Can't sleep. Can't dream. The nightmares have returned, par for the course with the turning of winter. It's the time when she's closest to the incident, when it replays over and over. Hazel longs for it to stop, but there's no way to clear it from her head. Hell, she couldn't even go ask Halo for something that would knock her out. Another pang cracked through her chest, enough to drag her from bed. A walk. Fine, she'd take a fucking walk.

Inside her head it's too loud. Too busy. Too much noise. Hazel won't confront the fact she's spiraling, not yet. This time of year is always the worst-- she knows why. Giving up entirely on sleep for now, Hazel moves first to free a stashed bottle from its hiding place, and then out. Out of the home that had been Sirius's, out into the frigid night air. Snow crushing beneath her paws as she makes her way out, scenting the air first. No, no danger.

A long sip from her bottle, then another. Hazel walks the Col, unsure exactly where she's going until she arrives. Grim expression, a heavy sigh in her chest. A clearing near the edge of the Col, the place her father had done his damndest to take her life-- it's been two years, nearly to the day. Hazel sits heavily, her back firm against a broad tree. Snow falling around her, concealed by the dark of the night, the general drinks.

Hazel, The General

table coding by bunni ♥

Something unnerved Ignita's little possum companion. Little eyes peered out of the doorway and the absence of the possum roused Ignita awake. She looked up in the darkness of her new den below Bas and Hazel's to see Ida peering out of the door.

Quietly the little slave rubbed her eyes then followed the possum to the door and peered out with her. The form of Hazel was walking away down the Col with a bottle. But something also catches her eye, the Col is swathed in a strange brightness.

Cautiously she stepped out into the Col and found it awash in a blanket of snow. The little desert wolf had never seen snow before, she wondered if Hazel was out wandering because she enjoyed it!

Ignita delighted in the footprints she left behind, just like sand! Much colder of course. She loosely followed Hazel's footprints in the snow, pausing every few steps to try and catch a falling flake.

The darkness around them almost helped illuminate the snowflakes to make them easy to catch. She jumped and leaped at the falling snow, like a little kid she dashed around to make different prints in the snow.

"Hazel! Hello! It's snowing!" She exclaimed excitedly, bright excitement shining in her golden eyes, as she found the woman. But suddenly she noticed the air around Hazel maybe wasn't as enthralled with the snow around her as Iggy was. The slave girl came to a stop in front of her master's wife. "Are you all right?" She asked cautiously.
"Speech"

Footsteps in the darkness. Hazel could hear them, somewhere behind her. Fresh fallen snow and the breeze rustling through the barren trees don't provide much cover. High alert, the highest. Hackles up, a thick ridge down her back, shoulders hunched forward. There's something out here, and the alcohol that's begun to take hold of her system is enough to skew her judgement. Long shadows and a stark moon, it's a living horror film.

The unseen entity coming closer through the trees, Hazel's head snapping around as she finally sights down the creature. Those hackles do not lay flat, a growl echoing from her chest. She'd been followed out into the darkness, out into the snow. Every bit of her is menacing-- there are ghosts in the Col. She can see them, feel them, hear them. Hazel takes another long drink from her bottle.

Smelling heavily of Halo's strongest honey liquor, and Hazel stares her pursuer coldly in the face. "Excellent, I'm being stalked by a fucking meteorologist." The words drip venom, though she doesn't move. No threat, just the slave whelp that had moved in while she was up to her asshole in work. As for the girl's question? Hazel offers no response, just a long stare and a frightfully full drink from the bottle clutched in her paws.

Hazel, The General

table coding by bunni ♥

The smell of the liquor hit her in the face before she fully registered the words. Well she wasn't quite a meteorologist... She was a few other things... She hadn't gotten around to meteorology... OH. It wasn't actually a comment about her scientific mind... Hazel was -NOT- in the mood, and Ignita had not developed the kind of relationship with the other woman as she had with Wylan, Spider and Bas. She forgot each person typically had their own relationship with her...

This drunkenness was different than what Iggy had experienced. She didn't realize there were other types. This was vitreol and venom.

"S-sorry. I... I've never seen snow before..." Ignita lowered her head, kept her eyes down and stepped back, that was something she was supposed to do right? She didn't know what to do next, whether it was okay to leave Hazel alone like this, or offer to grab Ollie or Wylan for her, or to just leave her alone. Maybe she should get Bas?

"Can I... Help? In some way?" She asked hesitantly, stealing a glance up at the Warlady.

"Ignita"

Basilisk may enter her threads without warning.