The Prettiest Smile

Writers: Eimi, Paula
Date Posted: 18th January 2008

Characters: Zelanka, Benaroy
Description: Zelanka and Benaroy share a memory of long ago
Location: Amber Hills Hold
Date: month 8, day 12 of Turn 4

Zelanka pushed the Lord holder's door open with her elbow. Her hands were busy with the dinner tray. "You're dinner is here, my lord," the headwoman announced, sounding bit distracted. She was trying to count how many times she had done this. Thousands, ten thousands, millions?
Almost every day in a turn, sometimes several times in a day, for...how many turns there had been? "I've run out of numbers," she said to herself.

"Is that a hint that I should order more?" he asked, his eyebrow raised in amusement at the apparent randomness of her statement. However, he knew that nothing coming out of Zela's mouth was ever without extreme thought or purpose behind it. What was running though that lovely head of hers?

Zelanka let out a little laughter. "I just tried to count how many times I've brought you a diner."

"You might as well try to count the stars in the sky, my love" the Lord Holder smiled fondly. Zelanka had watched over him longer, better, and more closely than any of his wives.

Zelanka rewarded him with her prettiest smile, the one she knew always lifted his spirits.

"Don't smile at me like that, Zela," Benaroy said in mock reproach.
"You just might break an old man's heart."

~*~

"Yes, come on in, Zelanka," the Lord Holder waved before turning back to his Steward. "I understand what you are saying, Shayron, and I do appreciate that Aniton's family would not take kindly to being moved off their ancestral home, but their herds can graze on the property I have pointed out just as well. We need that land. It would be easy to irrigate and Beluf has already proved himself more than capable on his father's farm. Now that he is married and has a couple children it's time to give him his own land to work, and that property shows the most promise for the kind of produce we need to see us through another winter. Shayron will just have to make sacrifices, as we all have made.
That is my final word on the matter."

"Yes, sir," the Steward nodded gravely as he carefully rolled up the map they had been pouring over. He gave the assistant headwoman a polite nod as he passed by on his way back to his own offices. "Zelanka."

"Yes, Zelanka, come on in. I'm sorry to leave you holding that tray there," Benaroy said as he sat back down in his chair with a weary sigh.
"Actually... I don't know if I'm so hungry right now. You can just leave it and I'll nibble at it later."

Zelanka carefully place the tray to the desk, trying not to disturb the hides there.
"But then you'll waste away to nothing, mylord" she said.

"I very much doubt that. At least not yet." Not as long as he could find a way to produce enough to last them through the winter. The last Turn had been cutting it closer than he was comfortable with. "I just... have too much on my mind right now. But thank you."

"Maybe you should take a break and done something completely different. Get your mind off from the work and then return to it refreshed," Zelanka said bit hesitantly. She still wasn't sure where the line went, how familiar she could be with the lord holder.

Benaroy smiled sadly. "Maybe another Hold's Lord can take a break, but this is Amber Hills. No one gets a break here. Why should I get one?"

"Because you're our beloved Lord holder," Zelanka said.

He snorted softly. "You're sweet, Zelanka. But the truth is..." He really shouldn't admit this, but talking to her had become so easy lately. "Sometimes I'd rather be the Lord of any other Hold but here."

"What's wrong with Amber Hills?" Zelanka asked, "Except for the corridors echoing with emptiness and half of the room locked up and gathering dust without people to live in them."

"And every turn we have to make more and more sacrifices to survive.
Every birth is a blessing, but until all those tiny mouths grow up, we have to find a way to feed all of them with too few workers in the fields. We are always just one step ahead of starvation." Benaroy sighed, shaking his head sadly. He had said too much. "I'm sorry, Zela, I shouldn't have said such things to you."

"And here I thought I was helping to repopulate the hold with my two children," the young woman said.

"Oh, you are. You are, Zela. I didn't mean that," he assured her, reaching out to touch her hand. "We need every child. It's just my job to make sure they grow up healthy. And sometimes it just isn't as easy as it looks, that's all."

"Oh, I know that," Zelanka said. After all, she was part of the Headwoman's staff and knew all about empty stores and scraping the bottom of the larder.

"Don't listen to me," Benaroy said, giving her hand a gentle squeeze before releasing it. "I'm just a tired old man."

"Why do you keep insisting that you're old?" Zelanka asked and flashed a smile that made many men regret she was married.

He found himself grinning back at her despite himself. Fanath's name but she had an amazing smile. "Well, you just assume I mean age is a negative thing. It does have its advantages, you know."

"It is? Care to present them to me?" Zelanka asked, her tone somehow turned into a flirty one. She couldn't help it. She did found the Lord holder quite charming when he wasn't nose deep in hides.

Benaroy couldn't help but react to the tone on her voice. He wouldn't have gone so far to delude himself into thinking it was any sort of flirtation. Rather he found it comfortable, friendly, familiar. Not many people actually talked to him as they would a friend. He was always the Lord Holder. Her smile and her eyes made him feel her equal, and it felt sharding good to have a woman, especially a young and beautiful woman, looking at him that way. "Well, as you have no doubt heard, with age comes experience."

"I've heard," Zelanka said with smile.

"You know, Zela, you really shouldn't smile at an old man like that," he said, grinning back despite a slight blush. "You could break a man's heart with that smile if you're not careful."

Zelanka tried not to smile but couldn't. Her smile just deepened.
"Can't help it," she said helplessly.

"I'm starting to believe that." Benaroy cleared his throat, turning to look at the tray she had brought him, feeling like a foolish school boy.
"Well, thank you for brining me my dinner. I will try to eat it now."

"And I tell that to the Headwoman, so she won't be nagging to you,"
Zelanka said.

"I appreciate that. Anyway, thank you for bringing it," he said, grabbing up his fork. Maybe if he thought about food he would stop thinking about... other things.

Last updated on the January 19th 2008

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The Prettiest Smile