At first Jhulen thought the garbled message was just the comm picking up normal harbor chatter; the devices had been acting up ever since they came inside the wards, and the priest was quickly learning to tune it out unless he heard certain attention-getting words. So at first he ignored the sudden burst of staticky speech in his ear, until he recognized the voice. It was exhausted and strained, emotionally drained... but more and more that was just par for the course for the young mage. Jhulen couldn't remember the last time he'd heard him sounding excited or upbeat.
Eventually the priest was able to pick out enough information to piece together that Flaxin was in Booty Bay and looking for a summon home, and that something had happened out there... something big, although any details were lost to the crackling cosmic residue. He grunted an acknowledgement that he hoped made it through the interference, then went in search of one of their pet warlocks and a couple of volunteers to bring their wayward mage home.
Jhulen had apparently moved into Flaxin's quarters for the time being, and at the moment he had made himself comfortable in a chair near the windows, a pipe in one hand and a sheaf of reports in the other, reading glasses balanced on his nose as he frowned over what scant details they had on the attacks on their operations.
Hopefully he didn't mind some interruption to his task, because it was about then that there was a sound in the outer chambers. The sound of the door sliding and of Flaxin's coat missing its mark yet again. He hadn't the time for that, however. The mage held, in his hand, a small arcane orb not unlike his own crystalline reports but clearly not his own. He held it within a fist of silk that shimmered with protective qualities, keeping it aloft as he went for the desk, pushing things aside to pull over a setting to place it in. "I would like for you to look at this with me." He hates to tell the priest this, but he must or he'll know soon enough. "I've become quite adept at making messes...I haven't viewed it yet but I suspect it has to do with our recently departed." Not the crew in the harbor. He wouldn't look so dour and dire if it were that.
Well. Unless something new had come to light in his examinations.
The priest glanced up a split second before Flaxin actually appeared, alerted to his arrival more by the ripple of unfamiliar magics than any actual sound from the mage. He blinked, watching the orb more than its holder until the younger elf actually spoke to him, and then blinked again. "...Light's tits, we're still not free of that?" The comment didn't seem to be aimed at anyone in particular as the priest pulled off his glasses and set them on the table, along with the papers. The pipe stayed in his hand, though, as he moved to join Flaxin at the desk. "I assume this has something to do with the noise upstairs just now?"
With his eye rolling upwards, the mage nods, lifting a hand to hesitantly rest upon the mystical cache. "Yes. The Magister seems to have surfaced again, insinuating that we should clean whatever this is for him." He scrunches his nose, "But it also seemed to have shaken him...It's worth a look I would say." He breathes in slowly with his eye upon its swirling depths as his ears flick just a bit. "Perhaps it's nothing."
Nothing doesn't sling itself halfway around the world for special delivery. Jhulen pulled a comforting arm around Flaxin's waist. "We're never that lucky," he drawled with a sigh as he eyed the orb. "...Alright, fire this thing up, then. We may as well get this over with."
At this point, Flax wasn't even sure luck was a thing that existed. Shit just zeroed in on them naturally and went right for the soft spots. Ah, such was the life. He manages a crooked, Malache smirk that was as dry as the sea was wet and steeled himself with a soft chuckle to match. "Right." The mage breathed out through his nose once more slowly and closed his eye to draw forth whatever unknown they dared to look upon now. The flare of the crystal came with ease and, once awakened to his touch, was quick to provide as well. Whether they liked it or not.
The priest's expression grew blacker and blacker the more the horrid vision played out for them, his grip on the bowl of his pipe tightening until his knuckles were white and the wood seemed like it must crack under the pressure. Sparks and shocks of holy energy crackled along his skin and created tiny lightning bolt-shaped cracks along the floor under his feet, as his magic threatened to explode in a dazzling display of fury.
"Rakarth..." The name was a low, vicious hiss, and that was all it took to know its owner was a dead man.
Well. Technically Rakarth very much was dead, but that wasn't the problem Flaxin was seeing here. That would probably be made more apparent in later moments, however. The scene they had just witnessed wasn't properly described as heinous and it sickened even this unrepentant soul. He'd come away from the sight in a backwards stumble, the weight of it all hitting him at once. To be honest, he hadn't yet had time to form any real opinion of it with his thoughts racing his pulse, his hands trembling, and his face. He slowly took the heat of the fever right before Jhulen's eyes as he turned away to try and pour himself a drink, but he went nowhere, planted to the spot and lost in his own quarters for just a moment's haze. He hadn't looked horrified, he'd just looked so very, very overwhelmed.
The scene began to replay itself, having received no input from its watchers, and Jhulen was quick to swipe his hand over it, ending the images before he just snatched the wretched thing up and hurled it at a wall. "...Isn't that death knight Xin's man?" he asked in that same low, dangerous voice; Shaihel hovered just beneath the surface. But Jhulen refused to give in to him or his own rage, instead staring at the arcane orb until he managed to center himself again, using his fury as an anchor point and hardening it to ice, rather than letting it burn out of control. One of them had to maintain. "Something caught him off guard. Did you see that?"
He turned to look at Flaxin, only to see him paralyzed, and swore quietly. "Flaxin. Flax! I need you here, love." Turning away from the orb, the priest moved to the liquor cabinet and poured a generous portion of something stiff, expensive, and potent into a tumbler that was then shoved in Flaxin's hand. "Drink," he ordered.
The mage heard him, because Jhulen could see his ear twitch to the sound of his voice but his moving lips made no sound and his eye didn't even blink. Not for a good while. He might've been holding his breath, but he doesn't look like he could have cared to notice either way. Oh...I see. I see. If anything was running through his head at all, it was lost to fog. He took the drink as if he hadn't even seen it. His whole body felt like it was both numbed and alight with electricity and his knees, well he shouldn't have tried to walk perhaps because his knee bends and he just goes right down with his head spinning. The glass slips free of his finger's of course and he blinks, struggling to focus as the air around him seems to just rush into his ears.
Reaching without thinking, Jhulen snatching the glass from the air with only a few drops lost, and even he would have been impressed with himself if he had been paying attention. The tumbler slid onto the side table as in one smooth motion the priest deposited it and grabbed Flaxin instead, supporting the smaller elf so he didn't end up on the floor. "Woah now-- Easy, starlight. Breathe. Look at me-- no, look at me." One hand gently fisted in the hair on the back of the mage's head so he would be forced to meet Jhulen's eyes. A song -- Flaxin's song -- wove through the air between them and into the mage's psyche, felt but not heard, trying to calm his nerves and chase off the fog.
Somehow, in all of this, Flax managed to catch hold of the man holding him up, though his legs felt like steamed asparagus and they functioned about as well for the purpose of holding him. He was there still, struggling with himself and the effort to remain conscious and aware, gaze not quite on point as he tried to dumbly follow the words' demands. They sounded so soft and...Funny, though. Like yelling down a tube. He mumbled something back but it was lost in the shuffle and the slur. The song would help, of course, but Jhulen was going to have to get him to a seat and give him some time.
Yes, this is bad news. It may or may not be a problem. Eventually he'll slow to his senses and realize that. Right now is not looking, to the priest, to be that time however. One can hope.
Immediately Jhulen began to compartmentalize. He they could deal with this new crisis-- Light's tits could they just stop coming for five fucking minutes?-- later, and so his emotions relative to it were shut away. He gathered Flaxin up in his arms bridal style and carried him over to the bed, where the priest could sit with the mage in his lap, holding and supporting him in the same motion while the latter worked through this. He continued to sing as long as was needed to bring the mage back around, letting that be the only sound in the room beyond the creak of wood and the wind.
"Go ask Val, you should get to know him. Maybe he'll give you his dick and you won't need to take his life instead."
Jhulen didn't think he'd ever heard Flaxin's voice drip with such venom, despite how dead it had sounded. He was still replaying the conversation in his mind as he left Eilithe and Kurel in search of his people, and it still made little sense to him.
Flaxin was right about at least one thing: forgetting to tell Eilithe or Elle why the mage had left so abruptly had been a massive oversight on his part, one he could have kicked himself for. But still, to take that as proof of some kind of sordid conspiracy, some sort of plot to ruin Flaxin's life and reputation... It was ludicrous. He almost wanted to laugh at the absurdity, and part of him wondered if he should have asked if Flaxin wanted him to purposefully fail -- purposefully risk lives, security, and profits -- to make the mage feel better. But no... That was petty and juvenile, and for Light's sake, someone had to be an adult around here, to ignore or suppress their emotional impulses in favor of getting a job done.
...No, that wasn't really fair. Jhulen knew the young mage had been working himself almost literally to death, just like the rest of them -- probably more than the rest of them -- often at the expense of his health, physical, mental, and emotional. No doubt that was a good part of the reason behind this particular breakdown, and the priest was sure that if Flaxin could or would take the time to rest, recuperate, and re-evaluate, the two of them could hash this out like the adults they both were supposed to be and find a solution that worked for both of them.
Unfortunately, he was also sure Flaxin wouldn't.
With a muttered, frustrated curse, Jhulen shoved a cigarette between his lips and lit it with a quick spark of holy fire. At least the wards protecting the port allowed him that; he hadn't carried a lighter in years.
He couldn't afford to spare Flaxin or this new hatred much thought, however. He had work to do. They always had work to do. For the first time in years the priest thought wistfully of the little treehouse in Stranglethorn, and the idyllic days that passed into peaceful nights until they all seemed to blend together into one blissful, tranquil eternity.
...But he couldn't afford to spare that any thought either, especially considering the way it made his heart squeeze. He shoved the memories away and went in search of Ivaer.
