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Aeron, as Mal had taken to calling the bronze flit, squalled loudly for food until the Candidate fed it down the firelizard’s hungry gullet. By the First Egg, he had no idea it would be this… well… intensive, trying to look after a firelizard! In his mind, they were tiny little creatures, normally perched neatly on someone’s shoulder. Aeron was not neat. He was not quiet. He was, above all, not the type to perch. Mal had only rough ideas on what the average bronze was, but he was almost certain that little Aeron was already larger than average for a firelizard. The Candidate mindlessly dangled a bit of meat in front of the flitt’s nose once more.

It disappeared quickly, nearly taking a few of Mal’s fingers with it. Aeron glared at his ‘owner’ imperiously before making another hungry sound. He ignored this, in favor of the other interesting sounds all around the mess hall. Most of the chatter was concerned with the identity of the eggs. Just who was waiting to hatch out there? His fingers tingled with the promise of a bet to be made and, more importantly, marks to be earned. He had fairly decent luck, as Aeron would be proud to demonstrate. Of course, he had been cheating when he won the little firelizard egg, but that didn’t really matter much. It wasn’t possible to cheat with dragon eggs involved.

“Are there typical bronze marks?” he asked suddenly, interjecting himself into the conversation without an ounce of remorse. “As for the pink egg… it looks blue to me.” Ha. Little play on words there; it literally DID look blue to him, or somewhat bluish at least. He grinned at his own private joke before returning his mind to the rest of the eggs. “As for the big striped one… I think it’s a bronze. At least a brown certainly.”

~.~

For his part, Cil tried to stay out of the betting. There weren’t any official rules against it, but it still felt… wrong to bet on such things, to reduce these proud beings to mere numbers and values. It felt like a disservice to them. Not to mention, the young man had rotten luck when it came to bets. Lytah, the green firelizard, sat to the side of his plate, eagerly waiting for him to either finish or at least look away. It was a poor firelizard that couldn’t utilize an unwary glance to her best interest. She had already attempted to wander off a few times, only to be stopped by Cil’s careful attention.

To Cil’s left, Elae listened happily, apparently absorbing all of this information. A thousand conversations and at least twice that many voices all chattered and yet she seemed perfectly capable of listening to them all at once. But it wasn’t listening that was important; it was the actual processing that really mattered. Speaking of processing, he was still having difficulty with the idea that this was very nearly his last year on the Sands. And he didn’t really have much of a craft to go back to, not like some of the Candidates. What did he have? A lifetime of working for his cousins? Ha! They would probably drink away their inheritance…

Suddenly, he could understand why others would choose to make bets. At least then they could forget about their own chances. “I think the little golden one will be a bronze,” he voiced shyly. “It’s sort of near the striped brown one, as I recall.”

~.~

Elae felt like she was in a minority for once. For one thing, she wasn’t thinking about the eggs. She was actually more interested in the people around her, idly wondering which ones would Impress and which ones weren’t. Who was Searched by whom, she wondered. What did they do before coming here? Why did they decide to attempt to become dragon riders? Well, besides the honor, glory, and women, of course. Those things were sort of a given for dragon riders, right? Now that was far more fascinating than mere colors. After all, all colors were important in the end, right? From the smallest Green to the mightiest Gold. Elae stretched out a little, considering her own future for one brief moment. It didn’t last long, though. Why consider the future when you were here in the now?

“Odds are the little pink one will be a Green. Not for the girly undertones, of course, but because of the laws of numbers. There are always lots of Greens. Some fifty percent of dragons are Greens. And most of them are pretty small.” Small egg plus odds equals Greens! It was simple math for Elae, a girl who had long ago mastered simple sums. “I’m more interested in that… oh, what color was it… it was a sort of misty gray, I think? It looked really delicate.” She closed her eyes, trying to remember the exact look and shape of the shell before giving up.

“Well, I have no idea what it is. Which is part of the fun, I think. It’s a little mystery for us to think about.” She flashed a bright smile at her fellow Candidates before returning to her food.

With eyes only for the bowl of stew on the table in front of her, Kella did not notice at first that she had company. The question, however, snagged her attention and the young girl looked up in surprise. "Mhmm," she mumbled with a half-smile through a mouthful of tubers and broth. She bobbed her shoulder to draw attention to the wound knot that signified her rank. She quickly glanced at the other girl's shoulder, and confirmed that she too was a candidate.

What in Faranth's name was going on? Kella stared blankly at Kallista, spoon full of stew halfway to her mouth. Why was everyone sitting with her? Most people tended to leave the girl alone, if she were already sitting alone. Well, whatever. Kella shrugged. There were way too many people in the Weyr to begin with, so it wasn't really logical to complain about lack of space. No one had any! She raised her spoon in a sort of welcome-salute to Kallista, and odd response to the girl's friendly wave.

Then the conversation turned to eggs. Kella wasn't surprised, candidates were almost expected to think solely about the eggs, and their opportunities. That's what she had been doing, before she had been barraged with company; guessing the colors of the dragons inside the eggs. Kella snorted into her cup of klah when Tseka very seriously commented that the golden egg would hatch a gold. The rest of the guesses, Kella more or less had to agree with. "What about that reddish one, with the white stripes? The queen keeps it kinda close to her, but its really little," Kella tried her best to explain the Bongo Egg to the people around her. "I think that one will be green."

Kella glanced sideways at Greloren, frowning at the older candidate. There was mutual dislike between the two of them, so she was surprised to hear him agreeing with her guess. Her eyes widened slightly, and her eyebrows furrowed together as she studied his face. Was he really agreeing with her, or was he just mocking her? With a sigh, Kella realized she couldn't tell.

He mentioned the Nile Crocodile egg, and Kella found herself trying to think of where it was positioned on the sands. She'd seen it, she knew... but it hadn't stood out to her, really. All queens laid eggs that were duds sometime or another, it was just part of the cycle. Sometimes there were duds, and that was normal. Kella shrugged. "Who cares if it hatches or not? There are plenty of other eggs that look healthy. The dragon inside is probably dead already, or deformed, or somethin'. Who wants a dimglow dragon?" She asked, the question posed mostly rhetorical.

Yep, everyone loved Kella suddenly. Except for Cil. He counted himself as a fairly laid-back person----although it was doubtful anyone else would call him such----but he couldn’t help but glare at the girl for saying the words ‘who cares if it hatches or not?’. Must be new here he said derisively to himself. No one who had been in a Weyr past a Turn could speak so callously of the beasts, as if they were nothing more than farm animals. Or maybe he was just taking it personally since some people called Lytah a deadglow lizard… “I think the death of a dragon----even as yet unborn----is a sad thing,” he said, unable to keep the annoyance out of his voice.

Alright, so she was young… Cil felt as though he ought to give her some leeway for her age, but still! Those were harsh words, even from a newcomer. Actually, now that he thought about it, he vaguely recognized the girl from around the Weyr. He glanced at Elae, asking with a look.


Elae misinterpreted the glance. “Oh, don’t worry your pretty little head over it, Cil. I’m sure it’ll hatch. Don’t let the bad girl’s words scare you.” It was a bit distressing to think about a dead-birth though. And it seemed a distinct possibility here. Elae made a habit of ‘not-exactly-eavesdropping-but-listening-in-on-conversations-that-weren’t-hers’ as she called it. Her favorite targets happened to be dragonriders, since they always seemed to know everything. Even a few of the older dragon riders had been mumbling about it lately, whispering about the egg as if it was already dead.

She nodded along with Lynna’s words, deciding she approved of the girl’s optimism. “Exactly. I don’t think it’ll be dead. I bet it’ll hatch into a lovely little green lady. Or possibly a blue, given the size. It’s bigger than most of the green eggs I’ve seen. What about those orange eggs, the ones with the spots? I hope they’ll end up being blue twins. That would be so cute!”

Why, yes. Elae did enjoy squealing over cute things.

Cil and Elae both earned themselves a frown from Kella. She was hardly new to the Weyr. She'd lived here her entire life! She shook her head, unable to understand what had made Cil bristle so. Eggs didn't hatch sometimes, and it was completely natural. Kella wasn't callous and disrespectful towards the dragons. But she knew they were nearing a Pass, and she's rather see Wings full of strong, able-bodied dragons.

"What if the dragon inside wasn't ever alive, though?" She retorted, her eyes flashing angrily to Cil. She didn't really know him well, but had seen him around the Weyr a few times. "Dragons dying is sad, yeah. But wouldn't you rather see a clutch of eggs hatch into a bunch of strong, healthy dragons? A deformed dragon isn't going to help us fight Thread," she pointed out matter-of-factly. Kella grabbed a hunk of buttered bread off a large pile on a plate in the center of the table and tore a piece of the end. She dipped it in her stew and swirled it around for a few seconds, letting it absorb the broth before she devoured it. as she chewed, she thought. It'd be good if she was proved wrong, and the egg hatched into a healthy dragon. But, Kella wasn't exactly an optimist. Nor was she cynical. Realist is probably the best term.

As she finished chewing her bread, Kella looked to Elae and shrugged. "The ones with the spots? I've got 'em pegged for a green and a blue," she said simply. In her mind, she went over the different eggs and paused at one in particular. It was large, and somewhat morose looking- but Kella liked it. "Whatta you guys think about that big pinky gray one? I think it'll be bronze, for sure!" She informed them confidently, referring to the Elephant egg.

Ferris had recently joined the gaggle of tittering candidates with her own bowl of whatever-it-was-they-were-serving and had just raised her first spoonful to her lips when she paused. Mouth still open until she laid the spoon back into the bowl, she then pursed her lips and arched an eyebrow in such a way that it probably could have matched that of Jack Nicholson.

She leaned in onto the table and looked down past the row of bowls and arms to Kella, that distinct brow still raised. She cocked her head like a flitter, her strands of hair almost falling into her stew, and released her loud voice.

"Hey you," she called. Her voice could clearly be heard over the chattering of the others, but it didn't seem to hold any sour note -- just seemed to be on high volume. "You said a deformed dragon wouldn't help us fight thread, right?" Ferris paused a second and glanced at other faces, then continued. "Well, there seems be to as a**-load of Harpers here and they certainly aren't going to help us fight thread, so maybe they should all die too, yeah?"

She quickly raised her hands up near her shoulders in a quick 'I surrender' pose as she quickly added, "NO OFFENSE TO THOSE IN THAT CRAFT" and then she looked back at Kella.

"But that's basically what you seem to be implying, in some sense."

Terroll had been listening in on the younger group of candidates as they whispered and eventually broke out into shouts and cajoling. He had his own theories of course, and had spent the night after the Touching writing up his own list of the eggs and the dragons he thought were inside. Listening in, since they were compatriots of a sort, he kept his back turned and just let himself take in their conversation. As he was one of the older candidates, he didn't want to dominate the conversation with his opinions.

Of course, then the subject of the "dead" egg came to pass and Terroll found himself listening in more closely. He had that egg pegged for a large green. His eyes widened at Ferris' comment, and he leaned over and flicked her ear with his finger. "Hey now, some of us do help during Thread." He meant the matter playfully - especially considering that the drummers of Pern were traditionally the only Alert holders got that Thread was on its way. He grinned broadly, though he knew the flick had probably hurt the girl somewhat.