Lunara's Realm · Horse

Hazel

Mare of a neighboring stable/HAY-zul/

You don't have to thank me. I wasn't doing it for you.

- Hazel

Who she is

Hazel's whole effect on Aster comes from wanting nothing from him. She is not withholding, not performing indifference, not testing him. She is from a stable with its own customs, occupied with her own life, and entirely unbothered by whether he approves of any of it.

That turns out to be the one thing he has never met. The friction between them is real, and most of it comes from Aster assuming his way of doing things is the correct way rather than one of several. She does not argue him out of that. She just keeps not being wrong.

Underneath the independence is warmth she rarely announces. It arrives as action instead of words, usually in the moments that end up mattering, which is why he tends to register it afterwards. Hazel is not trying to change anyone, which makes her the most useful thing a horse who has spent his life pushing against expectation could possibly run into: somebody with no expectation of him at all.

Full entry in the wiki

Where you have met her

novel

Bound, Not Broken

Aster's future has already been decided. Complete the coming-of-age ritual, accept Ivy as his lifelong partner and take his place in a tradition generations before him have followed without question. Instead, he runs. Away from Windmane, Aster finds Emberley Stable and Hazel, a mare who seems to belong to no expectations but her own. She is independent, unpredictable and unwilling to make herself easier for him to understand. Nothing about her offers the certainty Aster has known his entire life, and that is exactly what draws him closer. Then Ivy comes to bring him home, and with her comes everything Aster left behind: familiarity, belonging and a future he knows could make him happy. Hazel offers no such promises. Caught between the life chosen for him and one whose ending he cannot know, Aster must decide how much certainty is worth when the price is never knowing what he might have chosen for himself.

See the novel

From the community

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Artwork contributed by the community appears here.

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