(2021-08-04) At Home with the Hazans

Details

Author:	inkie
Summary:	Niris invites Miss Callis over for tea, so that she can get to know her better, and definitely not for any ulterior motive involving her nephew.
Rating:	T for Teen

Chain: Bizzy

At one end of the vast, vaulted cavern of the Hall of Explorers, there is a neat two-story townhouse distinguished from its stony neighbors by its cheerfully green-painted shutters. On each of the two slab steps that lead up to the narrow porch stands a colorfully striped pot of silver-capped mushrooms, and laid on the porch before the door is a braided rag rug in motley multicolors. A pair of men’s battered, mud-soled brown workboots is arranged neatly beside the rug.

On the wall to the right of the door is a tiled plaque printed with the name HAZAN and bordered by painted green vines. The sturdy ironbound door wears a cast-iron knocker wrought in the shape of a wreath of leaves.

The house itself is quiet — well, it seems to be quiet, at least, beneath the ceaseless distant rumble of the Great Forge — but its windows glow golden with firelight from within.

The glow illuminates the figure of a slim girl, nervously straightening her crisp, white dress. It’s embroidered at the neckline and wrist cuffs with a repeating motif of green leaves and apples, and she wears a cloth belt the same green as the leaves to cinch the dress in at her waist. Looped over her arm is a covered basket, and the straightening hand moves to pat the basket as well, as if to assure herself the contents are still inside.

One quick check to ensure her hair is still smooth and straight against her head, and the girl lifts the same busy hand to the knocker, giving it three quick taps on the door.

She steps back hastily, just in case someone’s lurking just the other side ready to lunge the moment someone knocks.

No one lunges.

There is a few moments’ delay, in fact, before the door is opened. Standing on the other side of it is a tall, broad-shouldered, brown-skinned young man. He’s barefoot and dressed casually, in a softening-to-threadbare white shirt, its sleeves rolled up and its top two buttons undone, and a pair of canvas work trousers.

He’s holding a book in one hand, a finger between the pages to mark his place, and his thick, wavy black hair is disheveled in a way that suggests he’s been sitting with his hand pushed absently into it to prop his head for a while.

He blinks at the girl on the porch. “Mizzy,” he says. It is more a startled observation than a greeting: a kind of, Whoa, there’s a Mizzy on the porch.

There is indeed a Mizzy on the porch, and a very relieved Mizzy at that. Her brown eyes warm like cocoa at the sight of him and her smile tells anyone who sees it how happy she is that he’s answered the door. “Ben!” she says, proving she can identify him as readily as he identifies her. “I wasn’t sure you’d be here. Oh, but I’m so glad you are!”

Ben’s ears turn red, and he scrubs a hand self-consciously through his disarranged hair, which doesn’t really help the disarrangement situation, but he smiles his bashful, chipped-tooth smile back at her. “I — yeah? It’s — real nice to see you. I didn’t know you were comin’. Did —”

“Oh,” calls a woman’s voice airily from somewhere further in the house. “Did I forget to mention it, Ben? So sorry. I invited Miss Callis today!”

“Oh,” says Ben, to either or both of them. “Okay.” He stands aside to admit Mizzy to the house. “C’mon in, yeah?”

The house is built to a dwarven residential scale, which means that Ben probably has to stoop through every doorway, but it’s bright and comfortable inside. The walls are cleanly whitewashed, and a fire burns merrily in a potbellied stove. A lantern glows atop a bookcase crammed with volumes on theology and botany and alchemy, a series of yellowed, outdated farmer’s almanacs, the complete collected works of Elanor Steelbloom, two children’s reading primers, and a tatty set of adventure novels aimed at young boys, their cheaply-bound spines flaking.

On a larger braided rag rug laid before the stove-hearth stands a pair of horsehair armchairs, each with a woolen blanket draped over the back: one red and one goldenrod-yellow. The red-blanketed one is still rumpled by the impression of a recent sitter, and on the rug by one of its legs is a half-full cup of coffee.

“I’ll be right there, Miss Callis,” calls Niris. “Sorry, finishing up in the pantry.”

Ben clears his throat. “D’you — want some coffee, or somethin’?”

Mizzy loops the basket over both hands now, mostly to give them something to do that isn’t smoothing down Ben’s hair. She looks down, then up at him, then down again and shakes her head, blushing a bit. “I’m fine, thank you.”

If someone were truly staring at her, they might notice the little apple locket she’s wearing around her neck. But only if they were staring.

“I like your necklace,” Ben says. There’s a smile in his voice, though it doesn’t quite touch his solemn expression, apart from the warmth in his eyes. “Suits you. I mean, I figured it might.” He makes half a gesture toward her, reaching a hand, as if he means actually to lift the little locket to adjust or rearrange it, but then he catches himself and withdraws the hand self-consciously. “You look nice.”

Niris bustles into the room, slightly breathless as usual, but not even remotely disarranged. Her silver-streaked black hair is sleek, and she wears a simple, fitted dress of moss-green wool beneath a canvas apron. A pair of shears and some stems of … something protrude from within her apron pockets, and she’s pulling off a pair of gardening gloves as she approaches. “Miss Callis, what a pleasure to see you. Welcome. I apologize, I went into the pantry to soak some mageroyal seeds and got distracted by the steelbloom. Can I get you anything? Would you sit, please? Oh, do you need a hand with that basket?”

Mizzy transfers her smile, if not her open adoration, to Niris. “Hullo, Miss Hazan,” she says, bobbing a little curtsey. “I was just catching up with Ben, no need to rush on my account.” She folds back the linen cover on the little basket to show a jar of some kind of leaves and a loaf of bread. “I brought some tea and banana bread. I … didn’t bake the bread myself, but it’s very good! And the tea is wildflower and apple. Of course.”

She glances at Ben, making sure he doesn’t judge her for not baking the bread herself. She hopes he doesn’t mind she didn’t bake the bread herself. Maybe she should have baked the bread herself. Oh dear.

Ben is not judging the banana bread. He is still looking steadily at Mizzy herself. When she glances at him, he shifts his weight a little but doesn’t redirect his own gaze.

“Oh, please, I don’t bake a lick, Ben can tell you,” says Niris. “I’ll never judge a practical woman! And much too thoughtful of you, here, let me take it. Shall I brew some of the tea? You must call me Niris, honestly.”

Ben clears his throat again. “I’m — uh, I’m gonna go upstairs. Get out’ve your hair.” He steps toward the abandoned armchair and bends to collect the coffee cup from the floor.

“Oh,” says Niris, with mild surprise. “I thought you were going out this evening. No?”

Ben glances at Mizzy and then back at Niris, and shakes his head. “No, ma’am. Think I’ll just stay in an’ read, actually.”

Mizzy finds something to blush about in Ben’s decision to read a book. What that something is, we may never know. She ducks her head again, then tucks a lock of fine, straight hair behind her ear.

“Do you want to stay for tea?” she asks Ben hesitantly. Her brown eyes flick to Niris, in case she doesn’t want to share the tea. “I brought plenty,” she says. “It’s my favorite. I brought it from home, though I don’t know what I’ll do when I run out. Maybe someone from the Company would be up that way and get more for me? I don’t think I should go back quite yet. They may not let me go again!”

Ha. Ha ha. That’s a joke. Her pained smile proves it.

There is a short, hard silence, during which both Hazans just look at her. Niris’s gaze is sharp and shrewd; Ben’s is dark and hard to read.

Niris breaks the tense moment with a small, wry smile and a shake of her head. “Well, let’s try some of it, shall we? I’m sure we can arrange to get more, when you run out of it. Plenty of Company people pass by that way. Southshore, yes?” She turns her head to arch a brow at Ben. “Tea?”

Ben hesitates, shifting his weight uncertainly, still holding the coffee cup and his book. “I don’t — wanna be in the way. But d’you want — here, whyn’t you let me take care of all that stuff, an’ you both can sit, yeah? Gimme a second.” He passes behind his aunt in a few swift strides to vanish through a doorway — he does, indeed, have to duck — and then returns a moment later without either coffee cup or book, to take the basket himself.

Mizzy exhales softly, sending up a blessing to Niris for breaking that uncomfortable, 12-hour silence during which everyone was staring at her for each and every one of those 36 hours. She nods at the question. “Southshore,” she agrees. “Just turn left when you see all the apple orchards, then look for the house that’s trying too hard and that’s us!”

She hands the basket over to Ben, looking up at him from under her lashes. “Thank you, Ben,” she says.

“Yes’m,” he says, a polite reflex, but then he flashes her one of those gap-toothed smiles. “Won’t be a minute. You two sit, yeah? Don’t mind me none.” He turns and pads barefoot from the room again, carrying the basket.

Niris has remembered that she’s still wearing her apron, and is untying it. She pulls it over her head and smiles at Ismene herself. “Yes, let’s do sit. Would you like to sit there, or here?” There means the two armchairs by the stove; here means the little square table by the window flanked by simple wooden chairs.

“This is fine, thank you,” Mizzy says where ‘this’ is ‘here’. She takes one of the chairs at the little table and looks out the window. “Your home is lovely,” she says. “It’s so warm and inviting. I don’t know how you managed that when it’s all stone. You must tell me some tricks; I think Sir Elohad was hinting the other day that the headquarters wants a bit of sprucing up.”

“Oh, was he?” Niris makes a little moue of disapproval, though her eyes are amused. She drapes her apron over the back of the chair across from Mizzy’s and sits. “Well, I hope you asked him what sort of sprucing, and what budget he proposes for the sprucing, and so on. You mustn’t let men hint at you, dear, you aren’t a mind reader.” She cants her head and gives Mizzy a narrow but amused look. “Or are you?”

She doesn’t wait for an answer, however. “Poor Elo. He really isn’t awfully domestic, he doesn’t know any of those things — about homes or decorating or … clothing, even. Comes of having been a soldier all his life, I expect.” She shakes her head. “I’m doing my best with his place, at the moment. Do you know, I don’t think he moved out any of the furniture the last resident left there, when he moved in? Just adopted it himself. There was the most appalling moth-eaten mounted deer’s head.” She makes a face, and then looks with satisfaction around her own bright little parlor. “I do think this turned out rather well. I’m a firm believer in comfort, and in seeing to one’s own comfort. We all deserve nice things, little pleasures, hm?” She smiles wryly at Ismene.

“Oh, Sir Elohad means well, I’m sure! He probably just doesn’t want me getting so flustered over ways to be helpful that I wax the apples again.” Mizzy smiles a little, too, at her own expense. “If I had known none of that furniture was his, I expect I’d have had it all taken out and beaten to within an inch of its life to clean it! Who knows how long it’s been?”

She taps the table in thought. “Maybe the next time you are all away on a long assignment. Do you think he’d like lavender sprigs tucked into the cushions? Or something minty? My mother used rosemary but I find it too …” She wriggles her fingers in the air now, an uncertain gesture. “… spicy, maybe. Peppery. Herbal? I’m not sure. Anyway, on hot days the entire house smelled like roast chicken if you ask me.”

Mizzy peeks over her shoulder. Just in case Ben is standing there, listening to her babble on about rosemary.

Ben is not standing there. Whether he is listening to her babble from wherever he is standing is an open question.

Niris laughs. “Oh, I do like the smell of a good roasted chicken, but I prefer to leave it to the chickens rather than the furniture.” She tips her head, thinking. “It is a good idea, though. Hm. Lavender on its own puts me in mind of moth-closets. Lavender and mageroyal are a pretty combination but possibly too feminine? Silversage smells fresh, but perhaps too — oh!” She sits bolt upright. “The apples! What about cinnamon? Cinnamon is a lovely, homey smell.”

That makes Mizzy brighten anew. “Oh, what a good idea! Just some sprinkles of bark under the cushions should make everything smell so warm and welcoming. I’ll get it done! I can hardly wait to get started. I knew you’d have wonderful ideas.”

She cocks her head and eyes the walls of the home. “Do you suppose whitewashing would be too much? I do want to avoid ‘too much’. People still talk about the waxed apples, and really I just wanted them to stay pretty for when you all got back …” She smiles sheepishly and looks down at her hands. “I did too much that time.”

“Personally,” says Niris drily without looking at her own walls — she is familiar with them — “I think whitewashing is very nice. It lightens the place, you know? Ironforge is a fine city, but it’s all terribly dark.” She studies Mizzy, and her expression softens with a smile again. “The apples were — well, they were a great deal, yes. But we will sometimes err when we’re new at a thing or in a place, and I strongly believe it’s better to err on the side of trying too much than too little, hm? No one could doubt your work ethic, or your attention to detail.”

“Nothin’ wrong with those apples,” says Ben from the doorway. “Not like you couldn’ eat ‘em. They was pretty. Were pretty.”

He comes to the table carrying a wooden tray, and sets this between the two women. On it is a grey stoneware teapot, gently steaming and redolent of apple and wildflowers. There are three stoneware mugs arrayed around it, and sliced banana bread is heaped on a matching stoneware plate.

He straightens up and looks between the two of them. “Mizzy’s a good worker.”

“I know she is,” his aunt says. “Which is why I’m so pleased that Elo’s taken her on as his administrative assistant. She’s done a wonderful job already.” She eyes Mizzy. “And why I’m pleased to encourage an interest in alchemy. It’s just the skill for a meticulous and diligent young woman, hm?”

Ben nods gravely. Meticulous and diligent are definitely also the first two adjectives he thinks of in connection with Mizzy, for sure.

He could also think of pleased and delighted, for that is how she looks when she manages to count to three on the mugs present. But this time, she keeps her attention on Niris. “I love it, honestly,” she says. “We had a nice older lady who used to work for us. She was my nurse for a little bit, nanny sometimes, a bit of a cook and a lady’s maid. She was the one who did all the stillroom chores. I have such fond memories of it, so dark and cool and smelling of open fields.”

Mizzy shakes her head. “I’m afraid it wasn’t my mother’s idea of the way a gently bred young lady should spend her time, but I’m glad I have better examples here.”

Now she looks at Ben and smiles all over again. “This looks lovely, Ben. Thank you.”

“It’s your doin’,” he points out with a crooked smile of his own. “I just set it out. An’ it does look good, thanks very much.”

Niris nods approval of his manners, and sits forward to take up the teapot and pour. “Do you take anything in your tea, Ismene? Sugar, lemon, milk?” She raises an eyebrow.

Mizzy shakes her head, fine straight hair shivering with the motion. “Just some honey, if possible? If not, it’s fine the way it is. The apples give it a bit of sweetness.”

Ben has already turned and vanished back into the kitchen before she’s finished speaking. Niris smiles and pushes one of the mugs toward Ismene, then lifts one for herself and wraps both hands around it. She inhales appreciatively. “I’ll admit to you for honesty’s sake that I’ve never been much for tea, but this smells wonderful.” She takes a small sip, hums approval, and sips again before setting the mug down. “I had wondered whether your interest in alchemy came of growing up on a farm. Well, an orchard, in your case? That’s how I began. But I expect your orchard wasn’t much like our farm.” There’s no judgment in the tone, just a sort of dry humor. “I do find that a stillroom makes a lovely sort of … island of solitude and thought. Not possible to set up properly here, but I do my best with our pantry, and of course I still go back to work at the Abbey a few times a week.”

Ben returns and sets a little stoneware pot of honey with a wooden honey-spoon in front of Mizzy. He’s got his book tucked under his elbow again now; he collects the third mug of tea for himself and retreats to the red-blanketed armchair to re-settle there.

“And what is it,” Niris asks, tracing an idle finger around the rim of her mug, “that made you want to be a healer?”

Mizzy watches Ben go back to his chair, even as she’s drizzling a scant spoonful of thick honey into her cup. “No, orchards are rather boring,” she says to answer Niris’ question. “But they smell wonderful in the spring, and again in the fall when we harvest, so I’m afraid I’m terribly in love with it. I should like it all the more, I assume, once I’m settled there and can make all the decisions.”

She swirls the spoon in her mug, then takes a sip. Honey, apples, wildflowers. The taste makes her smile, even though the memories she begins to speak about are anything but pleasant. “As for being a healer, oh I’m sure Ben’s told you the story. I think he’s had to hear it a dozen times at least! But you know Southshore by now, I’m sure, with how well-traveled you are. There are always Horde attacks, usually just in one or twos. We fight them off, someone gets bandaged up, and life goes on.

“But just a few months ago, right before I came here, there was a large attack. There was no counting them,” Mizzy says, warming her fingers around the mug. “It was just chaos. Smoke and screaming. People running into buildings, out of buildings. I didn’t know what to do. I kept running from person to person, trying to get them up or into hiding, trying not to get killed …”

She shakes her head briskly. “Then there was this sound of hoofbeats. Like a herd of horses stampeding through town, only these horses all had riders. Knights and Paladins and mages and priests, warriors and fighters … A huge Alliance force swept through, and suddenly, it was over. Just like that.” She snaps her fingers, to indicate how fast ‘that’ was.

“I stood up, not even certain when I’d been knocked down. And I watched a priest just go from person to person.” Her eyes stare at nothing, at memories. “Everywhere he went, people got better. People I had known all my life and thought were dead just stood up. Little by little, everyone stopped crying. Stopped screaming. And I thought, “That’s what I want to be. That’s the peace I want to bring to people wherever I go.” So I talked to him, when I could get up the courage, and he sent me packing inside of a few hours. Money and a letter to get me into the Abbey.”

She laughs a bit, refocusing. “I gather he wasn’t sure about it all until he spoke to my mother and she flatly forbade it.”

Ben has drawn a leg up to fold it beneath himself in the armchair. The book rests on his knee, and he holds his mug in both hands and watches Mizzy, his brows knit and his expression unreadable again.

Niris picks up her tea. “Your mother forbade it, and that was what decided him on sending you? And you came all the same?” Her inquiry is mild, her amber gaze neutral.

Mizzy shakes her head, another demurral. “Oh, I’m sure I wouldn’t have if he weren’t there. I realize I’m making my mother sound like a harpy of the first order, but she’s very well-intentioned! She just wants better for her daughter than she had. Which, I’ll note, does not include running off to the far side of a continent to then run around on battlegrounds all day.”

“Well,” says Niris, “far be it from me to judge other people’s mothers.” Her tone suggests she has judged some mothers pretty hard in her day and may be doing it again. “I do tend to think that what a mother wants for her daughter is rather immaterial in the face of what her daughter wants for herself.” She sips her tea. “But it sounds as though you did very bravely in the face of the battle, and that you know your own mind well enough. Ben says you’re a very fine healer.”

She sets her mug down again and gives Mizzy a cooler, appraising look, the way one might size up a horse for sale. “I ran away from home myself, you know. When I was fifteen.” She reaches for a slice of banana bread. “How have you found the training?”

Mizzy blinks, twice in fact. “I knew you had left home, of course. I didn’t know it was quite so young. You must’ve been very brave; I couldn’t have done it. Well, we see I didn’t do it! But, overbearing mothers and arrogant fathers aside, it was a lovely place to grow up.” She pauses to sip her tea. “And Horde aside, of course.”

Given tacit permission to eat, she takes her own slice of bread. “I like some of the training,” she says. “Though that’s how Sir Elohad and I met; did he tell you? I was wandering around like some goose girl, just outside the headquarters, very upset.” She smiles. “Well, you know him. Nothing would do but that he find out what was wrong and make it right. I’m afraid I’m not very fond of the combat side of being a healer,” she confesses.

Mizzy eyes the bread and tears off a piece though she doesn’t eat it yet. “Even though I’m sure the priest who saved my town was fighting before he was healing, I just didn’t expect to be handed a hammer and told on my first day on my own to go bash open the heads of some kobolds. And everywhere I went, everywhere I was sent to see if people needed help, that’s all they needed done. Go beat something’s brains in.” She sighs.

Then she smiles at Ben. “Of course, Ben and Sil made it much easier on me. They did the bashing and all I had to do was keep them intact. That was a wonderful day.”

Ben’s ears redden and he drops his gaze bashfully to drink tea. His aunt gives him a particularly shrewd — smug, perhaps? — smile before focusing on Ismene again. “It used to be, before the wars, that those of us who felt called to heal could do no more than that. There will always be, of course, some blood and misery in healing, because that’s what makes healing called for, but we weren’t expected to dole it out ourselves.” She adjusts her mug on the table. “It used to be, in fact, that in skirmishes of the sort that we faced before the wars, the priests of Northshire would heal all combatants, gnolls and kobolds and humans alike, and priests of the Light were given safe passage across any battlefield where they were needed.” She looks up from her mug and her gaze is steel.

“That changed during the First War. When the orcs saw what priests were capable of, in channeling the Light — we became targets, rather than saviors. They cut down priests first, whenever they could. And so many of us were unable to defend ourselves, having only the Light’s gentleness within. Our brothers and sisters in Northshire were all but exterminated in the First War.”

Ben sets his book on the floor and his mug atop it, and rises from the armchair. He crosses back to the table where the women sit, ostensibly to get a slice of banana bread for himself, but his stance casually interposes him between the two women for a moment, his reaching arm blocking their view of one another. When he steps away again, Niris has collected herself in the momentary distraction. Ben returns to his chair without comment (but with banana bread).

Niris touches her fingers lightly to her breastbone, makes a little face, and picks up her tea. She takes a deep breath. “It is — yes, it is unpleasant, and perhaps they ought to be more lenient in requiring violence of our new initiates. They mean well. As you’ve seen for yourself, the Horde may be anywhere, violence boils up, and often we must be at the thick of it to help where we’re needed most. We mustn’t shy from the violence, and we must be able to defend ourselves when the need arises. But … yes. I do see how unpleasant that must be for you. To be asked to commit violence uninstigated, when you only want to mend.” She manages a sympathetic smile at Ismene. “You’d be better served in your training, perhaps, if they simply let you work with people like Ben and Mr Sullivan, the sorts of people who do fight, and who can protect you, but will also rely on your aid. But you will — you will perhaps need to defend yourself, sometimes, dear girl, and there must needs be some martial training to that end.”

Mizzy watches Ben come and go, watches Niris gather herself. She’s hesitant when she speaks. If she knew what minefields were, this would be a recognizable one and she’s careful where she puts her metaphorical feet. “I suppose it’s naive to hope that I’d only ever need to heal,” she says. “And I have learned to use a mace and a hammer, to use spells of shadow as well as light. I can defend myself.”

Her slender fingers pick apart the slice of banana bread, making a nice little pile of crumbs that will be easy to clean up later. “But I think only to defend. I can’t see myself going out now to kill kobolds who only want to dig in the rocks and put candles on their heads. They weren’t violent; it seemed cruel to me then, and does now, that I was asked to kill them.” She sips her tea carefully, buying time for herself. “I suppose battlepriests will always be needed. But some of us might stay pacifists, if only in hope of a world where we can be pacifists.”

Niris stares at her for a long moment, then draws a little breath and blinks away the sudden glassiness in her eyes. She smiles. “That’s — very lovely of you, Miss Callis. Honestly, lovely. I shall hope it as well, hm? For your sake and Ben’s. All young people like you, I mean.”

“Mizzy don’t have to fight,” Ben says from where he sits. “She ain’t shy away from a thing, or she wouldn’ be here at all. An’ she’s a damn good healer.”

“I didn’t suggest otherwise, Ben,” his aunt tells him mildly.

The defense makes Mizzy smile all over again. She leans toward Niris. “I’m afraid your nephew is terribly gallant,” she says. “It’s very sweet of him, really. Sil’s the same way. The pair of them are my absolute heroes.”

“Mm,” says Niris, amused. “I’m afraid I don’t know young Mr Sullivan terribly well, but someone ought to have warned you about this one. He’s an absolute stray dog. You show him the least lick of kindness and he’ll be dogging your heels forever.”

“Aunt Nir,” says Ben, pained. “Damn.”

Niris laughs. “I’m only teasing. No, he’s a good boy. It’s an absolute miracle, really, and a testament to him, I think.” She drinks more tea. “But of course I didn’t invite you here to embarrass Ben.” Didn’t you, Niris? “How is your alchemy progressing? What are you studying at the moment?”

Mizzy laughs in delight. “How good you are to have taken in the stray dog and given him a nice bed. They say strays are the most loyal of pets.”

But she relents before Ben can say anything worse than ‘damn’. “I’ve been using the tables at the headquarters, but I’m giving some serious thought to finding a little place of my own. I don’t need much, really, but since I’m shopping for a place to bring Cal home — he can’t abide Booty Bay, or so Sir Elohad tells me — I thought I’d look for a room or two. Just something where I can dry herbs properly and mix them without people wondering if I’m going to taint the cheese platters on the tables.”

Oh no, not the cheese! “Did I remember to thank you for the last herbs you sent?” she asks. “They were ever so helpful. I’m trying to master that ogre strength elixir now. Something tricky in the grinding of the earthroot, I think …”

"Oh!" Niris sits up, attentive. "How are you drying it? So many of the floral or leafy herbs want air-drying, of course, but I find that earthroot is at its best when you give it a day or so in a very low oven — toast it, almost, rather than dry it. I'll get you some more, some that I've dried myself." She starts to rise from the table and then seems to realize that maybe mid-conversation isn't the time. "… later," she says, and settles again. "As to space — well, the pantry here isn't much but it's workable, and I'm either at Elo's place or the Abbey so much of the time lately, if you ever need a place to stop in and work on some things undisturbed I'm sure Ben wouldn't mind. Temporarily, of course, until you find a place. I'll keep an ear out as well, hm?"

Whether Ben would mind or not is hard to tell, because he's apparently elected to pretend he isn't listening any longer, and is sprawled in the armchair with his mug, brow furrowed intently at his book.

“If you could, that would be lovely,” Mizzy says. “It’s one of those things I hate to delegate, as it’s difficult to describe what I need, but obviously you’re already an expert in such things. I wouldn’t have thought to toast it, but it makes sense! It’s such a dense root, it’s hard to dry well.”

Mizzy looks at her banana bread slice and manages to find one piece in all the chaos that’s edible without needing to mash the crumbs together into a paste. “There’s just so much I wanted to ask you, and now I can’t think of a thing,” she says, adding on a self-deprecating little laugh. “You’re rather famous around the Abbey, you know. Some of the people there are ever so jealous that I’m in the same company as you; at least now I can tell them we’ve had tea.”

“Oh, dear,” says Niris, smiling. “‘Famous’ is rather a double-edged knife.” She sips her tea again, sighs contentedly. “This really is lovely. You must tell me exactly where to get it, hm? I’ll arrange for some more. We can keep a little stock in the Headquarters, perhaps? I’m sure Elohad would like it as well.” She glances over at Ben, who is still feigning absorption in his book, though he has not turned a page.

Niris looks back to Mizzy. “You’re the second apprentice alchemist I’ve met with in the last week, I believe. Do you know Mr Stillwall? Brannagen? A dwarf priest, very red-haired.”

Has Mizzy stopped blushing? Yes, there was probably a moment there when talking about how her town was sacked by the Horde where her cheeks weren’t pink. Don’t worry, it’s back now. “I make it myself,” she admits about the tea. “Making tea blends is sufficiently aristocratic, it seems, to appease my mother.”

She tilts her head to listen to the description of Brannagen, then shakes her head. “I’m familiar with the name, of course, but no, I’ve not met him. It’s unusual, isn’t it? Dwarven priests?”

“It is,” Niris affirms. “A thing I used to discuss with our Mr Flintspark in our correspondence, when he returned north after the war. The First War, that is. He used to tell me of the slow spread of the Light’s word among his brethren. Particularly the Bronzebeards, that is — his own Wildhammer kin, I think, are a little more set in their traditions. Do you know, though you remarked on the extent of my travels, I had been nowhere before I joined the Company at the beginning of this year?” She sips her tea again and shakes her head. “Ironforge was the farthest north, on the tram from Stormwind, and it seemed so exotic to me then. Otherwise, it was only Stormwind — the kingdom, I mean, Westfall and Elwynn and Redridge and Brightw– Duskwood. I was all my life at the Abbey, since I left home at fifteen. Apart from the war years, which we spent entirely on the move, though still within the kingdom. But now I’ve been … all over. To your own lovely Southshore, and the Arathi Highlands and Silverpine Forest, right to the Gilnean wall. And overseas! To Kalimdor!”

She smiles at Ismene. “I’m sure, now that you’re with the Company as well, your own travels will take you as far afield. There’s so much of the world to see, even at my age. I’m glad that you and Ben — and Mr Sullivan, and all of you other youngsters — will see it.” She glances at silent Ben again. “Mr Stillwall, in fact, has suggested that Ben is ideal Explorer’s League material, and is going to be taking him along on some expeditions soon.”

Ben, who is ostensibly not listening, is betrayed again by his ears. He turns another page, realizes he wasn’t finished with the previous one, and pages back.

Niris clears her throat. “Would you like us to get you the ingredients, then? For your tea? It really is lovely. I’m impressed.”

Mizzy’s smile dims a little at the news of Ben’s impending travels. “Well, that’s … that’s amazing,” she says. “Expeditions. That sounds so … so exciting. And far.”

Very far.

But look at her smile! It’s there! It’s huge! So happy! Yay! Yay. “Oh, the tea isn’t a bother, it’s really just the wildflowers you use of course and the dried apples, though of course you have to use the right apples or it’s all just a mush, but I’ve just remembered I have a delivery coming so I should probably be there to meet it and of course I’ll send some of the tea to Sir Elohad as well, I’m sure he’ll like it if you say he’ll like it.”

She rises and looks around. “I should get my shawl. Oh. I didn’t bring one. I’d have to go get my shawl and bring it here so I could pick it up and put it on, and wouldn’t that be ridiculous? Thank you for a lovely talk.”

Ben does look up now, a fleeting expression of chagrin crossing his features. “Oh,” he says. He sets his book aside and gets up too, because the Lady did.

Niris raises her eyebrows. “Oh, well, I wouldn’t like to keep you, dear. I hope — is everything all right?” She studies Ismene.

Did Niris not see the bright smile? LOOK. AT. IT. It is still there and very bright. “Fine! Everything’s fine. Delightful, really. I’m glad we had such a lovely talk.” She sort of backs toward the door, turning just in time to keep from bumping into Ben.

“Oh!” She laughs. “Ben. Imagine not seeing you standing right there, tall as you are.”

Ben looks down at her, his brow furrowed with concern and maybe some confusion. “Sorry,” he says. “You want I should — uh, I can walk you back, Miz. To HQ, or wherever? F’ you let me get my boots.”

Mizzy’s smile falters a bit. She calculates the distance to HQ, the level of rudeness it would take to turn him down, and her ability not to burst into stupid tears, then nods. “Yes. Of course. That would be nice, thank you.”

He nods. “Okay. You hang on, okay? Won’t be a second.” He turns and crosses the room, and goes up the stairs two at a time in ordinary Ben fashion, ducking so as not to hit his head on the low ceiling.

Niris watches him go, and then smiles again at Ismene. “You really are welcome, by the way, to come by and use the pantry for your alchemy whenever you like. Oh! The earthroot!” She gets to her feet and hurries away through the kitchen door.

Ben, true to his word, is back in — well, it’s a little more than a second. But he’s back before his aunt, jogging down the stairs. He’s wearing not just boots, now (not the muddy ones from the porch) but has also changed into a nicer shirt. You know, the nice shirt. He’s still tucking it in as he descends.

Niris returns from the kitchen with a small coarse-linen sack. “Dried earthroot,” she says, and presents it to Ismene.

Ben stops beside Mizzy to wait politely.

Mizzy has used her moments alone to regather her composure from where it had splattered all over the walls, ceiling, floors, etc. She’s able to give a very regular smile to Niris as she takes the bag. “Thank you, this is very kind. I’m sure I’ll take you up on your offer. There’s hardly anyone around I can talk herbal preparations with, except that gnome over in Tinker Town and they’re rather focused on customer service.”

Her voice falters and stops as she watches Ben come down in the shirt. She forgets if she’s supposed to be smiling. She just blinks a few times. “It fits,” she manages faintly. “It looked so large when I was doing the embroidery.”

“Oh. Yeah, no. It’s perfect.” Ben smooths the front of it self-consciously, and smiles at Mizzy. “I ain’t — uh, I don’t just wear it around the house, usually. ‘S too nice.” He had also taken some trouble to sort of hastily un-muss his hair when he was upstairs, which effort he spoils now by running a hand through it again. He glances at Niris. “Back in a bit, ma’am.”

Niris nods tranquilly, and smiles again at Ismene. “It was lovely to get to you know you a little, Miss Callis.”

Ben steps back and opens the door for Mizzy.

Mizzy steps outside, hugging the small package of earthroot against her. It probably looks a little weird but she’s fine with that. “Thank you again, Miss Hazan,” she calls back. She’d wave to Niris, but her arms are full. Of a little bag.

To Ben, she says quietly, “It wasn’t meant to be a very nice shirt, just a new one. Since your other one got ruined and all. Was wheat all right? I wasn’t sure what to put on it, but I didn’t think you’d want flowers or birds. I can do birds, though.”

Ben draws the door closed behind them and steps onto the porch beside Mizzy. He lifts a sleeve to consider the embroidery and shakes his head. “No, miss. The wheat is — it’s real nice.” He lowers his arm again and looks at her, earnest. “Honestly it’s the nicest thing I ever got. And definitely my nicest shirt.” He smooths it again, looks like he’s considering offering her his arm, decides against it and puts his hands in his pockets. “I’m glad you like the necklace,” he offers, awkwardly, and glances toward the steps. He waits politely for her to go first.

Mizzy descends and waits at the bottom for him, looking back and up. She lets go of the earthroot enough to touch her hands to the apple, and smiles at him. A normal smile. “I’m very fond of it. I don’t usually wear it out of the headquarters, though. I worry about losing it, and I’d be just devastated.”

Assuming Ben steps down beside her, she’d start off for the HQ. She walks slowly, though. More a meander than a walk.

Ben does step down beside her, and measures his stride to hers — which, at his height and her pace, is a demonstrable effort. “You all right?” he asks quietly, checking in sidelong at her.

Mizzy nods, looking down at her toes as they scuff the stone floor. “So … you and this exploring thing. Expeditions? They sound exciting.” She blinks a little, wondering if that was too many ex words.

Ben’s eyes light with boyish enthusiasm. “Yeah. Yeah, right? I’m pretty excited. See some places, learn some new things. Gonna see if Sil wants —” He breaks off and studies Mizzy’s face, and his expression creases with chagrin. He has clearly misread the source of her dismay. “I’m sorry. D’you want to come? I should’ve asked, maybe. Reckon we could use a good healer.” He smiles crookedly at her. “You know us. An’ probably less … killin’ stuff, in general. For you.” He does Puppy Eyes. “Be good to have you, f’ you was willin’.”

Mizzy laughs a little, still looking at her toes. “Oh, I don’t think I can go so far. I have so much to do here, these days.” In a rush, she says, “It’s just I’m going to miss you if you’re off around the world like the rest of the Company.”

Maybe she shouldn’t have said that. She peeks at him, to see if he’s like, ew, cooties.

"Oh," says Ben a little blankly, looking back at her. And then his expression does a complicated series of things in fleeting succession: a dawning, hopeful light hardens momentarily into a glint of speculative avidity, which fades into uncertain wariness, and then all are carefully shuttered behind his usual earnest air.

"Oh, I ain't — I'm not goin' far, or for long. Not for a while yet. Just out to the Wetlands and such, to start." He watches her face. "I mean, I've got my place here — well, our place — an' I only just met my aunt a few months back. I'm not in a hurry to take off, or anything." He ventures a smile at her. "Anyhow, I'd miss you too."

He says it casually, lightly, but he's still watching her.

Her smile returns, first directed at her toes, then at the wall, then at Ben. By then, it’s a bright and brilliant thing accompanied by eyes that sparkle and dance. “Well, of course you won’t go for long! Because of your family. Family’s very important. And your aunt is wonderful, so I’m sure we’re going to be very good friends.”

The pace of her footsteps, like her spirits, has risen. If she’s still hugging the earthroot to her, it’s an entirely happy hug.

“But do take Sil. He’ll make sure you stay out of trouble.”

“Oh, yeah, I will. He’s gonna be really good at it, I expect. The archaeology, I mean, not the keepin’ me out of trouble.” His tone is serious but his eyes are warm and very unserious. “Anyhow, I know who to come to if I do have trouble, yeah?” He gives her a quick, appreciative up-and-down appraisal, crooks a smile at her, and then squints straight ahead in the direction they’re walking, lest Mizzy misconstrue the up-and-down look. (And by ‘misconstrue’ I mean construe correctly.) “If you change your mind on it, though, I’ll take you anytime you want. I know you got important stuff to handle here, though, for Mr Ference.” He glances at her again. “I hope you will be friends with Aunt Nir. I bet you will. You’re both great.” He arches a Hazan Eyebrow at her. “You comin’ to the book club in a couple days?”

Mizzy blinks rapidly at the up-down, the smile, the all of it. She laughs and restrains the urge to hit him in the arm, but if she had a frog she’d totally throw it at him, then run and hide behind the jungle gym. Instead, alas, lacking frog or jungle gym, she just tucks a lock of hair behind one ear and turns bright pink. “Next time, you won’t need to sneak in under cover of darkness, though. Just come and get me like a normal person.”

To his question about the book club, she shrugs a little. “I don’t know,” she says. “I thought about it, but mainly I’d be going to see you and Sil. Can I go if I haven’t done the reading?”

“Sure you can,” Ben assures her, and flashes another sidelong smile. “There ai– isn’t a test, or anythin’. Last time, I hadn’t finished the book, but mostly Sil just summed it up with a bunch of clockworks. Pretty amazin’. This time it’s about the Battle of Grim Batol. Red dragons, an’ such. We talked about Grim Batol a little last time, because it was the War of the Three Hammers. I got —” He hesitates a stride, and jerks his thumb over his shoulder in the direction from which they’ve just come. “I got the book back at the house, if you want to borrow mine. ‘Course, they’ve got it at the Hall of Explorers, too. I also got one called Charge of the Dragonflights, which is what I was readin’.” He tucks his hands back into his pockets, shrugs a little sheepishly. “I’m tryin’ to read a lot. Catch up, y’know?”

After a couple of more steps, Mizzy side-bumps him with her shoulder. It’s sort of like side-bumping a wall, really, but she tilts her head to angle a smile up at him which one never does with walls. “I think it’s wonderful,” she says. “All right, I’ll be there. And I’ll pick up a copy from the library, I don’t want to take your copy while you’re still reading it.”

Ben looks startled by the shoulder-bump, and then grins at her again, not crookedly or sidelong but with the full wattage of that boyish chipped-tooth smile. “Good,” he says. “Good. Be nice to see you. Again. Sil will be real glad too,” he adds. “He works pretty hard puttin’ it all together, I think. Does a nice job.”

“I would expect nothing less, with his circus background,” Mizzy says. She stops at the bottom of the stairs leading into the HQ and turns to face Ben. “Well,” she says after a moment. “This is me.” Suddenly and unaccountably awkward — ok not suddenly, she’s always a little bit awkward — she looks down at her toes again.

“Yeah,” he agrees, a teasing lightness in his tone. “I remember.” He doesn’t step away, exactly, but he does sort of shift his weight back, lest his Looming give Mizzy cause for concern. “I’m glad you come by. Don’t mind how Aunt Nir goes on about the war, yeah? She had a bad time of it. I mean, they all did, I guess, but.” He shrugs, and shifts again restlessly. “Anyhow. You heard her, yeah? Anytime you want to come by, do your work or anything, feel free. I won’t get in your way or nothin’. But you’d be welcome.”

Mizzy has to laugh. “Oh. Of course you know. I’m sorry, I don’t know why I’m such a featherhead today. And I didn’t mind. Your aunt is a hero, you know. If the war hadn’t affected her, I’d be more worried. It just … seems like the sort of thing that should disturb people, you know?”

At his invitation to drop by anytime, she nods and shifts her bundle of earthroot from hand to hand. “You’d never be in the way,” she tells him. “I’ll come by so often, you’ll think I’m a terrible nuisance!”

“No,” he says. “I don’t reckon you could be, not in a hundred years. You do it, okay? Anytime.” He scuffs a boot idly on the floor, a restless gesture, and does step back this time. “So I’ll see you, yeah?”

Mizzy nods and smiles at him. She usually does that. She can’t stop. “Uh huh,” she says.

“Okay,” he says, and takes another step back. “Gonna hold you to it. Night, Mizzy.”

She can’t help it; she laughs again and turns to go, almost tripping over the bottom stair because it’s RIGHT THERE and that is a dumb place to leave a stair because what if someone trips over it? Still bright pink, she glances over her shoulder at him and makes one of those ‘I’m such a dork’ faces, laughing at herself before scampering up the rest of the stairs … and holding onto the bannister to do it.

Ben watches her all the way, possibly because he’s legitimately concerned she’s going to fall down the stairs and possibly, you know, just because. When she reaches the HQ door without incident, he smiles to himself and turns away, hands still in his pockets, to head back toward his own house. He whistles threadily through his teeth as he goes — tuneless as ever, but it’s a jaunty, cheerful little tunelessness.