She was shaking, trembling from head to foot. Her fists opened and closed, squeezing beads of sweat between her clammy fingers. Before Behani stood thirty-four rocking and twitching Eggs, each much taller than any of the adolescents that stood before them. From her placement in the middle of the throng of female Candidates, she could see that the Egg closest to herself was beginning to crack and she half wished that it would split, but half-prayed that it would not. The blistering Sands under her feet were becoming unbearable, but a desperate fear of what was quivering inside of those jittering ovals was consuming her. Like the twenty-odd other females in her group and the fourty-odd males lingering on the other side of the great Hatching Cavern, Behani could scarcely believe that she – a Holdbred girl with no dowry – could dare Impress one of these Hatchlings of the proud golden queen Murlath.
Suddenly, the crowd simultaneously drew an anticipatory gasp and the Egg Behani had her bright brown eyes on exploded open. A crooning, awkward footed brown dragonet tumbled to the sands, tripped up by his wings and the newness of his legs. As he warbled in pain and longing for his chosen lifemate, four more Eggs split open simultaneously and an array of dragonets swarmed upon the Candidates. A bold young woman before her immediately ran to the aid of a Hatched green, setting the example for two more girls who stood closely to her. Behami wished she had the courage and remained half frozen in place, her eyes wide, and her face pale in spite of the heat of the Hatching Grounds.
"Faranth…" Was that her voice? Or an oath uttered by someone else? For someone who had never seen a dragon up close before, Behani thought she was 'dealing' quite well, as M'tro the Searchrider told her whenever he happened to see her. Still, that didn't stop her shakes, but at least there was no queen Egg on the Sands today…
To her left, another girl was attempting the same daring feat of helping a fallen dragonet to its feet and was mauled in the process. The blue, who she desperately had tried to force Impression on caught her sharply across the chest and stomach with his claws, easily rending through her thin robes and cutting quickly through her skin. She shrieked and fell; her cries calling a squawking green to her aid and – Impression! All around Behani Candidates were meeting their lifemates and wandering in total ecstasy off the Sands with them while she stood dumbly, staring star-struck at the forming bonds all around her.
Almost all of the Eggs had Hatched by now and all around her the crowd of Candidates had dispursed, each meandering across the Grounds to either meet their partner or be disregarded in defeat. Behami was cursing herself inwardly, too captivated by the unique sights and sounds of the Hatching. Only the foolish Candidates, she saw, bore the marks of dragon claws: Most had tried to force Impression on a disgruntled dragonet while the remaining few had been too slow to get out of the way of a charging Hatchling, undoubtedly thinking that it was heading for them and not the person behind them.
Finally, with a brown scuttling past her, meeting the young man who would ride him, Behami's paralysis lifted. Few Eggs were left unHatched and Behani, despite how inactive she'd been since the start of the event, guessed she still had a reasonably good chance to meet her dragon here and now. She couldn't quite understand why she had been so stubbornly immobile. Had she really been so terrified? Or just so confounded by her not-so-unique situation? Shaking the last reminents of fear and doubt from her mind, Behani settled herself for victory – or, most likely, defeat.
Making her way across the grounds, wary of those pairs and unImpressed dragons around her, Behani approached the few remaining rocking eggs. Finally, the last six split almost together and let their contents fumble onto the Sands. A blue cut across her, keening in that piteous sort of way dragonets did when they were valiantly searching for the person whom they were desperate for. Just as he moved passed her, she distinctly heard his delighted and surprised warble; Impression had been made. Two greens were butting each other, each trying to speed past the other. As Behani watched, the larger of the two succeeded in knocking the other down and veered – right toward Behani herself!
And then…her eyes met the most beautiful facets she'd ever seen before. Behani's breath caught in her throat and…the green butted her in the stomach, moving her out of the way for the girl half-cowering behind her. The second green was immediately consoled by a lad in the vicinity. Two blues quickly Impressed while a third green sped off towards the small throng of Healers who were tending to a deep gouge mark a young woman had received. The last dragonet, a brown, sat stoically on his rump until a scrawny youth who looked barely old enough to Stand rushed to him, hugging him and begging quite audibly that Luthith should come along and get some food. With that final Impression, the Hatching ended with Murlath and her bronze mate Zorith trumpeting happily, for no dragonet had fled between without a partner and no Egg was left unHatched. The straggler pairs were helped off the Sands by blue and green riders while the other Candidates who had not been chosen were rounded up by the Candidate Master and escorted back to their barracks...