The Inevitable

Writers: Eimi, Paula
Date Posted: 2nd May 2008

Characters: Benaroy, Zelanka
Description: Benaroy knows he would do anything for Zelanka
Location: Amber Hills Hold
Date: month 9, day 20 of Turn 4
Notes: Follows "You Will Go On"

The Lord Holder stared out at his beloved hills, his arms crossed thoughtfully across his chest. Zelanka had left not long before. He could still feel the tears that had soaked through his shirt and onto his skin. She hadn't cried like that in front of him in turns. How painful this whole situation must be for her. To be caught between loyalty to him, and loyalty to his people. He wondered if this constand waiting weighed on her like it did on him. She had lost so many people she had loved in her life. How terrifying and lonely it must be for her to just wait on him to die, day after day bringing him his medicine just to prolong the inevitable for just a few more moments.

And yet, he couldn't help but wonder, was that helping or hurting?
Wasn't it always better the extract an infected tooth quickly rather than yank it back and forth until it finally rips its way out? All this waiting... For two turns he had told himself that he had to hold on, he had to fight. He had told himself it was because he had to see his Royani married and happily settled, taken care of. Besides, he thought, he was needed to pull Amber Hills through the aftermath of the earthquake and into a glorious new future.

But he knew that wasn't exactly honest. He had been holding on because Zela had wished it so. Benaroy lived to spare her the grief of losing him. And yet, by trying to protect her from that agony, he had actually made it so much worse. How could he of all people, he who knew her private suffering, cause her additional pain?

~*~

Her breath tickled the skin along his collar bone as his fingers traced the skin from her wrist to her elbow lazy little elipses. "That trade caravan better return from the Weyrhold soon or I may grow much too accustomed to lying here with you like this."

"Mmm, I kinda hope it never returns," she said lazily, enjoying the feeling. The return of the traders would be return of her husband, who had gone with them to deliver herd of herdbeast to the Weyrhold.

Benaroy couldn't help but think about all the times he had seen her together with her husband, even back to the night of her wedding. It actually had come as a bit of a surprise, albeit a wonderful one, that she had been interested in the much older Lord Holder. He knew that a marriage mostly happened away from the public eye, but they had always looked happy together. "You don't miss him, then?"

Zelanka sighed. Did he have to? "No, not really, not the way I should."

"I always thought you cared for him." Everyone did. But then, that was always the way, wasn't it. The couples that looked the happiest together were often the ones with the hardest struggles.

"I do, he's my best friend. Unfortunately that is all he is and can be. A friend," Zelanka stared the roof.

Benaroy turned on his side to face her, propping his head up on his hand. "I don't understand."

"Let's just say that he's probably doing this at the weyrhold, with some handsome green- or bluerider," she said.

Benaroy was stunned. "You mean Petriv tends towards shades of green?"

"Yes. I found it out accidentally some time after we were married."
she said, and felt tears stung behind her eyelids.

"You mean you saw him with another man?" he asked, gently stroking her collar bone. Catching her husband with another woman would be one thing, but another _man_. The shame of it...

"Yes, in the forests around the hold. He was a dragonrider," she felt her voice shake. She had never before told about that incident to anybody.

Benaroy could hear the pain in her voice, and it make his heart ache for her. "That must have been quite a shock," he murmured softly as he moved his fingers to her soft, hey-colored hair. "And to stay by his side after that... you are a stronger person than I am, Zela."

"Stronger? Or just too weak to face it?"

He had no answer for that. She would know herself better than he. But he couldn't judge her for it. After all the loved ones she had lost in her young life, could anyone blame her for covering the truth just to hold onto one of them? Wrapping his arms around her he pulled her close, softly kissing her before craddling her against him.

Zelanka felt tears escaping from behind her eyelids.

Benaroy hadn't seen her cry in turns. Not since she was a little girl.
"If there was anything I could do to ease your sorrow, you know I would do it, don't you? Anything you would ask of me."

"There's nothing anybody could do about it," she said.

That was true. "I could hold you for a while, at least."

~*~

He held her. He held her through the tears, stroking her hair and gently kissing her forehead, her eyes, her lips, until they finally subsided. In that moment he would have done anything to ease her pain.

Benaroy turned away from the window and looked down on the tray of uneaten food on his desk. And the tea made from herbs the healers hoped would increase his circulation and prolong his life. **I would still do anything...** he thought as he picked up the cup and breathed in the familiar scent. He could almost picture Zela in her kitchen, shooing the other girls away as she mixed the Lord Holder - her _Ben_'s - tea.
Part of him believed it was a job she would intrust to no one else. It was some measure of control in a situation that was beyond the both of them. She would do it because she loved him...

When you pulled a tooth it was quick and painful, but healing and relief would come with time. The longer you left it, the more painful and prolonged it would be.

He turned and opened the window, feeling a rush of freezing air hit his face like cold reality. **You will go on as you always have...**
Benaroy tipped the cup and watched detached the tea flowed out in a steady stream, a stark greenish brown against a white snowy backdrop.

"Ho there, guard!" he called as he fastened the window shut once more.
Setting the cup gently back on its saucer he looked up at the young man who cautiously opened the Lord Holder's door. "Fetch me the Harper, and be discrete about it."

**I would do anything for you, my love.** Even embrace the inevitable.

Last updated on the May 5th 2008

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The Inevitable