Hazel tracked Bastille's careful trek down the hall with a guarded eye and tense spine; the second he'd appeared, she was already gearing up for a squabble between him, Margy and Suite. She'd figured that he had been the one to shove Margaery even further down the hole she was already in - after all, it wasn't Suite, because Suite had done nothing but try to comfort her. Hazel was more than ready to lay into him for saying whatever he said because Margy looked dead on her feet.

However, the anger that started low in her stomach again fizzled out (this was getting exhausting) as she watched him pick his way over, looking dazed. He wasn't throwing off cold hard apathy like usual - he was just...lax. He looked a bit blissed out, honestly, and if he hadn't been acting so cold lately, she might have said reverent, but was considering the fact that their Seraph might be too numb to feel reverence anymore. Her gaze flicked to his eyes once she could see them, again checking for the feverish change, but found nothing. Just unfocused glacier blue. She wasn't sure if that unsettled her more or less.

The eerie calm about him made Hazel's fur stand up in a different sort of way. She wanted to feel pride from the way he followed the constellations so delicately, but she couldn't dilute the confusion at his sudden change of demeanor. Electricity crackled when he sat close to her, her eyes blown saucer wide with surprise. She didn't want to be this close to him and he had made it clear that he didn't want to be this close to her - except for right now. She almost moved; almost scooted across the room and down the hall into her own bedroom, but then he spoke, telling her that Starry would have loved them and that they did a good job and what was going on. He was supposed to be angry; she was supposed to be angry. Hazel didn't know what to do with herself. His voice was so quiet and distant she felt a pang of concern, wanting to ask what was wrong with him now. But instead she stared at the ground, minutely shifting her weight so she couldn't feel the proximity of him anymore. A small part of her wanted to ask if he really liked it, or if he was just saying that.

"Uh," She provided eloquently, "thank you. I couldn't have done it without Pele's help, though. If I had tried to paint it without any mapping, it would have ended up a jumbled mess. The flags were her idea, too." Hazel was babbling a little bit, finding the situation horrifically awkward and wanting some sort of distraction from Bastille and whatever the heck was wrong with him.

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

Distantly, something in him chided, You're making Hazel uncomfortable. Maybe it was his better sense or vague scraps of a conscious, but it was hard to focus on that when she was warm and the paintings were pretty and he was overwhelmed with the heavy weight of Starry's spirit in the air. He didn't really believe in haunting or meaningfully brushes with the dead or... anything, really, but he believed that if Starry was other there somewhere, he was smiling at this, at his Clan. And it was strangely moving in a way that Bastille was never moved.

(He must be more gone than he thought, for these pseudo emotions to get him so thoroughly.)

His stare flickered up towards Pele, locking on her briefly, and he commented idly, "Pele's a good helper." His little niece was one of the few he hadn't seemed to distance himself from, and he offered her a half-smile in acknowledge. "It looks... nice." Had he said that? He might have said that. His attention dropped back to the floor, before flickering up to Hazel, and it was looking directly at her that he seemed to become vaguely conscious that he was crowding her. He shifted just slightly, leaned his weight away from her, and convinced himself that the loss in warmth wasn't the end of the world. "What'd you give your hall?"

Hazel felt the breath of relief slip through her lips before she could stop it when he shifted away. Suddenly there was more oxygen, and it was actually reaching her lungs. She nodded in agreement, blinking to refocus. “She is,” Hazel agreed. “Lots of wonderful ideas and effort.”

She wondered how long this interaction would go on before he remembered he was supposed to be avoiding her, and she was supposed to be angry at him. How long before Suite would press herself between them again, reminding Bastille not to get near Hazel because she couldn’t protect herself? (Implied, never said. Hazel wanted to admit that she was grateful for Suite’s protection some of the time - other times it was just another reminder that Hazel was utterly defenseless.)

“Libra,” She responded to Bastille automatically. “They’re organized by the zodiac, and...I got lucky, I suppose. My room is actually on the correct hallway.”

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