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European Adder Egg
This egg is easily one of the largest of the clutch, it's size rivaling the Death Adder's for largest (excluding the queen, of course). Smooth in shell, it has a distinct zigzag pattern circling it's shell, the pattern starting small and radiating out to be largest in the middle before tapering back in at the bottom, almost like it's coiled up like a snake. It's colors alternate between being a pale yellow to a light brown, mingling quite well down the egg shell in an alternating pattern, with the zigzag being a dark brown. It sits at the very front of the clutch, seated upright, with a slight tilt toward the Death Adder egg.

Death Adder Egg
While this egg is also one of the largest of the clutch, it's a little harder to tell with this one. Laying almost completely on it's side in the sands, the top of this egg almost touches the European Adder's shell, it's bottom laying on top of the sand as opposed to being a little buried. While the European Adder's egg was pale in color and smooth, the Death Adder's is a little rougher seeming, it's colors much more dark. The colors alternate from being a deep orange and a dark brown, blending a little more sharply, with the slightly jagged lines of brown hues being much thin than the range of oranges and orange-browns. This egg sits next to the European Adder egg, almost directly in front of the Coral Snake egg, nearly blocking half of it's clutchmate's shell.

Coral Snake Egg
The small coral snake egg is all but hidden behind the pair of adders. The banded egg is alternating shades of red, yellow and black and would be quite striking, if it let anyone actually see it. Yes, it’s as if the smaller egg doesn’t even want to be seen and is more than happy to let its larger siblings have the limelight.


Milk Snake Egg
If you weren’t looking closely, you could easily mistake the milk snake egg for the coral snake egg. However, the yellow, red and black bands alternate differently and this egg is just a touch smaller. Also not as shy, the milk snake egg isn’t letting the adder pair outshine it. Still beside the coral snake, this one is enough to the side that it is clearly visible from all angles.

Green Pit Viper Egg
This green speckled egg sits by itself, staunchly refusing to be associated with its siblings. A medium sized egg, the green pit viper egg is tipped back and seems to give off a very strong leave-me-alone aura. Of course, just because it needs its own space does not mean it’s off to the side. Still preferring to receive some sort of attention, it’s sits slightly to the side of its mother, barely in sight?


Bandybandy Egg
The bandybandy egg is another small egg, though this one is not hiding. Placed in front of the others, it is not far away from its siblings and is rolled completely on its side, facing down and towards the group, as though playing a silly joke. A rather plain egg, it is off-white with large blocks of obsidian patterned neatly up the side of the egg.

Boa Constrictor Egg
A medium sized egg! Amidst all of its siblings, being medium makes it look, well, rather large! Of course, it doesn't challenge the adder pair, but it certainly does to well for itself, leaving many to wonder the color of the dragon inside. The egg is brown with varying shades, darker bands surrounding larger, lighter circles. There are small dark triangles littered among the circle sets.

Carpet Python Egg
Tilted on its axis, this dark egg can't seem to decide whether it wants to be on its side or standing tall with the others. Mottled with bright yellow, it's hard to miss. Not particularly small, it's shuffled in with the group quite near the milk snake. A good push could probably knock it down, so be careful!

King Cobra Egg
Last but not least, the sight everyone came to see, the Queen egg! Average-sized as far as Queen eggs go, she is shuffled towards the back, much closer to her mother than everyone else. Even in the protective shadow of the dragon, it's not hard to see her egg is colored darker than usual. The darkness makes the golden shine that much more obvious than usual and the bottom of the egg is dramatically lighter.

Kytara jumped to her feet and darted out of the room. She had learned well at the last Touching to move fast. She did her best to keep up with the grouchy old Candidate Master. Shards! If only he pulled that stick out of his... She shook her head. No. That wasn't right at all. She stopped only long enough to check that she was presentable at the very least. Her light blue eyes danced over her reflection and she nodded. That would do. She hopped back out into the hallway and hurried to catch back up. Looking around she was a little shocked to see she wasn't alone.

Firyal and her roommates were quick to rise when Z'nal informed them it was time for the Touching. Because of the lice outbreak Firyal had taken to wearing her hair in a turban, and although it left her hair disgustingly greasy, it meant she hadn't had to cut eight years of growth. It also meant that getting dressed went much more quickly as she twisted her hair up into its fabric wrap with quick, oft-practiced movements and tucked the end into the back part at the nape of her neck. The rest of dressing was just pulling on a pair of trousers and a tunic and sliding her moccasins onto her feet. She would never make the mistake of showing up barefoot ever, ever again.

She and her three roommates filed into the hallway with the Candidates and followed Z'nal to the Hatching Grounds, whispering amongst themselves. Her roommates had long since forgiven her infraction the night of the last Hatching and were just as excited for this one as Firyal for the same reasons: there was a chance to Impress a dragon, and Firyal would no longer be on privy duty. They were as tired of her unique privy scent as she was, though they were polite enough not to mention it, even when she did. There were advantages to having pleasant roommates. They had also been instrumental in keeping the other girls' unpleasantries from getting too out of hand when it came to Firyal's possessions.

At the Sands the Candidates fell quiet, and Firyal did the same as she stepped onto the heated area and made her preliminary bow to the queen who lay regally beside her eggs. Firyal recognized this queen, too, though she knew the golden dragon would not remember her. After all, there were so many Candidates Firyal herself didn't usually bother to keep track of them. After bowing to the beautiful gold Firyal made her way to the largest egg in the clutch, the queen egg. Its close proximity to her mother would probably make the newer Candidates nervous, but Firyal was not. She could not remember the last time an adult dragon had savaged a human, and the mother would have her bondmate with her, reminding her that the Candidates meant her children no harm.

Standing before the dark golden egg Firyal felt for the first time since her first Touching a kind of electric excitement. Nothing as dramatic as an instantaneous bond between herself and the young gold within the egg. More like just a jolt of adrenaline. Things might be different this time. The cautious optimism was uncharacteristic, but something about this morning and this Touching gave her reason to hope. Maybe it was because the last Hatching had been so disastrous.

Whatever the reason, Firyal was reverent as she lay first her left palm and then her right as well on the surface of the gold egg. She did not close her eyes or try to force any sort of empathic contact between herself and the fetus, because she was fairly certain any sort of attempt on her part would bring her bronze firelizard zooming in, scolding her for leaving him while he slept. It was her fervent wish that he would remain asleep for the duration of the Touching.

As she relenquished her place beside the queen egg she noticed that the bottom of the egg was much paler than the top where she had placed her hands and smiled at the egg. She hoped the gold within found the right girl, even if it wasn't her. Though there was a large portion of her mind that hoped she would be the right girl, she reminded herself that there was a difference between optimism and foolishness, and she would do better to hope for a green, which was more than respectable for someone as unremarkable as she was.

Now, to visit the other eggs...

Actually, Mal hadn’t been completely honest with Veyes. This was only to be expected, since he was rarely completely honest with anyone, including himself. The thing about shifts… well… he had sort of stopped staying up for his ‘shift’. After all, the other Candidates had long ago lost interest in making his life miserable and, to the best of his knowledge, had stopped torturing Veyes as well. No reason for them both to stay up. He assumed that Veyes stayed up just because he liked it.

Aeron helped too, naturally. People tended to leave Mal alone when they realized that bothering him meant bothering with the large Bronze firelizard. When the call came out for the Touching, Mal had been taking a nap, the flit happily curled up at the foot of the cot with his little marble. No matter what Mal bribed Aeron with, the Bronze would not let go of that marble. That was fine; so long as he was biting that instead of his toes… Mal jerked awake at all the yelling, blearily wondering if Thread was falling already. Wait, what? Touching? Someone was touching someone else? Well, yeah, that certainly was a cause for yel…

OH! The eggs! Everything clicked in Mal’s mind as he dressed in a stupor and managed to stumble his way onto the Sands. Veyes had already rushed ahead, leaving Mal to sort of trundle along slowly afterwards. He managed to make his way close to Jiriar, close enough to see the other boy’s black eye. Mal had only recently gotten over one of his own, so he could feel a fair bit of sympathy. He opened his mouth to give some advice about making it go away, but then he remembered that talking was discouraged.

That is, they said discouraged. but what they really meant was, ‘Hey. Unless you want to get mauled, try to avoid this, alright?’. He settled for a smile before bowing deeply to the queen and shuffling off.

A bit mindlessly, he touched the eggs with one hand, since he wanted to go back to sleep. He tried not to dally because there were a lot of Candidates out there. Anyone dallying by an egg would slow up the line. But, since it was practically traditional to do so, he made a point to stop by one of the eggs, the showy Milk Snake egg.

Riyinn didn't feel like rushing to many were doing so, and that put her more in the group then she needed to be. Tho, thinking back on the last hatching it didn't seem to matter if there was a large crowd when a dragonnet wanted who it wanted..

Even so she picked up the pace a bit rather that then have the candidate master on her for a week. Stopping at the entrance she took several large breaths then with a rush she stepped through. She could tell the sand was warm the change in temperature was easy enough. In the center stood the queen as proud as any, and below her littered her eggs. So few vs the others.

Walking forward but still a ways she bowed she was in no hurry still to piss them off. After she stood up seemed almost ages had passed. With a bit of a hop step she moved over to the side where some of the eggs were set. right away a small egg caught her eye, its bands of red yellow and black shocking stepping over she placed a hand on the egg for several moments she just stood there enjoying the heat.

Turning her head she focused on the 2 larger eggs these two seemed to be together vs the size of most they were huge, one egg seemed to be almost digging it seemed. Behind those rested another egg almost like the one she touched now. Brushing her head on all of them she moved around the group careful not to bump any. one by one she touched the eggs till she came to rest before the queen egg. It was dark gold bordering lighter her eyes followed the shadow up to the mother. Bowing again she approached it, seeming to almost test it. Finally after several moments she sighed then turned and walked a bit away turning for one last look at the clutch.

Okassis had come to expect the rude awakening. Not just because that was what had happened the last time, but because he had gotten Z'nal's measure enough during his time in the Weyr to know that the Candidatemaster delighted in the discomfort of his charges, and would take very chance to exploit their weaknesses - love of sleep being an especially popular one. Honestly, the only surprise for Okassis was that he'd waited so long to pull everyone out of bed. A few hours earlier, and he would have had even the hardiest of Candidates crying out for pity klah!

But even with such low expectations, Okassis awoke yawning, cursing Z'nal's name. Between his usual insomnia and the chaos of recent days, his sleep had been about as rejuvenating as laying awake and staring at the walls. It was just lucky for him that he was the odd man out sleeping on the floor, and thus had to be woken in order for anyone to get out - otherwise, he might well have dozed through the summons.

Managing to scrabble out of bed, at least halfway dressed and awake enough to discern the direction that the rest of the Candidates were headed, Okassis arrived outside the Hatching Grounds. He wasn't so quick to dart inside as the last time, however; dwelling right outside a few minutes, he rubbed at his eyes and straightened out his shirt, pulling himself together. He didn't know if the extra bit of effort would have any effect on his odds when Hatching time came, but if nothing else, it was a sign of respect to the Queen and her brood not to be sloppy and falling-over tired.

Once his hair (now grown a full inch long!) was smoothed down and the crust wiped from his eyes, Okassis entered the grounds. He was set comfortably in the middle of the pack of Candidates, but where many of them were hurried after their unexpected wake-up, Okassis was composed and purposeful as he placed himself a comfortable distance before the Clutch's mother. The very size of the gold dragon still gave him a private thrill, although it was no longer as profuse as when he'd first come to the Weyr. A few months of living among dragonfolk had desensitized him quickly. With something almost resembling grace, he addressed the Queen with a careful bow, taking his time to extend the motion from a nervous little bob to a smooth dip.

His respects paid, the ex-Trader made way for the next line of Candidates to greet the Queen. He was surprised by the size of the clutch; there were so many more eggs this time, it seemed, and so many that were larger! Placing his hand on the nearest egg, the Green Pit Viper Egg, he regarded it curiously; then, meandering about with the attention span of a butterfly, offered a warm smile and friendly pat to the Carpet Python and Milk Snake Eggs as well.

This was all to get him to where he wanted to be, though; the two enormous Adder eggs, with their radiant patterning and surprising size. Okassis approached the Death Adder Egg first, drawn by its size. Was there a bronze inside this? There must be! He remembered Galliath's egg, the large brown that S'van had Impressed. His egg had been smaller than this, he thought. Pressing both palms against it, he held still, trying to find some small motion beneath the shell, any sort of lucky sign....

Of course, none came. He hadn't really expected it anyway, Okassis told himself, letting his hands slide down and break away from the shell's side. Still, it was a very fine-looking egg; more subtle than some of the others, but still complex and impressive.

Almost obligatorily, Okassis turned to the European Adder Egg next, laying a hand on it and willing good things to the inhabitant inside. It struck him as a bit odd that he felt driven to interact with so many of the eggs, when he'd barely bothered to touch two the last time; but then again, last time, one of those eggs had Impressed to his best friend. Even if none of these were meant for him - and he'd come to philosophize, he was a very particular sort of person, who had to be patient for that very particular dragon that would best suit his ambitions and abilities - one or two might meet with one of his friends in the Weyr. And he thought, he'd like to be a part of that, too; one more invisible connection, among so many.

Smiling, Okassis stepped away, preparing to leave the grounds to the rest of the Candidates. Before he could make away, however, his eye caught on a few bright colors. Furrowing his brow, he wandered to the other side of the Adder Eggs. And right there - a tiny little thing, almost unseen behind its flashier brothers, the Coral Snake Egg sat.

It was odd, Okassis puzzled, how easy it was to personify these eggs. Their placement was surely coincidence, how their mother had placed them; and yet, he couldn't help but imagine persons behind them. Loud or quiet, bold or shy, laid-back or serious. This one was certainly shy, he thought - stooping next to it a moment, the blond youth rubbed at his chin, examining it. Even the Pit Viper Egg hadn't made him hesitate to touch it, but he wondered if this one didn't prefer being unnoticed....

Too bad, he decided, grinning and giving it a careful stroke. You'll have to come out sometime and face people, so better not start out on the wrong foot, little guy. Guy or girl? So small, it was probably a girl....

But now he really was done. Standing up again, he moved away from the eggs, observing the rest of the Candidates and keeping out of the way. He wondered how long it would be yet, until the eggs would be ready to hatch - soon, maybe. Okassis suppressed the feeling of doubt in his belly, that he might not Impress again. Whether he did or did not, didn't matter. Just so long as he was in the game, he was doing right.

Working away from the queen, Firyal went next to a green speckled egg that sat by itself. She lay her hands flat on it for a moment. The medium-sized egg seemed almost to be deliberately disassociating itself from its clutchmates, and reminded her a bit of herself, if she was being honest. She had a distinct tendency to separate herself from the Candidates, to the point where she referred to them as "the Candidates" and didn't group herself under that heading. She also spent as much time performing solitary activities as she could arrange. All in all, she was somewhat amused by the egg, wondering if that's how others saw her. Obviously they didn't see her as an egg, but if that's the analysis they would come up with if forced to examine her personality. On a whim, she sketched a smiling face on the shell before moving on to the next egg.

Next, and more out of a sense of duty than anything else, Firyal went to the pair of large eggs. It was likely the pair would turn out to be bronzes or browns, which meant she stood no chance of Impressing their occupants, but it was expected that the Touching attendees pay some attention to each egg on the sands. So she brushed the pale egg that lay nearly completely on its side and the other one of its size with the zigzag pattern simultaneously as she passed carefully between them. A fine pair of dragons, she was sure, but definitely not the ones for her. Not unless she underwent a major personality overhaul that also changed her gender. Maybe they wouldn't be bronzes. Maybe they'd be large browns, like E'rik's Daramulath.

The next logical egg was the small banded egg with bright alternating stripes that seemed to be hiding behind the pair of large eggs. Maybe a small blue, she speculated, content to let larger dragons take the glory and the majority of the work. In a way, that also reminded her of herself. While she liked to have people pay attention to her sometimes, she was perfectly content to let others shoulder the better part of the work and just occupy a background task that was less taxing and came with less responsibility, and thus fewer opportunities to make mistakes.

Berjint rose, tugging on a shirt and a pair of boots, rubbing his tousled hair sleepily. He'd been up rather late last night, gazing at the stars and thinking of home. He knew it was a foolish thing to do, as generally he wasn't noticably sentimental, but now he was regretting it for an entirely different reason. His head was muzzy from getting less sleep than usual. Leave it to dragons to choose the most inopportune times!

With this in mind, however, he mulled as he jostled with the other boys, heading for the sands. Now that he knew the Hatching was drawing near, he should be braced and ready at all times. No more dallying about. No more walks along the beach. No more staying up late. It was time to man up and be responsible!

He had long since rubbed the last of the sleep from his eyes before he set foot on the sands. He veered with the boys towards the clustered clutch of eggs, pleased to leave the girls to march in line closer to the queen and her beloved golden egg. Firmly he set his mind on the eggs before him.

Several of the eggs this time laid on their sides, or cocked at odd angles. Raising his bushy brows, he reflected that this looked to be an interesting group of dragons. He slid his a hand over each of the adder eggs, taking a moment to appreciate the intense heat they radiated. He supposed that being bigger, they'd likely need to be hotter.

Dutifully he stroked the bandybandy egg and the milk egg, peeking to reach and brush the surface of the shy coral egg. They might be small eggs, but needed attention too, particularly as this was somehow supposed to prevent injuries. Even small greens could slice you up, after all!

His thoughts on greens, the next to catch his attention was in fact... green! He rather liked how boldly this one sat, as if not afraid to be itself. He stroked it twice, then gave it a pat and moved on. Lastly he paid close attention to the Boa and Python eggs. He paused at each one, leaning close as if to inhale some essence to enlighten him as to what was inside. He let both hands rest on each of them in turn, absorbing their warmth into his palms as he ruminated momentarily. Each one got a light pat in farewell.

Only time would tell now.