[Touching] How Does it Feel?

[Snow]

Neiram didn’t give one look back at Ophelia, the girl could take care of herself after all. She was still dragging Kolaris along with her when he stated he wasn’t a silly boy. ”Well, you’re not completely a silly boy. I’ll give you that. I mean you are a candidate after all, so that means you have to have something important regular boys don’t.” She made it back to the Dancing Square egg and touched it again. A part of her sort of wanted to cuddle with it like Ophelia was doing to the Drum Solo egg, but she restrained herself.

”That Ophelia is quite the strange one. Don’t you think? What did you say your name was? Kolaris? Hmph, that’s a handsome name. You don’t look much older than I am.” Her voice was quite merry and cheerful as she spoke to him. ”See, isn’t this egg beautiful? I honestly didn’t know the eggs themselves had such personality. Have you ever been to a hatching before? I’ve never even been to a weyr before.”

Neiram then dragged Kolaris to another egg to stand there and pat it too. She didn’t want to leave until she had spent time enough with all the eggs. ”Hey, what did Ophelia mean when she said remember the candidate rules?” She asked giving Kolaris a confused look.

[weetia]

"I'm not a silly boy at all," Kolaris insisted to the girl dragging him away, apparently to her favorite egg. He was somewhat mollified, though, by her acknowledgment that he had to be somewhat special to be a candidate. He had been so excited to finally be old enough to stand. Of course, he supposed he should be worried about Impressing now, but he wasn't feeling rushed, since he had plenty of turns before he got too old. If the right dragon for him wasn't in this clutch, he would survive.

"Ophelia is strange," he agreed, looking over his shoulder to make sure the older candidate wasn't listening. She was probably hugging her furious egg, though, and not paying any more attention to irrelevant humans. "I doubt I'm older than you at all," he added. "I only just Turned 12, and you can't be any younger than that to stand," he looked dutifully at the Dancing Square egg when she asked him about it, and scrunched up his nose.

"I guess it's pretty," he acknowledged. "I mean, I hadn't really thought about eggs being pretty...I've grown up in the Weyr, so I've seen a few Hatchings,"

She dragged him away to another egg, and he suddenly realized what Ophelia had meant, when the girl asked him about it. "I think we're not supposed to touch?" he said, surprised, and realizing he had a reason to extract his arm that wouldn't hurt her feelings. He pulled away carefully, and went to touch the egg next to hers.

Kolaris really didn't want to upset the girl, any more than he wanted to upset Ophelia, but for a completely different reason. He certainly wasn't afraid of the pretty girl, but he didn't want to see her feelings hurt. She confused him, and he was quite relieved to touch the egg, and feel its emotions from outside him instead of having her hand on his arm.