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.. . . . ]| The Trace |[ . . . ..
March 15, 1411

With help from Sloane, Yizhaq hunts down the Clemmings, discovering them, not only broken and weary in the Malt's abandoned cabin, but also in the aftermath of an Anhelo's growth. With Clurie as a grown plague and with Chauhn as a woeful sinner, they return to the Fellowship, the future for the boys decided.

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.. . . . ]| Freedom |[ . . . ..
March 15, 1411

With a stomp and a bristle of his shoulders, an unwillingly named Clurie Clemmings dove into his appointed room, closing the door without care for Adal who might be following close behind. He wanted to have anything and everything in between him and the shaking sobbing form of his once brother Grimm. He gently wrestled the strap of the Excito satchel over his shoulder and settled it on a nearby desk, absently opening the latch so that those within could tumble out whenever they were ready, and without a second thought, he jumped towards one of the two beds stationed in the room. He hopped over it, his arms bouncing up over his shoulders like ashen wings as he sprung off the mattress before he dropped to the other side and crouched down into a defensive huddle, pulling himself as tightly as he possibly could in the corner of the room as far away from the door as possible. He hoped the Malts and his Grimm hadn’t seen it, but he was shaking, and shaking bad. Like having run from a dreadful shapeless monster in the dark, only temporarily finding shelter, Clurie held himself against the wall, bitterly glaring at the door as if, behind it, loomed that same hulking monster.

Never again, he surmised determinedly, never again would he allow himself to get so close to Chauhn. Never again would he be hurt to and lied to like he did to him, manipulated and abused, not if he could help it. Chauhn was a whimpering deceptive child, a weeping wolf, and even if, for a few moments, Clurie felt the impulse to move close to him and place a comforting hand on his shoulder, he couldn’t trust him enough to give him even that small motion of kindness. Any moment, Chauhn could snap again, like he did before in the past so many times. It came without warning. There was no knowing when the strings of that boy’s sanity would become weak and its thin tethers would snap. He was prone to breaking at any given moment, tearing his façade of a kind and noble boy into shreds, to reveal the frothing raving monster underneath. If either of the Clemmings were monsters, it wouldn’t be he, Clurie knew, it wouldn’t be him, the Plague, it would be that detestable lying human boy. That boy who claimed their brotherhood. That boy who claimed he loved him. He…he called him a monster…

NO! Clurie was bigger now. He was an Anhelo, body and all, a small body, just the same size as Chauhn’s if not skinnier, but that didn’t mean that he couldn’t now defend himself. He had the look of a child, but hell and oblivion if he was going to be treated like one. Clurie would find each and every way possible to sever himself from Chauhn, take care of himself, defend himself, learn and hunger for more, support and love himself and only himself. Like a fire, Clurie needed fuel, he didn’t need Chauhn, so he would find something else to grow from, and with enough of that freedom, gulping and ravenously swallowing every breath of fresh free air he could, he could grow into a raging bonfire to consume anything and anyone that might threaten him.

…Even Chauhn, no matter if he looked fragile and lonely, no matter how desperate he looked for a kindly word or pat on the shoulder, no matter how desperate he looked for just a simple embrace...

No. Not even that. Especially that. Never again.

Clurie drew in a couple chattering breaths before he realized with the feverish blinking of his blackened eyes that they were hurting, and hurting bad. Sucking in another whimper of a breath, Clurie knotted his face into a tight frown and rubbed at his eyes with his ashen hands, only to find that when he tried to rub the painful feeling away in simply spread to his knuckles. The glowing embers in his fingertips and cheeks hissed in response, sending up sputters of flame to burn his eyes, and the newly grown Anhelo gave an irritated wail between his clenched teeth. What was this feeling, this terrible hurt stinging his cheeks and eyes? What could this strange sensation possibly be? He dug his clawed fingers harder into his eyes, his shoulders jumping about his ears.

”…Stop it…” he moaned, rubbing harder, ”Just stop…”

There came a quick creak of the door as Adal filed into the spacious room with an anguished furrow of the brows, yellow eyes slowly placated towards Clurie while he set down a small bag at the corner of the room. It was strange seeing the Plague so big in size, but with the flurry of events it was seemingly the easiest thing to accept. And, without a doubt, there was something about Clurie that still seemed to make him the same doll-like size that he was an Excito, as if this entire scene was brewed up in someone's mind in a dream-like-- no, nightmarish-- turn of events.

Adal closed the door behind him, and when the knob latched to a firm shut, he took amble steps towards Clurie, kneeling before him in front of the bed. Quietly, voice all the more hushed within the spacious walls of the lord's home, he asked, "Stop what?"

Practically clawing at his face before his labored breathing, Clurie made a sound of distinct discomfort. Little strands of steam rose up from his knotted knuckles, gathering underneath the brim of his hat before disappearing into thin air and the glow of his fingers and cheeks highlighted the strands with a tint of orange.

"Stop this...What is it? It hurts and I can't get it to stop..." he mumbled in irritated reply, pitifully obvious in his attempt to mask his own version of weepy fear with bratty displeasure.

Frowning, Adal watched with knotted brows as steam rollicked into the stale air in thin strands. He stood and reached for the ends of Clurie's grey and hot knuckles, eyes flinching initially at the sting, though he tried nevertheless to pry the Quietus' hands away from his face.

"Strange sensation, isn't it?" Forcing a smile, Adal continued, "But I'm afraid I can't stop it, only you can."

The Ashen Plague only reluctantly allowed his burning knuckles and fingers to be forced away from his face, on the pretense that he could shake Adal's hands free from touching him. He reacted like he were the one being burned by the touch, not the other way around for Adal. With his face twisted into an upset frown, his lips trembling as he tried to force a look of strength onto his mien, Clurie looked up to Adal with his deep black eyes. Moisture was gathering at the red rim of his lids, welling up into drops that spilled down into his cracked and flaking grey cheeks to hiss and steam against the glowing embers. Scrunching his nose and flinching every time a drop spilled into the crevasses of glowing heat, Clurie screwed his face into a frustrated knot.

"It really hurts," he said bitterly, trying again to rub at his cheeks, "What do you mean only I can stop it? That's stupid. I can't get it to stop. This is stupid."

Adal did not pry away from Clurie's hands, however, stubbornly latching his hands around his fingers whilst he glanced at the streams of water rolling down Clurie's cheeks. The blond hitched a small chuckle at Clurie's attempt to toughen up his stature, his own memories of Georgie or he doing the same flooding in in rapids of nostalgia.

"Stupid this, stupid that, everything's quite stupid for you, now, isn't it?" Adal let go of Clurie's hands momentarily afterward and, after searching through his pockets, offered Clurie a small trip of cloth, "Of course you can only stop it. Oh, yes, others might try to stop you, but you're the only one that will know when you're not sad anymore, or frustrated, or angry." The Locos sighed and stood up, turning around to rummage through his bag of things, "Because as different as we might be, Plagues share the same "stupid" emotions and urges that humans do, and there's no remedy to that."

Clurie clutched at the strip of fabric, knotting it around his aching fingers where he had rubbed them into the wetness in his eyes, and with a firming of his face, he pushed the knots of it into his cheeks. He rubbed it as much as he could, sweeping up as much of the wet mess before he smelled a distinct burning tint fill his nose. Wrenching the wet and dusty fabric away from his face, he blinked stupidly at the fabric where it had started to blacken and catch fire, before he looked up at Adal with a plaintive "this-isn't-working" face, both his brows and mouth furrowed in downward curves. "I'm not like Clemmings, though," he pointed out with an angry pout, "I'm not a monster like him."

The Locos paused whilst sifting through what clutter of things he was searching through. "You'll soon learn that there is a thinly veiled difference between a monster and a boy, Clurie, and that Chauhn is slowly becoming neither of those things."

Adal procured a tiny wooden box from within the satchel, then turned around to walk towards Clurie again. He watched with a curious curl of his lips as he smelled a distinct smell of burning, though he walked with all the more vicariously in front of him. He opened a small golden ring around the wooden box and it snapped open with a curious pop, and inside were the familiar instruments used by Georgie so long ago after Clurie's near instance with death.

"...You might not be a Clemmings, but you do have a duty as a Clemmings' Plague."

"What is he becoming now?" Clurie asked, helpless to voice his own curiosity although, whether or not it was with concern or fear, was left up for Adal to interpret. He wrung the fabric between his fingers, watching as, even if he held it away from the embers of his face, he couldn't hold it away from the embers of his fingers, and it slowly burned and crunched in on itself, little spurts of flame belching up from it's edges as it burned to black and grey. His frown deepened and he popped an apologetic brow of helplessness at his fellow Plague, "Sorry. I...I destroyed your handkerchief." Without much more of a second thought, Clurie stuffed the burned and blackened fabric into his mouth and chewed. By chewing the fabric, he was able to muffle his last reply to Adal, an irritated acknowledgment of his duties to the boy Grimm.

"A man. A human being, maybe. You saw him as well as I did in the carriage, Clurie. He's realized his faults, just like everyone in there had, whether you admit he did or not." Adal glanced at the wooden box and merely clipped it closed, stuffing it into the empty contents of his pocket, watching Clurie munch at the burnt piece of cloth before he could utter a quiet "It's alright," which was muted both with intrigue and confusion.

Perhaps the Doctor's work was for another time.

He watched as bits of ash and embers protruded from Clurie's seeping cheeks and palms, which lit both the Plague's faces in a warm hue of orange, as lively as the haunted hearth within the cold throes of that lodge they'd left, it seemed, only moments ago. "...Quite, quite alright." Adal sat in front of Clurie on the cold floor, sternly staring up at him, "And I'm quite sure I didn't hear what you said last at all. As stubborn as you might be, you'll be his Plague through and through. It's a harsh truth, but a truth you have to face."

Working his jaw, the Plague gave a wet sniff and scrunched in on himself tighter, drawing his legs up to his chest so that his ashen calves were wrapped up with his arms. He kept chewing, watching with a curious bend of his brow as Adal considered the box and then pushed it away to his pocket. "What's that?" he asked with his mouth full, his curiosity no less stunted now that he was an Anhelo. Another chew, a swallow, and the burned fabric was ingested by Clurie, who kept his dark eyes trained on Adal. He was no longer weeping, though the skin around his eyes was still puffy and red, and the tenseness in his shoulders was slowly but surely relaxing.

"Man," Clurie scoffed in afterthought, clutching at his wrist with one clawed hand, "He's nothing but a whiny thumbsucker."

Licking his lips of the tidbits of fabric that escaped his maw, Clurie gave another wet indignant sniff, and muttered unhappily, "I'll be his Plague since I can't change that. But that doesn't mean I'm going to do anything for him."

"Nothing of importance for now," Adal responded, though blatantly, blinking away what fatigue rollicked around the inside of his eyes and sore limbs. His eyes narrowed as Clurie bent inwards on himself, hugging his legs and rolling himself into a tiny ball, making him look smaller than he already was.

There was a kind of indigence about Clurie that, to Adal, seemed forced and fake, a kind of angry reprieve that boys so stubbornly turned to when disappointed. It was a familiar instance but, frowning, Adal knelt and tugged Clurie closer with an affirmed tug of his wrist, staring at him with a blazing white glare that so contrasted Clurie's now empty black one.

An uncomfortable kind of warmth crept onto his palm, but it mattered very little.

"Clurie," Adal started, lowly, the brunt of his tired self now focused into the low hush of his voice, "How angry are you at Chauhn? Tell me. Tell me word for word how angry you are."

The Quietus, as his name implied, remained quiet for those first few moments that Adal managed to snap his wrist into his grasp, yanking him away from the wall and closer to his golden eyed gaze. In response, the young Plague growled, yanked back, yanked again even harder, but with Adal's grip unyielding, he tucked in on himself in almost automatic response, looking as if he expected, at any moment to be struck by an angry fist. His shoulders tucked in on themselves, his cheeks burned bright, and with a restrained voice, Clurie Clemmings muttered back to Adal, a short declaration of his fear.

"I. Hate. Him." he said, slowly and with passionate disgust. For a few moments, he held himself like that, tense against Adal's hand and tucked tightly in on himself, before he glanced aside and whispered, "And he hates me."

As heat seeped into his glove, Adal strengthened his hold around Clurie's wrist. He yanked Clurie's arm away towards him when the Quietus attempted to bend in on himself, that bite of insecurity irritating Adal's skin more than the pinch of heat burning his hand and, slowly, quietly, he shook his head and whispered, "Hate and fear are two very different things. Plague, Grimm, Grimm, Plague, the both of you-- you'd be better off rotting away some place and dying than separating yourselves, now. Being a Plague means more than existing, it's a duty. Be confident about that, Clurie, because nothing about you now seems of such a thing, you're too afraid."

Adal loosened his grip around Clurie's wrist, glancing momentarily at the red tipping his fingers and a hint of grey and black creeping on the palm of his glove. Gaze narrowing, eyes flinching with guilt, he murmured, "You might not be brothers in blood, but you have to help him with your own strength. If anything, be angry at me."

Black eyes widened at Adal underneath the steeple of his brows, his face softening from it's scrunch of anger to the fear that trembled beneath. Adal could melt the truth out of him, no matter what defenses he tried to employ in his favor, and Clurie winced beneath his words. His face kept on twitching, trying to reform itself into some indignant scowl or irritated frown, but the more that Adal spoke, the harder it was to play off as anything else than what he pointed out. By the time he spoke the word "afraid" Clurie was trembling in response, his fingers curled into tight claws.

"Fine, you're right. I'm bloody terrified of him. I'm scared to death of that boy. He can snap at any moment, Adal, you can't trust him. He plays at that game, trying to be all good and sweet...but you can't ever trust him!" Taking his wrist back from Adal, Clurie rubbed at his wrist, trying to wipe away the feeling of his fingers wrapped about his flaking skin. He sniffed again, the moisture building in his eyes with the tell tale wisps of smoke wafting up from the bottom of his eyes. "He's the one who hurt me, Adal, not you. I don't have to be angry at you. I just...I'll do what I must, but that's it. Chauhn doesn't deserve anything else from me."

Noticing the burns on the tips of Adal's fingers, Clurie's mouth sagged and he looked up into Adal's flinching face. His voice softened, although his small body tightened again with bitterness, and he muttered helplessly, "...I'm sorry."

Did Adal trust Chauhn?

It was hard to say, but while Adal clenched the sting of his fingers into a tight fist, he looked up at Clurie with an indeterminate and stone-cold frown, his furrowed brows quelling into an uneasy plait of respite. For once around the Clemmings, he seemed to be at a loss of words, eyes searching the floor as if it would provide him with the answers that he needed-- instead, when he glanced back up at Clurie, he provided him with the same emptiness and lackluster unknowing fit for the boy's appearance both he and Clurie adorned. In that moment he shook his head again, saying slowly, assuredly, "Why are you scared of him? Because you think he can kill you?"

Quietly, in that small slot of silence, Adal whispered, "He can't."

Shivering, a blunder of cold crawling up his spine, the Locos shook his head again and again and again and stood up, circling at a quick pace around the bed. He relished the warmth of the burn and the sting it made gathering up around his once cold fingers, the only sure thing in this instance that he could think of.

He looked back at Clurie, then away, clenching his fists into a ball. He whispered to himself, "Just take the damn apology," glancing again and again at the Quietus, but in the end all he could reply with was a halfhearted "I'll trust Chauhn again and again if that's what it takes to fix this, Clurie. Tell me what I have to do, what you need to do."

The instant that Adel left him, stumbling about the room while holding his cold clenched hands to his fist, Clurie retreated tighter than ever before into his claimed corner between the bed and the wall. Watching him from afar with his empty black eyes peering over the corner of the bed from underneath the brim of his hat, the Quietus tried hard to digest what the other was saying. Could Chauhn really be unable to kill him? What would hold him back? He had tried before, wasn't it obvious that he could do so again, and this time, possibly succeed? Even if Clurie fought back, what if Chauhn wrestled him into a river, dunked his head into the washbasin or threw him out into the rain? Perhaps it wasn't so much Chauhn that scared him, but the possibilities that the memories might echo back into reality, happen again, and this time with a different result. But...Clurie watched Adal pacing the room, trying to understand why he fought against this well developed fear that he was trying to explain. Clurie couldn't come to any level of enlightenment whatsoever. Chauhn had to redeem himself and Adal couldn't step into his place. What Clurie understood was this: Adal was cold, and, like Chauhn would need him as his Plague, Adal needed something else to give him warmth. Clurie perhaps needed to give warmth back to Chauhn too.

Like hell, he was going to give it to him that soon, though, Clurie thought with admonishment.

Clurie pushed himself up from his small tucked away corner behind the bed and moved behind Adal where he paced, scampering about him to try and face him before he was able to get him to stop. With his face still twisted with irritation and hurt, his nose nosily sniffing away what sadness he could, Clurie gave Adal a warning gaze and rubbed at his own cheeks, forcing them into round displays of heat that spread along to his hands and finger tips, which he held over Adal's cold hands. The Quietus stayed like that for a while, rubbing at his cheeks whenever the heat began to dim before replacing them for Adal. At length he said, his voice as soft as the ashes that layered his clawed fingertips, "...Suppose...Chauhn's all shaking himself to pieces 'cause he ain't got anyone...To be warm with?"

The black eyes looking up at Adal were pointed and deep, quiet, like the spaces in between burning stars.

Adal glanced skeptically, a toilsome tire rung about his lids, staring back at the Quietus' blackened eyes with a deep set frown, though his mouth was gaped with insecurity and confusion. He'd nearly forgotten why he'd been pacing while he was, almost, but when Clurie tugged his hands towards his ashen fingers, he immediately remembered again, past the shiver and cold and severe weight of worry weighed upon everyone's shoulders.

Whilst the two Anhelos loomed about the warmth, one giving and one relishing, Adal felt his cold fingers slowly melt into flexibility once again. Clurie spoke and, perhaps a bit surprised, maybe pleasantly so, Adal's fingers twitched. He took them back, crossing his arms. He looked away and uttered quietly, "I'd... suppose that'd be the Chauhn kind of thing to do."

Clurie stubbornly pulled at Adal's arms, rubbing his cheek and eyes with one hand, while the other claw demanded he continue his role of a fire's hearth. It was nice to have a distraction, something to do, a way to be useful, even though, without fail, everything was eventually linked back to his troubled Grimm. Clurie gave a heavy and purposefully loud sigh of exasperation.

"...Chauhn's dumb."

Adal nearly hopped backwards when Clurie refused to give way when he pulled his arms away but, with a small sigh, the Locos relinquished his stubborn strength and relaxed, admitting comfort at the newfound warmth of Clurie's magics. The ends of his mouth twitched with a sullen smile, though it didn't last for long, and he responded with a quiet voice.

"That's one way to put it."

"He's really dumb," Clurie muttered again.

With his hands held out like a roadside fire flame for huddled, bedraggled and world-weary vagabonds, Clurie slouched in front of Adal replenishing the heat in his hands in the spaces between their tired breathing. Like that they stood, highlighted by the glow, the first show of warmth in days worth of cold in lowly Shyregoad.

.. . . . ..

Like another chapter to an unending nightmare, Chauhn's green eyes widened in a child's terror of the black crow and letter bequeathed to his hands. He didn't know why he opened it and he didn't know why he stopped breathing, as if to give the letter his full attention, but he did anyways. It was like he was bound into some spell, a curiosity as strong as Clurie's guiding his unreasonable acceptance of the letter. He had never received a letter before, perhaps that's what drove him to open it up and listen to it, even when he knew little more than the alphabet in terms of literary understanding. It was his first letter, a letter meant especially for him, even if it's black ribbons and dark messenger were as foreboding as the message carried within, bequeathed to him in whispers and hisses of events yet to come.

Terror followed soon after, and then a mass of black ribbons.

His numb fingers could only shiver and twitch, scrambling to push off what ribbons of pitch and black made up the dissolved letter before he finally convinced his chest to start breathing again. Threats were one thing when he was an urchin, a means to ward him away, scare him off, but this was entirely different. This letter's contents were not a threat so much as thy were a promise of dark intents that Chauhn could only compare to the first instance that he was kidnapped away to Shyregoad, and even better to the time that four of his fingers were smashed at the knuckles underneath the dead blow hammer of Cultist torture in a hidden away Obscuvian outpost. Was it for that time within their clutches, that moment he screamed a table into exploding into splinters after his hands had been driven through with daggers, whilst nearby Sloane was stabbed through the ribs over and over again by black robed interrogator? A massacre had been left in their wake, Sloane, a terrible and monstrous cyclone made of blood, a knight in red to hoist up a boy who was shrieking a forest into a sharp glen of gallows for the Obscuvians who were impaled on its branches. Could it possibly be because of that? There was no doubting the messenger's spawning point in the hands of the enemy, the Cultists, no doubt at all, not when Chauhn had seen so much of their tendencies in terror in the months that he had been transported into the Fellowship's ranks. This letter was from the Cultists. The tone had proved it to him, a tone so similar to the Obscuvian leader named Artaxerxes.

A many-legged creepy crawler of fear latched itself to Chauhn's spine, driving him into a violent convulse of his body as he scrambled out from the nook in the roof, breaking through branches that he had accidentally caused to grow into a protective nest about him. Before leaping down the building's ramparts, Chauhn did a double take at the black ribbons left in the branches, thinking twice before he nabbed the lot of them and stuffed them into his pockets. Clurie wouldn't believe him otherwise, his radical tale of a black winged messenger just hours after his attempt on his life.

The letter had mentioned his family. Rage, for a moment bubbled up, and he growled as the heat spiked up in the back of his head. All he could think was: how dare they...How dare they bring his family into this! Even when he had none of his family left, could they just not leave them rest where they lied, rotting underneath the heart and in their abandoned house in Imisus? But no...Chauhn's family wasn't entirely left to the worms. There was Clurie, even if he wasn't his brother.

The letter had referenced Clurie himself, a shadow of a Clemmings, his shadow specifically, but born from the Clemmings none the less. Whoever wrote that letter knew about him and his recent growth at his own bloody hands. Guilt only intensified his need to protect Clurie, heave himself in front of him, regardless of the adversity his Plague held for him now, but Chauhn had to make it up to him somehow. They both knew it, deep down, that there was something unbreakable keeping them together, and Chauhn wasn't about to let that slip away from him either. It was the only thing keeping him tethered to Clurie, that simple connection of Grimm and Plague, that, without it, would leave Chauhn absolutely and entirely alone, no connection to anyone stronger than a short, hello, goodbye, I owe you a friendship. Chauhn didn't have family anymore, he had something else, and if that's what he had to protect, be with, and...Dare he mention it, so soon?...love, then so be it. It was all he had left, like Adal tried to hard to get him to see before, he was all he had. The letter itself said that he wasn't alone. Chauhn realized that now.

As Chauhn rappelled his way down the building's side, climbing and scraping his elbows against the stone walls, a momentary b*****d child of both page and urchin qualities, he heard again the echos of family. The letter mentioned his family other than Clurie, the other Clemmings, somehow demonized into Plagues like his newly grown Anhelo, monsters of siblings who would once reach out to him with loving hand, not twisted claws and paws. Chauhn caught himself weeping aloud, dry terrible sounding sobs of sound at the very prospect of meeting the rest of his family as monsters, a thought almost too terrible for him to bear without giving up into the blackness of sudden and overwhelming numbness. His head spun, dizzy upon his shoulders, and it weighed heavy with the gargantuan fear that, maybe, just maybe, waiting for him out there in the snow, crawling closer in the shadows, were six other monsters with hair as black as Clurie's, as blond as his, with eyes aswirl in their heads. Chauhn's hands slipped on the bricks of the icy wall, and with a choked yelp, he fell back and off the building, free floating so suddenly that the air was punched from his lungs.

He hit the snow underneath with an audible puff of sound, none the less hurt from the fall of a story's height thanks to the snow drift that collected there from the slant of the rooftop. Chauhn grit his teeth, rolled himself off his back and scrambled onto his feet, making fleet steps for the entrance of the place and eventually towards Clurie and Adal's room.

Turning the corner with the squelch of his snow soaked foot, Chauhn found himself accosted by the equal height of his Plague quietly closing the door from his room as he turned to face the length of the dimly lit hallway. With yards of distance between them, the two Clemmings connected gazes and froze. They stood like that for some time, one mirroring the other, caught in surprise, before they shifted just enough to breathe. Chauhn melted with anxiety, his shoulders slumping while the other boy stiffened with dislike, and pulled up his shoulders to his ears.

"What is it now, Clemmings?" asked Clurie with an indignant sniff. the conversation he had with Adal hadn't softened him enough yet towards his Grimm. There were still barbs in his voice, daggers in his eyes. Only he could hear the sudden rush of adrenaline in his veins as the frantic beating drummed in his heart with instinctive fear.

Chauhn swallowed, trying to choke past his words which, whenever he looked at that boy who looked so similar to his little brother, clogged up in his throat, a painful lump hard to breathe past.

"Spit it out or choke on it," Clurie advised, taking a few daring steps forward. He was on his way to see Lord Yizhaq, who earlier asked for a meeting with him before they left the carriage, and that made him confident that he could run away from Chauhn with a viable excuse instead of just being too damn afraid to stand near him alone for any prolonged amount of time.

Digging his hands into his pockets, Chauhn ripped out the mess of black ribbons, furrowing his brows with gravity as he stammered his way past the clog in his throat. This would be the first conversation alone that they would have had since their first scathing words after the event of Clurie's birth. "Ah received a letter," Chauhn began but before he could continue, his Plague cut in, walking slowly closer to him with a defensive pinch of muscles contorting the boyishness of his face.

"You can read?" Clurie asked. Watching as Chauhn reacted from the jab at his sore spot of inaptness at literacy made him feel like he not only had a shield to hide behind but also a javelin, with which he could bat him away. These were, of course, Clurie's test runs, and he felt little remorse at all when Chauhn's face flashed with sadness.

"Please, listen. It was a letter but then it fell apart into these ribbons! It spoke at me, it did, bewitched or somethin', 'n' it threatened me. Whoever wrote it knows abou' us, you 'n' the Clemmings, they said they were comin' for me 'n' tha' ah should stay put!" for a moment, a familiar anger took hold of Chauhn's frame, a righteous kind of rage summoned up from it's recently churned grave, "They dared to threaten the Clemmings, my family, dared to say tha' they migh' all be monsters like..." and then Chauhn paused. It was like he had been clothes-lined by the comparison he was about to make, punched in the gut by the look of raw hurt on Clurie's face. He felt his gut wrap itself into another layer of Gordian complexity, a labyrinth of guilt and intestines. Eyebrows wrapping together in realization of the insult he had unintentionally thrown at Clurie, he held out the ribbons in a numb attempt to get his Plague to see just what had scared him into such feelings.

Clurie's reaction was quick. He looked down at his own charred claws, back up at Chauhn, and breathed in. The insult had taken root. His dark eyes deepening with hurt underneath the furrow of his dark brows, the Anhelo shoved past Chauhn, sending his clawed fingers into the mess of black ribbons and ripping them up from his hands in a messy snarled tangle to Chauhn's face.

"You're sick if you think that a made-up story and a couple of black ribbons is going to make me forgive all the abuse and torment you gave me and coming running to your defense and back to your side, Clemmings. You're sick," he snarled, unable to hide the wobble of pain in his voice, "But you're mostly wrong."

With that, Clurie snatched up the mass of ribbons and, without a second's thought, stuffed them into his mouth as he leaned closer and closer to Chauhn's face, messily unhinging his jaws to sloppily chew up and grind the silky black mess into a hearth's cradle of embers and burning fabric in his teeth, a monstrous show for the boy who saw only a monster.

With smoke and ember spilling from his lips, Clurie wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist and spun away from Chauhn, quickly jogging down the hall and out of sight, his heart beating in his chest with ache instead of anger. He left Chauhn against the wall, too stunned to do much else than watch with brows knit and mouth agape as his Plague fled away from him. The sound of his footsteps receded down the hall and, with a shiver, Chauhn melted to the ground, banging his fists against his knees. A terrible sound of fury was welling up in his throat, and already, Chauhn could hear the floor of the floor panelings shivering in anticipation of his voice, but before he could make a sound, he grabbed his throat with both hands and squeezed as tightly as he could. His breath hitched, his shoulders jumped, but, thankfully, no sound managed to pass through, and eventually the need to scream passed. Slowly, he released his fingers from pinching his jugular and he dropped his palms to his lap. His hands had steadied from all the rage. Sadness welled up in the place of his anger, and he took a deep and trembling breath, lifting himself up from the floor of the hallway.

Georgie was probably nervous and waiting for his return. Turning his back, he made his way to their shared bedroom, heavy with more guilt than when he had left not so long ago. Nevertheless, he repeated to himself over and over, "Ahm not alone...Ahm not alone..."

.. . . . ..

.. . . . ]| Weight to Scale |[ . . . ..
March 16, 1411

There was little time at all for Chauhn to digest everything, nonetheless stuff his head with all the information of what had been happening in little more than a day or two's breadth. He was in his bedroom with Georgie passed out on one of the beds, noisily slumbering through his sniffles. Glancing over at the other boy, Chauhn considered himself safe to change clothes, and began the process, his mind and eyes unable to comprehend actions that were otherwise so automatic that he filed through the motions with an eerie dead quality. His Lord would be opening up the boundaries of his home, greeting those who needed shelter from the chaos that was slowly but surely leaking through to all of Shyregoad, and the Clemmings, both of them, would be standing beside their lord, ready to escort lost individuals inside the estate.

What had spurned the chaos in the first place? From the whispers in the hall to small remarks made between the Malts and louder gasps of concern from the adults and Yizhaq, the four corners of Panymium were slowly falling apart into chaos. It started in Imisus apparently, the black death consuming so many and at such a rapid pace that the populace could wait no longer for the patient and demure slow-working Scientists. Like a cliff collapsing into the sea, pressured by waves of promises that were never fulfilled, the people came collapsing down on the Council, burning and staking everything in their path, destroying homes, lives, years worth of ork with nothing so much more intelligent than an angry warble of a scream. Chauhn's heart clenched up when he thought about his home, smashed between two buildings and sanctioned off from the riot. Boards of wood wouldn't stop them though, it certainly didn't stop him, and they would search anywhere and everywhere for secret staircases leading down into the catacombs. Images of people rushing into his family's home, stampeding over the remains of his family, kicking their bones across the old floorboards and tripping in the knots of their clothes, made a familiar feeling of dread and anger stir up in his gut, feelings that were still sore from his recent lapse of sanity. Upon remembering his sins, the black Excito blood on his fingers and the feeling of Clurie's little Phasmas body wiggling in fear in his hands, shouting, screaming, pleading for mercy, Chauhn bent over, doubled with guilt so strong as to form a spear through his gut. After a few steadying breaths, he lifted up, trying to blink the burning sting from his eyes. He was much too tired to cry anymore...Even if there was so much for him to cry for. Not just the chaos warping Imisus, rendering its farmland and sea ports to dust and flames, his homeland heaved into destruction and Obscuvian trickery, but the madness brewing here in his safe haven of Shyregoad's winter borders. On the way over to Lord Yizhaq's estate, Chauhn had been blind with grief, but he had still managed to notice the unsettling panic through the carriage's windows: people scrambling into their homes, others scrambling into hordes that were lining the streets, sharing news with each other in high pitched shouts, and groups of people staring with incrimination at the horse-drawn cabin as it sped by just fast enough to remain out of their reach. They weren't safe, even with each other now, safely caught up in Yizhaq's protection. That chaos was spread on the air itself, not limited to people outside in nearby villages, heating up against the cold by confusion anger and remorse for their recently felled head, Lady Waldgrave.

Of course, Chauhn knew very little of the Lady besides the familiarity of her name. Such formalities were taught to him and he remembered only because she had been Sage's teacher, a note that Chauhn easily disregarded because he interacted only immediately with Lady Estratus. Whatever influence she had been, she was a prominent one, because, not only was all of Shyregoad and Panymium effected by her death, but people close to Chauhn as well, making it all the more real for him and for Clurie. Details were muffled, screwed and unreliable. What had truly happened was only known by those present, two of whom he was very close to. Sloane was briefly seen before their Lord whisked them up into his arms and away from the Fellowship's halls, but even in that moment, Chauhn could see a great fear in the bloody knight's eyes, his body already stressed with panic. His Lady had not been seen, for which Chauhn was then grateful, but now, thinking back, Chauhn connected the pieces between the death and between Sage's absence from the retrieval. She must have been taking the blunt of Waldgrave's death, locked up somewhere in the Fellowship's base, a mess of darkness and something more. But grief didn't end there. There was also Jin-Ho, kind man suddenly kicked down and crippled unbeknown to the rest of the Fellowship, found only minutes before death was assured. Chauhn had seen him last in the dungeon when he bravely attempted to heal his mangled hands, and the meeting had not gone well. Guilt was thrown like daggers between them, and Jin-Ho received most of the pain, Chauhn too dumb with obsession and pain to notice. Who knew what happened to little Blaithe, and Chauhn wished that her brightness wasn't dampened by the cataclysmic change in events happening not only with her Grimm but all the rest of Shyregoad and beyond.

Chauhn pulled his page's tunic over his vest and shirt, pausing to tuck his chin to his neck and force himself into concentration as he pushed the buttons and loops into place. These clothes were clean, new even, and a little tight around the shoulders. Perhaps he was growing a bit.

Clothes affixed into place, clean white socks pulled up over his calves and hair smoothed back into a stubby ponytail, Chauhn had disrobed entirely the guise of the panicked, disillusioned, and grief-stricken runt that he had been when he entered the room. Before making his final checks, he looked over to Georgie, making sure that he was tucked underneath the blankets and a glass and pitcher of water were close to his bedside. The Malt boy was good, so Chauhn turned to the door, swallowing past a chew of ginger he had crushed between his teeth. His cheeks were clean, his hair was brushed, and he straightened his clover-styled collar on his neck, but despite his efforts to look prim and proper for his Lord, he still couldn't manage to wipe the redness from his eyes or the lavender blush underneath them. Grief was still tattooed onto his face, but there were steps being made to wipe it away. Chauhn was, whether he liked it or not, whether he earned it or not, whether others liked or noticed it or paid it the time of day, a Clemmings.

Clemmings were an honorable sort, Chauhn repeated to himself as he patted down his front and straightened the hem of his clothes. It was his mantra, his metaphorical string of prayer beads to count between the anxious fiddling of his fingers. He didn't say it to himself with his voice, but the voice of others, eight others to be precise. Clemmings were an honorable sort, they worked hard, laughed harder, and always stood up for the right, the just, and the good. Equal work earns equal pay, and noble deeds turns the blood blue, that was what they strove for. They were a strong lot, but the bonds between them were even stronger, and stronger still was their resolve. They were Clemmings, working together, for all, not just for one, and they were an honorable sort. An honorable sort. Chauhn stepped out the door, wondering just what a Clemmings would do when their heart and not their blood was blue, and their hands stained with black and red. What did a Clemmings do then?

He would have to find out himself he realized, for he was the last. In the hall, he stepped out, finding Clurie waiting for him, slumped against the wall just down the way before he noticed him, nodded, and spun away, leading him to their Lord with a good several yard's worth of distance between them. From the back, ignoring his ashy claws and calves, he looked just like Clurie would have been, a thin little thing with a bounce in his step and in his black unruly hair.

The last...Was he really?

.. . . . ..

As pages, it was expected of both he and Clurie to represent his Lord and his Lady with utmost respect and diligence, a detached limb, a symbol. A task usually completed with relative ease beyond remembering to keep from slouching, shoulders straight and stay attentive, the Clemmings were finding such obligations hard to fill, especially upon their duties of guiding higher born classes and mages into the estate, which was set up rather like a township and a castle in itself more than anything. Guards and other servants had the task of guiding the lower born castes towards the east of the set up while the Clemmings and a group of others had the task of navigating the guest wing in the main estate. There had been hope that such people who were faithful enough to place their trust in one of the higher status representatives of the Fellowship, to have as much respect for the subordinates, but such mercies were few and far between. Juggled between groups of hurried people and weary travelers, Chauhn and Clurie were surprised to recieve as much trouble as they did. There were several instances of fear and arguing amongst noble people, demanding certain placements far from others who they did not trust, complaints from families who had wary eyes for other shelter seeking individuals, and so forth. Claims of falseness and betrayal years long were common among the frightened people, who seemed to forget that they owed it to Lord Al-Yizhaq in payment to at least be courteous, and all were pointed towards those dressed in the purple hues of the Fellowship. Clurie, confronted by a group of individuals with fear who accosted him for his ashen and dark appearance, were in turn confronted by a tired Chauhn Clemmings, who leapt as quickly as possible in front of his Plague who had been slowly backed up into a wall with his hackles raised and his cheeks burning. While the boy calmed the fretting nobles, Clurie, sullen and quiet, fled from behind Chauhn's back, running back to his Lord's side to pick up another group, hopefully less belligerent and suspicious than the last. Nearly right afterward, Chauhn was pinned up between two groups who blamed each other for supposed grudges and made up observations of crime, pressuring Chauhn to take it up with his lord to throw out either or of the groups. There had been one instance when Chauhn's collar had been balled up in the fist of an older heavyset male and he had been lifted onto his toes, shaken until he agreed to set his precious family of five children and a child-bearing wife away from a quiet and dark couple who had, according to the man, once had Obscuvian blood in their ancestry. Chauhn did his best to please the noble man, and did as he was asked. He was beneath him anyways, a page, a servant, an Augur, perhaps, but not a noble. Afterward, he trudged by Clurie as he was busy straightening his clothes and collar, shaken and a little disheveled, and discovered that, the entire time he had been roughly accosted by the man, Clurie had stood off to the side, reluctant to do anything more than watch with wide unfeeling black eyes.

Clurie had his own set of problems to deal with. Although that he and his Grimm were in charge of nobles, mages, and Grimms, all of whom had to be familiar with Plagues by some extent, he still received a brash and curt kind of attitude by those he led into their rooms. By following their eyes, he discovered where the source of their concern grew from: his contorted and withered hands that resembled wicked claws from the fables of children. He was a Plague, and Plagues, at that point in time more than ever, were made suspicious of, even if they had a reputation of grave goodness and noble intention. Darkness was in his eyes and darkness was smeared across his limbs and while darkness, in his case, was more of an unfortunate coloring than a clue to his personality, those he interacted reacted with wariness just because of the dark connotations. Clurie tried his hardest to firm his limbs into pale skin, but too much effort into that left him hungry and unable to keep ash from flaking off his person and making a track in the carpets. Hurt by their gazes who looked so similar to the way that Chauhn looked at him, disbelieving and disturbed, Clurie gave up any attempts to try and look more human, and instead scurried about like the Plague that he was. He had enough of trying to be someone that he wasn't. He spent the entirety of his early life that way, a tiny mock up of some human he could never measure up to. Instead, he began taking bitter relish in the way that people looked at him, using his hands more than necessary just to emphasize the fact that yes, he was a Plague, and he was different, yes he had some parts of him that were a monster.

It wasn't as fun when Clurie smelled a whiff of death and tinct so strong to his newly developed senses that he had to spend several moments squinting his water-stung eyes and rubbing his face on his shoulder, smearing his outfit with ash from his cheeks. Grimms were usually less disturbed by his appearance, some seeming not to notice at all, and he secretly melted with relief when they treated him just as well as they might have treated his own Grimm. It comforted him when they nodded their thanks, and comforted him even more to see Plagues like himself carefully cradled somewhere on their person, or walking beside them, cowering or walking dutifully beside them. They would share poignant glances of understanding and acknowledgment with one another, a quiet 'You are as much me as I am you' before they shuffled into their rooms, leaving Clurie feeling strangely more alone than ever. They had something he didn't, and he wondered what it was.

For the next few days, that's how Chauhn and Clurie spent their time away from their own room, which was in the hallway of the upper-tier servants in the main house, much to Chauhn's confusion, and rushing about the estate, passing by each other with only short and curt conversations they were supposed to and expected to have. At the end of every day, they would return to their respective rooms, separate, and collapse on their respective beds, and complain to their respective room mates, and think their respective thoughts about one another with reserved distaste and bother. Clurie was all the more willing to fight, each day more determined to protect himself, and Chauhn was all the more fixed on the idea that he would play the loyal servant, fix up his family name, and protect the little things he had left in his small bubble of the world, all of which he could count on one hand: His Lord, his friends: the Malts and those he left behind at the Fellowship, and his Plague. Outside, the four corners of Panymium were crumbling and it wouldn't be long before it fell out beneath the estate.

.. . . . ..

Finding Clurie in the estate was hard to do for Chauhn, especially when the Anhelo purposefully dodged and ran away from him if chance provided. There were chances for him to hide out in a spot though, and jump out to confront him, but whenever Chauhn had to resort to such sneaky techniques, he felt more base and gross than whatever it was that Clurie thought of him. It was probably why Clurie reacted with such defense when Chauhn stepped out from behind a corner of one of Clurie's more well known paths.

"Clurie, I need to talk to you," he said, standing against the wall for support. It was late in the day, and they were both heading back to their rooms, expecting to find Georgie and Adal in there to discuss petty things, anything, other than their respective others. Chauhn had his page's outfit carefully in place, and a bandage was over his nose from where he had scuffed it in manic dash from the barrage of black birds the day before. Clurie, on the other hand, had all but ruined his page's outfit by that point, his sleeves blackened and burned into short sleeves exposing the pale skin of his shoulders.

As soon as he saw Chauhn slink out from behind the corner of the hallway, Clurie felt his heart jump up into his throat, fear immediately seizing up through his joints. Just looking at Chauhn made him feel nervous, wary for his own safety, and he would be a terrible liar if he didn't accept the fact that he was still dead frightened of the boy. Adal and Georgie both have spent long conversations with him, trying to get him to lower his defenses or reason with him, but how could they understand the madness that Chauhn was capable of? They weren't the brunt of it. They weren't the ones who were labeled for death. Clurie set his face into a frown of fear, attempting to strengthen himself once more with the bristle of his shoulders. An apathetic attitude was helping him so far, it beat Chauhn down.

"I don't want to talk to you," Clurie said, not all together liking the way his voice wobbled when he tried to come off as irritated. It worked nonetheless, Chauhn gulped and looked down, already showing signs of weakness.

"Clurie, please listen to me," Chauhn asked, keeping where he was, not stepping forward for fear of startling his Anhelo away, "Remember the black ribbons? The crows?"

"Your made up fire side horror story?" Clurie countered. He slumped his weight onto one leg, crossing his arms defensively over his chest, "What of it? I told you that you were sick to try and make me worry for you that way. Don't cry wolf, Clemmings, it doesn't suit you when you are the wolf in the first place."

Chauhn swallowed hard, trying to stop his face from burning up into a hurt blush of red. He had to continue. "It happened again yesterday when I was dropping off post, outside. Birds, all black 'n' all, came swoopin' down on me, Clurie, they were after me. That's why a fell. Ah don't have anythin' to convince you, but you'll 'ave to trust me."

Clurie's black eyes widened with fright, barking in disbelief, "Trust you? Trust you? Clemmings, do you realize that out of everything I feel for you that feeling is none existent? You killed that the day that you tried to kill me." His own cheeks were burning up at that point, a hot glow of orange that swam about in the glazed black of his eyes.

Wincing visibly, Chauhn rubbed at his arm, trying his best to keep himself from raising his voice with frustration. He had to be gentle, weak, if he were to get Clurie to stay and hear him out, despite his desperation to be strong and force him to see just what kind of supernatural danger that was gathering about them. "Ah know wha' ah did was wrong. Ah'll 'ave to pay for tha' for the rest of my livin' days, ah know. Ah killed your trust, ah killed other's faith 'n me, ah killed a lot of things tha' day, ah killed myself, but Clurie, ah wan' to make it all up. Ahm a terrible person, granted, but ah wan' to be good again. Ah want to fix it all, but ah can't do it all by myself, Clurie."

"You can do a lot just by yourself," Clurie sneered with a defensive sniff. His gut was roiling about underneath his ribs, making him feel sick and weak from the inside out. He wanted to leave.

Chauhn dug his fingers into his arm where he was holding himself, an awkward half-hug. He couldn't give up, he could never give up again, that was his mantra, if he were to actually set all things that he had unbalanced upright again. "Ahm just askin' for your help, Clurie. A truce, it all. Ah know it's too much to ask for your trust righ' now, but ah had to try. Everythin's fallin' apart 'n the world outside, 'n' ah don't want us to fall apart anymore than we have. Just...Help me, Clurie, stop tryin' to hurt me all the time. That's all ahm askin for if you can't yet give me your trust."

With his cheeks aglow in a hot fire, Clurie stared at Chauhn, his face wrestling between hurt, fear, and disgust. He didn't know it until Chauhn stopped speaking, waiting for his reply, but he was shaking and shaking bad. His teeth were chattering against one another, and his arms were clutched tight about him in a way that reminded him of Chauhn's hand caged tight about his little Phasmas body, squeezing him into suffocation. Blinking hard at the boy, Clurie fought moisture as it climbed into his eyes, and he slowly pitched his head from side to side, a firm response to the waiting Clemmings boy.

"No," was all he was able to mutter before he exploded into a cloud of ash, sweeping past Chauhn in an angry blast of burning flakes and air. Down the hallway he reappeared, shuffling briskly towards his room with his arms still caught about his shoulders, running away and not looking back to the boy he left on his own, coughing on ash and leaning against the wall to slump down it in weepy defeat.

.. . . . ..

Accosted by a guard worried for the state of his plague, Chauhn shows a little more of his old good and noble self when he stands up for Clurie.

Walking along with a hand on his forehead, covering up a scuff on his head where a thrown rock had hit him, Chauhn wobbled his way back to the main part of the compound, sullen and heavy headed. He was trudging along one of the side paths, trying to stay out of the way of any other servants, guards, or people in general, so that they wouldn't see the broken look on his face. If his heart could be weighed at that precise moment, it would have been as heavy as cast iron. He had turned around while the rocks were being thrown by fearful commoners in a last attempt to scare him and his Plague away, he had turned around with his arms outstretched for Clurie, screaming for help, and Clurie had turned away, had burst into ashes without him, leaving him to duck and rush away while the guards clambered behind him to stop the panic before it swelled out of control. His guilty self reasoned that it was what he deserved, but regardless, Chauhn felt like he had been punched in the stomach.

So locked in his regret he was that he hardly realized the sound of footsteps coming up alongside him. As a page was prone to do, Chauhn automatically stopped in his tracks and shuffled over to the side of the path, bowing his head and tucking his leg back in a submissive bow to let the person, whatever rank they were, pass by. Instead of moseying on by, the figure came to a stop and quietly stood in front of the page.

"Boy."

Chauhn looked up, his breath held in his throat. Standing before him was one of the guards, an older kind of man who had a worried wrinkle between his brows, with his hand on his sword. He had a kindly look about him, an old and wizened kind of atmosphere that made Chauhn uncomfortable, suspicious of his kindness.

"Sir?" he responded, wiping the hurt from his face as cleanly as possible. He must have still had a knot between his brows or a hook pulling down his lip because the guard softened his face.

"How are you doing, son?" he asked. His armor clinked as he shifted.

Chauhn feigned confusion, honestly not enjoying the familiarity that the man was attempting to use with him. The word 'son' hurt him, it was like a hot iron pressed against his chest, branding him as something that he was no longer. He was nobody's son. He wasn't anyone's brother. And, at this rate, he could hardly be anybody's Grimm either. He managed to choke back what bitter feelings were festering in his gut and summoned his voice for an answer.

"Fine, sir," he wanted to ask why but such a question was beyond him. He was a servant after all. It was just his luck that the older guard took a breath to explain himself.

"Not only are you his Lord's page, but a Grimm as well," he started off slowly, with a raise of his brow that implied he was speaking the obvious, "But, like his lord and other Grimms here in the estate, you and your Plagues have been bothered by a murder of crows, it seems. I saw you the other day, chased by them through the snow, and seeing you here earlier today with the commoners, I couldn't help but take special notice when your Plague ran from your aid. I wanted to confer with you and make sure that everything between you and he were alright."

Another punch into Chauhn's gut. The man couldn't have asked him a more harmful question. Straining to fix his face into a weak smile, he nodded his head vigorously while he attempted to gather his voice again. "Sir, we 'ave just a bit o' trouble is all, a spat. We don't see quite eye to eye, but he's harmless." He gave a nervous swallow. There was a worried tremble in his heart, which confused him when it harmonized against the rest of the hurt that was squeezing his chest.

"Might I advise something for you, boy?" the guard asked.

Chauhn squeezed his mouth tight and nodded again. The guard leaned forward, daring to place a fatherly hand on his shoulder, and with a collective clink from his armor, he sank down onto his knee, to Chauhn's height. Such preparations made Chauhn uneasy and he tried his hardest not to wince out from underneath his hand. He was feeling more and more belligerent the more that this man tried to talk to him with gentility.

With a clearing of his throat, a smile graced the corners of his life-worn cheeks. "Son, I want you to consider this. It is a precaution, but moreover, it is a way to help yourself son, and help others. There is a place in Imisus where Plagues are being sent. If you give me your Plague, I can escort him safely to this place, so that they will be watched over by the Council. You will worry for naught, and hopefully you will not be bothered any more by those blasted crows or receive any of the hostility from the commoners and other fearful folk. You are far too young to be dealing with any of that-"

"I was far too young to have been made an orphan."

Chauhn focused a deadly pair of green eyes at the man. The only thing that was holding him back from throwing his fist into the man's face was his social obligation to be a respectful page representing his Lord. He had slandered his Lord's name once with his brief dip into insanity, he wasn't about to do it again. He also didn't know what would happen if he raised his voice, but he didn't want to be responsible for another death. Besides all the trouble that would get him in, it would distance Clurie from him even more, and that was the last thing that he wanted.

"Pardon me, sir, but ahm goin' to speak frankly," Chauhn said with as much restrained anger as he could, "But you don't seem to realize what it is tha' a Grimm is. A Grimm, sir," he pushed off the man's hand and straightened his spine, "Has a duty to his Plague, just as a Plague has a duty to him. We protect each other. A Grimm is to his Plague like the sun is to the moon, always together. We fight one another, we argue, we're opposites, and we can never be the same and we can never be what the others wants, just as they can never be what we want either! You can't tear us apart, you shouldn't even dare to try. Leave me 'n' my Plague alone, sir, leave all the Grimms alone, 'n' ah won't consider breaking my oath of peace to Lord Yizhaq."

With an angry tuck of his mouth, Chauhn tore his eyes away from the guard and hurried forth on angry steps towards the doors of the estate, leaving behind a bewildered guard. The guard tried shouting at him, waving him down, begging for another moment of a lent ear, but Chauhn stormed on, his heart pulling down into his stomach with fear for the implications of the soldier's words. Were Plagues being taken away? Carted off to the Council? What was the Council hoping to do, what could they do, drowning in a sea of chaos and riot? He knew, like everyone else in the compound, just what kind of terror was seizing every town in Imisis, and to think that there was some kind of safe haven within the Council's midst was an ignorant and loosely founded thought. How could they dare advise that their Plagues be taken away?

It was then that Chauhn, with his heart set in stone, threw open the doors to the servant's hallways, intent on protecting his Plague with the kind of strength and devotion seen only from the boy when he used to have soot and chimney dust smeared across his cheeks in lieu with a humble smile. It was a flash of the old Chauhn Clemmings, stirred up from underneath the cankered woe and grief of a grieving young boy who couldn't cope with the loss of his family. Not only was it a flash, but it was a spark, and it was quickly catching flame again in the broken wreckage that was the page-turned pauper.

.. . . . ..

.. . . . ]| Memory Fades |[ . . . ..
March 23th, 1411

Chauhn, shaken by his Plague's encounter with an Obscuvian, keeps a closer eye on him. He feels rekindled feelings like he had before for Clurie, but now just for Clurie.

.. . . . ..