That was what he was here for, after all. To become a dragon rider. He'd stunned the local Harpers when he answered many questions correctly in the classes. Perhaps they expected him to be a big, ugly brute, dumb as they come. He was not dumb, not by a long shot. And he would prove that he was not just a brute. He even overheard one of the harpers refer to him to another harper as a "well spoken lad". Well, it wasn't just that, it was a "well spoken, if remarkably ugly lad" and that kind of made Bruno wince.
He'd never be handsome. So what. He was big and strong, and smarter than most people around him. And now he stood on the sands at Talor Cliff, eager like all the other candidates, neither better nor uglier nor more appropriate than anyone else.
Equal. Even.
Hungry.
He hadn't eaten all day, for some reason. It wasn't early in the day, either. The early breakfast time usually meant he went for lunch instead, but he had been studying up on flight patterns and Threadfall charts when lunch had been served. And then, of course... Falora and the beautiful golden Naomith came and told everyone about the hatching.
So Bruno stood there hungry, ugly and eager.
A fine picture of Pernese Youth.
The hatching went very nicely indeed, with the gold hatching first! There were a lot of losing bets on the stands this day! Whoever heard of the gold going first?! Then blues, and greens. Suddenly there were three eggs erupting together.
The blue which came from one ran up to the group of boys and tripped over himself doing so. The bronze and brown, however, began a nasty looking staring contest. They just got out of their eggs and started growling like a pair of felines fighting over a mate or morsel.
Mmm, morsel. Bruno shook his head of those hungry thoughts and watched the pair of dragons. They'd apparently singled out he and another young man, Hariven by name, and were mentally duking it out trying to see who would Impress whom!
Hariven and Bruno could only stand so much of this. They knew, each in their heart, who belonged to whom here. They glanced to one another, and then stepped in to stop this silliness.
"Devikath, hurry up and get over here! I'm more hungry than you!" Bruno announced to the huge brown. Hariven similarly stopped his bronze by telling him, "come on Unijelth, no need to show off."
The pair of dragons complied.
You knew my name! I am proud of you.
"Proud of me? Devikath, you ought to be proud of yourself! Look at you! You're huge! Just the right size to be, too! Now... I hear they're serving hatchling-food outside, let's go and see if there are any meatrolls or cheese bread left for the candidates!"
Br'no, you will eat us out of the weyr!
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