Candidate, meet Egg. Egg, meet Candidate (TOUCHING

[ShadowReine]

Yselka stood partially blocking the entrance to the Sands. In the carefully designed Candidate staging area, the Candidates milled around nervously.

"Silence," the young woman said, raising her voice only as much as she needed to.

"The eggs are in good condition and hardening well. Lyeth has agreed to permit a touching. For those of you who may not know, the custom fulfills two purposes. It allows you to get a good look at the Hatching grounds and generally makes Candidates less nervous. More importantly, the dragonets appear to have at least some ability to sense the Candidates at this stage. Bringing the Candidates in contact with the eggs results in more decisive dragonets that are considerably less likely to get frustrated and injure somebody."

She glanced over the group again. "You are to come out onto the Sands in an orderly manner. You should endeavor to touch as many of the eggs as possible, even the smaller ones. That includes the girls." She shot a look at the two worst troublemakers...Lorisette and Ivria. "There is to be no tapping the eggs and no licking them...believe me, they don't taste very good. However, if you wish, feel free to place your ear against one or two. You might, if you're lucky, be able to hear the hatchling moving."

Yselka continued. "Bow to Lyeth when you enter, the same as for the hatching. Direct any questions or concerns to me. And when I say leave, you leave, also in an orderly manner. We don't want to upset the queen. So...please. Follow me out onto the Sands."

Ivria and Lorisette immediately moved to do so, glaring at one another. Wylka had apparenty decided to avoid them, and went to the back of the line.

Inwardly, Yselka sighed. Still, better troublesome candidates than theft attempts...

[phlysolo]

There was maybe one Candidate who didn't seem nervous at all, but bored and impatient. She'd been through these shenanigans before, heard the same lecture received the same instructions. Boring. And, quite frankly, most of them included all common sense. If some of these Holdbred bovine-behinds didn't know about the traditions surrounding the Touching of the Clutch, then they should not be Standing, but rather executed in only the most painful of manners. Or maybe, Yselka herself should for believing every one of the Candidates before her was too dense to recall what they had all known since their first epic day of Candidateship. Well, no matter, perhaps some of them were.

Oh, by Faranath, she couldn't let those two...she hesitated to even acknowledge they were of the female species and strode forward and between them, attempting to roughly push them aside and enter the Hatching Grounds first. Hmph, she wasn't even interested in that glorified mule and yet she seemed determined to undermine Ivria and Lorisette's attempts at lulling the golden dragonet to herself. Perhaps she'd give the gold egg just one pat to spite them.

The Cavern was bright, bestowed with much more light than Lenia had ever seen it-and she had, one of the first days at the Weyr, informing a scared and distraught Weyrwoman that a new bronzerider had made it safely to the Weyr...She only paused but for a moment to take in the grand sight that was the mass of the Clutch. Only now did she fully realize her chance at Impression, did she concieve that she could possibly become what her father was, more than he was even. Now she would be able to prove to him, though he was probably less than worm food by now, that she was worthy of his time, that she would Impress more than just some air-headed and flighty green.

Making her way through the walls of Eggs, she stopped deliberately directly in front of Lyeth herself, gazing up at the gold almost challengingly for only a moment before dipping her form into the lowest bow she could possibly muster without dropping to her knees. The spikes of her hair shrouded her face from view, but even the most dim-witted of fools would have been able to tell that her eyes were averted in solemn respect for the gold who single handedly would manage to repopulate all of Pern's defenses.

Now that the formalities were taken care of, Lenia straightened up, ignoring the rest of the lot as she made her way towards the Eggs. She wasn't entirely sure if she could touch the Queen Egg or not, just yet, but decided that pressing against the lesser beauties would be just as fine. She was tempted to place a hand on the very first Egg she came to, a small one, but thought better of it. She would not be some lowly greenrider, capable of only being some no name, numbered greenrider whose only purpose was to spout flame for a few hours and then receed back into the masses of riders, unacknowledged and thankless. No, she would settle for nothing less than a blue...a large blue.

Side stepping that particularly small Egg, she stood directly in front of one of the largest Eggs in the Clutch. It was sitting near, though not quite next to, the Queen's Egg. Certainly it contained a bronze. Without a doubt. No brown could become that big, no blue either. The contents of this Egg could be her's, could Hatch and look upon Lenia with love and affection and give itself to her but...yeah, right. No bronze, no matter how short of males he was, would ever give himself over to a female, nor would a brown, sadly. Even if she was the only actual Candidate on the Sands, no bronze or brown would ever look her way, hopeful fantasies aside.

She clenched her jaw, hating her status and the natural heiarchy of the Weyr. Lenia could never concieve the thought of herself as a male but merely cursed the fact that males chose males, with the exception of a few greens and females only Impressed to females with no exceptions. It was a sad fact, but the best she could honestly hope for was a blue. Maybe. Maybe a blue would confuse her physical appearance and attatch itself to her and, in surprise, tell her that she wasn't what he expected, but loved her anyways.

Again, her better knowledge got the better of her and she sighed, giving the exceptionally large Egg a gentle pat before moving on. She had just shimmied past it when a small...something pressed into her line of vision.

"By Faranath, Kaiton, get your sorry hide out of my sight!" She snarled, pushing him and nearly shoving the boy straight into the Egg she had previously caressed.

Kaiton had only managed to avoid colliding with the large Egg by throwing himself to the ground. Covered in hot sand and humiliated, he pulled himself to his feet, but before he could loose and adequate reply to her, she was gone, vanished amongst a sea of Eggs.

"I hate her," He snarled to himself, turning around and coming nose-to-Egg with the one she had previously been touching.

"Oh, hello. Hope I didn't startle you," He said, patting the Egg. "Whatever you do, don't Impress her. You'll never be happy for a single day!"

Not sure how long he should linger, he made off, slathering other Eggs with the same attention that Lenia was, with the same attention they all were...

Almost an entire dragonlength away from the golden Egg and so far to the back of the Grounds that it was hard to tell if Henerik was a Candidate or just some nosy Harper. Indeed, he did look like a nosy harper, for he had a small sketch pad in one hand and a writing implement in the other, rapidly scribbling away the scene of the Grounds as Candidates scurried about touching an Egg here and there.

He was only half interested in what was going on in the Cavern and was even less interested in the Eggs themselves. He had received a message, via Scuttle of course, from no less than the Master Harper himself, demanding that Henerik be available at the Touching and, if he so choose, give one them a pat or two for good measure. He wasn't necessarily spying on the Clutch, or the Hatching that would follow, but was acting as more of a recorder of the event. As one of the few Harpers still "stationed" at Ista Weyr, he had to do more jobs than he could have juggled balls.

Still, he did his job the best he could, as anti-social and cold as it may have made him appear. Indeed he rarely spoke to anyone at all in the Weyr, save a couple of brief meetings with the Weyrleader, each having to do with some jot of information that needed to be placed in the Records Room as part of the Weyr's history. In fact, he was sure that the notes he was taking now were going to be filled away some where here at Ista as well as tucked away in some file in the massive Archival Room of the Harper Hall.

As of right now, he was briefly jotting down the number of Candidates, then how many were male and female, on to a corner of the drawing. He noted that several females were not from Ista at all, but were several of the ones who had come to the Weyr in strict hopes of Impressing to the daughter of Lyeth. Unfortunately, he couldn't quite remember each and every one of their names, but that could easily be resolved by a simple trip to the Headwoman's, or, if he wanted to avoid human contact all together, slip into his second home: the Records Room itself.

In order to get a good view, and by that a measurement, of the size and shape of the queen Egg, he slipped into the middle of the Cavern, having bowed to Lyeth already, he felt he was in no danger of being snarled at or pushed by any of these oh, so eager Candidates. He waited almost impatiently as one of the girls, who just so happened to be our Lenia, paused with an unnecessary length in front of the gold egg, making a great show of hugging it, petting it, and giving it all the affection she could muster. Honestly. Some of these girls really had no shame at all.

As soon as she was out of the way, he compared the size of the Egg to the size of the mother, doodling her out and then, proportionately, the size of the Egg next to her. Wonderful. It was lucky that the queens kept their precious golden eggs so close to them. He eyed his notes briefly to a moment, adding a comment here, scratching out a useless phrase there and then nodded. His work was, for the time being, done with.

Without a word to anyone, really, he made his way out of the Sands, but, like poor Kaiton, was shoved rather rudely. He wasn't able to see who had done it, but was pressed, for a span of time, against an Egg. It was neither large, nor extremely small, but simply seemed to exist. A completely nondescript Egg. A small frown dotted his face and he gently patted it in apology, hoping that his little bump hadn't disturbed its growing process.

Shaking his head, and some feet from his boots, he scurried up to the stands for a better view.

[tariala]

It was strange, Nebrona reflected, that the Weyrwoman didn’t look much older than herself. It felt like she ought to be older. Not that it took away any of her authority, especially with that great gold dragon behind her. She listened attentively to the list of rules and reminders –licking? She was sorely tempted to ask the Weyrwoman what idiot had tried to lick an egg- and resolved to try listening for hatchling movement.

With all of the jostling and jockeying for position before going onto the Sands, Nebrona ended up near the back of the group. She hardly minded, though. She hung back a moment to observe the other candidates’ movement and note where most people clustered, and felt a thrill run through her as she studied the eggs before them. It was decidedly unsettling, she decided, to have what could be a life-changing event sitting right there before them, all wrapped up in mystery.

She finally made her way further onto the sands, and went to pay her respects to Lyeth. Her bow was nothing elaborate, a deliberate, crisp, down-and-up movement, before she turned away to let the next candidate have the queen’s attention. For a while she just drifted from egg to egg, not sparing any, even if they seemed big enough for bronze- you never knew. With each one, she tried to project not just warmth and welcome, but some taste of who she was, what she did, loved, and valued. If egg-touched hatchlings came out more likely to go straight to their riders, surely the best thing she could do to attract hers was to show them why they might want to choose her.

At one point, she turned in time to see Lenia’s shove, and shook her head in dismay. The girl had better watch that- if Yselka saw that, endangering the eggs, it could get her kicked off the sands. That her second thought was to ask Lenia to make sure she got Kathal next time instead made her grin, and firmly stuff the impulse back down into the realm of idle fantasy.

When Nebrona got her turn at the gold egg, she approached carefully and laid her hands gently on the shell, repeating her technique with the previous eggs. She also tried to project the feeling of *home*, the desire to stay where the little gold was loved and wanted- maybe it would help persuade her toward an Istan girl. She wouldn’t mind Impressing the gold inside -it probably would be an interesting challenge, and wouldn’t it set Kathal back a peg or two- but she had a few other eggs yet to get to, and she let her hands slip off the shell, bidding the being inside farewell for now.

[bookworm]

Wynec had seen clutches before, but he had never had the privilege of touching the eggs. He was excited to finally get a chance to get close to the eggs. Being a real candidate was an exciting prospect, and he wanted to relish every moment of it. He waited with the other candidates, falling silent when Yselka began to speak. Wynec viewed the Weyrwoman almost like a cousin, because she and his mother were so close, but he also knew to respect her. He listened patiently, although the importance of a Touching was nothing new to him. He didn't mind touching the smaller eggs, though. It might be fun to have a quick, agile blue, and he was confident enough that a green wouldn't even look his way.

When Yselka let them go, he eagerly strode onto the sands, going up to a medium sized egg that probably held brown, maybe a small bronze. "Hi, there," he said cheerfully, patting it gently. It felt warm, and slightly leathery. He ran his fingers over the shell, wondering if the dragon inside knew he was there. Was it making a judgment about him even now? Curious about what Yselka had said about listening to the egg, he put his ear against it and concentrated. After a few seconds, he thought he heard some shuffling, but wasn't sure if it was just his imagination or really the dragonet moving.

Wynec gave the rest of the eggs the same attention, big or small. He tried to guess which color each one held, although he thought he would probably forget by Hatching day.

[yamamoto]

Andol walked into the hacthing sands very neverosuly. He was attempting to avoid all the other canadidtes as best that he could. He did a quick bow to the queen before walked up to one of the eggs and crouching in fornt of it. He studied it closely for a mintue as he ran his hands over the egg and touched it. He moved on and did the same thing for the next egg and the next one. Looking at them all curiously. Wondering what dragon could be inside each one. Wondering what kind of dragon was inside and wondering if his dragon was inside any of them.

[franny]

(OOC: This spot is held or Helka to touch eggs, when I get around to writing it.. at the moment, I have a really bad headache and all I can think of is: Helka touched eggs. She liked there feel... and so on)
Helka entered and bowed to the queen like instructed. She then began to touch eggs...

[dotta]

Finally! Today was the day all candidates had dreamed of attending. All those hours of dragon schooling and even longer hours of meaningless chores, all for the chance of being privileged enough to be chosen by a dragonet. Everyone seemed anxious to place their hands upon the dormant eggs decorated in the sand's warmth.

They all began in a line, as to be orderly when bowing before the Gold dragon. Once that had been done, they would all venture to the varying eggs. When it had come time for Kathal to repeat the same courtesy, he gave the Queen a curt, slight bow, then made his way to the eggs.

His objective was to find the bigger eggs, where stronger dragons were more likely to be nestled within. Everything else he paid no interest to. When he had found the egg of his interest, he fell to one knee and placed both hands on it. This was indeed a large egg, perhaps the largest of the bunch? Granted, he truly didn't know if that was true; he didn't take much time to ponder the other eggs.

Crabby, coiled around his arm, released his hold causing him to fall onto the sandy earth. The hot sands singed the lizard's hide and it made a small cry as it rose. Soon he, went to the other eggs around Kathal. While, the lizard did this, Kathal showered the egg with caresses. He wanted the egg dragon to know it was him, and that it belonged to him.

The brown firelizard stood before a small egg. Well, it was small to those who towered Crabby in height. To him, it looked enormous. His master had wanted a large egg, he would always tell Crabby this. And what Kathal wanted Crabby wanted also.

The lizard's pawed at the egg, a clicking sound being heard as his claws made contact. Retreating, he circled around the egg, his body grazing the shell. Satisfied, Crabby extended his wings and glided to another egg, to repeat the process.

Kathal too rose to his full height once he finished his quiet coaxing and made his way to other large eggs.

Talo, a few persons behind Kathal, had her hands stuffed within her trousers to keep her hands from fidgeting. She watched with anxious, observant eyes as everyone bowed before the Queen. She was trying to decide how she would bow also.

It had been a few weeks since R'li had searched her. So, she had time to think over the matter. Could she say she was forced into doing this? Her only reason, probably, was to save her identity. Had she not agreed to the green's request, Talo wasn't sure she would be safe.

But despite all this, Talo had caught the excitement buzzing around her. Still, the Queen...What if she could sense what the green dragon had? Would she not let Talo touch her children then? Well, if that happened, she wouldn't have to worry about Impressing...

A small sighed escaped her lips. Only one more person before her until she had to pay her respects. When she did stand before the Queen, she froze. She hadn't decided hoe she'd bow! The people behind her were starting to mumble their impatience. So, Talo dropped to both knees and graveled at the dragon. She got up quickly though and hurried off to the eggs.

Now, for the eggs. She looked around her at the other candidates. Quite a few seemed to know what they had in mind, while others merely touched them all to increase their chance. Perhaps she should follow suit? And she did. Coming up to the eggs, she took both hands and rubbed the eggs before moving on to the next.

[Dragonmage]

Nocia stepped slowly onto the Sands and made a deep bow to Lyeth. She went to each of the eggs in turn, caressing the hot, hard shells. Each egg was nice in its own way. There was no reason to ignore the normal eggs just because there was a golden egg. Only one person could have the queen in the end and there was no reason to not Impress because you were so focused on one color that you passed by a perfectly good dragon just because it wasn't the color that you were expecting.

Once all the other eggs had been caressed and spoken to for brief periods, Nocia got up the courage to go up to the gold egg. The gold wasn't getting any smaller for her waiting and the sands weren't cooling any. She bowed again as she reached the gold egg. Better to be too polite than anger the only fertile gold. Nocia carefully placed a hand on the precious golden egg. She sort of hoped to Impress the dragonet within, but she doubted that she had what it took to be a goldrider. If the dragon ended up staying at Ista and she Impressed, hopefully whoever Impressed the gold would be a kind person and not so stuck up that she was hard to live with.

[bookworm]

Salye stood alone, apart from both the native Istan candidates and the other girls who had been brought from foreign Weyrs. A look of disinterest was on her face although she was listening closely to Yselka. She smirked when the Weyrwoman glared at Ivria and Lorisette during her instructions to touch all the eggs. Not only did Salye view the pair as competition, they were also extremely annoying people. They were so tightly strung! And they just wanted the gold for personal gain. Salye, at least, wanted to Impress gold so she could come back and help out her home Weyr.

She winced slightly as she stepped onto the sands, but schooled herself not to jump and dance around like some of the other candidates. After bowing to Lyeth, she approached a small egg which was likely to hold a green. It was warm, and there was a definitely feeling of life inside. She patted the egg gently before moving on to the other eggs, giving each a brief span of attention.

Walking up to the gold egg, she waited patiently for one of the Istan girls...Nocia, was it? to touch the egg. When she left, Salye took her place, running her fingers down the golden shell. Come, fly with me. I think you'd like the South, she "said," trying to impart feelings of welcome and love to the gold inside. Ultimately, she knew it was up to the gold who she chose, but Salye believed she would be a good choice. Done with her touching, she bowed a second time to Lyeth and left the sands as quietly as she had come.