Prompt courtesy of 018 / Courth / Alice!
TW: Death
Tent canvas, as you’ve discovered, does not do as good a job at blocking out minds as stone did – but they also serve as a much more obvious sign of your presence to the inhabitants of the weyr. Eyes are on you and the clutch as a whole, for many different reasons…
A crafter lingers in the weyrbowl to try and get a glimpse through the tent openings at the shells. He’s too old to stand anymore, but only by a Turn, and he wonders if he could just... his dreams had been full of a life a-wing for so many turns, but now he had other considerations. Could he serve the Weyr in another way, or -- could a dragon from one of these shells change his fate yet again?
Weyrbrats giggle and shove each other forwards until adults yell and tell them to ‘get to where you need to go and stop bothering the weyrwoman’. Eventually, one of them feels brave enough to rush forward and place a hand on the canvas at the back of the tent, and all of them shriek with laughter as they run away before Shayled or Gwillanth can tell them off. The excitement of doing something forbidden fills their minds more than thoughts of you.
Riders and dragons on their way past constantly stop to ask Shayled or Gwillanth is there’s anything they can do, anything the pair might need, to make them more comfortable, to make the eggs more comfortable – and on and on. They’ve lost loved ones, or know someone who has, and a hatching would lift the spirits of the weyr considerably. If all the eggs hatch safely then it’s a sign the weyr can recover from the damage it’s suffered.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Feel free to create your own scenario to add! What do you make of these curious minds – are they interlopers, or a welcome presence? Are there any you enjoy more than others? The weyr is putting a lot of hope and expectation on this clutch’s hatching – is the pressure to do well too much for you, or do you draw strength from it? Do you already have a sense of the weyr’s expectations that you’ll bond to a willing candidate? Or is the relationship between dragons and their riders still a mystery to you?