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Perhaps. It would be awfully nice if hope prevailed... For a change. And he hopes that Radish has the perserverense to force hopes hand toward a happy outcome since all he can do for now is offer Listener a set of eyes and ears this side of a shell. His eyes were blue... That was good right? ...

A quiet, half hysterical, laugh forced it's way past Zarike's lips. He was going to live! Relief flooded his system but didn't ease the tension in his body. Any thoughts of his own consequences didn't exist. He had to make sure the brown was ok first. He didn't care what happened to him so long as that little hatchling made an Impression and survived.

Bakarn didn’t waste time. He didn’t run; he was still standing right in the middle of the clutch, he was liable to trip over either an egg or a fellow Candidate if he tried (Zarike was still kinda huddled on the ground) but he spared only an encouraging grin and a wink for the little brown before he turned on his heel, strides swift and purposeful.

That hadn’t been the look of a hatchling that intended to die on ‘em. Not with eyes that pretty shade of blue.

As he drew away from the eggs he moved past Seytev and Bereck going in the opposite direction, rapidfiring out “Caverns, food, back soon” in a single breath without breaking stride. They’d figure it out.

Then he started running.

"Stay where you are, and I can walk," Bereck replied quickly; the support was enough but without it he knew he wasn't going anywhere now, his leg didn't hurt all that much (yet) but it wasn't taking his weight. "When we get there, you stay, I can have my firelizard bring the cane. You might be needed." What Bereck meant, but did not say, was that the brown might be for the young man currently helping him to move towards it.

Thank shells somebody was going for food though, and the brief absence of that boy wouldn't make the difference between Impression or betweening would it? "It doesn't just happen," Bereck continued in a murmur thinking aloud more than talking to Seytev, "never that I've heard of before. Eggs hatch together, always, and the mother always starts the hum before so much as a shard of shell falls away." Something had happened, something abnormal, but then this clutch was nothing normal all over; Hiraeth's weakness, then the surgery, then what had happened to the rest of the clutch.... Hiraeth would know if the others were about to hatch, wouldn't she?

[[OOC: That's fine!]]

"Right. Of course." Seytev nodded, saying nothing else, eyes fixed on the brown. Bereck had firelizards - Sey was unfamiliar enough with the animals that he had forgotten people owned them.

But that wasn't something to dwell on. Bereck was confirming what he thought, answering him in an undertone. "Faranth," he answered in an equally low voice. "The rest of them seemed normal...least, the ones I touched did. They felt like eggs. At least...I think. It was the same kind of feeling as Cinnamath's last clutch. I didn't touch that egg, though," he added. "That was the one that had the, uh. The dent, right?"

Because it was hard to miss something like that. The ugly pockmark on the red shell, something he had worried about in passing. "I sure hope he's okay," he said, speaking for the sake of speaking, rather than out of any real desire for a response.

The brown toddled after Bakarn for a moment, as if wondering where he was going - come back! It was his birthday and EVERYONE should be here to celebrate it! - before turning to inspect the gathered candidates. Tail high in the air, he knocked his head into Keralder’s shins gently (it looked as though it was intended to be affectionate), carefully stepping his way around Listening Egg to - by all appearances - play peekaboo with the candidates, peering out at them for a moment before withdrawing his head again and looking out from the other side with a delighted squeak.

There was a brief moment where he froze, and then the brown hatchling’s legs seemed to give way underneath him. He rolled a few steps away from the clutch onto his back, his limbs twitching like a dying trundlebug and his tail thrashing from side to side - and after a moment, it was clear that this wasn’t in play. His neck contorted painfully, and it was clear that the little brown was having some sort of fit.

There was something seriously wrong here.

Anxiety and the extreme swings of emotion took their toll on the young candidate the moment he saw the brown's neck contort so unnaturally. Fresh tears tracked his face as he dry heaved into the sand. No. No. No. No! This wasn't supposed to happen! This wasn't what he'd intended! This was BAD!

Mother Faranth please don't let the hatchling die. Please let him be ok. Zarike prayed to the mother dragon of the sofianes. While never being one himself, he was desperate. He'd give anything for this to not be real.

Shards, he hadn't meant to say that out loud to the candidate... oh well, too late now. "The dent, yes," he remembered seeing that egg laid out of the sands out of the corner of his eye as he worked with the other surgeons. Maybe that had affected it. Maybe-

The dragon collapsed and started twitching.

Bereck froze for a moment, grip on Seytev's arm redoubling. He'd never seen this before, never in a dragon!... The principle however was surely the same. "Venk, back! Everyone else stay back!" the healer bellowed, jerking at Seytev's arm to indicate 'not you' and using the candidate to get up to the front of the little crowd before coming to a halt.

"Give him room!" That had already been covered in 'stay back' but in situations like this you had to be clear- shards! This didn't happen in dragons, he'd never been taught anything about things like this!

Trying to suppress his own panic - panic because his strength was knowing things and he knew nothing! - Bereck took a few deep breaths and started to count. All he could do was work off he knew about similar symptoms in humans, and shards that was not enough, and why was this happening?

They'd got the eggs out safely.

They'd kept Hiraeth alive.

It was supposed to be okay now.

The eggs were supposed to be okay.