Hazel had long since wanted to do something like this. She had gotten Starry’s approval for it a few days before his death, actually.

At first, it was because she couldn’t stand how bleary and blank the observatory was. The basement walls were concrete and empty, like the inside of an unused box. Air ducts and pipes crisscrossed the ceiling, running along the length of the hallway like the architect was careless and the owner didn’t care what the final product looked like. It was uninviting, like the place was only there out of absolute necessity and nothing else. And it was clear that was what it was according to the amount of junk that littered Hazel’s room when she first moved in.

Now, she was doing it to commemorate their first Seraph. She hadn’t known much about him, but he always seemed to bring with him a bundle of light wherever he went. So this was to light the path of whomever found themselves lost in the basement.

Hazel had already decided to paint the walls of her room. It had no windows, as she had dreamed of, so she supposed painting it was the only way to bring it to life. She had long since finished cleaning out the inside, anyways; all that stood in her way was the haunting of what seemed like a permanent fear.

She already had the paint. She’d had it for quite some time now: containers of all sizes filled with with a rainbow of colors. It had taken her many different sea glass crafts to pay for them - she’d been at the pebbled shore of their territory for hours at a time. The trader she bought them from carried all sorts of knick knacks and baubles; and this time, Hazel had given them a pressed rose from Margy’s garden (she hoped what she was doing would make up for it) studded with sea glass. What was left of the sea glass, anyway. What had she gotten in return?

Glow in the dark paint.

The first thing Hazel did after receiving the jar was seek out Pele, Luna’s daughter. The little girl seemed to have a curious fascination for the stars, and Hazel would need her help for her project.

The next step? Name the twelve corridors of the basement; each hall was named after a zodiac sign, the first starting with Aries. Then it carried on: Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces. On the floor at the start of each hall, the girls painted the particular constellation aligned with the zodiac. They stretched from one wall to the other, enormous and blatant. Then they moved on to filling up the floor space with smaller constellations and dots of stars and comets, just to keep the light going all the way to the end of the hall. From time to time, they would switch off the lights, and watch their project glow.

Pele had an astonishing amount of astronomical knowledge for someone so young. She gave Hazel the order of the zodiac, as well as what the constellations looked like. Hazel learned that the child was very particular about her constellations, so she let her sketch out where the lines and dots would go before Hazel helped paint them on.

The task had taken the two of them most of the day - even now, Hazel had shooed Arion away several times, telling him to go find Octavia or something else to do. The colt didn’t seem very pleased with being sent off, but Hazel stubbornly refused to let his wobbly baby legs to mess up the drying paint.

“I hope this dries before midnight.” Hazel said, sitting up from her spot. They were working on the Sagittarius hall currently, and it was almost finished. “If it doesn’t, a lot of people might be sleeping upstairs tonight.” The girl bent to look at herself, frowning at the spots of paint that clung to her fur. They had another part of the project lined up for the doorways, but she wasn’t sure they’d get to that today.

“Worth it, I suppose.” She conceded. Hazel turned, glancing further down the hall. "How's it coming, Pele?"

★ — hazel — "speech" — seven months — the ascendants — tags — ★

At the sound of Margaery knocking over the paint can, Hazel jumped, splattering paint across the floor. (Not that it was detrimental - most of the smaller stars not involved with the constellations were just splatter paint, anyway.) Willing the fur along her spine to lay flat, the girl peered down the hallway, expecting to see Arion and paint everywhere. With a harsh sigh, she felt the anger simmer low in her stomach - sparking against the flint that was her ever-thinning patience these days.

"Dixi vobis ut maneat extra -" Hazel started, at her wits end with the colt. Seriously, she was really going to have to get into training him if he kept disobeying her like this - and that was something she did not want to take on. Picking her way around the drying paint (which was a bit like hopscotch, if she was being honest), Hazel realized that Arion probably understood Latin even less than he understood English, which...that would be a negative number, actually. He seemed to comprehend tone, not words.

Nevertheless, as Hazel neared the mouth of the hall, it wasn't a colt in the opening, but... " - Margy?" Hazel stopped mid-step, her paw still lifted and searching for the next free spot of cement floor. She immediately noticed the utter exhaustion and fatigue that laced the feline's tone, and the lack of interest in their project. Hazel wasn't offended by any means, just...extremely worried. She wished Suite was here to give Margy comfort, because the gods knew Hazel could not. She had to suck in a breath to push down the anger that was quickly fanning into a fire, because she knew this wasn't just Margy's pregnancy. Something else had happened, and she was sure she could bet good money on what it was.

She could bring it up now - ask Margy what was going on, but decided to do it in private rather than public. "Thanks, Margy." The feline said, hopping the last few steps over the constellations on the floor to reach the chocolate point. She kept her voice quiet, picking up the (thankfully) nearly-empty paint jar and setting it aside. "Do you want some help getting to your room?" She asked. "The paint is still drying, but it won't be a problem if that's where you're looking to go."

At Pele's call, Hazel turned, watching with another lurch of concern as the young girl balanced precariously on the ladder. Don't fall, don't fall, don't fall - "That's great, Pele. I'm almost finished with this hall, so I'll help hang up the rest of the flags once I'm done." She told the young feline.

Hazel turned once more as Luna and Suite walked in, forcing away the nerves and anger to smile at them, too. "Thank you, Luna - some help would be great. We just have to finish hanging the flags over the doorways and painting the last three hall floors." Hazel said gratefully, breathing a sigh of relief. An added hand would go by much quicker than just the two of them.

At Suite's compliment, Hazel flushed, the praise sinking like sunlight into her skin. "Not very long," She admitted. "We started pretty early this morning, which is why we still have a lot to do." Three more halls and a few doorway flags. That was all that was left. Hazel stretched, claws clicking against the cement floor as she tried to get rid of some of the ache that had begun to pester her. "I would have started it several weeks ago," She said after sitting up, "when I asked Starry if I could do it, but...I never got around to it. I thought it might be a nice way to commemorate him."

★ — hazel — "speech" — seven months — the ascendants — tags — ★

Bastille encountered the paintings first at the far end of a hall, coming to a slow stop as he realized that the basement floor was... glistening up ahead. It took him half a second to think Hazel, and the thought hit him hard as he tilted his head to the side to study the intricate lines. He remembered, seemingly ages ago, standing by and peering up at Maes' murals, thinking about the way that Hazel had stared at the blank walls and mentioned wanting to paint them. At the time, he'd commented in an off-hand way, as if it didn't really matter, that Maes should leave some free walls for Hazel -- he could still picture the guy nodding, as if he hadn't even questioned the suggestion, could feel the faint flicker of satisfaction in knowing that he'd saved space for the girl, done something that might make her aura light up just so.

Now Maes was dead and Hazel looked at him like she wished he was.

It doesn't matter, he reminded himself, forcing his thoughts back to the present, to the sprawling lines of paint before him. He knew they were constellations, and he followed them down the hallway slowly, cold stare tracing the fine details and the little stars connecting acting as joints. There was a part of him that felt almost guilty, like he shouldn't be here, studying Hazel's art so intently -- but he couldn't bring himself to care, not when he knew almost without thinking about it that this had been for Starry, somehow. He had always been trying to liven up the lower floor and find new ways to offer direction to newcomers; this was exactly the sort of thing he would have loved to see, and the stars were... perfect, really. Starry would have loved it.

He took his time, tracking the constellations through the halls that were already painted, so easily picturing Starry running through the corridors, sparks flying at his paws and casting light over the glimmering paint in his excitement. It almost made him smile at the thought, but he couldn't quite feel the brief flicker of light that such images prompted. There was something there, faintly, just beneath the surface, but he continued on in silence, his stare sliding over the art slowly.

Eventually, he heard their voices down the hall, but he didn't stop. By the time he ran into the group, he was coming to a slow stop at Hazel's side, studying the paint before her over her shoulder. He didn't seem to notice the proximity -- this was the closest he'd been to her in ages, heat radiating off of her and soaking into his bones -- as he continued to take in the details, commenting absent-mindly, "Starry would have loved them, Haze."

(He seemed off, distracted -- caught up in the gesture, in the memories of Starry, barely registering the others and offering little reaction to their presence; some of that had to do with the certain awe that Hazel and Pele's work inspired, but some of it had to do with the drugs in his system. He kept fixating on things, focusing on them single-mindedly, too absorbed in their existence to experience anything else. Now, he was fixated on the paintings.)

"You guys did a good job," he murmured as an after-thought, tilting his head slightly as his gaze continued to follow the trail of constellations towards the end of the hall.