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The streets of the coastal Imisus city were busy as usual, a hustle of bodies and goods being traded from one place to the next, stands being restocked and boats being loaded. It was the perfect kind of chaos to get away with all sorts of mischief, especially for young children with the unfortunate status of being urchins.

Unfortunately for Chauhn Clemmings, that was not his sort of thing to do. He was an honorable urchin, one who would rather work to earn his goods rather than surreptitiously pluck them out from a passerby's pocket. It was to his dismay, that this kind of method of gaining money would've been perfect for him right now, if he hadn't been overwhelmingly ill.

His long harsh travel from Shyregoed to Imisus and overwhelmingly difficult quest left him in shambles, and despite the clean bandages wrapped around his chest, arms, hands, feet, and legs, Chauhn convinced himself to lift up his stiff body out of bed and crawl out of the Council's secret cellars. He needed medicine, he knew. Judging by the raging heat in his head, and the perpetually watery state of his eyes, he was running a fever, and he still hadn't the guts to ask a Council member to mother him until he was well. The Clemmings boy figured he could take care of himself, just like he always had.

This time, though, he wasn't completely alone.

In his collar, trying to hide himself out of sight, was a little Phasmas, clinging to Chauhn's neck. It was the newly reborn Clurie Clemmings. He could feel the heat rising in his brother's neck, just by the touch of his skin, and it worried him, particularly after watching him...Watching....Uh...Clurie's attention was suddenly broken in twain. The passing lights and colors and people were too distracting for him to hold a train of thought, much less remember what it was he was trying to remember. Until then, Clurie had only been outside once, and this had been the first time he's been out and around during the day...He thought. Clurie wasn't sure. Maybe he was out more than once? Maybe he was out all of the time? When did they even get outside of the Council?

Clurie's head began to hurt.

"Uh," Clurie said, speaking up to garner Chauhn's deteriorating attention, "What are we doing?"

"Med'cine, Clurie," Chauhn answered, his breath haggard and strained. He shoved his way through a crowd of people, waving his arms for balance, "Hush, please, ah dun wan' 'nyone knowin' you're 'ere wit' me, alrigh'?"

"My name's Clurie?" the little Plague asked in shock, as if hearing this startingly important piece of information for the first time.

"...Clurie Clemmings," Chauhn said, too impatient and too sick to care for his Plague's poor memory skills, "Now, shh, ah dun--" But before he was able to say much more, Chauhn found himself in the way of a large crate being carried by two brutish men. "'Old tigh', Clurie!" he gasped. Unable to stop his momentum, Chauhn instinctively ducked and lurched forward, sliding underneath the load, but once he was free of the obstacle, he was unable to lift himself up again. Had he been feeling well, he would've been able to navigate the blockade and land back on his feet, but today was just not his day. With a stumble and the give of his ankle, Chauhn tottered over to the side and fell onto the cobblestone, skinning his cheek upon the stone.

Clurie, not having much to hold onto but the fabric of Chauhn's hood, flipped forward and spilled out onto the cobblestone in front of Chauhn's face. Giving a cough of ashes, he lifted himself up from the stone and wobbled as he tried to gain his feet. Looking up at his brother, the little Phasmas skittered forward and tried to lift up Chauhn's face. His skin was even hotter now and the urchin was having difficulty lifting up from the ground, too weak to give much movement, other than the strain of his arms against the stone.

"Brother!" Clurie squeaked, trying to push the fat of his cheek upwards, as if that would somehow lift up the rest of his body, "I want to be up high and see the people again. Come on. Hey...Why are you so hot? Oh....Oh, right! I remember. Medicine. We need to get medicine. Come on, brother! ....What's your name again?"

"...It's Chauhn, Clurie," the Clemmings boy was able to mutter, attempting to lift himself up. Noticing that his brother was out in the open, he blearily scooped him into the protective shield of his arm, "Get back 'n m'collar, Clurie!"

Preoccupied with gathering his little Plague into his collar, Chauhn hardly took note of the scrambling patter of shoes across cobblestone coming to a rest just before him. Pulling his collar up and high so that the little body clinging to his neck would be obscured from casual glances, Chauhn looked up just in time to see a woman's hand lying itself upon his forehead. For a few bleary moments, he knelt there before her, quiet and bleary, his eyes and nose red from the run of liquid. It took the warm warning hand of heat upon his neck from his Plague to wake him from his stupor. Chauhn flinched away finally and shook his head at the woman, quite intent on dodging anything she might offer to him by cowering beneath his hat and tucking his chin into his collar. Charity was one thing, but, as said before, he was a noble urchin. Chauhn preferred to work for his wages and earnings.

"No, mum," the street waif croaked, "Ahm fine, jus' a wee bit wit' a chest col' is all, ahm sure. Ahm fine, mum." It was a string of blathered nothing, but Chauhn hoped that it would spurn the kindly woman to whatever task she was doing before hand.

Unfortunately for Chauhn, he never really had a chance to see if the ploy worked, for, a little raspy voice erupted from his collar in a helpful list of symptoms.

"Well, mum, he's got runny eyes and runny nose and he's hot! Hot, hot, like hearths and he keeps getting hotter. He told me that his head aches and beats with his heart. We're lookin' for medicine!"

Little Clurie, his cheeks aglow with ember, peered out from underneath Chauhn's chin. As soon as he saw the lady though, he ducked back in and hid himself. He was a good brother, he knew. Chauhn told him to keep out of sight and he did! Chauhn would be proud of him.

Except that Chauhn wasn't. At the sound of the rasp from his throat, he stiffened and tucked his head to his shoulder, promptly pinning the Phasmas to his neck, which earned a pair of white hot hands to his skin in retaliation. Chauhn slapped a hand to his neck, and glared balefully at the woman, his cheeks hot with fever and embarrassment, "Ah tol' you t'be out of sigh'!" he hissed to his Plague.

"I was!" Clurie piped defensively, "She asked a question and I answered it for you. I stayed out of sight the whole time."

"When ah say 'outta sigh', ah mean that you be quiet 'n' scarce!" Chauhn said. He lifted his hand away from his neck, gingerly touching the new burn marks on his neck from his Excitos. Then, again to the lady, Chauhn offered an apologetic frown, "Sorry, mum, sorry, its fine, really."

With a heavy cough into his sleeve, a racking kind of thing that raked itself free from his little cold lungs, Chauhn tucked his hands near his neck. Thankfully, the cough proved useful, for, in that moment that he pretzeled his arms around his face, Chauhn plucked the little body in his hands and wrenched him down as gently as possible, stuffing him deep into his overall's front pocket. There was a little sound of protest from Clurie, and a gathering warmth that Chauhn quickly took to avoid, but otherwise the transition proved a smooth successful endeavor. Now with his brother safely stowed away in his clothes, Chauhn stepped again into the role of playing the honest street urchin.

"Goodness, mum, ah couldn't afford t'pay you back, 'n' tha's not m'way to just take kin'ness 'n' all. Ah work for m'charity mum, ah earn it, 'n' ahm sure, mum, that your coins would be best spen' on somethin' for yourself," but as he tried to dissuade the lovely lady from any thoughts of selfless service, Chauhn found himself increasingly distracted. It wasn't the wiggling and muffled sounds of whining from the pocket on his chest, but rather a small little...muffled voice...coming from the lady's breasts. Shaking his head in attempts to clear whatever ache of illness now played with his ears, Chauhn mumbled a last few sentences, his voice weak and hoarse, as if he were readying to cough again, "...'N' ahm certain ah don't...Have a...the...Have a...Plague."

With wide eyes, he focused his bleary gaze on the woman, a silent question proposed by his child's stare.

He asked quietly, almost too quiet to be heard by the lady, "Do you?"

The empty spaces in Chauhn's stomach echoed the lady's words as if to back her statement. She had hit it right. Honor, in his trade, was less than beneficial, and if it earned anything, it was only enough bread to tuck in the yawning corners of his gut and the growing spaces between his limbs. It wasn't hard to see that his meager gain in the industry of being an orphan pickpocket with a golden heart left him several inches short of where he should of grown to at his age. He was smaller stature than most, slender and skinny, something that he used to his advantage and something he didn't so much bat an eye at in disappointment. But...The effects of his honorable working did show.

A Clemmings was always honest, a Clemmings was honorable and a Clemmings always upheld a good reputation. If Chauhn wanted to uphold his dead family's name, he would have to accept the lady's kindness. She was right. He didn't want to be rude.

Bowing his head at her and taking off his ruddy hat to clasp it tight with dirtied fingers in front of his chest (purposefully to hide the irritated glow in his pocket), Chauhn offered his best defeated apologetic smile. "Yer very kind, mum," he said in a mutter, blinking through the fever that moistened his eyes, "Ah...Ah guess ah 'ave no choice but to say yes then. M'head 'urts if'n like it was stuck 'n an oven, mum, 'n ah got sniffs 'n coughs..." As if to reinforce his statement, Chauhn gave a series of wheezing coughs.

Then, just ever so quietly, he mumbled again, keeping his hat close over his chest, "Ah mean no disrespect, mum, but...Ah dun feel safe lettin' m'brother out 'n the street like this...It's not safe, mum. No matter where, it's not safe. If'n we can go someplace quieter?"

From his chest, underneath his hat came a muffled cry, "Heeeeey!"

Sniffling again once he was reminded of the wetness in his nose, Chauhn wiped his sleeve across his face, revealing a reddened nose moments after. Elsie was right, he did look a sight. While she presented options to him, Chauhn thought with the mind of an urchin and found that it clashed with the mind of a Grimm. He wanted to just be quick and get this encounter over with so he could scamper back to the protective wings of the Council, but, at the same time, he didn't want to risk Clurie's exposure anymore so than he did already. There were a thousand instances he could dream up of his precious brother being stolen away, and each image made Chauhn's stomach churn. He would much rather take less chances of his brother being spotted in plain daylight than get away from this supposedly kind woman as quickly as possible. Sucking it up, he sniffed again wetly, making his head throb underneath the hand that kindly patted his head.

"Your home, mum, if'n anythin'. If'n yours and mine would like to play, ah would rather it 'n your home 'n' not 'n the streets. Just as long as your brother won't be 'n," he added as an afterthought. He didn't want to meet anyone else who wasn't a Grimm if he could help it. The less people who knew about Clurie, the better.

So, having discussed and decided their plan of action, Chauhn took to following the billowing skirts of the lady Grimm, stepping close to her and sometimes catching his thumbs along the hem of her sleeve to save himself from being lost in the crowd. With his wits and mind all askew and scrambled, he knew that he was more apt to lose her or trip or do something likewise stupid. It was in that sickly daze that Chauhn, bearing a little wiggling and angry coughing Plague in his front pocket as well as a full blown headache in his head, followed Elsie to the front step of her home, someways through the town in an area he had been several times before on errands and chimney sweeping jobs.

"This is your 'ome, mum?" Chauhn asked a little breathlessly, patting the pocket in which Clurie now rested himself against the warmth of his chest. For some time he had laid there, giving up on escape, and he contented himself with listening to the beat of Chauhn's heart. It was easier to pass the time like that, counting away the tick tocks in his brother's life. Upon hearing that they were at there place of destination, he gave another desperate wiggle and bumped his head at the hem of the pocket.

"I wanna see! I wanna see!" he piped.

"Hush, Clurie, please...Not yet, not 'til we're inside."

With the promise of being safe from any other encounters, Chauhn followed after Elsie, though his movements were still as ginger as if he were stepping on glass.

"Ah don't wan' to keep you long," he mumbled, standing beside Elsie as they moved as if he, himself, were some kind of felon. He didn't mind being moved into her shadow, the more he was away from suspicious eyes the better, but he didn't think of what other reasons she might have had for keeping him out of sight. He was blissfully ignorant to anything else beyond her first impression, a kind woman, who, like a few he had met before, was lucky enough to have a Plague. With her title as Grimm, Chauhn found it easier to trust her, so, trust her he did as the ascended the stairs and pressed themselves through the narrow doorway into a room just big enough for a single person to be comfortable in, not two, brother and sister, to live in. People did what they must in the lower class sprawl of Imisus.

Beckoned into the small space, Chauhn dragged his weary self into a corner, a place where he was in reach of the door should he be possessed by the overwhelming need to escape for whatever reason, and protected well enough that he didn't have to watch his back or flanks for any potential danger. He was already weary enough as it was, his body aching and his head hot and heavy with the swollen fever. He was weak and he didn't want to make any slip ups that might result in endangering himself and his brother.

Oh! His brother.

Settled against the wall on the floor, Chauhn opened up his front pocket, finally allowing for the little Phasmas to crawl out, coughing up little plumes of ash and spark as he straightened himself out from his unceremonious carrying place. Dusting off his overalls and straightening his cap as he was held in Chauhn's hand, the youngest Clemmings brother glanced over with his red cheeks to Noel who was perched on his mother's shoulders.

"Now, you bee nice 'n' all," Chauhn said softly under his breath to him, holding his brother over his crossed legs on the platform of his hands, "Remember, a Clemmings is always court'ous."

"Oh, right! Right," Clurie nodded, giving a bit of a rub at his cheeks to make them glow a deep red. Turning again to wave to the new Phasmas, his first ever seen kindred and Plague, he took off his hat, bowed, and finished it with a wave, "Hello Gov'ner! I'm Clurie Clemmings! Pleasure!"

Chauhn wasn't sure how he was to react to the kind lady's offer, but then again, he wasn't even sure if he was standing or not, which he wasn't. The sickness so regaled his head with misconstrued facts, that he could only mumble in response until he realized that he had been asked a question that he should think on. Giving a painful swallow and heavily blinking his eyes free of the heat that gathered in his cheeks, Chauhn forced himself to focus again on the question she had asked from where he leaned up with his back against the wall on the floor.

Food, well, that was certainly welcome, as it always was for a child in his position, but he was an (albeit dirty and scuffed) urchin of noble bearings, who would rather earn his food than just accept it. So, to prove this point, Chauhn set up to his feet, provided he nearly fell flat on his face with the effort, and stood, as straight as he could manage to answer her question.

"Ahm....Ahm certain, mum, if there's work tha' ah could do, that food would be..." but self-editing slowed him down to think on what he said so far, and he started over, "A meal, mum, would be grand, but only if'n ah can work for it. Certainly, there's some chore or somethin' ah can do for you?"

And while his question hung in the air, Elsie turned about on order of the little plague she carried, and set forth to the table that was between the two. Carefully, she deposited him on the table, and he carefully tip toed forward, like a bird attempting to get near a fallen crumb. It took a few moments for Chauhn to realize that his own Phasmas, jumping eagerly and squeezing his thumb, was asking to be let down as well. After surveying the safety of the table and eying the other Excitos, Chauhn deemed it safe enough to let down his own brother. After releasing his brother to skitter on the tablecloth, Chauhn felt a weakness in his knees and he maneuvered himself into the nearby stool for the table where he collapsed and held his head.

He felt so ill, his head alive with flame and his gaze cloudy and squinted. Despite the fever, though, he managed to prop his elbow up on the table's edge and watch over his brother as he moved forward to greet his kindred Phasmas.

Clurie, unlike Noel, moved forward with a jovial saunter, holding out his hand as he approached in merry greeting, his other hand tipping his hat back again as if to get a better view of the other Excitos. "Pleasure to meet you, really, truly, honestly a pleasure!" he bubbled, taking a moment to throw his head to the side and cough up a lungful of ash that was clogging up his merry sentences, "Can you see me better now? I'm a Phasmas, just like you!"

Beyond the initial feeling of greeting, Clurie had no more thoughts on the matter than the fact that he was meeting another Excitos, someone of his size, for the first time. Whimsical fancies and thorough attention to his whims were what guided his motions and actions, so instead of waiting for a proper handshake from the other Phasmas, Clurie reached forward and took the other's hand, shaking it vigorously with both his own.

"Really, an honor, Noel," Clurie spouted again, pausing again to twist to the side and cough up another bout of grey. Releasing the handshake, Clurie wiped his mouth across his sleeve and grinned, his cheeks a glowing red. "What's happened to your arm? It's gone!"

"Manners, Clurie," Chauhn reminded his brother with a dreary sigh and rub at his temples.