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A tall female candidate stood wiping sweat off her forehead and the back of her neck with a sleeve. She was trying to train her small green firelizard to fly a few feet away grab a piece of rope and fly back. Thus far, little Ahoy was just being frustrating. Maybe Cordel had it wrong, maybe greens were really the dumber of the species and it did not depend on the firelizard, or her green was extra dense. Pulling her hand through her hair Ollen's short hair stood on end with sweat.

Ollen scowled looking at the little mint green firelizard, "You, fly down to the rope, bring it back, you get a treat." She held up a tiny piece of meat and the firelizard perked up. Ollen thought that it might be useful to teach the green to retrieve something tiny like a rag or a piece of rope, and it seemed like a good exercise for them to do, like playing fetch. She mentally tried to send images of the task and result.

Ollen walked over and picked up the rope, while looking around the Weyr bowl wondering what on Pern she was going to do next. "Ahoy, you are the tiniest dimglow on all of Pern."

Ollen gave Kesslan a crooked grin and pumped the other candidates hand warmly, "I'm Ollen, and yes that's Ahoy." How had the other girl known she was a candidate? Perhaps they had, had duties together and Ollen did not notice at the time.

"I wasn't under the impression we were being watched," She chuckled and stroked the little greens neck. Ahoy chirped a warm hello to the new human and took off from her human's arm to circle around the pair.

"She..has no manners, sorry if she lands on you," Ollen mumbled and tried to call the green back, "I figure if I can teach her something like this..maybe she'll learn manners along the way," she paused, "hadn't thought about her not liking the meat."

Ahoy was like a pet project...literally, Ollen loved the little green and took the raising of her very seriously. Ever spare moment she was back to trying one thing or another, one command that Ahoy knew and knew well was "return" which meant get your little green butt in the room before I swat you.

Ollen considered the idea, metals were very hard to come by on all of Pern and it would probably be hard to find any small pieces that were not being used for other purposes.

"Do you think small flakes found on the beach might work?" Sometimes tiny specs of precious gems speckled Ista's beaches.

Ahoy fluttered down and settled onto the younger candidate's shoulder, her claws lightly squeezing to keep her balance.

"Ahoy, no you're supposed to be invited!" she shook her head and held an arm out for the green. "She's young, just a few sevendays...and well I was hoping she could help me in my duties picking up scraps on the floor and such.." Ollen trailed off and stopped herself from babbling, "If you want you can shoo her away, or I could make her go."

Ahoy chirped shrilly ad leaned into Kess's hand happily. She hoped closer and rubbed her small head against Kesslan's face letting out another quick chirp.

"Are you from the Weyr?" She relaxed not realizing how tense she was around the other young woman, "I'm from Ista Hold." She smirked trying to make some conversation. She liked to hear other candidates stories, they weyrfolk especially they generally knew a lot about dragons and obviously knew quite a bit about Weyr life.

"Oh, no, no, I am...was an apprentice seacrafter," she nodded, "I've got sea salt in my blood, or that's what one of the old Aunties used to say." She thought of home wistfully.

"I've started wishing I was weyrborn," she paused wondering why she'd said such a thing, her life was perfectly fine up until this point, "Well, it's mostly because everyone seems so much more comfortable around dragons. I didn't see many until coming here."

Ollen glanced around her at the weyrs above in awe to prove her point. "I don't ever want to get used to dragons..I want them to always seem..." she shrugged not having a sufficient adjective to describe how she felt.

"That's certainly one word for it," she chuckled.

"There is nothing better than being out to sea, nothing better than hauling in a net filled with fish and it's only your muscles that you can rely on," Ollen smirked and rubbed Ahoy's eye ridge. Since coming to the weyr the young woman had been working muscles that hadn't been worked in a turn. She loved working and being productive.

"I'm sure you're good for more than just serving others," she shrugged and Ahoy took off swirling around Kess's head and landed on the other girl's shoulder again.

"If you could be in any trade what would it be? For example, I think being a tanner would be interesting, certainly not very exciting like healing or fishing."

"A harper? I bet you'd make a good harper. I don't have any siblings, how'sit like having a twin?" She smirked and tugged her hand through her hair to pull the damp mess off of her scalp to allow air to flow through it. Kesslan was neat, a harper if anything else? Well, she loved harpers, they brought so much joy to the Hall in Tillek.

Ollen couldn't answer that she gave a shrug, "I'm here because it was an opportunity, I've loved the sea and felt it in my bones since I was a kid, and my Pa, he's a senior journeyman..I guess I just thought that was right. But my fosterma wanted me here on Ista, so I came home to the hold. When F'sey Searched me I sort of decided to go with the flow. Follow the waves, don't push against them type of thing."