ooc trying out a new fancy (or the same one i keep revamping rip) bc i got bored!!

Hazel didn't know what to do with herself.

The clan was a mess of emotions: anger and grief and despair, all jumbled together in a massive thundercloud that clung relentlessly to the observatory. People tried to go about their normal lives, but...it was all half-effort. Some holed themselves away in their rooms, while others went through the motions but let the filter between their brains and their mouths dissipate. Starry had touched the Ascendants so deeply - it was literally his creation - that no one knew what do to but mope; mope and grieve and drag themselves through the next day, hoping that when they woke up in the morning, the pain in their hearts would be gone.

Hazel couldn't say the same. She hadn't been close to Starry like most of the members were. She wasn't there when he was sculpting the clan from nothing; she hadn't even talked to him, really. So there was always the reality that slammed home after the death of someone that had been in her presence. There was the weight of knowing Starry had been a living, breathing thing with a brain with imagination and creativity and she had witnessed those things. Starry had been alive. And now? Now all Hazel could think of was the fact that he wouldn't be there if she had a question. There would forever be an empty space where Starry used to be.

There were days where she would sit stone still, staring at the ground and wondering if Starry knew how much they appreciated and loved him. Deus, she hoped he knew. She would sit, hoping for it so much that time would slip away from her and she wouldn't move for an hour or so at a time. Arion would find her every now and again, paws tucked under her as she rested amongst Margaery's roses, letting their cloying sweet scent fill her nose until she could smell nothing else.

It wasn't just Starry's death, though.

Hazel had been avoiding her room for days - nine, if she was keeping track. She would pass it, every now and again, thinking someone might have stolen something. But they never did. It was all just as she left it: lamp broken on the floor, glass shards shattered in every direction, blood spots on the floor from her feet, the crack in the cement that Bastille had left, and the lingering terror of an old world coming to haunt her precious new one. It hadn't been her first panic attack, and she was terrified that it wouldn't be her last. It was different when she had no choice but to live with Mother, and she knew what was going on and what the next day would bring. But here? Where she was free from it? Everything was different, and the ghost of her past was supposed to stay in that old, abandoned house...where she left it.

Part of her wished she could talk to Bastille about it, even if it was a ridiculously small part of her. She was still deeply ashamed that he had witnessed it. She was only afraid that he would discover what she hid under her bandana next, and...and a lot, actually. There was so much that could go wrong. He could stop teaching her to read, or quit speaking Latin to her. The concept of him ceasing to be her friend terrified her a lot more than she cared to admit.

Hazel was, once again, in Margy's garden, knowing she should have asked for permission but being a little too muddled in her thoughts to follow through on it. With her was colorful string, all carefully tied. The bracelet she was working on was teal, red, and white - a sister bracelet to the one Hazel was currently wearing, which was pink, red, and white. They were for Suiteheart and Margy respectively. She had one for Bastille, too, which was teal, copper, and white, but she hadn't found the right time to give it to him. If he wanted to avoid her, that was...fine. She could give it to him another time.

She could go through bracelets pretty fast at this point; string was never hard to find, and it didn't take a lot of concentration. Hazel could hum under her breath - pointless little tunes that went nowhere and meant nothing - and think and make bracelets simultaneously if needed. And right now, she just needed to give her paws something to do before she vibrated out of her own skin with all the turmoil in her brain.

Tufted ears twitched at the sound of hushed whispers and pawsteps further down the path: two npc's, talking. Hazel didn't pay them much attention - she didn't want it returned - until the two turned her way and asked what she was doing.

"Oh," Hazel said, a bit slow on the uptake with this for some reason. "I'm making bracelets. Would you like one? It won't take very long." She offered, nodding down at the string. The expression on their faces turned bitter, like they were sucking on a lemon. Hazel's skin felt cold; Mother used to make that face.

"Starrynight is dead," One of them said disdainfully. "And you're making bracelets?" It was a statement more than it was a question.

Hazel frowned, her ears falling and eyes flicking downwards. She opened her mouth, then shut it, nodding. Should...should she be ashamed? Was she doing something wrong? She was aware everyone was grieving, but... "You could be helping with the memorial, or doing something to actually commemorate him. But you're here, playing with string instead." The other deadpanned, looking like Hazel had just done something disgusting.

"I thought I would make them for you all," The cocoa feline defended quietly. "to cheer you up. Everyone is so downcast nowadays, I thought - "

"We're downcast because we're grieving the death of our leader," One scorned, interrupting. Hazel flinched, even though they weren't near her, but didn't respond. The two left a few seconds later, leaving the impression that she should be miserable and grieving, too. Which...she was. Wasn't she? Tears prickled in the corners of her eyes, and she ignored them, returning to her humming with a shaky voice because that...that was too familiar. Far too familiar.

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

Hazel glanced up at Margy's appearance, watching with some odd feeling of desperation digging into her nerves as the motherly figure told off the two npcs. For a moment, she wanted to tell Margaery to stop, to leave them alone - it wasn't their fault, not really. They had a right to be angry. If Margy got mad at them, then rumors might start to spread; hateful things about how mean and bossy she was. Hazel would be responsible for that, because Margy would never have said anything if it weren't for her.

Silently, Hazel went back to work on her bracelets, her ears tilting backwards at Margaery's icy tone towards the npcs. Deus, Hazel felt so weak. Weak and indecisive and impossible to figure out. All her life, all she'd ever wanted was someone to love and be there for her. But now that it was possible, Hazel realized she had no idea what love was, and everything she encountered that might lead to a stable relationship - be it platonic or romantic - either terrified her, or opposed her thoughts. She was grateful that Margy was standing up for her, but at the same time, she wanted to be able to do that, too. She wanted to be able to do that without remembering every other time she had talked back to authority figures.

"Thank you, Margy." Hazel said softly, keeping her eyes trained on the string. There was a part of her that melted a bit when Margy used the Latin endearment, the sound flowing over her mind and heart like a lullaby. "I'm fine. They didn't do anything to me." She assured the chocolate point, tugging as she finished off another knot. Suddenly Margy was right there, pressing against her, and Hazel's heart slammed against her chest as she just about yelped in her fright; the points of contact between them lighting up with too much sensation like she'd been burned by boiling water. Hazel immediately leaned away, shuffling just a few inches until she had her own breathing room, and tried to calm her racing heart. Squeezing her eyes shut, she took a deep breath. Calm. You're okay. You're fine - you're okay. She doesn't know. It's not her fault.

When she opened her eyes, she allowed her gaze to flicker very briefly to Margaery before it fell back to the string, which she gathered close to herself again with shaky paws. "Sorry," She whispered. "Sorry. You - you startled me a little." Liar. "Aegre fero."

She was gratefully distracted by the woman's question, and smiled a bit. "Suiteheart." Hazel said, fondness lacing her tone. "And - here, I already have yours finished. I was wearing it so I didn't lose it before I finished Suite's." She explained, hastily undoing the red, pink and white one from around her wrist to give to Margy. "They're matching, kind of. These colors remind me of you two." She looked genuinely happy for a moment, because she loved making things for other people, and desperately hoped she liked it. Then she looked down again, and found herself eyeing the teal, copper and white bracelet she'd made for Bastille. She could feel the smile on her features fade. "I made one for Bastille, too, but...I don't think he'll want it," Hazel said quietly.

Then Luna was there as well, and Hazel used her presence to try and snap herself out of the upset tugging on her soul at the thought of Bastille turning down her trinket. (Then again...she wouldn't be surprised.) "Ave, Luna. How are you today?" She asked, smile flickering upwards once more. She hadn't seen the older girl for quite some time, and was happy to see her now. "Would you like a bracelet, too? It won't take but a few hours, if you want to tell me the colors you'd like."

Suite approached next, and Hazel immediately slapped a paw over the toothpaste-themed bracelet, not wanting the other to see it before it was finished. Alas, it was far too late, though the circumstance and humor of her panicked move were kind of funny. She blushed under Suite's praise, slowly removing her paw and getting back to work on the bracelet. "Thank you," Hazel murmured, grinning to herself. "I had a lot of time to practice. It also gives my paws something to do while my brain runs its mouth." She purred, tail curling as the conversation started to get easier.

Then it didn't, and Suite was bringing it back to the npcs, and Hazel wanted to deflate. "I'm not...I don't want to offend anyone. I didn't think it would be taken so negatively." She admitted, a small sigh escaping her lips.

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

Bastille was pretty damn removed from the incident himself. He heard about it through Observers gossiping about Suite laying into somebody, though they'd seemed a little hesitant to explain to him what the fuck they were going on about. He was rapidly losing patience when they finally just fucking explained, and Bastille was... fucking furious. The white-hot flare of vicious anger sparked instantly, and it didn't even matter that he had been avoiding Hazel for days now. Something about her just seemed to drag the worst out of him, and he could feel the ground heating up beneath his paws as he turned away from the two without a word and went to track down his victims.

He was halfway to one of their rooms when he caught himself mid-thought, realizing abruptly that he'd slipped almost seamlessly into Pollie's thought pattern -- he was going to cut their middles open and let them bleed out slowly, let them suffer for it -- without any resistance from his own. He hadn't even noticed it happening, and he knew without having to glance in a mirror that his irises were burning a mismatched green and blue. "Fuck," he swore, taking a few paces back. There were flames flickering at his paws, and he shook his head, struggling to force the murderous rage back, to push Pollutedsoul back. God damnit, the stupid bastard had been far too quick to slip out recently, as if Hazel and Margy had awaken the fucking beast and now he couldn't silence it.

He would have killed them if he hadn't snapped himself out of it sooner, and he felt that flare of temptation even as he was backing up and rapidly leaving the underground complex. He needed to get as far away as fucking possible, and he grit his teeth as he headed for the gardens, determining that if Hazel was there, he'd likely find Suite there, too. The last thing he wanted was to be near the girl or Margy, but fuck, he was afraid that if he wasn't by Suite or someone so familiar, he was going to do something he regretted.

Sure enough, just about everyone he ever relied on to ground his raging temper was clustered in the garden -- even his mentor. He felt a vicious twist as he realized Margy had beat him there, and his irises flashed as he briefly stopped short. Fuck, fuck, fuck -- he wasn't sure what was worst, going towards someone that Pollie reacted so viciously towards or going back towards the Observatory, where no one was there to stop him from ripping those idiot's throats out. Which-- which-- which he wanted to do, because they fucking deserved it, and he was going to make sure they paid for attacking Hazel of all people. He just needed to catch them in their rooms at the right time, in the middle of the night, likely, when no one else was awake or any wiser--

Fuck, he thought, jerking slightly as he caught his grasp on himself slipping once more. Fuck. His head was spinning with the impulsive desire to just kill them all, and the warring reminder that it wasn't him and he needed to get a fucking grip. The flames sparking in his steps didn't seem to be going any where, and he pushed himself forward, resigned in the knowledge that if he went off on his own, he was going to kill someone. He didn't have it in him to keep fighting Pollie, not when he could barely even realize a fight was being lost any more.

He stopped beside Luna, brushing up against her side as he usually did when he was seeking grounding support. His stare was locked on Hazel, resolutely ignoring Margy's presence as much as possible, and his irises seemed to dip in and out -- ice blue, mismatched, ice blue. They were just as unstable as his thoughts, his identity, and he scowled slightly as he said lowly, "If they fuck with you again, I'm--" going to kill them, was right on his tongue, but he caught himself before he admitted it aloud. Instead, he just muttered, "Let me know." There. Better. Less... deranged sounding.

Hazel immediately snapped her attention upwards at the flood of heat that filled the air, her nerves pinching with the old feeling of molten anger. She sucked in a breath, ribs poking uncomfortably at her skin, as she tried to steel herself against the new burn of the familiar yet foreign emotion. She knew it was Bastille before she even found his eyes; she could smell the smoke and pine scent that accompanied the acrid taste of fury. It startled her, to say in the least, and she was worried that it was directed at her for whatever reason he had been avoiding her for. That was to say, whatever she had said to Margy that had him so turned around.

Once her golden gaze caught on his, Hazel tilted her head just the slightest bit, focusing on the curious colors of his irises. She knew them very well to be glacier blue, and had never known him to have the ability to change their color. It was alarming, because the transition was blatant. Ice to forest, sky to pine. Blue to green. Right to wrong.

It reminded Hazel of their interaction earlier: the sudden bitterness and flash of warm tropics against the backdrop of the usual Alaskan tundra she had grown so familiar with. The sudden and complete swing from reserved mourning to the flare of unspoken jealousy. The almost...uncharacteristic feel to it all, despite his history of anger.

Guarded curiosity flickered in her pools of vivid gold. Then he was speaking, and she was tearing her gaze away to focus on the string in front of her once more like she’d been caught doing something she wasn’t supposed to. Her ears twitched with recognition, skin burning in an irrational flush at his words. The nod she gave him was a bit unfocused as she split her mind two ways: one part wondering what in the devil was going on with Bastille himself, and the other wondering why he sounded so angry. He seemed so furious over everything, like the fury was just shifting and being aimed rather than resurfacing over individual things. Hazel just couldn’t pinpoint where it was coming from, or why.

Regardless, her moronic sense of curiosity had her disregarding the threat he posed to her, even in the face of her past and what she had seen him do. This was the one thing she had ever known to manually override everything else: the want to get closer to who he was, to find out what he was all about and just help him.

“Thank you,” She murmured quietly, voice still soft with the knowledge of Margaery being so close. She didn’t know what to do for a moment before she glanced down to the bracelet on her foreleg and its intricate patterns; the one she had tried the hardest on. Slowly, she untied it, and glanced back up to Bastille, the gold in her optics hesitant.

“Et factum est...ita,” She said, momentarily forgetting that Margaery spoke it Latin, and it was no longer just for her and Bastille. “Uh, you don’t have to wear it, but I thought…” Heck, was she even thinking at that point? She was either overthinking or not thinking at all. She didn’t know what had caused this. “I don’t know what I thought. I think I started making it and the colors reminded me of you, or something like that.” Deus, that sounded ridiculous. Hazel grimaced at herself. “Actually, ignore that, if you please. That sounded stupidly cheesy.” Wow, she sucked.

Letting out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding, Hazel’s attention swung to Luna briefly, mentally shrugging. “Everybody’s bound to have a little child in them.” She murmured. “And I don’t mind at all - I can start  on yours once I’ve finished Suite’s.”

(“I made it...for you.”)

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

He found it easier to force back the flaring bursts of influence around those who... grounded him, more or less. Luna had always helped him calm his temper, though he wasn't sure why -- he had simply naturally gravitated towards her steadiness, and she was always there when he needed her. He supposed that was more or less the responsibility of a mentor, but she was important to him nonetheless. Usually he could say the same for Margy and Hazel, but at the moment they tended to make something... spike in his blood. Which left Suite, essentially.

As he stared back at Hazel, however, he was caught off guard by her words. He cocked his head to the side, scowling slightly as he glanced down at the bracelet she was fumbling with. The lilting brush of Latin made him immediately think that she meant Margy, but she was looking at him with those intent, golden eyes and he -- was too surprised to hold onto that murderous anger, honestly. He didn't understand her, nevermind how he could have even ended up on her list of people to make shit for, and he... didn't know what to do with this information. He wasn't even sure he'd ever been given a gift before, aside from Margy.

"Oh," he said, elegantly. Bastille was at a loss, and reflexively lifted a paw, surrendering it to her as he said, "No, I will, I... uh. Sure." He seemed to realize after a beat that letting her tie it would likely involve contact, realized his mistake, and dropped his paw within the same moment, evidently deciding to just... let her pass it to him. "Um... thanks?"

[ dramatic mood shifts 2k18 ]