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 Posted: Sat Aug 04, 2018 4:13 pm
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The day was coming. Two gold had risen, and the candidates had been well whipped into shape in the time between the previous clutch and the one to come. There would be no more mistakes, no shame brought with slick red blood to the sands of High Reaches as it had been to Western. Zelaya had bent to her given tasks and chores with a devotion she had been quietly pleased to see echoed in the behavior of (most of) the other candidates. Still, any time she found herself crossing the weyrbowl the black mouth of the hatching sands snared her gaze, hooked her like a line caught a fish, and left her daydreaming the rest of the day.
In truth a dragon had not been her dream for so long...but she had ever wanted to do her duty, and having met her father, knowing his wishes for her...now it was a large part of what drove her, to find her partner on the sands and make him proud. A dragon would serve her own needs as well, but as she expected nothing greater than a green, her thoughts were ever more focused on if that would be enough to please Z'tir
All the chatter between the candidates had been of the yet-to-arrive eggs as well. How many, and when, and if both clutches would hatch together or even get along. She'd heard bets being made and certain-as-the-sun predictions. But really none of them would know until the eggs came. Of course, that didn't change that it was still the topic of debate, and she had gone along with a number of other candidates on one of their rest days to perch, a lunch of fruit and cold meats in baskets, atop a ledge overlooking the bowl and the distant hatching sands. Her ears were filled with talk of touchings and hatchings and baby dragonets. "How about you?" She ventured, glancing at the girl to her left, the first thing she'd said throughout the entire excursion. "How many do you think...?"
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Posted: Sat Aug 04, 2018 4:48 pm
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Daddy issues? Calla had those too.
Walking the cavernous halls of High Reaches Weyr had brought chills peppering Calla's skin for her first smattering of Sevendays. She kept thinking it would pass, willed it to, but it took a lot of walking before she could cross into any new space without wondering about her father's steps making the same tread. The life of a candidate had been a happy adjustment. Sure, there were parts that sucked, but all that Calla could think about was how her father must have done the same things, felt the same things.
As long as she thought of her father, she was able to push from her mind the fear of her mother finding out what she was really up to here.
That day, she had finished helping out peeling some tubers early and skirted down to the bowl with some other candidates. Calla could get caught up in a speculative conversations as easy as the next Candidate, and when the girl next to her inquired, Calla turned brown eyes to her and said, "I hope it is too many to fit on the Sands." Okay, so not really because that would be dangerous, but it captured her general feeling accurately.
She grab a fruit from the basket and asked, "You?"
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Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2018 1:08 pm
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The other girl's—Calla, if she remembered right—enthusiasm was slightly infectious. Zelaya could feel the smallest of smiles tugging at her lips as she imagined the hatching sands so full of eggs that no one else could fit. "That might be a few too many..." Still, it was a funny image, and for anyone truly dreaming of impressing, it would be a grand thing. So many, the odds of being chosen would be very high. Then again, it also probably meant a few would be lost between without enough choices. High Reaches had been searching day in and day out for more candidates, and she assumed their sister Weyr, Western, was doing so too. Hopefully there's be enough. Enough eggs for the candidates and enough candidates for the eggs.
"I wonder if there will be a gold." Her father would want her to try to impress a gold, but the idea of herself astride such an important dragon was...impossible. She simply couldn't picture it. She hoped he'd not be disappointed that she seemed truly to be the type fit only for a green, if at all.
"The clutch last turn, I heard, went well." Not at all like Western's had gone was left unsaid. The babies on that foreign beach had been alright too, but not of quality enough for her father to let her stand properly for them. This time she would be ready, and this time the bloodline of the dragons was proper. Mostly. She expected him to encourage her, and fought to let herself imagine impressing when the day came. "I wonder if High Reaches has had so many before...I hope they all make it."
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Posted: Thu Oct 11, 2018 3:35 pm
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High odds, yes -- and if Calla didin't Impress? Her worldview had been built on the sense that she never felt truly at home in her home because she was a kindred spirit like her father, destined to chase an experience only a select few would enjoy. She was fine as a harper, but in her heart, she saw herself as special. But what if no dragon did? What if she was lacking? The idea of being lacking was especially disgusting to the girl.
She swallowed the negative thoughts with another smile and the thought of a gold and the less pleasant thought of losing some eggs. "With a double clutch, it may be so," she said, answering both, as if she were some sage expert on it, which she was not. "Have you stood for an Impression before?"
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