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Come See the Eggs...If You're a Male Candidate atten: ANY/Asheran/Foreth/Kassia

Jenna Cunningham
 

Asheran sat on one of the stone bleachers in the stands and leant forward until his elbows touched his knees, studying the eggs below on the warm sands of the hatching cavern - or what of them he could see, anyway. When news of the clutch had spread like Thread throughout the Weyr, he had killed his excitement and focused on his craftwork, determined not to get caught up in daydreaming about dragons that might be his again. He had frozen in the dining hall as the news washed over him, and then he had resumed eating without any change to his demeanor, thinking distantly about the coming shipment of hides, and the younger apprentices he would have to marshal up to clean off the hanks of hair and globules of rancid fat. And he had resolved then to stay the course and focus on things he could change. If there was a dragon for him, it would have to work to earn him, not the other way around. He wouldn't go out of his way for some unhatched yolk in a shell that might not even ever crack. And that wasn't unkindness, it was just... He knew his own worth. It was inviolable, which was a word he had picked up in the Archives and worried between his teeth for hours, and liked the shape of now when he thought about it. Inviolable.
 
But as he sat there, very intensely quiet, he couldn't deny that there was a little excitement building in his chest again, too. There was one egg that he picked for a brown immediately, and another that would obviously hatch a bronze - he counted it twice before he realised that Foreth must have shifted it around on the sands. And then another that radiated caged power: bronze, he thought, and then hedged: or blue. And another, one that reminded him vaguely of the tanning vats: brown. 
 
The one he couldn't figure out was the egg that looked like it was bleeding. He stared at it awhile, then decided if there were bets again this clutch in the barracks, he wouldn't put any marks to that one. He'd stick with safer bets now that he was broke again. And --
 
His lips thinned as he spotted the odd ghostly egg, thinking back on candlemarks spent in the Archives poring over unfathomable things like hydrology reports and seasonal temperature charts. It was just an artefact, he decided. Sometimes an egg sort of looked like a skull, and sometimes it looked like a dead dragonet. Like clouds. You'd see whatever you wanted to see in them if you looked hard enough.
 
He didn't brood on that sight for long, though. A brief glimpse of gold pulled his attention away, and he sat back, rubbing his neck. He hadn't really cared about the golds. The girls were all going wild, but he hadn't had a runner in that race. Alyx, though. She had Cremmie, sure, but she'd sit there in place of his folks when the time came, and he couldn't help but wonder if maybe - maybe one of those eggs were for her. He had the other egg, the blazing little one, already pegged. Of its future rider, if nothing else, he was certain.

He didn't call out to the gold on the sands. He didn't try to impress her with grand speeches or flattery. It didn't even occur to him. Instead, finally glancing at one of the other boys who had mustered in alongside him to stare at the eggs, he murmured:

"Which one's your favourite?"
kepheren
 

Ronhim almost didn't hear the question. So intent was he on studying the eggs, trying to glean what was in each, that he took a moment to refocus. Giving the other fellow a shy smile he finally replied. 

"Favorite? I could say all of them couldn't I?"

He couldn't help but chuckle a bit. 

"If I'm honest though that purrplish one that looks like caged lightning really speaks to me."
Jenna Cunningham
 

Asheran caught himself grinning at the other beefy candidate, in a way he hoped was reassuring and inclusive and not intimidating, and glanced back out across the hatching sands again from his perch, eyes trailing to the egg in question.

"At first I thought that's definitely a bronze in there, but... Now I'm wondering if it isn't a big blue. That's happened a couple times. There's an egg everybody bets on being bronze, and out comes this big blue. But who really knows, right?"

He lifted his arm, gesturing toward another egg briefly, blithely unaware that in no time at all he'd be staring at its twin writ in real time across the wall.

"I kinda like that one. Don't care what comes out of it, if it's for me or if it isn't, but I like the look of it."

It, of course, looked like a raw, open wound.

As if realizing this was a weird egg to like the look of, Asheran added belatedly, "And the pebbly one, too. I'd put marks on a brown in there."
kepheren
 

He relaxed a bit at the other fellows smile. Ronhim still had a bit of social uncertainty but the people at the Weyr were sure friendly and that helped to bring him out of his shell a bit. It felt good to be included in things, like simple conversations. That was something he hadn't experienced much back at the Hold.

"A big blue...or a brown....that would be grand," he said, with a far away, dreamy tone to his voice. "I don't think I would be fit for a bronze...and not sure a green would want to carry my over sized self around."

The last part was said with a chuckle. Though he would adore a green as much as he would any dragon. The complications of having a green though were there in the back of his mind as well. Ronhim had never looked at another man with anything like desire but a dragons needs had to come first he supposed.

"The pebbly one?" he asked, craning his neck to get a look at it. "It's nice enough. Not sure what will come out of it. What about the one with the skull face? What do you think is in there?"

All the while he talked Ronhim tried to remember who this other fellow was and his name. They had been in some classes or some such hadn't they?
Jenna Cunningham
 

"Don't discount yourself," Asheran interrupted when Ronhim mentioned, in that dreamy tone, that he thought he wasn't fit for bronze. He couldn't fathom not wanting a bronze - and not secretly thinking that you were good enough for the greatest of bronzes. Green, though. He tried not to make a face, though he did let his eyes roll as he gazed back at the hatching sands from his distant perch. "A green wouldn't suit me, I think," he said finally, then rubbed the back of his neck. Where was the... there, there was the brick-red, skull-faced egg.

"Bronze?" He hedged, because the more bronzes, the merrier. Red was a similar hue to brown, though, wasn't it? Maybe it was another brown. "Not a blue, anyway. Not a green. What do you think?"

And then, because he wasn't sure he'd met the boy before - being released to craftwork meant he missed new arrivals to the barracks: "I'm Asheran, by the way." He stuck out his hand.
kepheren
 

He was surprised when Asheran offered his hand. To his own surprise Ronhim only hesitated half a second before shaking it and smiling. 

"Well met Asheran. I'm Ronhim and really new here. Former drudge from a Hold..."

He let that thought trail off, both because he didn't want to dwell on the past and because he figured that would explain why he didn't think he would rate a bronze. 

"It looks kind of angry. If I had to guess that sounds like a bronze or really big brown."
Jenna Cunningham
 

"We didn't have any drudges on the cothold," Asheran said easily, unwilling to let something that bothered the other young man trail away like that. "Too small. But I was the youngest out of four, so you could say I was the drudge." He smiled again, then drew his hand back and let it rest draped across his knee. Ronhim was probably right, he thought after some consideration. The egg did look angry, and for whatever reason, the bronzes seemed to hatch out of angry looking eggs. It must suck, being twisted up inside a shell for so long. Maybe that was why they came out angry. Too little space for something so imperious and large. It made him wonder what a gold would look like in comparison. Not as grand, probably, but just as big.

"I bet you're right."
kepheren
 

The thought of a Hold without drudges didn't quite register with him. Ronhim had always been told that people like him, those who weren't born to the right people he supposed, were the lowest sort of people and meant to do the words of the physical labor. A place without drudges must be...interesting. He let that idea go though to focus on the eggs again when Asheran spoke.

"I never thought dragon eggs would look like this," he mused after a little moment. "Yeah, I figured they would be this big but thought they would be just dull white or grey like the eggs smaller creatures lay. These are so....bright and full of personality."

Maybe not the best of descriptions but the best he could think of in the moment.
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