(2021-09-26) A Modest ... Conversation

Details

Author:	inkie
Summary:	Mr. Hazan and Miss Callis have a very Proper talk.
Rating:	T for Teen

Chain: Bizzy

Following their weekly work with Sil Silentstep in Stranglethorn, Mizzy and Ben linger in the tavern in Booty Bay.

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Ben hesitates, watching Ismene at her table, then glancing after Sil as he slips out the tavern door. He waits a moment more, looks back to Ismene, and seems to come to a decision.

He crosses to the table — pausing politely to let a drunken goblin stagger past in front of him — and stops by the chair across from Mizzy’s. He sets a hand on the back of it but doesn’t yet pull it out. “You got a minute now, Miss Callis? To talk?” He studies her, his gaze dark and uncertain.

Mizzy smiles up at him, a change from smiling around the bar in general. “You know, I think this is the infamous ‘corner table’ where Tadget did so much of her work. Not that there’s any sign, but there are really precious few tables it could be! Do you suppose some of her grumpiness will rub off?”

It’s only then that what he’s saying penetrates her delight. “Oh! Of course. But… why are you calling me Miss Callis all of a sudden?” Oh no. “Are you upset? Is it about those basilisks earlier? I ran as fast as I could up the hill!”

Ben smiles a little at her; it’s almost entirely evident in just the crinkling of his eyes, barely curving his mouth. “No, miss, it is not about the basilisks.” He lays a gauntleted hand on the table, considers, and says, “Maybe it’s Tadget’s grumpiness rubbin’ off?” He gives her the flicker of a proper smile at that.

Still standing, he takes off his gauntlets and sets them on the table, sweeps back his damp hair with one hand, and settles into the chair across from hers. “I’m sorry I was … out of sorts, before. Been a lot on my mind, lately.” He glances down to fish a folded piece of paper from a pouch on his sword belt, unfolds and frowns at it, glances up at Mizzy. “I have got some stuff to say to you. I mean, to talk to you about. You can say stuff too. I wrote it out so I won’t forget, but I’m gonna try to just say it and not read it.” He waits, watching her.

Her eyes widen as the paper comes out. Oh dear. “All right,” she says carefully, waiting to find out how much trouble she is in.

“Okay,” says Ben. He looks down at his paper again, studies it a moment, and then looks up and around the bustling — and slightly pungent — goblin tavern. “This is, um, not exactly how I wanted to do this. I was thinkin’ maybe on that picnic we are s’posed to have. But then I thought maybe I’d better do it before we have a picnic, so.” He checks in with her expression again.

Puzzled, Mizzy’s eyes narrow now under a crinkled brow. “Be.. cause I might not want to go on a picnic after you’ve yelled at me?”

Ben blinks at her. “After I — what the hell would I yell at you about, Ismene Callis?”

“I don’t know!” she says, hands flailing skyward. “You’re a lieutenant now, maybe I did something I shouldn’t have? It’s not about the basilisks. I didn’t do anything wrong with the trolls, I don’t think.” Her gaze slides sideways, looking at the past which is evidently somewhere off to her left.

Ben sits forward and catches at one of her hands, stilling it in his. “Okay,” he says. “Hold on a damn minute and lemme — okay. I’m just gonna start talkin’, okay?”

Still holding her hand, he looks down at his paper, then up earnestly at Mizzy again. His ears are quite red. “I wrote … I started it by writin’ ‘Dear Miss Callis,’ in case I sent it to you in a letter, but since I’m just gonna say it out I guess I don’t have to say that.” He clears his throat, double-checks his notes, and looks up again. When he speaks, it is with that species of slightly-stilted Ben Diction that suggests some rehearsal.

“After our conversation regarding courting and propriety, I have done some serious thinking about my feelings. I do not know if yours are the same but I would like your permission to court you properly in the hope that” — another quick note-check, and his ears get redder, but he looks up again earnestly — “in the hope that some day you may be willing to give me your hand in marriage.”

He pauses carefully, cautiously, and fiddles a little with the corner of the note in his hand.

Time passes during which Mizzy looks like someone has hit her in the back of the head with a trout. Her hand rests in his like a trout. There’s a lot of fish metaphors happening. She doesn’t blink.

Like a trout.

“Uh,” says Ben. “Okay.” He glances down at the paper, looks back up at her, and forges gamely onward. “If you do not feel the same or would not like me to court you for marrying, or if you are willing now but change your mind later on, I will not expect nor hold you to any thing.” (He says it like that, ‘any thing,’ the way he often writes it.) “I know there is a great deal I have still got to learn if I am going to be a responsible lord and also a good husband but I think you will be a very great help to me in these regards, and I promise I will take good care of you.”

Another careful pause. This one is slightly warier than the last. His brown-eyed gaze is very earnest, and also uneasy.

Slowly, inch by inch, Mizzy’s eyebrows rise. Her mouth opens farther, but she doesn’t speak. A faint breath emerges, but there’s no vocalization behind it.

After a bit, she manages to blink. Her hand twitches in his. Oh good, she’s alive. “Di—”

That’s it, that’s all she’s got.

Ben winces a little. He looks at his paper again, but it does not seem to contain instructions for resetting a stalled Mizzy. He clears his throat again and once more forges on.

“Our families are a good match also because we got— we have a title and you have land, and I know about the managing of land and you know about how titles should act. Uh, how lords should act. But mostly —” He looks up, very earnest now. “Mostly it is about my feelings and wanting to do properly by you and hoping that you would like that also.”

He pauses and then folds the note one-handed — he’s still holding her hand with his other — carefully around his thumb. He appears to be out of Prepared Remarks. “I know that — so, I talked with Cole Aspenwood and I talked with Mr Fer— my dad? And I understand that courtin’ the noble way is a little backward, and there has got to be promises and all first and then, you know, the rest of it. Which is not how I was brung up, but I know that you was— were, and I am willing to, you know. Do it this way. If it is more comfortable for you.”

He sits back a little but doesn’t release her hand. “I wrote all that out myself, but I ran it by Mr Ference and he said it was good. I mean, polite and all. He said he will talk to your people for me if I get the yes — the okay, I mean, from you.” He studies her. “And to be clear, I am not pressin’ — like, I am just asking you if it is okay to do the courting and all. I am sayin’ I am willing for, you know, all of it. Properly. But I ain’t tryin’ to rush nothin’, I have got a lot of sh— things to learn still and a lot of new responsibility, and I just wanted to — you know. Find out if it is amenable to you. Amiable? Amenable.” He knits his brow, briefly distracted by Vocabulary.

“Amenable,” she says faintly. “You were right the first time.” But he talked a lot and she should probably do more than commend him on his multi-syllabic word choice.

“Ben…” She trails off. Her hand grips his with sudden strength. Not that he’d really notice but it’s a very good grip for Mizzy. Words are difficult for her, for once. But in the end, there’s really only one word that matters.

“Yes.”

Ben exhales explosively. For a moment there seems a very real danger that Mizzy is going to get her hand crushed by his own fervent grip, but he relents almost immediately. “Shit,” he says. “Shit, Mizzy you gave me a scare there for a bit.” He stares at her star-eyed. “Mr Ference told me told me places I should pause in case you wanted to say something but you just — did not.” He unfolds the paper now from around his thumb and smooths it flat on the table, so that she can read his painstaking printing, cross-outs and all. There are, indeed, slash marks after a couple of sentences, in a different colored ink.

He sits forward again and draws her hand toward him on the table at the same time. “I’m sorry I’m not good at this. I know it ai— is not probably how you would like. But I am learning, and I will do better. If you can be patient with me and if you are willing to learn some of my way too. So we can both, you know. Get to understandin’?”

“You’re perfect,” she says, then starts laughing. “Everything’s perfect. I can’t believe my father said yes!”

Ben blinks. “He what?” he asks cautiously.

“Said yes. When Sir Elohad asked him.” She shakes her head, blinking more (probably from all that trout-time). “I just…” She laughs again and touches her free hand to her heart. “My heart’s going a mile a minute.”

Her smile turns absolutely goopey with happiness. “I can’t believe you asked him.”

Ben sits back, wary again. “We did not ask him yet,” he tells her, still cautious. “Cole and Mr Ference both said I should ask you first, make sure it is okay with you to go to your people about it. Well, Cole said I could, Mr Ference said I should. But he will,” he hastens to add. “He will go talk to your parents, now we know that you’re … amenable.” He studies Ismene, his brows knit unhappily. “I wouldn’t like to do a thing like that without askin’ you, Mizzy. Without knowin’ you want m— it. It doesn’t seem right to me not to … respect what you would like.”

“Oh!” She blinks anew, the smile falls to the floor and gets stuck in last night’s spilled ale. “But… I mean, I want to say yes but if he says no, that’s an end to it! Ben! What if he says no now?” She scoots her chair closer, squishing her smile underfoot. “Of course I’d say yes, why would I say no? Ben, I—”

Instead of trying for more words, she reaches up with her free hand to stroke the stubble on his face, to cup his jaw. “Of course I’d say yes,” she says, softer.

Ben inhales and tips his head, turning his face a little into her touch. “You are so good,” he tells her, sounding baffled by it. “You are. We are gonna — Mr Ference is gonna talk to him. To your people. Your father. And I will — I mean, I am gonna do what I can, to learn how to … make an impression, and all. He’ll help, Mr Ference will. And Cole Aspenwood said, too. I ain’t — just so’s you know, Mizzy, I am not prepared to take no for an answer. From him, I mean,” he clarifies seriously.

The smile tries to crawl weakly back onto her face, but worry is still there in her eyes. “Well I say yes,” she repeats. Maybe she just likes saying it. She seems to just like saying it. “You’re brave and smart, you’re kind and protective. You always make me feel so safe and cared for. You love your family. Of course I say yes.”

There she goes again. Worry drains away replaced by warmth and beating-heart pupils.

He wraps a hand around the side of her throat, and his thumb strokes the soft skin behind her ear gently. "You listen, Ismene. I know what your people want — or what you tell me they want, anyhow — and I am that. On paper, for now. But I got a title, will have, and I know land and how to manage it. And you got Horde raiders up there and I am a soldier. Now, I know in person I don't have the polish they want. But as long as you like me in person, then I reckon they can just like the me they got on paper. I mean, not that I won't do my best to win 'em, but they ain't the prize I'm after in the end.

"And if they get a look at me and decide they would rather tie you to some drawing room fellow you never met before and will end up liking as well as they like each other, well. I guess I'd fight that fellow. Or" — he hesitates, searching her face with troubled dark eyes — "or I reckon you could tell 'em no. But would you?"

Mizzy leans forward, touching her forehead to Ben’s. “Maybe don’t fight him,” she says softly. “Then I’d be courted by someone horrible who’s badly bruised.

“I don’t think he’ll say no. I think he’ll see your title and say yes. But if I’m wrong, if he says no and I say no to him, he’ll disinherit me. I’ll lose the orchards.”

Ben lifts his other hand to wrap the other side of her throat, and holds her gently in place with that grip on her neck, forehead-to-forehead with her. “I know how much you love your orchard. I do. I ain’t gonna tell you — Mizzy, I will not ask you to pick me over it, not ever. If it comes to that, you got to pick what you need to be happy. Because that’s what I want — you, happy. I’d like if it was me made you happy, but if it ain’t, well. That’s on me to sort out. But —”

He hesitates. After a moment, he reluctantly releases her throat and sits back; he takes one of her hands again instead. “I ain’t askin’ this to be … mercenary, I guess, in the not-Cobalt sense, nor to … dare your dad, neither. I know better’n to dare a man to be spiteful. I’ve seen spite. But — if he don’t leave the orchard to you, where’s he gonna leave it? You’re his only one.” He squeezes her hand. “And if he takes the side of spite, if he’s got another plan for the place ‘cause he don’t like what you want for yourself, well, then, I will have to get you another apple orchard.”

He pauses, brows knit, to consider this proposition grimly. “It won’t be your family one. And I dunno — I will figure it out. I’ll figure it out, if we got to. I been puttin’ money away for a smithy, but I can put more by, for somethin’ bigger. If there’s one thing I know I can do, it’s figure somethin’ out.” He runs his thumb across the ridge of her knuckles. “And I want to be real clear, though, since I’m sayin’ all this — like I said before, I am not gonna hold you to anything. I am not askin’ you to decide to marry me now. You don’t hardly know me. I am tellin’ you that I am willing, for my side of it, and that I mean to court you right, the way you would like. Until we get it sorted and you decide one way or another.”

His eyes are still softly earnest, but his smile has an edge. “The whole point of courting the … not-noble way, I guess, is that most people don’t want to wind up married to some person they hardly known at all when they decided. Like your people did. Or mine.” He squeezes her hand again gently. “But I will tell Mr Ference that it’s okay by you, and he will talk to your dad. Your father.”

Mizzy listens to all his words. She watches him as he speaks. Her hand squeezes his back. “I want t—.” She stops, takes a breath, and tries again. “When I was growing up in that house, with those people… I hated it.”

Her breath escapes in a shuddering exhale. “I’ve never said that out loud. I hated it. They weren’t cruel, they were just so… My own parents didn’t like me. I did everything I could, I tried to be as quiet and wear the right clothes and learn all the lessons so I could make them happy or proud of me and it never, ever happened.

“All I had, every day, was the orchard. We own several, but the one right outside my window. In the winter, it would sleep and I could sleep, pretending I was curled up around one of the trees. Or in spring, when the leaves started to bloom, I’d sneak out of the house to run in the rows, and I’d try to touch every tree to say hello again. In summer there were falling blossoms and bumble bees and butterflies and cool shade. And fall…”

She trails off and smiles a little. “Well, I’ve told you about fall. That orchard was the only thing I ever had in my life th—” Her eyes look down at her lap and she bites her lip. “That I ever thought liked me back. Until I came here.”

Then she nods, lifts her chin and tightens her jaw. “Sir Elohad will know what to say. And if he does say no, then we — the two of us together — will buy you your smithy.” There’s a flicker of a smile. “Maybe we can buy the orchard where we had our first kiss. That’ll be nice, too. As long as you’re there with me.”

Ben catches up her other hand, lifts both of them, kisses the back of each one in turn. “Ismene Callis,” he says roughly, “I like you so much. So much. I will get you an orchard, I will get you your orchard or that orchard or any one you like, if it makes you smile. And I will be there with you. You and me — you are smart as hell and brave and sensible and sweet, and you ain’t even know how good you have been to me. I don’t know what the fuck’s wrong with your people that they got a daughter like you an’ they ain’t think they won a prize, but some folks — I just don’t know. They do not deserve you, Mizzy, and I do not either but you give me a chance and I will sure as hell try.”

He studies her with a line between his brows. “I know what it’s like, to hate the place you grown up. I ain’t gonna live in a place like that any more. And you ain’t have to neither.”

“You deserve everything good in your life. I think I want to be someone who gives you those things.” Freeing up one hand, Mizzy reaches up to run a finger down that line. “I have an idea. Let’s go tell your father.”

Ben blinks at her. "My fa— Mr Ference, you mean." He looks genuinely uncertain as to this point, and bemused. He rakes a hand through his hair. "You want to go and tell him? Right now?"

Mizzy rises, still with one hand holding his. “Yes,” she says, hiding a smile (but not very well). “I’ve decided. Haven’t you decided?” At least she knows that’s rhetorical. “Come along, Mr. Hazan.”

Ben stares at her a moment longer, then reaches without looking at the tabletop to collect his gauntlets. He rises to his feet, still gazing at her — down, now, rather than up. “Miss Callis,” he tells her solemnly, “I would like to kiss you.”

She looks up at him and, just as solemnly, says, “Mr. Hazan, I would like you to kiss me.”

Ben grins at her a moment before recalling Solemnity. He slips a hand into her hair and bends to kiss her. It is both a gentle and gentlemanly kiss, but this does not deter a goblin at the bar from whistling anyway, because goblins are fucken rude like that.

Mizzy yanks away at the whistle and turns bright pink. Right. Public. Oh dear. She clears her throat and smiles up at Ben. “Oops. Maybe we should go.”

Ben lifts his head to give the goblin a murderous look; the goblin hastily reconsiders his life choices and swivels back to face the bar again.

“You want me to fight him?” Ben murmurs to Mizzy. He’s clearly joking, from the curve of his mouth and the lightness of his tone. Or maybe he isn’t, from the glint in his eye. Hard to tell.

“I don’t think I have enough to bail you out of goblin jail,” she says. “Maybe next time.” She snuggles close against him, sort of a weird side-hug, then leads him to the stairs (but, like, only if he wants to go because if he doesn’t it’s gonna be like watching a Chihuahua tow a Clydesdale).

Ben goes, obligingly.