We're Not Worth Saving

Writers: Devin, Halyonix
Date Posted: 13th May 2025

Characters: Hesbia, Haseba, Hellond
Description: Hesbia tells her uncle what happened
Location: Dragonsfall Weyr
Date: month 5, day 5 of Turn 12

Hesbia

Notes:
~*~

Hesbia woke somewhere warm, somewhere where the rain was kept at bay.
She opened her eyes to unfamiliarity, except for her younger sister
sitting next to her, her face puffy with tears. "What happened?"
Hesbia demanded to know as she sat up.

"They...brought us here. To the Weyr," Haseba answered. "Sis, I tried
to stop them! I tried to tell them to let me help! They...they didn't
listen!" She looked like she would start crying again. Hesbia quickly
went to comfort her.

"It's okay, Has, it's okay, I'm here," she assured her sister.
Wherever "here" was. The Weyr? "Why did they bring us to the Weyr?"

Haseba sniffled. "The caves are flooded. We can't stay there. Not
until the waters go down." If the waters went down. But honestly,
would Hesbia be willing to return? The caves held nothing but terrible
memories now. "I don't what we're going to do," Haseba sobbed.

Hesbia wrapped her arms around her sister, letting her cry it out.
Finally, she asked, "Where's uncle Hellond?" If her uncle had made it
out, they needed to find him. If not...Hesbia would figure out how the
two of them would go on alone.

"He went to get food," Haseba answered, drawing back to dry her eyes.
Hesbia scowled. That usually meant that yes, he returned with food,
but he returned hours later after finding wine. In the caves it had
been harder for him to get his fix but at the Weyr? Who knew. Maybe he
could just waltz up and ask for it here. That’s what seemed to happen
every time they stopped over at a Hold. “He should be back any moment
now.”

“Doubt that,” Hesbia muttered. But she knew she was going to wait for
him to return.

Hellond stepped in with a towering tray of food, several items in
danger of falling off. "Hesbia, you're awake!" He forced a smile for
his nieces. "Can you believe how much food there is here?" The
temptation to ask for (or steal) several skins of wine and drink
himself into oblivion was nearly overwhelming. His brother was dead,
the girls were now orphans, and none of that would've happened if
Hellond hadn't gotten himself cast out. And _that_ wouldn't have
happened if he didn't love to drink so much.

"_Food_?! That's what you're focusing on right now?" Hesbia snapped.
"Dad is dead, we're here at the Weyr with all of these _dragonriders_
and you're talking about _food_?"

"We do need to eat," Haseba mewled quietly.

Hellond swallowed hard. "I was trying to . . . I don't--I don't even
know what to say about your father. I'm so sorry, girls." The terrible
irony was the guilt made him want to drink even more.

"You're always sorry," Hesbia growled. It was an old excuse that no
longer held any water. Her volume decreased but her tone was still
unforgiving. "Where were you? Why weren't you helping us save our
stuff?"

"I was . . . looking for supplies."

"You're always looking for supplies," Hesbia muttered darkly. Unable
to resist the allure of freshly gained food, she reached forward and
snagged a meatroll. She shoved it in her mouth hungrily and grabbed
another. "What do they want from us?" she asked angrily.

Hellond set the tray down on a small table. "They haven't said. Work,
probably, though I don't know what they'd trust us to do." He took a
bite of a hot, buttery roll. The pleasure of it made him close his
eyes. How long had it been since he'd had food this good?

Hesbia picked at one of the rolls. "What sort of work? And for how
long? Are they going to let us go?" _Was_ there even a way out of the
Weyr except by dragon? She had so many sharding questions and no
answers! If only her father was there, he'd...

She crushed the bread in her fist, trying to hold back tears. She dare
not believe he was dead! He...he could have survived. Maybe. He had
to! If not, what were they going to do?

Hellond shook his head. "I don't know anything yet. This _can't_ be
free, but if the price is too high, we'll find a way out." They'd
always found a way to survive . . . well, not all of them.

"I don't want to stay here," Hesbia immediately said. "One of them
pushed Dad off that ledge and I'm not going to stay in a place full of
killers! And to think, he was the one insulting _us_!"

Hellond froze with a fork halfway to his mouth. "_Pushed_? Are you . .
. are you sure?"

"Well he didn't just _fall_, Uncle! And if you had been there, you
could have stopped him entirely!"

The guilt gnawed at him even harder. "I'm sorry I wasn't there." He
was sorry about a lot of things he couldn't change. "Tell me what
happened." If he hadn't just fallen, if his brother had been _killed_
. . .

"We were trying to get the supplies!" They had worked so hard to scrap
together a little stockpile of things. "Dad was on that lower ledge,
throwing them up to me. And then the dragonriders came, told us to
leave everything because it's so easy for _them_ to get everything
they want. Dad said we didn't need their help and one of them grabbed
him. Called him all sorts of names. And when Dad tried to get out of
his grip, the rider pushed him!" Hesbia looked away, anywhere else
away as tears filled her eyes again.

"Just for arguing with a dragonrider?" Hellond knew dragonriders
weren't the heroes the ballads made them out to be, but killing a man,
even a holdless one, for arguing? That was far harsher than he would
have expected.

"I don't know! I didn't see! Maybe he tried to punch him, I don't
know. All I heard was the dragonrider yell not to touch him and then
Dad was falling."

"The dragonrider, did he try to help? After he . . . fell?" Hellond asked.

"Why would he?" Hesbia snapped. "No. He didn't. In fact, he stopped
_me_ from trying to help! I could have saved him!" She probably
couldn't have saved him. She probably would have been pulled off
balance with him and fallen too. But that didn't stop her from
believing that she could have saved him.

Hellond stared at his food, suddenly not hungry. "So it was
deliberate. Or at least once it happened, he didn't think a holdless
man was _worth_ saving." His brother. The girls' father. He should
still be alive. He should be here with them, taking advantage of the
Weyr's bounty.

"No one thinks we're worth saving," Hesbia muttered. She looked over
at Haseba, who was close to tears again. She wrapped her arms around
her young sister. "We'll show them," she murmured. "Stupid
dragonriders. They think they're just the biggest gift to Pern ever."

"But they're just men like any other," Hellond said. And one of them
had pushed his brother into the flood, or at the very least let him
drown. A dragonrider who thought he could do that with no
consequences.

"Men with dragons big enough to eat one of us," Hesbia pointed out.
"If I had one of those, I'd act with impunity too. Who's going to mess
with a _dragon_? No one. That's why they get away with whatever they
want."

"That and Thread returning. They think they've become the heroes in
those ancient ballads," Hellond said. And he'd just been feeling
_grateful_ that the rest of his family had been rescued and the Weyr
was being so generous with their food.

"Can we stay?" Haseba suddenly piped up. Hesbia turned in surprise.
Was she being serious? "It's...nicer here than the caves. E-Even with
the dragonriders."

Hellond looked between his younger niece and Hesbia. "We have to stay
here for a bit anyway, until we find somewhere safe."

Hesbia didn't think that they'd ever find somewhere safe again. But
she didn't say that aloud.

Last updated on the May 19th 2025

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We're Not Worth Saving