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Cracks appeared down the surface of the Grassy Nook Egg until it finally broke, the head of a little blue breaking free. The more he wiggled, the more cracks appeared, however getting out of the egg was proving to be more difficult than it looked. A wing and two front legs later, the dragonet seemed to give up and flop down onto the sand.

Then, the blue let out a sound that could only be described as a bay, throwing his head back and letting the sound echo. Dorath crooned in response, perhaps fearing that he would go Between. The sound certainly had a melancholy feel to it, and some of the onlookers in the crowd began to whisper to themselves. Was something wrong with the dragon?

A certain female candidate, however, was hearing something entirely different.

Delilah... come and help your Bayeth. My foot it stuck. Bayeth gave a small mental hiccup, turning his sad yellow eyes in the direction of his rider. Please?

The day had come... again. Weyard's chore this time was drastically different from her usual rigamarol of washing, but was instead bagging firestone. Her eyes gleamed with exertion as she moved the rocks from the larger bags in which they were transported to the ones the dragonriders would use in the sky to sear Thread. The dust got under her fingernails, and they gave off a faint, sulfury smell that by now had certainly permeated her hair and clothes. True, she was not dressed in anything that was really that valuable, but it would take a long bath and quite a bit of scrubbing until her sensitive nose stopped detecting the dastardly scent. It was a fair toss-up to her which was more work (washing or bagging), but she knew which one she preferred. Each piece of rock was given a healthy glare before being relocated. She was working on her second-to-last big bag when a deep thrumming vibrated through her. Having been through the process before, she shot up immediately, knowing exactly what was happening.

She swore vehemently and colorfully in the freedom of the otherwise empty stone-yard. Usually she kept her calm, not wanting to disgrace herself in front of others--their good perception of her was entirely necessary if she was going get anywhere later, given a dragon didn't come to her. This time though she was already just too stressed to deal with all of this nonsense. Packing rocks was hard enough when one didn't already have a headache.

She stalked away from the bags and walked right into the Candidate Barracks. Goodness she stank, and her hands were gritty and disgusting, but considering the humming had already begun she did not have time to wash off. Dragons wouldn't care about some dust anyways, would they? As she was the only one in her room at the time, she spat out one more curse and tugged her tightly-laced boots off. She flung them under her cot and slipped her sandals on. A brief sip of water from the glass she'd left standing by her cot and she was ready. Standing more than once, she'd learned to drink before. Dehydration was never fun. She did not have time to go and wash her hands properly, so she just wiped them off and threw her robe on over her work clothes.

Her rush to the Hatching Sands was at a pace that measured somewhere between a quick walk and a jog. She wanted to get there quickly, although a lot of the excitement that most would feel was tampered with pessimism. Not pessimism that she would not Impress (of course there was some of that, but not as much as one might think), but that the Hatchlings would be strong enough in nature and body to be able to rise to the expectations as they so should. As she stepped onto the Hatching Ground amid a stream of people, all she could really see was the mother, hovering protectively over her brood, her eyes whirling with the expected worry.

As Weyard reached her place she bowed deeply, looking up at the mother the whole time. Her features were not defiant, merely respectful. As far as dragons went, the Gold was the one she admired most, of course. The Candidate rose and surveyed the eggs. Of course they had been moved since she had Touched them, but all were present and accounted for. Her favorites still drew her attention, while the others waned from her perception. They swayed, and hatched, spilling browns (which garnered only mild interest) and greens (which drew her eyes more readily.) Already things were going well, and she sat back in her stance with a grin, surveying the crowds with a sort of languid enjoyment.

Roni barely managed to spot Fell and get a brief, desperate wave in before she noticed the green dragon that was headed in her (and every other girl's) general direction. It was coming for her! Already! And she was going to be eaten. Who would feed her firelizard? What would her brother say? Dad would be so angry if she got herself eaten at her first hatching!

No. No, no, no. Look at them. They're all being nice. They're impressing and no one is hurt, no one is maimed. Nice baby dragons to be nice big dragons and no eating at all.

It was. It was fine.

She was fine.

Still, she breathed in frantic little hiccuping gasps, and retreated safely behind the line of girls, only to peak out again at all the noise the little blue was making.

Was that normal? Well, someone was going to help, so maybe that meant it was.

Maisalyn had missed Lilah in her brief sweep of the other girls, but at least here was a Candidate she knew--a fellow Weyrbrat, even. And as she pushed forward, it was clear that baying blue had chosen her--good for Lilah. Maisalyn didn't knew her well, but she was aware the girl was something of a terrible pessimist; perhaps this would raise her spirits. Or perhaps not, judging by the comments she was making to her new partner...

Olla looked at the blue puzzled; his melancholy song pulling at her heart. She turned to the girl beside her to speak but was bumped out of the way by one of the candidates heading toward the sad blue. Olla turned her attention to the girl and was astonished as she started to help him out of his shell. Had impression happened? From that far away? Why did dragons need to examine and make candidates feel self conscious if they already knew?

She was a ball of mixed emotions and suddenly feeling very alone, back home she had people to speak to, girls to gossip with, and her indifferent mother to avoid..here? She didn't have a partner to talk to on the sands, her sister was avoiding her, and she couldn't gossip because she hardly knew one High Reaches candidate from the other.

When the humming began, Naia had put on her Candidates dress and toddled along with everyone else to the sands. She hissed, displeased at the heat, but she took her place.

Most of the people around her gave Naia a bit of a berth; she had a reputation already for being quite possibly the unfriendliest little Candidate on the sands. And it wasn't that she was a bully; no, she just sat around all day on her letters. It was that everyone, everyone was a moron.

Each dragonet that hatched was examined with a certain level of curiosity, followed by the rider getting a slight examination. She'd have to see if anyone had ever tried to figure out the correlation that caused a dragon to Choose a certain rider.

Oh wow! Now that the blue had been taken care of the everyone could focus back on the eggs or that roaming dragonet Milly was surprised to watch her impress to a face that wasn't quite as familar as she'd like it to be. She knew f the girl through rumors (who hadn't) and knew her name to be Naia, but for the most part they hadn't interacted at all. Milly kept to her circles, or whatever could be called her circles, and this Naia girl kept to whatever it was she liked to do. Still, that didn't mean she wasn't happy for her - she was delighted! Another dragon for the Weyr and such a pretty green to boot.

She moved her hand slightly in front of her face to tally the numbers, wanting to make sure to get around and get to know everyone. Iden would be easy, they were good company together as it were, but the others? She might have tagged along with them a time or two in their games, so she'd need to buck up and get more social! The little ones she played with would be depending on her for information!