ooc bam, knocked out my ooc task and weekly task (ish?) in one. Two birds with one stone yeeT

“Arion, non habent tempus huius,” Hazel grumbled around her paintbrush.

The task she had taken on was a lot more difficult than she had anticipated, especially since she didn’t have Pele’s help this time around. Now she had to do double the work. Which, to be perfectly honest, she didn’t mind, because it was distracting from the tiring track that was playing on a loop in her brain. Weak, The track mocked. useless, replaceable, waste of space. Better off staying out of everyone’s way.

“Shut up,” Hazel mumbled to nobody. Nobody tangible, anyway.

Bastille had asked her to paint the floor of the bunker similar to the basement floor in the observatory, and she had willingly complied. Willingly complied for special reasons, hm? And oh, she recognized that voice.

Stubbornly, Hazel elected to ignore the girl in her brain. Instead she focused on her task, on drawing a line from dot to dot with as few mistakes as she could manage and telling herself to quit being so sad. Margaery was back! And alive! And it was great! And -

“Arion!” Hazel yelped, startled and growing increasingly frustrated with her colt. Ever since her fall and panic attack, Arion really hadn’t let her out of his sight. At first, it had been sweet, but then he had started following her into places too delicate for colts with knobby knees and clumsy hooves.

Like a bunker with paint jars.

This was the fourth time the Thoroughbred had knocked into one of the paint jars. Luckily, the ones he had bumped were already empty. But this one...this one was full, and it was massive. Arion probably hadn’t meant to; he was splayed out on his side, fast asleep; it was just bad spacial planning, because a couple inches away from his hooves stood the paint jars. And Hazel had forgotten that Arion kicked in his sleep - violently.

Therefore, now there was shattered glass and glowing paint everywhere, including Hazel and Arion. The colt’s entire left side was covered in it, whereas Hazel was just paw-deep and splattered with it. She couldn’t decide if she wanted to cry or yell, because now she had to completely re-do the floor. And that was only if she could get the paint up before it dried. Goddammit, she was too tired for this.

She watched with a flat, unamused expression as Arion proceeded to scramble to his feet and vigorously shake his entire body, flinging paint at the walls.

(Non habent tempus huius - I don’t have time for this)

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

This thing was, Bastille actually paid attention to details. He analyzed people out of boredom, noting little things they did, interests they had, if only because... well. Because it was habit. Grimm liked a story, and sometimes the story was in the details. It lent a relatively intuitive nature to the Seraph, and sometimes it was hard to turn it off. Such as when he could feel the subtlest of shifts from Hazel, the flickers in her emotions, her aura, her very existence from the other side of the fucking territory because they were bonded and he didn't know what to do with that. He knew she didn't like it, but she also hadn't directly said anything about it yet, so he was just... biding his time. Waiting it out. Trying to pretend it wasn't there.

There was something there, though. When he looked at her and looked hard, he could see the fractures in her aura, the restlessness of her souls. He could feel the turbulence through the bond. He knew that feeling well enough, and he felt an urge to ask about it, to check in on her, but he felt like it wasn't his place. Instead, he just waited in silence most of the time, waiting for her energy to come back so that she could be angry.

As he stopped in the doorway of the bunker, his gaze sought her and Arion out. Octavia was asleep in her stall, oblivious to the crash, but Bastille only looked on with a flicker of a smile in amusement. "He's an artist," he commented, low, gaze flickering to Hazel before he looked away, down towards the floor. A pause. "Do you want some help?" Water welled up at his paws, budding in a puddle as he waited to see what she said, feeling vaguely out of place here.