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| Details |
| Author: | inkie |
| Summary: | A determined young lady arrives in Outland with nothing but the clothes on her back and some apples and some stowaways. A reunion ensues. |
| Rating: | M for Mature 17+ |
Chain: Bizzy
One step, and the world explodes into chaos.
The clash and clatter of swords, people screaming in pain, screaming in defiance, demons roaring and howling and their taloned or hooved or metal-shod feet slamming into the ramp. Wriggling through the scant space between the noises is the smell of blood, human and not, red-soaked dust and sulphur-laden heat that coats Ismene’s tongue as she draws in an involuntary gasp of shock.
Shade darkens the bloodied light from the sky, and it’s the imprinted reflex of her training that makes her drop, curling inside a shield of warm golden light that deflects, for one moment, the crash of a weapon against it. It’s training that sends her rolling away, gaining her feet to one side. A rush of soldiers — Alliance forces, she realizes — finally gives her a moment to grapple with this shattered reality.
A dwarf, smashed aside by the dying demon, slams into the wall she clings to. Her hand is out even before he lands, a silent cry of denial and plea that bathes him in effervescent light. The dwarf looks down at his intact body in surprise, then at her. With a laugh and a salute, he flings himself back at the demon, chopping and hacking at it with gusto.
There is no reprieve. A voice from the side yells, then her arm is grabbed and she is yanked to the side, to the medical tents, and all but flung on the mangled pulp of what was once a woman. “Get to work!” is yelled in her ear.
As if she needed the command. Hands splayed, her heart contracting with sympathetic pain for each blood-spattered breath of the body beneath her, Ismene cries out for help and is answered again.
The woman sits up. “Thank the Light,” she gasps, spitting out the mouthful of blood that remains. “I’m in your debt.”
“Help me!” someone screams. “Help me, oh Light help!”
Mizzy scrambles to her feet. “Find Ben Hazan!” she yells to the woman, willing her to feel her desperation. “He came through with Cobalt Company!”
“I will!”
That has to be enough. It has to. She flings herself at her next patient, praying for strength, for time.
For Ben.
It takes time.
Even in the strange, timeless chaos of the Portal, where blood-soaked seconds seem to grind out into stark hours and entire hours whirl away in raw seconds of panic and pandemonium, tracking a single soldier among the motley battalions that have flooded Hellfire Peninsula in the last weeks takes time. The flow of orders, reports and requests is constant: names are shouted, commands are barked, gryphons hurtle precariously in and out from the flight point behind the tents at the edge of the massive stony plinth.
Somehow, into the ceaseless tide of all this noise, another name is fit, and is passed and passed again.
How much actual time has elapsed the alien sky does not reveal, when a woman’s ragged voice finally calls, “Miss! Miss!” and then she seizes Ismene’s elbow. Is it the same woman, or not? Also unclear: so many blood- and sweat-streaked faces, so much battered Alliance armor. “He’s at Honor Hold, miss! Cobalt! You’ll need to get to a gryphon!”
Even as she tugs urgently at Mizzy’s arm, though, another gryphon wings in for a landing, and a moment later a familiar male voice shouts hoarsely above the noise, “Mizzy? Ismene?”
The woman’s message isn’t understood. It’s just a woman in bloodied armor, grabbing her, yelling. Ismene looks her over, sweeps her hands across the armor, sparks of honey-gold energy seeking a wound that is not there as the woman tugs her to her feet. Mizzy looks toward the gryphons, impatiently swiping the back of one bloodied hand over her forehead to push ash-laden hair out of her eyes.
That voice.
That voice.
That clarion clear sound of hope and safety and shelter, a sound that calls her heart back to life. Ismene tears free of the woman’s hand, grabs the filthy skirts of her healer’s robe in both hands and runs past soldiers being dragged to the healer’s tent, runs past the corpses of dead demons, past the sergeants waving troops to stand down in this lull between attacks.
“Ben!” she screams, shoving at a cluster of exhausted people. “Ben!”
“Mizzy!” he cries back, and appears above the milling mob, craning his neck, his expression strained and plaintive.
He is as disheveled as most are here, his hair a damp, disordered thicket, his face streaked with soot and sweat and blood. He pushes his way through the crowd toward Mizzy as patiently as he can, which is to say he does not actually step on anyone, though he does actually bodily pick up a dwarven medic by the shoulders to set her aside. He moves on without noticing as she sputters outrage behind him.
“Mizzy. Ismene. They said you was — a girl come into the Hold and said —” He can’t quite string the train of events together in words. Instead, he seizes her and swings her up off her feet into a crushing embrace. “Holy Light, Mizzy. You got here.” It’s half a whisper, half a growl, almost inaudible above the din though he speaks directly to her ear.
She clings to him, one arm around his neck, her hand buried in his hair. Her other arm, too, goes around his neck, where she can clench her own arm. She’ll never let go, ever. “Ben,” she says, often and over, her eyes squeezed tightly closed. She shivers, shudders, and then she’s sobbing.
Her arms slip, her hands release him only to grab him again. “I’m never leaving,” she says, eyes still closed, tears hot against his skin. “Never again. Stay with me, please. I love you so much. Please.”
He cradles the back of her head tenderly in one hand, holding her against him. "I promise. I promise. Mizzy, I ain't going nowhere from you again. I got — I missed you so bad, I missed you so bad, you got no —" He squeezes her. "Don't cry, kitten, hey, don't cry. I got you. I got you."
He shifts his hold on her so that it's less rib-crushing vise and more a sedate carry, and threads his way between a pair of medical tents out to the edge of the platform where the crowd is thin. "I can't believe —" he starts, rough-voiced, then stops and shakes his head. "I can believe it. I told 'em. I told 'em you're coming. I just — Mizzy, you got no idea how sweet it is seein' you here."
“I’ll always come,” she says, still muffled against his neck, his cheek, words followed by soft kisses that ignore blood, sweat, ash. “I’m here.” She lets out a shudder and sigh, finally leaning back enough to look at him with hungry, dark eyes framed with lashes made spiky from tears. Her right hand cups his face (or at least part of it).
“You look tired,” she says, “and wonderful.”
“You look,” he says, his gaze dark and rapt on her face, “like the best fucken thing I ever saw, pardon my language, Mrs. Hazan.” He runs a callused thumb across her cheekbone. “I’m sorry. If I known you were comin’ I’d’ve — maybe washed. Or somethin’.” The intensity in his eyes flickers a moment, sheepishly. “I was out with the squad, huntin’ fel orcs. I just got back to the Hold and some fellow was hollerin’ about a messenger said Cobalt Company an’ Ben Hazan an’ a priestess at the Portal. I just grabbed a gryphon.” His expression shifts again, rueful realization sinking in. “I might’ve just left Dare standin’ in the yard with all my gear still up. Hope Rae or someone’ll see to him.”
He touches her cheek again, then cups her face and bends to kiss her fervently and hard.
It’s a kiss she returns with enough hunger and heartfelt passion to earn some tired chuckles and at least a few wolf-whistles from the recovering soldiers. She doesn’t pull away and blush, though, doesn’t stop renewing her memory of the taste of him, of the feel of his lips, tongue, hands. Her body eases, softens against him in a way that doesn’t quite fit against his armor.
“Ach, so the lassie ‘as ‘erself a lad!” breaks in a bluff, cheerful dwarven voice. “Damn’s me luck, for ‘tis a strong wee thing. Took ‘er for a skinny dwarf girl at the first, I did, an’ ‘er standin’ there bright as brass, steppin’ through a portal intae a great commotion, healin’ as cool as a winter’s breeze! Still, the great ugly shites’ll nae give us much of a breather before they come back in f’r another ass-kickin’, I think. Best you and yers gwan way while ye can!”
It’s a sentence worth of Mizzy herself, and though she doesn’t release Ben, she does look down to see the dwarf she’d healed first, the one who’d flown by her. “Oh,” she says in recognition. She smiles at him, but tucks her head under Ben’s chin. “We will. Thank you.”
He chuckles again and saunters back to the reforming line at the top of the ramp.
“Shall we gwan way?” she asks Ben quietly, still held close, head still snuggled under his chin. “Is there a way to gwan to?”
“Yeah. Yeah.” Ben looks up and around them, waking from warm reverie to the reality of the Portal. “The Hold. Honor Hold. It’s — it ain’t much, but it ain’t here. We’ll have to sort out — but yeah. C’mon.” He gives her another squeeze and then reluctantly releases her to take her hand and lead her toward the flight master. “Honor Hold,” he tells the dwarf, raising his voice above the camp noise. “Both of us.”
He steps gallantly aside to help Mizzy up onto the first gryphon. “Right behind you,” he promises in her ear, and then steps back as her mount takes flight, and turns to collect his own.
“My packs!” she yells, gesturing imperiously, urgent in her haste. Snagging them from the woman who comes running wrenches her arm, but she’s used to gryphonic tricks and manages to keep hold. Twisting to lean low, she buries her face in the tickling feathers of the gryphon’s head, making herself small, willing herself lighter, urging the gryphon to faster flight.
In the hold, what’s left of it, she hops off while the gryphon still backwings to a halt, earning her an unheard snort of annoyance. It goes ignored; she’s already scanning the sky for Ben, and she judges his mount’s touchdown with a fine disregard for battering wings and reaching claws. She’s in his arms as soon as she can reach him, dropping her packs again.
“Tell me everything,” she insists. “I want to hear everything.” I want to hear your voice. “Are you well? You seem well.” I couldn’t stand it if you were hurt. “You do sort of smell bad.” Is anyone taking care of you?
Ben, laughing and breathless, catches her up again willingly, even if he staggers a moment, trying to find his footing somewhere between the trajectories of gryphon and girl. “I will tell you,” he promises. “I’ll tell you it all. I wrote you some letters, actually. Because I missed you so bad. I been — I’ve been tired as hell, and hungry, but okay. I’m okay. A hell of a lot better now.” He releases her guiltily and tries, discreetly, to give himself a sniff. “I’m — yeah, I mentioned, I just come back in. Killing fel orcs. I should wash. If I known you were comin’ — but I’ll wash. There’s — we got to figure out, uh, arrangements. Quarters.”
“Private quarters,” she says, wiping at his dirty face with the cuff of her dirty sleeve. “And if anyone tries to say no, well … We’ll just tell them. Oh!” She pulls away, but doesn’t move away, and fishes at the chain around her neck. It unfastens quickly, and she slips a tiny diamond ring from it to hand it to Ben. Smiling a little, blushing a little more, she holds out her left hand to him.
Ben, grinning from ear-to-ear, takes the ring from her carefully, takes her hand even more carefully, and slides the ring onto her finger. (Somewhere in the distance, a gnomish female voice gives a whoop! Is it related? Who knows? Honor Hold is a busy place.) He continues to hold her hand, admiring the little jewel set there.
“I got mine,” he tells her. “Of course.” With his free hand, he finds the chain around his own neck and tugs it out from beneath his armor to reveal the steel band that hangs from it. “I should get out of gear and get washed before I put it on, though,” he admits.
He looks over his shoulder toward the inn, still holding her hand. “I’ll find out about a room. They’re pretty crowded, I been sharin’ with Mr Atley and Sandy. But I reckon Sid can work us out a place, there’s been folks coming and goin’. It may not be, uh, much room. But a room.” He squeezes her hand and looks back at her. “If that’s okay? And hang on, lemme get your things. Shit, Mizzy.” He grins again, gazing at her. “I can not believe you’re here. You know what day it is?”
Smiling almost as big as he is, she squeezes his hand and reaches across herself with her other hand to hold his arm. “I do, actually. I wasn’t going to let anything stop me from being with you today. I didn’t even ask anyone or say anything. I just left notes for Niris and Oranna and marched myself to the portal.”
Her laugh is full of delight and happiness, an odd sound for this particular place, perhaps. “Mind your muscles with those packs. They’re stuffed full, and I think the magic is straining at the seams.” Dark eyes sparkle with teasing lights, with love, with blatant adoration and with just the beginning welling of new tears. “Tell Sid we just need enough room to lie down. So it’ll have to be a long room, because I married a giant.”
Ben laughs, his ears red. “You did, ma’am. You married him.” He turns to collect her packs; the stagger is dramatically feigned, but the startled look is not. “How much of Ironforge you fit in here?” he asks drily, shouldering a bag. He catches her hand again and tugs her toward the inn with a glance at the sky. “Oh. I should warn you about the infernals, I guess. I keep forgettin’ the things I wrote you, you never actually read.” He draws her into the warm shelter of the bustling common room.
“I brought food, mostly,” she admit. “I asked around Stormwind and Nethergarde and Ironforge to see what kinds of things soldiers who were at the front missed most, and then I threw out almost all of my things and packed things for you and the Company and anyone else, I guess.” She wrinkles her nose and confesses, “I only have my armor and this robe, honestly. I didn’t even bring extra shoes. But I have all kinds of treats!” Then she laughs, because she can’t stop laughing, “Including apples, of course.”
Oh, before she forgets: “What about the infernals?”
But now Ben has forgotten about infernals. He’s staring, poleaxed by delight. “You brung — you brought food? Ismene Marie Callis Hazan, I think you are an actual angel. You got no idea. You are gonna be the Queen of Cobalt Company. Maybe the Queen of Honor Hold.” He tugs her hand again to draw her down the low steps toward the common hearth. “And apples, even. Rae’s gonna burst.” He squeezes her hand, and sets her bags down carefully by a vacant hearthside table. “You hang on, I’m gonna go have a word with Sid.”
He starts to step away, then catches himself and steps right back again. “The infernals are — uh. It rains ‘em here, sometimes. They got watches on it, you’ll hear ‘em holler if they start to fall, but — yeah, stay clear of the yard if they shout.” He hesitates. “Okay. Yeah. Stay right there.” He backs the first few steps away from her, as if reluctant to stop looking at her, but at the far set of steps is obliged to turn and take them properly to approach Sid Limbardi at the bar.
Mizzy giggles at his retreating back, but stays right there even if she does dare to sit. That isn’t exactly “right there,” but it should suffice. Rummaging in her pack lets her stop staring at those broad shoulders, at least long enough for her to pull out a little heart-shaped box of chocolates, leaving it for Ben to see.
“Rains of infernals,” she murmurs. “I hope the roof’s sturdy.”
Ben is back after an animated discussion with the innkeeper, looking very pleased with himself indeed. “Okay,” he announces. “There was a couple’ve priests just left this mornin’ for … I dunno, there’s a city someplace, Shatter or Shattereth or something, and they went off to find it. Sid says we can have their room. It’s down here, ground floor, so there ain’t a view or nothin’, but there also ain’t much to have a view of, and it don’t face the outhouses at least. It’s across a passage from the kitchen, so hot water for baths is easy to get, too.” I am inventing an imaginary layout for the inn.
After a sheepish hesitation, he admits, “I told him you are a priestess an’ a nice married young lady, and I also might’ve told him you’d give him an apple straight from Azeroth.” He makes puppy eyes at Mizzy the Apple-Bearer on Sid Limbardi’s behalf.
Mizzy’s slender fingers flick the box closer to him. “Chocolate,” she says. “I hear if you don’t want it, you can trade it for some amazing things. And you told him the complete truth.” She stands, lifting her packs with ease, thus proving she just wanted to let Ben carry her bags earlier. Finding an apple is a matter of moments.
“So, which do we do first?” she asks, looking up at him again. One look at those eyes, the right eyes this time, is enough to make her lose her train of thought entirely and melt inside all over again. “I love you,” she tells him. Her eyes darken, the corners of her lips wilting down. “I felt like I was fading every day you were gone, like parts of me were just wisps and shadows. I thought about you constantly.”
Ben, who was momentarily distracted by a box of chocolates, glances up sharply at her tone. He steps closer to take her chin and tip her face up. “I missed you so much. You got no idea. So much. Like, from the first day, which seemed stupid, but — it was so far away. Even when I traveled far before, I was still on Azeroth. And they’re tellin’ us they don’t know how we get back — I couldn’t breathe sometimes, thinkin’ about it. I wrote you letters at night because it felt like I was talkin’ to you.” He stoops to kiss her gently, just a brush of his lips this time, and straightens again.
He turns to the table beside them and lifts one of the tight-furled red rosebuds from the jar there. Carefully, he breaks off the length of stem and strips the few remaining thorns so that only a few smooth, green inches remain, and then he turns back to Mizzy and tucks the flower carefully behind her ear. He smiles at her, his gaze soft. “I come downstairs this morning and the tables wa— were all full of these, an’ I said to Rae, ‘What the hell, they got fucken roses?’ An’ she said to me, ‘You got a girl and you don’t know what day it is?’ And I’m gonna be honest, I had not until she said it. I never paid it a whole lot of mind before.” He touches Mizzy’s cheek again, tracing its curve with light fingertips. “But just right now it looks like my favorite holiday.”
Turning back to the table, Ben collects the box of chocolates and then Mizzy’s bags again. “Let’s go give Sid his apple, an’ then we can get you settled in the room. I can go get my stuff from the upstairs room now or later, show you around the place, or — whatever.”
She doesn’t permit him, even with all his burdens, to be even an inch away from her. She snuggles against his side, holding tight with one slender arm around his waist. “I vote for whatever,” she says, teasing. “At some point, the others will probably figure out I’m here, so we should decide … I mean, we might have to tell them. At least here, we don’t have to worry about my parents finding out, or about Lord and Lady Ference being upset, right?”
Absently, she chucks the apple at Sid.
Ben casts Sid a look that says apologetically he would not have chosen to pay his room surcharge via chucking, exactly, but Sid, who has caught the apple, doesn’t seem too put out. He waves the fruit jauntily at the pair and turns away to tuck it under the bar for later.
“Okay,” agrees Ben, wrapping his arm around Mizzy. “To the room, and … whatever.”
He shepherds her up the little stairs to the bar and then to a narrow passage that runs between the kitchen and the main staircase to the upper floors. “Might be some noise,” he tells her apologetically. “Stairs’re above. Then again, between soldiers and infernals, there’s a lot of noise in general.”
At the corridor’s second door he stops and produces the key Sid presumably gave him. He unlocks the door to reveal a room just big enough for a double bed with a straw tick mattress stuffed into a yellowed (but hopefully clean) sheet, outfitted with a pair of lumpy pillows and several faded patchwork quilts. (These are not particularly ornamental: they appear to have been assembled thriftily and pragmatically from patches of old shirts and rag presumably too worn to do much else with.) There is a trunk at the foot of the bed, and pushed against the wall is a narrow table with two chairs, hosting a chipped basin and ewer. A wooden tub has been shifted out of the way by standing it up against the wall beside the table. On the stone floor of the room is a rug of braided rag, again designed more by thrift than art.
The general scent of Hellfire Peninsula is pervasive though not overpowering, and when Ben crosses to the bed to test the mattress with one hand, there is a softly herbal whiff that suggests the ticking has been embellished with dried lavender and silversage among the straw.
“Priests and young ladies got it nice,” Ben approves, looking around. “It is an upgrade on the fellows’ room upstairs for sure.”
“It’s nice,” Mizzy proclaims. “And the noise can’t be any worse than that hourly horn in Ironforge.”
Reaching out, she gently tugs at her packs until Ben surrenders them, then she sets them on the trunk. “There, that’s me settled in. Do you want to get your things? Or we could find the Captain and tell her the change in situation? Or we could see if the bed is up to married-people activities?” She grins at him. But she won’t say the s-word. Even implying it still makes her blush.
Ben wavers, tempted. At last he decides, “I’m gonna — run up real quick and grab my stuff from upstairs. Won’t take a minute. And I’ll ask them in the kitchen to bring in hot water so I can wash up some. And then we will … the Captain can wait, I reckon. We can have some … married-people activities.” He arches a brow at her, trying to conceal his smile. “Like which ones, though, I wonder? Washing up dishes? Goin’ over the household accounts?”
His teasing just makes her laugh. “I’ll show you while you’re washing up,” she promises.
“Yes, ma’am,” he says humbly. “You know I appreciate gettin’ educated.” He flashes her a grin and slips out the door. A moment later, a familiar boot tread goes thud-thud up the stairs overhead, taking the steps two at a time.
While he’s gone, Ismene takes the time to unpack a few of her own things. An alarmingly small packet of blue silk goes into one corner of the chest, her light cloth armor over it. Several lumpy bags come out of her pack next, set on the floor. Next is a small cage, one that lets Hattie out into the room. The kitten promptly hides under the bed because All Is Scary.
On the table, she sets a fat, squat candle not likely to be knocked over. Lighting it scents the air with apple and a hint of warm cinnamon. She sniffs, then wrinkles her nose as if the scent doesn’t mingle well with sulphur.
A couple of Hattie’s toys, including a weird little knit red lump with a bit of green felt tacked to one end, are dropped on the floor. The last thing she produces is a second cage; this one opens to release a very tiny sprite darter. It flaps about for a moment before landing and wandering to the bed, poking its head under and giving a trill.
When Ben returns, he first shoulders open the door and stands aside to admit a broad-hipped older woman in drab brown skirts who is lugging a large bucket of steaming hot water. She eyes Mizzy with interest.
“You can just set that,” Ben suggests, and the woman nods, sets the bucket by the table, bobs a gruff sort of curtsey, and stumps out, wiping her hands on her apron.
Ben steps into the room and shuts the door behind him. He’s got his saddlebags and shield slung over his shoulder, weapons in a canvas roll under his arm, and a soldier’s duffel bag in hand. He goes to the trunk to set these down neatly, but is brought up short by the room’s new inhabitants. He stares at the sprite darter. “Is that — who’s that?”
Hattie hisses and growls her displeasure at the invasion of her haven beneath the bed, but the darter just wriggles farther under. A louder yowl (but I mean it’s Hattie so), a squarky-chirp, and the darter scrambles back and takes flight, chased by Hattie. The little cat catches sight of Ben, her eyes wide, but before she can bolt she recognizes him and tries to climb his leg.
Ismene takes Ben’s saddlebags from him. “I don’t know,” she admits. “Well, it’s a sprite darter and it’s just as cute as anything! At first I thought its name was Burble, but it didn’t seem to like that, so then I thought maybe it’s name was Melody but then maybe it’s a boy darter and now I don’t know.”
“You should give it a name that’s good for a boy or a girl,” Ben suggests. “Like Marie.” He reaches down to carefully prise Hattie’s claws from his boot and lifts the kitten up to set her on his shoulder. “Miz Hattie Hazan, I have missed you too.” He’s still watching the sprite darter, fascinated. “Where’d you get her? Him? You should give her a little dragon name, like … Mariestrasza.”
Before it can launch a renewed attack on the kitten, Mizzy grabs the sprite darter (carefully) and cuddles it close. “Halliday helped me find her,” she says, because that clears up everything. She lifts the weird little froggy nose of the sprite darter to her own nose. “Mariestrasza. That’s your name,” she informs it.
Hattie purrs smugly at Mariestrasza from her high perch.
“You know,” Ismene says hesitantly, “this is really like our very own first place. In a way.”
Ben, absently scratching the ears of the kitten on his shoulder, smiles at her. “I guess it is, too. Would’ve liked to get you someplace with maybe … less demons and stink, but at least this means anyplace we get after this is gonna be a damn palace compared.”
He moves over to Mizzy — angling his body to keep the perched kitten on his shoulder at maximum available distance from the sprite darter in Mizzy’s arms — and stoops sort of sideways to kiss her temple. He slides a hand appreciatively down the curve of her waist and hip. “I am gonna wash, and while I do it you’re gonna tell me who’s Halliday and where you found a sprite darter and how’s everyone at home and how glad you are to see me.” He steps back a little, grinning.
“Welcome home, Mrs. Hazan.”