Let It Burn (1/2)

Writers: Curious, Devin
Date Posted: 1st June 2024

Characters: N'vanik
Description: N'vanik confronts the man who murdered the watchrider.
Location: Emerald Falls Hold
Date: month 10, day 19 of Turn 11
Notes: 1 of 2, follows "The Punishment Will Fit the Crime"

N'vanik

N'vanik stepped in and glared down at the prisoner. "Why Tr'fal? Was
it something about him personally or was he just convenient?"

"Does it matter?" Enval's eyes sparked with dark, furious mirth as he
grinned up at the Weyrleader. "You won't be getting him back no matter
what you do."

"The reasons matter," N'vanik said. "But you're probably just an
errand boy stupid enough to throw your life away for something you
don't even understand." Shards he wanted to beat that look off his
face.

"They don't," Enval firmly said. "The rider would have met his fate
sooner or later. He just happened to end up going first."

His smile turned into something distant and wistful, pain fogging up
his gaze. "I know enough, Weyrleader. I know that the Weyrs have lost
and destroyed countless lives and have never been held accountable
until now. I know that you consider your lives worth so much more than
those of the common folk because of your dragons. I knew that I would
die in the worst way possible for this, and I decided that it would be
worth it if I could make you feel a _fraction_ of what your
carelessness has made others feel."

A pause, and his agonized expression morphed back into a sharp-toothed
grin. "I don't know our leader's name, if that's what you came out of
me. You won't be able to bully your way to him like you did with
Shuvan."

"What's the _point_ of all this?" N'vanik waved a hand around. "You
want us to leave the Holds to Thread?"

Enval squinted up at N'vanik. "Do you really not get it, Weyrleader?"
he asked. "I assumed it was the arrogance of Dragonmen... Do you
really not _know_?"

He straightened up, leaning back in his chair as he assessed the
Weyrleader. "We know what will happen if the Weyrs are destroyed," he
flatly said. "Some folks may think there's a way to save ourselves,
but me, the Shadow - we know. But we're human beings, Weyrleader, and
humans have their limits. Yes, the world will burn without the Weyrs.
But after some losses, some injustices, you _stop caring_. No one
cares about saving a world so cruel that you no longer see any point
living in it. The ends don't always justify the means - the Shadow
sees that. I've accepted it. I don't care if I die, Weyrleader, or if
all of Pern follows suit. Only that _you die with us_."

His lips twitched, some of his broken joy funneling back in.

"And the more of our people you brutalize, the more you threaten the
Holds to try and keep us in line, the more you try to brute force your
way to victory... The more people will see that we are correct. So
tell me, Weyrleader, do you have any other tricks up your sleeve? Do
you actually possess the ability to be the hero your people claim to
be? Or is dragonflame all you know?"

"I save my mercy for those who deserve it. Holdless children, holders
struggling to feed their families, people who make mistakes and regret
it," N'vanik said. The Shadow? That must be Shuvan's replacement, or
at least he was angling for the job. No wonder he sent a lackey to do
something this horrible. "What did the Weyr do to you?"

"Not me, I was untouched," Enval said. "But when my brother was
impaled on a hatchling's claws, I was told that it was the risk taken
for the _honor_ of standing for a dragon." His smile faded, then, and
all the rage in the world was not enough to eclipse his grief. "And I
accepted it. After all, my brother made his choice, and my Reyvene had
impressed. She was... She was my _everything_ and I loved her
Corroloth like a part of her. And when one of that green's clutchmates
accidentally flamed her during a lesson, too badly to live?"

Enval's expressions spasm. It wasn't a laugh or a sob, just something
entirely broken.

"They didn't even _try_ to save Rey. That _hack_ Dreams End called a
healer said that the most important thing was that he be allowed to
follow her dragon. They had her dead within the _day_. And then they,
all the rotten, vile, selfish, _human_ people I'd met at that Weyr -
they expected me to still view them as heroes after that. _A man
apart_. Tell me, Weyrleader, do you know what really sets the riders
apart?"

N'vanik was shaking his head. "Do you know how many people I've lost?
How many friends I've watched _die_? And now you all want to make it
_worse_ by killing random dragonriders who've done _nothing_ to you?"
These people had absolutely lost it. "Accidents happen -- on the
Sands, in training, in Fall. Hard as it is, life does have to go on.
But no one should have been callous about it."

"How many people you've lost," Enval murmured. "You ask me how I could
have stopped caring. Now I'm asking _you_ - how can you say it's still
worth fighting? To let the losses keep taking up for a struggle that
will _never_ end?"

Enval shook his head.

"Everyone has their own motivation," he said. "Not all of us want to
die - I'd imagine that most don't - but enough of us do, or are
willing to lay down our lives for the chase. And everyone has a
_reason_. I'm telling you mine. I can't tell you the Shadow's, or
anything else they believe beyond their call to arms. You won't get
anything useful out of me, even if you tear off all my fingernails one
by one or whatever it is you do to rider killers. But I will tell you
this. That rider _did_ do something. He participated in a system where
your worth - your _life_ is permanently dictated by a creature you
can't control, and no other life in existence can hold a candle to
that of someone bonded to one of those things. The Weyrs are
_horrific_, Weyrleader, for the people in them, the ones taken to
them, and those forced to live under them. How can you say that life
must go on when _this_ is all there is, with no end in sight? When so
many people are written off as _accidents_ and no one ever looks back?
How is life worth living when no one can sharing remember how much a
life is _worth_?"

It would be easy to scream at him, because Enval was right about one
thing -- nothing was going to bring Tr'fal and Vindroth back. And it
was pointless to talk to him. Enval was so far gone there was no
coming back. But for some reason N'vanik felt like he had to speak.
"Because every life _is_ worth it. Every moment you spend with someone
you love, every time you laugh with a friend. Even when you know they
could die at any time, when _you_ could die any time. The Weyr _saved_
me. My dragon saved me. The _Holds_ are the horrific places. The Hold
is where I suffered, where women suffer, where men who like other men
suffer. But I'm not out murdering random Holders because my father
beat me."

"Your father does not set the rules by which the world is run," Enval
coldly said. "Dragonriders have disproportionate power and act with
impunity. Any deed done against them is treated as the most
unforgivable thing possible, while their own actions are written off
because of their dragons. The _Holds_ cannot hope to compare to the
power of the Weyr. What we are doing is just balancing the scales.
_You_ are the people who made it impossible to take less severe
methods. And if showing that dragonriders aren't all-powerful will
destroy the world, then the world deserves to burn."

Last updated on the June 6th 2024

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Let It Burn (1/2)