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Conomor chuckled and nodded. "Exactly. The ones who only want a bronze make my teeth grind. I just hope they end up without a dragon at all. Browns and bronzes are the ones that end up with the leadership roles, especially bronzes; last thing we need is idiots telling us what to do all the time. Most of those boys aren't as though as they think they are anyway," Conomor said with a lopsided smile and a shake of his head, "I expect we'll hear them yelping and hoping about when it they step out onto the sands."

...Speaking of sand. Conomor frowned and turned his eyes back down onto the pot. He was sure he'd just seen the sand shift slightly. A moment later, he saw it again; the speckled egg was jerking, and as he watched a hairline crack appeared on the shell.

He stared at it for a few moments before hissing; "Shards!" under his breath and jumping to his feet. He hadn't expected it to hatch now! Where was he going to get food from?... Yes! He sprinted over to his bed and threw the top off the wooden chest that contained his possessions. On top of everything else, there was a cloth wrapped package of dried and spiced meat he'd bought at the gather. Grabbing it, he tore off the cloth and sprinted back to the hatching egg. Dropping to his knees he dragged the pot out of the hearth, gaining a couple of superficial burns for his trouble, and then pulled his knife free of its sheath at his belt and set about hacking the strips of meat into tiny chunks.

"I was not expecting this to happen today," he muttered with a glance over at Nathail. "Least I was here not somewhere else." He managed to nick himself with the blade a couple of times, but frankly he was willing to put up with that in exchange for the speed with which he manufactured a small heap of meat-pieces.

Not a moment too soon; just as he'd put his knife away more cracks appeared on the speckled shell, and then shattered. The crying flit that emerged was not the green he had expected; it was a tiny bright gold with duller burnished bands marking her. He would have stared at the little queen in awe had her cries not been quite so insistent. As it was, he found himself reaching reflexively for a piece of meat and holding it out to her. She gulped it down in an instant, and then another piece and another were gulped down in a frenzy. After the first piece, her verbal cries were joined by an insistent message inside his head. It wasn't words or even anything like words; just an insatiable desire to be fed. He was only too happy to oblige.

Grinning over at his companion as he fed the flit yet another piece of meat, Conomor shrugged. "Well, looks like I was wrong."

The flit stopped asking for food before he got to the bottom of the heap of meat, thankfully, and with a happy croon she curled herself up in Conomor's lap and promptly fell asleep. Grinning, the stocky youth sucked one of the fingers he'd managed to cut and stroked the little gold with the other hand. "Not really all that green at all," he agreed slightly indistinctly, "last thing I was expecting was a gold... Humm, she does need a name." Frowning thoughtfully, Conomor sucked at another cut before moving onto a burn. Ouch. He hadn't noticed the pain at the time but his hands certainly smarted now.

"I don't know," he said after a few moments with a shake of his head. "I hadn't really thought about what I'd call a gold."A lot of people gave flits sickeningly cute names, he had no intention of being one of them. Equally however, he had no intention of giving his little firelizard a name that sounded like it ought to belong to a dragon. "Maybe... Gilt? Mmm, no, sounds too much like guilt... Gild? Gilden?" Gilden was quite good. Not too generic, but not too ostentatious either. "I think I'll go with Gilden," Conomr decided with a nod, still stroking the sleeping gold. "She's lovely, isn't she?" he commented as she rearranged her wings slightly and crooned in her sleep.

Conomor grimaced and nodded. "I will a bit later on, last thing I want to do is wake her up right now... I guess I'll try to persuade her to stay with my mother during the day." He was hugely attached to the little creature already, so it was a measure he didn't want to have to take but if he was told she couldn't come around with him then he didn't have a lot of choice. He wasn't going to compromise his position just to be around his flit all day long. He'd have her in the mornings and evenings and at night; that would be enough.

"I really hope I can train her to behave well quickly," Conomor said with a slight smile. "Last thing I need if I manage to Impress is a cheeky flit to deal with as well as a dragonet. Still, dragons can talk to flits, so maybe my dragon would be able to keep her in line." Curled up asleep, the flit now definitely called Gilden didn't look like she would be capable of being anything but sweetness and light. Conomor knew well enough however that appearances could be extremely deceptive; she'd probably be buzzing around people's heads and bothering the dragons within a day.

Conomor shrugged eloquently. "I'm not sure if she would or not, but I can always ask. Likewise, I don't know if Gilden would stay with her. I suppose I'll just have to hope she's either very good, or very lazy," he said with a smile as he stroke the flit's side again. Her belly was visibly stuffed full of meat; he'd have to request a supply of oil to keep her hide from cracking painfully as she grew.

"I know that dragons are a lot of work," Conomor went on with a thoughtful frown, "but as to whether or not they'd actually be a handful, I suppose it would depend on their personality. Of course, the bigger ones will be harder to take care of no matter what they're like; keeping them washed and oiled and fed will be time consuming for those than Imprerss them, and of course the bigger they are the more likely they are to hurt you by mistake." He'd be willing to put the work in though; more than willing, whatever dragon looked to him. If one did. It was hard not to worry and torment himself over it. What if he failed? Before he hadn't Impressed because he hadn't been there; not his fault. If he failed simply because he wasn't chosen... He had no idea how he'd feel about that.

Conomor grimaced and nodded. "Quite a lot I imagine; the Weyr always tithes quite a lot of oil from the holds of course but I imagine they're stepping that up in preparation for the dragonets." If the holds were willing to give more in any case. They probably weren't, but oil was essential to the health of dragons, especially young ones so... So in exchange for more oil, the Weyr must be allowing the holds to send less of some other commodity. He had to wonder what. Perhaps lower quality animals for both dragons and weyrfolk. Perhaps less grain, less fruit, less cloth... Well, less of something or lower quality something that was less vital than oil anyway. It couldn't be helped, and when the Thread came everyone would be more willing to provide for the Weyr's needs.

"Well behaved would be the ideal," Conomor went on with a smile, drawing his mind away from consideration of the Weyr's problems. "Lazy would be next best, then badly behaved and the worst would be disinterested." He didn't want the little queen vanishing for days at a time and only showing up again when she wanted something of him. He was sure she wouldn't though; behind the wrenching hunger there had been a great feeling of warmth about the gold flit's mind.

Conomor nodded his agreement, feeling a flutter of excitement in the pit of his stomach once more. "Yes, indeed... It probably could. There's always barrels and barrels of it down in the storage caverns. I've been tasked with hauling them around more than once; I suppose that sort of job is the price you pay for being heavily built." Using his muscles bored him frankly; he didn't mind exercising to keep them up, but he would prefer different sorts of chores, or at least some variety. Still, performing such dull tasks taught him patience if nothing else.

"You're probably right," he agreed as he looked down at the tiny flit again, trying to memories the positions of all her markings. He'd know them soon enough anyway, but they fascinated him. Flits were as different from one another as dragons. "It is a good job they're small. Biggest she should get is about as long as my arm I think. If she is a lazy then she can just ride around on my shoulder."

Conomor chuckled and that and shrugged. "Maybe I would. I wouldn't object to that; girls don't often seem to be all that interested in me. Either they're swooning over the riders, or they're chasing after the handsome boys. I get the odd look for having a nice build, but not very many really." In all fairness though he hadn't had much time for most of the girls he knew who sighed over men of any kind. He was friends with the practical ones who never sighed over anyone. He'd never managed a relationship with one of them either, but nevermind.

"I suppose it keeps me fit and strong, all the carrying around I mean," Conomo went on with a shrug, putting the matter of his track record with girls aside. "I'll be glad of that if I become a rider." It wasn't that he got nervous around girls; he didn't. He just didn't know what to say to them either. The things they - 'they' being the swoonie girls - talked about half the time seemed pointless to him. So, as far as females his age went, either they felt nothing for him and he felt contempt for them or they liked him and he liked them, as friends. It was frustrating. He needed to meet someone who was... was... he didn't know. Perhaps the gold queen would draw the eyes of some of the new female Candidates, someone he didn't already know, someone he had the potential to like as more than a friend.