[CANDIDATES] Left Behind

[Arcane]

14 eggs and not a one of them picked them me. And now we'll have to wait for more eggs to be laid. D'you think there's anything we can do to improve our odds for next round?

[nineofswords]

Heiro knew all too well how painful it was to be overlooked and disregarded. It hurt, no matter how much you were used to it or expected it. It was impossible not to hope that this time it would somehow be different, and she knew there was nothing she could say that would soothe the hurt and insecurity it caused. Trying to keep people busy, trying to keep them from dwelling on that hurt was the thing for it.

"We are the first things dragons see when they hatch," she said quietly from where she was sitting in her customary corner. "Perhaps we simply need spend a bit more time making ourselves look our very best before a hatching. I'm happy to help people embroider their candidate robes if they want to do something more elaborate and eye-catching with them." She herself was doing the rather unglamorous but necessary task of darning a sock. Not quite the same thing as embroidery, but she was fairly good at both truth be told. Hardly a Weaver, but not bad for a laywoman.

[Dragon]

Siyanna

It was all right. Really, it was. Siya had almost been over not Impressing the turn before, but the more recent slight - well, there had only been one egg, so she couldn't really feel left out, could she? Except somehow she did.

"I don't know that's a good idea," she answered Heiro absently, halfway concentrating on mending a rip in one of her shirts. "The clutchmother might get offended if we don't follow tradition, and we might overwhelm the dragonets if there is too much going on with our robes. Surely it's best to keep those white."

---

Keir

Silently, Keir peeked up at the other candidates. He was still young, of course, only sixteen. There was going to be a great deal more rejection in front of him before he aged out. He didn't know, sometimes, why he'd agreed to this. He could have stayed on his family's cothold and just ... existed, useless.

Maybe he wanted a sliver of hope at more than uselessness.

His tongue held between his teeth, the slight candidate dipped his head again, concentrating on his own mending - the hem of a pair of trousers. Leaf was perched on the back of his chair, peering over his shoulder and chattering at him like she was telling him what to do. Maybe she was, in her own way, but if he wasn't doing what she wanted right now she'd let him know.