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Arolon looked at Alstor with a bit of confusion at the look of contempt, what had he done? He thought his suggestion for cooling off was fair. "My name's Arolon." He introduced himself to well, everyone, taking a basket and following along behind the woman. He'd help a baker any day. The cooks made great food and had so many mouths to feed. To avoid the awkward silence he also felt coming he decided to start up a light conversation.

"What made you decide to join bakercraft? I have a half-sister in that craft too." He asked politely. He thought about his half-siblings. He wondered how Sithra was doing. He should send them a message, ask how their doing. They weren't all living in the weyr with him.

Moira balanced her basket on one shoulder upon picking it up, nodding in response to Renna's thanks. As soon as the earlier words had left her mouth, she'd written off the weyrbred boy. The young candidate was quick to form opinions and held strongly to them once she did. His thanks went unnoticed, her attention divided between the remaining two candidates and balancing the basket on her shoulder. She kept pace at Renna's side, thankful that the crowded halls kept their pace down to something which she could manage with ease despite her lacking height.

“The unfortunate result of inbreeding,” Moira proposed in response to Alstor's question. She shook her head and clicked her tongue once as though to express the tragedy of the situation.

Alstor leaned in towards the two girls as he walked. "What," he said, "So some rider has a bit too much wine and boffs his sister and that happens?" He frowned.

"It's as good a reason to stick to Klah as there ever was, I guess," he declared quietly, and turned to Renna. He nodded in response to her question. "I am a candidate," he said. "But I'm not weyrborn." He couldn't see what being weyrborn was good for, anyway. At least as far as Arolon went, it just meant you were a tremendous p***k.

"My family's all healers," he explained. "They live in a hold north of here."

The simple answer was good enough for Arolon. He hoped dragon riding came naturally to him someday. His only shadow of doubt was that he hasn't impressed so far but then if only one dragon is meant to be His then maybe he or she just hasn't hatched yet. He was patient, he could wait. As he'd done for turns now. It was worth it.

He glanced behind him out of the corner of one eye. They are huddled in a little group behind them, staring at him. He couldn't hear their whispers but it didn't take a genius to figure it out. He was hurt that Renna joined in after he'd tried to help her. The hurt probably flashed in his eyes for a minute before hardening into anger. The betrayal was small, like a thorn. 'I try to help and this is what I get for it, outsider? Well, kindness was a a gift, not a requirement.' He thought silently.

He gave them all a stony glare silently. They were just a couple faces out of the crowd, right? He probably wouldn't remember their names by the end of the sevenday. He wouldn't remember their faces by the next season as long as he didn't meet up with them again. Hmm...

He turned back around and watched where he was going. Kitchen chores would distract him from the unimportant soon enough.

(( Uh, Carmen, you just had the most amazing typo in that post. Please reread "that those who were porn to parents" and laugh. I feel it is unfair for you to miss your own unintentional hilarity. ))



Renna hadn't said much to insult Arolon, just a simple quip that he really shouldn't thank people for her. Which was true. It seemed incredibly arrogant and controlling to assume that you should talk for a complete stranger only moments after meeting. Renna was completely capable of handling herself and intended to prove it at every turn. His steely gaze brought no comment or reaction from Renna. She just stared at him, mildly amused, and returned her attention to Alstor and Moira.

The young candidate knew that the Weyrs tended to breed many riders. Being surrounded by dragons and growing up with rider parents seemed to infuse some kind of understanding of dragons that appealed to dragonets. Who knew. All that mattered is that plenty of non-weyrborn candidates Impressed too, hence the Searches. Quietly, Renna prayed that she had inherited more of her father than her mother. Could a dragon sense the genetic dragon hatred? Would a dragonet be able to sense that Olira, Renna's mother, would rather her daughter be a holdless wanderer than a dragonrider? The very thought sent a shudder up the girl's spine. "You never know who a dragon will choose, who the bond will flare with," she said, talking as if she knew a lot about it, which, of course, she didn't at all. Moira was spouting wisdom, and it made Renna feel inadequate. She'd have to think of something clever to add to the conversation, right? "Yes, sleeping on the floor is a small price to pay." Not that she knew what that would be like either, having spent the last several days fighting for other places to sleep. "And I'd rather be stepped on than knocked out of a hammock."

At Moira's joke, Renna snorted, a happy snort so to speak, and smiled. Yep, funny. Very funny. As if suddenly recalling Alstor's comments, she turned to him, shifting the basket of fruit to her other hip and said, "I'm from a Hold too. My mother's a masterharper," a pause, "and my father is a smith." A lie, but an easy one. Her grandfather was a smith, and he had basically raised her as a father would. Renna just needed to keep the lie simple, not get too specific. That would make her have to stick to one story, and she liked her flexibility.

"Were either of you on the sands at the last Hatching?" She gestured to both candidates beside her. "I've been hearing horror stories of what happened."

Arolon almost stopped. Did she just? At me? No. No. She was messing with him! One eyebrow perked and he frowned, giving Moira a wary glance. His face was probably just priceless. He almost wished he could see it. The girls just seemed amused with him. He considered flirting back just to annoy them. Oh how his flirtatious nature was tempted...!

They started speaking up, apparently done whispering about whatever. He lost all train of thought when Renna asked about the hatching. He'd been there, one among the crowd of candidates. He saddened, eyes looking at the ground as he walked. "....I was." That's all he said. He didn't want to talk about it. They probably didn't want to listen. The maulings happened now and then in a hatching, that didn't bother him so much. It was the unworthiness he had felt when that blue 'betweened' was an emotion he wasn't at all used to.

The idea of marching to the sands time after time only to come up empty-handed dug a hollow pit in Renna's stomach. She assumed, had always assumed, that her dragon would find her early, like they were two dots in time that were destined to intersect with one another. It had taken the girl three years to get to the Weyr after being Searched at a much younger age; Renna told herself that her dragon had just been waiting for this moment, and now that she was here, all they were waiting for was the next clutch to be laid on the sands.

When Arolon mentioned his presence there, Renna did not feel much of anything. She really wasn't terribly empathetic, and truth be told, she was just jealous that he had actually stood on the sands before. It was a place that she had wanted to visit all her life. She did not understand the sadness. If the blue betweened, then it was clearly not meant for him. What was there to lament? No, it was Renna, with a gurgle of discomfort, who wondered what candidates who had perhaps just not arrived yet that could have been claimed by the choosy blue.

"I got here a few days after the Hatching. It... took me a long time." Namely because her mother had forbade her from traveling by dragon. The land route was needlessly tedious and rough and had required several days and a caravan to boot. She swallowed down her chagrin and focused in on Moira's description of the events. It was similar to the stories she had heard, with a little less color. One particularly avid candidate spoke of a gold dragonet that practically took the heads off of several girls on the way to Hers. "I'm shocked no one instructed the candidates not to touch them," she said, keeping her voice low. No telling who was around listening to their criticism. "I don't know too much about dragons, not personally at least, but I know that." Her grandfather had told her, actually, a long time ago. The girl struggled to remember in what context it had come up, but could not.

At the mention of feeding people, Renna dropped her eyes to the basket of fruit she held. "What can they do about it? The other Weyrs are mostly full too, as the Red Star draws closer and closer to Pern. I just wish people who hurry up and age out of candidacy, move away to some Hold to study a craft." She shrugged. As far as she was concerned, anyone who wasn't here for a dragon -- really desperate for that bond -- might as well apply their passion elsewhere and free up a bed. She could only imagine how many squatters were still here, moping around and losing interest in the prospect of being a rider. It was a mentality that Renna firmly believed she would never experience. "I'd have no problem living with my dragon in a forest weyr," she added. It might be nice -- a smaller little alcove for you and yours just a ways from the main Weyr.