" At night I leave a bottle on the table
The Bible open to the Sermon on the Mount
Blessed be the poor of Henrietta, Indiana
But happy are the ones that get out "
- Josh Ritter, Henrietta, Indiana
BASICS
NAME: Hetta
GENDER: Male
PRONOUNS: He/Him/His
ORIENTATION: Bisexual
BIRTHDATE: Early Fall 2745
AGE: 28 as of Late Winter 2773
LOCATION: High Reaches Weyr
OCCUPATION: Stable worker
APPEARANCE
EYES: Brown
HAIR: Black-brown
HEIGHT AND BUILD: 6'1", stocky
PLAY-BY: Amir Malaklou
FULL APPEARANCE:
Hetta is not a small man. Though not being remarkably tall, he's broad of shoulder and muscular. He has somewhat tan skin and dark brown deep-set eyes under heavy, straight eyebrows. His curly hair is an extremely dark brown near to black, cut to around his shoulders but often pulled out of the way under a kerchief while he works. He has a rectangular face, and despite shaving he usually has at least some beard stubble visible; he just has a lot of hair.
PERSONALITY
PERSONALITY:
Hetta has always felt that animals made more sense to him than people do. Animals are rarely cruel for no reason; their actions are predictable if you know what to look for. He prefers animals, but this doesn't mean he dislikes people. On the contrary, he rather likes them, he just doesn't always know whether or not he should trust them. He tends toward a natural wariness and can take some time to open up, though he's willing to engage in inconsequential small talk even with people he doesn't know.
Hetta is the sort of person who's usually willing to take life as it comes. He doesn't want to make waves, he doesn't want to get grandiose ideas about changing the world for the better; he just wants to be free to live his life. However, this means he also has an unfortunate tendency to try to agree with whoever is around him at the time--even in the hearing of others that he said something else entirely different to just a short while earlier. He is very susceptible to mob mentality. Overall he's pretty happy wherever he finds himself, and he tries to make the most of things.
He still harbors a fair bit of bias against the riders of chromatic dragons, and it's one of the few views of his own he really holds. A lifetime's teachings about their inferiority is hard to erase, but despite his opinion of their worth he's willing to follow their orders. High Reaches isn't Benden, and he's certainly not about to try to insist that the two should be more alike. He came to get away from Benden, after all.
HISTORY
FAMILY:
Father, Afti, Drudge
Mother, Itenna, Drudge
Older brother, H'hao of Bronze Fathith
SIGNIFICANT OTHER: None
BIRTHPLACE: Benden Weyr
HISTORY:
Every Weyr needs more than just riders. That relative handful of people takes a wide variety of support staff, from cooks to tailors to scullery maids to farmhands. Hetta was born into a family of simple laborers at Benden Weyr. He wasn't looked down on by his peers for the fact that his father cleaned chimneys and his mother baked bread, it was just something that was. He was a quiet child, but he had a small circle of friends and a brother three Turns his senior named Hahao that he idolized.
From a young age, Hetta was fascinated by runnerbeasts. Herdbeasts were fine too, but it was the runners he was really interested in. He jumped at every opportunity to work in the stables, even if it was a task as boring as cleaning tack. Eventually this preference was noticed, and soon all of his chores were in the stables. He was good with the runners, and patient with the herdbeasts. It was a fine fit, and he was more than happy where he was. He never felt any need to get formal training as a Beastcrafter; just working there was enough for him.
His brother wasn't so happy. He decided to stand as a Candidate, as was his right as a child of the Weyr. Hetta was hopeful for him, at least so long as he wasn't chosen by a lesser dragon like a green or a blue. He wasn't; Hahao was chosen by a bronze at nineteen, and the entire family was beyond proud of him.
Hetta saw less of his brother after that, of course. They no longer had shared chores or quarters. His room felt oddly empty, more so than it had when his brother was in the Candidate quarters. Now he knew for sure that he was never coming back. The second narrow bed was removed, and Hetta felt somehow lonely. There were visits of course, they lived in the same Weyr after all! But things had changed.
Over time, Hetta's brother changed. He didn't notice it at first, but eventually the contrast was too much not to see. H'hao went from simply seeing greenriders as lesser—something that everyone knew was just the natural truth—to hating them. Conversations turned from a cheerful recounting of what had happened to a constant stream of vitriol: some greenrider had made him look bad, some bluerider had spoken out of turn. It was only Turns later that Hetta would know the full extent of the things his brother had done: that he'd been aware of the mistreatment of a goldrider and done nothing, even approved of it; that he'd helped kidnap a Fortian rider; that he'd threatened and bullied those under him.
After the fall of Benden's leadership, Hetta's life didn't change. Stables were the same regardless of the regime. But his brother's station fell precipitously; H'hao blamed the other Weyrs, raved about the actions of all of the bronzeriders had been justified. It was all he ever talked about, and he was a good speaker, a charismatic man. Hetta found himself desperately wanting to believe. He loved his brother, and not sharing H'hao's anger was opening a rift between them that grew ever wider. Maybe it was all because greenriders were getting above themselves. Maybe the other Weyrs had been at fault.
Hetta had to leave. He could see the anger consuming H'hao, and a part of him wanted to let himself be consumed by it too. He asked a brownrider—the owner of a lovely bay gelding—to take him far, far away. To High Reaches, a place where anyone could lead, and therefore his brother would never, ever follow. What loyal son of Benden would go where a greenrider might be Weyrleader? But even a place that turned the natural order on its head would need people to work in the stables, and Hetta could live with topsy-turvy.