Home Cooking

Writers: Vanessa T Sommerfeld
Date Posted: 8th January 2008

Characters: Benar
Description: Benar sees his parents for the first time in years
Location: Elsewhere on Pern
Date: month 7, day 28 of Turn 4

Benar watched D'cal and Aosorath blink _between_. The ride on Aosorath had been thrilling, but as he turned to see his parents watching the sky, he forgot everything else. He ran the distance between them and they hurried forward at their own pace. Once he reached them, the three embraced. His mother was nearly sobbing and his own throat tightened so that he could not speak.

"It's been too long," he said finally. "I'm sorry."

Benat released him, but his mother held firm. "Yes, it has, son," his eyes communicating the reprimand behind it. Benar understood. He shouldn't have let so much time slip away. He nodded at his father-a silent vow passing between them. Selar finally let go and stepped back to wipe her tears with her apron.
"Come inside, Benar. I've got all of your favorites. Are you hungry?"

"I wasn't until you mentioned your cooking!"

She pulled him toward the home that he grew up in. The memories swarmed him. The place seemed so much the same, and yet so different.

His father took his pack and his mother led him to the table. He sat down and inhaled the smell of home. She began to move around the kitchen in the familiar dance that he had watched countless times in his youth. He took the time now, though, as they chatted, to appreciate its beauty. His mother had aged, true, but she was graceful and poised. She looked as if she should have been noble born. She smiled warmly as she brought him a plate filled with his childhood favorites. He put the first bite into his mouth and closed his eyes to enjoy the cooking he had forgotten he missed.

His father retuned from putting his pack in his old room and moved to his wife. He slipped his hand behind her back and kissed the side of her neck, then made his way to the table to sit with his son. "Now listen to me, I've been going on about my meat pies and the sweetbread.now tell us what you have been doing with yourself," his mother encouraged as she fixed a plate for her husband.

"Oh, the usual. I've been asked to do some illustrations for the printer crafthall. And I've put in to do some work for the dragonhealers." He shrugged. "I'm not sure I'll get to do it, but dragons are just fascinating creatures. I find myself watching them all of the time." "What are they like?" his father asked. "The dragons."

"Well, I haven't really spent much time in close contact with them.
Aosorath is the blue who brought me here. He and his rider, D'cal, have allowed me to ride him twice now-once to a location for a portrait and once here. That's about as close as I've been. I pretty much keep my distance, as I would with any powerful beast. But they're magnificent." His eyes sparkled with emotion. "What did it feel like to fly? To go _between_?" His father was eager to hear his son's experience.

"Don't you go getting ideas about flying around on a dragon, old man." She patted him on the back as she laid a plate in front of him.

"Me? Oh, no. As much as the idea appeals to me, I'll not be getting on a dragon. In my younger days, perhaps..." He chuckled and began to eat.

"I'm glad to hear that, dear."

"So what's it like?" his father prompted.

"Flying is incredible. It's like riding the fastest of runner beasts, but without the impact of the hooves striking the ground. And you get such an incredible perspective of the land and landscape.like standing on a cliff looking down, except you're moving. It's really amazing."

"What about _between_?"

"_Between_ is.nothing." He searched for the right words to describe his experience. "It's the blackest night and the coldest cold you could ever imagine."

His mother shuddered. "It sounds terrifying to me."

"It is, a little. And just when you think you are going to scream, it's over. And you're in a completely different place."

"I have a hard time imagining being in one place one instant, and halfway around the world the next. It just doesn't seem."

"Possible? I know." He interrupted his father. "I wonder what it would be like to have the ability to go anywhere I wanted at any time."

"Well, you'd certainly be able to visit home more often, wouldn't you?"
Benat teased.

"Indeed I would." He was humbled by his failure to visit his parents. "I'm really sorry."

"It's alright, son, just don't let so much time slip by before your next visit." As usual, his father was stern, but kind.

"I won't. And now that I'm living so close to the weyr, I intend to see if I can trade my artwork for transportation home whenever I can."

"So what about your personal life?" Selar asked, trying to change the subject to spare her son any more discomfort.

It had to be some kind of record. She had gone at least a quarter of a candlemark without asking. He heaved a sigh. "No, there is no lady in my life." His mother heaved a sigh of her own and he stabbed at the succulent meal before him. "What, mama? I don't have time for a woman. I'm either working or hiking. It's not likely that I'll meet the woman of my dreams tromping around looking for interesting animals to draw." "That's exactly the problem, Benar. You're _not_ going to meet a woman out there, so why don't you spend a little less time doing something you know is a waste of time and start going to gathers or wherever it is young people go to meet other young people these days?"

Benar rubbed his face. "Because I don't enjoy those kinds of things, mother. I never have." He chuckled so that she would not take offense.
"They are loud and people drone on and on about nothing."

"Give him a break, Selar. If I know our son, he'd be more likely to sit in the corner and draw a gather than to join in one."

Benar smiled at his father's dead-on assessment. "I just worry about you, Benar. I want you to find someone to love and have a family with."

"No, you just want the grandchildren!" he teased.

She nodded. "Loads of them! So you'd better get started soon, or else I'll be too old to cook for them."

He laughed. "Relax, Mother. You always said that when I meet the right woman, I'll know. I've just never felt that strongly about anyone. Look, when I do find her, I promise I'll get to work straight away to give you someone to spoil."

"Someone _else_, you mean," Benat interjected. "You should see her with Muriana and Kelsen's kids. She acts as if you _had_ married Muriana and she was their grandmother."

"Oh, they're such good babies," she bragged. "I knew Muriana would make a good mother." Benar looked at his plate so that he would avoid the told-you-so look on his mother's face.

"Well, you can hardly call them babies anymore, Selar," Benat deftly helped swerve the conversation toward a less dangerous one. Best to keep her talking about the children than Benar's failure to marry a "perfectly good woman". "Oh, I know. They've grown so fast, Benar. Too bad you won't get to see the boys while you're here. They never fail to ask how Uncle Benar is doing.
And that Keliana is something else. I tell you. She is so smart." Benar chuckled. His mother really did sound as if they were her own grandchildren.

"Do you see them often?" he asked.

"Not the boys anymore, of course, with them off at their apprenticeships, but Keliana visits often. She likes to talk to your father about healing.
Oh, you should hear her." She laughed.

"Smart as a whip, that child. Wait until you meet her." Despite his teasing, it was obvious his father felt some pride over the children as well. "You just won't believe it."

"I can't wait," he said. "I sent them a message as well and they are expecting me for dinner tomorrow evening." He was regretting missing even one of his mother's meals, but it would be good to see his old friends.

Last updated on the January 12th 2008

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