[Log] Try Not to Act Stupid
Who: Galavon, Ironeph, Jelcrin (NPC), Raine, Vester, Vinderis, X'drian
When: Day 28, Month 6, Turn 442
Where: Hatching Grounds, Fort Weyr
What: Raine takes some of the candidates out on the sands for an egg-touching.
Hatching Grounds Entrance
A simple anteroom with no ceiling, this open-air chamber provides access to the sands, gallery, and queens' weyrs. Large enough and with an entrances both wide and tall enough to allow a dragon to fly through, the plain cavern is mostly just a thoroughfair. The roofless niche is fairly protected from the elements by its high walls and almost complete enclosure. Even in winter, the ground remains sandy rather than icy. The largest entrances - those designed for dragons - are to the southwest for the bowl, the west to the queens' weyrs, and slightly elevated to the gallery.
Players:
Raine..........A plump woman in her early twenties, 5'1" tall, with chin-length brown hair and green eyes.
Ironeph........6', athletic; olive skin, dark brown eyes & hair; early 20s.
Galavon........Tall, muscular young man, curly brown hair. 22 turns.
X'drian........Black hair, eyes, dark skin. Looming, with a fierce gaze.
Exits:
Bowl..........................[SW] Gallery.......................[E]
Queens' Weyrs.................[W] Sands.........................[NE]
"Finally we get a chance," Galavon mutters under his breath to Ironeph when they both arrive at the same time.
Vinderis wanders in with Jelcrin tagging along at a distance, hiding along the walls along with a few of the other very young candidates. "We're supposed to be doing what now?" The holder wonders aloud.
Raine waits near the actual entrance to the sands, her queen a broody back-drop in the corner to lord over her gold egg. "You're supposed to be getting familiar with what it feels like to be on the sands," Raine answers quickly, turns her attention to the massing candidates with a skeptical look. "Please line up. I don't want too many -- and no one under fifteen, please. If you're younger than fifteen, please go up to the galleries and wait until I can get someone else to help me mind you all."
Galavon strides toward Raine, intending to get near the front of the line, if not be first.
"Finally," agrees Ironeph, glancing sideways at Galavon and shifting idly as he gives Raine and the gold behind her a quick look. At her instructions, however, he turns, craning about to see just who else has come along. He just beams at that little group of younger boys, Jelcrin in particular--it's not a sympathetic look.
Vester laughs a little bit. "Fifteen, eh?" A pause. "I guess I just make the cut, then." And the look he shoots Jelcrin is distinctly smug. He's not *always* a nice young man, after all.
Galavon thinks of something. "Hey Vinderis! How old's the kid?" he points at Jelcrin, whom he doesn't grant the courtesy of a name. In a quiet aside to Raine, he confides, "That kid's trouble, he never shuts his mouth."
There is the general Awwing and scuffling of boots as the youngest trudge their way up, but Jelcrin still lingers. The boy looks daggers at all the other candidates, his brother and Vester in paticular. Vinderis looks leery at the gold, "We're supposed to go out /there/ with /her/ looking at us like that?" There is audible gulping. He is distracted by Galavon, "Jel? 13."
"There is to be!" Raine begins, raises her voice to talk over the top of whispers and mumbles. "No running, shouting, or otherwise being rambunctious. If you act foolish, the weyrleader is in the galleries to remove you from the sands if you're lucky. If you're unlucky, Fedayth will get to you first. -- You can sit in the galleries if you would rather," she adds to Vinderis, shrugs as she steps on to the sands. "The rest of you, this way."
"Not /scared/ are you?" wonders Ironeph idly, quirking a brow at Vinderis. Then, he turns and saunters after Raine to the sands.
You head on to the heat of the sands.
Sands
One of the most elaborate caverns at Fort Weyr, the Hatching grounds are huge overall. The sands themselves are almost a quarter-mile long with a slightly raised dais in the back, along the northwestern wall, all of it visible from the gallery. The room echoes when it's empty, the sands doing little to absorb much sound. The ground itself is covered with a thin layer of sand, softer than that in the bowl, finer than most beach sand. Constantly heated by the Weyr's internal thermals, the air in here never dips below eighty, and the ground is closer to a hundred degrees.
Gallery seating and ledges frame the sands themselves, supported by ornately carved pillars that look gray with disuse and dust. The cavern is ill-lit at all times, in need of far more glowbaskets than the sparse number spread through the interior here.
Players:
Raine..........A plump woman in her early twenties, 5'1" tall, with chin-length brown hair and green eyes.
Vester.........Teenaged boy, untidy sandy hair, muscular.
Vinderis.......5'9, thickset, dark eyes/hair.
Ironeph........6', athletic; olive skin, dark brown eyes & hair; early 20s.
Items:
Fedayth
Exits:
Entrance......................[SW]
Galavon smirks at Ironeph, and follows Raine out to the sands, walking with confidence. He keeps a wary eye out for any sudden movement by Fedayth, but apart from that betrays no sign of nerves or fear.
From the galleries, X'drian is just climbing into the galleries, bringing up the rear behind the candidates. He leans on the lowest railing, watching them rather than Fedayth. Ianoth has taken up residence on the ledge he occupies about the area Fedayth has adopted as her couch and glares balefully at the candidates as they enter.
Raine leads the column of ten candidates, watches out of the corner of her eye as the cluster of boys too young to make the cut file dejectedly into the galleries. Most of the thirty-three eggs are clustered loosely in the middle of the sands, each in its own particular little hollow. Fedayth, meanwhile, lingers in the back corner, tail curled possessively around the gold egg, whirling eyes fixed on the boys. "You may touch them, but remember that they *are* eggs. Try not to be stupid." The tone of voice implies her belief that all young men are in fact stupid.
Vester steps out onto the sands, keeping one eye on the broody queen. "Got no desire to upset Fedayth," he notes. "Lots of eggs," he adds, utterly unnecessarily. Nervous conversation, perhaps.
Vinderis apparantly isn't one to let his fear get the better of him as he follws the rest of the group onto the sands. His boots shield him from the heat, but soon he is looking uncomfortable, pulling his shirt away from his body to try to circulate some air. He asks Vester quietly, "What's the point of this? Other than to have us sweat, of course." The man tries to ignore tha unpleasant looks of the dragons, but something that large is very hard to ignore. "Yep, thirty-three is a record or something, right?" A pause. "Which direction first?"
Galavon scans the eggs carefully, hands on hips. Then, he makes directly for the one he's decided is the largest. He plants himself in front of it, and looks at it for a moment, frowning. Then he reaches out and lays a hand on it, and scrunches up his face as if thinking very hard.
Following Raine at a lazy pace, Ironeph pauses as she speaks to them again, brows arching upward and a grin forming on his face. Unbothered by the dragons, he turns and plods over to one egg on the fringe of the clutch nearest him.
From the galleries, X'drian overhears Vinderis. "The point is that you get used to the fact that baby dragons will be hatching from these eggs. And stay out of their way when they do. The do maul those stupid or slow enough to get in their way." He frowns. "Ask Greta. or Sh'van."
Raine glances briefly to the galleries, to Ianoth, shrugs at the pair of them mutely while she walks to where Fedayth looms. "Personally, I would use the time to get familiar with what it actually feels like down here. Very hot and exposed." She tips her eyes up to the rows of seats all focused toward the sands. "There's really very little you can do to avoid dragonets if you ask me. If you're in the way, then you're in the way."
Vester is, for his part, studying the clutch. He approaches it a little. "A lot of baby dragons. Fortunate for all of us that they aren't too big when they come out," he comments, amused. "It *is* hot, though." He's not looking at the galleries. Far more interested in the eggs.
After a minute or two, Galavon removes his hand from the egg and gives a furtive glance around as if to see whether anyone's watching him. Well, there are those folks up in the galleries, but he's ignoring them for now. He scans the sands again, and selects the next-biggest egg, one over by Ironeph, to whom he gives a cheerful wave. Then he places both hands on the egg, closes his eyes, and makes that face again - like he's thinking really hard... or else trying to take a dump.
Vinderis looks up in surprise at X'drian and then at Raine, but keeps his mouth shut. Tries to more like it as he starts to breathe dryly through his mouth. A grunt is all he can manage for Vester before going to an egg close to Ironeph and touching it like he expects the dragons to start hatching that moment.
From the galleries, X'drian leans on the railing, watching Galavon with ill concealed amusement. "How much longer, would you say, Weyrwoman?"
Running one hand over the surface of the egg when he reaches it, Ironeph glances backward, over his shoulder at Raine. "S'not so bad," he notes with a shrug. "No longer than it'll last? Heat's least of our worries. Don't bust something, Galavon," is added absently, as he eyes the other candidate's expression with distaste.
Raine has the luxury of infinite trust. She walks to the Fedayth's coveted egg, lays her hand along the apex while she thinks; "A week, give or take. They feel quite hard now." She removes her hand to calculate on her fingers, nods as she touches her pinky and confirms, "Yes. About a week. -- It's not so bad *now*. You must try to imagine that you're already sweating from nerves, wearing a robe that is far from flattering, and the entire population of the weyr is up there *staring* at you." She looks toward where X'drian is and once more shakes her head. "Candidates crack from the stress, you know," she adds as if casually.
Galavon opens his eyes, drops his hands to his sides, and levels a mild glare at Ironeph. "Don't worry about me," he says drily. Then he scans the eggs again. "Funny," he says, but then doesn't complete the thought. He strides to the next egg over, and leans down to put his ear against it. "I wonder if they move around in there?" he speculates. "I don't hear anything."
Galavon calls over to Raine, "The eggs must be /really/ stressed, at a Hatching."
Vester finally does move over, select an egg at random, and reach to touch it. "Hard. Warm, too...they're very warm. And I wonder...well, babies move around, I bet they do a little bit...and it's got to be kind of traumatic for the hatchlings too."
Vinderis isn't all about size as after considering and adjusting to the alien situation, he moves to another egg and then another. Sweat is now staining his shirt and his feet are shifting more rapidly, "I think for once I'm actually going to wish for rain." A groan, "Galavon, if that's supposed to be humor... You /fail/."
Ironeph just smirks at Galavon, shrugging. "Just looking out for your health," he remarks idly. And, to Raine: "Eh, it still doesn't sound so bad," he notes dubiously. "But I guess you're the expert--weyrwoman."
"But at least I fail grandly," Galavon says to Vinderis with a grin. "Besides, Vester thought it was funny."
Raine purposefully neglects to answer Galavon. She watches him and Vester both as they 'listen' to the eggs, the look on her face more and more bewildered. "I can't believe I let Sh'van talk me in to this," she reports loud enough for X'drian to hear. Fedayth echoes her rider with an underlying rumble of disapproval. "If you can keep your cool, Ironeph, then good for you," she replies skeptically.
Vinderis rolls his eyes and mutters unitelligibly to himself. More eggs are touched, but the heat is making each further contact brief. "Unless I came from the desert, I don't think I'd ever get used to this. How long are we going to have to be out here?" He is looking at Raine, but not as if he expects her to answer.
Ironeph grins at Raine then. "It's not worth getting all flustered up over," he notes easily, boastfully. "I'm not that kind of guy."
From the galleries, X'drian says soothingly to Raine, "Well, if we can end up with only one injury with this many on he sands, it should be worth it."
Raine mumbles something, the only words that carry sound like, "...wish more than one of them..." Afterward, she smiles sweetly at X'drian and nods, the picture of pleasant agreement. "You may go whenever you like," she answers Vinderis, waves a hand toward the anteroom. "It's supposed to be for your benefit. Since you're obviously unhappy and Ironeph here has no real need of such a visit, perhaps we're done?" Fedayth perks up noticeably.
Galavon hastens over to touch one more egg, before Raine can usher them off. "I think he meant, on hatching day," he clarifies. "But they don't usually last long. I wonder how all the dragons know to hatch at once. Maybe the queen tells them."
Vester manages to get another egg or two in. "The hatching doesn't take long," he informs Vinderis. "They pretty much all come pouring out at once. Might be a little longer than the last one, with more eggs, but sill. Not long. And maybe they hear the humming through their shells?"
Vinderis looks confused and slightly aggrevated, "I meant for the hatching. How long are they?" He mutters something about how he can never seem to say what he means. "See, Galavon got it." More grumbling, but the man is already moving towards the exit, "Good thing they aren't long. Surprised people don't get heat stroke out here."
Galavon gives that last egg a last pat, and wanders toward the exit with the others.
Ironeph tilts his head at Raine, but shrugs anyway. "Right," he agrees. "Not much need, at least on my end. These other poor souls, however..." Dramatically, he waves a hand at the other candidates, then shakes his head. Running his hand a last time along the egg by him, he turns to exit as well.
Raine ahhs smartly; "Sorry, my mistake. I assumed that since you've done nothing but complain -- " She leaves the thought unfinished. "An hour or so. If you Impress early, it could be as little as fifteen minutes. If you don't Impress at all, which is much more likely, then it will be at least an hour." Galavon and Ironeph clue in quickly enough, but the others get a more blunt, "You all need to leave now. Fedayth's getting annoyed." So is Raine.
Vester heads for the exit, glancing over his shoulder at the eggs. "Yeah, I recall it being about an hour, from last time." He tries to catch up with Vinderis on his way out.