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.. . . . ]| Warmth for Warmth |[ . . . ..

The cold and wet clung to his clothes like the recently made memories of galloping in the snow with Sloane, the sword Plague, and, as Chauhn glanced about his new room, he couldn't pry off the smile that pinned itself to his cheeks. It was no wonder that he couldn't help but smile. There were so many things turning their graces to him: His protection under Lord Yizhaq, his initiation and acceptance into the Fellowship as Augur, and his near-instant friendship with Sloane. Now he had his own room, bigger than a tea-cabinet, to call his own!

While there wasn't much else to his name but his own pairs of clothing, a leather satchel, and a hat and a couple of tools and handkerchiefs, this room had more than enough to satisfy his needs. There was a bed, an actual bed with a mattress and woven cotton blankets, heavy and warm, and even a feather down pillow, in the corner just for him and his brother, and there was also a desk and a set of heavy curtains over a small window that seemed to be a perpetual picture frame filled with white. In one corner was a wastebasket and there was a coat rack made from old wood standing guard by the door, and on the ground was a carpet from the south to protect sock-less feet from the cold hardwood. Chauhn felt like a living king, spoiled rotten and drowned deep in plush and protection.

But, unfortunately, there was just one thing missing: A place for Clurie.

When Chauhn scanned about the corners of his new room for a place for his Phasmas, some place safe that he wouldn't end up causing trouble in when (not if) he lost control of his fire magic, he was unfortunately unable to find anything suitable. Anything and everything in the room was a potential victim to Clurie's chaotic magic-wielding, and Chauhn didn't want to take the risk of burning down yet another room, and perhaps, even smoking himself out of yet another protective faction.

Scratching at his ears, Chauhn glanced down awkwardly to Clurie, who shivered and shuddered in his hands, his little mouth chattering and his arms wrapped tight about himself. Thankfully, the cold was, in a way, a kind of beneficial overseer to Clurie's rampant use of magic. Because it was so cold, Clurie was weaker, and weakness curtailed any of his efforts to start up outrageous displays of flame and firepower. Fortunately, he only had strength enough, if strength at all, to warm his cheeks and warm himself, to keep himself safe from any kind of detrimental effects the cold might have against his easily numbed little body. But, at the same time, Chauhn felt a little bit of a squeeze on his guilty heart whenever he saw Clurie shivering and rubbing uselessly at his cheeks, which sparked into a glow just hot enough to keep him content.

"It's so c-c-c-cold," Clurie commented, reaching bitterly for Chauhn's collar where it was much warmer. Chauhn obliged and tucked his brother close into his clothes, wrapping up his little brother's body the best he could.

"Stay close to me," the older Clemmings brother instructed gently, holding his hands close over Clurie's body to keep in the heat. Looking about the room for any desperate solutions he could possibly entertain for his brother's content, Chauhn bit his lip in thought. There was nothing in here that he could possibly sacrifice for his brother's content, nothing at all. There was not one thing in this place that Chauhn would feel perfectly content in offering up for Clurie to destroy. If only he had some paper...

"Tha's it!" Chauhn squeaked, his voice giving a boyish crack of excitement, "Ah know wha' t'get for you, Clurie. We can go fin' some paper, 'ow 'bout tha'?"

He could feel Clurie's excitement in the form of a burst of warmth near his neck. "Oh, please, please please, brother? Can we? I would like that ever so much! Paper! I can BURN paper!" The Phasmas regaled from his warm little nook in Chauhn's collar, "Paper would make me so happy!"

"Me too," said Chauhn with a bit of a smile, "It would make me 'appy to see you warm. Ah don't know where there's any paper 'ere, but ahm sure we can find someone to 'elp us." The Clemmings boy moved towards the door, straightening his meager clothes as best as he could before stepping out and into the long twisting hallways of the Fellowship's maze. First they had to get out of the dormitories, and then they could find someone who might help them in their quest for paper.

Hopefully, in just a few minutes time, Clurie would be happy and warm, and Chauhn would be happy just watching over him.

.. . . . ..

.. . . . ]| Targets |[ . . . ..

It started with the air.

Shyregoad air was well known for being stiff, frozen with chill, or overwhelmingly empty to the point that it weighed down upon the shoulders with a terrible heaviness. But never before had it been so tense that it shivered with electricity nearly palpable to the boy who tuned into its stress like a vulnerable weather vane. Chauhn Clemmings stood in the hall, feeling more like a piece of furniture than a Page, watching with wide eyes as the mages and members of the Fellowship rushed about with their teeth clenched tight and their knuckles gripped even tighter. Lord Yizhaq was one of the many who stalked about, a part of the operations, and he had nearly no time to spend even ordering about his Page. More often then not, when Chauhn tried to offer his services, the Lord would give him a soft plaintive look before waving him away back to his watchful post near the wall, out of the way, out of sight, and out of mind. Doing as he was told, Chauhn would do so, and, with a soft slouch of his shoulders, he would take his place, his heart heavy with the sapped stress of those around him.

If there was anything he wanted most, at that moment, it would be to do work. He needed something to keep him distracted, something to keep his hands busy, and something, therefore, that will distract his mind from entertaining images of what may come of all this tense scrambling and preparing. Every member of the fellowship that rushed before him, armor in hand and snow gear donned, only made Chauhn feel smaller and more useless. He suckled on the air, breathing in tight and quick gasps as fear began to tickle his lungs.

"Brother?"

The little voice startled Chauhn from his reveries and he glanced down to his shoulder where Clurie clung, his own little fingers twisted tight into the fabric. Like his brother, Clurie was particularly receptive to the tenseness in the air and his cheeks were warm with distress. He, unlike Chauhn, had no chance of being helpful in any way shape of form unless someone needed a light or someone to burn something, which had hardly a chance of happening. His mind, which worked in undecipherable ways and whims, was more capable than Chauhn's in imagining the kinds of horrors that the mages were preparing themselves against, and that's exactly what he had been doing for the past few hours that they had been useless and standing off to the side while the rest of the Fellowship's hive hummed with activity.

"Brother, what's going on?" asked Clurie, reaching up to pull his hat further down over his head, "Why are they all scared-like and moving around? What's happening?"

Chauhn moved his hand to his shoulder so he could place it near him in a comforting gesture, "Hush, Clurie, everythin'll be alrigh'."

"I want to know what's going on," the Phasmas piped defensively, giving a puff of his red cheeks, "Tell me, please."

"I..." Chauhn gulped and looked about him, pressing himself farther back into the wall away from the commotion. "'Onestly, Clurie," he was able to say lamely, "Ah don't know. Somethin's wrong. Ah think it 'as to do with Cultists."

"Are they coming?" asked Clurie in a frightened squeak. He knew well the horrors of the cultists, he and Chauhn both. Provided he didn't quite remember any of his encounters with the cultists, what with him being comatose or semi-conscious, everything was a inky blur of black and pitch for him. But, where Clurie found his fear for the Cultists was in his brother, how, whenever the word 'cultists' was mentioned, Chauhn would flinch or frown, or whenever the name of the Obscuvians was said, he would clench his fists and glance away. There was a fear instilled in Chauhn, a kind of seed that had taken root, and it displayed dangerous blooms of its shoots whenever the dark ones were mentioned. It would choke Chauhn, tangle him up in fears that Clurie could see as plain as day.

The Clemmings brother nodded his head slowly, giving a tell tale gulp and knit of his brows, another sign of that instilled fear, "Ah think they are, Clurie. Ah think..."

Then, Lord Yizhaq was able to break away from his gathered group of worried adults. It was time to go, he said, in a voice as soft as a creeping mist, it was time to hide.

The battle would soon begin.

----------------------------
The Wrath of Obscuvos
----------------------------

The crash and wail of voices, the distant clash and clamor, like thunder rolling in tangled heaps across the Shyregoad tundra, could still be heard through the walls of Lord Yizhaq's manor, and louder still was the sound of the door being kicked in. Chauhn and his little brother were rushing through the halls, trying to find someplace halfway descent to hide when they first caught sight of black figures lurching into the building with wild abandon. Fright nearly seized up Chauhn's ability to run if it weren't for the little gasp in his ear, the sound of Clurie yelping in shock and digging his way deeper into Chauhn's collar, and it was that sound that prompted him to move again. The sound, unfortunately, alerted the Obscuvians who, with manic grins, focused upon him: an easy target.

"Oh, 'ealth, Clurie, 'ide yourself!" Chauhn gasped, and, running headlong down the hallway where other members of Yizhaq'a cabinet ran and fled in thoughtless chaos, he searched for safety. But what safety could he find here, in a building whose corners were as easily sought out like searching for blood in the snow? Behind him, the Obscuvians tumbled along, racing with surprising speed after Chauhn's little form.

If this had been Imisus, Chauhn thought in despair as he glanced through the hall and its conjoined rooms, if this was his home, where buildings provided nooks of all shapes and sizes at nearly every turn, he could have been out of sight in the blink of an eye. There were alleyways, piles of unused junk strewn about, and places and bits of architecture that he could crawl under. There were fireplaces...Then Chauhn paused. Fireplaces! The very place that had saved him countless times before, the very area that Chauhn used as an escape route from his dying family, the very thing that Chauhn used to hide himself away so he could stay in the library after hours...there was a very such place here in this building, where Chauhn had been before with another man of Imisese descent. Slamming on his heel, throwing himself into a wall with such force that it would surely leave a bruise, Chauhn propelled himself towards the dining room and its large fireplace.

Behind him, the Cultists crowed and cawed, nearly close enough to throw a wicked dagger into the shape of Chauhn's chest with ease.

Yanking open the door to the dining room and slamming it shut behind him, Chauhn raced into the dining hall. He had to be quick, and his instincts thought quicker than his mind. Before realizing what he was doing he acted, and he raced along the dining table, picking up a heavy chair so he could heave it at the door and hopefully impede the following cultists for a few precious seconds. Then, throwing and misguiding chairs so that they fell to the ground, he raced to the other side of the room. With his heart in his throat, and his breath trapped tight in his lungs, for he dared not to even breathe, Chauhn moved over to the windows and threw one open. If he was going to hide successfully, he had to give them some kind of distraction, some kind of red herring to draw them away from his actual hiding place. With the window open, maybe they would assume he had escaped to the outside, and leave him for whatever preying Obscuvians were lurking about outside the walls of the building.

The door of the dining rattled.

Failing to squeak in fear, his body was so constricted with fear, Chauhn scrambled to the fireplace. He ignored the still warm coals that glowed beneath his feet, and, jumping into the flue, he threw his back against the still hot bricks pressed long enough so that he could slam his feet into the other side. It was with a determined shuffle, and awkward push and shove, wiggling of his shoulders, that Chauhn was able to scale a couple feet into the hot chimney, while, in the dining room, the Cultists burst in with hungry intent, their beaked masks glancing about for a scrawny boy who had disappeared into thin air. With disappointment that was expressed in their slumped shoulders and skulking movements, the cultists peered about the corners of the room and underneath the table, only to find that their potential prey had probably gone out the window. Perking their ears for other sources of mischief and potential slaughter, the cultists meandered about the room for several times more before retreating with hurried footsteps towards other places of the building.

Chauhn, tucked up and pinned tight in the shaft of the chimney, used all his strength to keep himself propped up in the dark chimney, his body hot and sweating from the coals that roasted him from underneath. He didn't care that he had ruined his Page's clothes, he didn't even care that, through the fabric, he was getting burned by the hot clay and brick that made up the chimney. In fact, he didn't even care to stay up there in the chimney until his limbs gave out.

Chauhn was going to protect himself and his brother, and, with tears blinking free from his eyes, he determined that he was going to stay in the chimney until all danger had passed from the Fellowship. He didn't know how much longer that that would be, but Chauhn was too fearful to even move. He would be trapped in the chimney for a long time to come, riding out the fearful wrath of the Obscuvian god.

.. . . . ..

.. . . . ]| Morals |[ . . . ..
|| MORALS - With a Clemmings Twist ||

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

"But that doesn't make any sense."

Chauhn slapped the flat of his palm against his forehead, looking out from underneath his palm at the little figure who confronted him. Sitting on his chest was his brother, whose mouth was skewed into a frown equally as distressed and irritated as his. Together, they were laying in the nook of a frosted building, having longed for retreat from the Fellowship and a place similar to their past places of dwelling, and Chauhn had just finished a Mishkanite story passed down to him by his eldest brother, Bradley, which was told to him by their father. It was a cute and curt tale, Chauhn thought, and he had retained some of its meaning with him, or at least, that's what he thought. As he was telling the ever story-hungry Phasmas the fable, he hoped that Clurie would understand its importance, the subtle finger-waggling message, but for naught. Clurie was none too pleased with the ending of the story and it seemed the story's message had gone completely over his head.

"O'course it makes sense," Chauhn sighed, the wear of his patience obvious in his voice, "Think again, Clurie. Wha' does the story mean?"

The Phasmas, his arms folded tightly across his chest, frowned harder, as if doing so would more clearly express his distaste. "She's stupid."

"No, Clurie," Chauhn said with another impatient sigh, "It doesn't mean tha'. The story is supposed to teach somethin' to you, like a life lesson. Try once more, 'n' really try, alrigh'? Ah don't wan' to tell you the story all over again."

"How many tries do I get?"

"Three, 'n' you already used one."

Giving a tilt of his head, Clurie furrowed his mouth and accented it with a haughty glow of his cheeks, "The girl went out to the forest by herself with a picnic and gotten eaten by a bunch of wolves. I think the moral of the story is...: Wolves make poor dinner guests."

Chauhn rubbed at his temples with his fingers, straining to comprehend the logical train wreck that was Clurie's perpetual state of mind, "Oh, Clurie...That's not it, either."

"Don't be cute?"

Chauhn blinked and opened his eyes, trying to digest what Clurie had used as his second guess, "Wha'?"

"My last guess. It's 'Don't be cute'," Clurie rubbed at his cheeks and gave a smile, "I heard this once before, brother, from Sloane. He told me that I was SOOOOO cute, that he could just eat me up. I guess the girl was too cute, just like me, so she was eated up. There we go! I figured it out. The moral of the story is: Don't be cute!" Clurie rubbed at his cheeks until they glowed a hot fiery red, "...But that's going to be hard for me. I'm the cutest cute since cute came to cute town!"

Chauhn face-palmed once more.

"Sloane told me that, too, in case you're wondering."

.. . . . ..

.. . . . ]| Show Must Go On |[ . . . ..

The coldness, for once, was something that Chauhn regretting leaving. For the extra hour that the Clemmings boy stood in the snow, awkwardly shuffling after his Lord while he did his investigation while the evidence was fresh. Every step was coupled with a downward turn of the head, his eyes, wide and white-rimmed, gawking at the carnage trampled into the folds of snow. Each twisted and snapped limp, every newborn Excito too broken to save and black remnant, was startlingly stark against the white and muddied brown. Chauhn pulled up his scarf and wrapped it up loosely around his neck, covering up the Excito that huddled together in his collar so that they couldn't see. All the meanwhile, though, he savored the cold.

It numbed him. The attention he would've otherwise spent on the nauseous grind and curl of his guts as they tried to retch up the bitter taste of terror was diverted to keeping his toes and extremities from freezing up. His stiff toes squelched in his soaked boots when he wiggled them, forcing them to keep alive against the bite of cold, and he hopped and shuffled, his teeth chattering against one another so hard that he thought he might very well lose his jaw. The cold was so intense, so sharp, but Chauhn welcomed it in favor against the sick feelings that burbled and festered in his gut and mind. When Lord Yizhaq announced the end of his surveillance, Chauhn felt a bit of that numbness, a bit of the shield of ice had had barricaded himself with, give way to the slam of reality.

Tucked into the seats of Yizhaq's carriage, which had returned to them after dropping off the others of their group, Chauhn had little else to distract him from the muffled shimmering and shivering bells in his collar. Yizhaq was quiet, intent on recalling every detail from his investigation and Chauhn knew that it would be foolish to beg distraction from him. He loosened his scarf, opening it up so that the bell Plagues and Clurie were allowed to see the world once more. But then stayed tightly knit into one another, still choking on words that wouldn't come. Clurie was the only one to move from them and it took him a struggled stumble and a wiggle to pry himself free from the five bell Excito that crowded around Chauhn's neck. He moved to his brother's shoulder, crawling there unnoticed, until he was able to be seen. With a little cough of ashes and a mumble, Clurie spoke.

"Brother?"

Chauhn looked down to him, his eyes dry and red from stress and his mouth pulled into a small frown. He shook his head, just barely, a motion that demanded further silence from the Ash Plague. With a gentle nudge, he pushed his brother back towards the safety of his collar with the other Excito, where he would be most safe. It was like that, quiet and sullen, avoiding any eye contact, that the Clemmings and the Bells made their journey in the carriage back to the Lord's Estate.

The welcome back to his Manor was nothing more than a gasp and a thickened silence, a syrupy kind of quiet that drowned out the words of anyone other than Lord Yizhaq to Chauhn. He could hear little from the present, his ears still ringing with the screams of the crowds. For those that would see him, though, Chauhn leveled his face and seared it taut with the brimstone of bitter ire, taking on the silence like that of a soldier who had nothing more to say on the battle he had seen. His brows were drawn heavy over his eyes and his mouth pinched itself back so that it was neither a frown nor a grimace, just a line that failed to move unless Chauhn was prompted to speak. It was fairly quick that Chauhn was dismissed from service, just after he relinquished the single Bell Excito that was Yizhaq's responsibility unto him, and quicker still was Chauhn's pace back to his quarters. As he walked, he could hear the squelch of his boots, soaked in a gross kind of soup of snow, mud, blood, and taint, as if the very squelch were in his ears, and louder was the jingle and chime of the four Excito bells that clung to his collar with his little brother.

Stepping into his small quarters, Chauhn accidentally slammed the door behind him, his arms possessing an unforeseeable strength. The Bells in his collar all gave a jump and a high-pitched yelp, and it was to them that Chauhn began a frantic coo and hush.

"No, no, wee ones, little ones, it's alrigh', it's alrigh'..." he said, his voice a painful wobble as he maneuvered his way to a pine table of simple construction. Gently, he unlaced his scarf from about his collar and set it over the back of a chair that was tucked beneath the table. Upon taking it off, though, he discovered just how dirty it was. There was no sign nor hint of the color that it had been once before, a dark paper hue, like the underside of freshly stripped bark. It had been entirely died with darkening swaths of auburn red, of darker still stains of black that he could immediately recognize that were not Clurie's messes of dust and ash, freezing the scarf into an odd shape that cracked and sighed as he forced it out of its chilled shape. It took Chauhn a few moments to break his gaze from the scarf, forcing back a shiver of fear in favor of tending to those who were possessed by it. Namely, the Bells and little Clurie.

Holding his hands in front of his neck, carefully weaving a platform with his fingers and palms, Chauhn urged them to step forth. With a little coaxing from Clurie, they spilled together into his palm, small and jingling, and awkward moving since their arms were all wrapped about one another. Clurie was dragged along in the huddle, his own arms and grip somehow unable to free themselves from the one silver Bell that he was clinging to. Then, Chauhn carefully deposited them onto the table, making sure that none of them fell before he took back his hands and kicked out the chair from underneath the table with the hook of his heel.

"Alrigh' now, little ones, 'n' Clurie," he said, using his best big brother voice, "Wha' needs to 'appen firs' is we take care o' ourselves. Go' it?" There were no nods from his miniature audience, so he continued, "We need to clean up, but, more importantly, we need to make sure everyone's alrigh'. We're going to be together now, you're goin' to be stayin' wit' me. All o' you."

At those comforting words, the Bells, two silver boys, and two golden girls, seemed to brighten. Their four sets of shoulders relaxed and they glanced about at one another to agree on the matter. By all appearances, it seemed like they would stay. After all, it would be far better than being left to freeze solid in the snow. Clurie, in this instance, gave his best encouraging smile, nodding his head ever so gently.

Happy enough to have earned their content, Chauhn sat himself down in the chair, lowering himself so that he was closer to the level.

"If'n any o' you are hurt, you need to 'elp 'im, 'n' take care o' it as best as possible. Ah can 'elp you get bandages 'n' clean cloth, napkins 'n' such, but it'll be 'ard for me to 'elp you," he backed up his claim with a display of his hands, which were scuffed, bloodied and torn in their fingerless gloves, "My 'ands can't do such small work. But, Clurie, my brother, will 'elp you. 'E's a good boy."

He gave a nod at his brother, who, likewise, gave a nod back. Eased by the thought that his brother would be helping the four Bells, Chauhn cleared his throat of the chokes that were slowly gathering up like lumps of lard. "'N' after tha', you all need to clean yourselves up. You can catch a cold, all wet 'n' dirty like you are. Besides, we're 'n a Lord's Manor, 'n' we need to be decent. Even if we weren't in no place better than the streets, we still try 'n' keep ourselves clean. Bein' clean is showin' your pride."

Then, lifting himself up out of his seat, the boy set himself about, busing his hands with plucking up useful tidbits like handkerchiefs, napkins, a roll of bandages and some thimbles, from the few cabinets and drawers in his sparsely furnished rooms. From his own clothing stash, he pulled out his newer hat, which he wore when he was out doing duties or visiting Sloane. Juggling his items from one hand to the other, Chauhn picked up a half-filled pitcher, foggy with cold, and he was set. With his load of collected items, Chauhn deposited them on one side of the table, and set them out for the Excitos to see.

"See, all this, this is for you to use," he said, taking his hat and lining it with a careful fold of his handkerchiefs. He tried to make it as comfortable as possible. The Plagues looked on with white black eyes, watching attentively, "This righ' 'ere is goin' to be where you rest 'n' sleep. 'N' the napkins ahll rip into shreds so you can use them to clean yourself up 'n' bind any 'urt. Ah also 'ave some bandages 'ere for you too."

Content with the state of the makeshift bed, Chauhn set his hat on the side of the table closest to his bedside. Having that done, he set up a couple thimbles with water from the pitcher (which is in his room for Clurie's sake, considering his frequency of accidents concerning ember and hot ash) and delicately balanced them on the table. He pointed to them as he set the pitcher back down in its place. "You can use these to 'elp ge' yourself clean," he said, "Get the cloth wet 'n' stuff. Don't worry about makin' a mess. Ahll clean it up later."

With the Excitos all set up for the oncoming evening, Chauhn quietly stepped away as Clurie ushered them to distract themselves from the woe of the slaughter by cleaning themselves of the stains. He knew he was next to follow suit. So, shuffling to the closet room adjacent to his that was used as a bathing room, he left the door open and knelt before the basin that he had filled with water before he left for the carnival. With water being so hard to keep unfrozen in their snow bound home, it was customary for Chauhn to ready his bath a few hours early and let the copper basin warm above simmering coals. He dipped his hand into the water to discover that it was manageable at best, not chilly, but enough to make him regret not stoking the coals. Reaching for a towel, he dipped it in, wrung it with his hands and set it aside on the edge, ready to wipe himself down with.

With a heavy sigh, an attempt to release the tension in his shoulders, Chauhn looked down at himself to be punched with a shock of horror. His clothes were no better than the scarf he had divested of himself earlier. They were scuffed and torn underneath the layers of crusted and frosted blood, stiffened with the taint that was all over his body. For a few moments he was still. Unable to breathe, nonetheless blink, he felt himself encased in those clothes, in that blood and stain that wasn't his...But another person's. The blood of a boy and the blood of his tainted sister. The blood of family.

Like a back draft of fire lit by a rush of air, Chauhn's chest flared up in fear and before he could swallow, his shoulders rolled forward and his gut heaved. In a thoughtless attempt to stop himself, he planted his palm over his mouth, only to choke and dribble chunks into his fingers with fitful coughs. His eyes welled up with heat and he lurched forward, leaning into the basin to spill what gross and lumpy residue he could into the water. After a few moments of his helpless heaving, the boy was able to lean back and stare at the gross mess that now swam in what was supposed to be his bath, his wet eyes blinking furiously.

Feverish was his breathing, and leaning back, pulling away the strands of his hair that managed to get stuck on the wet of his lips, Chauhn attempted to straighten himself up to quell his stomach. He closed his eyes for a few moments, but the blackness that came with it gave way to frightful images, the memory of the boy choking up a bloodied blade. Chauhn startled again, looked down at his clothes, to see that very blood, again, upon him, and he wasted no more time in ripping off his clothing, tearing it from him and throwing it to the far corner of the room. Divested of his clothing, he was bare, but still, somehow not rid of the terrible stain. The blood and taint had seeped through the clothing and adhered itself to his skin. Chauhn gave a choked cry, his movements already weak and trembling, but panic was the energy that drove him. He ripped the moist towel he had readied from its perch and pushed it against his arms and skin, frantically rubbing off the blood that painted him with unwanted memories.

He didn't want to remember that fear, remember the look in the wild eyes of that stricken boy, a boy who was not too much unlike himself. He could very well be in that boy's same position...No, he already had been in that very place, and Chauhn feared that role, of being uncertain whether he could influence life or death, not just of himself, but of another being, with every shivering fiber in his body. There, upon that stage, an island among murder and death, he was privy to the kind of terror that could rend to shreds and lifeless weight the one thing he held dearer to himself than his very life, his brother Clurie. He was uncomfortably pressed near to the mortality of death itself, of that boy's Plague sister, and that alone was enough to prove to him again that Clurie, although reborn in death, was not invulnerable to it. Clurie could die, just like that Bell Locos did.

That, in and of itself, was something that Chauhn couldn't stomach. His brother was someone that he needed, not for company, not for talk, or for the selfish sake of not being the last, but for the security of family. He, unfortunately, was but a boy, stretched into this odd state of stunted and expedited growth, where he was, unfortunately, still a child, but shunted into adult roles of work and responsibility. Such jobs and duties he could handle, he was good at it, but the bottom line was that Chauhn still needed family, still needed someone to assure him that 'everything is going to be okay', 'it's alright', 'that's all'.

Which left Clurie to take up that role, which meant it was Chauhn's necessity to protect him no matter what the cost. Clurie was his brother after all, his family. No matter what that golden eyed Locos claimed, Adal was wrong. Clurie was no one other than his brother. Just as that Bell Locos was the sister to that boy. Had he not heard the scream? Did he not see the wild look in that boy's eyes, the dangerously dependent gleam in his gaze? They were brothers, no matter what, and Chauhn didn't care if Adal came to understand that or not. He would punch him again if he had to.

When the scrubbing had rubbed Chauhn's skin to a bright and irritated red, he was finally convinced that he was clean, thoroughly rid of that terrible stain. He was still unshaken, deeply wounded by the massacre, but he was to a point where he would start a slow and cankered healing process. Slowly, he was able to push his way up onto his feet from where he had been on the floor curled up next to the water basin soupy with the contents of his own stomach, and he resolved to dump the basin later. His arms, as they were, were too weak to heft such a weight. Instead, he shoved the blood-stained towel into the corner with his other forgotten clothes and left the room. Chauhn pulled the door shut behind him, and tip-toed his way over to his drawers, close to the table where the Plagues had since crawled into the hat to sleep amongst themselves, to pull out his clean bed clothes. Weariness drew the clothes over his head, and he pulled them tight about him, quietly mourning his lack of thicker fabrics to keep away the cold. Sloppy movements carried him over to his small cot, and he crawled within it, but when he laid down and curled up beneath the draw of his sheets, he realized that he wouldn't be properly tucked in, a cold fact that he recalled whenever he laid himself down for rest.

For some time yet, he would lay wide-eyed and frightened, reluctant to close his eyes and enter the theater of his mind that would be replaying the carnival, blood-washed stage and all, girl-pinned wheel, boys retching up blades, and dark figures all masked with white. In his head, he could hear the resounding scream of that boy, a single heart-rending shriek of "sister, sister, sister...". But the closer Chauhn paid attention to that scream, the more it sounded like he were screaming "Brother, brother brother..."

.. . . . ..

.. . . . ]| A Walk in the Market |[ . . . ..

On another one of their many chores for Lord Yizhaq, the Clemmings brothers find themselves in the market in the trail of a thief. Can Chauhn bring the foreign woman to justice? Or will she teach him yet another lesson of the street?

.. . . . ..

.. . . . ]| The Growing Darkness |[ . . . ..

After the events in Shyregoad, Chauhn's lord Yizhaq must travel for a time to Imisus for dealings in interest of the Fellowship. Before his lord leaves, however, Chauhn finds himself confronted by the apparent growing darkness within.

.. . . . ..

.. . . . ]| The Dawn |[ . . . ..

For some time, the building was quiet. Quiet pervaded in the hallways and slept in the rooms, muffling any sound of sleepy breaths or uncomfortable turnings and burying under the cold. It was quiet all throughout the gargantuan place, save for one tiny series of pops in a tiny little bedroom made by a tiny little figure with a tiny little mouth flipped over into a frown. Clurie had been staring at the door for a several hours now, and already he had dozed off about three times while waiting for his brother to return. Each time he realized that he was nodding off, leaning deeper and deeper over his knees, he woke up expecting for Chauhn to be returning into their shared room, pulling off his cold stiff jacket from his shoulders and smiling at him with warmth despite the cold clinging to his cheeks. Each time, he was greeted with the same empty room, a barely flickering candle perched on the small night table casting shadows on their meager furniture and few belongings as well as a closed door. The family of Notclemms, the Bell Excitos that had been saved not so long ago, were fast asleep in Chauhn's hat, which had become a permanent place of residence for them. Long ago they had passed out waiting for Chauhn to return, curled up into each other, their jingles and jangles of sound muffled by a blanket-turned scarf. Clurie checked to his sides and behind him, half-expecting and half-hoping that perhaps Chauhn had crawled into bed behind him and passed out from weariness. The blankets were undisturbed, besides his own scatterings of ash and soot. There was no trace of his brother to be found.

Clurie rubbed at his face, feeling tired, and the friction of his hands across his cheeks managed to warm them into a dull glow. Stretching his mouth from hours of no use, the little Plague reached up and knotted his arms behind him, stretching his torso and legs. Perhaps if he kept himself awake, his brother would return all the more sooner. Simple thinking, sure, but there was little else for him to do. He was by himself, sitting near the edge of a comparably giant bed, ignoring orders to go to sleep, and coughing up a halo of ash all about him on the heavy blankets.

With an exasperated sigh, Clurie let his form slouch from the weight of sleep, "How long does it take to fetch firewood...It's already near..." Clurie looked up, just in time to catch the sight of the candle sinking into its own wax, choking itself into smoke. Clurie's heart sunk, but it wasn't out of the loss of candlelight. There was still light in the room, a soft hazy glow, but light all the same, and it wasn't from the flame. Clurie took a few moments to gulp and wet his throat from an ironically dawning fear, "...Near daybreak."

Chauhn, Clurie realized, would have been gone for more than eight hours. It wouldn't take anyone, even the slowest of mages, to gather a decent amount of firewood, especially if it was his brother, and even more so if he was helping Sloane. They wouldn't have been gone this long, Clurie knew, something had to have happened out there in the dark, a dreadful mistake on the tundra. For a moment, Clurie felt relieved when he realized that Chauhn was with Sloane, the local hero, but his comfort was quickly abolished again by the unusual passing of time. Even if something did happen, Sloane and he would've returned sometime in the night even more so. Worry seized up in his gut and with a choke that was meant to be a series of exclamations, he scrambled up onto his feet, falling repeatedly into the sheets until he was able to comfortably lurch forward in sync with his speed. With his pauper's hat bouncing on his head and into his face, he slid onto and over the edge of the bed, twisting himself about before he fell off of the plush cliff to cling onto the blankets. He had done this many times before, figuring out quickly his routes and methods of moving about the room in his brother's absence. Skiing down the sheets, Clurie fell unceremoniously onto the floor in a cloud of ash, coughing onto his knees as he readjusted his legs. He allowed little time for respiration before he was up on his feet again and skittering to the door. Sliding onto his knees, he wedged himself between the gap between the door and the floor and pushed his little body through, crawling easily in the space until he came out on the other side. Pushing himself onto his feet again, the little Phasmas looked up at the overwhelmingly huge hallway before him, a cold and labyrinthine puzzle that he, despite being carried through it, never learned.

His cries started with a soft shout, as if he were afraid to break the silence, "Brother?" But when Clurie realized that his voice, already so small, was eaten up by the looming monster of silence, he raised his raspy chords as high and loud as he could possibly go, screaming the name of his Grimm over and over. Without much direction, but entirely led by desperation, Clurie jogged out into the shadow filled hallway, searching for a brother that was already long gone. "Chauhn!"

.. . . . ..