Oh, how to describe their relationship, as it seemed to blossom, cactus-like, overnight? Xellos' habitual teasing grew obscenely close and overfriendly at the exact time when Zelgadis, neither alcohol nor caffeine-induced, was resonating a peculiar enough mood and received it in kind. Eyes adjusted to a new pitch of darkness that night, the same obscurity induced by lightning-blindness. It was as if lightning HAD struck them, for ever since then the mood between them resembled the various stages of a storm. Dangerous, heavy, wet tension culminating into thrashing, violent downpours and followed by eerie calm periods that lasted all too briefly in the two leaning against each other like battered trees - all bruised leaves impaled on their own scratched branches. Unlike the skies after storms, however, the color never left Zelgadis' eyes. His eyes reflected a clear desert-blue sapphire that begged for rain. At times a transparent change like wind would occur, and it was Xellos who had to beg for repletion. These rare times were enveloped and embraced by phantom mist and Zelgadis would give it to him, but seldom held any memory of the reversal.