Hazel noticed it a fraction of a second before it happened: the jump in his pulse, like he'd been struck with defibrillators. But she still jumped, still yelped, when he lurched forwards, because deus in caelo, who did that? Her aura popped, confused, as she shuffled backwards, surprised - suddenly she froze again, in the midst of hastily wiping the tear tracks off her cheeks. He was just...staring, straight at her, his eyes unfocused and squinting slightly like he was looking at something too bright. Hazel was caught, transfixed by this, and didn't move a muscle.

She was steeling herself to open her mouth, to say something, anything, despite the turmoil of emotions rolling around in her head. But then he looked away, and Margy was dragging him into an embrace, and Hazel very suddenly felt like she did not belong here.

"You're...supposed to be dead." Hazel whispered, taking a step back. This seemed wrong, seemed so unnatural and surreal she didn't know what to do. "We - you didn't have a pulse, your heart wasn't beating, you were - " She abruptly cut herself off, on the verge of tears again. There was some sort of anger, some sort of distressed, I can't believe you really just pulled that anger bubbling in her chest, and fuck, not here, not now.

"If you ever do that again," Hazel said, dead serious. "I'll kill you." Then she promptly turned and left, ignoring Arion as the colt came trotting over, shoving his muzzle at Bastille in a friendly greeting.

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

Well, then. That was particularly unexpected. Bastille stared blankly back at Rin as he sluggishly processed her words, his thoughts stalling and stalling before they started to work backwards. Beck agreed to the alliance. Margaery's warmth, the pressure of others so close. Hazel's radiance. Darkness.... darkness. No, there was something there, the flickering impression of mist and green eyes, but it was hazy and indistinct and the harder Bast tried to pull on it the harder it was to recall, and then-- oh. Right. Beck. The rope digging into his neck as the ground swung slowly below him. Things growing dark as he struggled to breathe and failed. He'd lost consciousness, clearly.

And evidently a pulse.

He was still staring at Rin when the realization dawned on him, and he would have sworn if he didn't catch himself. Fuck. Beck must have brought him back, he realized, and internally he swore again. Goddamnit, Beck. Fuck. Couldn't the asshole have just... let him wake up in Tanglewood? How the fuck was he supposed to explain this now? Maybe he should be thankful that the fucker brought him here, lest he hadn't woken up in Tangle, but goddamn. It was still going to be a pain in the ass to talk his way out of, particularly when--

Oh. The sudden slam of weight against him took him aback, derailing his tangent spiral of thoughts as he tried to catch up to the situation and figure out what the fuck he was going to do. Suite, he realized, too startled to do anything, too... numb to actually feel it. Maybe he should have been happy she cared, should have been able to feel her warmth and the comfort of her proximity or some form of relief that she didn't hate him, not really -- or even, even anger that she was this close and was pretending to care. He should have felt something, but there was nothing. Just... surprise, if anything. It felt like his head was spinning as his thoughts felt in circles and grasped for straws and struggled to get back to functioning order and figure out his course of action at the same time.

"What? No--" he started, reflexive, at her accusation, but then there was the whirlwind of Margy on him, too, and-- and he was taken aback all over again, not pushing her away and not pulling her in and stunned at the heat of her tears and the fact that they cared. Why? What was the point? And how? But the questions were lost as his senses were simultaneously muted and overloaded, and he just managed a hoarse, "Yeah." Because how was he supposed to argue with her, with Suiteheart, when he couldn't even feel the heat of his anger and they were so... suddenly compassionate?

Thankfully there was Luna to drag him out of this awkward tangle of... something, and his attention fixed on her immediately, intent. He so rarely saw her angry, and yet it seemed to be a trend towards him recently, he reflected ironically. That wasn't the point, though. His response came quick and before he even processed it, a raspy, "Of course I care about it more than my health. My health doesn't mean anything if my Clan is endangered." He hadn't thought twice about accepting Beck's deal, frankly -- he would let that fucker string him up every day if it meant protecting the Ascendants, and he wouldn't even fucking question that. A beat, and then, "Putting my health above you would be not caring."

He groaned internally at Rad's appearance, if not because of her general disregard (that was actually refreshing) but for the fact that she was also ganging up on Tanglewood. Fuck, fuck. His gaze was on her, flickering away from his mentor, and there was a beat for he realized how he was getting out of this. Again, she'd said. Again. Because her little trials had stopped his heart before. Before it could happen and had. Because-- he needed this alliance to work and letting them believe (know) what he'd given for it wasn't going to keep that alliance in tact for long.

"Look, regardless, Beck didn't do anything to me. Must of overdosed and he brought me back," he said, the words deceptively easy on his tongue despite the bitter taste in his mouth and the rasp in his throat. How to explain that rope marks? Bad reaction. Allergic reaction. Fuck if he knew, but his thoughts were shifting rapidly, struggling to come up with a believable explanation should they press him and hoping they wouldn't. Hoping they thought poorly enough of him already to accept that oh, of course it was something as stupid as a fucking overdose again. "It's nothing. You can't blame Tanglewood for me being stupid."

His stare went to Hazel, and for a moment he just looked back at her. If there was anyone who could make the lie bitter in his throat, it was her, but he supposed that didn't matter. Her aura was consistently tinged with that faint darker hue when she was around him these days anyways, and sure enough she was gone as quick as she'd spoken, taking that-- that golden light and warmth and vanilla-honey with her. (Flickers of mist and green eyes, that warmth radiating through the clearing, vanilla filtering through his senses, gold at the edges of his vision.) He blinked, feeling empty in her absence despite himself, and then there was Roy to fill her place.