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Faranie had first glared at the Master when they'd gone traipsing through, bellowing and calling for all to wake up. It wasn't time for chores yet, so why should she be forced to leave the relative comfort of her cot. The pillow was ever so inviting...Of course a moment later it registered with what words she'd been called to waking. The touching? Oh Faranth, and she'd fallen back to sleep for a minute or two! Already that made her a minute later than her roommates, who hadn't deigned to rouse her again, opting to dress and primp themselves instead. In all honesty she'd have done the same, and thus could find no fault with them, but still she felt miffed at their disregard for her. Wasn't she a candidate too? Still this was no time to lay about bemoaning the actions of others!

She flung the covers back and joined the fray. There were only so many good mirrors after all. Never mind that the dragons would still be in their shells, blind to the whole world herself included. She still felt the need to powder and curl and other such nonsense while she made ready. Years of caring for her looks had prepared her for this rush, and by the time the Candidatemaster had returned she was beside the rest, looking (in her opinion) like the very picture of a winner.

Of course this clutch wasn't so grand as the other on the sands, but no matter. Eggs were eggs and dragons were dragons. Of course, greens weren't golds, but she had faith in the other clutch. Perhaps not enough to make her disregard this one though. Excited through the chill of the morning air, she rejected the babbling mass of girls alongside her. No, she had only eyes for the eggs, and her thoughts were filled to bursting with the thought of dragonets, no room for common chatter to spare.

Once the Master had returned with the male populace she looked back. She quickly caught sight of her brother and made a rude face at him before disregarding him and his lot. Best not stand by them, no. Bad luck came in the form of a boy who had become a man on the sands, not by choice of dragon-kind, but solely with the lonely power of time, pushing him along. Few folk saw their twentieth birthday on the sands. Fewer still were threatened by their impending twenty-first, and the end of candidacy through tradition. She wasn't about to let herself catch whatever bug had spoiled her brother for the dragons.

To her pleasure she was one of the first on the sands. It bore no honor or recognition with anyone but herself, but she was pleased. The pair of golds both seemed alert and mildly at ease. That was good sign she supposed. With care of practice she dipped in a bow to the mother of the present clutch they were attending to. A beat passed, and she rose. Mingling would be harder here. It was a smaller clutch, and more grouped. She ran her hand absently over a few nondescript (NPC) eggs before finally slowing to pat one of the largest ones. It was certainly a strange egg, so green with those pink stripes at the top. She fondled it a moment before moving on. Best touch them all, just in case.

Weylin nodded slowly at Kaskel's comment and couldn't help smiling a little bit at the idea of a dragonet trying to find his rider in this mob. The poor little things would have to knock Candidates down to get to anyone. There would be no room for anyone to back up. His brow furrowed slightly after a moment, though; if a dragon's chosen was in the back of the crowd, would an impatient brown (or green, like the nasty one from the last clutch...any colour could do it, he supposed) maul others to get them out of the way? He hoped not and instead focused on happier things. There were certainly plenty of Candidates to choose from, and even if they weren't right, there was always the stands.

An Impression from the stands! Weylin would love to see that, in all honesty. Those were the stuff of legends, but it was always possible that one could happen. It would be beautiful if it did. Weylin crossed his fingers for the lucky someone who would, if such a thing were to occur, find himself (or herself, he reminded himself vaguely) in a situation beyond his (...or her...) wildest dreams.

When a space opened around the spotted egg, Weylin followed Kaskel and waited his turn quietly, inspecting it with mild interest. He hadn't noticed it from the peepholes (where he occasionally went with the older, more eager of his brats, he wasn't ashamed to admit), and he assumed that was because it blended in so thoroughly. But it was beautiful up close, and when Kaskel was done, he was quick to rest a hand lightly on it, squeezing ever-so-slightly before patting it once and pulling away. Good luck, little one, he thought lightly, projecting warm thoughts at it and then feeling silly for doing so. He straightened up after that.

Giving Kas a short nod, he winked and disappeared into the crowd, moving in a definite direction this time. There was an egg that had caught his eye from afar, the last time he had looked, and he was curious to see what it looked like up close.

It was blissfully unattended when he got there, and he crouched down to inspect it, frowning slightly when he realized it wasn't quite as attractive as it had seemed from afar. The slapdash pattern of browns and whites was...odd, but not entirely unattractive. He wondered what sort of a dragon would emerge from such an egg as he touched it lightly, finding a slight trace of blue in the shell and following it with a fingertip. With the brilliantly-patterned dragons from the last clutch, he could only imagine what an eye-catcher this egg would hatch. "Do yourself proud," he murmured to the egg before standing up and drawing toward the edge of the clutch, waiting for the crowd to ebb.

Illabel was notably less nervous this time around. Even if she had missed the Hatching, she had at least experienced the Touching before. Not only that, but she had the added relaxation of not having a queen egg to fret over. The little queen had found her intended, which left Illabel with a vast sense of relief. So this time, she was much steadier as she paid her respect to the Queen mother, then followed a clump of girls towards the eggs. There were some scattered about, but she paid the most attention to those clustered together.

She waited her turn to move among them, choosing to not quite follow the same pattern others appoached the eggs. So the first one she came to was the Picasso Triggerfish egg. The baffling patterns drew the eye, and she traced a few of them with her fingertips, barely noticing the warmth of the shell. She tipped her head to try and follow the criss-cross markings, eyes soon becoming dazzled by not just the lines, but also the edgings of blue. Blinking and straightening, she took a breath, fingertips still resting on the egg. Then on to the next... whichever that happened to be.

Next turned out to be orange, but it was the blue markings that stood out brightly that attracted her. The egg was smaller, but those stripes! She smiled as she ran a hand down the side of the egg, longing to tickle the stripes. What an odd notion, to tickle an egg! She glanced uncertainly about at the rather irreverent thought. The queen shifted nearby, and Illabel suppressed a squeak. Could the huge mother hear her thoughts? Wide-eyed, she scurried on to another one, further away.

This one was larger (could it hide her from the queen?), and very bright, to Illabel's eyes. The pink almost seemed to clash with the beautiful green. She laid a palm against the green warmth, avoiding the garish pink side stripes. Well, though she wasn't struck by it, surely someone was meant for it, right? That made her laugh softly at herself. Now listen to her, determining for herself which one was or wasn't for her! Silly stupid girl, you aren't the one who decides! she thought sternly to herself. With a sigh she leaned closer and whispered to the egg, "Don't worry, I'd love you even if you did have pink stripes. You'd still be beautiful to me." Which was true, though she doubted if she'd be suitable for such a bold little egg. She was too mousey in her own eyes, she was sure.

With that thought, the next she moved to was one as mousey as she. It was gentle greys with darker spots, and she thought it lovely. Was it possible the outside of the eggs could show the personality of the hatchling inside? If so, she thought so far this one seemed most akin to herself. Non-descript, but still enjoyable and warm. She caressed it lovingly, smiling as she trailed her fingers off of it to make way for others to approach it. Left with a warm feeling from having something in common with at least the shell of one of the babies, she moved off to where there were other Candidates clustered, thus entirely missing the bright blue egg that lingered too near the queen for her comfort. She had touched enough, she surmised.

After all, it was the Hatching that mattered, and this time she wasn't going to miss it, even if she broke her leg! well... perhaps that was a bit extreme, but she so longed for that bond. She imagined it would be like meeting the best friend she'd never quite found in her childhood, a melding of minds and hearts. The warmth of unconditional love that she shared more distantly with Bartan. She felt his sleepy stirring at her thought of him, and swiftly reminded him to stay where he was. All she needed now was to be banned from the sands for not obeying orders!

With a sign Riyinn started moving again, waving slowly at the egg off by its self she wanted a bit more into the crowd not wanting to really talk to anyone she browsed. Out of the corner of her eye an egg caught her attention, Blue. She was drawn to it the patterns and evenness then suddenly the Blue seemed to form into an almost black.

"are you protecting?" She looked over to the smaller egg leaning into it, it was flashy the egg stood out, its mix of orange and blue. It was smaller in size but still as pretty the colors given a good mix to each other.

Finally she heard the call to leave patting the eggs gently she turned and walked off.

Koios rolled over for the umpteenth time, mumbling incoherently as the Master had waltzed in and gave them their wake-up call. The young Candidate yelped and jumped up, then ever so gracefully fell flat on his face with his feet still on the bed, all tangled in the sheets; a direct result of tossing and turning so much. It wasn't his fault he couldn't sleep well, he was too nervous, too excited! Too everything! He flailed a bit and managed to kick the sheets off, and he hurried up and threw on his clothes. Fixing his hair as he slipped on his sandals and hurried out, obviously not paying much attention to how he looked as he rushed to keep up with the others who were, as far as he could see, just as eager as he.

He could still hardly believe it. He, of all people, was Searched. He was Searched! It was like a dream come true! A lofty dream that probably would amount to nothing, though, came the nagging voice in the back of his mind. He didn't deserve a dragon. He didn't deserve one, he'd not be able to care for it or he'd screw something up for sure. Just like --

No, no; best not to think of that. But it was so hard not to. He wanted a dragon just as badly as any of the other Candidates, but did they deserve them more? Well, perhaps they did, but perhaps he did, too. Maybe. Hopefully. Even just a Green; he'd be ecstatic and would probably faint if he even got a Green. If. He still doubted that he'd Impress, deep down. No; he had a chance, just as everyone else did.

Despite the flood of opposite emotions and thoughts whirling around his mind, the brown-haired boy attempted to stay positive, and by the time his train of thought ended they'd arrived at the sands. He wasn't even aware that he'd been following the group there but apparently he had, and now it was finally, finally time for the Touching to begin. He froze then; stiff as a board as it came his turn to bow to the Queen. Others bowed around him and after a moment or two he managed to bow as they had, perhaps in more of a jerky fashion than he would if he was less nervous. But he wasn't, and with his bow done, he hurriedly followed the rest of the Candidates towards the eggs.

It was almost surreal, seeing all of the eggs up close for the first time. Oh, yes, he'd seen them before, but only from farther back; they weren't allowed this close until now. His heart was in his throat as he approached a few eggs, one that was leaning on one or two others. He tried to keep his hands from shaking so much as he tentatively reached one out to touch the vibrant little egg, swirling with orange and blue and yellow, perhaps a bit of white on the top, too. He thought he could feel something inside, and of course that would be the little dragonet; filled with life already, but not so much that it had any desire to come out quite yet. His heart skipped a beat as the significance of the event hit him fully, and he reached out to touch one of its siblings too; this one was mostly blue, not quite as bright or colorful as the smaller egg that leaned against it, but he didn't think that made it any less beautiful. They were all beautiful eggs, and he knew (or hoped) they would each find their intended at the Hatching. They had to. Perhaps he would be one of the intended?

The nagging feeling came at the back of his mind again and he pulled away, walking towards a rather greyish egg while trying to avoid all the other Candidates and especially the Queen. He knew enough to realize she wasn't as excited as they were about touching the eggs. Her eggs. He shuddered slightly as thoughts whirled through his head; what an unhappy Queen could do to them, but he quickly shoved the thoughts out of his mind and laid a hand delicately on the shell of the grey egg. It was beautiful as well, just like its siblings, with its dark spots seemingly placed quite precisely along its smooth surface. He couldn't stop the smile that crept onto his face, hoping that he could Impress one of the magnificent creatures within the eggs when it came time for the Hatching. Nagging voice...

After several more minutes of touching as many eggs as he could, he rejoined the slowly increasing group of Candidates who had also finished. There were too many eggs to remember all of them, all so vibrant and colorful, and he was sure he hadn't touched every single one on the sands, but that was alright. He would see them all again for certain on the day of the Hatching. Hopefully that would come soon.. Hopefully.

This will close at around ten AM tomorrow. <3 I may or may not be here to actually close it, but I should.

There was indeed much catching up to do! Elae’s grin grew ever wider at the sight of Nan, practically bursting with enthusiasm. By listening very, very carefully, she had uncovered a key piece of gossip, one that Nan would probably do backflips over. She just couldn’t believe that C’ym had managed to keep it a secret for so long, the naughty boy! Of course, it had been a while since she had actually spoken to the new Bronzerider… such a pity, since C’ym was always good for a laugh and a poke of fun. But now it was perfectly obvious why he was avoiding her so much, besides the fact that his entire life now revolved around a mewling Bronze dragonet.

“Oh, Faranth, Nan, you are not going to believe this!” she burbled happily, the words coming out almost faster than her brain could possibly function. “Are you ready? It’s really big! You’re going to love it and you just won’t believe it!” Why, yes! Elae was deliberately building up the tension! All decent gossip, she believed, had to have some tension behind it. Preferably lots.

“Ok… I recently heard from a little bird that Annelie has gotten herself an adorable Green firelizard. But that’s not the good part! The good part is how she got the firelizard…” Leaning towards her friend conspiratorially, Elae lowered her voice. “I’ll give you a hiiint! It was a present! From a certain Broooonzerider!”

It was amazing how she could both whisper and drop exclamation points into sentences. Absolutely astounding. Now, Elae had no idea how old the little firelizard was; she simply assumed that the Green had been born after the Hatching. But, if she was born before… well, that made things even better!