Nobody Wants to Hear You Sing About Tragedy

Writers: Devin, Halyonix
Date Posted: 4th June 2025

Characters: Hesbia, Hellond
Description: Hesbia tells her uncle that she's looking for someone
Location: Dragonsfall Weyr
Date: month 5, day 21 of Turn 12

Hesbia

Notes:
~*~

It had been two sevendays since...well, since.

There was talk about lots of them staying over the winter. Finding a
new place to stay was hard enough without snow blanketing everything.
No one was really eager to leave being warm and fed. Hesbia didn't
want to leave for other reasons. Not that she was telling anyone that.

She was drawing circles -- knotted circles -- in the dust when her
uncle came back from...wherever he had been. She could never tell if
he had been drinking or not until he opened his mouth.

Hellond was musing about how even the wine they served to the common
folk here was better than most he'd ever had. He stopped and blinked.
"What's that?"

She looked up at him and tried to gauge his state. "Knots," she said
simply but sarcastically. "You know. The things we don't wear because
we don't have a home."

He wondered if he'd already had too much to drink. "Knots? Why are you
drawing knots?"

"Because I'm memorizing them," she told him. "Look, the dragonriders
wear all sorts of knots that tell their rank. Remember? We had some
knots when we were at the Hold all those Turns ago. So I know what
_those_ knots look like but I'm memorizing which each of _these_
mean."

"Why do you need to . . ." But even well into his cups, something
connected in his mind. "That rider."

"I'm going to find him," Hesbia vowed. "Which is apparently more than
you're ready to do." She sniffed in his direction. Recoiled. Scowled.
"Didn't take you long to get back at it," she shot at him.

"I've been through a lot!" He snapped.

"We all have!" Hesbia instantly shot back. "You don't see me wallowing
in wine though. I'm _doing_ something."

"Well that's good for you." She was right. He was being useless, just
like always.

She rolled her eyes. "Fine, go drink or whatever. Do whatever you want
to do. It's not like we're in this situation because of you anyway."
Hesbia would never understand why her father had exiled the family for
her uncle. Family love just didn't go that far in her mind. Okay,
maybe it did, but only for her little sister. "But I'm going to do
something about it this time."

Hellond scowled, not sure what to do. He wanted to go find more to
drink so he couldn't remember anything, but he also didn't want to
prove his niece right _again_. "And what good will finding him do?"

Hesbia honestly had no idea what she was going to do once confronted
with the man who had pushed her father but she wasn't going to just
let it go! "I don't know. Hit him? Turn him into the...the Weyrleader
or whatever his name is? I'm not just going to let him get away with
it!"

There was a long pause, and then Hellond said, "Do you really think
the dragonriders will do anything against their own?"

"Aren't _they_ the ones who set up the rules of society? Surely they
didn't forget that people are people and do stupid or bad things.
There _has_ to be some sort of punishment system in place, right?" Did
dragonriders exiled their own like Holdless? Was there an exiled Weyr
somewhere, where all of the bad dragonriders went?

"And they'll take your word over that of a dragonrider?"

The answer was probably no and that infuriated Hesbia. With fists
clenched, she snapped, "Are we just going to _let_ him get away with
it then? Is that what we do?"

Hellond stared at the ground. Was he going to live with that, too?
Knowing the man who'd killed his brother was just walking around as if
nothing had happened? He shook his head. "I . . . I don't know."

"Of course you don't," Hesbia said with all of the confidence of
someone who was faking her own course and just wanted to shift the
blame on someone else. "Go on. Just go drink your worries away like
you always do. Leave me and Has to figure it out now." She wondered if
she could ask the Headwoman for information. Innocently,
hypothetically of course.

"Fine, you just do that then." He needed a drink. Another drink.

Last updated on the June 10th 2025

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Nobody Wants to Hear You Sing About Tragedy