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"All right." She wasn't really going to argue with what Eliza thought was best. After all, she was coming along partly because she felt obligated to stay with the girl so Eliza wouldn't find her rude, and partly because she really did want to see dragons and know what each color supposedly represented. That seemed like a strange thing to claim, but she had heard in snippets of overheard conversations in the weyr that there were stereotypes that went along with riders of certain colors. Perhaps that extended over to the dragons as well.

She said nothing on the subject, knowing her questions would be answered eventually. The sun was blotted out as a dragon sailed over, its shadow cutting over the ground a bit behind its movements. Cetalese instinctively tipped her head back and shielded her eyes to get a look at the dragon passing overhead. It was hard to tell the color of the hide when the sun was coming from above it, but a few patches of hide that were lit by the sun and not blindingly bright told Ceta it was most likely a Brown. Even high above them, the dragon looked huge. And Browns weren't the biggest dragons in the weyr.

She'd heard of the famous White dragons, their legend diminished slightly-- but not entirely-- by the creation of further alternate dragon colors. In reality, White were the only real mutations, since it was the fault of scientists that Crimsons, Blacks and Silvers came about. Or that was the way Cetalese had always understood it to work anyway. So it made sense for Eliza to at least denote them. There had only ever been one on Pern that Ceta had known of-- the famous Ruth-- so to hear that there was another-- and living!-- was a thrill to her.

I wonder if it's here or at Malvren, she wondered, but didn't voice.

"And Blues are next," Ceta offered, knowing enough about the hierarchy to understand basic groupings, if not the exact order of dragon colors. "The Search and Watch dragons."

"Yes." Cetalese's agreement was so general it was hard to tell what she was saying yes to specifically, or if she was just saying it in general.

She had seen a Blue, but since no Blacks or Greens were forthcoming she looked up to where Eliza pointed anyway and looked her fill at the content dragon on his sun-soaked ledge. He was a different shade of Blue than the one who had picked her up, she thought. And... did he have a stripe down his back?

Her confusion reflected in her face, although she said nothing about it. Perhaps she was mistaken. She knew the Blue who had taken her from Hold to Weyr was light for what she thought Blues looked like, with even paler wing membranes, but he had been a solid color aside from a bit of mottling by his back legs. Surely he couldn't be striped.

She looked back to Eliza and let them continue their walk, looking expectantly for the next color on the list. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Eliza's foot lift toward a patch of strangely hump-shaped, uneven ground and instinctively grabbed at the girl and tugged her back, her eyes now solely on Eliza in order to keep both of them from falling over.

"I'm sorry," the words were out before she could stop them, as she was trying to balance Eliza and before either of them could get a good look at what was in their way.

Cetalese stared as surely as Eliza would once she realized why she'd been pulled to a stop. The bumps in the path were clearly not just humps of ground, but actual objects with a dusting of dirt kicked over them, it looked like. First surprise and then awe filled her as she guessed what she might be looking at, and that awe only increased into excitement when Eliza confirmed what she'd been thinking.

Firelizard eggs.

"But what are they doing out here in the middle of the path?" Cetalese asked in consternation. She herself slowly crouched down by the precious treasures after a moment of hesitation. No one would just leave such precious eggs out in the open like this, let alone somewhere that they could be damaged. There was no mistaking what they were though. Wherry eggs didn't look quite like that, and their eggs were a fair bit larger than these.

She, too, had noticed the shards of shells. There was no egg goo, so they must have been broken without notice several days ago at least, but the loss of the other eggs was, to her anyway, very sad. Cetalese had heard stories of searching beach sands for Clutches, but she had never heard them amount to much. She certainly had never heard of finding them sitting in the middle of a weyrbowl where people were walking by all the time. How had people not noticed the eggs, especially when some had been broken? A cart had hit them maybe? It didn't really matter now. What mattered were the two remaining eggs and getting them to safety so that someone could--

Eliza's words startled Cetalese, because of their boldness. She wanted them to each pick one?

"A firelizard egg? For me?" It didn't equate. Riders got eggs, people lucky enough to be able to buy one if the rare and expensive eggs appeared at a Gather got eggs. She was just... a Holder. Or a Candidate now, if she looked at it that way, but she'd only been here for a sevenday or so! She couldn't be so lucky as to get a firelizard so soon after arriving!

"Are we allowed to take them?"

Green Clutch or not-- and she had stored that bit about Greens not caring for their eggs away in case it came in handy again later-- she was fairly certain they were supposed to... tell someone about this, though who exactly they would tell she didn't know. Her eyes were already on the eggs again, sizing them up and looking her fill at the rarities though her face was almost as expressionless as usual aside from a strange intensity in her gaze. They were so small. Cetalese reached out and ran a finger down the shell of the one closest to her, part of her already smitten, if not for the idea of firelizards than for the tiny being inside the shell that couldn't protect itself yet.

Ceta felt a surge of excitement and carefully reached out to the lift the egg from the dirt. It was almost baked into place from the hot suns of the South, so she had to rock it a little to get it loose without breaking the shell as badly as the eggs that had been crushed. Once she had the hot shell safely nestled in her hands, the reality of the situation hit her and her eyes lit up. Even without a smile, the brightness of her face eased the disconcerting calm that was normal for her expression and suffused it with a bit of the elation she was feeling. She was going to have a firelizard!

If so many at the Weyr had firelizards, the way Eliza insisted they did, someone must know how to care for them and keep them safe until they hatched to Impress. How did one Impress a firelizard? She's always been told it was a combination of being present at their hatching and feeding them the moment after they left the shell. The problem then was knowing when they were going to hatch and making sure to be there instead of at Candidate duties. Would the Candidate Master let them off of chores on the day the eggs were going to hatch so they wouldn't miss it? No, they could probably just get a kitchen shift so that they would be near-by for when the eggs did hatch. That was better. It would keep them busy so they weren't hovering anxiously for the day.

"That's a good idea," Ceta agreed, having moved aside and then forgotten her concerns over this trip and her budding acquaintanceship with Eliza. "She'll still be in the kitchen preparing for supper. She might be too busy to help us right now, though."

Cetalese stared at Eliza for a moment, then carefully rose, the egg held firmly in her hands. She was thinking about food now? How could she be so nonchalant about their discovery so quickly?

She nodded her acquiescence anyway and readjusted her grip on the tiny egg, holding it close to her body. The Headwoman was still the one to visit, even if Cetalese wasn't feeling very hungry while still filled with such excitement. She knew, though, that she would be hungry once it faded away. Perhaps Eliza wasn't just being irreverent.

That thought in mind, she followed her new companion back to the kitchens.