Welcome to Gaia! ::

Having completed touching all of Suunath's eggs, Darsha paused a moment before traversing the short tunnel that led to crimson Hyweth's clutch. Were hair and her clothes in order? Was she ready for the next half of the touching? Already she was starting to feel the emotional toll of all the excitement and anticipation and nervousness. But yes, she was ready. More than ready! Darsha ducked her way through the tunnel and approached Hyweth cautiously. She could tell that the crimson was agitated, though she had been warned that this might be the case. Crimson's didn't clutch often, so it made sense that she would be more anxious or protective. Darsha was prepared, however. She had accosted J'len in the dining hall one day. She had made it a habit of accosting any dragonrider who would talk to her, and the crimsonrider had willingly shared some insight into her precious dragon. Getting as close to the dragon as she dared, Darsha gave her a bow and then tossed a sparkling string of colored beads on the sands. They were cheap and poorly made, but brightly colored nonetheless.

"For you." She said, coming out of her bow and glancing over at J'len. The rider had said the crimson liked pretty presents. Darsha only hoped that perhaps this would give her some kind of leg up. One should never, ever overlook an opportunity.

He had had a few faint doubts about coming to the weyr after he’d arrived with Muburine on the same dragon. What was he really getting himself into? His parents had been hinting that he would be surely walking the tables soon. Then he’d gone and blown it to join his rival of all things. He still had endless chores to do, usually for older people, which left a sour taste in his mouth.

And now, he was facing female dragons and their eggs. Clutches. A gold and a crimson had both clutched. That was technically good for the weyr. Thrarothar had been herded with a bunch of other candidates to the surprisingly hot sands. He shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot as the rules were said and the assistant candidatemasters glared at them. He could hardly believe one was a girl younger than him. Were they really that low on capable riders?

Well he’d give this a try. Dubiously he approached and gave a bow to the queen. Did they really have to do this? He felt a bit silly, but did it anyhow. Wouldn’t be the first time. After that he moved up to the eggs and eyed them. Start with the gold egg? He had heard rumors it contained a gold, and everyone knew golds only Impressed to girls. So he could leave that one out. Instead he went to Knockabout Egg. He watched the person in front of him lay a hand on the shell then step away. That was all it was about? Dubiously Thrarothar placed his hand on the hot shell. He jerked as he felt something from it. It was… happy? He shook his head and moved on.

Thrarothar approached the next biggest egg. The Pacifist Egg was duly touched. And….. it was looking after him? No the mother dragons were looking after it, silly egg. He left the spotted egg to its siblings and moved on to the Self-Absorbed Egg. The eagerness of this one to hatch surprised him. They surely weren’t ready yet. He left it to ‘develop’ some more and approached Swelling Egg. He jumped as the egg rocked. It had sure startled him! Despite that the egg was very responsive, and positive. He gave it a pat before moving on.

Kindra had merely nodded to the candidates as they bowed to her and Suunath but this one, well wasn't he Bold. She raised an eyebrow as he spoke to her, not the usual greeting "You are a Weaver?" she queried "Very well, perhaps i shall take you up on that offer, for now though, you had best get to touching the eggs" she replied as Suunath rumbled.

"he is right Mine, that dress really does not suit, perhaps you should have worn another" The gold sighed, whuffing out a breath at the candidate. "I wish they would hurry and go already, i don't want them here, none of them" she grumbled to Kindra, her tail kicking up sand whenever it flicked behind her.

"Soon my love, they'll be gone soon ... this was the only clean one since you've had me down here scrubbing you whenever you had the slightest itch" she said to her dragon, her tone amused. She turned back to the candidate "When your duties are over, you are welcome to bring your wares to my quarters" she said, then moved her gaze over to the eggs and candidates, effectively dismissing the candidate to go and touch the eggs.

[Rochelle]

Carltis and his moment of zen did not go unnoticed. Rochelle watched him from the corner of her eye under the guise of watching the egg in front of them. She waited until he'd righted himself to touch his elbow, looking up to try and catch his eye for a silent bit of thanks. Being pleased out loud didn't seem to be the prudent thing to do. Instead, she looked back to the egg.

"Yeah?" She crouched, fingertips first, and felt a swell of anger for -- something? She frowned, hand steady on the shell, and felt that grumbling fall away, a superficial thing to cover impatiance and pure awesome. The grin could not be helped, eyebrows flicking up. "S'all good, kid. I'm badass too. You have fun with hat."

She stood, flexing her fingers to rid herself of extra egg feels. A bump of the hip to Carltis' and a jerk of her head with a bright smile was all the warning he got before she skirted to the Opportune Moment egg. "This one."

Another crouch and her hand on the pretty shell later, and she had a dragon in her head. It treated her mind like an onion, staring, peeling, with a sneaky feel. Her hand jerked back, head shaking as she stood. "Try to keep your thoughts to yourself with that one."

Becka was torn, sure she had a few candlemarks off before Bereck wanted her again but she was conflicted between her want to stay in the Infirmary, and wanting to at least LOOK at the eggs. This being the only time she could see them without upsetting the mothers. She knew there were some idiots that had snuck to the Stands to glimpse the eggs and had been caught out beforehand. It wasn't easy to sneak on the Sands, or even the Stands.

It wasn't her intention to sneak anyway but she did want to be private, she was small and quiet so she hoped she wouldn't really get noticed as she looked at the eggs, of course she was curious, what Weyrbrat wouldn't be plus, there was the Benden Gold in center stage.... she wondered how many of the hatchlings would veer towards Benden refugees due to their mother's heritage.

She saw Carltis..... and that horrid girl Rochelle, moving around the eggs, they seemed to be conversing too and Becka frowned, surely you were supposed to keep quiet? Oh well, it didn't really matter, the candidatemasters would berate them if they needed to. She smiled as she looked at the eggs, surely that biggest one, which wasn't really THAT big at all, was a Gold egg, the Gold mother had certainly placed it where it was going to get the most attention from gazing eyes. She sighed a little as she watched, wondering how Bereck had felt when he'd Impressed Berath, funny how she'd never really asked the man.

She watched the eggs for a few minutes before moving to look at the Crimson's clutch, almost as many as the Gold, was that good for the Crimson... or bad for the Gold when it came to the egg count, was it because the Gold was so small? The smaller size of the eggs too was a concern, because Suunath was small, would the babies prove to be small for their colors too? That would mean any Atypes would also be smaller than average, that might lead to more fatalities there. She mused to herself for a while, something to bring up with Master Bereck perhaps.

She watched as some candidates trickled onto the sands towards the Crimson's clutch for a little while before taking herself out of the Stands and back to the Infirmary. She'd ask Bereck about some of the things she'd pondered.

Carltis shrugged. "Pretty much. You can never tell what you're going to meet... I've always found there are some I don't like, and some I do. Trouble with the ones you do like is they get your hopes up. Hu. Still," he shrugged, "big and spotty it is." Probably not something he could have... but hey, it was worth trying on your probably very last chance. What would he do if he didn't Impress? Go back to crafting he supposed but he just wanted so badly to-

He touched the Pacifist Egg, and his building tension and unhappiness ebbed. Whatever it was this one was kind. Probably not his type then even if it was a huge blue not a brown or a bronze. He felt almost as if it was telling him it would look after him.

Straightening up again he smiled a bit to Rochelle. "Yeah. Me too. Whatever it is, I don't think we need to worry about this one mauling people." Feeling much more relaxed than he had a moment ago he indicated a bright orange egg to Rochelle and headed over. This necessitated getting rather close to the large gold egg; Carltis perhaps rather pointedly didn't spare it a glance as he moved to stand before the Swelling Egg.

Niyx

Moving on Niyx approached the Swelling egg reaching out to rest a gentle hand on it's surface as she eyed the bright sunset colors of the shell. It was almost like a painter had coated it in all the colors of their isle. A sense of warmth and calmness washed over her a sort of laid back languid contemplation. The same sort of feeling she had when she was eyeing a new piece of theories and appreciating the innate beauty of such clean calculations or listening to a new harper song.

Reluctantly she pulled back and moved on to The Pacifist egg. Well she certainly wasn't deceptive beyond a good game and a laugh. Stroking it's shell she smiled down at the dragon egg. Well it certainly had a sense of fair play.

"Your taste in dragons is weird, Carltis. I'm pretty sure you know that already though." No insult lurked in her voice, nothing but wry, friendly amusement. She followed along to the pushed aside crimson clutch, brightening when she saw the small eggs. While she had her eyes set on a green - no option of breeding, small and fast - crimsons were almost as awesome.

Rochelle bowed as deep for Hyweth as she had for Suunanth, hair brushing the sands, and jerked her thumb towards the Look Before You Leap egg. The design made her think of feline claws and lovely while they were at it. She crouched when there and put her hand flat on the shell, confident.

"I don't think it likes me," she said after a moment, that dragons pride filling her chest until near bursting. She smiled anyway, a grin that made dimples and eye crinkles. "But I will get and wear much too revealing clothing in my off time for a week if this kid isn't silver. A week."