Hazel in the Demon's Den

The remainder of the evening after dinner was spent drafting those blasted backgrounds in the library. Will joined her and silently read a book on the recliner as she worked.

The absentminded part of her wondered once again if part of the reason he married a stranger was that he was lonely out here in the middle of nowhere. He certainly liked being near her when he was home.

Hazel read a book once about the Old West. Apparently back then there were so few women in the settlements that it was common to write back east for a mail order bride. Orphans or other women with no other marriage prospects would respond to the ads and travel by train to meet and marry their new husbands.

Honestly, she wasn't much different than those women. She had married herself off to a stranger to have a better life too. Those mail order brides were probably as desperate and disillusioned as she had been.

Hazel shook those thoughts away. She needed to focus on her backgrounds. Rough sketches of the outside of the castle, a hallway, the palace kitchen, and the main character's bedroom had been completed.

Learning from past mistakes, she wanted to send them to Muffincake before she went to all the effort to color them. Getting approval for the rough designs was the first step. They could argue about color palettes later.

Hazel sent them through the app and got a rather surprising response. 'They look great! Exactly how I imagined them. The palace is made of light gray stone so be sure to do that for the walls. The royal colors are purple and red so those crests I showed you how to do would need to include those. I leave the rest to your discretion'

Say what?! The pickiest person she knew not only told her the background looked great but that she could do whatever she wanted to them color wise? Hazel must be dreaming. Maybe Muffincake really was only obsessive about her characters.

Will noticed that she flopped down rather loudly back onto the beanbag chair. He looked up from his book.

"What is it?"

"Muffincake liked them and is letting me have free reign with the backgrounds," Hazel said in disbelief.

He snorted. "Muffincake?"

"The author. We don't know each other's real names."

Will raised an eyebrow. "Then what does she call you?"

"My screen name is lilmisstopaz so she mostly calls me Topaz," Hazel mumbled, a bit embarrassed. Online culture was difficult to explain to someone who wasn't a part of it.

"What made you choose that name?" he asked curiously, putting his book down.

It was stupid but she had been using the same screen name since high school. Back then she really missed her Billy and was trying to remember his face since it was getting fuzzier in her memory after so many years. She didn't even have a picture of him.

There were two things she really remembered: his crooked smile full of missing teeth and those hazel eyes that frequently glowed gold. Their first ever conversation, where he asked her a bunch of questions to figure out her name, came to mind. He guessed it because she gestured to his eyes.

Though his eyes were technically hazel, they were really more gold than anything. Under the cold light of the moon they looked even more like sparkling gemstones. She chose the name in honor of Billy's eyes.

Time had dimmed her recollection of what they actually looked like. She only remembered the general color and how warm they made her feel inside.

"Is that so…" Will mused. "Which word do you think describes mine better?"

"I can't tell."

He was too far away. They had changed colors a few times since she had known him depending on the light but wasn't sure which shade they actually were.

"Come a little closer then. I want to know what your artistic mind thinks."

Hazel got off the beanbag and examined him from about a foot away. It was still hard to tell. Will leaned forward so their faces were only a few inches from each other.

Her breath caught in her throat at the closeness but she could see his eyes perfectly. The outer rims of his irises were definitely dark brown but the insides were a mixture of yellowish brown and green. How many colors could fit into one person's eyes, anyway?

"Honestly, I think it depends on the light. You have a lot of different colors in there," Hazel admitted. "They are pretty though."

A soft smile crossed his face. "Really? I've always preferred blue eyes. I used to wish mine were blue."

"Nah, yours are much more interesting."

After he said that it occurred to her that she had blue eyes. Did that mean he liked her eyes? He had already called her beautiful today. It wasn't too much of a leap to make.

Suddenly Hazel wondered if he had accepted her marriage proposal because she was his type. She had blue eyes and was a lot shorter than him, which was probably not terribly common at his height.

He seemed really interested when she mentioned she was a starving artist too. Maybe his type was petite, blue-eyed artists. That was oddly specific though. How many of those were out there?

"Will, am I your type?" Hazel blurted, stepping away from him. They were still only a few inches apart.

He let out a light laugh. "You can't say you have a type if you've only been interested in one person, can you?"

Oh. Maybe she was wrong and he didn't like her after all. But that made it even more perplexing that he had married her, especially since he insisted she take his last name.

So he was the same as her. Hazel didn't have a type either. In her whole life she had only loved Billy. They made quite a pair, didn't they? Neither of them could be with the one they truly loved so they married a stranger on a whim.

"What happened to her?" she asked hesitantly. "Why aren't you with her now?"

"I lost her a long time ago," Will said with a wry smile. "It's alright though. I happen to have an excellent wife these days."