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 Posted: Sat Jun 27, 2009 3:52 pm
Nehren’s was crouched almost perfectly still, the warm glow of the fire playing patterns over the tanned face. Hazel eyes stood out wide and he chewed nervously on his lower lip, he didn’t even look like he was breathing so intense was his focus on a tray of sand placed carefully before the eat of the kitchens fire. On it where several blobs of different colours and patterns, perfect hard fire lizard eggs. And the boys eyes were fixed on just one. A small green egg, it had got to be one of the smallest there, with a circular bold pattern on it. Hardly the most spectacular there but it was all the boy could see.
His body was hunched over so much it was hard to see but pressed down against folded legs there was a dark wooden bowel filled with bloody chunks of fresh cut heard beast, the first meal for those that would emerge. For Nehren this was a second chance, after a failed impression it was a chance for him to regain some small confidence that he was fit for dragons eyes, and to be bonded with them. Even a pint sized one. If it went between it would be a pretty clear confirmation of his fears, that he wasn’t fit to fly with the majestic creatures that, no matter how much he loved and admired L’thor and his Raith they had been wrong when they searched him and his life was that of a fisherman nothing more.
My the first egg please don’t let that be true, he begged silently, besides if it worked he could train it to send messages to his family back on the mainland. Just like his Da’s flitt did. Yea and he could take I to see poor Vesyes down in the healers cavern, maybe a small dragon was just what the boy needed to cheer up and get better.
When he had first one the egg he had been so taken with the idea, elated at his luck and good fortune in holding the tender thing. But now he had been told several times how these hatchings were risky, how easily the new born flitts could be scarred between to be forever wild and never bond with a human after that. It was alarming, all he could do was follow the instructions he had been given, as soon as the head appeared stuff its mouth full of meat. Suddenly , several of the eggs shook. He let out a surprise squeak as the tension jumped about ten notches and grabbed for a chunk from his bowl. Holding it in trembling fingers. He waited.
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Posted: Sat Jun 27, 2009 7:39 pm
Firyal had been wallowing in self pity for a few days since the Hatching. The main part of the problem was that most of the people she knew and tended to spend time with were in the infirmary, which was a place she had chosen to avoid in the hope of avoiding illness. She'd been lucky so far not to catch whatever creeping crud was going around the Weyr, and though she felt sorry for the patients, she didn't want to get sick. Of course, the downside to being healthy meant that she had to do more work to make up for those who were ill being unable to work. For the past several days' wallowing she'd been only to happy to work - for once - because it distracted her from her disappointment over the Hatching.
All feelings of disappointment faded, however, when someone came running from the kitchen to deliver the breathless message that the egg Firyal won from the dragon poker tournament was hatching. She set her work aside and followed the worker back to the kitchen at a run, desperate not to miss her firelizard's hatching. Numenor followed her, light glinting off his bronze wings. He didn't understand his human's excitement, but he was excited for her right up until they reached the kitchen and he saw the dark brown egg rocking. He knew what that meant. Competition.
Firyal was a little surprised to see that there was someone else there, staring intently at the eggs lined up on the hearth, but his attention didn't seem to be on her egg, and so she didn't mind. Someone pressed a bowl of raw meat chopped into bite-sized chunks into her hands and she made some sort of appreciative response before joining the young man crouching beside the row of eggs in jars. She carefully extracted her egg from the jar before it could rock off the ledge and shatter. Holding it in her hand she spared a glance for her companion and was startled to recognize him.
"Nehren," she said, her gaze returning almost at once to the brown egg shimmying in her cupped hands. "Is one of these yours?"
Numenor was perched on the edge of the bowl of meat, snatching bits and gulping them. Firyal was too distracted to notice, though, and he was taking full advantage. He never lacked for food, but he was always interested in eating, and the act of theft made the food more savory in his mind. When the brown egg in his human's hands gave a decisive twitch his head jerked up. Then he, too, was staring at the egg, but with a great deal more malevolence than Firyal.
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Posted: Sat Aug 08, 2009 5:11 am
Nehren looked up as his name was uttered by a familiar female voice, he blinked and rocked back on his heels slightly seeming to come out from the trance that held his attention. In the dim light of the fire his face was cast in shadows but the dark rings around the glimmering hazel eyes were still noticeable.
It was due to the hatching of course, the nights leading up to it after the touching always had his mind filled with uneasy dreams which created restless sleep and the night after the disappointment hung so heavy on the slim shoulders he would question the very reason he was here, but it would be fine, a few days and he would be once again lost in his chores and crush those questions and feelings down again. The extra work left by those in the infirmary both a blessing and a curse, of course it meant less rest in general but it took his mind off things, like his friends that were still sick. And maybe it would be a lot easier this time to divert him gloom with the hope brought by a new friend an companion currently still caught in his egg.
“hello Firyal.” he greeted her politely, his voice hushed almost like he was afraid of waking the small babies within the eggs. “and yes. I won it.” he told her proudly pointing out the small green egg. “I didn’t come first or anything so its only a small one but I don’t think it matters.” he buzzed happily, now that he had been woken from his trance like state his emotions shifted back to the high excitement of getting his own fire lizard.
Nehren really had no idea what he was meant to do apart from feed it as soon as the flitt within stuck its head out, so he watched quite intently as the other extracted hers and followed her example tipping the small egg out so it rolled gently to be cupped delicately in the palm of his hand. Nehren still peering at it, now once more intent on his goal. Good thing to because at that moment it rocked quite violently against his fingers and a hairline crack appeared right down the middle, he could swear he could hear the tap tap tap, of the dragon inside as well, struggling to break free the confines of its shell. “look, look.” Ren said with someone excitement and somewhat nervous anticipation. “It’s coming, what do I do?” he asked Firyal urgently.
He didn’t want the girl to hatch only to go between and therefore never tamed, after all he knew it had to be a green with the size and colour. He had hope in Firyal though, after all she had a fire lizard already and from what he could gather quite knowledgeable about that sort of thing.
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Posted: Sun Aug 09, 2009 8:13 am
Firyal did remember, now that Nehren mentioned it, that he'd been at the same poker game she'd attended and he, too, had won an egg. It had been one of those afternoons that seemed so long ago in the wake of recent events that most of the details had faded into obscurity. The pride in his voice brought a small smile to her face. She knew it had been mostly luck that won her this egg, and it had definitely been luck that won her Numenor, and yet she couldn't help feeling accomplished, as though she had somehow done something to merit the receipt of a firelizard egg rather than be in the right place at the right time with the right hand of cards.
"I remember, now that you remind me," she said. "I guess the eggs were all from the same clutch, if ours are hatching at the same time."
She didn't really expect an answer to her speculation. There were more interesting things going on, like the eggs' rocking. Firyal didn't notice Numenor's antagonistic attitude toward the egg in her hands mostly because she didn't want to. He would have to learn to get along with whatever came out of her egg. A part of her wished it would be a green, though the egg was clearly too large to produce a green, because she had the feeling Numenor would get along far better with a female firelizard than he would with a male. A female he might not view as competition. For whatever reason the clever bronze was also fairly jealous of those he felt had usurped Firyal's attention.
The egg in her hand was still very warm from the sands it had been kept in and had begun to rock determinedly so that she was forced to curve her cupped hands to prevent it from breaking free and shattering on the ground. At this point she figured it wouldn't kill the baby firelizard inside, but it might seriously damage him, and she had no idea what she would do with a brain-damaged or physically handicapped firelizard. She wouldn't be able to let him go between, even though that would be the appropriate thing to do. So she just had to keep the egg from falling. Not an impossible task, she hoped.
At Nehren's urging, she looked away from her own egg to observe that his had cracked. Numenor, too, allowed himself to be distracted from glaring ferociously at Firyal's egg to peer at Nehren's. He seemed to know that egg was not something he had to worry about, and so his attitude toward it was more one of fascination than hostility. He was, however, obviously not entirely sure about the proceedings.
"Be ready to feed it when it comes out," Firyal suggested. "And keep talking to it and petting it so that it gets used to you."
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