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It was cold.

The air bit at the lord's exposed skin, adding a red flush beneath his tan and making the muscles of his face feel uncomfortably tight. The sun had set two hours prior, leaving the icy region as inhospitable as it looked. Reining in his horse tightly upon the ridge, he glanced back to meet the gaze of his companion. A shared nod and he looked down the valley to a solitary cabin. He did not need to gesture to direct the knight's attention, and instead pulled his hood up once more, the squeeze of his thighs beginning the descent toward the small homestead.

He could feel it. Things were... Unwell.

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Things had gone downhill the moment he'd received an urgent message from Lady Estratus, informing him that his page, Chauhn, would be in holding until he arrived to take claim of him. The seed of anxiety and nausea that had sat low in his stomach upon taking his leave from Shyregoad had sprouted, instantly, and had continued to grow, twisted and strong, much like the roots and branches that the troubled boy in question manipulated in his rage.

Still, the world went on, and he had taken his caravan home. There, he had spoken to an angry gathering of the commonwealth, before leaving once more the next morning for the North Base of the Fellowship. In tow was young Audrey, an urchin and Grimm of Imisus.

Upon his arrival, an urgent conference with the Head Adviser, who was in a cold rage. Understandably so. Lord Yizhaq had felt his own anger and frustration growing by the minute, at the tale that had been told to him. One of torture and betrayal. These were the hands he had left his charge in, and it pained him.

Eventually, Sir Sloane was directed to take him to the dark prison, where Chauhn was to be liberated into his lord's displeased care. Instead, they found a broken cage, the remnants of Chauhn's powerful new abilities. The roots of unease grew deeper, and it was decided quickly that Yizhaq, Hayat, and Sloane would find the boy before the worst of things happened. If they hadn't already.

Yizhaq had stopped speaking early on, unless absolutely necessary, his words clipped and terse. Anger colored each of his moments, his very physique, a tightly controlled emotion that powered him, rather than making him unmanageable.

They had ridden hard, Chauhn's trail of rage and pain easy to follow for the empath, Hayat's own unique vision leading them further. It soon became clear that the murderous boy was going to finish what he had started. The second murder of his brother, and perhaps that of the Malts, as well.

He ached to think of what they might come to, to stop him, and did not share his thoughts with the Anhelo that traveled beside him.

When Chauhn awoke, he was sure he had just stepped back into a nightmare. The world for him had flipped, his dreams being the reality and his reality the nightmare, leaving him confused and breathing hard moments after he awoke before he realized the terrible nature of his situation. The bodies he was sleeping near were not those of his family, happily tucked together in their sleeping blankets in their small family room. They were the bodies of others. Looking over his shoulder where the warm of the other body, Adal's in fact, kept him from freezing at least on one side, he blinked the crustiness from his eyes as he cracked his head from where he had it laid upon the Plague's shoulder. To his side were the Malt brothers, exhausted and sleeping with their red eyes pinched closed, huddled close to a shivering boy with black hair who slept between them. The only light was from a pulsing glow in his cracked cheeks, which lit up the other boy's faces. It wasn't a peaceful sleep, it was troubled, their brows sewn tight into one another, perpetually aware of the cold biting into them with increasing strength with the death of another winter sun. Or perhaps, like Chauhn, they were reliving dreams with the terrors not too soon passed.

Chauhn began to shake.

Like a heavy weight being pressed onto his chest, or a drill slowly yanking out his innards, he felt the burden of everything past come crashing down on him with the weight of his broken little world. Slowly, he peeled himself from Adal's side, feeling as if he had been sleeping underneath the claw of a mythical dragon. If he made a noise, he would wake it, he would be crushed into the flecks of gold that made its bed, soaking the yellow with red, a bug to be rightly popped from existence. Every moment that passed, he trembled more and more strongly, his teeth beginning to mutely chatter in his jaw as a hot wave's worth of tears pressed up against his sore eyeballs, threatening to spill as he kicked himself away.

He could see him more clearly now, or at least, as clearly as he could in the weak light. He looked just like Clurie.

Chauhn choked back a wretched sob, pushing his hand into his face, striving with all his strength to hold back his grief, but such an attempt was weak at best when confronted with the amount of turmoil that was thrashing about in his body. Tearing his eyes from the highlighted face of the one that he had seen, three years ago, collapse into embers, Chauhn clumsily picked himself up from the twisted floorboards and wobbled drunkenly to the front of the cabin, a gaping hole where a door used to be. Snow was spilling in, crawling further into the cabin as if seeking shelter, meekly covering the chaos that Chauhn had left in his wake only hours ago. Tripping over the warped floorboards, staring at the aftermath of work created by his own hands, his own voice, that crept along the ceiling, the walls in the form of traveling roots and branches, choking the humbleness of the cabin into an otherworldly overgrown fairytale cabin.

Chauhn felt a sick feeling crawl up his throat from the bottom of his gut. He stumbled faster for the opening, lurching out of it to stumble away from the warmth and the recollected memories of the feeling of his family pressed against him, happy and humble to share warmth when the weather turned frigid and chill. Only a few steps out of the cabin though and the snow swallowed his legs, forcing him into a wobble and fall into the white, a dark figure barely highlighted by the sickly light. There, Chauhn choked himself with snow, trying his best to suffocate the scream that was welling up in his throat.

What had he done.

The cabin was beautiful and monstrous, a twisted thing from a children's tale whose details came to light as they drew near. Stale rage and confusion throbbed from its center, hardening the pit in Yizhaq's stomach. His hand tightened upon the reigns.

"There," Hayat's cool voice carried on the brisk wind, both urgent and measured as a figure stumbled from the maw of the overgrown structure. Her vision was clear, cutting through snow and darkness to focus, refocus on the movements. "The boy."

Yizhaq had no need of clarification, and as a second figure emerged from the cabin, he dismounted, hoping to intercede. Georgie made it first.

Grief. Sorrow. Guilt.

"It's alright, Chauhn, we have you."

The Lord's gloved hand found the broken boy's other shoulder, squeezing once before he found himself overcome with emotion. His knee hit the ground, sank into the cold as he pulled the young man, the child, into his arms.

"We must see to my kin," the falcon was solid where her lord was shaken. "Leave him to the knight, m'lord."

Reason threaded its way into his consciousness but Yizhaq shook, searching until his hazel eyes found the mixed pair of the Infitalis. "No, we have released my charge into the care of far too many, these past months." Chauhn needed to be taken home.

"Sir Sloane," Hayat abandoned the attempt, her wary eyes moving from the three in the snow to the cabin. "We should find their brothers." She hoped he would not object as she sought him for a perch. Though he cared for the boy, they needed to ensure the survival of their own species. If Clurie lived, it might do him some measure of sanity to see Hayat.

The fast fading warmth of the bodies that he had cowered close to was now ripped away by the cold, and Chauhn was more than alright with that. The warmth that brought to mind the dim glow of the cheeks of the Plague within only brought pain, pain associated with that new vision, that new haunting visage that was neither his brother nor the little Excito that he had tried to kill. He could hardly bear it, bear anything at this moment. The curl of that Plague's hair, the shape of his face...His mind was a spinning buckling mess of painful shards, the glass of his solid character now a punched spiderweb of shattered pieces, raking through him with every thought. What had happened? He had snapped, he had done terrible things, evil things, things that were not becoming to a Clemmings. He had ruined his name, his family's honor, he had crushed it all with the very same blow that crushed the innocent bell excito, and then he proceeded to drive it into the ground with his swiveling heel in every instance afterwards, but most of all, he ruined himself.

No, he realized, he had ruined something more important than himself. Chauhn gave into another heaving sob, leaning forward into the snow to choke himself with it. He had ruined Clurie.

He hardly felt the comforting hand of Georgie upon his shoulder, weeping hard as he strove to collapse into the snow, to bury himself there, to let the numbness of the cold envelop his body, his thoughts, his everything. The hand of Georgie could not soothe him, could not comfort him from all that he had seen performed by his hands. He inhaled sharply as another sob wracked itself through his body, and another still when he felt another glove latch onto his shoulder. For the longest time, he thought that it was Georgie again, taking him with both shoulders as if to lift him from diving into the snow to his white grave, but it was not his. It was a firmer grip than Georgie was prone to giving. He began to lift his snow freckled face, confused, until he noticed the dark silhouettes gathered about the front of the cabin and their horses. Help had arrived too late. Overwhelmed with shock that help should come at all, he stiffened up as the familiar body of his Lord dropped into the snow before him, drawing him up into a powerful embrace, gathering him against a figure he had long since missed. It took him a couple moments more to digest what had been said, words that he had not heard for ages, words of sincere comfort and promise, like the ones given by his family years ago. He wasn't sure if he deserved those words now. Needless to say, Chauhn allowed himself to lean against Yizhaq, weeping harder with his broken voice, burying his face into Yizhaq's clothes like he had tried to do with the snow. He had not realized that the other figure was his knight.

While the humans converged outside, the Plagues left within stirred, but none so slowly as did the newborn. Clurie's wretched heart longed to stay asleep, preferring the distinct bitter taste of his memories rather than the weariness of reality, but Adal's movements woke him up all the same. His consciousness first realized that it was now no longer as warm now that the body of Georgie had lifted up, following after the disgruntled and miserable sounds that he could only assume were made by the boy he had once called brother. Screwing his face into a frown, tightening up in an effort to shut out the waking world, he slowly came to remember that his body had changed in the night, that he had been born anew. He took a long inhale, which puffed his cheeks into brightness, and he scrunched his newly formed nose, moving his face in a way that he flexed every muscle, now equipped with more features, more movement. All of his new expressions, so far, seemed painful. A violent shiver, starting from the base of his spine and crawling up to his shoulders made him realize that his body was now formulated of more muscles too, and he drew himself together tighter, pressing himself into a ball to escape that terrible cold that was settling in now that the bodies were leaving his side. He made a sound of displeasure, his focus falling upon the twisted and poisonous feeling in his gut and chest, the natural inclination to sob or flinch. From beneath the snarled black tangle of his bangs did he reluctantly open the black pits of his eyes, blinking as he took account of the world around him. Adal had lifted up before him onto his own feet and was staring towards the opened entrance of the twisted cabin.

Within that doorway gleamed a tall and gigantic figure, though not quite as gigantic as Clurie remembered him. There was someone else on his shoulder.

Attempting to uncurl himself, Clurie found that when he pushed his hands against the chilled wood of the floor that his arms collapsed from their shape, too weak to withstand his weight. He groaned and attempted again, trying to push himself up, trying to force the ash that made up his arms and legs to reform and support him, but he was yet so empty, so hungry. He remained on the ground, bitterly trying to pull up his body, his cheeks burning bright with effort.

"A-Adal," he muttered, looking up underneath the slump of his hat as it fell forward onto his forehead, "...What..."