Thinking About the Future

Writers: Devin, Halyonix
Date Posted: 16th July 2026

Characters: M'sar, Hesbia
Description: Two former Holdless chat while they work elevator duty.
Location: Dragonsfall Weyr
Date: month 2, day 11 of Turn 13
Notes: Mentioned: R'bharra

Hesbia

Hesbia looked up at the cloudy sky and groused to M'sar, "It better not start raining while we're on duty today."

"That would suck." He frowned. "This job sucks."

"Better than doing the laundry," Hesbia remarked dryly as she watched one of the laundresses approach another weyrling pair for a ride up. "I think I'd rather be Holdless again if that was all I had to my life." She watched the pair depart with their passenger. "So, graduation. What are you going to do after that?"

It was still odd to plan for the future. M'sar shrugged. "Besides fight Thread? Go see the rest of Pern." With Nazoth he could go anywhere in a few heartbeats, and he desperately wanted to get out of the Weyr, at least for a while.

"Yeah, I think a lot of us are going to do that. I mean, not as a group or anything." But it was a freedom that the former Holdless had never enjoyed. Exploration for them and their families prior to Impressing had been for survival, not fun. And now...

Hesbia reached up to touch Oriveth's jaw reassuringly. "I keep thinking about whether or not to transfer," she admitted to M'sar. "Not like I have anywhere in mind but might be nice to live on a beach instead of in the snow or something." Or get away from the memories of this particular Weyr. It wasn't so bad as time went on but she still worried that maybe one day her uncle would reappear and somehow ruin it all still. If she wasn't here...

Well, she had options now. Or would. But she wasn't about to admit the real reasons why to M'sar. Partial truths were just fine reasons.

"Never stayed in one place this long," M'sar said. Well, not since he'd been made Holdless. "Never been around the same people this long. It's . . . different."

"Yeah," she agreed quietly. "I mean, you can call it a cage, I guess. A gilded one or whatever they say. It's not so bad, mostly." She looked up at the clear sky. "Might be different once we get to fighting Thread but still..."

Up there in the sky, with nothing but dragon flame between him and silver strands that would eat him to the bone in seconds . . . M'sar pushed that thought away. "Been wondering what it might be like to, you know, have friends." His face heated.

She huffed dismissively. "Friends? That's a luxury we Holdless don't get, M'sar. You know that. We'll always be Holdless to the Weyrborn. Our only friends are our dragons."

M'sar swallowed and said quietly. "R'bharra's got friends."

"Who's that?" she asked with a dubious expression.

"He's a greenrider, the one who Searched me. He was Holdless, like us," M'sar said.

She grunted. "Must have been nice to have met another Holdless dragonrider. The ones that Searched me seemed angry that their dragons had betrayed them or something."

M'sar snorted a laugh. "R'bharra was happy to Search me and then I gave him a good plowing."

She rolled her eyes. "Why is it always sex with you?" she grumbled. "Nazoth should've been a green."

A huge brown head turned toward her. }:I should not! I am what I am meant to be.:{

"Careful, you're gonna piss him off." M'sar put a soothing hand on Nazoth's foreleg. "He got so mad at first when I thought about how much I wanted green."

Hesbia grunted. She didn't apologize but she did back off a little. "Well, I hope he has the appetite to keep up with you. And that your future Wingleader isn't a prude and mad that you're late to practice." That shouldn't be hard in the Weyr. Most of them didn't mind the amount of sex going on.

"Shards I can't wait til we go /between/. It's killin' me," M'sar said. It would be soon now, and he was counting the days.

She shot him another scathing look. "You know, /between/ is equally as dangerous as Thread. And here you are, saying you can't wait until we do it. You've got a weird sense of fun."

"You just have to hold a picture in your head and not panic. That's easy," M'sar said. "And it's not really that, it's the restriction on sex bein' lifted."

Hesbia rolled her eyes again. "Careful. You're gonna get in trouble again," she only halfway warned him. But their dragons were old enough to understand more than they could whenever that incident had happened. Before she could add another comment, someone approached, looking at her expectantly for a ride up. "Great, guess I'm the lucky one this time," she muttered darkly.

"Have fun." M'sar smiled and wiggled his fingers at her.

Last updated on the August 7th 2026

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Thinking About the Future