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Date Posted: 11:34:26 04/14/05 Thu
Author: Atiyana
Subject: *Blinks*

“Now, Ati, remember. Be polite, and don’t give up, and make sure…”

“That I am neat and don’t cause anyone offence. I know, father!”

Atiyana smiled brightly at her father, and reached up to straighten his collar as he held her at arms length to inspect her in her white candidate’s robe, her hair neatly braided, her skin clean, and her eyes sparkling with anticipation. Martan shrugged off the memory that came unbidden to his thoughts – himself before Impression, just about to enter the Hatching Sands. Atiyana frowned at his flash of pain.

“Father? Are you alright? You don’t have to watch the hatching if you don’t want to, you know.”

Martan shook his head, both in dissent and to rid himself of old thoughts. “I wouldn’t miss my little girl’s chance for all of Pern!” He told her, and she giggled.

“I’m not so little any more, father! I might come back from this as a dragonrider!”

“You might!” He kissed her cheek as they reached the place in the stands reserved for dragons, and gave her a small push. “Go on, and make me proud!”

“I’ll try!” She told him, and smiled up at her cousin, who stood next to his blue dragon, Arrth.

“Good luck, Ati!” He said cheerfully, and gestured to the steps.

“Thanks Lan!” Atiyana called – blissfully ignoring his mock-scowl at the use of his old nickname – and she turned to run down the wide flat steps two at a time, fingers just brushing the rail, jumping the last three to land on her feet at the bottom of the stands, at last on the Hatching Sand.

The knot of the neat plait of honey-brown hair slapped the small of her back as she turned round once more to wave up at her father and her cousin the bluerider, but she disregarded it as she ran over the sand to where the two other candidates stood assembled. Finally, not even breathing hard from her run (she was far to excited to get tired!) she was standing among the hopefuls, looking eagerly at the eggs.

But the queen dragon herself was not forgotten. How could she be? Ati looked up the huge height, craning her neck, to finally see the head of the gold. A sunny smile was given to Shrineth, even though the girl was not entirely sure if the dragon was watching her, and a brown hand went instinctively to toy with the end of her braid as she turned her head back to the real reason she had come here. The eggs.

Atiyana looked momentarily at the queen egg, her eyes widening as she took in it’s sheen and golden splendour, but she was never the type to dwell on anything, and her brown eyes were soon drawn back to the other, smaller eggs. When it’s your first hatching, you shouldn’t aim too high. And I doubt rank would suit me – fighting is probably more fun! She thought to herself, allowing Tully, her best behaved fire-lizard, to appear from between to land on her shoulder. Ati refused to let Egan and Kin come to her, afraid that Shrineth might object to her bronze’s chatter and her gold’s imperious manner, and so they were confined to the stands, where they sat with L’van and Arrth.

Ati could spot the blue from the corner of her eye, and she thought about turning round again, but decided against it. It was better to keep her attention on the clutch. Was she allowed to touch them? Someone had said that candidates could, and so she reached out a long hand to just touch one of the eggs, snatching it back as she felt its warmth and a flurry of movement beneath the shell. She didn’t want to upset the queen. It was certainly easier to tell apart these eggs than fire-lizard eggs, and she looked at the egg hard before deciding it was probably a blue.

Tully rubbed her small green head against the cheek of her human, trilling softly into Ati’s ear. Well-trained as she was, she didn’t try and fly about, but instead confined herself to Atiyana’s shoulder, her tail wrapped around the girl’s neck for support. She could feel the slight tension gripping her human, but this was overruled by an overwhelming sense of anticipation – if not to Impress her own dragon, but to see others do so. There were already lots of greenriders in the Weyr, and the girl knew that she had almost no chance of the queen egg, so her wide-eyed gaze drifted absently towards the middle-sized eggs.

But would she Impress?

((I feel so bad asking this...but could she not have a blue or brown? *Cringe*))

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