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Never was there as poignant a threat as that which spilled like acid from Adal's pale cold touched lips. Acid, which, when dripped onto Chauhn, began melting through as easily as water through gravel. Yet stand there he did, taking the beaded strand of words as if he were being bequeathed a sacred rosary, his chin firmly set and his brows carefully narrowed. Death, Chauhn was coming to discover, wasn't a rare thing to be scared of, some monstrous fantasy birthed from the whispered words of fables. It was something he had to face every day, and, facing it now, here, promised death by Adal, the ocher eyed Plague, did nothing to phase Chauhn.

At least, at that moment.

He didn't realize it then, but the seed Adal had so carefully sewn was quickly taking root in the heart of the Clemmings 'brothers'. It festered and grew at a rapid rate, tucked carefully in that warm and moist place between the nooks and crannies of the brothers' ribs where it would grow best, and they, being blind to the Plague's deed, would never see it coiling its suffocating grip of slime and root about their hearts until it was too late. Adal had promised them a thing worse than death, and even though he couldn't hazard a fathom as to what exactly it was, it was there. The deed was done.

Outside, as the Plague stormed away, shoulders bristling and fingers aching to squeeze themselves tight around quickly pulsing jugulars, Chauhn was trying his best to simply catch his breath. Fitfully he blinked, his throat and mouth desperately trying to wet their dry cracked passages with each swallow, until he gazed helplessly past Georgie and at nothing. He couldn't see it, but his face was drained of blood and his hands were tightly clenched about the hem of his own jacket.

Clurie, who was equally as shocked and dazed as his Grimm, was scrambling back onto the shoulder from where he had slipped, clambering tightly onto Chauhn's neck. He refrained from shocking his brother with another unsaid blaze of his hands, and instead, pulled at his strands of hair and his earlobe, whispering Chauhn's name until at last, he got a response.

"Chauhn! Chauhn, hey...Chauhn!" the Phasmas squeaked, he gave another desperate pull, "CHAUHN!"

The urchin slipped free from his trance, and he looked down to his shoulder with the gaze of one who had been locked in a dark small room for years, a weary, exhausted looking gaze. But there he was, Chauhn Clemmings, a ghost of the self he had been but ten minutes ago, a cheerful excited young Page who was taking his younger brother to the carnival.

"Clurie," Chauhn said, his voice soft and caring, strained from the effort he had just taxed upon his throat. He offered a gentle hand to his shoulder where he caught Clurie's small body, and he held him up to his face, giving his Plague an affectionate nuzzle. "Ahm sorry, Clurie, ah didn't mean to scare you. It's all over now, it's all over."

The Phasmas, opened his arms to hug his brother's cheek, smearing a Clurie-sized smudge of ash along his skin. He was still shaking, and the act of hugging his brother was, unfortunately, a hesitant one. But...Glad he was nonetheless, despite the wailing voices and questions in his head. He couldn't manage to mutter something back to his brother, but try he did, and what resulted was a pitiful series of mumbles.

"Shh, shh..." Chauhn whispered, holding his brother gently, he mustered up his best encouraging smile, which trembled and wobbled as he tried to hold it steady. "Tha's it...Tha's it. That's all." For a moment, any onlooker would've had trouble determining who was being comforted. After a couple given moments of quiet, he carefully lowered his brother from his face, lowering him down to hover close to his collarbone. He couldn't continue comforting his younger brother now, there was someone else here to tend to.

Chauhn sucked up a breath and moved to Georgie, like he was approaching a rabid dog or a terrified rabbit. "Georgie...ah don't know wha' t'say. Ahm sorry this 'appened. If'n there's anythin' ah can do t'make up for it?" He left the question hanging, and, gingerly, he placed an apologetic hand on Georgie's shoulder.

Around them, the distilled crowd murmured and sighed, bulging with the kind of silence that blistered ripe before the break of a storm.

Weakness is no easy thing to deal with, especially when it is weakness in others much like himself. Chauhn was witnessing it now, in Georgie. It is a strange and terrible kind of feeling, to see that rawness so often felt in his own chest ripped out and displayed instead on a near reflection. It almost served like a dual mirror effect, reflecting in upon itself over and over again, intensifying without limit. Before that kind of energy could burst, however, Chauhn clasped Georgie on the shoulder with both hands. He learned this trick from his older brother, Bradley.

"Georgie," he said slowly so that he could sound out each syllable. It was supposed to have a comforting effect. "Tha's it. Tha's all. Tha's all it is, Georgie." Again, he tried to force up that forgiving smile, something that wobbled just as much as Georgie's voice. There was never a physical task as hard as trying to keep that smile from faltering, but Chauhn did his damned hardest. Right now, Chauhn was nothing else but "the big brother".

"Come on, then," he said, speaking to both himself and Georgie at that point, as he clapped his hand on Georgie's cheek. That was another thing his brother used to do, like a gentle slap back into reality. And, making sure that Clurie was safe and secure on his shoulder, Chauhn slipped his arm about Georgie's shoulder, trying to be as comforting as possible. He started leading him towards the front of the nearby stage, their meandering hardly bothered by the obstruction of straying people in their wake. "It'll be a terrific finale, ahm sure..." he said, his own voice giving a boyish break, "'n' we'll all see it."

Meanwhile, in his gut, stirred an unpleasant feeling, a brew of something vile and disgusting, that threatened to overflow. It was this feeling that Clurie also shared in as he clung on the shoulder that was between Georgie and his brother, his little hands wrapped tight into the folds of fabric. Things weren't right, Clurie knew, things were not right at all.

And he had a feeling that their explosive argument with Adal was just the start of it.

But still, the trio wandered to the stage, their soaked boots sloshing in the wet mud and snow as they pressed close to the dim lighting of the front stage.

There was a tinge of sour distaste that didn't leave Adal's mouth and made him scowl, as he pushed past the crowd in an irritable dispossession, a kind of spell that took him away from everything around him. He was trapped in thought. He couldn't stand it.

Adal's footsteps crunched against the snow at rapid pace. He masked his face with a single hand as his footing slowed, and he was left to mull against the slushy street, just barely nudging and making past the slightest touch of the shoulders.

No.

He couldn't-- lose-- his temper-- no, he didn't lose his temper. His frustration was justified, wasn't it? The Locos looked around the festival grounds and blinked wearily, trapped in a seeping, aching daze. He remembered words, loud, loud words coming out of his own mouth, and loud, loud actions seeping out of Chauhn, and seeping out of Georgie, but he couldn't make out what-- he could remember the surging wave of heat smother his face in an thrashing, livid typhoon.

As he blinked and stared wearily up at the fading, vague shadows and dull colors of people, dressed in burlap. They were all vague memories, figures that phased past him like ghosts, and they moved too quickly for him to comprehend in his bewildered state.

His shoulders drooped in defeat as he stared at the colorless masses, then spotted the worried eye of the Easterner not far away. Rubbing the ends of his eyes with his pale fingers, Adal merely shook his head, one foot moving backwards like a swaying anchor.

"What. What do you want."

His voice was low, too quiet to hear through the crowd. His feet were slowly backing away against the snow, as his head rocked backwards and gave off an exasperated, anguished sigh.

He couldn't get himself to move any quicker.

- Two candlemarks after the announcement, and the performance starts! -

The bell boy received the Shillings with relative grace, nodding his head courteously as he handed each customer bells. Each shined with the light of the paper lanterns, and was a dazzling gold or silver. Whether or not they were actually metal, however, was to be known, and certain questionable men merely bit into it to see if they were real. By the end of it, the jingling of serene bells trailed off toward the distance, to the center stage; the boy was as slow as a snail, and he heeded no mind to the plentiful crowd that loomed behind him to hurry toward the show.

Queen Valhalla's throne was properly moved to its place near the back of the stage, where her elevation was raised to match that of the heights of her castle seat, and a handful of guards were stationed at her side, armed with spears. She waved dutifully at the citizens that passed her place, a gentle smile warming her pale face.


A clear dirt pathway led to the looming, lit grounds of the stage at the center of the plaza. People shoved and pulled and nudged their way through the crowd with relative ease, squeezing themselves nearest to the front as humanely possible. Drunkards and poor men strayed near the ends of the crowd in an attempts to appease the hearts and good wills of the more well-off people of the festival, making a harsh choir of uneven beats with each clang of their hollowed knapsack bags the size of their hands, in which Shillings clamored against the surface like awkward sea tides. Children clung to the edge of the stage with tiny, cold hands, with their red noses poking up at the center stage, their marble eyes glimmering with awe at the flurry of color that swallowed the shadows of the backstage.

Then, a man, the same man whose outfit dazzled amidst the crowd when his booming voice announced the eventuality of the performance at hand, and whose peaked nose and pointed goatee flared with pride as he beckoned forth a toothy grin, appeared in front of the stage. He flung the purple cloak about his shoulders by his extended arms, and the cloth behind him flailed vividly as the winds grew harsher with the setting day. One of his gloved hands clung tightly to a staff, whose head resembled a duck. Its red beak pointed out at the crowd, its eyes an embroidered black diamond.

"Come one, come all, gentlemen and mine fine, fine ladies, yes, step right forth, be sure to grab a good spot, m'folks, for you're about to experience the performance of the CENTURY!"

With the sound of a sundering applause, the man bowed and trailed off through the tangle of red curtain, as a pair of women stepped out from either side of the stage. Their embroidered masks sang with color and gold as they twirled and landed at the center of the oaken pedestal; they swung out their arms and bowed, their white outfits gleaming with silver. With a hop and a swing, the two stepped backwards as another triumphant trio skittered to the center stage; two burly men, their masks of wooden owls, held a giant wheel of fortune and lugged it forward-- the wheel was about as big as them, and the red and white paint was fading with age.

The third man, or rather, boy, was perched atop of the wheel of fortune, his legs swinging freely as the two circus grunts placed the wheel onto the ground, and stomped off. His mask was a canary yellow to match the rest of his dainty, laced outfit, and only covered half of his face; with a gleaming smile, he waved toward the crowd and leaped off of the wheel with a bow.

"Velcome," he started, his voice as mousy as his demeanor, "Genteelmen and ladies, an' we are pleased to honor you all wit' ze performance finale of ze Troupe de Panymium, as my ezteemed cohort Absol'm has pointed out... an', now, folks, ve are not a talkative type. Widout furzer ado, wit' your enthusiazm, we introduce to you..."

The boy stepped back, his back leaned forward, "Ze finest troupe in all of Profugus!"

As he turned, a flurry of color lit the stage in an explosion of color, as the esteemed performers of previous showings came forth in a wild dance, where their quickened footsteps drummed against the floor quicker than a heart could beat. A rush of music burst forth from behind the curtains, with trumpets blaring in a cheerful remedy.

... Well then.

To say the least, Theo felt rather affronted by the sudden dismissal, if one could even call it that. The woman and Plague had instead chosen to ignore his question and merge into the crowd. He didn't even bother to tuck Ophelia back into the hidden safety of his coat, and the little Caedos turned her deadpan eyes towards her master. The heavy lids pulled upward as though in concern.

"Is everything alright?" she asked in her even tone. But Theo shook his head and raised his hand as the boy distributing bells passed. Ophelia watched the exchange distantly as her Grimm received the bell and gave the boy the shillings he needed in return.

"Here." Theo offered the bell to the Plague, who took it in her small hands and returned the gesture with a gesture of confusion by tilting her head. "Don't look at me like that, it's alright." His gaze returned towards the stage, where the set-up was taking place for the final performance. "I have no desire to seek this stranger's approval, even if she did seem rather familiar. The rudeness was inexcusable, but I am not that eager to get her favor. Lesson to be learned." He nodded the last part toward Ophelia, who nodded to indicate she would keep this bit in mind. "Come now, let's go see the final performance. We came all this way."

"I do hope it makes up for the disappointment thus far." Ophelia's words sounded so old. She was an old woman in an infant Plague's body, he mused. The bell jingled near his ear as she repositioned herself on his shoulder and cinched a hand tightly on his collar, and the two moved closer to the main event. As they moved along, Theo caught sight of his Lady's guardian Sloane speaking to what looked like a small collection of rather important looking people.

"It seems Lady Sage has come out for the event as well," Theo noted when he noticed the back of the woman's raven head. But given that there were so many gathered already, he would put off an encounter for now. Instead the two moved on, towards view the grand finale and both hoping that it would have made this journey worth it.

Theo and Ophelia nudged their way through the crowd, and as the former priest glanced around he couldn't help but begin to feel anxious again. To ease the feeling he gave the Caedos a small push back into the safety of his coat, where she instead wriggled free and grumbled loudly at such treatment. He may have been her master, but he should let her ride out proudly! Sir Sloane got to walk around freely, so she should be allowed to show herself just as much as he, shouldn't she?

As though to quell an oncoming chastising, a woman's voice caught Theo and Ophelia's attention, and the two looked over towards where Sloane and Lady Sage stood, accompanied by others. The man gave a bit of a start when he recognized the woman who must have spoken - it had been a day for seeing ghosts from his past, certainly. But even more surprising was the sight of a white-petaled Plague in her company.. another Caedos, just as Ophelia was. He overlooked the rude comment that the little Plague had made towards him (Arab indeed, he looked nothing of the sort) and offered the woman the tip of his head.

"I must say this is rather surprising." He couldn't keep his eyes from glancing at the snappish little flower. Felicity's words echoed his own thoughts very accurately. "To see you again after so long and to find you have a Plague as well.. you seem to have echoed my thoughts exactly." Ophelia's little mouth pressed into a firmer frown and glanced around at the immediate party - at least the ones who were the most interesting to her at the moment, being Sloane and the strange flower Plague. Despite the snappish comment though, Ophelia was curious to know more of this Plague, just as she had been curious to know more about the strange one-armed one they had encountered earlier, whose company she had been denied by his keeper's blunt retreat. It certainly passed the time in this dirty, frozen place. Chances are another demand for apology would push this one away, so she would instead try for an ally. She had taken Theo's words into consideration; it had been a lesson to be learned. Now she would profit from this learned tact.

"I must admit I have not seen another like myself yet. Not quite like myself, anyway."

Like ripples in a muddy puddle rebounding off the shallow shores of a cobblestone road, Chauhn felt the after effects of his and Adal's intense argument rippling through his body, stealing away what energy and forced will he had left to keep his composure in check. The adrenaline he was relying on was fast fading and standing beside Georgie, who sniffled and hiccuped, on the brink of tears as he awkwardly moved and glanced about as if to check for his brother, did little to support his own wobbling self. He was a weary soldier, who, recently disengaged from an intense verbal barrage, could hardly keep himself on his feet. Chauhn, like his human companion, began to sniffle in the n** of the cold, wiping at his frost-kissed nose and licking his rose-hued lips as the blare and noise of the beginning of the finale performance began to unfold itself from the center stage. They were close to the front, pressed forward into a group of their own age, dirty and eager children much like themselves and younger, as they swelled and blinked their fish-like eyes at the colorful characters streaked out upon the stage.

Clurie, on his shoulder, was immediately distracted, and he twisted himself on Chauhn's shoulder as the boy moved and glanced about, checking on Georgie, and checking on their surroundings, so that, at all times, he was facing the stage, his mouth gaped open in a wide sigh of awe. The events of the recent past were nothing more but quickly scattered memories by this point, and Clurie could only think of the fire breathers that might come back out on stage. He wanted to see them dearly!

The snag of his sleeve in Georgie's hands was what snapped Chauhn free from a dangerous retrogression into his thoughts, of the things that Adal had said. Glancing up, startled, he had to lift the bill of his hat to see his companion and just who Georgie was pointing at. The boy was quiet, but the look of confusion was clear on his face, a question, did he know this person?

And for a few minutes, Chauhn was inclined to throw the question back at Georgie, The woman who was calling out their names, hardly audible in the crowd against the hoots and hollers of an eager crowd, was hard to recognize for Chauhn. With all the clothes bundled about her chin, effectively disguising her from quick recollection, he didn't have the faintest idea to who she was, even when her voice quite clearly called out his and Georgie's names. It took her another struggled yards of forward moment, so that she was in better sights, for Chauhn to remember a certain familiarity about her. Wiping at his reddened eyes, Chauhn blinked and then it hit him. It was the kind lady from the street, the lady with a Phasmas like his own.

"Oh," Chauhn gasped, giving a tentative and half-hearted wave at the woman, before glancing to Georgie worriedly. He wasn't sure if either of them were ready for another encounter at this very moment in time, but whether he wanted to dissuade the lady or not was not within his power to do. "That's...Uh...Ah can't remember 'er name, bu' she's a kind lady. Whot wit' a Phasmas like mine. Georgie, ahm sure you've met 'er before if'n you see everyone's Plagues all the time."

"Elsie?" came the small suggestion from his shoulder. Chauhn blinked, looking down at Clurie who, having overheard the conversation had taken a peak of his own in the approaching woman's direction. After receiving a confirming nod from Chauhn, the Plague happily clapped his hands together, throwing up a puff of ash and sparks, before turning about again to make sure he didn't miss anything important in the show.

"Yes...Elsie," Chauhn warily watched hi brother, his rare instance of recollection shocking him for much longer than it took for the kind woman to close the distance between them. "'Ello, mum," Chauhn said weakly, his voice straining to break, "Enjoyin' the show?"