In which the Chantha-algae-monster is alive, and FEWS is discussed.

Ista Hatching Entrance

Nolee, Caitlyn, Chantha

You stand at the entrance to the Hatching Grounds. Before you the cavern spreads out to the north and east. It is enormous to say the least, and the gentle breeze blowing in through the entrance behind you, to the southwest accentuates its size. Spreading around the back side of the grounds itself are the Galleries, where guests can sit and watch the action and quietly cheer candidates on. Below that is the black sand itself, where the candidates stand.

Twin arches lead out into the expanse of the bowl. Ledges overhead provide space for winged creatures, and a set of stone seats begin nearby.

Chantha comes down from some far and dank corner of the big cavern. There's dust in her hair, grime on her face, and the last of a particularly stubborn patch of green gook halfway to her elbows. Nonetheless, she beams triumphantly. "I got it clean!" she announces. "Timberley said I couldn't possibly, but I got something to stand on, and it's clean!"

Caitlyn paces into the too hot caverns, looking for a certain goldrider. What she finds first is a Chantha who enters pretty much at the same time she does - the bluerider quirking a brow at the candidate, looking at her gooky arm. "Uh...I'm almost afraid to ask..."

Nolee's leaning against the cavern wall, brushing black grains of sand from between sweaty toes while she does her bet to keep her balance. She looks up at the sound of voices, then squints at and makes a face at Chantha's 'clean' arm, looking to Caitlyn to see if she's in agreement. "If that's clean, I'm afraid of when you were dirty!"

Chantha abruptly realizes what she must look like--the Creature From the Black Lagoon, for starters--and makes an embarrased noise halfway between a snort and a giggle. "Oh no, no, not *me*. It was me and Timberley on the roster today to scrub at the algae and such in the hatching cavern, 'cause even if there's less it still needs to be got rid of. And there was one patch up high in a corner, and she said we should ignore it since we couldn't reach it anyway, but I stood on the top tier and *stretched*, and I got it. And now the Cavern's clean." Pause. Consider. "And I'm not, but oh well."

Striding in the few paces to close the gap between Nolee and herself, Caitlyn smirks and nods wryly at the other rider's assessment of Chantha's state-of-cleanliness - then peering at the candidate's arms yet again. "Only thing *I* ever get that enthusiastic about cleaning well is Morgan," she delivers in a deadpan. "Oh..." Pause. "Blech," is added when Chantha expounds on her scrubbing duties - the bluerider looking around. "Theres *still* algae around?"

Striding in the few paces to close the gap between Nolee and herself, Caitlyn smirks and nods wryly at the other rider's assessment of Chantha's state-of-cleanliness - then peering at the candidate's arms yet again. "Only thing *I* ever get that enthusiastic about cleaning well is Morgan," she delivers in a deadpan. "Oh..." Pause. "Blech," is added when Chantha expounds on her scrubbing duties - the bluerider looking around. "Theres *still* algae around?"

Nolee rubs her back against the wall, scratching her shoulderblades against the juts of the cavern stone. "You and..." her brows crinkle, then she shrugs, not able to keep one name from another. "Jays, is there -still- algae in there?" She sighs softly, an exasperated noise. "Thought most of it dried up, but with all the humility we always have here..." Her malaprop trails off and she laughs. "Fortunately mine either like being cleaner, or help bathe themselves. So did you save some soapsand for your arms and hair and...you?"

"There's just a little left," Chantha assures Nolee earnestly, "and most of it's up in corners where it'd usually be. It's always so warm in there, and there's still damp. But it's not growing in big ugly blobs like it was." She looks ruefully down at her arms. "Yeah, I'll get myself clean. Just waiting on Tim, she wanted to make sure we remembered to put all the cleaning supplies back. And then my chores are done for a while, so I can nap. Or feed Shar. Or...do something else. Go swimming, maybe."

Caitlyn smirks a little at Nolee's incorrect choice of words, then shaking her head at the goldrider. "Morgan bathes himself pretty well, usually, but there's sometimes he gets *so* utterly filthy that I have to have Kint hold him so I can take a scrubber to his hide." Cue eyeroll. "Filthy little bronze beastie." The bluerider 'ohhs' at Chantha's explanation of hidden algae, then leaning her own back into the hopefully cooler stone. "Swimming sounds *wonderful* after working in this sandy lava pool that calls itself a hatching ground."

"Lava pool?" Nolee repeats, her brows crinkling as she peers around the entry to reassure herself that the eggs beyond are, indeed, well and safe. "Aw, that was good of you, to even clean up? Once last sevenday I came in and tripped right over a sweeper someone had left in the aisle." Though, who knows, it could've been Nolee who forgot it there. "Well, it's especially good that you got it all, if there is more. It grows, you know, and spreads. And is terrible for allergies." Nodnod.

"So they tell me," Chantha agrees, smiling in spite of herself. "'They' being the three aunties who surrounded me at breakfast and lectured me about how important it was that everything be clean, because otherwise they sneeze and cough and hack and fret. I didn't get to finish my bread until I'd promised that we'd get everything squeaky-clean." Fear the wrath of the aunties. "Lava, Cait? Is it as bad as all that? Nolee would know if it was lava-bad."

"A turn of phrase," Caitlyn murmurs to Nolee, leaving her explanation of 'lava in the grounds' to that. "Gah, my nose was driving me crazy when that stuff was hip-deep around the Weyr..." she observes darkly of the former algae bloom. "It feels that way to me, sometimes," she observes to Chantha. "I don't seem to have a high tolerance for extremes of temperatures. Too hot or too cold, and I just wilt."

"It is pretty warm, though." The goldrider brushes back her hair, adjusts her headband, and considers. "The other day, I had on some lotion from Gree-r to make my skin less dry in the heat, and it was so warm it melted right off of me." True story! Nolee adjusts her sandal, squishing her foot back into it and laughing. "The only other way away from them is to run faster than they can. Though if they got your name, you're in for it anyway."

Chantha
A young woman, still awkward in her skin, watches the world from wide green eyes. She's about five-foot-five, but sturdily built, with muscular arms and legs and shoulders made broad from labor. Her light brown hair, bleached to blonde in patches and streaks by the sun, ends abruptly just under her chin, edges ragged and inexpertly cut. Her round face is tanned brown, which makes sandy brows and lashes and the bright green of her eyes stand out all the more. Hands and feet are callused sandpaper-rough. Adult curves, hip and breast and thigh, are already in evidence, though she makes no effort to display them. Chantha has 16 Turns, 10 months, and 16 days.
Chantha is wearing a loose top and trous, basic garb for the heat of Ista Island. The trous are plain khaki, made for work and not to show stains, as are her battered brown boots. Her sleeveless top is a pretty blue-green shade, reminiscent of the sky. The knot of a Sudee resident has been unraveled and rewoven into a bracelet on her right wrist, and the black, white, and orange knot of an Ista Candidate is pinned to her right shoulder.


Chantha's response is delayed while she mentally translates 'Gree-r' into 'the Weyrwoman with whom we do not mess'. She accepts Nolee's account as true, nodding. "When it's that hot, you really have to lie in the shade instead of in the sun. Especially with all the black sand absorbing heat...oh, they never caught my name. They just kept calling me 'you, girl!' and I kept nodding and smiling. They'll never take me alive."

Caitlyn makes a face at the thought of being hounded by old aunties, shaking her head to dispell her mind of their ghostly calls. "Oh, how's Nala's hide?" she murmurs conversationally to Nolee. "I'd heard through the grapevine she had a dry patch on her head a few days ago. Think Dalanor attended to it." Chantha's willingness to go down with her own ship earns the candidate a soft snark of humor. "Either that, or you'll gnaw off your own ears to avoid hearing them."

"That's be interesting! We could form a club where we gnaw off each others' ears. Though they're probably not as tasty as berry cobbler, or citron whitefish when it's just so? So maybe not." Nolee even glances at Chantha's ears, but the girl's dirty enough that the blonde weyrwoman drops that idea. "Harder to get any relief in shade in that cavern, though. The sands just -exude- heat." The word exude is stretched, danced about, shown off. "Her hide? Oh, yeh, Nala mentioned. Another candidate, right? I'm surprised she let him without me there. She must've been really itchy."

Chantha is sympathetic towards poor Nalaieth, possibly because she needs to be scrubbed herself. "It was good of Dalanor. He's a nice guy, even if he's kind of sorry he left being a journeyman Harper. Or at least that's what *I* think is making him brood like he does." Not that she's been studying him. Or the other male Candidates. Certainly not. "My ears will stay attached. If I can listen to my little sister babble on, three aunties are nothing."

Caitlyn hides her giggle at not only Nolee's suggestion, but her pride in her newfound word behind a swift hand - as if covering a yawn - the bluerider showing only a grin after she masters herself. "Which is why they feel like a lava pool to me," she further informs the junior weyrwoman. "Yeah, I was a little surprised about that, too. Poor Nala." A quirk of head at Chantha's observance about Dalanor, and Cait then scratches her head. "Hrm. If he misses Harpering so badly, why'd he accept Search?"

Nolee wiggles further against the wall, ahhing as the itch across her shoulders and unreachable center back area area poked at by the stone. "He broods?" One half-shoulder is shrugged. "I hadn't noticed, but maybe I'm not very good at noticing that sort of thing. Except that I didn't think he was a journeyman yet? Or maybe I misunderstood what he said." Shrugging it off, she laughs. "I do take care of her!" she insists. "It's that constant heat. It makes you hot, it makes her peel." Then the woman looks to Chantha, in case she has an answer for Caity's query.

Chantha looks just a tad furtive. "I just...well kind of...okay, so Timberley follows him about, and *she* says that maybe he'd rather be a Harper than a rider, but he accepted Search because he felt it was his duty. And he *is* kind of quiet and thoughtful, so I think she might be at least partially right. Not that it's any of my business. And she's only fourteen, I don't know where she gets her ideas." There, that's all her bases covered.

"Aw, jays. I did, too, about the duty? And because my folks think it's a great way to find favor, if they accepted, or rather, if I did." Nolee smirks a little, adding, "They were pretty much right. They get better gifts now than they would've if I'd mended nets all my life, or tried to be a glassblower like Pop." That tangent complete, she ignores the suggestion that her tending of her lifemate is lax and leaps on the new topic. "Aw, would I ever! It's such a great idea, if we can help train them to save people--but I don't know if Nala will let me be gone that long."

Chantha can't really imagine her own flying troublemaker being an early-warning system, but if it makes Nolee and Cait happy..."Dalanor, he's doing fine," she reassures both riders one more time. "We just wonder, you know, because he doesn't talk--" The rest of her explanation is lost because she's gotten a good whiff of herself. Dust and green muck. *Ew*. "I'd best go and get some of this off me before I'm dyed green. My best to Nala and Kint." Polite bobs, a friendly smile, and Chantha hurries across the Bowl towards the bathing pools.

"Well, if she *will*, Kint and I will be in the Bowl a little after the evening's 8th candlemark tonight. If you can't make it, I'll likely take F'rgen. He's a stolid presence...plus he retains information well." Chantha's sniff of her own funk makes Cait smirk wryly - the bluerider waving the girl off. "Take your time and scrub well!" she calls out laughing to her retreating back.

Nolee smiles blithely, regardless of the odor off of the candidate or Dalanor's sullen silences. "He's a boy. They either talk to everyone, or no one." This provokes some giggles and a polite bob back, though hers is much more awkward-looking even than the muck-coated girl's is. Clearly she doesn't recall who F'rgen is either, so she just nods amicably. "Yes, yes, I'll be there if I can. Are you bringing yours with you, or better to leave them behind for the moment?"

Nolee laughs aloud, imagining Caitlyn with her bunch flurrying about in the air all at once, the room thick with scattered firelizards. "Hope someone makes a song about it, whatever happens. I thought I'd only bring the youngest, since they're still malleable enough to learn things. I'm not sure the other two will get many more skills than they have already." She makes a face. "Which aren't much. Or maybe, none at all and just try to get them to come if they're needed. Though Lune likes sleeping in the basket, so she's easy to carry."

Caitlyn stretches her smile wide, nodding as she thinks of the same thing Nolee does, with minor variations. "Eh, if it gets too crazy with so many there, I'll just send all of mine but Infelice home. She can give the information to them." A small quirk of her head. "Aww, even Caroling? We were doing so well with her a Turn ago..." A small slump of her shoulders, and then Cait sighs, pushing off the rock at her back. "How is little Lune? She such a pretty girl...like her dam."

"Nono, Caroling's doing very well! Especially as comparged to that rascally blue. But I'm not sure how well she'd add new skills to what she can do, you know? She's so fussy, maybe she'd make a better lookout than Wiggle would. Wiggle...well, she spends most of her time trying to figure out which way to flap her wings." Nolee rolls her eyes. "Yeh, she's pretty all right. And she looks so delicate, but it's all a ruse. She hissed right at a tunnelsnake in the storage cavern--just isn't afraid of anything!"

Caitlyn first nods, the giggles at Nolee's observances about her firelizards - looking a little surprised at that new name - Wiggle. "Oh, jays! You Impressed another one? A green or gold? From that wild clutch Kamia found, then?" There's a little puff of pride in Cait's chest at the tale of Lune's braveness - as if *she* was the clutchmom. "Yeah, she struck me as being bold when she hatched. I'm glad you adore her."

Nolee makes a wry face, somewhat embarrassed about the whole thing. "Well, when they start coming out of their shells, I just feel for them, and remember how it felt when Nala found me, how happy and content she was, and how content they feel when their bellies are full--and then Wiggle fell over right next to me and I just couldn't help it." She sounds like a youth explaining to their parent why they just brought home a puppy, and laughs about it. "A green one. She's, well, round. To say the least. Ooh, and I do adore her! I think she might be the smartest of them. Caroling's wise, but Lune's got smarts."

Caitlyn grins as Nolee 'explain' herself, the bluerider waving all of that off. "Hey, you Impress as many as you can stand, Noles. I think I've reached my limit at four, though." A deep sigh. "I feel the same way when I watch them looking around for a human. I'm glad the fog was thick that day, or I might have impulsively tried for another. Hmm, round Wiggle." *Giggle* "Nothing like have both wisdom and brains in your faire, then! So...Gob's got...uhm... attitude?" Another chortle, and Cait stretches some. "Well, about time for me to get back to work. I need to finish before the meeting tonight, but I wanted to come out and ask you if you were interested in joining me."

"I think I have too, especially since four are enough to keep we awake at night and go back and forth, back and forth, feeding and oiling the two youngest ones." She gets bother her sandals back on, then rubs her back and smiles. "I couldn't believe how thick it was! Usually I'm not trying to walk in it, or Nala can fly over it. Lucky they found people at all." Nolee laughs, a chortley noise. "Gob...yeh. Attitude. Sass!" She finds a way to work that in too, beaming with her vocabulary success. "Yeh, guess we've put it off long enough. I'll either see you later, or try to send one if I'm not able to go so you don't wait on me. Thanks, Caitlyn." With a wave, and a tuneless whistle, she's off.