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Upon hearing the scrape of the heavy wooden door as it opened to his dark cell, Chauhn flinched from the light and buried his face closer to the floor. He hadn't yet moved from the spot to which he was thrown, which was slightly off center in the middle of the room, but he hadn't much need to since his body was completely and entirely drained of energy from his ferocious display of chaos in the hours past. He scrunched together, finally, for some reason, realizing that he was cold in his thin hospital clothes still stained with blood and the murky taint of the dead Excito. But, it took him longer still, to realize that the sound of the scraping door was cue to none other than Jin-Ho, one of the few friends that he had made thus far in the Fellowship's grounds. But that brought him no comfort. He wanted only to take back what was rightfully his, but the weight of weariness and despair had all but immobilized him against the ground.

Underneath his chest his hands were bundled, loosely wrapped in the worn and stained bandages that he hadn't been able to change in a day. The new blood that he had spilled from stretching the wounds open again in his stiff palms was crusted over, already dry, and he dared not move his hands for fear of the sharp pain he could so clearly feel in the darkness of the cell.

But then it clicked. He hadn't seen Jin-Ho in many weeks. It had been some time since the beginning of winter's harshest that he had seen any trace of the man and it surprised him to see him now, returned without Chauhn's knowledge. The Clemming's boy, his face haggard, pale and accented with the dark circles underneath his Imisese eyes, lifted his gaze to Jin-Ho, looking over his shoulder and furrowing his brows with obvious confusion.

"...Sir," Chauhn said, for a moment sounding like his old polite and hard-working self, before he narrowed his green eyes and winced in upon himself, as if expecting an attack.

"You're 'n wit' the others, aren't you? You're wit' 'em, not wit' me. You think ah don't know what's what. Ah know what's what. 'N'...'n'...Sloane won't give 'im back to me. My baby brother. 'E...'E won't give 'im back," he stammered, his teeth chattering with the cold. He pressed his hands closer to his chest, biting his lips and seemingly to melt in defeat against the floor.

After some time, he muttered something more.

"...You left me alone. You were gone a long time, sir."

In response to the fire cast into the room, lighting the dark dank place for the first time since he had been brought in there, Chauhn winced and squinted his eyes shut, more out of the fear of seeing the claustrophobic walls pressing in on every side of him than the hurt it gave to his dark-adjusted eyes. Eventually he pried them open, blinking his reddened and weary eyes up to the man who knelt close to him. Chauhn felt miserable. Not only was he banished into the dungeon by an authority he respected and feared, but now he had the face the displaying of his shame to Jin-Ho, another individual whom he valued as a friend and mentor. His gut felt sick and Chauhn doubled over, wilting underneath the man's touch as he placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. He allowed the touch, didn't bite back at it or wince, but he did melt underneath it into a wax lump of knobs and curls. His skin was cold.

For a time, Chauhn would only shake his head and enact all the motions of crying, but without the tears. He had wasted those on himself in the darkness, letting them trace frosty criss crossing lines across his cheeks and eyelids. He still shook and breathed in chopped bits, muttering Clurie's name over and over, seemingly stuck on a never ending repetition of the fact that he was taken away from him. Though, at just a glance, it couldn't be told if Chauhn was talking about his little dead brother or the little death-born plague of ash.

"M'brother...little thing...They took 'em away 'n'...They won't give 'em back...M'little..."

His ceaseless muttering was put to an eventual halt, though, the more that Jin-Ho insisted to see his hands. He lifted up a bit from the ball that he was curling into, and allowed his arms to be weakly coaxed into the man's lap. They were cold and numb, stiff from the rip and unfinished healing of the wounds, and some time ago Chauhn had lost the feeling of them to the cold despite his desperate attempts to hold them close to his chest for warmth or rub them together for the heat of friction. It was harder for him to make warmth with them and his fingers themselves were still difficult and painful to move. Nerves and muscles were still just barely attached, damaged from the terrible wounds that opened up a wedge in his hands. At first, it seemed like they were masked in shadow, but close inspection and touch would reveal that one hand was caked in blackened Plague blood and goop while the other was smeared with it and blood. The stitches that had been there were poking up out of the inflamed and puffy red skin around the puncture marks like shriveled eyelashes, making the wounds themselves look like eyes squeezed tight in the frame of his hands.

The boy miserably shook his head, ignoring the other more pressing questions. It was still too soon. Chauhn still hadn't quite forgiven him of leaving him on his own even after Yizhaq had promised tutelage with the scholar after he had left. It didn't necessarily mean that he didn't want to talk with him though, cling to a friendly face. One by one it felt like everyone he had come to know at the Fellowship was turning against him and he didn't want to admit that it was for good reason. His belly hung sallow in his ribcage, gassy and putrid with the wobbling bloat of guilt.

At length, he spoke, a few moments after he had been startled by the mention of pain soon forthcoming. He bit his lip, looked down at the butchered little hands, not quite the hands of a man but still soft with boyhood, callused from hard work and growing softer now that he no longer scampered and climbed on rooftops in coastal Imisese towns, that he had relinquished to Jin-Ho for help. He knew he had to get help for them, and despite the traces of madness still lingering like the taste of throw up, he desperately wanted to work with them again. They were the only things he had going for him.

So, instead of answering more serious questions, Chauhn replied instead to the more innocuous ones. "Ah...Ah learned m'alphabet, sir," Chauhn said, still refusing to call Jin-Ho by name, now even more so because of his crime. "Ah can recite it too. A...B...C...D...E...F...G...H...I..."

Ambling through the alphabet, Chauhn tried to engross himself in the repetition of the things he had learned, but they were so few and far between. He didn't learn as quickly as Clurie did, who ate up lessons as quickly as he could repeat them back, but he did his best. The one thing that Chauhn had going for him was his ability to retain it and remember it, while Clurie spluttered a couple errors in his eagerness before he eventually recalled the correct answer. It was because of this slower, but more efficient learning method that Chauhn used, that limited his learning to a slow and steady pace, which meant he had only so much to repeat to Jin-Ho. When he had done regurgitating what he could, he let the man's warm praise sink into him, but instead of it lying on his shoulders like a comforting cloak, it dropped in heavy globs. It was a sickly glaze of affection that Chauhn wasn't quite sure he could swallow. It was almost too sweet, but Chauhn retained it all the same. It felt like something he might have known long ago.

Chauhn shivered underneath the coat that Jin-Ho spread over his shoulders, and for a moment, something that resembled a smile tugged pathetically at the curl of his lips as he bowed his head in thanks. Any amount of fabric to help him against the cold of the cell was welcomed.

Though, the comfort was only shortly lived before, in the following moments, Jin Ho gingerly stepped into the procedure of healing the mashed up digits that were Chauhn's hands. He was only dimly aware of the pain that would soon be coming, but he was already convinced that it could never be as bad as the pain he felt from the separation from Clurie, or the loss of his family.It wouldn't hurt as much as an ever present tumor, heavy and pulsing with ache and sickness in the bottom of his ribs, like the tangled mess left over from a carrion's meal. It could flame up, he knew, like a fever, and overtake him. When Jin Ho mentioned Clurie, reminded him in almost brutal fashion of how he was doing better elsewhere, happy with someone else other than him, Chauhn let the fever well up in his gut like a clogged drain, and he turned a dark glare at the man from underneath his messy snarl of bangs. There was a monster in that child's eyes, ready to rip out at another word.

"'E should be wit' me, no one else," Chauhn growled, his nose scrunching up into an animal-like snarl, before Jin-Ho started peeling off the bandages. Then, distracted by the painful sting in his hands, he yelped and tried to jerk his hands back, only allowing them to be coaxed back into his lap after some time had passed. More questions were asked, and Chauhn was obliged to answer them.

"Ah couldn't get any magic at all," Chauhn said at first, his voice a shade of the angry tone it had been a moment ago. He switched to a defeated feel, his shoulders slumping in an effort to keep the jacket on his back. For a moment, he paused, gritting his teeth, before he continued, looking away from Jin-Ho's eyes, "But then...When this 'appened, it finally came t'me. Ah pulled roots 'n' branches 'n' trees from the table they pinned me to wit' the knives...Ah killed a lot o' 'em. They were 'urtin' Sloane. 'N' ah threw it up, too, 'n' whenever ah yelled, it would move wit' me. Ah 'aven't used it since. Ah don't want to scream like tha' aga..."

Pain.

It started off as a dim comforting heat that Chauhn wanted to cling to, but then it had quickly compounded into a searing white hot stab, shocking Chauhn's limb all the way up to his arm. The boy, at first, couldn't force the cry that came from the bottom of his gut through his throat, it was so violent a cry, but then it ripped it's way out of him, a terrible sound to hear. With a struggle, Chauhn whipped his arm against Jin-Ho's grip, scrambling with his free hand and feet to try and push himself away from the scholar, all howls and tears.

"Le' go!" the Clemmings boy shouted, roaring at Jin-Ho between wails, "Ahh! 'Ealth 'n' livin', le' go! LE' GO!"

The fibers of his being, which were being manipulated through Jin-Ho's power, were, in a metaphorical sense, all lives being pressed between torture devices of every sick and twisted kind imaginable, or so that was how it felt for Chauhn. His struggle and natural instinct to pull away from such insane amounts of hurt quickly burned through any amount of energy he might have earned through the poor rest he had here in the cell from his last bout, so that, in a few moments of the initial spasm and whipping of his arm, he weakened and focused instead on making a hellish amount of noise.

"AAAH! AH, PLEASE! JIN-HO, NOO! IT HURTS!" he screamed, his voice dwindling down into sobs between each cry. At that moment, Jin-Ho, twisted and spun Chauhn underneath is arm so that he was pinned to his chest. Chauhn could hear Jin-Ho's heart thrumming madly against his ear. Coughing on his own sore throat, his voice breaking and nothing but a shadow of the strength that it had been moments before, the Clemming's boy squirmed uselessly and weakly underneath his arm, making every attempt to communicate his miserable suffering.

"Please...! Ah, please, it....Aaah....AAAAH! PLEASE! Jin-Ho! Mercy! Please!" he wailed, collapsing again into a string of haphazardly muttered pleads as he tried to spit his tangled golden hair out of his mouth. His arm was trembling violently in Jin-Ho's grip, completely tense, "Why does it 'ave to 'urt so much...Why...Does healin' 'urt so much?! Mercy, Jin-Ho! It 'urts too much! MERCY!"

Behind them, the door shivered with every high-pitched scream that Chauhn managed to croak. The heavy wood of the door twisted and squeaked as if in a menacing threatening growl to the man who had Chauhn wrapped tight underneath his arm. It was funny that Jin-Ho would mention control at that time because control was exactly what Chauhn was beginning to lose grip of the longer the painful procedure continued. The only advantage that Jin-Ho had at the moment was Chauhn's exhaustion, which was waiting for its second wind to give strength again to his double-bladed voice and the writhing door that crackled behind Jin-Ho's back.

"Ah can't....Ah can't..." muttered Chauhn in slurred speech, giving an occasional kick of his legs against the floor of the cell and a desperate wiggle of his shoulders, his trapped hand still tense and quaking violently as if it could, at any moment, explode in Jin-Ho's grip. "Ah can't control...Ah don't know 'ow..."

Lying over the defeated and dead smile that used to be Chauhn's charming trademark, was a trembling and distorted purse of the lips, a paranoid frown, ready to break apart into a resounding plaintive howl. He had responded well to the touch, the comforting gestures and tussles of hair, which had quieted down his shrieking and wailing to a an occasional hiccup and stammer for breath. When he was brought for a tight hug in the man's arms, the boy for a moment, seemed like his old self, a damaged urchin child still kicking and fighting to survive but only with nobility and gentleness as his crutches. All the bite had melted out of him in the tears that were smeared onto Jin-Ho's shirt lapel. But, when Jin-Ho released his arms, Chauhn was eager to jerk away and put distance between them, breathing room for him to hunch over his aching hand.

It had been healed. Looking down at his palm, Chauhn was surprised to see that the wound was no longer a partially healed and crusting over mess. Granted, he could just barely get the tops of his fingers to wiggle again, but at least he didn't have to worry about the hole that he could have, at one time, pushed his finger through so that it punctured his palm on the other side. He could already see improvement in movement the more that he wiggled his fingers, and a bit of hope was restored to the collapsing frame that was his confidence. Wrangling his composure back into shape, Chauhn took a few moments to breathe, calm himself, attempt a stab at focus and then breathe again. It was a difficult effort, but he tried to realize the danger of the process, the reality of the situation. Jin-Ho was putting a lot on the line for him, he could at least humor him by doing his best to keep his head on his shoulders.

But it was hard to keep his head on when there was no neck to support it. His metaphorical neck was too strangled and bruised by stress and screaming for Clurie for it to support any long term notion of forced placidity. Patience was out the window, and so was common sense, so when Chauhn nodded his head, crawling back underneath Jin-Ho's arm so that he could offer his other hand, the more violently wounded of the two from his deadly encounter with the cultists, he didn't expect to keep control for the entire length of the process.

He hoped that he could stay coherent and proper long enough for his other hand to be restored. If he could weather just one more bout of this insane and blinding pain, a motion completely against all reasonable sense of immediate survival, he could have both of his hands back in a marginally acceptable state. He could do work again, albeit, he'd have to be more careful, but his livelihood depended on them.

Chauhn tried to meekly smile at him, but his lips were trembling too much to hold a proper grin in place. "Ah...Ah can't think abou' it. There's no choice. Ah need my 'ands, sir."

Of course, a hypothesis was only a guess, and Chauhn's guess that he could handle another session of intense healing was grossly wrong. As the heat started up again in his more severely damaged hand, Chauhn bit his lip and clenched his teeth hard. His other hand wrapped itself into the folds of fabric on Jin-Ho's knee and the more the pain increased, the more he would twist the fabric into a ball around his knuckles. When the pain persisted past the point he had previewed from not too long ago, Chauhn gave a terrible monstrous gasp, jerking hard against Jin-Ho's grip as his body gave an involuntary jump and inhale exploded out into a terrible gut-rendering scream. It almost sounded like he were terrified at Jin-Ho's magic ability, shrieking with horror at the strength the magic possessed to stitch back together his flesh and bone.

"SIR! AAH! STOP, PLEASE, STOP, SIR!" he howled, this time beyond the capability of piecing together more complex pleas than repetitions of his begging for the man to stop.

The boy's threshold for tolerating pain was horrendously crippled already, and there was no doubt that, in some way, his ability to control himself was somehow linked up with his tolerance. It wasn't a surprise when the door behind them, gave a lurch, and unnatural twist, and exploded out in a thicket of branches parallel to the ground and aiming precisely for Jin-Ho's back. It was just his luck that the boy was with him and tucked underneath his arm, otherwise the man might had suffered the same fate as those Obscuvians who dared to make Chauhn scream.

The branches ballooned out their shape around Jin-Ho's shoulders, hovering dangerously close as if to threaten him to complete the job and finish it quickly. Yet, every time that Chauhn roared again with intense anguish, the branches bristled in anger, clacking against each other in dull murmurs, and scratched into his clothing, and eventually their sharpened ends tore through his sleeves, raking against his skin as if to try and pull his arms away from Chauhn.

But before much damage could be done, the Clemmings boy gave a sorrowful bay of noise, the last bit of sound he was able to bemoan before his voice faded and broke, and slumped against Jin-Ho's arms, too feeble to continue his fight. Unconsciousness hadn't claimed him yet, but the boy was only just barely awake to coast through the end of the suffering. Behind them, the branches slunk back into the door, weakened by Chauhn's weakening, and melded into the wood as if nothing had happened at all. Still, they grumbled and whimpered against the door, as if mistrustfully eying the back of Jin-Ho's head.

"...stop it...mercy, stop it..."

Like the change of cold so intense that it came off as sharp burning and white hot heat, Chauhn could tell no difference between the state of being in pain, and being perfectly fine. He lay weak in Jin-Ho's arms, awkwardly shuffled and pressed against the man's chest as he was hugged tight, trying to figure out whether or not he was alright or not. He looked rather like a rag doll being admired and comforted by a lonely boy, an amusing and ironic reversal of roles for Chauhn Clemmings.

He was strong though, he was a Clemmings. A youthful body stunted by lack of food and care was toughened like metal turned white by fire thanks to his hardships, so his weariness was short lived before he began his efforts to fight against it. Chauhn summoned up strength into his body, at least enough to roll his head out from where he was pushed against Jin-Ho's shoulder and stare at him with hard glassy eyes. It was a gaze that clearly denied Jin-Ho's comfort.

The good-hearted man had healed his hands, but he had not healed the festering wound deep within his soul, the reason for his unsightly self thrown into the cold of the Shyregoadian dungeon, a wound growing still, peeling back and quivering with the gunk and puss that pressed out of it in ugly gushes of stink and blood. That was the look that tainted his eyes then, while his face contorted around them in an effort to block out that fiendish agony with a gaze of gratitude and honest relief.

Chauhn looked away, flexing his fingers, quite stiffly at first, and stiffer still with soreness a few moments after that. They were healed. His fingers which had been splintered into oddly shaped contortions were back into place, looking again like fingers instead of grotesquely buckled twigs, and the eyes opening up in his palms were nothing more than puffy scars, red with healing. It was definitely a relief. He had thought his hands damaged beyond repair, his only use as worker suddenly stripped away from him forever. Chauhn gave a quite shake of his shoulders, staring at his newly healed hands with a conflicting mixture of emotion.

He tried to speak, to say thank you to Jin-Ho, but when he did, his voice broke and wavered. His display of magic, inexplicably tied in with his voice, had sucked every sound available in the boy's throat, rendering his speech mute and weak. He could only manage out a monstrous rasp in the shape of thanks, "...Ah can...move my fingers...Jin-Ho, bless you, sir...Bless you."

But he had very little energy more than that. He was exhausted.