Hazel

DATE: September 15th, 2018 LOCATION: the Seelie Court Gardens, outside Oleander’s own little greenhouse

The eastern wall of her greenhouse had looked a little sparse, and so she had taken the time to tend to it, eager – for once – to get out of her tower, out of her library, both of which had become visual representations of what buzzed inside her mind with no real reprieve. Yellow roses bloomed up the side of the glass panes: Eurya had planted these, long ago. “Should I have brought pink ones instead?” she’d said, and her river-green eyes were lit with mischief as she smiled, the glimmer of it making Oleander bold. ”I would have hoped for red,” she’d answered. 

The flowers had smelled sweet, then.

Now, the roses were choking on themselves, blooms rotting from the inside out as they grew beyond their means. The scent was no longer just comforting, just familiar – now it was tainted with the stench of rot, the decay almost alluring.

With her gardening shears, she began to snip away at them, hoping to stem the tide.

The sound of quiet steps behind her made the Archfey pause in her work, Oleander turning to greet the newcomer.

“Did you bring your own shears? – Or are you here to steal from my garden?” Beyond the glass walls was her little operation – orderly rows of fragrant herbs and strange flowers, all of them used when she made her blend.

Oleander’s garden was... a wonder. Hazel didn’t actually know if it was private and she was trespassing, but she’d caught a glimpse of a plant she didn’t recognize when she’d been walking and before she could really consider the potential consequences of her actions she’d practically pressed her nose to the window to investigate. The summer court was always warm, but inside the greenhouse it was even hotter and more humid, she could feel it through the glass. Hazel loved it. 

She didn’t really know how real estate worked here, it might have been discussed in her education at Camp Forosnai but she hadn’t been concerned about it then. Now she wondered what it would take to have her own greenhouse. There wasn’t really room for such a thing in the city, but here...maybe. 

Lost in thought, she didn’t realize Oleander was actually at the greenhouse until it was too late to avoid her. “Oh, no...I would never steal from someone’s garden,” she promised. “I was just, uh, curious? I love plants.” It was an awkward explanation, but hopefully the older fey wouldn’t mind that. She pointed to the plant that had drawn her attention in the first place and asked, “What is that? If I didn’t know better, I’d say it looked like silphium, but that’s long extinct, isn’t it?” 

“Nope. No such thing as too much cheese. I vote yes on the nachos. The calamari is good too, though. If you like seafood.” It was the company Brielle craved more than the food, in truth. The more she, alone, tried to force some sort of progress in her life, the less it actually came. Bri would have guessed that the key to success was to simply not think about it so much, but she’d been doing just that for years now. And life as she knew it had slowed down quite a bit in that time.

She sat back a little, napkin wrapped around the fingers of her left hand. Beneath the table, one leg crossed over the other. “I never thought about it like that. The cook thing, I mean. Taking work home with you. Damn. Guess it’s kind of like the people who work at Taco Bell for years and end up not being able to stomach tacos any more.” Playfully crinkling her nose at the thought, Brielle soon licked her lips. It was a bit different when it came to her own occupation, or at least it felt it. Her job at Maynooth had been a welcome addition to a life already rich with Irish culture - Bri viewed it more as an advantage than an actual job.

“Do you like the place you work, though?” The glass in front of her was cold to the touch but she didn’t mind, raising it to her lips to sip through the plastic straw. “That helps, right?”

Hazel sighed gently, shaking her head. “I have always really wanted to like seafood, but I just...don’t. People go gaga over lobster and shrimp and I feel like I’m supposed to do the same but I’d rather have chicken or beef, to be honest.” 

When it came to cooking she loved to make just about anything, though baking was her favorite. But she always felt she did a better job when it was also something she enjoyed eating. It made sense, but was also frustratingly limiting. Maybe she ought to try to make herself enjoy seafood again. It had been a few years since she’d tried. But not tonight. When the bartender brought her drink, she ordered the nachos.

“Can you imagine not liking tacos? What a horrific way to live,” she teased. “I do like my job. I work in the kitchen at Oakenfold, the casino uptown. I wouldn’t call it my dream job? But I enjoy it. It’s never boring. I don’t think I ever asked what it is you do, did I?” 

September was, and always had been, his absolute favourite time of year. 

Firstly (and Gods, did he get enough flack for this from Tyler and Nicholas both but) it was ideal clothing whether. All of Benji’s most preferred outfits (consisting of items that admittedly brought him joy and an irrefutable connection to his own trademark identity) were most appropriate in Autumn. Leather boots, scarves, long peacoats, vests… they were at home in the fall, as was he. 

That and, yes, he was still an indisputable nerd. September was a time of new beginnings, in a way that January wasn’t for him, but perhaps was for many. It signified fresh starts and supplies, new courses and clean slates. Unscathed agendas, perfect excuses to splurge on new pens. It represented one more year towards Benji’s career, one more year of challenging exams and reasons to stay up at night studying. 

And yes, he was aware that many of these things weren’t reasons to celebrate for most people. But Benjamin Dalton was not ‘most people’. 

He’d just left his favourite bookstore, en route to finding himself a new messenger bag appropriate for the texts he’d be lugging around with him this year, when he collided with someone who was looking down at her phone. 

He grinned a little at her statement. “I mean, that goes without saying,” it was a bit dry, but not delivered unkindly.  “Honestly, I’m just relieved you weren’t carrying anything hot.” He’d be much less friendly had she ruined his favourite Thursday Boots. He gave her a quick once over. “You’re looking festive.” 

Hazel’s cheeks blazed pink at his somewhat sarcastic response, but the words were softened by his smile. She too was glad she hadn’t been carrying anything hot. A lot of her friends were clamoring for a pumpkin spice latte, but she wasn’t actually a fan of most pumpkin dishes or drinks. She tucked her hair behind her ear and looked up at him, offering a sheepish smile. 

“I’m so sorry, honestly, I’m glad you’re alright,” she began. “But, uh, yeah...festive...Or nerd-festive anyway. I’m a fan. Obviously. I mean, I grew up on the books and...” 

Her voice trailed off on a shrug. He looked a little bit younger than her but she guessed he’d understand if he was a reader (or movie watcher.) Most kids of their generation had grown up with Harry Potter, they knew the stories and while not everyone was a fan like she was, they all probably knew someone who was. It was nerdy, yes, but not uncommon. Still, that didn’t mean he wanted to stand on the street listening to her ramble about it.

“I’m Hazel Kavanagh. Hufflepuff.” She grinned, throwing in the house reference as if he couldn’t read it on her shirt. “You sure you’re alright? Can I buy you a hot beverage to make up for the one I could have spilled on you if I’d been carrying one?” 

“Consider it a gentlemen’s treat,” He laughed wondering if she knew just how far from the title he was. “I’m absolutely starving,” “I don’t know about you but I could always go for something greasy,” Rubbing the back of his neck he took in her expression. “Uh I mean where would you like to go?” 

At this point she felt better having input from him. “Greasy is fine,” she said, shrugging. “I mean... what kind of greasy? Are we talking like pizza grease or fried food grease or like...mexican greasy? Which is totally different but still a thing. I’m honestly fine with anything, I just love food.”

Letting out a sigh he dug into his pockets for his wallet, silently rifling threw the folds and producing a few bills. “Here get yourself a new one,”  Even if it wasn’t his fault he hated being that asshole. Onyx was about to hand over the money when an idea struck him. “Or you can let me buy you an apology lunch,” 

He held the bills out of her arm’s reach and gave her a cheeky smile. “I won’t take no for an answer.”

“Oh, no. That’s not --” She started to protest the idea of him replacing the necklace. It really wasn’t a big deal, just a cheap souvenir from the internet. He had nothing to apologize for since she’d run into him and not the other way around. Hazel was absolutely not going to take money for the necklace. His second offer was slightly more palatable but still overkill for an incident that wasn’t his fault, but he was looking so pleased with himself that Hazel felt like an even bigger jerk for refusing. “I...I can do lunch. But you really should let me pay. I ran into you.”

Though time (and alcohol, thanks to Patrick) had blurred Brielle’s memories of the night at Luna Park, Hazel had the kind of smiling face that was hard to forget. At the realisation of who she was, the invisible weight on Bri’s shoulders lifted near instantly, encouraging her to lean forward a little. Their interaction that night had been short, but pleasant enough to leave her craving more of a connection. It was easier to keep up the happy act if she surrounded herself with those who played that part well.

“I mean, you can never really go wrong with mozzarella sticks, but if you need to save money that badly, I’d say save the eleven dollars and go make something magical back home. If that’s your thing.” In all honesty, Brielle probably would have been better off saving money herself, but these days she craved a break from home more and more, much to her alarm. It didn’t seem as though anyone had noticed the behaviour, though, which was definitely for the best. “Hey, I know a killer burrito bowl recipe for when the bank’s running a little dry. I call it the budget burrito. It tastes better than it sounds.”

Suddenly aware of her oversharing, it was Bri’s turn to smile sheepishly. “Or you could ignore everything I just said and spend the eleven dollars. It’s really up to you, Hazel.” A pretty name, the kind that felt nice to say. She nudged her plate forward. “Here, have some if you want.”

“I’m always up for getting more recipes,” Hazel said, not finding the offer odd in the slightest. “I’m a cook so I tend to spend a lot of time tinkering in the kitchen. Which is another point in favor of ordering something here and giving myself a break. I mean, I love cooking, but it’s literally taking work home with me.” 

She ordered a drink when the bartender stopped by and glanced over a menu while she tried to decide what she wanted to do. Hazel didn’t eat out often and she didn’t need to be a miser with her money, just had to be smart. Besides, getting a chance to spend a bit more time with Brielle was worth spending a little bit of money. They’d barely spent any time together at Luna Park but Hazel had gotten the feeling that this was a girl she could really be friends with. 

“What if I got nachos and we split both?” she offered. “Or is that too much cheese? I don’t actually think there’s such a thing as too much cheese but not everyone agrees with me.” 

Kaitlin wouldn’t have been surprised if everyone in the world could agree on wanting him to be happy. “Yeah, he does.” Noting Hazel’s use of Forest’s fey name, Kaitlin realised that for the first time, she had too. But she’d never dare do such a thing to his face. It felt odd, modifying her behaviour around her sister…as if there was a gap between them. As if the distinction between fey and human mattered for them. Hazel - and Kevin - were the only ones it wasn’t supposed to matter for. Suddenly pensive, Kaitlin turned to her. “Do you think…do you think you’ll ever get married like that? At Lugnasad?” 

Hazel had no idea that her use of Forest’s fey name would bother her sister. It wasn’t that she preferred one name over the other, but she saw it sort of like choosing your pronouns -- he’d decided to rename himself Forest so that’s what she called him. That, and she hadn’t gotten to know Kevin. When he’d been a player she hadn’t really been involved with any players other than Kaitlin. She assumed the contemplative look that crossed her sister’s face was more due to the Lugnasad tradition than anything else. 

“Me? No, probably not. I’m not...important? enough for the court to want to nominate me. I don’t mean that like it sounded, exactly, I just mean that most people don’t really know me because of how much time I spend out in the city rather than in An Sídalann. Ya know?” With someone who knew more about human traditions, she might compare it to being nominated for homecoming queen -- it seemed like something of a popularity contest. 

Knox had been stuck in one of his concentrative trances, zoning out to his environment around him and anyone who had been near. Whenever he took on new information, he would get into one of these headspaces. To anyone else, it just looked as though he was a man on a mission. Fast-paced walking, vision concentrated on a single objective and hands shoved deep into the pockets of his jacket. 

He’d been digesting some information he’d conjured up about the fey when he decided it was indeed time for a coffee break, and instead of bothering with an uber or a taxi, he figured that the fresh air would do him the world of good. And aside from zoning out completely, he supposed that the fresh air was doing it’s exactly intended purpose. That was until he was quickly snapped into reality when a girl donned in everything Harry Potter collided with him. 

He observed for a moment, giving the stranger a quick glancing up and down as she spoke. He was fine, this was New York, after all, people ran into one other all the time, though seldom was there ever an apology. “Hmm? Oh, yes I’m perfectly fine.” He was going to continue with his day, but he couldn’t help but comment on her attire. “Even though I’m more of a Slytherin kinda’ person, myself.” His teenage years were spent with a nose in a book at all times, and harry potter had been a favourite of his. 

Hazel blushed but grinned at the man she’d accidentally run into, doing a quick check to make sure she hadn’t spilled coffee on him, broken anything, or otherwise caused damage. When she got to his face her smile faltered and fell. Oh hell. New York was a massive city but at times it felt more like a small town in that you were constantly running into people you recognized. 

This time it was Knox Bakshi. 

She had a good memory for faces and would have remembered him even if she’d just had Cotilan to go off of, but since then King Adare had shown the Seelie a photo of the man and essentially advised them that he was a potential threat. And she ran into him in the street. Where he proclaimed himself a Slytherin. Awesome. Tucking her hair behind her ear in an awkward gesture she hoped he’d attribute to embarrassment, she ducked her head. At least it was unlikely that he’d remember her - she wasn’t exactly memorable among the crowd at Cotilan. 

“Ambitious? Cunning? Not bad things to be,” she offered, deciding to keep the conversation on safe topics like fictional wizards. “Unless you’re going to tell me that Snape is your favorite character in which case I have somewhere I need to be. Urgently.” 

A light ‘oof’ escaped his mouth at the sudden head on collision. Onyx liked a joke just as well as the next guy, but he wasn’t exactly in the mood for games.  He yanked out his ear buds, spinning around to meet the stranger. 

“Hey watch i-” His cheeks flared with embarrassment as she sputtered out an apology. So it was only an accident huh. “Uh yeah, I’m dandy,” “But your necklace is completely busted.”

Hazel winced at the tone at first but it quickly softened. Glancing up she recognized the person she’d run into and blushed deeply. Onyx. A fellow Seelie and a coworker at the casino. Perfect. She had a feeling she’d get teased about this, but there were worse fates. At least she wasn’t getting yelled at in the street. 

“Sorry,” she repeated. Her hand went up to touch her necklace; the circle at the center used to spin but had apparently fallen out leaving just an empty triangle. “That’s okay, I got it off etsy, it wasn’t like it was super expensive or sentimental. It’s my own fault for not watching where I was going.” 

“Overkill maybe but if it’s what your heart desires, who can really fault you?” He couldn’t help but tease, the words flying off his tongue with ease. For the first time in weeks, some of the anxiety was off his shoulders. The mixture of fried food, annoyingly happy fair music and his previous ride on the cyclone had left him feeling happier than he had been in a while. Laughing with Brielle and Pat earlier had felt like old times before he had been burdened with doubt. He sighed dramatically, shaking his head. “Awful but unfortunately is a thing that’s happened before. Of course, I’ve learned since then to not put my foot in my mouth but I still slip up every now and again.”

“Splitting might be a good idea considering if I eat any more fried food, my heart might actually give out but if we’re splitting food, I might as well give you my name. I’m Emmet.”

“You tell a lot of girls they look fruity?” she asked, grinning. “That is a little strange, I have to admit. But I don’t make it a habit of hitting strangers. Or anyone, usually. It’s pretty rare, usually you have to do something awful like insult my family for me to do something like that.” 

Tough. Of all the words in the world, tough wasn’t one Kaitlin had traditionally used to describe herself. Not in its most common form - anyway. She was soft in so many ways - a girl made to walk among clouds, to dream about wings and impossible magics. But she supposed weaker hearts would have shattered by now. Sometimes, tough didn’t need to mean closed-off. It didn’t need to mean cruel. It got to mean strong. Smile spreading across her cheeks, Kaitlin couldn’t help but be glad for Hazel’s words. Not so long ago…she had tried to interfere…it was a relief to know her sister had faith in her.

Hazel’s faith was the sort that made the world a brighter place.

“I just fundamentally disagree with its sorting. I’m not a Hufflepuff.” They had always felt like the spares, the left-behinds. No, if Kaitlin was going to entertain this world, it would be at the heart of its story, a Gryffindor, bold and beautiful and bright. Dangling the bag in her hand, Kaitlin opened it up, inviting her to peer inside. “I’m planning a surprise for Forest. To celebrate his wedding. Belatedly, I guess.”

Hazel crossed her arms and raised one eyebrow. She felt like she could write a dissertation on why the real heroes should were Hufflepuffs, but most of what she believed had already been said on the internet somewhere. “You do know that I’m a Hufflepuff, right?” she asked, pretending to be offended. The charade didn’t last long though, her smile cracked through. “But honestly, Hufflepuffs are tougher than they appear at first glance -- you really can’t go by the movies.” 

She let the subject drop and looked into the bag Kaitlin showed her. “That’s awesome! Forest deserves some happiness. I mean, I can’t guarantee that he and Mari will be happy together but I hope so. The hopeless romantic in me wants them to be in love and live happily ever after.”

He nodded, giving her outfit a lookover.  "Well, just from first glance, I’d say you strike me as a very committed individual.“ At least to Harry Potter, but he didn’t clarify that out loud. He thought of Jason, who had been the closest thing he’d had to a brother. But even though they’d been close, he would not have been the person Tyler would have gone to with his more nerdy interests - He was like a brother in a lot of ways, including that he was always looking  for something new to tease Tyler about. It had never particularly bothered him, but now it was something he actively hoped for. He held out a hand. "Everybody rambles sometimes,” He said, with a smile. “I’m Tyler.”

Hazel blushed, ducking her head and laughing at herself. “I mean, I wouldn’t be opposed to doing it, but it’s a bit late in the day to start that. Probably more enjoyable to split it up over a few nights.” She shook his hand when he offered it. Making an idiot of herself wasn’t so bad if it meant she got a new friend out of it and Tyler seemed nice. “Pleased to meet you. I was going to make a nice running into you joke, but it felt a bit too on the nose,” she said with a grin. 

“I’ve seen The Killers live so many times,” Nickel confessed. He could picture in his head the fog spilling off the stage, the bright red lights, the frontman and the back up singers in silhouette. Somewhere in New York City, a party was still going on. He tuned out of the music, which he hadn’t noticed himself attuning to. In Hazel’s apartment, there was no blasting audio, just them. “It’s a fun show. One time, saw them at a festival … I’ve seen Fall Out Boy, too, but not as much. Only once. Angst rock. Never really into MCR. Muse, though.”

 He could believe her when she said everyone. He could believe that she meant it. Nickel thought, that’s her problem. He didn’t truly mind making people happy–it wasn’t like he went out of his way to be a disappointment–but it was either his choice or merely incidental to whatever amused him at the time. He didn’t mind letting people down, that was all. It was a hard-earned kind of freedom. Being obliged felt like a trap–like someone was using you against you. His human dad, especially, made a lot of noise about how much he had sacrificed to give Nick and Benji and their mother the life they lived now, but Nickel looked at him and saw the reality of that sacrifice, how the good senator had taken his family and given it forever to the whims of the court and the fey. Hazel was ensnared by her own sense of responsibility. 

“That’s gonna be hard to do,” Nickel said. How long had his eyes been closed? How long had he been gritting his teeth? How had he managed to get so angry? “Everyone’s a lot of people … Jesus, I’m fucked up–y’know, thanks for the mac, it was … better than the casino, actually.”

“MCR isn’t my favorite,” she agreed, “but they were on the spotify playlist so I went with it. Muse would have been better. I saw Fall Out Boy, they were great.” 

Hazel thought Nick was going to let her comment about wanting to please everyone slide. He looked exhausted, it was possible he hadn’t even heard. That’d be alright. It wasn’t anything that needed to be discussed. There were a lot of reasons for her people-pleasing ways, some of them better than others, but she had a feeling Nick wouldn’t really understand. There was something behind his tone when he did speak, something that made her eyes drop to the counter so she wouldn’t have to meet his gaze. Yes, everyone was an awful lot of people, she was well aware.