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Sammis, dignity shredded not for the first time tonight, gave an undignified grunt as Vessali's massive hand seized him by the robes and dragged him wildly across the grounds. It was about all he could do to keep up, especially with half of his brain still occupied on clutching his basket like a shield, albeit an ineffective one, and dwelling on the sheer size of the tunnel snake that had burst out of the darkness and killed the tiny flit.

It was somewhere between Vessali's second vigorous yank and the gold dragons furious -hiss- that came out of his shock enough to focus on the panic, chaos, and the screams of pain from the darkness.

It made the pit of his stomach drop, not knowing who had been hurt or how, and it was far too easy to overlay human pain with the dying firelizard.

"Did you SEE that thing????" He demanded, as they made their panicked dash for adult dragons who were not furious to defend their clutch. He wasn't sure what else to say... or do, they were already running.

Oh shards, this was a nightmare. They had no idea where the sharding tunnel snake was, how many eggs were alive... how many candidates were alive...

...not only was the bronze not an angry wher, he was actually a talkative wher. A very excited wher who very much wanted to eat some tunnelsnakes. Oh Faranth, she had just found the best wher ever! And probably the best place to be, since he could see the tunnelsnakes when no one else could. Time to make friends.

"I hope you get to eat some," Iafri agreed. "Can I stay with you and watch?"

Well that went over horribly, at least Jerishude thought so anyway. People had been running everywhere and he'd been doing his best to avoid the trampling and the flailing and whatever else could possibly end with him getting injured. The idea of having any part of him stinging and swelling at the hatching as a result of a person did not sit well with the young man. It didn't sit well at all.

Of course it would taste a lie to say that he wasn't happy to see that boy who'd sassed him before being taken off the sands with what looked like a broken leg. There was some relief of course that he wasn't dead, Jerishude really didn't wish death on anyone because that would be a waste; but then there actually was someone who didn't get up from the sands. Also, it looked like there were tons of girls now running around and only two boys left from the other candidates that he didn't know. Talk about a number reversal.

Maybe now that everyone was done running around and the Queen wasn't making all that noise the hatching could continue? Not that anyone could rush eggs into hatching but certainly the sounds of dragonets running around would be a welcome change from the screaming and fear of tunnelsnakes. Come eggs, bring on the babies!

Connor had managed to make it to what he assumed to be the relative safety of the dragons without being trampled,eaten or otherwise disabled. Though from the terrible sound of the queens hissing and roaring in the darkness he wasn't at all sure how the other's..or even the eggs..had fared in all the confusion.

He still didn't have a light..and he still couldn't see very much but from the pained sounds reaching his ears now that some of the screaming had died off he knew there were at least some wounded still out there, but he had no idea if there were still tunnel snakes around - he rather hoped that the noise had scared them off.

Did he see it? Did he see it? He'd just hauled Sammis across the grounds, twice, to avoid seeing the sharding thing again. He didn't mean to stare at the other boy like he was a dimglow, but for just a second, he did. He couldn't help himself.

Then he shook his head and rubbed his face with a hand that shook far too much for him to feel completely calm and exhaled hard. "I-I saw it. I c-couldn't not see it." Even in little light. And now he was stuttering. Perfect.

He let his hand fall. "You're a-all right, right?" His gaze moved on, back toward the gold and her eggs and the wingleaders, then to the grounds and the bodies being cleared and helped off. More all right than those poor people, anyway.

Most of the candidates had retreated from the clutch, as one did not simply stand firm in the face of such massive dragon screeching at them.

This did not settle the raging queen enough to keep from lashing her tail around (just barely avoiding many of the Wingleaders) and stomping her large "feet".

The eggs rattled. The Swamp Egg crashed against the Coal Egg, causing its thin shell to break. The egg then fell over, and from the opening dropped a small, green leg.

The leg was not moving.

The Coal Egg, on the other hand, had not stopped moving. It shook and, before long, a green face emerged with an angry hiss similar to that of her mother.

Mairin was more than a little happy that she'd gotten away from the queen by now. She could feel the rumble from those stomps from where she was and it was disquieting even from a distance. The fact that the atmosphere of the hatching grounds was currently not a pleasant one did not help matters any. Far too many people had gotten hurt in the panic and Mairin caught the smell of human blood every few breaths.

The girl's focus though switched to the clutch though when the eggs rocked and two smacked into each other. One cracked enough for a dragonet's leg to pop out, the limb did not move though and Mairin was unsure if it would. If she was seeing things properly that looked like the egg that had smelled off at the touching.

Before she had time to peer closure though the other egg in the little collision cracked enough for the face of a pissed off looking green to show. Not the best start to a hatching, Mairin noted, but as long as that damned tunnel snake didn't come back she could deal with this. Angry regular dragonets were something she could handle.