Welcome to Gaia! ::

Salin was, by his own admission, a morning person by necessity rather than desire. As a candidate, there were things that needed done, and this morning it was kitchen work. Personally, he preferred afternoons, especially hot ones, to mornings, because he always found something vaguely decadent about days where it was so hot that everyone was filled with a sort of warm lethargy like a well fed dragon.

The kitchens were a decent trade off for that, especially near the ovens, though such decadent sleepiness would be a bit more likely to result in lightly toasted arms and fingers, instead of toasted bread, which he was checking on, peering in on the baking bread to make sure it was browning, not blackening.

He wasn't likely to spring up overnight and find himself on the path to being a master chief, but he could do some decent, basic cooking without making an mess out of it, and usually it came out passably tasty, if not necessarily stellar.

Of course not being left entirely to his own devises by the actual kitchen staff didn't hurt those successes either.

He glanced up with interest as V'tur made his way into the kitchens, searching his memory for the mans face. He always tried to remember the dragon riders, as many as he could. ((This seemed politic.)) Especially those on the more 'important' colors, and this man was ringing bells, though it was taking a little for him to sift the name out of his memory. He was -pretty- sure he rode a brown though. A handsome one at that. I... I-something. Iwerth? No. Iweith.

"Good Morning, Dragonrider." he offered politely, in greeting. ((equally unwise to be dismissive or rude to people whos goodwill you might want or need later.))

"This batch almost." he offered. "It may be a bit hot to eat immediately however." He pointed out. "I can find something else?"

Didn't hurt that he wasn't entirely of the mind that he wanted to burn his fingers for someone else's breakfast, no matter what their rank. He might, he considered, be able to wrap something around his hand long enough to protect his fingers though, then the Dragon Rider could worry about his own lips and fingers.

"I'll take them out, then you can decide." he offered.

"Doable." Salin shrugged, the task seemed simple enough, though although he was going through all the motions, his eyes seemed to be ten jumps ahead in the day, perhaps doing something more interesting than what he was doing now. "I'm on kitchen duty." He added, in what was both agreement and explanation. "And like every other candidate, hoping that will change with the coming clutch." A wry smile at this.

He knew what his chances were to begin with, and there were enough candidates brought in to make them feel that much slimmer. "Could be worse. Better than latrine duty."

That was the chore that needed to be done, but never wanted to do. He wasn't sure exactly how many senses you'd have to be deprived of to enjoy that particular chore, but reasoned it would have to be most of them.

Salin blinked, his focus immediately shifted to the here and now. The attention to something other than the breakfast he was there to help provide was... actually rather unexpected. Something about making a joke about the Latrine duty?

He was reasonably sure that it wasn't the sort of joke that was actually that unusual or particularly earth shaking. It was Latrine duty, for shards sake.

Probably the bane of every candidate, regardless of their origin. He glanced slightly toward the bread, but it didn't look quite ready to shield him from unexpected questions, so he sat, trying and failing to hide his faint bafflement at the interest from the rider.

"Well it's a good time to get everything ready, easier than when more of the Weyr is awake..." He admitted. "What would you like to know, sir?"

If it would get him a dragon, he'd stand on his head and dye his braids purple while reciting limericks for the man, but he was pretty sure that wouldn't happen. Actually with his luck so far, it would probably shift the odds even more in the favor of the searched Holdborn candidates.

Salin's expression remained slightly guarded, but he answered never the less, idly adjusting the way the heavy fall of bound-up braids fell on the back of his neck.
"My name is Salin, Dragon rider, and yes I'm from Trine." He noted this last bit with an subtle, but undisguised pride. And why should he hide it?
Plenty of people were proud of where they were born, and if they weren't, there were opportunities and training opportunities that could take most away to locations they might favor more, but he could think of nothing about Trine that didn't warrant the pride in his birthplace.

He was definitely being sized up, but he wasn't sure to what end. And of course... he was Hold Born, which gave him a small uncomfortable burn of resentment in the pit of his stomach. It was sharding frustrating.

Hold born, who were supposedly less qualified, generally speaking, to impress, seemed to impress around him left and right, like Dragons fell off of egg baskets into your lap, and he was still standing and wondering if he was going to end up spending the rest of his life cooking bread for what, in a brief moment of exaggeration, he imagined to be a Weyr run entirely by people who hadn't been born there, and only had as much idea about how it worked as they cared to.

"Igen's supposed to be a nice place, but I've never seen it." He shrugged. "And yes sir, I think we should have pride in where we're born. There's a lot of history tied up in a lot of places, and Trine is one of the places making it." He lifted his chin slightly at this, as though daring anyone to contradict him, though the gesture was subtle. "And no sir, I've stood before, but I've still got time before I age out."

Though it felt like less time every hour of the day, even though he had a couple years left. He almost itched for there to be another clutch, even though he half anticipated that the emotional roller coaster would be the same. The thrill of touching, the rush of the hatching, and the disappointment of walking off again without nothing but some sand stuck to his feet, or claw marks from a dragon rushing on it's way to someone else.

It wasn't that he thought the dragons made bad choices, he just couldn't help the frustration. He'd been born in the weyr. BRED in the weyr, eaten, slept and breathed dragon lore every chance he got, and... well. Here he was. It would have been outright inhuman not to be a bit frustrated and disappointed. Knowing that the dragons made the best choice they could for themselves, and knowing on a logical level that the more choices they had the better the chances were that they wouldn't tragically between themselves, was entirely different from -feeling- it on an raw emotional level.

Inwardly, Salin groaned faintly, though outwardly, he didn't let it show. As much as he liked to know about other people, he always felt as though they must be similarly weighing and balancing everything they learned about him, to use to their own advantages, and this man especially gave him that feeling.
"If I ever get a dragon, I'll look to see them, but otherwise I doubt I'll have the time for sightseeing." Salin shrugged, as though the idea didn't bother him as much as it did. "Even with their currently somewhat radical policy of checking 'dud' eggs, there were only so many chances he'd get to impress. It wasn't as though the queen could just drop a clutch to pass the time, as surreal a thought as that was.

"I watch the dyers when I have the time." He admitted. "I don't have training in it, but it's interesting to see how they get the colors. The more you know about it the easier it is to appreciate the price of good cloth and strong dyes. Especially trying to keep them from bleeding the first time they're put to wash."