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.. . . . ]| Rest and Respite |[ . . . ..

The smell of stale air was the first thing Chauhn was aware of. Next, was the smell of ash, a stark smell that greeted his nose like a fire that had grown too hot...A fire wreathed about a small body, reflected in still glistening eyes, cracking fingernails, blackening and boiling skin, smelling raw...smelling fresh...smelling...

Chauhn Clemmings jumped up from bed.

Peeling his eyes back with the effort it takes to open a fresh orange, Chauhn squinted at the glow of a candle where it danced along a stone ceiling. Moisture rushed to the corners of his eyes, battling back the sharp sting of smokey air. Around him were walls, four walls, walls of flat and cold stone with only simple fire brands to warm their girth. They were unfamiliar. Also unfamiliar were the clothes upon him. They were not his, they were clean and several sizes too large for his small and lithe frame. Frowning, awhirl with memories that didn't match his surroundings, Chauhn let himself sink underneath the thick blankets about his waist. For some time, he sat there, stupefied, unable to do much more than listen to the sound of his breathing until he remembered the missing weight upon his chest.

"Clurie?" the desperate question ripped out of him in a squeak. Scrambling through the shirt, he ripped through it in a frantic search for the bag of ashes, only to find bandages coiled snugly across his chest. There was no bag of ashes.

Again, the voice eked out in sharp question, "Clurie?!"

There was a shift, a snuggling near his ankles. A little body, no bigger than a finger, lifted up from the blankets, his little hat askew. A little mouth, pinned up in a face of black, bloomed into a white smile.

"That is I!" said a little voice with a rasp, "Right? That's me, right?"

Relief welled up like a gasp in Chauhn's chest. Moving carefully, as not to disturb the burn wounds underneath his wraps, he leaned forward to open his palms for the little excitos. The little being floundered forward across the bumps and hills of blanket, and fell into the open hands. He laughed aloud, rolling onto his knees and coughing up little puffs of ash.

"I'm Clurie. Clurie Clemmings," the Phasmas piped proudly, "I remember that now."

Hope, like a bouy, bobbed and tugged against Chauhn's chest, "You are!" he beamed, his voice weak from his trials before, "You are m'Clurie, m'brother. D'you remember anythin' else? Anythin' a'all?"

Sitting in Chauhn's palms, the little Plague rubbed thoughtfully at his cheeks, causing them to glow briefly like a waking ember. There was nothing but flame in his mind...The cold alley, the warmth of the pocket on Chauhn's chest. Proud to have remembered that much, Clurie rubbed at both cheeks with his hands, making them brighter with a warm glow.

"Fire," he said, "I remember fire, and waking in black, all bound up and hungry."

Chauhn's face fell, but the hopeful buoy remained tethered despite the lull and pull of a doubtful sea. He urged again, "Before tha', before you were small, before you came back, before the flame! Dun you remember anythin'?"

The weight of shame settled upon Clurie's little shoulders. Chauhn was not happy. There was such disappointment in his brother's eyes that the glow in his cheeks promptly faded. With his hands drifting to his chin, he thought harder, reaching and sifting through a mind whose process scattered about like ash in a wind. His mind was feeble at best, and amassing this amount of concentration was a task not easily achieved. Soft. Clurie's mind drifted to the warm hands beneath him and he tapped his feet together.

"Did you know that your hands are warm?" Clurie asked.

Another threatening wave bashed against his hope and Chauhn bit his lip. His hands twitched about the little Plague's body. "Clurie," Chauhn urged again. Irritation was wearing away the edge of his voice into a sharp point, "Focus! Do you remember anythin' before you woke up? Anythin'! Our house, our family, me, you, d'you remember anythin' abou' yourself a'all? D'you?"

His little mouth flipped down into a frown. There was nothing more than that in the far recesses of his memory, just waking up in blackness, being birthed in flame. He remembered nothing more. Chauhn was pressing him to remember something that just didn't happen, but Clurie couldn't help but wonder if it did and he just couldn't remember it. Perhaps it was, but he just didn't...Clurie tried harder.

"About me?" Clurie asked carefully, stealing a glance at his Grimm's anxious face. Chauhn nodded energetically at him.

Clurie settled once more into a speculative stance, his arms crossed over his chest. Ash...There was hunger and near wild frenzy for warmth and flame, for charcoal and white ash, but...There was little less than that. He knew that he wanted to help Chauhn, the young lad who strove so hard to protect him, and he could feel there was a connection between them, but precisely what was a mystery altogether. It was just a gut feeling. Clurie wanted to make Chauhn happy. But, for all the ash he could ever hunger for, he couldn't come up with an answer that might please his Grimm. So he gave an honest answer, perhaps the last, he realized, he may ever give his brother.

"I liked to be warm," he said, his voice proud.

It was, just a few dumbstruck moments after, that something threatened to snap in Chauhn Clemmings. Before he knew it, Clurie found himself crushed in the trap of Chauhn's hands. He was squeezing tight and trembling, threatening to squeeze even tighter, leaving little space for Clurie to squirm nonetheless breathe. But struggle he did, his face turned up to Chauhn's in shock and terror, and he bleated, "Huh!? What?!"

His Grimm's face, for a few terrifying moments, was a stretched picture of raging disappointment, tucked low to his neck and the glowering coals in his eyes were bright underneath his messy unkempt bangs. There was something terrible seen just then, something that hadn't dared show its face until that moment, a sick kind and twisted, kicked and underfed kind of love that growled like a beaten dog of the streets.

Clurie, fearful of that hidden thing enveloping Chauhn's face, choked on his breath, before he resolved to defend himself. Rubbing his hands together, forcing them to heat and spark, the trapped Phasmas slammed his hands onto Chauhn's to send a short blast of blistering heat to his thumbs. He could smell burning flesh.

With a yelp, Chauhn opened his hands and dropped Clurie onto the blanket, snapping his hands close to his chest to suck on the burn. The bite of the warmth from Clurie's hands woke him, and, blinking tears from his eyes, he slowly became himself again.

Clurie, on the other hand, scurried and tripped over himself in a desperate attempt to duck behind Chauhn's feet at the far corner of the bed.

What had he done? Chauhn didn't know. There was a moment that he was battling with the sea of doubt and then it overcame him, drowning him, and he was submerged, and he was holding onto dear life to...Oh health and sick, did he hurt Clurie?! Knowing his fears to be true, Chauhn looked down at his hands where little burn warms were beginning to welt over his thumbs.

"Clurie...Ah," Chauhn mumbled helplessly. He reached out again to him, "Ahm so sorry, Clurie, ah...Ah didn' mean it...Ah didn't mean it...Ah don't know what came over me, please...Come back. Ah love you, ahm sorry. Please, come back t'me."

Oh, if ever a voice sounded as wretched as Chauhn's did at that moment. Ducking behind the fabric, his little heart racing and his body sore from being crushed, Clurie felt a little part of his fear crumble away. Slowly, ever so slowly, he lifted up and crawled back over to Chauhn's shaking hands. As he drew near though, his cheeks glowed with a threatening flame, as if to warn him that he wouldn't refrain from holding back if he were to crush him again.

Blinking the hot tears from his eyes, Chauhn carefully cradled his Plague in his hands bringing him up to his chest. "Ahm so sorry, Clurie, ahm sorry," he repeated over and over. Gently, he nuzzled his little Phasmas and the little one returned the gesture, rubbing his own glowing cheek to Chauhn's. Gently, as to not drop or startle him, Chauhn leaned back upon the bed with Clurie still held near his face.

"Ahll protect you, ahll protect you...Ah promised..." he muttered sullenly, "Ah promised you, brother..."

-------.: - :.-------

Stepping into the room with forced silence, Bo, the young council member looked upon the bed with a smile. The young Grimm and his Phasmas were sleeping, passed out still from their adventures through the city. He dropped off Chauhn's cleaned clothes and other sanitized items and belongings on a desk in the room.

"Sleep well," he said, before he exited the room, leaving them to their rest and respite.

.. . . . ..

.. . . . ]| Riptide |[ . . . ..

A place such as the catacombs, although not dank nor want of light, was no place for a newly admitted page. All Chauhn ever heard of in the catacombs was talk of things he didn't know, things he, quite frankly, cared little for. They spoke of discoveries, of illness, and health, of cures for the many. Though, Chauhn admired the idea of finding a cure, he knew that he had no part in finding it (or at least that's what he thought). Science was a thing for scientists, older folk who knew the written word and number, Chauhn decided, and when his delegated chores were done, he set his course for the upper streets, his little brother tucked into his collar. Sneaking nimbly from the dark hallways, Chauhn passed through the secret shoot in the bread maker's shop. Tipping his hat to the shop keeper, Bo, a man of the council in plain sight, he hopped through the freshly cooked wares to the front door.

"Little Chauhn Clemmings," Bo said, amused to see, yet again, for the fourth time that week, another passage from the lad so early in the day, "Where are you off to this fine afternoon? Shouldn't you be studying your books and learning to read? Where's your 'brother'? Is he with you?"

Crawling out from his hiding place within Chauhn's jacket lapel and his scarf, a big grin met the bread maker. "Right here, Mister Bo, sir!"

The Council man smiled, "There you are."

"Ah dun wan' t'read righ' now, sir," Chauhn said, almost bashfully. He bounced a bit on the balls of his feet, "To be 'onest, sir, ah need a breath o' fresh air. 'N' Clurie too! We're goin to the beach t'day."

"To the beach, eh? Be careful and don't get too close to the water, you hear?" Bo pointed a stern finger at the boy, watching as he slipped through the doorway. "Be careful."

--------------------

He had taken the trip a thousand times before. For Chauhn Clemmings, it was as easy as finding his own feet when it came to finding the beach. There was a hiding place, just beyond a tall stand of rocks, close enough to the town but secluded enough for privacy, that was his favorite, the place he intended to take Clurie to until he had grown into his full form. The size of his little brother was advantageous in some ways, but, when Chauhn thought on it, he felt as if it were more a disadvantage, especially when it came to his little brother's protection. He feared that his small size would make him more vulnerable, even though a small size would offer great hiding places. Hopping, using his feet and back to wedge himself through and onto the other side of the rocks, grateful for the low tide, Chauhn smiled a bit more easily.

"Alrigh', Clurie, we're 'ere. We're only gunna stay for a bi', alrigh'? Dun wanna ge' caugh' 'n 'ere when the tide comes back up," he said, jumping onto the forgiving sand. He wobbled a bit for balance until he found a good portion of jumbled sand and stone to sit himself upon. Opening up his collar, he offered his hand to Clurie.

More than anxious from excitement and from wonder, little Clurie scrambled out of his brother's collar into his hand, eagerly shifting until he was carefully deposited onto the beach.

"This is a...This is a..." he started, stumbling on his constantly fluctuating vocabulary.

"A beach," Chauhn said, adjusting himself to sit back comfortably against the sea-smoothed stone. The beach they were sitting on was flat and short, in distance from cliff to wall, a small cove in the length of a mostly jagged shoreline. Crossing his ankles, he kept his eye on Clurie, who wobbled on the beach stones and sand.

Clapping his hands together in happiness, Clurie adventured forward, inspecting the stones and shells on the beach. Each time he clapped his hands together, a small burst of flame and splutter of sparks would crackle forth from his palms, followed by little coughs of smoke.

"Clurie, dun clap your hands," Chauhn said worriedly, adjusting his cap so the bill was on the back of his head. He made sure that his ears were exposed, so he could better hear the whispered shush of the waves lapping up against the shore. The water soothed him and he definitely needed soothing now, especially after his abrupt change of setting and role.

"Okay, okay," Clurie said in defeat, patting his hands along his hands to wipe away remaining sparks of flame. For little him, this beach was a BEACH a large vast expanse of strange ground met against stranger ground! A whole ocean of water. Crawling up onto a gathered pile of driftwood, Clurie squinted towards the ocean, trying to see where it stopped or ended or something. It just went on forever and ever...And that made him feel smaller than a grain of sand. "Where does it end?" he asked, his voice husky and strained. He looked back over at Chauhn, who had momentarily closed his eyes in an effort to nap, "Brother?"

Chauhn shifted, lying his hands atop his chest, opening an eye, "The ocean is big 'n' goes on for a long time. They says it's deeper than the sky. Jus' dun go near it," As an added afterthought, Chauhn reminded his plague again, "Dun clap your hands."

Clurie looked up guiltily from where he had just clapped his hands once more. Glancing down at the driftwood, he noticed that the spark had started eating away at the timber, and he quickly stamped it out before he incited the wrath of his worried brother. With his near mishap averted, Clurie returned his gaze to the sea as, behind him, Chauhn quieted, closing his eyes to listen to the roll of the sea. A thing so vast and swelling as the sea, seemed to have life. It breathed, Clurie glanced back at his brother's rising and falling chest, just like he did. It had a voice, and it had arms that reached up to drag against the shore. So, Clurie concluded, the sea was alive. He let himself slip off the driftwood, and he started forward, his eyes trained on the white frothing nails of the waves as they gripped into the sand and fell away from his approach. His thinking, which was already quite scatterbrained in nature, led him to believe that the ocean and the flame, another elemental thing with pulsing life in his eyes, were the same. This naturally called for his exploration to further test his half-baked hypothesis, to find out whether the sea and flame be brothers. So, stepping forward, chasing after the suck of the tide, little Clurie advanced towards the ocean.

Which, without saying, was a dumb move on Clurie's part.

It was then that the wave began to bulge back on itself, bubble and swell. If Clurie had eyes, they would've swollen at the sight of the suddenly gargantuan rise of the sea, as if pulling itself, head and shoulders free from the ocean to lurch and leap towards little Clurie's form. With a gasp, the Phasmas fell back onto the hard wet sand, and fought to scramble out of the way, but the ocean reached forward with more strength than he expected. The cold salt water swarmed up all around his little body, shoving him forward into a clumsy tumble and roll. Opening his mouth, trying to cry out his brother's name...which he promptly forgot in the shock...Clurie managed to swallow a lungful of seawater, which stung his system and made him feel weak. Still struggling to gasp and call out, Clurie tried to dig his hands into the sand, but underneath such a wave anything he grasped would fall free and tumble loose with him into the water. Before he could do so much as get onto his knees, he was dragged back by the bubbling yank of foam towards the hungry gape of the ocean.

Lucky for Clurie, he had a brother. Not just any brother, however, but a protective, desperate, and panicky brother who, at the first gasp and gurgle, leaped from his resting place and half-crawled half-stumbled into the waves after him. "Clurie, Ahm comin', hold on!" Chauhn squeaked. Losing his cap in the mad stumble, Chauhn fell chest first onto the wet sand, his chin hitting hard against the stones, as his hands and arms reached forward, straining to grasp around Clurie's little body. The ocean was a possessive entity though and it yanked the little Phasmas free from his slippery grip, dragging him deeper underneath the roll of the wave. Gritting his teeth, Chauhn picked himself back up into a crawl and leaped again into the waves, splashing awkwardly as he thrust his arms into the water, clapping his hands under the wave for Clurie's little body. It took another frenzied few moments for Chauhn to finally close his grip around his little brother and pull him free from the waves, but when he did, he could feel the strain in his beating heart calm just a little.

"Clurie!" Chauhn bleated, trying to navigate his way back onto the dryer shore from where he knelt in the toss of the waves. He held his little brother in his arms, protectively curling both his arms around him lest he fall again into the waves, "Clurie, ah tol' you not t' ge' too close to the water! Whot were you thinkin'? Y'can be so dum' sometimes! Y'could've drowned! Clurie?" Chauhn finally crawled free from the waves, walking on his knees onto the drier part of the sand. Lifting his arms closer to his face, he carefully pulled Clurie into his palm, "Clurie?"

Gasping for breath, the Phasmas choked up what sea water he swallowed, curling his arms close to his chest where he lay in the cradle of his brother's palm. With his little body so soggy, he felt like he was falling apart...And he was so cold! So cold...and wet...Giving a great shudder, his little mouth in a haggard draw of breath, he gave a little squirm, trying to pull himself into a tight ball despite the sinking and melting tendencies his body was trying to sink into. "...huh?" he mumbled.

"Clurie, are y'okay?" Chauhn asked, leaning over his brother. He pulled his free hand through his wet hair as he worriedly looked on. Clurie didn't look so well...He was breathing, but he looked sodden and dwindling, and the warmth that his little body usually held was extinguished by the water. Without waiting for an evaluation from the little Plague, Chauhn picked himself up onto his feet, found his hat and slapped it back onto his head before he lurched towards the break in the stone, squeezing himself through.

"You're no' okay...There's somethin' wron'! Y'made o' ash 'n' fire, Clurie...The water must've hur' you, someway...Y'made o' ash!" Now he was madly rambling to himself, but Chauhn knew one thing, he had to find something, someone to help him! He couldn't lose his brother now, not after all he went through just to get him back! Blinking the water from his eyes, he stumbled free from the rock and raced back towards town.

He had to find someone, QUICK!

.. . . . ..

.. . . . ]| Resolve |[ . . . ..

Within the safe confines of the Council's long and dank hallway, Chauhn felt as if he could finally breathe. After such a perilous adventure, like the meeting of both the dangerous Obscuvians and the terrible power of the Plague Doctor, Chauhn was trembling as much as a matchstick's flame under shaky breath. The dangerous wounds he carried were also, although wrapped and carefully cleaned, still alive with the aching memories of stress not too long passed. They weighed heavily upon his body, but not as heavy as the earth and its supported city above him. It was strange for him to be feeling so, having practically raised himself in such a city, sliding helplessly from middle class to garbage of the streets. He had seen all sides of the city, survived all its hideous faces, and yet for some reason, fear rattled his chest far more deeply than before. Stepping into the comfort of his stone walled room, Chauhn let his gaze drop to the cradled body of little Clurie in his hat. He had long been asleep after his cure from the Plague doctor, exhausted from having been so exhausted.

It was Clurie that had so changed his relationship with the home city. It was since his awakening that the comforting architecture of the coastal Imisus town turned into a iron maiden, threatening to crush him at any moment. He had to protect him, not only from those that would take him, but from the city itself, a place he once called home, but now referred to in hushed whispers. It hurt him to come to this conclusion, to impeach the very city that had once been his cradle.

Yet, it had to be done. Clurie's life depended on it. Laying Clurie upon his bed within his sight, Chauhn divested himself of his salt-stricken clothes. Even this easy task was transformed into a chore, a labor made difficult by the knife wounds he gathered in battle of his brother's defense. Folding the clothes neatly on the simple wooden chair that sat beside the bed, the exhausted Clemmings boy sat down and readied himself for a long night of rest.

But he paused.

Stopping for a moment to stare down at Clurie's little resting body, wrapped up in a dry handkerchief, his little arms folded atop the fabric and hugging it close for warmth, Chauhn was still. For a long time he sat like that, his eyes locked on the Plague. Clurie was important to Chauhn because of no higher reason than the fact that he was his brother. That was the bond securing him to his side, to his guardianship and protection, nothing else. The dim voice of sensibility in his mind, coupled with the doubts of reason, told him that there was more to his brother now that he was smaller, a different form, things that could attract those of a dangerous nature. That was the entire reason why he was kidnapped by the three men aiming to become mages, that's why Georgie, Adal, and the Plague Doctor took a keen interest to him, that's why the Obscuvian tried to steal him away at the cost of his own life. But what puzzled Chauhn was what was so valuable about his brother to others that were not related by blood? They did not have the same bond as he, they couldn't. So just what was so worthwhile in his little brother that others would sacrifice differences for, sacrifice their lives for? Chauhn didn't get it. He just couldn't see past the label he had placed on Clurie, the title of 'brother'.

Yet, despite that, he was ready to sacrifice anything to keep him safe. Even if it meant turning his back against the light of day and the city that basked in it. If it would keep Clurie safe, Chauhn was ready to keep himself in the subterranean passageways of the Council, cleaning hallways and peering with blurred eyes at teaching scriptures given to him by the Mage Bo. He would do anything for his brother.

That was a promise.

Smiling wearily, happy to have returned his brother to safety, Chauhn laid himself down on the bed and curled up contentedly around his Plague. Placing a watchful hand over the handkerchief he slept in, Chauhn relaxed when he saw Clurie shift in response to the warmth to snuggle closer.

He was certain that they could survive down here. Just as long as they were together, he was certain of it.

.. . . . ..

.. . . . ]| Storyteller's Best |[ . . . ..

Clurie was metaphorically drowned in his latest story.

Swept up into a world buried underneath the heavy weight of stone and deadly ceilings, whose pinnacles threatened to drop at the merest sound, the warrior wizard Clurett, master of the nine virtues and friend of the flame, battled against an unseen opponent in the depths of the dark. He leaned against a sweaty stone, breathing hard, and listening to the twitch and pulse of his body, weary and aching from hours of long and rigorous battle against his hidden foe, the deadly Sir No'where, through the under darkness. The forbidden token of silver, the only magic relic able to transport the warrior wizard Clurett back to the surface world, was just beyond his reach, held within the unflinching clutch of Sir No'where. But before he could return to the surface, he had a much more important task, colossal in comparison to the journey back to the land of the sun: the rescuing of his partner, the brave and loyal squire, Chauhn D'Clemming. He was trapped, kept hidden in a dark pit of stone and cold, where he was forced into long hours of terrible slavery and bereavement, ridiculed by his captors while he stooped underneath back breaking work. It was Clurett's priority to save his squire, but in order to do that, in order to even return to the surface, the warrior wizard had to first force the invisible fiend to speak.

Hiding behind a rock that looked suspiciously like Chauhn's hat, Clurett, the warrior wizard, crouched in silence. He was waiting for his foe to show himself, but no matter where he looked upon their precarious rectangle outcropping of rock, suspended over a pit of endless depth, he could not see him. How he longed for the sight of the unseen spell! But his magic was wearing thin and the pouches of magical spell components wrapped round his hips were woefully empty. He could not call upon the special sight to show him the slippery enemy. Glancing this way and that, Clurett scrambled to another side, his...not his eyes, but his face searching for any sign that might betray the enemy.

Nothing.

Not a single thing stirred. So clever was his unseen enemy! Clurett watched with bated breath, his body tense and still, and yet no movement came. This would not do. Time was running out! Who knew for how much longer poor Chauhn could suffer in torment. Clurett knew that he had to do something, and quick. But there were so little options to chose from, too little to work with...

That worried Clurett little, though, because he was Clurett, master of magic! Warrior Wizard! And friend of fire! He paused, struck palpably with the full force of a brilliant idea. A slow smile pulled its way onto his face. That was it! How come he didn't see it before? The answer was obvious, almost blindingly so!

To make his enemy appear, he only had to destroy his concentration, and what better way than to give him a quick toast?

Leaping out from behind his protective barrier, hands already at his cheeks, Clurett the warrior wizard scanned the desolate space before him. It took only a moment of close observation for his invisible enemy to make himself known. The sound of crackling paper caught Clurett's ear and, with only a moment's breath, his cheeks were blazing hot, bright like amber.

"It is foolish to play with fire!" he howled, and with a brief rub at his cheeks, he threw out a sputtering wave of hear that sparked and breathed into a ball of flame. The cough of fire spread wide, and, as quickly as the flame came, it lifted up into smoke, with little damage done. What little damage there was, however, was enough. Licks of ember freckled the edge of the paper the warrior wizard Clurett stood upon and it was only a matter of moments before the paper was alive with flame.

"Ha!" Clurett barked, striding onto the paper to confront his enemy whose imaged shadow danced from where his feet touched the paper. "I can see you now, wreathed in flame! You cannot hide from me!"

The feather pen laid against the paper and connecting with a nearby pile of paper journals and books caught the spreading blaze.

Imagined to cower in the heat, Clurett's long standing enemy balked at the discovery of his person. "Return to me the key to free my brother!" the warrior wizard demanded, but it was to his surprise that his enemy responded with a laugh. He continued laughing, a haunting kind of cackle that paralleled that of the flame and upset the confidence in Clurett's stance. Frowning, Clurett waved a threatening hand at his enemy, "Why do you laugh?" he barked, his voice a little less firm than before.

"Because you've just set aflame the one chance your brother Chauhn had at being safe."

Struck by the simple words, Clurett stood still, and his make believe world lifted up from around him in a curtain of smoke. He was no longer Clurett the warrior wizard, he was clurie, a tiny little Phasmas the size of a matchstick, standing atop the landscape of a burning desk. The heat pressed in around his body and while he was familiar and resistant to the flame, he felt as if he were in danger. Looking up from underneath the brim of his hat, Clurie gaped at the ceiling which was quickly turning into a surging gray ocean. He had hardly enough time to stumble back in shock and fall into a defensive curl before Chauhn burst into the room with terror written in a panicked scribble over his face. He had smelled the smoke down the hallways.

"CLURIE!" he screamed. Lurching forward, the boy dived onto the desk, plucking the surprised little Plague from the flame, and pressing him back to the safety of his collar. Swept up into the muffled fabric of his brother's clothes, he dug his little fingers into the weave for a hold. For those few brief moments he was standing alone on the desk, he felt the iron grip of fear, but the instant his brother shouted his name, the grip loosened its suffocating hold. He knew that he would be safe with his brother. Held close to Chauhn's neck, he could feel as well as hear the frantic tabor of fear that still had its grip tightly wound around his brother's scarred throat. That might be why Chauhn could no longer make any sound at the destruction of his room and the desk-turned hearth that blazed with a terrible all encompassing light, even when the Council men entered the room, water pails at the ready and shouting demands, Chauhn couldn't speak a word. From that point on, Clurie could only remember the smell of smoke and a cacophony of voices overpowering the chuckle of flame.

.. . . . ..

.. . . . ]| Do You Remember? |[ . . . ..

The streets, by the time that Chauhn and Clurie had wandered into the quarantined graveyard of family homes, were empty, coughing up spasms of dust, steam, and leftover filth. As he walked, Chauhn listened to the damp pad of his shoes against the cobblestone road, and, within his shirt, Clurie listened to his brother's heartbeat. It was uncomfortably silent, as if the rest of the world suddenly floated up into the air in a fit of smoke, and Chauhn distinctly remembered a time when it wasn't so quiet. In fact, he could remember the distinct smells, of meager meals cooking in the kitchens of the lower class, from building cramped and pressed together and the voices that juggled between them. He couldn't remember the faces though. The people of the neighborhood, he once knew had long since passed, victims of the plague, leaving everything behind but the details of their faces. But the more he walked, the deeper he found himself in a hazy memory. It was his strength, and the flow of time was wearing it away. That's why, after his shameful expulsion from the Council of Science, Chauhn wearily navigated himself back to the old Clemmings home. It was a two story building with traditional Imisese fixtures and frames, tightly sandwiched between a row of similar buildings. The only way he could tell it was his home, besides the boards nailed into the first level windows and the red pass of painted judgement on the front door, accented with seven dots, was the mess of shingles on the roof, evidence to Chauhn's frantic flee from the death ridden home nearly three years ago. He didn't realize that he was standing in front of the house, stricken, for some time, until a little raspy voice spoke near his right ear.

"What is this place?"

The question shattered his spell. Blinking the gloss from his eyes, Chauhn tried to keep his stomach from falling out within him. He began to move forward. "You don't remember?" he asked, his voice dry.

The ash plague shook his head, forgetting that Chauhn couldn't see him where he clung to his neck. "I have trouble remembering a lot of things," he pointed out rather lamely.

"Ah know you do," Chauhn said with a voice as empty as the buildings around him "That's why we're 'ere."

"Huh?"

"Maybe," his words echoed off the building wall as he approached, judging how he might climb into his old home, "You migh' remember more if'n you could see the home you used ta live'n...Our home, the home o' the Clemmings...Clurie, 'old on."

As Chauhn adjusted his satchel and knapsack tightly across his shoulders, Clurie fell back and scrambled away from underneath Chauhn's chin. He moved underneath the unkempt locks of Chauhn's hair and wrapped his fingers tight around it, holding himself more or less in place. Then, Chauhn, with an agility earned from living on the streets and the buildings that grew between them, scrambled up the side of the door frame. Curling his fingers tight onto the wood, he steadied himself before jumping up a few inches to the windowsill. Giving a puff of air, he hung for a few precarious moments before he regained enough strength to pull himself up and crawl onto the sill. Luckily, the few poorly nailed in boards used to keep in the infected, had since grown weak, allowing Chauhn to easily work them off from the frame and let them fall with a clatter to the ground below.

Carefully pushing against the window to discover its resistance, Chauhn let his mouth shrink into a frown. He had forgotten that his family had locked the windows for fear of intruding ill-doers that might do away with their plague touched bodies while they slept. It was well past that time of fear now and he and Clurie needed entrance to their home, leaving him no choice else but to break the window. Swallowing past a lump of sour regret, Chauhn braced his hold against the windowsil and threw his elbow with all his might into the bleary glass. At first, there was a painful sounding crack, but with another slam of his elbow, the glass gave in and buckled over his arm. He shook his arm free, careful of the dangerous shards that might shred into his clothes as he pulled them free. After a sore rub on his elbow, Chauhn, with gentle prodding, was able to open up the window until it was safe to crawl through. It was thanks to his small Imisese frame that he was able to push himself inside without much snag on his clothes or skin, and with the wave of his foot on uncertain ground, he was able to slip inside, relatively unharmed, though relatively bothered. He nearly wished that he hadn't thought of returning to his old home. Just smelling the faint hints of the Clemmings family, the fabric and their skin, overwhelmed and drowned beneath the smell of rot and decay was enough to prickle tears into his eyes. Even then, though, even when the warmth of the house and the teeming life that had once bustled within it was long since gone, the cramped and barren building was still his home. To see it in such a state, a hazy outline of a memory, broke his heart. The walls were faded and cracked, infested with veins of rot and mildew from the human years that had passed, and as he settled his weight on the floor, the boards creaked and whimpered with pain. Swirls of dust kicked up at the slightest movement, and Chauhn had to wipe at his wet nose to keep himself from sneezing.

"This is our house?" came the rasp from Clurie, echoed louder in the emptiness of the house.

"Thi'is our home."

Chauhn moved carefully over the second floor landing that used to be the Clemmings siblings' bedroom. They chose to sleep together after their parent's death, as one unit, instead of spreading out into the other bedroom on the floor that had once been their parents'. Bundles of fabric and several bedrolls, different in size according to age, were still carefully organized in a puzzle on the floor to fit seven bodies in the cramped room, just like Chauhn remembered them. Moving slowly, as if the floor could fall out from underneath him, Chauhn drifted in between what little floor space there was in between the beds to the bed mat that had once been his, a small quilted sheet the color of aged yellow, lined with a border of white.

"Thi'is m'bed, where ah slept," Chauhn murmured to the little body in his collar, "Ah go' the yellow sheet because ah 'ad the yellowest 'air o' our family. When ah was little, ah 'ad 'air the color o' whea'."

"You still kind of do," Clurie commented helpfully, trying to smile up at his big brother. But Chauhn was elsewhere, on the verge of tears, a precarious place that even Clurie could feel from just clinging to the tense muscles of Chauhn's neck.

Chauhn nodded his head weakly as he sunk down and crawled onto his bed, disturbing years worth of dust that had settled on the sheet. With the pat of his hands, he attempted to dust it off as much as he could until he sat down and dropped the bags from his shoulders. Then he looked up, quiet and unmoving, looking out about a room that had once been filled with the bodies of his siblings. He had to blink a couple times, hard, before he was able to speak past the tears that were forming in his eyes, "Do you remember where you slept?" A loaded question.

Leaning out of the edge of the collar, Clurie looked out across the room. He scanned the beds, the different colored sheets and sizes, and for a moment, he expected something to happen. The flimsy fragments of his memory shuddered with the strain and then collapsed into a fitful cough of distractions and questions. The pressure was just too much.

"What am I looking for again?" Clurie asked helplessly. He scratched at his head and frowned.

There was a tenseness in Chauhn's chest that knotted itself tighter when his question was answered with another question. Biting back his anxiousness, Chauhn gently opened his collar and caught Clurie's tumble into his hand. He held him up and prompted him again with another painfully patient repetition of his question.

"Do you remember where you slept?" he asked. There was a curtness in his voice.

Pushing his arms straight against Chauhn's palms so that he was again sitting up, he gave another half-hearted glance around the room. The beds were no different than they were a moment ago, they held no more meaning to him than what they were already, a place to sleep, comfortable and warm. There was no inkling of memory, no trace of recollection, no matter how hard Clurie forced the familiarity to come. Poorly gathering logic explained that Chauhn wanted him to see different and value in each bed mat, to know and understand the distinct reasoning for the choices of each faded color blanket and pillow and the person who once slept tucked tight and curled underneath the sheets. More specifically, Chauhn was asking him to recognize himself, and Clurie was feeling more and more at a loss. There was only an emptiness, an overbearing weight of pressure, poisoning him with the heat of shame, that curled the thinking in his head. He didn't know what his self was. He didn't know who he was. By looking at these beds, mementos of people who used to be, he couldn't tell where he belonged in it all. When he tried to apply the self that he was now, it didn't match up with anything he saw there in the cramped bedroom space before him. As he was, at that point, he would have preferred a recently used fireplace to sleep in, or a comfy curl of a napkin, tucked carefully into Chauhn's hat and hugged into Chauhn's arms. That was all he could come up with and that conclusion disturbed him. When he abashedly looked up to Chauhn, he could tell that he was disturbed too.

Oh, it hurt him to hurt Chauhn...

"Chauhn," Clurie said slowly, purposefully dodging the word 'brother'. He lowered his voice, "I...can't remember my bed."

The blood flared up in Chauhn's cheeks.

Clurie couldn't move fast enough to escape the crushing grip of Chauhn's hand. He gave a whimper of protest that never reached Chauhn's ears and a strained cry. The hand that closed about him quivered, shaking off any semblance to Chauhn's gentle grip from before and with every shake it tightened.

"Chauhn!" Clurie choked. He wiggled desperately, and when the grip refused to loosen, he tried to free his hands to perhaps burn away the grip, but not even with his best struggle could he move more than a smidgen. The air was crushed from his lungs and he wailed with his last gulp of breath, "Chauhn, please! BROTHER!"

Without thinking, Chauhn threw the little body into the bed next to his, a small bed mat covered with a red sheet, shifted as if someone had been sleeping there until recently. He didn't care anymore, about anything, all he could feel, pulsing through him and demanding his body, was a raging disappointment, the kind of insanity that only loneliness could fester. "CLURIE!" Chauhn shrieked at the little body, with all the strength and gust he had in his collapsing chest.

Tumbling into the sheets, Clurie rolled to a clumsy stop in a mess of ash and limbs, gasping with his little white mouth as he tried to push his weak arms straight beneath him. His chest fluttered wildly beneath his overalls, inflating again with breath, and his head spun, whirling the world about with whips and blurs. A familiar kind of terror gripped him then and he curled his shaking body into the fabric as if to hide, for, towering over him with a dark and desperate anguish, was the last living Clemmings boy. He was heaving hard between clenched teeth, tightening his knuckles so hard that they shook with white rage, and in his slitted eyes was a moisture that gathered up and dripped to the fabric around Clurie from fitful blinks.

"You used to sleep right there, Clurie! Right there, right next to me! Why can't you remember that?" Chauhn shouted, shaking his fists and pressing in tight upon himself, "You don't remember anything! You don't remember that you slept next to me because you had nightmares at night, and you would like me to hold you and tell you stories to help you sleep again! That was my responsibility, to take care of you! When I couldn't get you to stop crying, Clurie, I would give up and cry with you instead. Our oldest sister, Lynn would crawl to us from that bed over there!" he pointed to the bed mat just across from theirs, a pale turquoise sheet with pink flowers, his eyes welled up and overflowed the moment he mentioned his sister's name, "She would lay down between our beds and rub our backs, Clurie, and when we calmed, she would let us sleep on her shoulders!"

Stifling back a sob, Chauhn directed his recollections with wild and violent throws of his arms, passionate tucks and wraps of his arms about himself, all the meanwhile, shouting and sobbing, sometimes whispering and trembling, but all the meanwhile loosing himself entirely in his played out memories, "We would all go to bed at the same time! All of us! Lynn and Bradley, Michi, Midori, Minori, me, and you, Clurie! Before we slept, we would take turns tellin' stories. Bradley would tell the best stories, and Lynn had to stop him from getting us too riled up before sleepin', and Lynn would calm us back down with songs that our mother used to sing. We would kiss each other, every one of us, on the head to say goodnight. Clurie, you don't remember that, you don't remember any of them, any of your brothers and sisters! You used to help the twins with making our beds, and you would sew the holes in our clothes with Midori and Minori. They would take care of you when Bradley and Lynn were away at their jobs, and I was working with Michi, sweepin' chimneys until the fall of day!"

Chauhn, by this time, was a complete sniveling and wet mess. His voice scratched and tore and the more he screamed, the worse he sounded, the more he wailed, holding himself with the look of a boy who was lost out at sea. "We would share our bread, break it into seven parts, Clurie, we would mend each other's shoes and cut each other's hair! We would venture out to the morning market, all seven of us, to pick out the fish we would have for dinner with the week's earnings. We would walk on the pier and watch the sun rise over the ocean and share sweet breads and honey! And you don't remember any of that, any of those memories! Of us, of all of us, as a family! Oh, Lynn!" Chauhn shrieked, and he coughed, choking on his own spittle and tears, "Bradley, I...And Michi, strong Michi, and sweet sweet Minori and Midori!" For a moment, Chauhn couldn't speak. He choked and mouthed out words, desperately trying to heave up the last bereft scream, and he raked his hands into his clothes and around his gut, doubling over himself in pain.

"Oh, health, you! Clurie! YOU!" Chauhn wept, his voice was now nothing more than a terrible sounding hitch, "You, so helpful and kind! You were never sad, never complainin', you always had a grin on your face and saw the best in everythin', Clurie, but you were scared of everythin' out in the world! You trembled at strangers, trembled at new places and frowned at new foods! You were always afraid to ask questions, and instead you passed them by, you did without having your questions answered. You just...You just dodged it, all the time, you never let those things that you didn't know, things that scare you, get in your way, you just ignored them all! You were so quiet! And you had nightmares at night of all those big and wondrous things you didn't know about. I never knew what to tell you, because you never asked! But you were happy all the same, you were so blind, and stupid, and happy, and I couldn't figure out why!"

Clurie stared with lidless horror at the mess that was once the indomitable Chauhn, the strong and valiant protector that once never showed an inkling of weakness while stubbornly seeking out shelter and safety despite his crippling odds. This wasn't the thick-headed naive big brother that Chauhn usually was, but oozing soft rawness that shivered within that frame, dangerous and unstable. And Clurie was terribly and utterly afraid of that true and honest side of Chauhn. He was afraid to move lest he be snatched up and squeezed again, crushed into wisps of ash and chunks of cinder. He didn't know and couldn't trust this passionate side of Chauhn, he was afraid of him. And he too, whimpered and wailed, his own voice drowned in that of Chauhn's pitched screams, and he wanted to hard to release his feelings in something more than just sound and the wobbling bright heat of his cheeks. Instead, he shivered and tried to push himself as far away as he could from Chauhn, whining like an injured animal.

But Chauhn wasn't done.

Crumbling slowly to the side, collapsing from the dizziness that now wrapped it's thick coils about his head, Chauhn slumped onto his side, holding his stomach and tucking his knees tightly to his chest, while, at the same time, trying to stubbornly pick himself back up onto his knees, "But I knew one thing, Clurie...I loved you. I loved you and love you with everythin' I got, like I loved everyone in our family. No matter what, I would love you," his voice was splintered into whispers and he was fighting with a staggering breath to speak, squeeze his mad eyes into focus upon the little whimpering body that was his Plague. Reaching out a shaking hand, Chauhn pulled Clurie close to him, wrapping him in his arms so that he could lay limply over his and Clurie's bed mats, "Even now, when you don't remember a thing, I'm sure you'll remember one day. You have to, you just have to remember sooner or later. You're my brother, no one else. I need you, Clurie, to remember who you are. I need you. I need my brother. My family. I...I need my Clurie back to me...I can't do this alone..."

Words that sunk into silence, Chauhn was passed out with another mumble, slipped into a comatose sleep by his child's tantrum. His body lapsed into stillness and Clurie was left in shock, his own repertoire of reactions stunted by Chauhn's powerfully insane display of desperation. He too, wished that he could scream and cry like his brother, because, at that moment, he felt the world of pressure constrict his shoulders as if he were placed into a rack he had no key to. The frustration was so colossal and Clurie couldn't release it like Chauhn. He wanted to scream, shout, cry, about his undefined sense of self, of his tug o war between the he whom he was, and the he whom he is, and in the midst of it all, his mind put all sense and sensibility into a blender and skewed it about in a messy disorganized whirl of thoughts and memories as fleeting and flaky as ash.

Clurie could shed no tears like Chauhn could.

...But that didn't mean that he couldn't share them with his brother. Carefully freeing himself from the protective curl of Chauhn's arms, Clurie tumbled and crawled on wobbly knees to his face, where tears and snot ran freely across his cheeks and chin with criss-crossing designs. Reaching out with his gloved fingers, he carefully felt the wetness of a tear's stain and he wasn't surprised when it hurt.

Still trying to wrangle his sanity back into place, Clurie dimly wondered if those tears hurt Chauhn as much they did him.

.. . . . ..

.. . . . ]| Aegis |[ . . . ..

In the home of Lord Yizhaq, Chauhn and Clurie discover that there are, indeed, some nice souls in the world. Chauhn accepts to become the Lord's page until they reach Shyregoad in return for shelter and protection.

.. . . . ..

.. . . . ]| Fresh |[ . . . ..

The thickening maze of trees were hypnotizing in their march past Lord Yizhaq's caravan. From where he was perched on the back of a snugly laden wagon, Chauhn let himself drift through the uncomfortably familiar terrain, his brother's resting body sprawled over his chest. While he hadn't ventured this particular area, he was familiar with it as a general. Not too long ago, he had passed through this same place, hunkered down in a cramped caravan just big enough to hold one extra body, with a bag of ashes clutched desperately to his chest. Again, he was passing under these tangled branches, yet this time he wasn't alone on his journey.

A few hours before the sun began its downward descent, the caravan stopped to set up camp. After Clurie helped with the starting of the fire, Chauhn was ordered by his new Lord to take to the nearby stream and take a bath. Which was, to Chauhn's surprise, one of the last things on his mind. Baths were not commonplace in the routine of Chauhn's life, so when he was given a clean towel and a lump of soap to bathe with, he stood dumbly for a few seconds thinking about a decent puddle of water and where he might find one. A gesture towards the stream quickly told him just what kind of bath he was intended to take, and he smiled awkwardly when he finally grasped the concept.

Holding his bequeathed items, a soap bar, towel, and set of fresh folded clothes, linens that Chauhn wouldn't have dreamed of wearing in ages, he and his little companion shuffled away from their group towards the burble and whisper of the brook, far away enough so that he could bathe in privacy, but close enough that he could hear them should they call.

Of course, upon seeing the body of water, little Clurie, who was perched on Chauhn's shoulder, gave a start and scrambled awkwardly across the folds of fabric and into Chauhn's collar where he nestled himself deep for fear of falling into the stream. "Brother!" he chirped, his voice giving a crack, "No, don't go there, there's water over there!"

"Clurie, ah need to take a bath," Chauhn asked stepping caerfully onto the shifting gravel of the brook's bank.

"I don't like water, I don't," said Clurie with a defensive cough. He spewed more ashes onto his brother's shoulder, weakly trying to wave the cloud away from his own face, "You remember what happened last time, right? I remember...Well, at least I think I do. Did I really get all wet and deadlike?"

"You did, Clurie, 'n' you scared me 'alf to death," Chauhn said, "And that's why you're stayin' up 'ere on the shore. You're not allowed to move anywhere, got it? You stay right there, 'n' then, if'n you're good, ah can get you paper."

The Phasmas' cheeks lit up with anticipation, "You will? Really?" he asked, hardly able to keep himself upright as Chauhn plucked him up by the back of his overalls. He rolled into Chauhn's hands, falling with a flail of his limbs as he was deposited on a large boulder. He crawled onto his knees to right himself onto his rump, and adjusted his cap back onto his head. From his new look out post, Clurie watched as his brother began peeling off his layers of clothes in a way that advertised his infrequency with the task. Underneath his muddied and worn layers, stiff with sweat and mud, was a thin body hidden by his too large clothing, stunted from growth by ill nutrition. Even when he was mostly protected by clothing, he was still smeared and peppered with Clurie's ash and the mud and soot that seeped through to his skin. Chauhn didn't seem too surprised by the poor state of his cleanliness, in fact, he expected it. It didn't stop him from letting his mouth dip down into a frown, though.

After divesting himself, Chauhn neatly folded his clothes and lay them on the stone where Clurie sat. "Remember, Clurie, you gotta stay put. Ah won't be too far. Ahll be righ' there where you can see me."

The Phasmas nodded absently as his brother retreated to the stream and he watched as he gingerly entered the cold water. Chauhn stiffened, his shoulders snapping back until he was able to submerge himself up to his chest and kneel in the shallow stream.

"Is it cold?" Clurie asked, his voice accented with worry.

"Very," responded the boy with a chattering of teeth, the water was everything but pleasant, but at least it was fresh. Clurie giggled a bit. Chauhn, smiling warily back at his brother, started scrubbing at the stubborn layers of dirt that covered his skin, soap in hand. Meanwhile, Clurie practiced with his ember cheeks, summoning and vanquishing the glow while keeping a watchful eye on his brother. Every so often, he would speak up with a helpful 'you missed a spot' and a giggle. Chauhn would retort back with a gentle ''ow can you even see tha'? You 'ave no eyes'. Then another quiet share of laughter.

Time, for the Clemmings brothers, had finally calmed down, and, as Chauhn washed his recently trimmed hair, buffing in a shine to his tarnished gold locks, they could finally feel at peace. They were safe, tucked underneath the wing of Lord Yizhaq and on their way to the home of Sloane, Chauhn's hero and savior, the snow-locked lands of Shyregoad.

For the first time in what seemed like ages, Chauhn and Clurie were beginning to feel light-hearted, and, when Chauhn stuck up his soapy hair into a sloppy mohawk, complemented with a cross of his eyes and a goofy smile, Clurie's laughter could be heard well throughout the surrounding stand of woods.

Life was looking up for the Clemmings boys.

.. . . . ..

.. . . . ]| The Renewing of Alliances |[ . . . ..

Along with Yizhaq, the Clemmings brothers seek a brief audience with Lady Estratus to solidify their new alliance with the Fellowship and, in doing so, reunite with Chauhn's hero.

.. . . . ..