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Shaaaaaaaaaards she was late shaaaaaaaaaaards! La couldn’t help herself, though. She was entirely reluctant to leave Isonth alone, and though the little dragon nudged her away to ‘make sure the little ones are all right for me, Lanamine,’ she still felt horrible for abandoning her like that. But after she had said her good-byes and hugged her dragonet one last time, La took a deep breath and dashed to the Hatching. She didn’t like being late, but there were some things she just couldn’t help. Looking around and disconcerted by the vast number of people who were there already, she adjusted her headscarf, which had come askew, and eventually found a familiar face.

“H’dek! H’dek!” she called happily, squeezing through the crowd and pulling up alongside the boy. “The big day!” she said triumphantly, then followed it with a quick “Except that I’m dreadfully late, shardit all, and I have no idea what’s going on. What’s happened thus far?”

The crowds were standing close enough that she was more or less crushed shoulder-to-shoulder with the boy, but she disregarded it as she fixed him with a solemn eye, waiting to be filled in. After a moment, though, she glanced again over the eggs, unable to look away for very long. Realizing what she was doing, she immediately looked back up at H’dek and gave him a sheepish smile.

There. Food for his beautiful, his perfect Galliath. Here, let's head over there, and feed you, all right? Sovann-- or S'van now that he had Impressed-- was far too giddy to be particularly useful, but he did manage to guide his dragonet (or was he the one being guided, hmm?) over in the direction of the tables and the helpers who stood by them.

Good. I am very hungry, mine. ... Yes, he was definitely being led by the dragonet. Grinning despite himself, S'van followed along, half leaning against and half leaning on the charismatic brown. He didn't mean to, really, he was just intensely excited and awed by the experience.

There we are! Plenty of meat for you, Galliath. I won't let you go hungry, I promise. They had made it to the tables, and not a moment too soon. Still clumsy with his overwhelming delight, S'van helped Galliath feed (who insisted that he knew precisely what he was doing, of course), trying not to be too useless in his excitement. He stumbled a little, but he kept to his feet.

In some ways, this was the best and worst part of being a candidate, Dusen decided, as he entered the hatching grounds and bowed to the queen. He took his place with the other male candidates, watching as the eggs began to crack and impress. The anticipation, the hope that one of the eggs would contain your partner, the joy of impression, but on the other hand, the disappointment of not impressing. It was worth it though.

He grinned, and glanced around at the other candidates. Some of them would be the proud new riders after today.

The memory of F’sey calling him a dimglow were still fresh in C’ren’s mind----most things were----and the Greenrider saw an opportunity for revenge right about now. F’sey hated crowds. No matter how much the older Greenrider complained to C’ren, he had still come over to the first person he recognized. A shape of a plan began to form inside of the young Greenrider’s deceitful little mind and he cast an eye over the crowd of people for a likely player for the game now known as, ‘Have You Met F’sey?’.

“Oh this?” he said vaguely as if a gold flit was an everyday occurrence. “That’s Pyrite. She just hatched today. Lovely, isn’t she?” She would, he was sure, one day become the envy of the whole Weyr. Quite a step up from the little deadglow of Vox. Not that he didn’t love Vox, of course. It would just be nice, he felt, to have a firelizard who wouldn’t fly into a post in broad daylight.

“DON’T say the word! Please don’t!” he snapped at his friend suddenly, dropping the act. He shuddered a little and tried to avoid the other people even more. “Ceylith made me. She gets very attached to the ones she Searches so I have to watch every Hatching. If any of her Candidates Impress, she wants to know.”

Pyrite herself put up with the inspections good-naturedly and whistled a greeting at them. Why, yes. She was awesome, now wasn’t she? The little gold attempted to wobble her way down C’ren’s arm, but the Greenrider soon put a stop to that. He had just hatched the little queen, shard it all, and he was not going to lose her because of this. “What are you doing here? Am I to assume that Ialluth made you come down here?”

Maranan ran full tilt to the room. He had been on duty and had run like crazy to get back. He stopped at his bed and threw on his clothes for the hatching. He was panting heavily. "Crap! I hope I'm not late." He ran to the hatching ground then stopped and took a deep breath.
He entered, bowed, and took his place around the eggs.

Eyes wide with panic--a crack in the cool facade she often wore--Zara flailed at the tiny green flit. "You dimglow, you're going to...shard it, you're going to get me...get out of here!" Forcefully shoving a mental image of the Candidate's barracks, she glared hard at Beryl until she finally chirped sadly and popped between to wait for her bonded.

Crisis averted for now, the thin young woman turned her attention back to the shifting, rocking eggs. Would one of them hold her own other half?

H'dek jumped when someone familiar started to shout his name before that it was La and his heart skipped a beat. Waving her over, he was just about greet her when he noticed her head scarf and... "Ah, La? What...happened to yer hair?" he asked, looking a little puzzled before realizing that was completely out of line. "Oh! Uh, I mean...what's happened..."

He silenced when he realized she was right next to him and...totally wasn't paying attention anymore. The sandy blond gave a light chuckle and waited for Lanakirene to focus, shifting his weight as he tried to get a little more comfortable. "Well, the firs' egg was a brown an' th' second egg was green n' they both picked themselves some fine lookin' lads," he explained, nodding sagely. "Green looked like she 'ad a bit of an attitude," he added with a chuckle.

"So, how's yer Isonth? Good, I hope?"

* * *

F'sey was slightly taken aback by the violence at which C'ren snapped; Lice really was the 'magic' word, wasn't it? But nevertheless, he huddled a little closer to his fellow greenrider. He knew C'ren was clean, after all, they followed the same theory as far as lice aversion went and he knew that worked. His personal space could stand the invasion if it meant his scalp stayed lice-free.

"Eh? Oh. Ialluth just wanted to come socialize with Ceylith," he sighed, shaking his head. He was glad his dragon had found such a wonderful friend in the bright, younger green...sort of. Well, he did like C'ren (not that he'd actually own up to it), so things could be worse. And...he could have the lice. Things could definitely be worse. "I think they must really like each other, got on really well at the beach," he muttered, thinking back on the day the greens discovered each other and bonded almost instantly.

Song was not distracted by such thought, scrabbling back down F'sey's arm as soon as Pyrite answered his greeting, eager to get in the female's good graces. He had no problem chirping and chattering to his new-found friend; she was just as awesome as she thought! Song was humble, as far as lizards went, and knew excellence when he saw it. Why not praise it?

F'sey scowled and pushed red hair behind his ear before plucking bronze from his forearm again. "She's very lovely. Song thinks so, too," he replied a bit dryly, giving his lizard a dirty look. So much for that behaving he'd tried to impress upon the little beast. "Certainly going to catch more attention, a gold on your shoulder," he remarked, looking over at his bronze. "Think you can handle that?"

La grinned at H'dek, and when he asked about her hair, she frowned and looked up, as if she were trying to view her skull. After a moment, she looked at him and shrugged with a sheepish smile. "I figure it's better to be safe than sorry with this lice going around. So I shaved my head. It'll grow back eventually," she added, sounding exceptionally chipper about the entire situation. It wasn't like she had had all that much hair to begin with, after all. A few sevendays after the outbreak and she'd be back to normal...she hoped. She wasn't actually sure how long it took hair to grow back after it was shaved.

She listened to H'dek's explanation and nodded, Standing tiptoe to lift herself above nearly all the crowd and scanning it to better catch sight of the two hatchlings. She cooed when she saw the brown, and made a little thrilled noise at the green. Adorable!

When H'dek asked her the question about Isonth, she nodded happily. "She's good. Getting so big!" She grinned at that, and put her hands on her hips while she looked at H'dek. "And how's Bondyeth? I haven't seen him in a while."