(2022-03-27) News of Home, News at Home

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Author:	inkie
Summary:	Ben returns to Shattrath after his Azerothian errands, to find Mizzy at their new lodgings and apprise her of news. Also there is discussion of farming.
Rating:	M for Mature 17+

Chain: Bizzy

A key clicks at the lock, and Ben swings open the door of the rooms on Aldor Rise and steps within.

He gazes around, a wide-eyed blank, and stoops to set his pack carefully on the floor. He checks the key in his hand, knits his brow, steps back out and considers the door and the key again. Maybe the banker gave him the wrong one? Directed him the wrong way? The city is crowded and chaotic; probably not a hard mistake to make.

He steps back in. After a moment, he drifts farther into the neat sitting room and considers the little armchair set to one side, a sewing basket on the floor beside it. The sewing basket looks familiar. There is a lap desk propped against the wall by the chair and basket, and a low filing cabinet. On the other side of the room are a tidy desk and chair, and on the corner of the desk are arranged an also-familiar, threadbare secondhand dictionary, and a stack of equally familiar-looking creased and weather-stained maps.

Ben takes another uncertain step.

A shapeless knit lump of red yarn, trailing a green felt leaf, rolls out from beneath the armchair by the sewing basket. A moment later, Hattie streaks across the floor, throws herself at Ben’s boot, and attempts to maul it and/or him to death.

He breaks into a grin and bends to detach the kitten from his leg. “Hey, Miz Hattie,” he soothes, cradling her. She wraps her front paws around his arm, struggles for a furious moment, and then goes bonelessly comfortable and begins to groom the side of his hand with a raspy kitten tongue. “Where is your mama?” he asks her, and then raises his voice. “Mizmainy?”

Ismene emerges from the bedroom, smiling at him. It’s an honest smile, for all that she looks like she’s going somewhere perhaps to see her parents. She’s dressed in a linen dress of cornflower blue, white lace across the shoulders and at the high neckline as well as the cuffs of her short sleeves. Her hair is loose, and her side of Colson’s pendant rests against the ruched bodice of the dress. Mariestraza is perched on her laced shoulder, somehow managing to look smug.

“Ben! Oh good, you found it. I’ve just about got everything set.” She walks to him, turning her Mariestraza-laden shoulder away so no cat v. sprite darter fights can commence.

Ben looks her up-and-down, wide-eyed again. He whistles through his teeth, and grips Hattie a little tighter as she goes rigid again at the sight of the sprite darter. “Lady Ismene, look at you. I think I am underdressed to be in this place.” He is, as is his wont, wearing canvas work trousers, a shirt with its sleeves rolled, braces and boots. Everything is clean and neat, at least; he doesn’t look like he just came from the field or the forge.

He smiles a little bashfully at her and rearranges Hattie to set her on his shoulder, where she has her turn looking smug. She is taller than Mariestrasza now, neener neener. He bends — twisting his kitten shoulder away — to kiss Mizzy, threading a hand through her hair.

They try, but it’s no good separating two playmates when one of them can fly. Perhaps egged on by Hattie’s tall smugness, Mariestraza wriggles a little, then fly-pounces toward Hattie, only to be met mid-air by a creature born to tackle flying things. They wrestle on the floor for a moment, then dash away into another room.

Mizzy grins and shakes her head at the pair and rises on tippy-toes to give Ben a soft kiss hello. “Nonsense, you look perfect. You’re Lord Hazan, you can dress however pleases you. It’s my job to see you’re kept as befits your station, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. I did request they take some of the pillows off the bed, though.” Finally, Mizzy gets her turn at looking smug.

“Oh, as befits my station,” nods Ben gravely. He is the only person in the place not looking smug; he still looks a little bemused, but he’s relaxing now. “How’d you find this place? We can afford it?” The question is more respectful than fretful. He has seen Mizzy bargain with goblins.

Her grin turns into her full-fledged Happy Mizzy smile. “We can, because you are looking at the only Inn in all of Shattrath that can claim it has, not just an in-house doctor, but a noblewoman at that! More than acceptable to their wealthy clientele.

“I didn’t get the room for free, of course,” she continues modestly, “since I’m not available full-time. But nights and evenings may get interrupted if I have to go help one of the inn’s patrons.”

She awaits her accolades. The upturn of her face suggests she would like them in kisses, if you please.

Ben, dazzled by his wife’s brilliance, bends again to reward her duly. He slides a hand to the curve of her back to pull her against him.

When he breaks the kiss, he does not release her. His expression is … still not quite smug. Proud. Proud is the word we’re looking for. “You are,” he tells her gravely, “the very best girl.” He looks up and around the room again, impressed. “Lady Ismene.”

He smiles down at her again. “I have done some financial arrangin’ when I was at home, too. I got your name on my accounts so you can get at our money whenever, if I am travelin’. I am puttin’ Marie up for the auction out at Eastvale in Elwynn, since we have got enough animals around here to feed and board. The fellow said she’ll fetch pretty decent money, he thinks. Ain’t gonna be a bundle but it’ll save us in the long run, too. And when I was in the Stormwind bank I talked to a fellow there about what if I wanted a loan for buyin’ a house maybe. Between the family name and the money I got banked he thinks he could do a nice rate. I did not” — he hastens to assure her — “borrow any yet, on account of you are the accounts person now and I wanted to check it with you. Also I checked with Aunt Nir and she said she don’t want the Ironforge place back, it is mine for sure, so I was thinkin’ I can rent my part of it out maybe?” He hesitates. “I ain’t charged Sil rent, of course. But I could get rent on my room of it, if we go someplace else, or plan to stick here for a while.”

She is nothing loathe to stay plastered against her husband, and rests her hands on his chest very lightly because tattoos. “I suppose I should sell Abbey too,” she says, sighing. “She hated it here, so I already sent her back. The next time I go through, which I think should be while you’re off saving an entirely new world, I’ll arrange to have her taken to Eastvale as well. That was a very clever idea, husband.”

Obviously he deserves a kiss too, so she stretches up to give him one. It must’ve been a very, very clever idea because the kiss lingers, if she has anything to say about it. She sighs happily when it concludes, because it must — yes Ben, it must — and says, “I’ve also put out word that we’re seeking a seneschal. Given that he’ll actually be managing two estates now, I’m asking that it be one who has an assistant I can also interview. First on his or her agenda will be getting the farmers settled who want to leave Duskwood.

“Oh! I didn’t mention that I also put up a notice in Darkshire that there are farming opportunities. Had you any notion about crops or animals you wanted in particular?”

Ben’s expression lights: farm talk. “I have been thinkin’, actually, yeah. So.” He steps away from Mizzy to pick up his pack and carry it to the desk, where he sets it on a chair. “Crops and livestock, for diversity and because if we rotate the crop-fields we pasture the stock in the fallow one to turn it back over, yeah?” He returns to Mizzy and puts his hands on her hips, turning her slightly to face him again. “I reckon on the Hillsbrad piece, we put down spring and winter wheat, two different fields, gives us two grain harvests a year. For stock, I was thinkin’ — I have never raised ‘em before, but I am thinkin’ with the more northward climate and also for maximizin’, sheep?” He raises his eyebrows at her.

“I figure sheep means wool an’ milk an’ lamb in the spring, cheese-makin’ all summer, mutton and sheepskins when they’re old. Get a lot out of a sheep, and can keep more of ‘em on less land than cattle. What do you think?” He pauses and then stoops to kiss her forehead. “And there will be a orchard, of course. Maybe not in Hillsbrad, I understand they got some big ones up that way already.” His smile is crooked. “Maybe we do plums or somethin’ in Hillsbrad, get fruit an’ brandy out of ‘em, apples down Darkshire way or someplace else?”

Mizzy is plainly making notes mentally, as she nods once throughout his farm talkin’. “We can do plums,” she says, “or maybe pears? Then we could let the farmers turn out their piglets in the orchards to eat all the windfallen and discarded ones. Technically, they can also be used for brandy, but I do want to do little extras for our tenant farmers. They get by on so little, and if they can keep piglets and have a nice way to fatten them up, they’ll each have a nice fat one for Winter Veil.”

She does have to wriggle free from him so she can go to her lap desk and fetch a notebook. Maybe she puts a little more into the wriggle than strictly is necessary. She also sits with a happy sigh in her chair. “Isn’t this fun?” she asks. She’s plainly serious about it being fun. Serious fun. “Thinking about how to secure our future and planning the estate and how we can help everyone who’ll basically be dependent on us for their incomes and livelihood…. I always had so many ideas, but of course my father didn’t listen to them, or even want to hear them.”

“Pears and piglets for the tenants is a excellent idea,” Ben tells her, aglow with proprietary pride again. “And that’s your father’s loss, I guess, if the man wants to play a fool.” He hesitates. “Speakin’ of which. I went to see Lor– Elo– my dad. To warn him.”

“Oh.” Her smile fades into wariness. “What did he say?”

Ben grins at her. “He said he welcomes your father to come by the house and tell him his son ain’t of good breedin’. Is not of good breedin’. Pretty much just what I said to the man.” He drags a hand through his hair. “He also said it’d be nice if we got on with ‘em, but it ain’t necessary, and if your father wants to try the waters, Mr — my dad can’t stop him from wadin’ in with rocks in his pockets.”

She is not relieved. “Did you tell him how awful my parents are? He needs to know how awful they are.”

“I mean, I think he got that impression from how I told him it all went.” Ben knits his brow with concern and crosses over to her chair to crouch down by it. “Mizmainy. Don’t worry about it even a minute more, okay? My people love you already, and however your people act ain’t gonna change that. Probably mine will just love you even better when they know it. Nobody got better reasons to know how bad mine was, and they cannot have been better to me. Yeah? You are their family now too.”

Floor bedamned, she slides out of her chair to crawl into a lap that probably doesn’t exactly exist? Yet? He should create one because oh laws she comin’. Her arms twine around his neck. “I suppose I know that,” she admits in a tiny voice, “but I don’t think it’ll ever feel like that. I haven’t heard from them. I feel like I should’ve heard from them. My mother hasn’t even invited us to anything and since we invited her, she should reciprocate. Though I suppose it really hasn’t been that long.”

Ben does a kind of slow-motion controlled topple from crouching to seated on the floor so that he can collect a Mizzy safely in his lap. “It has only been a few days since we met ‘em,” he tries to reassure. “And we are in Outland, and I have been travelin’ around when I was in Azeroth, so maybe they do not know how to reach us. Even if they are intendin’ to cut you — or me — once they cool off they may come around. If they want to get in good with the titles, they had probably better, and give ‘em time they might realize that.”

“Yes, they’re depressingly good at staying focused on the things that matter to them. Those things are never the same things that matter to me, of course. But perhaps that’s where I get my practical streak from!” she suggests, brighter. “They must’ve been good for something, after all.”

Mizzy shows no signs of leaving her comfortable perch curled up on Ben. “Do you suppose you’ll be home for supper, after you go off and save more of the Zangarmarsh?”

“I am plannin’ on it, assuming I do not get eaten by a jellyfish,” he assures her drily. “Hold up, though, before you run me off to a marsh, kitten-cat, I got somethin’ else to show you. Well. Tell-you-show-you.” He pats her backside, or as much of it as he can reach while it is perched on his lap.

“I know very well what my backside is, thank you husband,” she says archly. Then she grins and kisses his nose before scrambling to her feet.

In the bedroom, there is a muffled crash, a noise of feline indignation, and a sprite darter squawk. Mizzy shows no signs of investigating or of helping her husband to his feet. Because both are fruitless tasks.

“That is well-known country talk for ‘It is time for you to get up off me,’” Ben explains to her gravely as he climbs to his feet. “Some day you will learn these things.”

He goes back to the desk and his pack on the chair, unbuckles the pack’s flap, and begins to remove things from it. The first thing(s) he removes are a pretty impressive number of paper-wrapped, slightly smushed packets that appear to contain sandwiches. (Ben travels with sandwiches.) “So,” he says, as this process is ongoing, “I went back up to the Plaguelands, to get a letter from that Commander Valorfist fellow. You remember him? From the Argent Dawn? We done a lot of work for him up north?”

She nods, politely waiting though perhaps her eyes linger a bit overlong on the sandwich smushings.

Sandwiches continue; he begins a second stack. Ben is the Mary Poppins of travel sandwiches. "So he give me a recommendation letter." He finds what he's looking for, and draws out a heavy brass-and-leatherbound book. "And I took it back down to Stormwind, to Lord Grayson Shadowbreaker at the Cathedral. And he accepted my letter and sent me to Sir Duthorian Rall, and he give me this to study." Ben holds the book out, to show Mizzy the stamped gold insignia of the Light on the cover. His expression is shy, suffused with a soft, hopeful light of it's own. "It is called the Tome of Divinity. I am gonna — study to be a paladin, I think."

He awaits Mizzy’s verdict on this.

It takes a moment to sink in. Then her eyes get big and her mouth drops open. “Oh. Ben, really?” It’s the same tone of voice people get when someone tells them this is their beautiful new home or they just got a puppy for their very own.

He nods, halting and still a little shyly uncertain. “I have been … thinkin’ on it a while. Because of Mr — because of my folks, you know. A priest and a paladin. And he talks about Turalyon all the time. And then there is you, with the priest … ing, and last year I was tryin’ to figure out … I mean I am way behind on religion and all, I was tryin’ to figure out, like, how does a person pray? We talked about it, maybe you recall. And then I asked Cole to go with me to see the naaru. When the Exodar came. So we did.” His gaze shifts, becomes a little dreamy. “I could … hear it. Like music, kind of? I felt somethin’. And then, you know, in Lordaeron with the Argent Dawn, and — well. Then we come out here and met Lord Turalyon’s son, and it kind of felt like … a sign, I guess? I been talkin’ some more about it with Cole. He says he thinks I got … the character, or whatever.” He looks faintly embarrassed.

She hurries to him and grabs his hands in hers, despite what he’s holding. “Oh Ben, I think it’s the most wonderful idea! You have the sweetest soul of anyone I know, and you’re already so protective and kind, you’ll make a wonderful paladin! And of course you must speak to me if you have any questions or Colson, of course! Oh, or Lord Ference … Did you tell him? He’ll be so proud!”

He beams at her and half-turns to set the Tome down on the desk (by the sandwiches) so he can take her hands properly. “I did. That was a thing I wanted to stay behind — in Azeroth — to sort out an’ then to talk to him about. He was … he cried, some. I mean, he always does that, but.” He smiles at their joined hands and shrugs a shoulder. “So. Yeah. He is pretty proud, I think?”

He lifts his gaze again. “You are the next person I am tellin’, though. After him,” he assures her earnestly. “I don’t know — I mean, it will probably take a while? Since I am … kind of behind on it all? But we’ll see, I guess. If I even take to it at all. I reckoned maybe you could. Answer questions, I mean, or help me out if I got — yeah. Questions.”

As always, she springs to his immediate defense. “You’re not behind, not at all! You’ll see, you’ll just do what you know the right thing is to do and you’ll be a paladin in no time!” She nods firmly. “You’re already an incredibly skilled fighter, you just need to learn the prayers and such. Of course I’ll help, and just think how much practice you’ll get at reading, though I suppose holy books can be rather boring, I mean they’re just rather, well, pious and all. Oh! I’ll get you books about paladins, real paladins, and you can read about how they solved problems and what they did and then you’ll be sure to do well. Not that you wouldn’t anyway!”

Mizzy train, but at least this one didn’t crash along the way.

Ben lets go of her hands to take her face between his own hands, and kisses her soundly. He rests his forehead against hers. “That would be amazing. And you are the most amazing girl. Lady. Lady Ismene.” He lifts his head to look around the room again, and then smiles back down at her. “I can’t believe no–any of this. How much you done while I was gone. You are gonna be the best fucken Lady Ference since … well, since I don’t know, but also don’t tell Aunt Nir I said that.”

“Goodness no, I don’t think even I could heal you if she knew you’d said something like that.” Then she laughs, but, like, actually a laugh. “What a wonderful day this has been. And now you have to go, I suppose.” She looks down, then lifts just her eyes to him, large and soft. “I shall be terribly lonely. And cold. Don’t you think it’s cold?”

He stares at her for a moment, and then his gaze takes on A Certain Glint and he smiles slowly. “Oh,” he says. “You are gettin’ good at that.”

He takes her hand, steps back from her, and bows gallantly. It lacks some of the panache of, say, an Aspenwood bow, but the general idea is present. “Lady Ismene,” he says solemnly. “I would hate to leave you here cold. I reckon there is a little time before I have got to be off, so perhaps you can show me our new bedroom arrangement, and in trade I can figure out how to warm you up some?”