The first blue of the hatching bursts free of his egg with a decisive crackle and snap, yet somehow also manages to keep his feet after stumbling sideways out of his shell. Z'ran, the candidate coordinator standing nearer the Weyrleaders, raises his eyebrows in surprised amusement, but neither Jenessa nor E'lan bother to repress their slight shivers; this hatchling is distinctly pale, and also such a chilly shade that at least one candidate makes a comment about his looking like icy air made into a dragon. "I didn't say it," quips Jenessa on overhearing the remark, but E'lan's reply is all of one syllable long before it's cut off in favor of applause as the freezing wind blue, who'd been looping his way through a first knot of clustered candidates, reaches a second, pauses, angles sideways,and ends up positively leaning on the shins of one of Xanadu's own storesworkers who at twenty-three Turns nears the eldest of the candidate class, sparking celebration from the man's weyrmate and his green on the ledges above.
Dragonriders of Pern via SouCon MUSH's Xanadu Weyr, again