Chapter Text
"What the fuck are you doing?" He hisses as the Arcane Marshal goes to pull the infamously very cursed mask off of the body of Bolaire Lathalia.
The Marshal, Azune, turns his head slightly to stare at him, some old and leashed flame burning in his gaze.
Julien would skitter backwards, all but tripping over himself on instinct.
Sir Julien is human, and has no such instinct.
"Relax," he huffs. The fire lit in the hearth is surprisingly smokey.
"I know what I'm doing," he assures them.
A quick glance over to Sir Julien's companions shows they are united in their doubt.
The better of the Fang brothers is bustling around the kitchen, rummaging through cupboards until he comes upon a bottle of wine.
The Madame Lloy and his Lady Aranessa share a pained glance.
This is, it appears, an important bottle of wine.
The Madame Lloy quietly moves forward, puts a gentle hand on Halandil's arm, talks him softly into a chair.
Beside him, Marshal Nayar sinks into his own chair, very infamously cursed mask held tight in his hands.
He slips it on.
Halandil ignores Thaisha's attempts at gently easing him into the fact that his..... for Julien's own sanity, he is going to pretend friend, is dead. He turns to the Arcane Marshal, watching as the very infamously cursed mask lights up.
Beside him, fox boy flinches.
Julien really can't blame him. There is something awful about seeing the jewels they have long since used as placeholders for Bolaire's eyes on someone else's face.
Sister Vaelus hisses under her breath as Halandil warmly asks if the mask is back with them.
Thaisha inhales sharply, equally as horrified.
Surely Halandil knows that the body on the table is the man he cares so deeply for?
Occtis shifts uncomfortably as Marshal Nayar leans into Halandil's delusion. His grip on his fox is more white knuckled than usual, which is impressive, because deathly pale is fox boy's new normal.
And then the Marshal begins to strip the body on the table of its possessions. Julien can appreciate the desire to loot a corpse as much as the next Unseelie, but surely there is a time and a place?
Thaisha is visibly about to lose her shit when Professor Mag'Nesson waltzes in, black eyed and cackling about it.
From this direction, she cannot see what her friend is doing to the curator's body.
She scurries over to see what her friend is up to.
There is silence for a long moment as she realises that he is busy chopping up the body of her friend.
".... Do you want me to, like, go grab that guy for you, Bolaire?" She asks, and those of them that seek answers and relics alike blink in appalled bafflement.
They're missing something here. Julien presses himself as close to Faerie as he dares in the middle of the Candescent Creed's city, to see what he can see.
What he sees is fascinating.
That old, steady flame burning in the Marshal? Scaled and coiled and content.
The professor quietly moves about manipulating chance. Fucking arcanists, man.
The playwright even more quietly, because it's ever so slightly illegal, gently encourages people in a way that is no less manipulative.
The mask, though? It's a marvel. It feels like the Blade they picked up a while back, but... more. More aware, more dangerous, more sentient.
Both Bolaire and the scaled thing masquerading as an Arcane Marshal are keeping half an eye on Julien, quietly amused.
As Julien pulls back from Faerie, he cannot help but also be amused. It is funny.
Asshole move, but he can't talk, he's fucking Unseelie.