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"Heeeeeey, I could totally still pass for a Candidate if I wanted to," G'brel protested. "... Not that I do, but that's beside the point." She paused to let Akaya have her say in things. "Mm, yeah, but a couple of the browns can also be rather sweet, as well as the occasional bronze... Lifth was totally aloof as an egg though; I'd mostly just passed over him actually. I think Xan's onto something about grumpy blues."

There is a difference between grumpy and anti-social.

Is there? I hadn't noticed.

...

Hiding from Sleeth at the moment?

Not very successfully.

She had to stifle a giggle. "Though if the egg is small and sweet then it's most likely a green, yes. Of course, guess we'll find out for sure come the Hatching."

Peradan had taken Xan to be some kind of important guest or trader- certainly not a rider. She wasn't able to resist snooping, and her surprise at learning that the well dressed woman was a bluerider made her give a small start. Would she be able to dress that finely as a rider? Did riders earn that many marks? No, Xan wore her wealth like someone used to it. She must have inherited it somehow. Peradan somehow doubted that her father would continue financially supporting her quite so generously once she Impressed. He took good care of his children, but when they were able to stand on their own, the gifts slowed down to a trickle. Already Peradan was receiving less than she had at the Weyr, though, as her father had pointed out, there wasn't much to spend her marks on anyway.

She would have loved to stay and stop and talk to Xan, but there were other people who needed her attention. Oh yes, needed. You didn't think this was all purely altruistic, did you? Peradan got to be the center of attention, got to feel some sense of control over the room. It was her party, and she would rule with an iron fist if she wanted to.

"Thank you!" Peradan offered a broad smile that displayed the gap in her teeth rather prominently. Cetalese may well have just wiggled her way into Peradan's good books for the rest of time. Complimenting her AND agreeing with her? This was clearly someone Peradan would have to further befriend when the insanity of the party settled down some. She still had to flutter about and greet everyone, after all. "I hope it is a white, I'd like to see how small a hatchling is. The rider would have to carry it off the sands." That would be a sight to see- the dragon taking the position of the rider.

She couldn't help listening in to the conversation about Mystweed either. Of course she'd heard of it, but she wasn't sure what exactly the plant did. Apparently it made clutches bigger, but also turned the dragons different colors. How on Pern did that work? Peradan wasn't familiar enough with dragon anatomy to even hazard a guess.

Then it was back to talking to Narisa. "But I thought silvers were huge. Will they hatch that small?" That egg was so tiny, and weren't silvers supposed to be near the size of a bronze? Would they grow that large? Clearly Peradan had a great deal to learn about dragons, and almost no time left in which to do so.

"But I've also heard the silvers aren't very friendly. Or they're stand-offish. Something like that. So that would make sense for all the eggs on the fringes. I don't know how you can truly tell though. Some eggs look big enough for a brown, but maybe they're a green. I've heard that sometimes not all eggs hatch either." She frowned at that. All the eggs had certainly felt very alive at the Touching, but maybe she had simply been projecting her own emotions onto them. "Didn't they all feel lively to you?"

Peradan was reluctant to give her attention back to Ruven, but his apology seemed entirely genuine, and she softened to him. "To tell the truth, I hadn't thought that the younger Candidates might not want wine. I tend to assume that everyone has the same passion for it that I do. I don't want to give them money, still. The wine will age... but maybe I can throw in one of my bracelets if the winner doesn't fancy wine. I have one that's quite simple, and would look good on man or woman. Or they could sell it." Peradan shrugged. Truth be told, she'd rather not give up the bracelet, but she had many more at home .

More riders joining gave Peradan a special thrill. That they were so open to the Candidates was good, and they all seemed so friendly! Besides, they might be able to give more hints about what the eggs could contain. Grumpy eggs were blue. Right. She noted that in her head.