all things to dust return but you keep on

It had been her home. She'd been raised here, she'd been saved here, for the second time. The first time, of course, had been farther south. Both times it had been Sirius and the grace of something that very well could have been otherworldly. To Hazel, it seemed like luck. Someone, somewhere was looking out for her. That, and it seemed that the Warlord was the patron saint of children who needed somewhere safe to land.

"Yeah, of course," she hovered for a moment by the door, peering at Sirius. He seemed older now than he had the first time they'd met, wiser too. The passage of time felt so strange to Hazel. She still had to look up at him, the same way she had from the time she was a child. "How um, how are you holding up?" Awkward as she was, she meant well. Always, she meant well.

"Speech"