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| Details |
| Author: | Jessa |
| Summary: | Ben and Mizzy talk about the deaths in the Mana Tombs and about themselves. |
| Rating: | M for Mature 17+ |
Chain: Bizzy
Ben leads Ismene, hand in hand, across the Terrace of Light toward one of the ramps that descends into Shattrath’s Lower City. They emerge from the shadow of the tunnel into a pale blue evening light hazed with smoke from cookfires and campfires.
The young couple make their way over the uneven, rubble-strewn ground, past wandering sporelings and clutches of arakkoa, past Maghar orcs and Broken, past encampments of soldiers and refugees.
In the vicinity of the infirmary and orphanage, the rubble clears and the ground rises; fallen walls form new, accidental terraces and ramps. One such has created a high, steep slope that reaches almost halfway up the inner surface of the city wall; it has been formalized by railings and, in a few particularly steep spots, rough steps chipped out of the ruin. Beside it stands a building that seems to have accreted like a reef against the wall, apartments on apartments. It appears to be a sturdy enough structure, but not one for which any architect would willingly take credit.
About halfway up the ramp — high enough to afford an exceptional view of this stretch of the Lower City, not quite high enough to peek over the edge of the Terrace of Light — Ben lets go of Mizzy’s hand to fish a key from beneath his breastplate, where it hangs on a string around his neck. He unlocks the door and ushers Mizzy inside.
Duly ushered, Mizzy hangs her pack up on a pegboard to the right of the entrance and steps farther in so Ben may do likewise. She pauses to assess the temperature of the room then walks to the room’s one real luxury: a large window with panes that open out. She cracks them a little, admitting the sounds of Shattrath’s lower city into the home, but at the evening level which isn’t yet life-threatening. She gives the curtains a tug to close them for some privacy and frowns at them.
Poor curtains. Sure, the fabric is quite plain and a disfavored shade that was probably someone’s middle batch between tan and peach, and the hem isn’t quite straight, and probably that bit at the top where it folds over a slender metal rod is a little squiggly as well, but the curtains don’t deserve the look she gives them.
Giving up her scrutiny, Mizzy sits in one of the two large chairs in front of the window, letting the hints of a breeze flirt with her hair. The chairs are, it must be noted, sized for Draenei. Heavy leather has been stretched taut over a wooden frame, with space left at the back for, perhaps, a tail. The one Mizzy drops into has been softened by a cushion almost as irregular as the curtains are, but well-stuffed and the crooked seams are doing their job. The other chair has nothing more over it than a thick fur, turned hide side out. At least the hide is velvet soft, and not as hot as the fur side would be.
She looks up at Ben and smiles a little, twirling a finger in her hair, curled in a chair that’s big enough for three of her.
Ben smiles softly down at her, though a shadow of concern lingers in his gaze. “Feelin’ better?” he asks. He doesn’t move toward his wife or the chairs right away but steps to the corner of the room where a wooden weapon and armor rack stands; he sets his sword in its place and examines his shield critically for new damage before hanging it.
As he turns back to Mizzy, he begins to unbuckle and remove his armor. His movements reveal a couple of ugly slashes in his gambeson and shirt in areas that were unprotected by plate. Dried blood crusts torn cloth.
She winces, as she does every time she sees his post-battle armor. Not that her own lighter armor doesn’t show damage, but hers is mostly burns today, and there seem to be few, if any, holes. “Not really,” she says. “I suppose it’s good I’ve been practicing in smaller battles, or I think I’d have completely frozen up.”
Sitting up, she gestures for him to come nearer, her eyes on his shirt.
Ben finishes shrugging out of his gambeson and drops it at the foot of the armor stand, on which he’s arranged gauntlets, breastplate, and pauldrons. He crosses dutifully in his bloodstained shirt to Mizzy, and gazes solemnly down at her. “You did not freeze up. You done magnificent,” he tells her, and crouches before her chair to take both of her hands in his.
Tsking at him, she nudges his hand to the side so she can bend and peek beneath his shirt where the rips are. Just in case. Because maybe. What if. When she’s assured herself that he is, in fact, intact she reaches for his hands. Now is acceptable, Bennarin. “Watching you fall…” That seems to be as much as she can manage, but she looks up at him with the remembrance of shattering.
Ben lifts one of her hands to kiss her knuckles. “An’ then you picked me up again, an’ here I am. See?” He tips his head and offers her a rueful, chipped-tooth smile. It fades after a moment, his brown eyes somber and earnest. “Sil was right, you know. I am always gonna come back when you call, Mizmainy. You ain’t gonna lose me like that.”
She leans forward, using her kissed fingers to guide him to her lips. “I never want to lose you in any way,” she says, kissing him softly.
He smiles against her lips. “Well, okay,” he says. “But only cos you asked nicely.” He draws back, still earnest-eyed. “But I better not lose you, neither. You know that, yeah? And if we are in a fight and it gets tight like it did today, you got to be the one stays standing. Because you are the one can get the rest of us back.” He studies her. “I know that is … a lot. To carry.”
Her head is already shaking before he’s even done speaking. “It’s not th– Well, it’s not just that. I don’t think I can do it, because I just… I can’t. Stand there and watch people falling and think to preserve myself before you or… or any of you? No. I mean, I can promise, but when it started happening, then I’d just have to break my promise, don’t you see?” She looks worried, perhaps that he might not see. Her grip on his hands tightens.
Ben regards her for a moment, weighing not just her words but her expression, her posture, her manner. He squeezes her hands back gently. “Okay,” he says. “Okay. I know. You got that kind of heart.” He kisses her knuckles again. “You keep me up, an’ I will try to see the rest of ‘em safe. That’s my part of it. I know you will heal an’ heal to the last spark you got in you. But kitten, I need you to try and know that you are one of us, the squad, and you need healin’ like any of us. We are relyin’ on you to keep us up, and sometimes that means, like today, that you will have to get us up when a thing goes bad. Just … try an’ keep it at the back of your mind. You are sensible as hell, Miss Kitten, about all kind of shit, and thinkin’ tactics like that is just another kind of bein’ sensible.” His tone is very gentle, and when he’s finished speaking he lets go of one of her hands to reach for the back of her neck and draw her forehead to his. “But also we can hope a thing won’t go bad like that again. Yeah? I will do my best.”
Relaxing against Ben is one of the things she’s best at. She’s had a lot of practice. “I will do my best,” she promises quietly, “to keep you up, Ben.” Her shoulders hitch with silent laughter. Well, not quite silent. There’s a huff or two. “I will focus on that one task with true dedication.”
Ben’s answering laughter is not silent at all. “Oh no, she is the one hearin’ things off-color now. Someone has been a real bad influence on you, Mrs. Hazan, and it not even a year yet.” He pauses to consider this milestone. “I got to say, I am pretty impressed by myself.”
“You should be proud of me!” she protests, sitting back from him. “Honestly, Bennarin.” She tries to look annoyed, but she’s smiling at him too much, her eyes too full of laughter and love. Giving a tired sigh, she sits all the way back in her chair. “I’m honestly not sure, to be serious again for a moment, which part is going to keep me up tonight. Watching you die. Knowing Sir Gavynn gave his life for me, for all of us. Thinking if I’d been… faster or more precise with who and how I healed, maybe none of you had to die.” She shakes her head a little and looks sidelong at nothing in particular. “Probably a combination of all three.”
Ben rises to his feet and gestures to indicate she should scoot over in the giant chair. Before she can actually do so, however, he stoops to pick her bodily up and sit down in the chair himself, arranging her on his lap. He kisses the side of her head and tucks one arm around her. “If you can’t sleep tonight because of watchin’ me die, all you got to do is roll over and give me a shove, because I will be right there next to you not dead at all, and probably snorin’ to prove it.” His teasing smile fades a little. “Or I will not sleep neither, and just keep you company. As for the rest of it, what Sir Gavynn done–”
His hand moves meditatively on her hip, and his gaze goes distant. “We all owe him for that. I owe him. For you. But all of us do. He is– I got to say, I was not expectin’ it from a Scarlet, but that was a hell of a thing he did today. A real … paladin thing to do.” He is quiet for a moment. “I misjudged him on account of the Scarlet thing, I guess.” He kisses the side of her head again, absently and still contemplatively. “… I mean, a lot of ‘em did try to kill us. But.”
Another hip-pat. “We should do somethin’. Get him somethin’. I will … maybe I will talk to him, some, about bein’ a paladin? Because that was a hell of a thing.”
Now he draws back a little and looks down at her sternly. “But Mizmainy, thinkin’ it was you that done wrong– I know I can’t stop you thinkin’ it, because that is how you are. You got a big heart and you want to carry the whole world in it. In a fight, though– a fight like today was, there is so much goin’ on so fast, an’ you can go in with the best plan the Light itself handed down to you and anything can happen anyhow. All you can really do sometimes is know you are about to get the shit kicked out of you, an’ curl up and just try to get through the least broken you can, so at least when it’s done you can pick yourself back up and, I dunno, maybe get yourself on a tram and go see this pretty little healer girl you know, or somethin’.” The stern expression flickers into a crooked grin.
She nods a little, after settling herself comfortably in his lap. Her hand drifts up to his chest. “Nilunelle,” she says to indicate her understanding. “I think you should talk to him. I’m… not sure many people do. Not among us. And it’s not … I mean, didn’t the demon controlling them get killed? So maybe… maybe there’s something there to salvage. Colson used to be one of them, didn’t he? He studied under their leader.”
She tilts her head back to look up at Ben, who knows everything.
Ben shakes his head. “No, Cole was not– one of ‘em. He studied under that fellow, the one who went off to lead ‘em, but that was … before the fellow went off to lead ‘em. Or maybe right around the same time? I dunno. The whole– turn that fellow took, and the Crusade and all, it did Cole’s head in for a while. But he was not part of it. Just … kind of had a narrow miss with it, I guess.” He puts his hand over Mizzy’s on his chest. “And Nell is not the pretty little healer girl I know.”
Held in Ben’s arms, curled up in his lap. Her hand on his chest, his hand over hers. Mizzy’s happy place is a simple one. “Marry me,” she murmurs, smiling at him.
Ben smiles back at her. “Only every day,” he says.