When the Lights Go Up

Writers: Heather, Yvonne
Date Posted: 11th June 2025

Characters: Esiah, H'run
Description: Esiah finds a very drunk H'run at the end of the Hatching Feast.
Location: Dolphin Cove Weyr
Date: month 6, day 26 of Turn 12
Notes: Mentioned: K'mai, Z'kim
Follows 'DCW: Lucky Warroth'

Esiah

H'run

For the latest Hatching Feast, Esiah had decided to try something a little different. While he normally spent the evening drinking and dancing like everyone else, tonight he'd set up his easel in a corner of the Dining Cavern and was painting the merry scene live while the festivities unfolded.

The vibrant colors, the music, and the dancing lent itself well to Esiah's creative spirit. Often he felt the presence of people gathered around him, watching him as he mixed colors, made effortless strokes, or chewed on the wooden end of his paint brush as he surveyed the crowd with a critical eye.

By the end of the night, his painting was finished and he was more satisfied with it than he'd anticipated. Rolling his head slowly and stretching out the kinks in his neck, Esiah pulled off his painting apron and left it on his abandoned stool in favor of a cup of wine.

It was the first bit of alcohol he'd allowed himself to have that evening. Drinking and painting didn't mix, well, not if you wanted a half-decent product, Esiah had found.

A familiar face caught Esiah's eye and a little smile pulled at his mouth. H'run. A very drunk H'run.

"How was your evening, bluerider?" Esiah asked. The music had ended, the harpers were packing up, and the kitchen drudges had begun to clean up.

H'run looked up from where he was slumped over in a chair and regarded Esiah with bleary eyes. His makeup was smeared and his hair tousled. "Esiah? What are you doing here?"

The master harper held up his hands and wiggled paint-stained fingers. "Painting, of course. You look as if you had quite the evening."

H'run snorted. "Yes. I did. It was awful. Worst Hatching I've attended, ever." His normally crisp diction was softened and slurred by drink. "People shouldn't be allowed to go to Hatchings that don't belong to them. 'S a terrible idea. How are you?"

Esiah's mouth twitched in amusement as he surveyed the bluerider. H'run was still in the same shades of gloomy blue that Esiah had painted him in when he'd first seen him on the beach. At least, that was the way the artist's eye saw him. But there was still a spark in H'run that Esiah found endearing.

"If the company is bad, then yes, they shouldn't show up at Hatchings that don't belong to them." Esiah tilted his head. "Was the company bad?"

The bluerider's eyes began to glisten. "Yes? No." He buried his face in his hands. "Just... too many bronzeriders. I sharding _hate_ bronzeriders."

Esiah wasn't sure _exactly_ what H'run was referring to - they'd never really discussed it, but he squatted down in front of the bluerider so he could peek at his face. "Yeah, they do suck, don't they? Always getting to have their cake and eat it, too."

"I hate their stupid faces and their stupid dancing. And I was so _good_. I pretended that I didn't care and then didn't I say _anything_ when I was asked even though I wanted to." H'run wiped his eyes and smeared his makeup further, blurred memories of Z'kim and K'mai flitting through his memory like sparks from a bonfire. He was very drunk and knew it, but words kept spilling out of him unbidden and unwanted. "I could have, but I _didn't_. And he's never going to care."

"Who is never going to care? The person that hurt you enough so that you came here to Dolphin Cove?" Esiah studied H'run's face, which was handsome despite the tears and smudged makeup.

H'run nodded. "Faranth, I'm so stupid."

"You're not stupid. Loving someone is never stupid. Them not seeing you for the amazing person you are, that's what's stupid." Esiah patted H'run's knee. "Can I walk you to your weyr?"

"Noo, I _am_ awful. You just-- you just don't know it yet." Tears spilled from the corners of his eyes and H'run wiped them away with the back of his hand. "I'm a bad friend and a bad person and a bad Harper and a bad lover. I _am_. You just don't know it yet."

Esiah's reply was soft. "I'm willing to risk it."

"No. You'll see. You just haven't seen me long enough yet." H'run wiped his eyes again, but then got distracted by the glitter of glowlight on the glass beads on his sleeve. He made a face. "This is awful. Why did I wear this? It's hideous."

"It's... sparkly," Esiah chuckled. "You didn't need it, though. You shine plenty on your own."

"It's hideous," H'run agreed, apparently either not hearing or paying attention to the rest. He began to pull the tunic over his head. "I should burn it."

"Hang on," the harper laughed. "Let's at least get you to your weyr. Else the kitchen drudges will get quite the show." Esiah put a hand on H'run's arm to hoist him to a standing position.

The bluerider let himself be dragged upright and staggered to keep his balance. "I don't care. Nobody cares. I should burn it. It's so ugly."

"Maybe on another night we can have a little bonfire on the beach and burn whatever you'd like." Esiah hooked H'run's arm over his shoulders as he guided the bluerider out of the Dining Cavern.

They made staggeringly slow progress as H'run protested with every step, but eventually arrived outside the weyr that Esiah thought H'run was staying in. "This is where you're staying, right?"

H'run glanced up at the door. It looked like every other door in the hallway and he realized that he had no idea where he was. The hallway spun sickeningly and his stomach was too full. He felt ashamed and miserable, and just wanted to curl up somewhere and be forgotten. "I don't know..." He pushed Esiah aside and staggered over to the wall and promptly vomited.

Esiah paused for only a moment. "Alrighty, then, you can just come to my place and we'll let the cleaning drudges take care of that." He steered the bluerider down another hallway. "Friends don't let vomiting drunk friends spend the night alone."

Tears pricked H'run's eyes again. He wiped his nose on the sleeve of the hated tunic and started crying again. He deserved to be alone after the mess he'd made of his life and the hallway. What sort of dragonrider couldn't find his own weyr? As much as he wanted to crawl off into a corner and die of shame, he wanted other things more. "I don't want to be alone."

"Good, because I have a couch with your name on it."

Last updated on the June 13th 2025

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When the Lights Go Up