusion or just thought in general. Now she felt doubly bad. Maybe it was an accident. Ambrose certainly looked sad about it. Actually, 'miserable' was probably a better word, but Deneli's vocabulary didn't really expand past those four basic words. Nice, mean, happy, sad. Ambrose was sad now. But maybe she could help~

A smile crossed her face. She tilted her head in the other direction in preparation to make eye contact with Ambrose when and if he looked up. "Do you want to go look for him? I could help you find him." Deneli felt that Ambrose may just have been reluctant to apologize to Luppa. She remembered when he'd said some mean things about her mother and he never did apologize for them. But she forgave him anyway. She couldn't be mad at Ambrose. Not when he looked so sad.

Find . . . Luppa? Impossible.

Ambrose buried his head deeper into his arms, if even at all possible. Somehow, though, he managed. He didn't want anyone to see him like this. No one had EVER seen him like this before, and no one ever would. Ever. His patience, however, was running then, like a match cut too short length-wise. Someone was going to be burned, mermaid or not.

"No," was all Ambrose emitted, enough for the italics to slip in once more. He bit his upper lip, silencing himself. Now, of all times . . .

Deneli's smile gave way to a frown. He didn't want to find Luppa. Why? She wished he'd go, if only to give the wing back, since she knew Ambrose didn't like to apologize. But she remembered when she'd met Luppa. He'd said that he loved to fly. Something about clouds and lost balloons. She couldn't help but giggle quietly at Luppa's descriptions. He was funny~

Deneli quickly recollected herself, shaking her head in hopes of shaking the giggles out as well. She had to be serious now. If she laughed, Ambrose would think she was laughing at him. She knew he would. "Ambrose, he was sad when he couldn't fly. He tried, but he just fell. He needs his other wing." Of course, he had also been drenched, but that was besides the point. Luppa wouldn't be able fly with one wing, regardless of how dry he was. "Luppa's too nice to be sad~" She added in hopes of convincing him further.

Ambrose's shoulders shook a little more. He had to respond, or else the girl's pestering would never end.

"He couldn't fly regardless."

The voice was dark, gravely. It was forboding, clearly ready to lash out at anything and anyone that treaded too closely. It was the voice They used whenever wanting a command to be followed to the T. It . . . was useful, regardless of where it came from.

Wow. He . . . was actually using the voice on purpose now.

There was no room in his mind to dwell on that, though. Ambrose's entire body was consumed in the despair. Luppa would never be able to fly-- not now, not ever.

His shoulders continued to shake, his face hidden from the entire world.

Despite popular first impressions, Deneli was rather used to people using means such as Ambrose's voice to deter her. It didn't work though. It was almost as if people expected her to run off crying as soon as something remotely scary happened, but, if anything, it only stoked her curiosity further.

So why was Ambrose being so evasive? By now, she was beginning to get a feel for just how Ambrose operated. He was more of the logical type. Maybe she'd try that route. But she was understanding his sentence to mean that he could never fly to begin with, even with both wings. She gave something of 'hmph' and her tone became playful. "Silly, Ambrose. If he couldn't fly then why would he try?" She giggled at her unintentional rhyme.

Deneli placed her hands on the table leaning over it a bit to put her head level with Ambrose. She still wants to make eye contact with him, but his head is still buried in his arms, and now she may be getting dangerously close. "You know, Luppa's really nice. He'd forgive you."

The giggle sent a chill down his spine. That, and Deneli's advances . . . That was it. He could not be blamed for whatever happened next. No one . . .

"HE CAN'T FORGIVE ME," Ambrose thundered, his shoulders shaking more violently than ever. "He can't . . . ever . . ."

The italics weren't intentional anymore. But, screw that, anyways.

The table bucked undeneath as Ambrose suddenly stood up, his face shaded by his longer locks of hair. His eyes, as plain brown as they were, almost seemed to glow in the shadows, luminecent in the greif.

". . . This is your last warning." It was Deneli, after all. She of all people deserved some advanced notice.

"Go . . . away."

Deneli stood up straight again as Ambrose away from the table and stood. He was nearly a foot taller than her and because of this Deneli found she had to crane her neck a bit to look directly at him. She'd consider it a success though. She'd finally made eye contact with him, after all.

Maybe she'd have to add the word "mad" to her four-word list. Ambrose was definitely angry now. But she didn't know why. What had happened between Ambrose and Luppa that was making him so upset right now?

Deneli hated being yelled at, but she'd learned to suck it up from the years she'd lived with her step-mom. She didn't like comparing Ambrose to her step-mom either. Ambrose was nice sometimes. Her step-mom was always mean, no matter what. It had the same effect though. When Jenna-vive told her to do something out of spite, Deneli did the opposite.

A sudden idea came to her, but she wasn't really sure if it was a good idea. Maybe the necklace would calm Ambrose down. She didn't want to make him angrier, but she also wanted to find out what had happened with Luppa. What if he went back to ignoring her? No, she'd rather be yelled at than ignored. At least she was being acknowledged.

Deneli scratched the back of her neck with one hand. It was something that could have easily passed off for a nervous action, but really she moved the chain of the necklace so it slid out from under the sleeve of her shirt. "Why?" Her voice was quieter now, sadder. It seemed to be the natural direction to go in. Maybe if he saw that she was sad, the nice Ambrose would come back.

. . . Why? WHY? She had to ask? Ambrose himself couldn't remember the reason anymore; Deneli simply had to get away from him. His anger soared through the figurative roof, blinding him completely of what the circumstances exactly were. The rage acted more as a fog than the grief ever could.

Grief? What grief? All that filled his mind now was frustration of how this. Girl. Would not. LEAVE.

"WHY ARE YOU ASKING SUCH A QUESTION!" Ambrose roared, knocking over the table and chair as he suddenly rose from his seat. His lower eyelids were still red and swolllen, but not nearly so as his tember. The boy was ticked, and he wanted everyone to know it.

The now vibriantly red-haired boy knocked over a previously peaceful pile of books towards the girl, not enough to maim but with enough force to definately hurt.

"LEAVE!"

Deneli found herself unable to get angry in return for Ambrose tone. Her eyebrows. "Because you won't answer me!" The table and chair being knocked over surprised her, but she considered the books being thrown to be an attack.

She gave Ambrose something of an angry look before turning and storming off. She didn't go far though, only moved to stand behind one of the bookshelves, out of Ambrose's line of sight. For all the trouble, it would be meaningless to just leave now. Deneli was now set on finding out what was wrong with Ambrose and when she set her mind to something she didn't stop until she accomplished it.

She sat on the floor right on the other side of the bookshelf, trying hard to keep from crying. She'd give Ambrose a little bit to cool off, but she was going to go back. She wasn't done yet. He still hadn't answered her!

Ambrose watched Deneli leave, satisfied. Good. Good riddince. He didn't want her here anyways-- right?

A sharp pain erupted from his mind as the fog vanished suddenly, like staring at the sun after several days inside in the dark. It was painful, but clarifying. Painfully clarifying.

. . . Deneli? Wait, why did he even yell at her? He was avoiding her gaze one minute, and the next . . . this. The inbetween was lost.

The red-haired boy collasped back into his seat, wrapping his arms around his head and groaning loudly. Damn it. DAMN IT! He didn't mean to do that to her, it just . . . He was so angry, and the fog came in, and. . . !

Of course, excuses never helped anything. He knew that better than anyone else.

". . . Damn it," Ambrose couldn't help but mumble underneath his breath, pushing over another stack of books for good measure.

Deneli waited some time before standing again. It occurred to her that Ambrose may have just left once she did. Well, if he did, she'd just have to look for him. She took a few minutes to wipe her eyes. She absolutely didn't want to appear as if she had just been crying. Anger was one thing, but she didn't want Ambrose thinking he'd succeeded in making her cry. Though he had done it twice already.

Deneli peeked around the corner of the shelf, just to see if Ambrose was really still. To her surprise, he was, and he still seemed upset. She assumed it was still from whatever he wasn't telling her about Luppa though. She pulled back behind the shelf once more so she wouldn't be seen.

Now she had to think about best to approach this. She didn't want to talk to Mean Ambrose. She wanted to Nice Ambrose. She tried to remember how she'd acted around Ambrose before. There was the time when he was being mean to Benny, but he made her cry that time. Then there was the time with the yucky zombie, but he was being mean to the zombie then too. He was nice the first time she met him. With Yuuki. She'd been completely lost during that whole conversation and couldn't even remember what they'd really talked about then.

...Maybe she'd just start over completely. Yeah, that's what she was going to do. Deneli skipped back out from behind the shelf and back over to Ambrose. "Hi Ambrose~" She said it exactly the same way she had when she first came into the room. Since the table was no longer standing, she held her arms behind her back almost like she were hiding a surprise. "Whatcha' doin'?" She giggled after this, knowing it was exactly what she'd said before and expecting Ambrose to become confused.

The red-haired boy didn't hear Deneli approaching, too lost in his own frustration. So many times-- no, don't think about that, don't dwell. Concentrate on something else. The memory of Richard being clear, Ambrose went over basic mathematical problems. Focus on the math. Two plus two was four, four plus four was eight, eight plus eight--

Deneli's greeting broke his concentration. Ambrose took a sharp breath in, not expecting her to come back. EVER. After the way he treated her, the boy expected never to see Deneli ever again. And yet, so soon did she return. The same question rang in his head: why?

He caught the deja-vu and furrowed his brow, not liking this repetition at all. What was the point? What was the point of even coming over here? The fog was fast returning in his head, but Ambrose resisted as best he could. Eight plus eight was sixteen, and sixteen plus sixteen was . . .

"I thought I told you to go away," Ambrose noted under his breath, not daring to speak louder 'less the italics kicked in.

Deneli's smile extended to a grin. "I didn't listen~" It was a simple enough response. She was feeling playful enough, even after Ambrose's violence, for it. Ambrose was just such a confusing person. Deneli really didn't think he was a mean person, but he could be mean at times. In fact, it seemed he acted mean more than he acted nice. But Deneli still had difficulty classifying him as mean in general.

Deneli pulled up a chair beside Ambrose, sitting in it cross-legged to show that she had no intentions of leaving just yet. She'd do Ambrose the courtesy of changing the subject though. She tilted her head, letting her hair fall in a curtain of blonde curls on the right side of her face. "Soo, have you talked to Yuuki recently?" She finished the question with a giggle. She'd always like how well Yuuki and Ambrose got along~

Ambrose frowned when Deneli came over to him but knew he couldn't stop her; the girl was too stubborn, as her mere presence showed. Still, he didn't dare to meet her eyes. He simply couldn't.

. . . thirty-two. Thirty-two plus its equivalent was sixty-four, and sixty-four plus sixty-four was . . .
Answering the simple question took a little bit, simply because Ambrose refused to stop his calculations. In order to make sure no one got anymore hurt.

"I've seen her recently," he eventually told the mermaid. His thoughts lightened at the mention of Yuuki. "She seems to be doing well."

He made no attempt on making further conversation.

Deneli waited a bit before saying anything else. She truthfully wasn't sure what to say. Had bringing up Yuuki worked? Who else was Ambrose friends with? She honestly didn't know. Ambrose still looked sad though..

Her smile slowly began to disappear, but it quickly returned once she thought of something and she continued as if she hadn't stopped. "Yuuki's so nice~" She giggled and reached up to pull the chain of her necklace, just the chain though. "She's the one who gave me this. I like it cuz it has fishies~" She dropped the chain again, and her face became thoughtful for a moment. "But apparently it wasn't really Yuuki.." She giggled once more and shrugged.

Ambrose listened to Deneli's chatter with half an ear, not wanting to be responsive to the attempts of making conversation. He listened only out of habit; the asylum had made eavesdropping one of his few forms of entertainment for so many years. Even now, he listened. It was an odd comfort that some things never changed.

He flinched visibly at the clang of the metal. Gold. GOLD. SHINY-- no, he couldn't. Ambrose forced his head down, overlapping his arms over his head. He was determined to remain silent. If he remained silent, then Deneli wouldn't be hurt anymore than she already had. If he remained silent, Deneli would be happier. Everyone would be happier . . .

Deneli waited patiently for Ambrose's response, fully expecting one. When it didn't come though he smile faded back into a frown. Why was he sad?? Ambrose being sad was making her sad, and she didn't like to be sad! She wanted to make eye contact with Ambrose, but he'd buried his face in his arms again. She guessed she could understand that. She didn't like it when other people saw her sad either. But she wanted to know why! Something with Luppa still?

Deneli put her head down on the table as well, pillowing it with her arms. However, she was still looking at Ambrose so her face was still visible. "Ambrose, how come you're sad..?" Her voice almost the quality of a child asking why the sky was blue, only with a hint of mopiness to it.

As Deneli lied her head next to Ambrose's, he turned deliberately away from the girl, his gaze parallel to the mermaid's. Again, he flinched at her question; again, he avoided a response. He didn't have to answer that. His feelings were his own business. Besides, if she didn't know by now . . . Well. The boy certainly wasn't going to say it out right.

Pulling an arm out, he reached out and pulled a book at random closer towards him. Let's see . . . The Scientific Method: A Step-by-Step Process. Oh, how desperate he had become for a distraction. Ambrose tugged the book underneath his arm-shield, flipped towards a random page, and pretended for all the world to read. In actuality, he was waiting for Deneli to leave. She would get the hint, eventually.

(( My apologizes for Ambrose's behavior. -_-+ ))

Deneli remained where she was and just looked at Ambrose for a little bit. He was ignoring her again... The idea made her a bit sad, but she didn't really show it on her face. She lifted her head again and decided that maybe she could just wait it out. Ambrose would realize eventually that she wasn't going to leave.

She reached for on of the books Ambrose had with him, flipping to a random page. The text book however was filled with long narratives and only had the occasional picture of a knight or pilgrim in it. The onslaught of words which she couldn't read threatened to give her a headache, so she closed the book and pushed away from herself. Then reached for a second one, again opening it to a random page. This one was full of numbers and pictures of graphs with lines, circles and other shapes in them. Math. Numbers she could understand! She was always forgot which one the upside down "L" was though and she'd never seen the numbers "y" or "x" before...

Deneli continued looking through the thick math book, gawking at the complexity of some of the problems. She could do math in her written language fine, but this was ridiculous. She'd wait as long as she had to for Ambrose to realize she wasn't going to go anyway.

((Sorry for the slow posting. I've been neglecting Deneli DX *hugs her*))

As Deneli grabbed onto the random books and began flipping to any odd page, Ambrose began to realize that this confrontation had quickly become a waiting game. Like with any good stake-out at a bank-- one would sit on a park bench and eye how the guards shifted every half-hour and in what direction. She was eying his change in behavior, his change in mood and temperament, hoping for a pattern and waiting until he was in a 'good mood' again, or when that seventh security guard yawned for the fifth time in the exact same spot, providing the perfect opportunity to break through the line of men. Like that.

Ambrose had dealt with waiting games before-- he knew how to win, too. Fine. If this was how she wanted to do things, then so be it. He could wait, too.

"Peirce provided invaluable theories towards the scientific method. In his essay . . ."

She would have to leave eventually. Either that, or fall asleep. Patience.