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For midnight adventures, Chauhn wasn't usually equipped, especially when it was for an unforeseen amount of miles through the snowbound countryside of Shyregoad. Trudging as quickly as he could through the snow, following in the path made by an other, much stronger, and steady body than his, the quiet little palace servant made a good pace, tracking down the maker of the tracks, his once noble and untarnished knight, Sir Sloane. He had been staying up at night, cleaning his room from the ash left over from Clurie's charades and shenanigans, when he saw a figure, dark against the snow and melting into the dusky hue of the oncoming night, slip out into the courtyard, bundled up and brisk. Chauhn knew it immediately to be Sloane, knowing his gait and his shape from anyone else's as distinctly as he recognized his smell, a stale and iron like kind of flavor that would pass whenever the soldier-like Plague strode by. He realized then, with a guilty settling in his stomach, that he had not yet apologized to Sloane, not since the terrible night in Colwe. Echoes of his terrible actions against him hammered against his chest, making him feel sicker and sicker with each moment he replayed his fear of the Plague, the sudden break in trust and his guilty thoughts of his monstrosity. They hadn't spoken a word to one another, hadn't given each other nary a glance, or even a hopeful consideration since the massacre at the carnival.

With a sudden resolve, Chauhn hiked up his breath, inflated his chest, and hopped quickly to his room, donning on whatever warm clothes he could layer over each other, and yanking on his thick leather patched boots. Clurie, who was nearby and on the windowsill, entertaining himself with the slow melting of several candles, happily greeted his brother as he flew in like the wind.

"Hi, brother!" he said, waving with his hat over his head, "Are we ready to go to bed yet? I want to hear the next part of the story, the peasant boy who paraded with the clouds!"

"In a momen', Clurie," came Chauhn's reply as he finished bundling himself up for the cold. He stepped to the windowsill and bestowed a kiss onto Clurie's head, "Ah gotta go catch Sloane, real quick, alrigh'? Ah need to talk to 'im abou' somethin' important."

"You haven't talked with him for AGES," mentioned Clurie, suddenly curious about this change. He affixed his hat back onto his head and tapped his chin with his fingers, "What are you going to go talk to him about?"

"Ah need to say sorry," Chauhn said, wiping off the ash that he had on his lips from kissing his brother. Pulling his straight gold hair back over his head and up into a spunky tail, Chauhn tied it in place and smiled at his Plague, "Ahll be righ' back, alrigh'? It looks like Sloane's goin' to ge' firewood. After helpin' 'im, 'n' everythin', ahll be back, But for now, get ready to go to bed, alrigh', little one?"

And that was the last thing he said before he hopped out the door, grabbed a small lantern, and ran into the courtyard, chasing Sloane's footsteps. Further he chased, and further still, and time passed into nothing, and Chauhn could only count his breaths before he realized that his lungs were nearly frozen and that Sloane was not out collecting firewood at all. He pressed on, though, suddenly lost in the dark with only one path to follow, and a small light to guide him, reflecting in his pale flaxen hair.

When he came to the edge of the hill, he was hardly prepared to stop himself from tumbling forward, he was so numb, and also perplexed by the small glow of lights before him. Where was Sloane going? But there was little time to contemplate the place and time, because, loosing his footing as gravity yanked him down, Lord Yizhaq's page crumpled into a small slide of snow, his lantern's light crushing itself underneath his hands as he fell. He gave a little yelp when his palm was cut by the glass, and when he stopped moving, he laid for a while, still, in the snow. Slowly, Chauhn picked himself up and he squinted at his hands in the dark, making out the glittery seam of blood now tracing the length of his palm. Chauhn hissed and looked about, frost-covered and in a mess, to find that, just before him, was the tall figure he had been questing for.

"...Sloane?"

The first moment that Sloane had turned about, he had been the very picture of the monster Chauhn had seen before at the carnival, a panicked and jumpy creature that reacted solely on instinct and smell. In response to the revisiting of the nightmare, so close at hand, Chauhn blinked back the moisture in his eyes and pushed himself away and deeper into the snow pack as Sloane approached. With every step, though, the monster faded, melting back into the movements and the persona that Chauhn had looked up to before, and the boy felt a little more at ease. His shoulders sunk down from where they had been pinned up against his ears, and he offered a shy and sincere smile, feeling goofy for the way that he had so clumsily introduced his presence. Before he was able to muster out a greeting, much less the apology that he had brought all the way from the Fellowship's stronghold, Sloane had knelt before him, moving with a fear that soon caught fire in Chauhn's little heart. His senses heightened and he leaned in closer to the sword Plague, trying to hear his whispers while he stared at the suddenly suspicious darkness around them.

"Dangerous?" Chauhn echoed in a small voice, holding out his hand as Sloane carefully bandaged the cut. He looked up into the mismatched eyes of Sloane, stammering out a reply to his shocked question. The more he explained his circumstances, the more he felt like he had just done something terribly wrong, "Ah did, ah saw you leave, 'n', ah wanted to come 'elp you collect firewood, since tha' was whot ah supposed you was doin', 'n' ah wanted t'tell you tha' ahm s-"

"Over there!"

Sudden silence; then punctured by the sound of boots crunching through the snow, which turned into a thunderous clap of noise, from all about them. Chauhn's back straightened as quickly as a whip's crack at the noise. They had reacted quickly, too quickly, and they were quickly moving to cut them off, a half moon formation slowly drawing itself to a close about their area. The Cultists had set into dangerously strict and efficient movement the moment that Chauhn had lost balance on the top of the snow's ridge, and with the small reunion hardly intact, they had pulled out of the shadows and darkness, a separate identity of the pitch themselves, ready for the attack.

Chauhn gagged on the gasp of surprise the moment he released the ring of darkness swaggering into place around them in the snow, and he half pushed himself towards Sloane, shakily trying to grasp at his waist for a little cutting dagger that he often used for menial tasks like cutting apples, peeling potatoes, or fraying rope. It wasn't a sword, but it was something, and Chauhn held it out before him with a stiff and trembling arm, his brows furrowing down in a forced 'V" of feigned threat that shivered and shook into a lopsided knit of fear.

"...whot's happenin' Sloane?" he squeaked, pushing himself underneath Sloane's arm. "Whot's..."

Then, like oncoming night, the Cultists descended.

Sloane's words were only half heard amidst the sudden rush of bodies towards them, and the crunching of the snow, increasing from a rapid staccato to a deafening crescendo was enough to make Chauhn give a shout of animal fear. The elementary reasoning he might have been able to complete had he been standing yards away from the danger might have helped him understand just what was happening, but the boy was blind sighted by the fact that there were more than thirty bodies standing around them, insurmountable odds all swathed in black and masked with white. He took Sloane's cue to squeeze behind him, his small body hunching underneath Sloane's cloak before he was suddenly torn away from sanctuary. His scalp screamed with pain from the fist that had curled into his hair, dragging him forcibly away from Sloane. What happened next was, sadly, all too familiar as his body was pressed and held tight to the Cultist's body. With his hair pulled loose from its ponytail by the hand, his neck craned back over the Cultist' shoulder, exposing his pale and soft neck from the layers of his collars to flash against the glint of the contrast of the dark and hard dagger, Chauhn relived the instances before he had been taken advantage of because of his small size. Forced onto the tips of his toes as the Cultist's arm wrapped around his chest, holding him firmly in place, Chauhn wiggled and fought, regardless of the sharp object pointed towards his already scarred and burned neck.

"Leggo o'me!" he bleated, and with a shaky yelp he blurted, "Cultist scum!" as he drove his small dagger back and into the black robes of the man holding him. The moment he felt a resistance against the dagger, Chauhn wiggled his way free by falling onto his knees, and scrambling forward into the snow, trying to fly within Sloane's protective reach. Behind him, the Cultist doubled over in pain, and had it been only him on his heels, Chauhn might have found relative solace underneath Sloane's arm. But, as it were, there were three more Cultists to jump in his place, and they threw their arms out at Chauhn as he ran, dragging him back into the snow, and wrestling him back into their grip. They kicked the backs of his knees, forcing him into a kneel, and once upon the ground, while two raked his arms into their grip, the third slammed the hilt of his dagger against the base of his neck. Chauhn saw bright lights explode before his eyes like a sneeze of ash, and his small body slumped, melting helplessly into the lap of one of the Cultists, who knelt beside him, protected by his companion Obscuvians. With the boy rendered immobile across his lap in a painful arc of his spine, the man with the mask, readied his knife to carve a smile upon Chauhn's neck.

"Really, it would do us more favor than harm to just drain the boy now, but, if you harbor anything for him in that carcass husk of a heart, plague monster, you'll render yourself weaponless and weak. Understood?" he chided softly, raking his hands through Chauhn's flaxen hair as the boy choked on a pathetic gurgle of a whimper. "We really weren't expecting such an addition to your...attack, but we're grateful for him all the same. So new, so tender...It would be a shame if we were to cut open his jugular, paint the white snow red as strawberries in summertime...Now, wouldn't it, Sloane of the Fellowship?"

There were no smiles to be seen other than the carved and polished smiles of the white porcelain masks about them, but the overwhelming glee that oozed from the Cultists was enough to strike a deep and terrible mortal fear in Chauhn's chest. Immediately, his thoughts went to his brother, his little Clurie who he had left at home in his little servant quarters, alone and anxious, awaiting his brother's supposedly quick return back from a trip to gather firewood with Sloane. The sloppy thoughts fell apart, unable to keep together the moment that he thought about Sloane. He wasn't sure what was happening, but the poor deduction skills he had vainly worked at putting together some kind of explanation for what was happening, for the vast amounts of cultists that seemed to drop out of the very fabric of night. Sloane wasn't gathering firewood at all, he was....Chauhn felt sick, twisted awkwardly onto the man's lap. Sloane was going to become that monster again, the very monster that Chauhn had foregone further encounters with because of the battle and the ensuing massacre about him. Unfortunately, he had come at the dawning of that very same monstrosity.

But still, there was a part of Sloane still there, buried underneath it all, a sensitive and sacrificing knight, who, with the bowing of his head, relinquished his shields and armor so that he was bare and scarcely clothed in the snow. Chauhn gave a plaintive growl as he watched his friend shoved down into the cold white and he gave a weak struggle against the dagger pointed at his neck. He was still groggy from the screaming pain upon his shoulders, choking him like an ivy of heat, and the lights bouncing off their porcelain masks were fuzzy and bright. He could hardly move, his arms awkwardly pinned underneath his back, and the Cultist rolled him over onto his back, using his knee to pin down his legs before Chauhn could wiggle himself up onto his knees. Chauhn felt cold metal clasp around his wrists and with those binds, he felt a coldness close about his gut.

"...S-sloane..." Chauhn choked into the snow. He was yanked up onto his legs by the rough hands about him, and with a strong shove and push, the boy was corralled by a group of black robed men that guided him towards the amber lit castle before them. With his legs wobbling underneath him, Chauhn kept glancing and looking back to where Sloane was, cold and shivering pale against the snow. "...Sloane?" he asked again, his voice was shaky, and he called out to the Sword Plague, "Sloane!"

"Swallow your tongue, boy, or we'll cut it out of that throat for you," giggled a Cultist, leaning in close to grab his ponytail and yank his head forward and back to the ground.

"Sloa-" Chauhn began, but the cultist whipped his head back and forth by his ponytail, twisting his scalp. The Clemmings boy gave a stutter of breath.

"Don't you worry for your friend there," he said, with an amusing snarl, "He'll be coming along too, he's our special guest, after all."

Behind them, several cultists were assigned to transporting Sloane, not by picking him up from the snow, but by dragging his cuffed wrists over his head and pulling him through the ice towards the opening doors of the Obscuvian hideout.

Most of the dark laborious journey into the monster's labyrinth was spent in stubborn and fruitless retaliation from the Clemmings child, the hallways accented with the sounds of his struggle and the laughter from the Cultists who hovered over him, watching in amusement as they cut off and beat down each of his kicks, wiggles, and strains. His head was aching, but he could think of nothing else to do but get to Sloane. There was also something else spurning him to fight, besides his loyalty to the sword, but the memory of his brother. These terrifying instances were no strangers to Chauhn, he knew them well, but as to fighting against them, devising ways to free himself, he had never succeeded. There was always someone else to save him, someone else to come to his rescue and do the thinking that he couldn't seem to manage to do. Sloane had been there the first time, cutting him free from his binds, and Adal had been there the second, devising a sneaky and devious plan to escape a boat full of cultists. Chauhn was too stupid to figure out escape routes or plans, he was too dumb to even stay out of danger! So when he was dragged and pushed into the room of their impending doom, he did nothing than what came naturally, kick, scream, and yell as he was forcibly directed towards a chair. The man leading him spun him about, wedging his dagger into the boy's clothes so that he could slice them down the back and expose his soft leather vest and thin shirt underneath his warm overcoats. The cold bit in at his skin, and Chauhn chattered his teeth as the pieces of his warm overcoats were striped from him.

"Look at that," said the Cultist offhandedly, admiring Chauhn's page jacket, which was of a bright and lively turquoise color underneath his wool coat, "A little mouse belonging to a piper! Who's your Lord, boy?"

Chauhn responded with a twist and a solid knee into the man's groin. Unfortunately, though, through the robes, Chauhn's knee only landed on the man's thigh, and the Cultist retaliated with a push and a shove so that Chauhn landed in the chair and was strapped up and in before he had the time to spit at the man's mask. Shivering against his cold binds, Chauhn tried to stifle a dry sob and he struggled against his bonds as the colorful tools and cutlery were lined up beside him on an adjacent table. When the Cultist dug his fingers into his shoulders, he bit his lip and shook his head in quiet disagreement, his shoulders shaking near his neck.

On a iron stand, the Cultists lit a set of candles, which they placed near the table on Chauhn's side so that his shadow was cast onto the wall, distorted and huge within Sloane's sight. It's light also caught and distorted the shape of the lead torturer, the man who stood before Sloane with a robe of impenetrable black.

"We'll get to know each other very well, Sloane," said the man. By the way he spoke it was easy to tell that he was speaking with a smile, "I owe you at least a proper introduction: My name is Artaxerxes." He carefully pulled on leather gloves, stretching them snugly onto his long gangly fingers. Then, with the slow step towards him, he held out his arms to either side, as if he were taking the posture of a saint. "Believe it willingly or no," he said slyly, "But you do have the freedom of choice. We will ask you questions and in return you will give us honest and complete answers, or you and...your little fledgling, there, will give us blood, flesh, and screams. It's your choice."

Clasping his hands together so that the leather squeaked against his palms, Artaxerxes tilted his head down, the candlelight making gruesome shadows against his mask, "Shall we start with something simple, something trivial? Just what were you doing here so close within our territory? What were you planning to do, Sloane? Who sent you? And why ever did you bring this boy along? Don't tell me he's of any importance to your mission."

Artaxerxes gave an amused chuckle, as if getting an answer from a particularly curious student. He meandered to the table set a few feet to the side of Sloane, flinching his hands in the air as he pondered just what kind of tool to help him spurn the Plague into further conversation. He slid a limp and rather thin and long object off of the table, wrapping it about his knuckles as he sauntered back into Sloane's view, breathing noisily against his mask.

"It would be an honor to do battle with you, Sloane, but I am rather slow for my age. I am not as quick as I used to be. I am much stronger now, but not as agile, so these odds will have to do. Besides, I much rather enjoy this angle, I feel as if I'm about to do something noble, you see, something grand. But enough of my aimless banter," he said, waving his hand casually in the air. He uncoiled the object from his hands and gave a snap of his arm, launching a leather whip into the air. He settled himself back against the wall, admiring the rope, before he stepped closer to Sloane, mask tilted in a sinister angle. "Forget the boy for now, there is nothing you can do for him. This is between you and I. Remember those questions I have asked you, Sloane of the Fellowship? Must I repeat myself? I want answers."

Then a loud crack of sound, tightly intertwined with the snapping of flesh.

Artaxerxes leaned back on his heel, smiling gravely through his mask at the fresh welt of red skin painted across Sloane's stomach, and with the snapping of the whip, he traced the moist ground beneath him, making an uncomfortable skritch skritch of sound. "They are simple questions, really," he blathered, tapping at his mask's chin, "With simple answers if you choose them to be. You could make this easier on yourself. I'm such a gracious man. Tell me, Sloane, I know of your intended massacre, that much a blind man can see, but tell me, who sent you?"

Behind the interrogation, Chauhn stared with a trembling jaw at the two Cultists who fluttered about where he was strapped securely to the chair. He turned his head to watch them both with a terrified gaze, though he mustered enough strength to at least look them through the eye holes of their masks. His heart was hammering in his chest and he flexed every muscle in his body, hoping for a restraint to loosen or give way, but for naught. So, instead, his breath increased, and he sucked in oxygen until he was practically drunk on it and the adrenaline that pumped madly through his system.

The touch of the man as he took his chin in his hand, moving his face about as if to intensely study the fear written on his Imisese features, was cold and clammy, and after he moved away the touch lingered on his cheeks and jawline. Then, there came the woman.

With movements that spoke of a serpentine danger, she slithered near, tracing the top of his thigh with the sharp edge of the knife that, in all respects, was not to be used on human flesh. Chauhn's gut clutched at the sight of the dagger and he gave a terrible whimper, feeling an impending battle between his honor and his skills of survival. There was the nobility he tried with every thread in his body to emulate and then there was his primal need for life, which he would work for, tooth and nail, to keep, but which to rely on in this situation was beyond the boy. Chauhn knew he was a Clemmings, but he, for that moment, doubted if being a Clemmings was as important as being alive. The awkwardness of that dagger was the very image of fear, even if it wasn't in the hands of a heartless wretch like the Cultist before him. With the war still waging on in his throat, stealing his breath away from him, Chauhn tried to stammer out a reply that met with the needs of both the page and the pauper within him.

"Ah belong to no one 'n' to everyone," he said, his words hardly above a whisper, he used his best beggar's face, which wasn't that hard considering the situation he was quite literally strapped in, "Please, mum, ahm nothin' but a pauper, earnin' whot ah can with 'ard work...Ah don't know any answers, mum. Ah..."

The moment the knife broke through the fabric of his pants and drew a line of blood from his thigh, the Clemmings boy complimented it with a sharp intake of breath and the scratchy sound of a heart-hearted cry. It wasn't deep, which might have saved him from some of the pain, but being a drag and a break through his sensitive skin, it felt all the more strongly. He tried to kick his legs, wrestle his shoulders, but he was firmly and irreversibly strapped to the chair, his ankles tightly bound by leather straps to the legs of the heavy wooden chair. Even with his struggling, the heavy seat would not budge or shift, a clever ploy on the Cultists' part.

Then, he heard the crack of the whip and a curt growl of pain from Sloane.

At this, Chauhn gave a sympathetic shout of pain, attempting to twist his head to see his companion.

"S-sloane!" he stammered, "...Sloa-"

But his head was captured in a vice grip of gnarly fingers and snapped back into place by the male Cultist, his eyes forced upon the waiting visage of the female Cultist. There was no hiding it or playing it off, now, the relationship between Sloane and he, itself, stood chained and naked against the wall for all to see. Chauhn mustered up a set of words, blinking through the heat rising in his cheeks.

"'E's m'friend," the boy choked, feeling a false thread of hope as he spoke what truth he thought appropriate, but the more he spoke, the more he felt like he were doing something terribly wrong, the threat of hurt stinging sharply in his thigh, "'E saved me...'E did, 'e's a 'ero...m'ero. Ahm...Ahm his page...In return for 'im savin' me...Ahm his page."

It was more truth than the fact that he, too, was a Plague owner, that he was brought again to Sloane's companionship by a wealthy and noble Lord, whose power was definitely considered one of the strongest limbs to the Fellowship. Chauhn had loyalty to the Lord, and he would do whatever he could to keep his name silent.

Artaxerxes pulled the whip along into his hands, gently caressing it into his hands as if he were petting a slimy and beloved pet. With a pause, easily accented with the creak of a smile, the Cultist gave a sniffly chuckle at the sharp and hot reply from Sloane. He administered the honesty in Sloane's voice, judging it and scrutinizing it, before he gave an unhappy huff and another crack of the whip, breaking Sloane's skin in a bright "X" upon his torso. He frowned at the Plague.

"Surely, it isn't too hard to imagine that one with a reputation so noble as you would embark upon such a ridiculous quest, but there is no selfish motivation in the world, it simply doesn't exist," the Cultist brought the fresh end of the whip to his mouth, where he noisily sniffed the fresh smell of blood, "You attempted this for someone, to save someone, something, and we all know that it is your beloved Lady, your so-called Fellowship, and the protection of those therein, or even, for that poor little girl Plague whom you couldn't save."

He paused, and gave another snap of the whip, slicing another line of red across Sloane's skin, "It isn't good enough. But it will do. Tell me, Sloane," he croaked, "We've discovered an interesting counterpart to your Sage, who walked and talked and shared the same face as your Sage Estratus, but, from close observation, we, with eagle eyes, could tell that she was off of her game. She was at the carnival in Colwe, with you by her side, but she was distressed. Being a Lady of such high position, she must be burdened with some kind of grave consequence, some kind of news or responsibility. Especially so, given her somewhat...broken...reaction to the troupe's performance.

"What is her trouble, Sloane? What bothers her so, that she would have to hire another Black Knight for her protection?" Artaxerxes threatened with another coil of his whip. "Answer honestly, now, or the boy will have to pay for your held tongue."