Saved By The Egg [Wher Hatching]

[Zen]

Turn 2761, 11th Month
10th Pass, 6th Turn, Autumn
A few days after Dawning of a Brighter Future

Asheryn :: Green Ashesk

Today’s lecture had to do with the mating habits of whers, how humans could control them to an extent for more selective breeding, and how the entire affair affected their handlers. Galderran had been giving them all something of a crash course in whers while they waited for their eggs to hatch but today - tonight? - was the first time he’d broached this particular subject. Galderran’s big bronze was always in attendance during his lessons, all the better to get them used to being in close proximity with the beasts. Asheryn had worked around the whers at Mavros a bit, but never up close and personal. The beast had special goggles on that shielded his eyes from the glows lighting the room, and the fire that served to keep them and their eggs warm during the lesson.

Asheryn glanced over at the crate of sand she’d carted in with her little egg sitting atop, surrounded by the rest of the clutch nearest the fire to keep them nice and heated. According to Galderran they should be hatching before the sevenday was out, so they’d all been advised to stay close to them, and if they had to leave them, not to do it for long. Waiting for the eggs to hatch had been rather torturous thus far in Asheryn’s opinion. Half the time she worried she’d screwed up and killed her egg, but laying her hands on it always reassured her of the still living presence inside. She just wanted to meet the silly creature already.

She was about to turn her attention back to the lesson when she could have sworn she saw her egg shift. She stared at it intensely, thoroughly distracted and not at all hearing whatever Galderran happened to be explaining at the moment. But she didn’t notice any further movement and wondered if she was just being paranoid because she knew it would happen soon. She sighed, about to turn back again when the egg jerked. She stood from her seat, causing Galderran to stop speaking and look at her curiously, but she didn’t notice, still staring at the egg. She was sure it had moved that time!

“Asheryn?”

Her name drew her attention to the man briefly, and she gestured toward the fire, “I think my egg moved.”

The monster of a man moved over to the eggs quickly to inspect them, and was just as soon hurrying back to the front of the room where a bucket was piled with chunks of meat. They’d been keeping one near for the last couple days in anticipation, though so far the chunks had just been fed to adult whers before the meat could go bad, as each day passed without any sign of the hatching starting, “Get your eggs and keep your knife out. As I’ve told you, you’ll need to coat some of this meat with your own blood to make the bond. Just as soon as your hatchling’s out of the shell, start shoving meat in its mouth. It won’t take long to fill them, small as they’ll be. Then they’ll sleep.” He moved around to each of the 8 soon to be handlers, dumping a pile of meat in front of them, “And try not to let them get your fingers while they’re at it, eh?”

Asheryn, already on her feet, hurried over to grab her egg up into her arms, feeling a definite movement from within. Taking her seat, now with a pile of meat in front of her as well, she settled the egg in her lap and steadied it with one hand while the other pulled her knife from her belt, setting it beside the meat in front of her. She didn’t really care what everyone else was doing, all that mattered was her little egg and the way it was starting to crack as it rocked in her lap. Bits of shell began to fall away until finally a pale green head popped out, wailing a demand - for food, Asheryn imagined. While the little green continued to work to free herself completely from her egg, Asheryn took up her knife and made a small cut on her hand, picking up a few pieces of the meat to coat in the welling blood.

Such an odd little ritual, this was. As the shell broke into smaller pieces and the green wher in her lap tried to push to unsteady paws, she did as Galderran had said and shoved a piece of meat into the hatchling’s still demanding mouth. She wasn’t even sure the green chewed or just swallowed it whole, and she gave her more, careful of her fingers as Galderran had warned, the green snapping hungrily, carelessly, for more. However, when she realized where Asheryn was getting the meat from, she simply tried to clamber up onto the table to get to it herself. Asheryn held her back and the green growled unhappily, but she just stuffed more meat into her mouth and it quieted her easily enough. She couldn’t help but grin, feeling the subtle, odd meeting of their minds, “You’re mine now, little one.” No. You mine, the green returned with another little growl, and Asheryn laughed. More. More now, came another demand as the green snapped at her hand impatiently.

SPOILER: Click to show

NAME: Ashesk
COLOR: Green
AGE: Hatchling (Month 11)
HANDLER: Asheryn
SPEAKING COLOR: b4e1be

APPEARANCE: This green will be 9 feet long at full growth. Small and dainty, as far as whers go anyway, this green is much sleeker than the typical wher and would honestly be labeled something of a breeding failure for her lack of a decent muscular build, essential for mining OR guarding stock whers, so could be classified as a runt. She is a very pale sage green, ever so slightly lighter on her undersides. She has darker, jade green markings in stripes along her neck and tail and strange almost flame-like markings along her sides, with her forelegs being near fully colored in this jade green, and surrounding these jade markings are brighter, minty colored markings.

PERSONALITY: Sassy, Brave, Judgemental
This green may be small, but what she lacks in size she makes up for in attitude. She is brave to the point of stupidity and won’t back down from any challenge unless her handler makes her. She would face down a gold dragon, snarling, snapping, and spitting insults, and feel no fear, despite the fact that the much larger beast could swallow her whole. She finds fault with almost everyone and will become known for her biting insults. When it comes to her job, she is a hard worker, though her abrasive nature may cause her to take a bit longer to learn new things if they are not presented to her in the right way.

[tovaana]

Wherling Zylorin :: Green Zysk

His mind was going in and out of the lesson, thinking about how the breeding of whers likened to breeding of other animals and beasts. He wondered if there was a way to keep blues from chasing greens, it seemed like it would be against the Weyr’s interest in breeding smaller whers. There was a high chance his wher would either be blue or green, according to the egg size. If it was green, he supposed he wouldn’t have any choice in the matter… if it were blue, perhaps he’d be able to try and have control enough to stop or thwart it from catching a green… though, at the same time, he wondered if he’d rather have his blue’s genetics passed on. He had picked the next best egg, so perhaps it would be better if his egg was a blue wher, to let him chase.

The dark haired man’s thoughts wandered a bit about what it would be like to be lost in the ‘feelings’ of his wher. He’d heard tell about it for dragons, and had felt the light influence of a gold’s influence when they had risen in Mavros, but he couldn’t really imagine anything stronger taking hold of his ability to control himself. It seemed undignified, and he wondered if he could practice controlling himself… he wasn’t sure that was really a thing and – his thought was cut off by a name, and it sounded less like the man calling on the woman to answer a question, as it was a question itself.

His eyes moved mechanically toward the eggs where the attention of the group was drawn in anticipation. Was everyone holding their breath like he was as Galderran checked the status of the eggs? He was only looking at his own small egg’s top that peaked out from the sands packed around it it’s box on the make shift wagon he had made. Zylorin wasn’t sure if it was the flickering light from the fire, or actual movement of the sand around the egg. But the bronze wher handler’s voice spurred him into unquestioned action, his legs taking him to his wagon and pulling it aside to a spot of his own while he pulled the jerking egg up out of the sands it had been buried in and onto the floor in front of him.

Zylorin’s heart seemed to jerk each time the egg moved – he’d never felt this sort of anticipation. He’d been able to be patient enough for the egg to hatch, but now that it was just seconds, cracks away from him, and he felt his attention zero in on the chipped egg and what color he might find within. He kept telling himself it wouldn’t matter, since the bronze egg had surely been picked already, but he couldn’t help himself on the matter. So when the layered green popped her head out with a hungry creel he couldn’t but feel a moment of disappointment that his color was the bottom of the food chain… but, it didn’t change Zylorin and his capabilities and what he’d be able to do with her.

He drew the knife from his belt and made a careful cut on the palm of his hand, a cut he had made before to practice this very moment, and followed the ghost line until it was complete. Zylorin sheathed his knife, his eyes never leaving the work in front of him, the same hand grabbing pieces of meat that were provided while the blood welled up in the palm of his hand. The human body was fascinating, the pain didn’t bother him at all with the adrenalin of the moment spiking his heart rate. He  tilted his hand dripped the blood on his first piece of meat as his little wher rolled the rest of her egg off of it. She let out a less needing cry, more plaintive and questioning as she took a stumbling step toward his legs.

He deftly fed the wher the pieces of meat, squeezing his palm to elicit more blood from his cut to drip onto the wher’s first meal. The science of this ritual didn’t exactly make sense to him, but logic took a step aside as his mind felt something touch his. Zylorin paused his preparation of the next piece of meat as the feeling in his mind grew. She sat quietly at his feet, waiting strangely patient for each new piece – and didn’t seem too bothered that he had paused. He wasn’t sure how he felt about this connection in the mind, her quiet and sensitive soul tied to his, it was a stark difference to his own and made him feel things that he was sure were not necessary. The green’s duo colored head tilted, Help you? He shivered at the sweet and small voice. He blinked multiple times, “no, I’m to help you first. You will help later, when you are bigger.” He said in a quiet voice, continuing to feed the green, his mind glancing at the perfect pattern of the greens on her back. He enjoyed the order and logic to the pattern, but his mind tried to not think too much to the new mind that clung desperately to his.

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}NAME: Zysk
COLOR: Green
AGE: Hatchling
HANDLER: Zylorin
SPEAKING COLOR: 4ddf76

APPEARANCE: This green will be 12 feet long at full growth and has a fairly average build for a wher. Her front half is dominated by a pine green coloration that fades into a bright sage green on her forepaws and upper part of her head. Going farther back on her body, this darker green becomes a medium green, with speckles and spots of both colors between, which changes in the same manner into a sort of minty green, and then finally into the same bright sage color that can be found on her head and forepaws. This bright color dominates her tail and can also be found on her hind paws.

PERSONALITY: Patient, Obedient, Sensitive

This green is by far the most well behaved of her clutch and will be a breeze for her new handler to train. Patient and obedient, this green lives to please and will be entirely focused on her handler and what they want from her, doing her very best to perform any task set before her to the best of her ability. She wants for very little but to make her handler happy, and so long as she is accomplishing that goal, she is happy too. However she is very sensitive. She will take failure rather hard, particularly if she feels any disappointment or displeasure from her handler, and may develop a tendency to become mopey if her handler is unable to bring her back around into a more positive mindset before she settles in to wallow in her own self pity. Disappointing her handler when performing a particular task too many times may also lead to her refusing to do it, afraid to continue to disappoint, and it will take quite a bit of convincing on her handler’s part to get her to try again at that point.

[Taxx]

It had certainly been an eventful week, tugging the little cart with a pot of sand that held the wher egg he hoped to bond to. Keeping it appropriately warm had been harder through the days, which he now slept through because that, too, was part of his life as a wherhandler, but he seemed to be doing it okay, judging by Galderran's standard, and that was what mattered. And then there were lessons about every aspect of wher care you could imagine: from grooming to managing them during tantrums to today's topic: mating runs and how they affected the handlers.

Honestly it was sort of a mix of interesting and boring. It was different from what he knew of dragon flights, and not just because whers couldn't fly, but the rest seemed similar? And a helpful idea of what to expect during it, though you could never know for sure until you dealt with it firsthand.

Galderran's movement toward the eggs drew Lorth's attention to him, and then interest quickened as he made his way toward the baskets of meat waiting nearby, urging the to-be handlers to their eggs for the impending hatching. Asheryn and Zylorin were the first to crouch, waiting as their eggs shuddered and cracked, Lorth watching as first one and then a second green made their way into the world.

Before he could do much more than wonder how many greens were in the clutch, his egg jolted and an audible crunch came from within as it split; a dark paw tipped with white claws tore at the opening and widened it enough for the little wher to bodily shove his way through. Squinting against the light, a sticky drop of liquid falling from his chin to the sand, the dark blue with brighter accents stood, legs quivering and still for just a moment except for his narrowed gaze trailing around at the crowd.

His little chest swelled and he gave a long, low hiss to announce his unending displeasure at so many people being here, and then he simply tipped himself off the sand-filled pot into Lorthoren's lap. His claws, mercifully still egg-soft, didn't scratch through the man's trousers, not that he particularly cared for that as he shoved a single word at his handler, eyes now squeezed shut as if he could pretend it was only him and Lorth, as if the sounds of the others meant nothing. Food.

Lorthoren obeyed, making sure first to do as he'd been instructed: a careful pass with a knife over the fleshy part of his palm and a moment to let his blood drip onto the chunks of meat before he pushed the first bite into the waiting blue's open mouth and settled himself to stuffing the newly hatched creature to the brim.

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}NAME: Lorsk
COLOR: Blue
AGE: Hatchling
HANDLER: Lorthoren
SPEAKING COLOR: 0054ff

APPEARANCE: This blue will be 13 feet long at full growth. His hide is mostly a deep, dark indigo color with variances of slightly lighter or darker areas all over his body, though his feet are the darkest part of him. Incredibly pale blue speckles cover his body as well, giving him an appearance like a night sky. But he also has striking markings in the form of a broad wavy stripe beginning on his muzzle, traveling down his spine to most of the way down his tail and up along his wing arms all the way down his outermost wing finger. Another of these stripes begins at his eyes and flows down his neck, to his shoulders, along his sides, over his hips, and ends near the base of his tail. A final smaller stripe edges his wings. These stripes fade from a bright turquoise to a cobalt sort of blue and have a similar look to a dancing aurora.

PERSONALITY: Aloof, Intelligent, Loyal
This blue is quite intelligent and picks up on new skills quickly, and is far too smart to be tricked or coerced into doing anything by anyone. Though he is not one for showing affection to his handler, he is deeply loyal to them, and only them. This is a wher that will not obey without his handler’s direction. He is overall mistrustful of humans other than his handler and it is unlikely he will warm up to many others, though he will at least be more tolerant of other handlers and does not seem to mind their company. He seems to enjoy a good challenge, enjoys working, but when not at work he prefers solitude, or quiet company from his handler. He dislikes crowds and has a habit of becoming irritable when too many people are around, which can lead to him lashing out if his handler is not paying enough attention.

[kevna]

Jinsoo - Green Jisk

He had slightly dark circles under his eyes as he surveyed how others had brought and cared for their eggs. Carts, wagons, and crates, all of which he had carefully decided weren’t possible for this rocking egg of his. It was a lot of work. Trouble, as it’s mother had warned him. Well, she may have been right, but he held firm to the belief that all had trouble of their own. This one just had a lot of energy. So much energy that he was afraid that no matter how much warm sand he used, it wouldn’t be enough to shield the egg from premature cracking against a hard surface of a cart. Wagon, or crate. So, he had used a large bag strapped to his back, which was all sorts of heavy, but it had worked well. He was grateful for years of manual labor that had prepared him for this moment.

He tried desperately to pay attention to the lesson, though it made him uncomfortable, but his little egg continued its shifting, and he followed it’s lead, shifting it back. It was a repetitive job. When one of the girls brought all of the attention on her shifting egg, he raised an eyebrow. His egg had been moving all week, was she really so surprised her’s had made a move? Still, Galderran seemed to take the girl seriously, and in doing so meat was handed to him. He looked dubiously at his shifting egg; it looked the same to him. Suddenly eggs began cracking, and Jinsoo’s eyebrows rose as first one green, and then another game forth from their eggs. Lorthoren’s egg cracked and then out came a starry blue wher. He blinked at the intricate patterns, then looked at the egg before him again, which was strangely still.

“Well, alright then. You’ve been moving all week and decide now to be still?” He poked the egg teasingly, and was surprised when it seemed to hear him and rock, causing a split down one side. “Well, that’s more like it.” He whispered again, smiling at it, and cutting his hand with his knife and dripping blood over the pile of meat he had been given. Another rock, and another crack appeared. Suddenly the shell shattered and out rolled, literally rolled, a dark green wher with bright streaks. She was beautiful. She almost slipped through his fingers, that’s how quick she was, blindly looking for food. He grabbed her and stuffed his blood-soaked meat into her hands, having to pull back rather quickly as she snapped at it. After each bite she seemed to look around frantically, and she was constantly wiggling in his arms.

He felt the connection growing, slow and steady in his mind, and felt comfortable enough to put her down to feed her. As he did so Jinsoo could hear her.

What that? What that? As soon as his hands left her she seemed to notice her wagging tail. What that? Food? She turned and snapped at it, causing him to gasp and reach for her again, stuffing another piece in her mouth before she could take something else into it. He laughed with relief, noting her tail intact.

“Let’s leave the tail alone. It belongs on you.”

Why? He gave her a look, confused. What did she mean why? “Because it’s your tail.” He said, unable to fathom her question.

Why? 

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}
NAME: Jisk
COLOR: Green
AGE: Hatchling
HANDLER: Jinsoo
SPEAKING COLOR: 00593b

APPEARANCE: This green will be 10 feet long at full growth and, of the greens in her clutch, has the sturdiest build by far, with thick limbs and a broad head. Covered in a dark forest green, she is the darkest of her sisters. Along her body are various streaks of brighter greens, fading from bright yellowish-greens to near turquoise in places. Against the darker ‘base’ of her hide, her markings almost seem to shimmer and glow.

PERSONALITY: Curious, Reckless, Carefree

This green is an explorer. She loves adventure, doing new things and seeing new places. She has a curiosity that is rather uncharacteristic for whers and ‘what that?’ will likely become her catch phrase, followed closely by ‘why?’. She wants to know what you’re doing, and why, and what will happen if you do, or don’t, do the thing. She wants to find all the dark lost places and be the first one there, and then she wants to go farther. She wants to taste all the things, and yes, I mean all the things. This green will always be a handful and require a close eye, like looking after a toddler that seems to want nothing more than to get themselves killed. Curiosity killed the wher may very well become a new Pernese phrase if her handler isn’t careful.

[Alyx]

Leander and Brown Leask

Leander was trying. She was doing better, at least a little bit. She’s bathed recently, which she didn’t love the idea of right now – still too much risk in her mind of her Uncle or someone who knew him catching glimpse of her and reporting her hidden plan. Galderran had tried to reassure her, telling her that now that she had her bumpy, roughly round eggs that the man couldn’t touch her. Leander wanted to believe that, more than anything, but she doubted it even as she glanced over at the Eggs tucked by the flames of the firepit.

The topic of today’s lesson didn’t help Leander feel any more comfortable; was sex really something they had to learn about right now? Leander knew about how sex worked, even if she wanted literally nothing to do with it. She supposed that it was like dragon candidates…. Her brother had said they had talked about the way his ‘class’ had been learning about Gold rises and the effect dragons’ urges had on their riders. It wasn’t something Leander had considered when she’s begged to have a chance to claim a wher. Not that she’d try to back out, but…

Leander’s head came up off her arms when Galderran’s voice changed. She blinked from behind strands of dark hair as he and Asheryn spoke. She wasn’t sure what to make of any of her ‘classmates’ but at least Asheryn was another girl – it made it a little easier not to be the only one? The conversation quickly became much more interesting; some the awkward conversation of whers and intercourse to-

“Get your eggs and keep your knife out-” Leander managed not to knock over her chair in her rush to join the others. She’s thought her broad, boulder of an egg and moved earlier in the morning, but had convinced herself it was all on her head; hazy dreams and illusions were drawn up by her growing want and need to secure her ‘freedom’ from the horrible life that she felt could drag her back at any breath.

The little carts were okay, full of warm and, but Leander really only used them for classes; most of the time, the egg was either wrapped in warm blankets by her fire, or in her lap. She would sit and read with it there, or talk to it, or work with her little attempts at carving the useless gems they’d found in the mine that day. Now she was glad she was so used to the position, only partly listening to Galderran’s instructions as she pulled the egg free of its sand and fur cacoon. She could almost feel it move under her hands and quickly dropped to sit on the ground, her legs wrapped around the egg slightly, with her shifting soon-to-be partner resting securely in place.

The cracks were sharp, wide, and purposeful in the shell as Leander yanked the small knife from her boot; she ran a finger over it gently, trying to remember if she’d sharpened it recently. Shards, she hoped so, or this was gonna hurt. She shoved her hair back out of her face, tucking the wild strands behind her ear as she caught up a hunk of meat; she was shaking and excited and terrified all at the same moment. What if she did this wrong? Could you do this wrong? Galderran seemed so serious, it felt like they could mess it up…

Her brain didn’t have a whole lot of time to chase its own tail; a moment later the heavy shell cracked almost clean, falling apart in several large chunks rather than shattering into a bunch of small bits like some of the others had. The Brown form pushed out, the little creature snarling like a wild thing as it looked at her with bright, angry eyes. She froze for a moment, the reflex – the knife bit into her palm, deeper than she planned and she closed her hand around the meat. She rolled it quickly in her palm against the wound, dropping the knife to catch the Brown as he turned to hiss at someone to her left. “No.”

The Brown turned, snapping at her, and Leander caught his muzzle – pulling it up and open, she shoved the bloody hunk of meat into the maw, trying not to get snagged on very scary-looking teeth… for a baby. The Brown growled grumbled again, barely chewing the hunk before swallowing, but his attention was on her now… good or bad? She caught up another hunk in her cut hand, offering it to the newly hatched creature. She wasn’t sure if the ‘bleed on the meat’ was only for the first hunk or all of them, but she figured it couldn’t hurt.

Soon though, the familiar feeling from the Touching seemed to settle into her thoughts. She offered him bits until he started to slow – he’d only gotten her fingertips once or twice, but Leander didn’t really care. What was a bit more blood in an already bloody affair? It looked at her. Leask. She smiled. “Leander. But you already know that.” Work now? She shook her head, shifting to run her unwounded and over the Brown’s back. ‘Not yet. Learn first, then work.’ Leask huffed and gave a little rumble, glancing around the room at the others.

Finally. Finally, Leander was free.

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler} NAME: Leask
COLOR: Brown
AGE: Hatchling (Month 11)
HANDLER: Leander
SPEAKING COLOR: 6e480d

APPEARANCE: This brown will be 14 feet long at full growth and is a hulking brute of a wher. Thick with muscle, this brown easily outweighs his bronze clutchmate. A dark brown covers most of his body, subtly marbled with lighter and darker shades. His underbelly, beginning at his throat and ending about halfway down his tail, is a lighter brown color, fading into a golden brown color on his chest and belly. Jagged lightning-like streaks of this light brown to golden brown color can be found on his wings as well off his eyes, with flecks of the lighter color surrounding the markings.

PERSONALITY: Bold, Stubborn, Responsible
With self-confidence to spare, this brown knows who he is, what he wants, and is not afraid to march forward toward whatever he’s set his mind on. He is a dutiful sort that will become very focused on his job, once given one, and he will put up with no slacking from anyone, least of all his handler. A no-nonsense sort, games and jokes will mostly go over his head. While he isn’t stupid by any means, he just doesn’t ‘get’ playing. What does it accomplish? It does not make work more efficient, it does not get the job done better, so it has no place in his life. This hyper-focus on work can bring out an aggressive streak in him when something gets in the way of his goals, whether that be a cave-in that he will immediately try to set to ‘attacking’ to clear out of his way or a wild feline that has come to take what is his to protect. You can bet that this brown will excel at any job he is put to.

[deebear]

Tavmar of Task

Lectures. Tavmar hadn’t realized he had nearly as much patience with them as was required, but luckily he also liked to learn. Tav had never been a dimglow, he just wasn’t the best at sitting still and being lectured to for long periods of time. Most of his learning having been done on the roads didn’t exactly translate to sitting in a stuffy, warm room for extended periods of time. To his credit though, he had done fairly well for himself, or so he thought anyway. Even though he did occasionally get bored with being lectured to, today's lecture was rather interesting, to say the least, the mating and breeding of the whers they would all be caring for. Even so, Tav found his attention split between Galderran’s words, his healthy-sized bronze wher, and the hearth where the warming eggs rested. He wasn’t exactly nervous about his egg hatching, well, to be fair he was but it was more of excited nervousness. He was still surprised at himself for making such a stark change in his life, but the more he learned about the whers, the more he liked the idea and the more he wondered just what type of wher would hatch from the pale egg he had been given.

Asheryn standing up suddenly in the middle of the lesson had the dark-haired young man looking up, startled, to say the least. Brows lifted clear to his hairline he followed her gaze to where she pointed at where all the eggs rested, specifically hers, stating she believed it had moved. Tav shifted in his seat slightly to watch as Galderran move over to the eggs and inspect them. Tav’s dark eyes went a bit wide when the big man quickly went back to the front of the room to retrieve a bucket full of meat chunks. As he returned with the bucket, depositing piled of meat at each of their desks he gave them all instructions they had already had drilled into their heads. Tav did not mind at all having the reminder as he pulled his knife out of his boot and set it on the table beside his pile of meat chunks.

Tav had waited politely until a few of his fellows retrieved their egg carts before he got his. His ankle was still a bit stiff and where he could in fact walk on it without a cane or crutch he did not do so as nimbly as he would like. Yet. He was getting there. He has chosen to sit on the outer edge of the room so he pulled his cart over and placed it as close to his legs as he could manage, noticing now that his egg too was rocking about in it’s bed of hot sand. His egg had wobbled and rolled around a time or two in the past week, but nothing like this, nothing that had sent him running for Galderran anyway. He looked up as he heard shells cracking in the room. It was no surprise that Asheryn’s was the first to fully hatch and she had herself a pretty little pale green wher. Well.. he wasn’t sure any of them could really be considered pretty, but he didn’t think they were as hideous as the rest of the world said either. He missed Zyloran’s green hatching because his egg had finally given a sharp crack with all it's rocking and he had looked back down to see if his wher would make itself known. Apparently, that was all the effort he would make for a bit as the egg was quiet for a long time, then resumed wobbling and rocking so much that he laid a hand on his egg just to make sure it did not tumble off the cart.

By the time there was a blue, another green, and Leander’s dark brown was cracking it's shell, his egg stopped rocking again but gave another sharp crack against the palm of his hand. He nearly jumped out of his skin but remembered himself and grabbed for his knife and sliced his palm the way they were taught, he had to be extra careful here, and about the time he had a night puddle of blood in his palm a sandy brown nose shoved it’s way out of his egg with a triumphant warble. Blood was dripped onto three chunks of meat with one hand, while he plucked a bit of shell off the nose of the wher that looked around himself, finally free of his confines. He creeled once, hunger overtaking the curiosity of his surroundings. ” I got you, little fella.”, Tav told him as he offered him a blood-covered chunk of meat that was greedily snapped up and chewed on fiercely, crying when it was gone. Tav offered up another chunk of meat as the little brown kicked and pushed at the remains of the shell to get to it, nearly taking off a finger. Galderran hadn’t been kidding about losing fingers apparently. ” Easy fella, I’m gonna keep feedin’ ya. Leave my fingers, I need those.”, Tav told him, amused as the little brown growled as he chewed but flailed a paw at him for more meat. <Task’s feeds, Task’s have fingers.> Tav blinked as the little brown climbed out of the cart and into his lap looking for more meat which Tav gave him with a grin. ” Yeah, Task’s feeds little fella.” Tav grinned. His wher has a name. His Task.

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}NAME: Task
COLOR: Brown
AGE: Hatchling
HANDLER: Tavmar
SPEAKING COLOR: Task(dfc685)
APPEARANCE: This brown will be 12 feet long at full growth. He is a pale, sandy color, which is lighter on his undersides. Darker sandy markings cover his feet, with odd spiral sort of markings on his shoulders and hips, short stripes on the top sides of his wing fingers and on his face, and several small spots in clusters of two around his body, including two on each back ridge.

PERSONALITY: Docile, Affectionate, Clingy
This brown has a nature highly uncharacteristic for a wher, or perhaps is simply an ideal product of his breeding. You would be hard pressed to find a sweeter wher on all of Pern. While he certainly has very low aggression in general for a wher, he is still wary of strangers until they prove themselves trustworthy, but once they do he is a fast friend and his sweet nature shines through. With his handler he is incredibly affectionate, sometimes even a bit clingy, preferring to sleep curled around his handler both to ensure their protection and just to be close to them. He does not like being separated from his handler, even for short lengths of time, and will do his best to follow them wherever they go, which isn’t always welcome or appropriate. When he must be away from his handler, he becomes anxious and irritable and tends to pace and snap at anyone that tries to get near him.