19 jan 01

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[Sissi joins some Candidates and Riders at their favourite game - egg-watching.]

Heading towards one of the large pillars, you wind up its spiral staircase to the galleries above--and, better yet, the cooler air.

Level upon tiered level of hard stone seats, best cushioned for comfort if one is to stay long, arc in spacious, showy display -- all the better for viewing other spectators, as well as the heated sands so far below. Though centuries-old pillars suspend these galleries high in the air, the mammoth cavern's peak extends dragonlengths higher yet, the grey rock lending an illusion of clouded, nighttime skies that's only enhanced by the constellations of living, growing glows and the intense, perspective-warping heat.

Broad staircases spiral downward to the floor of the cavern, the middle of each step indented by generations of treading feet; a narrow walkway circles northeast towards the dragons' ledges.

Denassa is here.

It's currently late spring on the northern continent.

* Midmorning at Fort Weyr, Fort Hold, Harper & Healer Halls:

The sky is clear and fresh, the winds strong.

Sissi has wet hair, wet clothes - wet everything, to be honest, and the hatching grounds are warm, which is a distinct bonus. She drips, quite happily all over the stairs, the odd glance down to the eggs, and a hmm is given. "I see they're /still/ not doing anything... makes a change."

Denassa is sitting, broom between her knees, not-at-all-egg-gazing-I'm-sweeping-I'm-such-a-good-candidate.

Seonaid sighs, staring out over the railing to the eggs below. "They don’t look like they've done *any* hardening." Another sigh.

Sissi flops down and drips all over a seat, for a change. "I hated coming here, when I was waiting. " Funny she does more of it now. "Don't you get to go and touch them, soon?"

Denassa looks over. Ah, Candies. No need to dissemble. She shakes her head. "Nah. But then, we can't tell 'till we get to do egg touching... They don't ever *look* harder, but they do get harder." She sighs. "Wish it'd *happen*."

Seonaid sighs again, a long drawn out sigh. "Noones said anything about the egg touching yet. R'sin said that Vyaths a bit touchy just now so maybe they wont let us near the eggs yet." Spotting the water pooling round Sissi's feet she smiles. "Is it raining now?"

Sissi attempts a sage expression, "It'll be a while yet. Eggs are /certain/ not to hatch until, at the very least, all those pots in the kitchen have been scrubbed till they shine..." Seonaid gets a small "Humph," and, "It is in Boll. Didn't stick round /there/ for long, I can tell you!"

Above the sands, Orsylth flies in from the Bowl.

Above the sands, Orsylth wings down to the ledge.

A'ria approaches along the narrow walkway from the dragons' ledges.

A'ria walks along the ledge to the galleries, stretching, rubbing the back of her neck. She looks like she just woke up..."Hello all...." is said a bit wearily as she takes a seat near the candidates and Sissi.

Seonaid'll make a definate note not to. Not that she could at the moment anyway. Egg and water musings are interrupted momentarily so she can look up and smile to A'ria. "Morning A'ria."

Denassa waves to A'ria. "Hey there. How's things?"

A'ria smiles, "Morning...There's a big basket of mending in the living caverns for you candidates whenever you want to be busy..." she chuckles, "I remembered to bring it down for you...I knew that you needed /something/ to do..."

Sissi wrings out the bottom of hr dress, and rolls her eyes at A'ria, "Mending? What about robes?"

Denassa nods glumly. "Oh, yes, we'd *much* rather do that than sit here..." Then she thinks about it a bit. "Not that it particularly matters *where* we do the mending.... Hm...."

Seonaid smiles, a slight chuckle forming but coming out as more of a puff of air. "At least with mending you can see things happening. Unlike...." and her eyes go to the eggs again.

A'ria grins at Sissi, "Ah, Sissi...robes...yup, they better be thinking of them, I guess....It'll be that time in a while, I'm sure...Have you gotten to touch the eggs yet?" the last, of course, aimed at the candidates...

Sissi never did get the hang of mending, or, it has to be said, threading a needle. "I just asked that," she informs A'ria, attempting to look at least sanguine. "Seems we're all thinking the same thing!"

Denassa shakes her head. "Nope, no touching yet. Vyath's apparently not happy." She shrugs. "It'll happen soon enough, I'm sure.."

Seonaid shakes her head to the touching question. "They dont even look like they've hardened any so we might not get to for ages yet. Do we really have to make our own robes?"

Seonaid sighs. "More work. But we get time off chores to make them yes?" Please.

Sissi moves into the next chair. Dryer. "Good excuse, at least," she grins at Seonaid.

Denassa says, "Robes should count as chores. Definitely."

A'ria laughs, "Hmm...I don't know about that...If I remember correctly, we had to do ours in our spare time..what we had of it..." She's not saying, though, that they did exactly what all other candidates do...get out of chores as much as possible..

Sissi asides to the candidates, "The answer is Weavers. Bribe early, bribe often."

Seonaid grins. "But then we couldnt" use it as an excuse "say we did it ourselves, specially for the hatching. Maybe the dragonettes will appreciate the effort."

"So say one thing, and do another." Sissi shrugs. "Get used to it, it's a good habit to get into." Or in her case, just a natural reaction.

A'ria nods slightly, then leans way over the railing, looking down at the eggs.

Denassa does much the same, careful not to fall over. That might annoy Vyath.

Seonaid takes a look over the railings too. "Do you think they know?" she turns back "All the work, all the stress they cause?"

Sissi makes a point of not looking. "Of course they know. Why else would they do it? Sitting there, looking smug?"

K'rill follows one of the staircases up.

A'ria rolls her eyes, still looking down at the eggs, "But they're worth it.." she says softly, almost to herself.

Denassa eyes Sissi, grinning. "Maybe they're plotting to eat us! Got any of Shendti's anti-egg salve?"

K'rill quickly runs his fingers through his hair, muttering something about winds fit enough to carry you striaght to the Western continent if you aren't careful. His eyes alite upon the small grouping present, wry smile following, "Don't drool too much, ladies... a certain gold might not like her charges to get wet."

Denassa giggles. "Yeah, Sissi - don't drip on 'em!"

Seonaid chuckles. "Hmm, smug eggs. You could be right you know Sissi, they do look sort of.... expectant." A genuine smile finally breaks through Seons wistful look at A'ria's words and she nods.

Sissi keeps her dripping confined to the benches, although she's more or less dried out now. "Eggs are evil, they were then, they are now," she opines. However, they're /still/ a good excuse for not doing Other Stuff, whether one's a Candidate or no...

A'ria looks up, waving at K'rill in greeting, "Eggs aren't /evil/..they're interesting. They keep you guessing. You never know what's going to come out of them until they're good and ready to hatch..."

Denassa nods. "Yeah. Everyone goes on about their 'favorite', but I just wanna see what's *in* the eggs... and you can't find out by looking at the outside! Gotta wait until the day!"

Sissi can't help but shoot back, "That's evil, it /is/!"

Seonaid agrees. "Whenever *that* is."

K'rill casts a wave back as he moves towards them, coming around and behind Sissi. he chuckles faintly at Denassa's words, grinning, "And that feeling just gets worse and worse as time marches on...still awhile yet before these hatch."

A'ria nods at Denassa, "But what's even better is to /have/ a favorite egg, and then when hatching comes, see what comes out of it..see if it's what you thought it would be...Orsylth came out of my favorite egg when I was on the sands..I was a bit surprised...I actually thought that a blue dragon would be in her egg...it was fun, though...But it's /not/ evil..." the last is shot Sissi-wards.

Sissi twists her ankle about, concentrating on that, for now. "Mildly evil?" she hazards, "Sure as anything it's a hardly a party down there right now, is it? No fun at all."

Seonaid has disconnected. [RL]

K'rill's eyebrows come down in a frown suddenly, "You know, I don't even remember what egg Llynth came from...much of that whole hatching thing was a blur. -Could have swore I was drunk." Gaze drops to Sissi, but he doesn't comment.

Denassa chuckles. "Yeah, but just 'cos they're not having a party doesn't make 'em *evil*. I mean, *evil*'s like Fax, trying to Hold seven Holds." Oooh, hark at who's remembered her Harper ballads. "Stuff like that. Not just... sitting in a pile."

A'ria grins, nodding at Denassa, "There you go...That's right, Sissi...now /that's/ evil..." she raises an eyebrow slightly at K'rill, "It /did/ go rather fast, didn't it? But I remember..Orsylth hatched from that one egg...it reminded me of champagne...so beautiful...and then she went running around, looking for someone. I kept looking away from her, however, because I didn't think she'd want /me/..." she sighs as she remembers..."It was /great/!"

Sissi tips her head up, to look back at K'rill, "Klimth came out of my favourite egg. I don't remember which egg it was, I just, knew, sort of, once I'd touched it, that I /want/ed whatever was in that egg. But - oh." She raises her eyebrows.

Sissi adds, "It was still an evil egg. Till he hatched."

Denassa eyes Sissi. This is seriously odd. "Well, any dragon that Hatches for me will hatch from my favorite egg. Whichever egg it hatches from."

K'rill casts Sissi a quick wink before looking back out to the sands, responding to Denassa's comment, "Nice bit of logic there."

A'ria shakes her head at Sissi, but she grins, just the same, "Well, /I/ don't think they're evil..just interesting..." she looks back over at the eggs and the sleeping gold dragon, "But it will be more interesting when they hatch, true enough..."

Sissi shifts herself sideways, to prop feet and legs up along the benches, and twists, slightly, for one oh-so-studied look at the Sands. "At least that's /sensible/," she nods to Denassa, and then, "Does anyone have a /least/ favourite egg yet?" Someone ought to, surely.

K'rill gives quite the hearty chuckle and looks about ready to swipe playfully at Sissi's hair, "A 'least favorite egg', Sissi? How can anyone possibly have a least favorite egg? That'd have to be impossible."

Denassa shrugs. "Well, maybe not. If you have a 'favorite', then you'll have a 'least favorite', even it's only a *bit* behind all the others." She points to a layered cream, yellow, brown egg. "That's sort of my 'least' favorite, I guess. Bit too... rich, I suppose. Like a cake someone's made that's too sweet."

Sissi eyes K'rill, just in case he tries anything - well, anything at all, really. "It's only logical," she points out, "If you have a favourite, you ought to have a least favourite too." And there's Denassa, as an object lesson, "See? She's got a least favourite and she doesn't even have a favourite!" That's declaimed quite triumphantly.

K'rill quirks his lips to the side, conceding that, "Well, I suppose that gold egg when I was a candidate scared the living snot out of me way back when... but it never really was a least favorite. Never had a favorite either. And egg is an egg. Its what is inside that counts. " Yes, now shall we get all kinds of philosophical now. Bleh. "I just think its odd, is all."

A'ria shakes her head, looking up at Sissi, "Not logical at all...I couldn't have a least favorite of any clutch of dragon eggs...They're all great..after all, dragon eggs remind me that there will be a continuation of dragonriders...They're our future...So..." she shrugs. There's A'ria being philosophical...

Denassa peers at the eggs. "Is there a Gold egg in this lot? She's not put one aside, has she?"

Zephre walks in.

Sissi pulls herself up, "No getting greedy now, A'ria," and then she giggles. "OH, whatever. Who knows how it's all meant to work, in the end. It just does, and that's that. And /I'm/ going to put on dry clothes. And then I'm not going to Boll again for at least a sevenday." And then she notices Zephre, so she escapes before (hopefully) anyone noticed she said that.

A'ria rolls her eyes again as Sissi leaves. She shuts her mouth, though, before it gets her into even more trouble. "Bye Sissi...Hi Zephre..." is what she ends up saying as Sissi leaves and she notices Zephre entering the galleries.