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Post by Sparrow on Feb 18, 2012 23:01:04 GMT -5
Kora didn't need to be in charge of the Weyr to know that. Fortunately, her mouth was full so she had a good excuse to only give him a close-lipped smile and nod. It was true, at any rate.
She swallowed and shrugged a little. "There are only a few of each; only two clutches so far have had them, and then only a few. But it seems that we'll be seeing more of them around once a few more Turns have passed."
Soot was not picky about who he took food from, and rushed to T'ien the moment he saw the offering. Food from Kora's plate was good, of course, but food from other people was special. It was a little disappointing to hear the pop announcing Lilac's appearance while he was away from Kora's plate though. The little violet settled primly at the edge without a look at anyone and took something for herself.
"I hope so. At the moment we mostly only have those that didn't Impress at the last clutch." But there were Searchdragons going out to prepare, and they ought to have a good group soon enough.
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Post by Sketchy on Feb 18, 2012 23:30:17 GMT -5
"I imagine once a few clutches have passed, they'll become more common. Getting bred in and all that." T'ien watched as Soot rushed over, smiling a little as he picked other pieces off his plate, pushing them towards the flit as small offerings.
The pop of Lilac startled him for a second, before he realized what it was. Grinning a little sheepishly, he pushed another piece at Soot.
"Were there a lot?" Since he'd been at the weyr such a short time before the hatching, T'ien hadn't really seen who had, and who hadn't, Impressed. "Left over from last clutch, I mean," he clarified.
Pushing his plate way, he sacrificed it to Soot to pick over, pulling his cooled klah over to sip from, watching Kora and the flits with a leveled gaze.
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Post by Sparrow on Feb 18, 2012 23:41:00 GMT -5
"Mmm-hmm." Kora pushed Lilac away from her side of the plate. There was nothing over there the violet liked, but she had to stick her nose in it anyway. "I think their numbers seem a lot smaller since they don't show up in flitter clutches," she added. "Not yet, anyhow."
Lilac had been caught by a tan once and not clutched the odd colors. Usually she was caught by browns though, and amid dragons and flitters, that didn't seem to lead to teals. Lilac would likely rise again before long, maybe they would get another chance to see.
Kora shook her head. "Not many, and mostly girls." Maybe that was because there had been a queen egg last time, so there were a particular amount of them.
Soot was prompt to pounce on T'ien's plate, although he gave Lilac a smug look before digging in to what was left on it. "You're getting on Soot's good side quick," Kora said with a laugh.
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Post by Sketchy on Feb 18, 2012 23:48:46 GMT -5
"Do you think they will?" T'ien was by no means a genetic genius, but even he could see trends. "It would be different, definitely." He watched Lilac and Soot as they exchanged looks.
"With the newer colours showing up, are there more opportunities for them to Impress? It had always seemed to me that there were few choices for them..." Not that there was a shortage of greens, not at all, and as far as he was concerned, a dragon was better than no dragon, so they'd take what they could get?
"Do violet and tan clutches lay queens at all?" That was one question he hadn't found a solid answer to yet, in all the babble about the new colours. It was hard to tell what was true and what was just rumor.
Drinking a bit of his klah, he gave Kora a slightly impish smile. "Have to make good with him where I can, don't you know."
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Post by Sparrow on Feb 19, 2012 0:15:28 GMT -5
Kora shrugged. "I haven't seen any yet outside the Weyr or in the wild, so it seems unlikely. But it's hard to guess, seeing as they were a surprise in the first place. It would be pretty different though." And maybe there were teals about, and they simply got mistaken for blues. Maybe the charcoals, as grumpy as they seemed to be, had been avoiding notice. It really wasn't a question she could answer.
"Charcoals and teals have both Impressed to girls and boys so far. More girls have teals than boys, but then... we only have three or so, so that's hardly enough to tell what their preferences are." None of the smaller dragons seemed that picky though, besides barreds.
"Another question I can't answer," Kora replied with a weak smile. "There have only been two clutches so far, and they haven't clutched queens. No violet has clutched a queen yet, but a tan sired Nayarath's last clutch, and there was a queen in that. So I suppose it's possible?"
It would make sense though, if it didn't happen. Violets and tans clutched all these new colors, which so far Nayarath had not, even with a tan sire. Perhaps that was the trade-off.
"Fortunately that's not hard to do," Kora laughed. Soot had quickly finished off what was left and chattered gratefully to T'ien.
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Post by Sketchy on Feb 19, 2012 21:16:01 GMT -5
T'ien frowned in thought, thinking over her reply as he twirled his klah cup around, still about half-full and sloshing a little. "I suppose once we start seeing them in the wild, that will be a real indicator." Nature took change slowly, sometimes.
"Well, whether or not they're only prone to girls, at least there are more options out there." Optimistic, he was. But not Yoda. That he was not.
T'ien shrugged with a grin. "I didn't expect you to know everything, but I figured you'd know more than most on the subject." Realizing he'd put her on a bit of the burner with all the questions, he tried to ease off. Wouldn't be good to scare her quite so much. Sometimes his curiosity ran ahead of him.
"Either way, a new clutch is always a good event for a weyr. Means we're doing something right."
Smiling at the chattering, T'ien finished his klah and poured himself another cup, offering to top off Kora's, if she so wished. "If only everyone were so easy to please," he added dryly, thinking of the weyrlingmaster.
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Post by Sparrow on Feb 20, 2012 14:24:11 GMT -5
"Yeah." If they did show up. The first batch of new colors had showed up almost simultaneously in flitters and dragons, but so far that didn't seem to be the case with the second. It was odd, but it was also hard to guess at the cause.
Kora grinned. "I doubt I do. You could probably get more info from a beasthandler." Although even they would probably be reluctant to make guesses about dragons. All Kora knew was that they mated, laid eggs, and those hatched into whatever colors they did. Exactly why was a mystery to her.
"Yeah. We always look forward to clutches." The Weyr always seemed cheerier when there were eggs on the sands, even considering the moody queens that often accompanied them.
Kora had hardly touched her klah, and quietly declined T'ien's offer, although it did remind her to take a drink from the cup. She smiled a little at Soot, now making a second check over T'ien's plate to assure himself that he had gotten everything. He didn't seem to disappointed when he didn't find anything though; like T'ien had just pointed out, Soot was a particulalry easy creature to please. "That would make life a lot easier," she agreed.
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Post by Sketchy on Feb 21, 2012 16:23:47 GMT -5
"Ah, but beasthandlers smell a lot worse than the average weyrleader," he grinned. Not that he had anything against beasthandlers- they played just as vital of a role in the weyr as any other person or section. But he had to admit, they reminded him a little too much of home, with all the animal smells.
"Do we get them often?" So far, it had seemed clutches were a fairly consistent event, but maybe this was just a bunch of them in a row. "I know it varies on need, however..." he trailed off, setting the pitcher of klah down.
Pulling his now full cup back to him, he took another drink. The first cup was already in his bones, making him feel a little more awake. He finger-combed his short hair - he really did need to cut it off again, it was starting to look too much like how D'cien kept his - he shrugged good naturedly. "I guess if everything was easy, life wouldn't be rewarding, right?" He relaxed into a smile, "After all, getting to Minalth was worth it." And what a journey it had been.
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Post by Sparrow on Feb 22, 2012 23:40:33 GMT -5
Kora was unsure of how to respond, but regardless of how T'ien's comment was directed, she found herself blushing again. Faintly, this time, at least. She ducked her head, likely hiding the slight smile she finally decided to use as a reply.
"They- ah, Nayarath's risen about once a Turn, as have the other queens." There was a lot of need for dragons right now. "Previous to Thread's return, the queens rose much less. Sometimes five or more Turns passed between a flight. But according to the records, queens rise much more regularly during a pass." All they had to go on were the records, since it had been so long since Thread had last come. But so far they seemed reliable enough.
"No, probably not," she gave Lilac an absent scratch and then raised her eyebrows. "Getting to him? Is there a story behind that?" Preferably one he would share. He had referred to his travels enough to make her plenty curious, although Kora was always uneasy actually asking people to share their stories. This seemed like a good opportunity to do so in a roundabout way though.
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Post by Sketchy on Feb 23, 2012 23:53:42 GMT -5
"That makes sense, then," T'ien replied after a moment. He'd already known that in the days of Thread there had been more, but it was always just rumors of history, never anything concrete.
T'ien preferred facts by nature.
It was T'ien's turn to blush. "Well, you know. Sometimes you get in towns whilst traveling and things... happen." He cleared his throat. "There was a young lady whose family was very, erm, interested. In me staying there, I mean. Family business and all..." He waved his hand, trying to brush it off. It had been one of the few indiscretions of T'ien's life, and he was still embarrassed that he'd let go.
He could feel Minalth laughing at him, that he was such a prude about things like that.
"But I managed to get out, with the help of a bluerider, of course." Rubbing the back of his neck nervously, he coughed a little. "Believe me, that's not how I want to remember those travels, but it was a close call..." Now, he could barely imagine that life; a life without Minalth and the weyr.
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Post by Sparrow on Feb 24, 2012 0:11:53 GMT -5
To be honest, Kora didn't know much about this sort of thing. All of her travels, even before Impressing Nayarath, had been on dragonback, and they had been few. But she had heard an excess of stories, to be sure. While she was without first-hand knowledge, she could at least believe what T'ien said. And as curious as she had been to hear the story moments before, now she found herself wanting to back away from the details.
Fortunately, it didn't look like T'ien wanted to go into them either."Well. I'm glad the Weyr could be of help to you." His unease was offputting, but she managed a weak laugh.
"Hopefully there were some better things to remember than that though? Although that sounds like an unfortunate ending to them." Previous to being Searched, anyhow.
And dragging up older stories was probably not the best way to change the subject- particularly since she had just brought it up again- but... this was one of those situations that Kora was particularly poor at dealing with. There were a lot of those.
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Post by Sketchy on Feb 24, 2012 0:18:05 GMT -5
"Don't get me wrong, I loved traveling. There was so much out there to learn, to try, to experience." He smiled fondly as he twirled his empty klah cup. "And that whole thing wasn't uncommon- I'd seen it happen before. Experiencing it myself, however, wasn't something I was looking for."
"There are always those perfect days when the weather was great and I had just left a town... I'd have the best food from there, of course, fresh, and I'd find a wonderful place to stop and eat..." He shrugged. "I have a fondness for waterfalls, personally. They're soothing and made for good meal breaks."
Overall, it had been a good thing. Getting out had allowed him to grow so much more than he'd ever thought he would. The world had been so different than what he'd grown up thinking.
"Being here just means I get to learn about another facet of this world we live in," he finally concluded, not wanting to ramble on and on about things that she probably wasn't interested in.
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Post by Sparrow on Feb 24, 2012 0:30:08 GMT -5
Kora couldn't imagine the average person looking for that sort of thing, but could come up with a myriad of situations that would accidentally turn them up in it. They were a set of scenarios she was probably best off not dwelling on, but that was another thing she was poor at.
"Waterfalls, huh?" She wasn't sure about soothing. They were gorgeous, certainly, but loud. Quite loud. Running water she liked the sound of, crashing, not so much. "I'm sure there were a lot of good ones to be found out there." If he could remember the look of them, it would be easy to go back and visit them soon enough. A brief visit she herself wouldn't mind.
Kora frowned a little. Somehow T'ien's closing line had a sense of temporariness to it, as though he would learn about Weyr life and then move on. "And there's a lot to learn here," she said quickly. Hopefully it would keep him awhile.
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Post by Sketchy on Feb 24, 2012 0:44:11 GMT -5
"Situations" were exactly as T'ien would term them; he didn't think anyone got into something like that on purpose. At least, no one he'd known had.
"Mhm. Waterfalls," he agreed, smiling. His hazel eyes lit up at the thought of them. "There was one in particular- it was a little small, with a few cascading pools as it fell off the cliff... and at the bottom ferns and all sort of greenery and the nicest pool..." He sighed a little in memory, before his eyes (and attention) refocused on Kora.
"Of course." He shrugged a little self-consciously. "There's so much I haven't seen yet at the weyr. I'm not even a full 'rider, yet," he added, as if that explained it all. "There's more yet to be done here, for me, at least."
He thought it over for a second. "Even if there wasn't much here for me to do, to try out, there's D'cien. I know he intends to live a long life here." Family was one tie that he couldn't put off.
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Post by Sparrow on Feb 24, 2012 1:13:36 GMT -5
Kora smiled. "Sounds pretty." This was the sort of thing she needed to get out and see. Kora had spent all her life in settled places. The coast was the wildest place she had spent much time at, and as much as she liked it there... one day, it would be nice to do some actual traveling. But even with the rapid travel available to dragonriders, she wasn't sure the opportunity would arise anytime soon.
There was always more to be done at the Weyr. That didn't mean it wouldn't be impossible for people to tire of it. But as he had reminded her, T'ien was still a weyrling. He would be here for a good while yet, whether he liked it or not. Although she hoped he would like it. Now this talk of travel was getting her a little worried.
But she was really jumping too far ahead. Kora swallowed the last of her klah and smiled a little. "That's good to hear." Kora wasn't sure family ties were enough to keep someone in a place forever, but then, her experience with those were pretty minimal. She had always been much more tied to the Weyr itself than any specific person in it.
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Post by Sketchy on Feb 28, 2012 1:35:54 GMT -5
"It's wonderful," T'ien agreed. "Wonderful mixture of blue, greens, browns..." he shrugged a little, as if making it worth less to him than it actually was. "Maybe I'll go back sometime." It was a nice thought, at least.
"And the weyr is almost like a family, in a way," he mused. "I mean, I know the other weyrlings almost better than I know my sister." It hurt to admit that he'd left as soon as the family was stable- as soon as he could get away without everything falling apart. But he'd had to, or he would have suffocated.
"We should have a picnic sometime." His proposition was thoughtful, more than demanding. "Without my brother or torn shirts. Just a nice outing." He knew it'd be hard for her to get away- and with his own studies, it wasn't likely either. But there had to be something to look forward to, right?
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