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As the Lord Yizhaq's page, Chauhn was enlisted to endeavor on all kinds of jobs in and out about the city tucked into the ankles of the Fellowship. With cheeks bitten red by the n** of the cold, he skittered about the crowds as easily as might a stray wind, passing by with ease, nearly invisible to the passersby. It was thanks to his few years as a street urchin, a good for nothing tatterdemalion who thrived underneath the heel of the middle class, that Chauhn found it so easy to navigate the crowds. This day, he was out on a resupply mission with a few pennies in his pocket to purchase precious jackets and blankets that would save himself and his Lord from the cold in their upcoming journeys back and forth between the Fellowship's main building and his Lord's estate.

In his collar, curled his ever present assistant and sibling, little Clurie Clemmings, who idly rubbed at his cheeks to keep himself warm with what little flame he could conjure in the cold. He was content to help his brother in his endeavors (even when the help was just moral support), but on excursions like this where he was forced to brave the cold, Clurie wanted to do nothing more than hide deep within Chauhn's layered clothes and sleep away the time in the unforgiving climate.

With his breath steaming up underneath the brim of his hat, Clurie gave a dissatisfied mewl and a grump, "Chauhn!" he called, his little voice hardly more than a whisper in comparison to the ramble and rumble of the market crowd. "Please tell me that we're almost done, it's bloody cold!"

"Ah know, Clurie, ah know," Chauhn said in a murmur, squinting his eyes for a potential stand that might suit his needs, "After we finish our job, we can go back."

"How much longer?" pressed the Excito.

Chauhn's eyes focused in on a lady, dark-skinned and foreign, who meandered close to a booth, moving as if she were...Chauhn paused and furrowed his brows. He knew that approach well, a tactic used by thieves and urchins, and immediately his little noble heart plucked up with righteousness. She had stolen from that good vendor!

"A little longer, Clurie. 'Old on," he said, his voice wary as he began to follow after the lady. Stealthily he followed in close pursuit, as quickly as he could. He didn't want to lose her!

"Aw, cor! What! But that'll be ages from now!" Clurie said from his collar with a whine. But with a cross of his arms, he tucked himself back into the confines of his clothes, shivering.

Gingerly, Chauhn stepped into the alley, his back stretching itself straight as he found the foreigner taking a bite of her spoils. Mustering up his voice, he stepped closer, trying to look like Lord Yizhaq, strong and in control, despite that he was still a small Imisese boy.

"You there!" he said, loud, "You stole those apples!"

For a moment there, Chauhn was under the impression that everything was going along to plan. He had approached the lady thief, demanded that things be put right, and her response to his command was nothing more than a flavor of personality he believed. He couldn't deny the glow of righteous that lit up his cheeks and bestowed strength to his recently unsure stature. He was proud! Stealing, for the Clemmings boy, had always been wrong. Not because he saw the murder of justice in the act, but because he saw the laziness. He had been brought up to work hard for what he earned, and he couldn't fathom why anyone else wouldn't be willing to partake in such an honest endeavor. It made the spoils so much sweeter. Or at least, that's what Chauhn Clemmings thought. So, while every other boy in the seafaring town, that was his home back in Imisus, stole and mugged and robbed, Chauhn was the one urchin out of the bunch who shuffled his way from house to house asking if their chimney needed to be swept.

"Mum, you did," he said in response to her first act of innocence, he said putting his hands on his hips, "Y'know you coul' do an exchange for it, work for it if'n you 'ave only very little coin left."

For a boy his age, Chauhn could be rather dumb. He didn't notice that the 'kind' lady was in armor, nor did he realize that she was anything but remorseful. When she made the apology and offered the apple, Chauhn was only too happy to hold out his hand to receive the apple and return it to that poor merchant's table. The one who did notice something, though, was poking out of his collar, hidden from sight by the shadows that hung underneath Chauhn's chin. He caught the awkward sound in her voice, and Clurie knew something was wrong. To warn his brother of her suspicious behavior, the little Excito placed his hand on Chauhn's neck, warming it up as a white hot signal to say 'watch out', but that wasn't enough. Chauhn still held out his hand. When the woman started to move back her arm, coiling it for a soon forthcoming throw, Clurie gave a tight gasp and shouted with all the strength in his two centimeter long lungs.

"BROTHER! LOOK OUT!"

Well intended was the action, but poor was the result. Instead of ducking or taking evasive action, Chauhn lowered his head to try and see what Clurie was going on about, which made a very good target for the projectile apple. It smashed painfully against his cranium, choking a few freckles of juice into the air, and left the boy rather stunned. Chauhn took a step back, his knees immediately weakening and as he fumbled for balance, but Clurie took a step forward. The little Excito scrambled onto his brother's shoulder, fighting away the cold that pressed over his body and he gave a terrible shriek of anger at the woman.

"You hurt my brother!" he screamed, "Do anything more and I'll set your hair on fire! I'll choke you to death with ash if you step any closer to him, I'll blind you with ember!"

When it was neither the strength of the throw nor the capability of the boy to take a blow, it was actually that the apple was more frozen that it was not. When it hit, it hit with a resounding clunk and Chauhn's gaze was shot with stars. Stumbling to the nearby wall to lean up against the cold stone, Chauhn tried his best to regain his senses.

In the meanwhile, grasping to Chauhn's shoulder as the boy wobbled over to the wall, Clurie shouted and hissed, acting in all respects like an intimidated cat. With a rub at his cheeks and a furl of his fists, the Excito squawked and flung whatever he could in his arsenal of intimidating phrases at the woman who was fast approaching.

"Ahm a Plague! 'N' ah will burn you if you step closer!" he barked, and with a dramatic wave of his hands, he prompted them to spit and sputter ember. But still, she edged closer. She even leaned down, extended a hand to dust off and adjust Chauhn's hat, and kindly cleaned it of the apple shrapnel. Still, though, Clurie wasn't moved from his position, and his fluttering only increased. "Ah don't care if you don't have any more apples, because you can still hurt him! No! You're not sorry! Because you hurt my brother, I'll burn you! I will! My brother says not to trust anyone! And that means you!" he squeaked, and when she drew near enough to be eye level, Clurie gave a furious rub at his cheeks before sending forth a flight of hot embers to sting her cheeks, followed by a cough of ash.

Chauhn, though, at that moment, was able to think enough to pull his shoulder back from Maiya's face, sparing her most of the dust and flare from his protective Excito. He had failed to move earlier, as he was still piecing the world back together, but he hadn't so much as flinched when the dark-skinned woman drew near. Instead, he inched back away from her, a safe distance for the both of them, and put his hand to his shoulder, to protectively shield his brother.

"Clurie, no," he said to his brother, his voice a bit of a wobble, but quickly gaining strength, "Stop it."

Clurie gave a frown and a worried mewl, glancing to his brother from where he held onto his fingers, "She hurt you."

"Ah know she did, Clurie," Chauhn said with an exasperated sigh, and then he looked back at the woman, his eyes pointed, "You steal 'n' you hur' others, mum. Wha' else can you do?"

"M'accent is no' annoyin'," Chauhn said defensively, furrowing his brows further over his eyes. With the furrow came a slow inch backwards, a careful lean away from the woman to advertise the fact that he wasn't enjoying this encounter. As an urchin it was a law of the street not to trust anyone at any time for any particular reason. There were very few cases where a waif could trust another, but those happenstances were so few and far in between that no one could take them for certain. This copper skinned woman was already an odd color that Chauhn wasn't used to seeing, an unfortunate mark against her that she could not change, the fact that she stole an apple was a direct insult to Chauhn's noble heart, and the thrown apple was a given. If she had earned anything from him so far, it was the nervous prance of a gull, its wings poised and ready to flee.

So, when the girl attempted to reason with him, weave promises and good deeds, Chauhn scrunched his nose and lowered his chin to his neck, his hand still protectively curled about his brother, who huffed from behind his hand.

"Well, you hurt him and you stole an apple, mum, that's not what an upstanding citizen would do!" Clurie shouted in retort, and with a sniff he puffed so that his cheeks flared again into red. It was in that sniff that Clurie, pulled in the scent of something strange...He grew quiet and sniffed again, trying to pick up that strange smell...A raw and iron-y kind of smell, of mineral and something musky like...like...Clurie could have sworn it smelled like wood.

While Clurie tried to pinpoint the scent, Chauhn skewed his mouth into a frown and piped unhappily, "Ah don' need anythin' miss. Bu' tha' merchan' does. 'E needs a penny for 'is apples you stole. Tha' would prove you're an upstandin' citizen."

Finally! Clurie could pinpoint the smell and with a victorious squeak, he jumped onto Chauhn's hand. "She has a tainted item! She does! She does!"

Illusions did little to sway children, for they could often and very easily see beyond them, and Chauhn had still not yet lost this ability even as he approached the door to adulthood. The words and lies she spun were nothing more than see-through garments that she threw about herself, haphazardly and poorly, but Chauhn could still see that she was a liar and a thief, a common persuasion of the streets. He knew better than that, though, he was a Clemmings, and Clemmings folk were noble and true to their word, honest and hardworking. That was the right way to make a living.

The once urchin boy didn't stop his lips from slipping into a pout. "You could've offered a trade or a work 'n paymen' for the apple, a simple erran', mum, tha's all," he said, as if it were the simplest thing in the world to do. It certainly made him feel a lot more comfortable with himself and the guilt that he felt the one instance he tried to steal, a long time ago, when he was new to the streets and their ways, was not worth the effort or small success of stealing. There was no pride or good to be found there.

Clurie, though, was certain that there could be no pride or good found in the individual before him. He kept his hands hot and sparking, a bright white that twitched near his thighs, ready to snap forward in front of them to ignite a cloud of ash that he would cough in attack. He kept himself in check though. He wouldn't make his brother angry, and, if he were honest with himself, he wasn't sure if he could pull off an attack without it backfiring in his face. He wasn't all that good with the control of his magic yet. It was there, and he could grasp it, but each experience was like playing hot potato. It was a hit or miss, and more than often it was a miss.

"I'm a good thing!" Clurie said indignantly, "I'm not a monster. I'm a little boy!" But soon his corrections quieted as he noted the attention she was giving to his shout of interest a moment ago. The smell, she was going to pull whatever it was out!

But he gasped when she pulled out the hatchet. He wasn't expecting a weapon. And neither was Chauhn. Defensive reactions jumped into place and the boy jumped back and gave a terrible and high-pitched scream. He would take no chances when it came to his health. He scrambled out of range, keeping his eye at all times on the weapon, and stumbled into the debris of the alleyway while he flung his arms around his shoulders, plucking Clurie into the safety of his collar.

"HELP!" he yelped, his gut twisting at the sight of the bloody black gunk still fresh on the blade's edge.

Elsewhere, not too far away on the street, several people furrowed their brows at the sound. Some paused and began to search for the cause.

"Ah would've been glad if'n someone 'eard me, mum," Chauhn said defensively, not at all phased in his decision to display his fear for the woman despite the fact that she had laid her weapon on the ground with a careless throw. Chauhn made sure to back away as far as he could from her, because if she had that axe hidden on her this entire time, who knew what else she could have hidden on her person that would spell his death? It was a paranoid thought, true, but it was paranoia that guided and saved the denizens of the street. Chauhn narrowed his eyes at her as she tried to convince him of her innocent intentions.

"You're a qua-" he started to say, but then the little shivering body in his collar, gave a loud squeak and squawk.

"Chauhn!" Clurie shouted, trying his best to scramble into and out of Chauhn's grip, as he scattered a dusting of ash all over his brother's fingers. "Chauhn I can smell it so much better now. She's like you! She's got something like me. I can smell it, I can. Oh, cor! It smells a right stench it does!"

Attempting to hush the little squirming body in his hands, Chauhn made sure he was a safe distance of four yards away from the woman and her oozing axe-blade, before he allowed himself to take his eyes off her for the brief second it took to look at Clurie. He held his brother out in his palm, carefully blocking him with his other hand. "What is it, Clurie? Ah don't understand nothin' you're sayin. Whot do you mean?"

"She's a Grimm, Chauhn, she is, her axe! That's what's making a great stink." Clurie said informatively. He pointed at the axe, nearly jumping on the tips of his toes, to make his brother look back at the strange situation before them. "She's like you."

Like him. Chauhn eyed the woman with a new perspective, letting his initial panic drain from his body, even though he kept his shoulders pinned tight to his neck and his body tense and ready to run if anything were to happen. He stepped closer just a little bit to strain his eyes at the woman.

"...Jus' who are you?" Chauhn asked quietly, "'N' how did you ge' tha' tainted axe?"