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A heavy feeling settled in the bottom of Chauhn's stomach.

What happened? What went wrong? Such were the questions pressing against his aching skull as he wandered back towards his temporary room at Anica. Clurie was in suit, also strangely quiet as he followed behind him like a shadow. He had nothing to say after Hayat had spoken with them, and he was in perhaps bigger shock than Chauhn. Up until then, Hayat had always been an idol to him, someone he respected and admired, someone who he wanted to prove himself to. He wanted her to be proud of him. So when Hayat, cold and calculating, had confronted them with a quiet dismissal, Clurie felt like he had been betrayed. At first, he was amused, readying a barrage of callous remarks to shoot at Chauhn before he realized that he, too, was also cut off from Lord Yizhaq's grace and therefore, yanked out from underneath Hayat's watchful wing as well. Though there was no malice in her eyes when she looked at him, Clurie couldn't help but feel like he had been punched in the gut. That was one of the one things holding him steady this whole time, the fact that he wouldn't be entirely alone with Chauhn as long as he had the Lord to hide behind and sick on Chauhn if he were to do anything reminiscent of the night he went mad. Now they were both gone, as well as Chauhn's distractions from him. Clurie felt uncomfortably bare, and he pinched his shoulders in tight around him as he stared at Chauhn's slumped shoulders.

In silence, they crossed an open hallway, headed by two guards in matching garb. Usually they passed without a bother, but this day was different. The guards both stepped into their path, nearly catching the boys as they skulked by with their heads hanging low. Chauhn looked up, catching Clurie against his back as he came to a sudden stop, his reddened worried eyes squeezing questions at the men who stood before them.

"Sir?" Chauhn asked in a feeble voice.

"You both are staying in the guest quarters beyond here, boys?" asked one guard. His face was hard to see underneath the shadow of his visor. The other guard made a show of readjusting his grip on his sword's hilt.

Furrowing his brows at the unusual brashness of the guards, Chauhn sniffed and straightened his shoulders, strengthening himself by remembering the responsibility that hovered behind his shoulder. "Yes, we are. We're tired and wish to rest, sirs. Is there something..."

"You should turn around and vacate the premises immediately."

Chauhn's face snapped into a comedic drop of the jaw. The bruise of the recent dismissal from Lord Yizhaq's services ached as he registered the information and readjusted his stance, his arm hanging out as if to back Clurie away into a run if need be. "Why would we need to leave? We are guests of Lady Estratus, augurs, 'n' watched over by Lord Yizhaq." Chauhn visibly winced as he spoke the name of his former lord.

"The sudden coronation of a Grand Magus is granting us troubled times. The area around the Anican fortress is dangerous," said the first guard, his voice no more kind than the look of the other guard, whose hand still laid heavy on his sword's hilt, "Young mages like yourself should be no where near the premises. You make good targets for the rabble and we have no time to waste protecting the useless. It is the will of the imperial guard that young waifs like yourself be removed from the castle grounds at once. Leave your things behind, they can be replaced just as easily as we can replace students like you. Get out."

Chauhn's face, shadowed with hurt, struggled to put on a face of hurt as the men spoke. He kept his shoulders tightly strung about the clench of his neck, and he kept his feet planted. Behind him, Clurie's cheeks and hands gave a pop and hiss of angry spark. He was twisting his face into a frown, his fingers curling in tight to make twin fists. Chauhn moved his hand back to grab Clurie's ashen wrist, stopping him from making a move. "Sir, I may be poor, but what few things I have are precious to me. They aren't clothes or trinkets, neither are they a pair of shoes, but I have people who need us as much as we need them. I don't leave without them."

"You might as well," sneered the gaurd, "They'll be following you soon."

"Oh yeah?" countered Clurie with a boyish crack of his voice. He stepped forward then and threw his arms at the guards, who lifted up theirs in response but moments too late after they caught eyes full of burning ash. Giving barks of pain, the guards leaned forward, swiping their arms around the heads of the boys who, with another explosion of ash from Clurie's defensive cough, disappeared in a cloud of grey.

"Try and follow us!" he shouted back as, before him, Chauhn pulled his collar and yanked him into a run, dashing down the hallways. He remembered feeling this lonely before. He didn't like it.

Chuahn and Clurie burst into their shared room with the Malts, coughing up ash as they shut the door behind them and bolted it shut. They wiped their eyes and looked forward. Chauhn looked distressed and haggard, Clurie looked pumped and ready to explode. With a frantic rub of his hands through his ashy hair, the Quietus peeled himself from the door and stormed forward, leaving Chauhn to sink to the bottom, collapsing into a little worried ball of limbs and shakes.

"Great!" Clurie shouted, searching for something to render to ash around the figures of the Malts who were in the room, "Stranded, alone! What are we supposed to do now?"

Clurie, having bumped into Adal, spun off into the room where he bumped up against the pile of their packed things. Catching himself before he fell and completely ruined the pile, he swung his arms forward and sniffed indignantly at Adal, throwing him a dagger-filled gaze as he straightened out his clothing. he was all hackles and bristles, but his face, despite his anger, was dripping steadily further into a deeper and deeper frown of sadness. He didn't want to get to the point where he and Chauhn would be sharing the same face, though, so he stretched and pulled and curled his face into a constantly wobbling frown.

"They're trying to throw us out!" Clurie hawked uselessly, still fuming about the obvious as he looked around the room, still itching to find something to burn. "All of them! Lord Yizhaq, Lady Estratus, everyone!" He wrung his hands, causing a mess of sparks and tongues of flame to lick up around his wrists, while his eyes swung back and forth. He focused in on one of Chauhn's old shirts.

"They know, Clurie," said Chauhn, from where he sat curled up in a ball at the bottom of the door. He had his own hands knotted tightly in the back of his hair and he looked up from beneath the clean crop of his bangs, despairing and miserable. His eyes widened as he caught sight of his plague setting his hands into and ripping apart strips of his shirt. "Clurie, that's my only work shirt-"

"You have one on your back don't you?" replied Clurie before he stuffed in a chunk of balled up shirt into his mouth. He chewed madly, grinding his teeth together as if he was aiming to make the terrible grinding sounds. Giving a loud sniff, he continued spouting aloud between angry mouthfuls, "Just because they think we're expendable! Well, we're not. We're important and they just can't do that..."

"But they are," said Chauhn helplessly, watching with a sinking heart as Clurie destroyed his shirt. He melted with defeat, throwing his eyes over to a more merciful individual. Georgie was swaying near the bed in front of Adal, almost dead on his feet, and his Plague was bristled and buzzing about like a bee about a disturbed hive. Chauhn crawled up onto his feet and started towards Georgie, aiming to give him something to steady himself with by offering up his arm or shoulder, but just as soon as he reached the boy, a rasp came from the door behind him. Chauhn jumped, startling so much that he slapped at hand to his mouth and turned about, bumping into Georgie as he stared at the door as if it were going to leap off its hinges and attack them. He had hardly heard what was being discussed between Adal and Georgie.

"What?" he squeaked, looking between them and the suddenly threatening door. Another rasp came from behind, louder this time.

"They're giving us a choice, Clemmings," Clurie said, his voice in a strained hiss as he too stared at the door, now working on devouring the sleeve of the shirt. He swallowed excessively, going through the shirt as if it were a piece of thin soft bread, tearing it and eating it without a thought or concern. "Stay or follow them."

"Follow you where?" Chauhn asked, his voice breaking with fear as he turned again to Adal, staring at him with the look of a sailor who was just left behind in the sea by his ship.

"Does it matter where?!" Clurie bleated, finishing his angry snack before he turned around and started gathering together what little items he and Chauhn owned. he threw them angrily into Chauhn's satchel and his own backpack.

"No, I-," Chauhn began.

Another knock. Harsher this time.

"Well, you don't have all day to figure it out," Clurie seethed. He threw together the last of their things. Their meager clothes and their small bags and trinkets. Somewhere around the room, huddled together in a partly open drawer were the Notclemms Excitos, all of whom Clurie was pulling out onto the top of the drawer.

Where are we going?" they were asking, "What's going on?"

"We're leaving this place," said Clurie to them, using a gentler tone he only reserved for them. As he helped them into the leather parcel belt he had customized especially for them, he raised his voice to be heard by his Grimm, "And I would rather we leave this place with the Malts than stay and face the guard. Lord Yizhaq doesn't care for us anymore, we're discharged and we're abandoned, and I don't think we'd get any charity from Lady Estratus either. We don't know anyone else here, and I rather enjoy the company we have now. Not only that, but I would much rather stay with the Malts than stay by myself with you, Clemmings, so it's either you're coming with us or you're on your own."

Chauhn gulped, wincing each time the knock came against the door, harder and harder until at last, it seemed like it was about to come down. There were voices on the other side, shouting orders, demanding their evacuation. Chauhn, with the release of a stressed whine, focused his attention at the door, raising his voice loud enough so that the wooden panels of the door crackled and locked itself into the frame with roots, securing their defense for as long as possible until they brought a battering ram. A surprised shout came from the other side, a curse on Mage kind. Chauhn looked again towards Clurie and gulped, furrowing his brows with determination. It was true. It was either here to be thrown out onto the streets, thrown out again with nothing into nothing from which hardly nothing could be gained, or follow the Malts. He didn't know what they did, he hardly knew what it really was that they were up to besides the nondescript chores and duties of being apprentices to the Doctor, but Chauhn knew that he didn't want to be alone again as much as Clurie didn't want to be left alone with him. He took Adal's shoulder, nodding at him with a little weariness, his shoulders slumping from his expended use of magic, and held his swirled gaze tight.

"We come with you," he said. But then, weakly, he glanced between them both, the Malt brothers, and shrugged his shoulders, "If it is alright with you. Ah don't know what you do 'n' all, but whatever we can be of use of, let us help you. We couldn't allow ourselves to be a burden."

"Can't come with you?" blurted Clurie angrily. He stopped what he was doing, his hands still submerged in their packing bag. He stared with betrayal at the two boys, especially at Georgie, and bit his teeth, speaking through them with a growl. "Georgie, they will not keep us safe, don't you realize what they're doing? They're getting rid of us because they can't trust us! All the mages are being shoved out of this place because they can't trust us near the capitol! This whole place has gone mad and we're the targets, and you expect us to just give into them?"

Chauhn moved over to Clurie, grabbing his arm and silencing him with a squeeze of his fingers. "Shh, Clurie, that's not what they mean, okay," he said, breathless, "We'll meet up with them later, wherever the guards take us, we'll meet them there. They won't leave us behind, but we're not leaving with them right now, okay? I trust them. They won't do that to us. We have to distract the guards while they get their things away."

Clurie sniffed, his cheeks glowing hot with frustration as the future was laid out before him in a tangled mess. It made enough sense, he assumed, for the time they had left. They didn't have much time to lay out anything better. The door to their shared room thrummed again with the beat of the guard's fists. Clurie swallowed, nodding his head at length, his heart thrumming in his chest as loud as the fists upon the door. "Fine," he muttered, "But if you both leave me stranded with this sorry sob of a boy, I'll...I'll...I don't know what I'll do, but you'll both regret it, okay? Don't you DARE leave me alone with this boy!"

Chauhn lowered his eyes to the floor, steadying his breathing before he gathered up the breath to speak again. He turned to help Clurie complete the process of packing, his movements quickening with every passing second. "Come on, Clurie," he said wearily, "Let's do what we can to help them get their work out of here safely."

The Ash Plague frowned, joining in Chauhn's work, and with a struggle moved away from the boys as he stood near the door. He shouted to the guards behind it. "Yeah, yeah! We're coming, give us a minute!"

Both of the Clemmings winced at the shrill sound of Georgie's squeal. Watching him attempt to scale the height of the window in his poor condition was like watching a taut rope slowly unravel. They both bit their lip in anticipation, expecting him to disappear with a flailing of legs and land with a crunch down the distance side of the building. Chauhn felt sick watching the Malts shuffle about awkwardly on the other side of the window.

Again the door banged. Clurie whipped his head to the door, his black eyes widening into round shapes when he heard the lock of the door snap the case of it's wooden frame. It wouldn't be much longer before the guards forced their way in, and Clurie, despite his frustrated calls to the guards, couldn't get them to stop. Again they smashed their heels against the door frame, causing both of the Clemmings to bleat in surprise.

"Is that everything?" he asked, as he began checking all the corners of the room, not wanting to leave anything behind. From what he could see there was nothing else there, nothing else to pack and with a frantic struggle, he double tied the straps and he slipped his heavy backpack over his shoulders and hoisted the straps of many bags around his neck. Carrying both collections of mundane items like clothes and other things from themselves and the Malts made Chauhn's shoulders stretch a bit beneath their weight, but he bit his lip and steadied his legs, ready to face the breaking in of the door and the incoming rush of the guards. It was at that moment, though, that there was a fumbling sound from behind him as Georgie was unceremoniously shoved back into the room through the window, his cheeks red with effort and his chest heaving with heavy panting.

"Georgie?" Chauhn asked in relief. He had to admit that he was grateful the boy had been, through some combination of both fate and obvious physical limits, deposited again with the Clemmings. He feared the supposed and sudden separation that they would have to face, as if from that moment they wouldn't see the Malts again from such a dramatic rendering of their groups. Chauhn, though, wasn't as relieved as Clurie, who made an exaggerated sigh to express just how thankful he was that he wouldn't be left alone with his Grimm.

"We'll carry your things, Georgie, just make sure that you won't fall over so we won't have to carry you too as we're exported from the building," Clurie said with a happy perk of a grin. But it was that same moment that the door swung violently open, taking a chunk of the door frame with it, sending it spinning into the air. The two brutes in Guard's clothing were grinning darkly at the collection of boys and lunged forward, to take them by the scruffs of their necks and push them out of the room.

"Come on, kids," one said, "Your time here is over."

Stumbling, glowering, Chauhn and Clurie both bunched together protectively around Georgie, assuring the boy that he wouldn't be roughly handled by the guards if they could bluntly get in the way, an improvised pair of shields.

"Move quickly, Georgie," Chauhn whispered, stumbling as one of the guards threw him forward onto his feet. He glanced backwards at the men who, with cold eyes and cold orders, made sure that the boys would be evicted.

"Carrying too much?!" Clurie blurted, the embers in his cheeks giving into a sharp glow. He furrowed his brows low at them, his legs and arms lengthening to give him height against the guards that confronted them. He tightened his ashen grip around his bags and satchels, "This is all we have! This is what we live on! It's cold out there, and if you're kicking us out, we need everything that we can carry! We're children, sir, and if it were things that could be easily replaced, perhaps it would be easier to accept your brainless command, but unfortunately, they're NOT! And might isn't good enough! Clurie scrunched his face at the guard, puffing his chest in defense. He would have done more, like level gazes with him by growing his limbs to his height, but Clurie felt Chauhn's hand on his arm. He looked down to his guardian.

Chauhn's eyes were quiet, pleading, already filled with fear for what Clurie had said. He turned to the guards, sewing together words as quickly as he could muster, in hopes that they would mend whatever patience Clurie had torn in twain. "Give us a moment," he pleaded. He then turned to the room and quickly moved as fast as possible. He took apart his own backpack, grabbing whatever was most important to him, and then stuffed it into Georgie's satchels, which he had just thrown into the room in compliance to the guard's commands. He left his own backpack behind, and instead carried Georgie's out on his back. He gave a somber look to Georgie, smiled a bit, and then nodded to Clurie, hoping that he would follow suit.

Clurie, though, scrunched his nose at the guard, quiet and unwilling to let go of a single parcel. "With all due respect, sir, I'm a Plague, and I can take on this 'journey' unhindered by the things I carry."

Chauhn quietly prayed that the guard's latter question, the one referring to force, would not come to pass thanks to Clurie's curt tongue.