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He'd have to go back to them soon enough, since being a candidate tended to be... well... anything but restful, no mater how long you'd been trying, but he'd managed to find a short downtime, and had come to one of his favorite locations for an equally favored activity, watching for dragons at one of the lake shores.

His eyes were partially closed as he scanned the area, partially because he was soaking up the sunlight available in a very draconic manner himself, and partially because it was damn near blinding coming off the surface of the water.

He was an easy candidate to recognize, visually, but a harder one to know, socially, since you could ask two different people his opinion on certain matters, and usually come up with two slightly different answers, neither of which, it could be determined, actually said much of anything, though for all of that, he was generally pleasant enough. If cryptic, and some what aware that he wasn't hard on the eyes.

Salin glanced back over his shoulder, eyebrows raising his eyebrows slightly without the glare from the water in his eyes. After a brief inspection, he flashed an grin and unfolded himself from his sitting place, dusting sandy from the shore off his clothing, though this was probably a somewhat pointless exercise.

"I could be talked into that." He shrugged, trying to place the other boys name. He was a candidate he was sure, but damn it, what was the name? He knew he was a little older than him, but... Oh yeah that must be it. "It's Salin." He agreed, in confirmation. "You're Farellen?"

Salin looked toward the rocks, debating his chances of winning, as well as any chance of spending a the next few days explaining skinned knees and elbows.

...There was a fairly decent chance of loosing, or worse, tripping, but it wasn't like he'd taken a worse blow to the pride, and besides. So much else required being serious. Lessons... chores...

What could it really hurt? He was already going to end up waiting to get his hair dry for nigh on a turn or two, or it would feel like it anyway, so what was a little bit of a race?

"Sure. Why not?" He shrugged, broadly. Even if the other boy meant the competition to be serious, he figured it could be fun, and informative in the case of the later.

The process of watching Farellen draw and redraw the line was interesting, and Salin had to wonder if the slightly younger boy was equally meticulous in the rest of his life. This, after all, was just a quick foot race and a swim.

He lined up obligingly, still debating this quietly, though his eyes had wandered off toward the finishing mark, and he bolted alongside Farellen at the word 'Go'.

He had a somewhat faster starting speed, taking off like a bolt, though it was the sort of pace that never held up. Speed at the cost of Stamina applied to humans as well as dragons, and Salin was largely relying on nature rather than any time actually spent pelting around hell bent for leather, so his burst of speed was already fading fast as they headed toward the rocks.

The whack on his rear end certainly gave him a start, and he nearly tripped from surprise, catching himself a second later as Farellen took the lead, and shooting him a wry look.

"I'm fairly sure that sabotage counts as cheating!" He pointed out, doing his best to keep up with the now leading Farellen.

Absolutely full of surprises this one...

Salin drew up short as he reached the fallen boy, catching his own breath as he offered out a hand to the other boy. "...Sort of like that?" He half joked. "Careful, you'll get sand in your eyes." He warned, brushing at Farellen's clothing. "You alright?"

The sprawl looked like it had damaged maybe more than just dignity, though at least he hadn't apparently hit one of the rocks directly.

"This coming from you." Salin pointed out, flashing a brief look of amusement as he caught his breath, and untied the scarf that was wrapped around his braids. It was still colorful, but getting a bit older, and it had seen plenty of chores. "Here." He offered. "While seeing some dragons up close might be fun, I'd rather it not be because they're double checking that you're not lunch."

This was a bit of a stretch, since any dragon would have had to be insanely ill in the mind to mistake a human for dinner, and the whers, who might just not care that much, ((He didn't know enough about them and didn't really care to, to be sure if they would or wouldn't.)), wouldn't be out until nightfall at least. "I think the ground won." He added, mock seriously.

"Have to be a pretty hungry feline." Salin noted, wonderingly, usually perhaps a bit overconfident in what he considered the 'grounds' of the sprawling Weyr, especially with the personal weyrs scattered around the lakes, to be a safe haven, but a sufficiently hungry animal might just do Farellen had suggested, in spite of the clear risks. After all, while a dragon could 'between', it didn't make them everywhere at once.

He shot his own somewhat doubtful look toward the woods at the thought, tucking his untied scarf into a pocket instead of attempting to put it back on when they were only going to go swimming.

"I'm not that worried about the scarf, it's been through so many rounds of chores that could probably do candidate dut-IEEEE!!"

It was an sharding embarrassing time to have his voice raise in pitch from surprise, and more embarrassing that his first thought, flailing his way into the warm lake water... was that for a heartbeat or three he thought that just maybe he'd been attacked by a hungry feline, only to catch a brief glimpse of Farell's grin right before he hit water, temporarily becoming one more brightly colored lake creature.

He came up soaked and sputtering, shoving a few braids aside, and used his arms to sweep water toward the other candidate.

"Smooth! Very smooth you tunnel snake!" He accused, though he couldn't entirely fight a grin of amusement at himself for being caught in the trick. "Do I get to dry things out while we swim or are you just going to toss them back like an under grown catch?"

He assumed they were really going swimming, and that it wasn't just a ruse for a good drenching. The latter option would actually be damned irritating, even for hard to ruffle Salin.