[Candidates] Egg Watching

[Fel]

Malady - Ephraim

Malady had stayed quiet, following the crowd but not actually getting involved in any of the arguments. He was surprised that these cowards would actually go ahead with it, rather than deciding to stay in the barracks and not even try. Of course, they did seem to be chickening out at the last minute.

"Oh please, of course Nebulaeth won't eat anyone. Or even bite them. The only one with teeth around here is the Candidatemaster, and she isn't the biting sort either," he commented with a roll of his eyes. He had to put down one of the older Candidates after all, to prove that he himself wasn't afraid of anything or anyone. "How is anyone here gonna fight Thread if they're afraid of touching a couple eggs? Not hitting them hard, just a light poke?"

Not that Malady wanted to touch them. What if he accidentally hurt them? But it was still important to show he wasn't afraid, and if this was what it took... well, he'd touch a couple eggs.

[Dragon]

Renkestuous - Malady

At first, Ren was letting the conversation wash around him. It was louder than he would have liked - this was a serious information gathering mission, not some dumb prank where it ultimately didn't matter if they got caught - but then the words light poke reached his ears and he jolted upright in alarm. Renkestuous would face the temper of a hundred candidatemasters before he willingly inconvenienced a single dragon, and the idea of actually harming a dragonet was distressing. And that would harm the babies, he was sure of it.

"By Farnath's shell, don't try to touch them!" Now his voice was louder than he would have liked under the circumstances. "You could seriously injure a baby dragon, messing with their egg before it's hardened, or worse! They're still developing, growing - they need to be kept safe, not prodded at!"

[toby-du-coeur]

TW - slightly graphic description of insect suffering

Candidate Kirin - Brabbop, Renkestuous, Open

Kirin stayed behind Diendatto, who was unconsciously clearing quite a nice path, and then used his relatively small size to squeeze toward the front of the crowd. But he still couldn't see the eggs.

Planning time. He would move in with the rest of the candidates - choose one egg and use his excellent stealth to get close to it - maybe touch it like Polites, Erina and Ephraim were arguing about..

Kirin jumped in to correct Brabbop, eager to show off what he'd been told - from a dragon herself, no less. "The dragons can't hear our thoughts, wherry-brain, they can just shout into our minds if they want to. But I DID hear that the baby dragons can sense what's around them, even in the egg."

So if he could get close enough, one might decide it liked him. And if he touched it with just a fingertip.. He didn't back up Malady's challenge, though, because maybe it was better if the others were scared to touch the eggs. All the more pre-impression for Kirin.

But when Renkestuous jumped in, Kirin reconsidered his and Ephraim's words. Apparently, the eggs were soft, and they were supposed to harden later?

He chimed in, in a stage whisper, "Once I messed with a moth cocoon, and the moth came out with a smushed wing. Poor beast couldn't fly - and then ants started eating it alive." He angled toward Joffrey as he said that last part, getting slightly lost in the morbidity of his tale. "I had to put it out of its misery." He mimed slamming a hard object down upon the hapless moth.

Oh well. Maybe if he thought really hard in the direction of one particular egg, and hovered a few handspans away...

[nineofswords]

Hamun - Brabbop, Kirin, general chatter about egg touching

Hamun hissed at the big candidate. "Because if we're quiet, the mother won't chase us off, you anchor of a man," he growled in an undertone. "And while the newest member of our little group is correct, it is only in the most pedantic of senses, because it doesn't matter if the mother knows we're here or not. What matters is if she protests to our presence, and if we come storming in like thundering herdbeasts, she will have something to say about it I'm sure!" He tried to keep his voice down as he went on his little rant, but it was hard to with the way the large space carried sound.

He whirled on several other candidate. "Who said anything about touching the eggs?" he snapped. "No one is touching the eggs." No one but him, but he certainly hadn't said as much aloud. He would fight anyone else who tried it.

---

King - Open

"C'mon you slowpokes, pick up the pace," King said, egging everyone on. He hadn't slowed his pace like Hamun had, and was now farther in front. In fact, he was so eager to get down closer to the sands that he wasn't really watching his feet or where he was putting them. He hit a stone step weird and lost his balance, falling forward with a loud cry of "OH SHARDS!" He managed to get his arms in front of his face before he hit the ground, but he was hitting the edges of stone steps, and that still hurt, leaving scrapes on his arms.

"...ow..." he moaned weakly.

[DinoInADress]

Candidate Erina - King

Several people piped up against touching eggs, good that meant she wouldn’t have to. For now at least. Unfortunately the loud boy taking the lead was making sense. And then the other boy fell. Erina sighed. There was absolutely no way Nebulaeth didn’t know that they were there. Hopefully the clutchmother would be kind. Erina carefully went around the crowd and towards the boy, kneeling beside him. At a normal speaking voice but a bit timidly, she offered her hand to help him up and she said

”Oh dear, I have some redwort and gauze in my belt bag. Do you need it?”

[Arcane]

Candidate Sylvia- Open

Sylvia was already enjoying her first candidate fieldtrip, but there were so many people, it was hard to even know who to interact with first. So she listened and she smiled and tried to learn a little bit about everyone.

And to enjoy the sights and sounds of Semaca past curfew. Different bugs chirped here. She wondered if any of their shells would add a crunchy thrill to wine.

As she looked at the dragon egg shells- she had the same thought. It was a terrible thought but...

"Do you think Nebulaeth would let me have a piece of one of the shells to experiment with after they hatch? I think wine flavored with the clutch's own eggs could be a really special addition to the hatching feast."

Candidate Francesca - Open

They shouldn't be doing this, Francesca thought. There were so many of them and the eggs were yet delicate and unformed, easily bruised. Some candidates were even contemplating touching them.

This had the potential to be a complete disaster.

Francesca understood now why the candidates weren't allowed in the cavern unsupervised. There were simply too many of them, no matter how well they meant. It only took one misstep to do irreversible damage to dragons yet unformed. One had already hurt himself...

And if the young dragons in their eggs could hear them, perhaps they felt as overwhelmed and lost as Francesca sometimes did, when surrounded by shouting and struggling to find her own voice.

Francesca recognized this misadventure had progressed far beyond her or anyone else's ability to protest.

The right thing to do would have been to simply leave.

But she didn't want her fellow candidates to think her snooty or self-righteous.

So she lingered awkwardly, a few feet away from the entrance, in the in-between position of neither quite inside nor quite outside, struggling in the moment to find her hold on her own convictions.

[Jabberwoky]

Though Nebulaeth seems to be sleeping peacefully - despite the sudden yell - the eggs seem to be... strange. Something crawls out from around the sleeping gold, something big, and something bright. The creature pokes at the eggs, and you all see it as it opens its mouth and...



A tunnelsnake! A massive one, and it's trying to eat the eggs!

[Windra]

Candidate Petraxen - et All

What was that noise?

Man suddenly the air seemed to shift. It had nothing to do with the folks behind him. Didn't hold a candle to the bickering, of Hamun wheeling around to bark at them about touching the eggs. Something was moving. It was a very distinct noise. And it was stupid familiar.

"The shard is that?!" he hissed.

Not the only thing hissing, as it turned out! Red on yellow on black and back again, with big beady yellow eyes and a maw big enough to stretch over the rosy egg - OH SHARDS NO -

"SNAKE!" Petraxen jumped to his feet and pointed with big wide eyes. "IT'S THE FREAKING SNAKE, WHERE'S MY STICK?! OH SHARDS NAW, GET OFF THEM EGGS!"

He started clapping his hands really loud, stomping forward as if intimidating the thing would make it back off. No freaking stones to throw, not that it would have been a good idea to do so!

[Dragon]

Renkestuous - Open

Renkestuous saw the tunnelsnake and screamed, the sound high and shrill. His first, irrelevant thought was that this most have been the giant tunnelsnake they'd failed to find and capture in the toilets; it certainly fit the description. But the eggs were in danger, and all Ren had on him was his belt knife.

"SAVE THE EGGS!" he yelled, darting forward, grasping at his knife and nearly stumbling on his effort to get down from the stands .

[toby-du-coeur]

Candidate Kirin - King, Erina, Open

In the periphery, Kirin saw King hurry toward the front and trip - he did seem like rather a baby - and Erina immediately offer help.
Kirin wrinkled his nose. People being nice. Always gave him a weird squishy feeling in his chest.

Mercifully, all thought of weird squishy feelings left Kirin as the group glimpsed a giant forsking tunnelsnake threatening their eggs.

No time to think. In a familiar, beautiful thrill of adrenaline and against a backdrop of yells from Petraxen and Ren, Kirin was instantly half-crouched and creeping down the stands, belt knife in hand - a rather thin one, more suitable for cutting meat or branches off interesting plants.

The snake didn't look THAT big..... from all the way over here. He'd faced such creatures before - well, some that were an arm-length long and could be grabbed around the middle.

Same difference - the other candidates, the mother dragon, and the babies in their eggs would all be in awe as Kirin stabbed the beast in the eye.. or the heart.. where did you go for on a giant snake again?

[Tortellini]

Nebulaeth had, somehow, been sleeping through all this. She was tired, and she deserved her beauty rest. If any candidates had tried anything, she would have woken up, but as long as they were just talking and posturing, her instincts let her rest.

She came wide awake as something tried to attack her eggs. BEGONE! she screamed, directed both at the tunnelsnake intruder and the candidates. She wanted to lash out at the tunnelsnake with tooth and claw, but the pesky human candidates were in the way, and she couldn’t hurt them.

Liyanel, who had been taking care of other business, came running in a second later. “Get AWAY from the eggs, you forsking dimglows! She’s a DRAGON, she has a much better chance against a tunnelsnake than some fools with knives! Give her room!”

[nineofswords]

Hamun -fellow snake stabbers

When he saw the tunnelsnake going for the eggs, he didn't think. Those were his eggs, his chance for fame and glory, and he was not letting them get eaten. He grabbed his knife off his belt and charged down the stands. "Aim for eyes, nose, and throat!" he shouted, noting others in his periphery but not caring in this moment who they were. "We aren't letting that thing swallow the eggs!" When he got to the edge of the stands, he jumped for the sand, not wanting to waste time. Just because the mother was awake, he wasn't about to let her get all the glory. He'd seen it first, after all, while she was busy sleeping.

---

King - Erina

description of mild injury

King was sort of dazed for a moment, not registering any pain, not really able to move. And then another candidate spoke to him and he shakily got up.

Nothing felt broken. His arms felt like they were on fire, which tracked since he'd scraped them pretty bad when he'd slid down the edges of a few of the steps. He offered a shaky smile to Erina. "Um, I'm ok I think," he said, smiling, though it was not a confident one. "I'm good on warts for now." He looked at his arms. "Bandages might be nice? Or...no, you're supposed to clean cuts first, right?" It was more seeping than bleeding, he thought, so he shook his head. "I'll go to the healers after."

Suddenly, there was shouting, and he looked over to the sands. "What IS that?" he demanded, pointing. "And what's it doing to our eggs?"

[Fel]

Candidate Malady - Snake Stabbers Incorporated

Malady rolled his eyes at his fellow Candidate acting like just barely touching an egg would hurt it. Everyone knew that those rules were just to keep them away from the clutchmother for a while, since they were extra grouchy after birthing the eggs.

He was going to say as much when movement on the Sands caught his eye. Nebulaeth was awake? Well that would put a damper on his--not Nebulaeth. Malady froze at the sight of the enormous tunnel snake trying to chow down on an egg. Even breathing seemed difficult. That was... that was absolutely monstrous. It was going to kill them all. Other Candidates were running forward, Nebulaeth was yelling... something.

And Malady was a coward. He couldn't make his legs move forward. He was going to be seen as a fraud in front of...

No.

With a yell, he forced himself to move despite his terror, leaping forward with his knife. He would NOT let anyone know that he was anything but a skilled fighter, unafraid of anything. "You can't have the eggs!" he cried, giving Hamun's suggestion a nod. Ren got a grudging lift of his chin for not being a coward this time, but he still hadn't forgotten that he didn't want to touch the eggs.

Nebulaeth didn't want them there? She'd see they could protect her!

[toby-du-coeur]

Candidate Kirin - Hamun, fellow stabbers, Nebulaeth

"Eyes, nose, throat!" Kirin repeated Hamun's strategy.

And then the immense starry gold was awake, and roaring into their minds.

Kirin staggered back for a moment. A blurry, running person was yelling something about dimglows that Kirin didn't catch - what with Nebulaeth echoing in his head, the tunnelsnake looking bigger and bigger, and Hamun, Malady and Renkestuous' steps at his side.

Begone? Surely Nebulaeth meant the monster threatening her babies.

Kirin followed Hamun onto the sand, barely noticing the heat through his sturdy shoes. He was drunk on the - everything - of this situation.

"We can help!" he shouted up at the dragon - and thought really loudly, just in case. He brandished his knife. "We're very sneaky!" He mimed feinting and stabbing.

A dragon and her clutch's candidates fighting side by side - this would be the most badass cohort ever.

[DinoInADress]

Candidate Erina - tunnelsnake stabbers

Erina nodded and smiled to the candidate. King she thought his name was? And as she was about to speak there came a scream and then someone was charging towards the eggs. It took a moment for her to see why. However upon spotting the nasty tunnelsnake her eyes widened and without thinking she grabbed her belt knife (carefully holing it blade down because safety first) and charged screaming

”Leave an opening to scare it towards Nebulaeth! She can kill it!”

And then she heard the Queen’s cry. She was awake! Yes!