At least the crowd and candidates wouldn't assume she was Linaeas. For all they were of the same species, both large, shaggy, and wolf-like, Keum looked very little like her supervising Master Archivist. She was heavier, of a more tawny color, and sported completely different Cyborware. Like wings and hand-like forepaws. That was some relief; as much as Keum liked Linaeas, when she wasn't feeling put out by him, she didn't want people to think she was him.

So, Keum was expecting a fairly boring, routine hatching, and thus a fairly boring, routine report. That irritated her. Lao, however, was excited enough for both of them. Coming out of her bad temper briefly to glance at her apprentice, she smiled. This was his first assignment as her apprentice, as well, for though she was to be recording the happenings for the official report, she had charged him to take whatever notes he could for a less official report, to be made to her personally, in whatever format he deemed appropriate. He was already scribbling furiously on his notepad, letting the paper-sized computer record and save the words, looking up frequently as if to check a detail. His shape-shifting spirit-- or whatever it was-- clung to his shoulder, currently a black bird that he called a magpie. Probably wisely, he didn't answer her grumbling, but only gave her an apologetic smile before going back to his scribbling.

Sighing, Keum stopped pacing and sat down, looking over the hatching bay. There was, she had to admit, at least a decently sized crowd gathering in the stands. The seats weren't overflowing, but neither were there many empty. There were certainly plenty of candidates, more than twice as many as there were supposed to be eggs. Quite an eclectic bunch, but then, since when was it not, when it came to Star City?

A ripple went through the crowd, and Lao hurriedly tugged on one of her wings, pointing mutely towards the center of the bay. Nestled deeply in the soft material of the bay floor were the eggs, which were rocking in earnest now, two or three showing cracks. The dragon-mother, Tegwenessa, had been crouched over her eggs protectively, shielding them from sight with spread wings, as she had whenever she could in the months they had been incubating, as if unwilling to let anyone even count them. It had made the traditional candidate introductions to the clutch very difficult. The speculation had been that there were about ten eggs.

What had made the crowd and Lao suddenly pay attention was that Tegwenessa had finally stepped out of the way, nudged by her less broody mate and prodded by the eggs, themselves. "Sure enough," Keum muttered to herself, "Ten eggs, unless she's hiding one somewhere." Drifting from where she'd stopped to where she was supposed to be, between clutch and feeding tables, Keum sat herself back down, folded her wings serenely, and curled her tail against her paws. Lao followed and stood just behind her, eyes wide and fixed on the rocking eggs.

"You'd better remember whatever you miss writing down because you're too busy gawking, boy," she reminded him, and he started, jumping instantly back into his frantic scribbling. The creature on his shoulder murmured into his ear in his naive language, presumably describing what she was seeing for him to write down. Handy, that.

Keum sighed once more, then turned her gaze where it was supposed to be. Disappointment or no, she had a job to do, so she settled her mind into recording mode. Maybe if she did a good job, she'd get something exciting-- like the next xenodragon clutch, or something.

As it turned out, she'd returned her focus not an instant too soon. The first of the eggs had rolled away from its mates, settled into a nitch in the mossy ground, and quite violently exploded, sending shards of eggshell everywhere. A light brown hatchling spilled out onto the sands, sticky from egg fluids and squalling in protest to the indignity of being sprawled out on his back, wings splayed and legs kicking clumsily in the air. It didn't help matters that the crowd broke into quiet laughter.

Keum could see why: these hatchlings were quite cute, and she had to smile, herself. Short-limbed, roly-poly, with stubby little horns atop their heads, they seemed to look exactly the way hatchling dragons were supposed to look. This one, light brown on the main part of his body, was covered with smeared stripes of orange. He managed to flip himself over, growling at the whole of the audience and the candidates, presumably for laughing at him. Even that was cute, coming from a harmless little hatchling, and it elicited a few more giggles.

As if unwilling to take any more "abuse", the little brown dragon bounded towards the candidates-- or towards the waiting food, as he looked prepared to charge through them without giving bonding a second thought. That would be a bad start for a hatching, and Keum was pleased to see one of the candidates, the Ytlip stranger, step directly into the little one's path. He returned the hatchling's snarl with a predatory smile, which seemed to give the dragon pause, and the bond was formed. When the dragonet continued towards the meat tables, with a much more sedate, though still tense, gait, he was followed by the Ytlip Zer.

"His name is Zoatch," he told Keum, but only after she had stretched out a wing to interrupt their progress.

"Thank you," she said politely, letting them continue and committing the name to memory.

The next egg to hatch had done so while Zoatch had made his choice, with less dramatics involved. As Keum looked back, she found the dark, damp hatchling climbing to his feet and shaking out equally dark, damp wings. He was midnight blue in color, with thin stripes of black dripping down from his spine, onto shoulders and hips. He crouched in the moss, looking over the candidates speculatively, then rose fully and paraded himself straight to one of the off-world humans, Niuen. The bond was formed, and this time Niuen was kind enough to give his dragon's name without prompting: Inep.

The next two eggs broke open about at the same time, spilling two females one on top of the other between them. One, the hatchling who ended up beneath her sister, was grass-green and covered in wild, white stripes. She hissed displeasure and wriggled out from under the smaller, cream-colored hatchling, who hastily scrambled back and off her. The green female growled lightly at her sister, then flared her wings and brushed at herself with her forepaws, as if trying to rid herself of any memory that she'd been touched. The cream hatchling crept around her, then shook herself and, looking around, spotted the candidates. Head lifting with more confidence, she trotted over, tripping a couple times on the bouncy, uneven moss, but always picking herself back up with a smile. The crowd murmured amongst itself with pleasure: this was the kind of hatchling they liked to see.

The cream-colored youngling glanced at a few faces in the candidates before focusing on another off-worlder. Keum recognized the feline-augmented Yenya. The girl looked mildly surprised at the touch of minds and whatever words her new bond had for her, but then she smiled with affection and nodded. The third pair turned towards the food tables and Keum. "Her name is Fori," Yenya said.

The green hatchling had finally finished her episode of "grooming", and looked around at the candidates with a look of utter contempt on her round, babyish face. Her parents both crooned encouragingly, but she just turned the disdainful glance on them, as well. Sticking both nose and tail in the air, she trotted towards the candidates, but, to the disappointment of many, just continued through them, not affording a single person even the barest of interest. Keum again spread her wing to block the hatchling's path. She received a shocked and insulted look for her troubles.

"Even if you're not going to bond," the Archivist said coolly, "I still need to know your name."

The hatchling snorted disgust and shut her eyes, turning her nose to the ceiling and ignoring the question. "Tegwenessa says it's Agywa," Keum heard, from the cream mother's rider, who had been standing with the rider of her bond's mate not far from the Archivist; they were coming closer, presumably for the translation. Cercery Astas, and Oeri'kinau. Cercery sounded puzzled, and added, "Apparently she didn't think you were 'good enough' to tell it to."

"Huh," Keum said, then shrugged her wings and let the dragonet pass, thanking the young woman.

Another pair of eggs burst open simultaneously, drawing attention away from the disappointment of a dragon who didn't bond. There was certainly enough drama there to be attracted to: the larger of the pair of blues had immediately started screaming at the other, wings mantling and hatchling-teeth fully displayed, for reasons completely unknown to anyone but him. The smaller, paler blue ducked under his wings, creeling distress, as his brother advanced on him, still screeching angrily. The parents growled warningly, but before they could intervene, one of the candidates had lunged forward with a little shriek of his own.

::No hurting the preciouses!:: Keum, and probably everyone else even remotely sensitive, heard, a voice full of consternation, anger, and a duality that couldn't be sane. It had come from the candidate, who had interposed himself between the two siblings, looking indecisively between them. He was one of the dragonic bonder-hopefuls, some kind of mixed breed with wyvern-wings that were attached to his forearms, colored mainly a pale yellow. Keum recognized him as Ormukin, the insane one.

The aggressive blue hatchling hissed one last time, but faced with the larger dragon, snapped his muzzle shut and stalked huffily away, towards the candidates. Several stepped forward hopefully, but he sidled around them with more hisses of his own. His mother stared at him with narrowed eyes as he made his way directly for the food.

"Tegwenessa says his name is Yonsa," the cream's rider Cercery told Keum before she even had a chance to try to stop the hatchling, like she had Agywa. "And he isn't bonding, either."

"Well, the sponsor-hopefuls will be happy," Keum commented dryly, her eyes moving back to the center of the bay. "If anyone could actually be happy adopting him."

Back by the clutch, the yellow dragon was blinking bemusedly down at his new companion, who was staring back up at him with a starry-eyed expression of absolute, innocent adoration. Apparently his display of bravery was enough to convince the smaller blue of his worthiness to bond. It took a snort from the Ormukin's companion dragon, still among the candidates, to break the moment, and send both shuffling hurriedly past the companions and to the food.

"Name, please," Keum prompted, stopping them with a wing of her own. The yellow Ormukin looked affronted, and rather like he would gladly tear off said wing, but the little one gave him such a sweet little smile that he relented, mumbling telepathically that "his precious" was named was Nintunfon.

Another egg had rolled over and broken open, during all the distraction, revealing a coppery brown dragonet who was already pushing himself to his feet. Stripes like cracks or spider webs covered his whole face, extending along his back and tail, and down his sides. He gave himself a little shake, glanced back at his parents who nodded solemnly, then padded sedately forward to inspect the candidates. He had wandered through most of the group before stopping in front of yet another off-worlder, settled in her hovering chair-thing, and reared up to his hind legs unsteadily. Obligingly, the sickly-looking girl's chair drifted lower, and he braced his forepaws in it, peering at her. The girl, Anovadiell, looked more than a little stunned, but the bond was formed, and the large hatchling climbed onto the nose of her chair-thing and half-sprawled into her lap. The both of them turned and floated away from the rest of the candidates-- now hovering a good foot and a half lower due to the extra weight of the dragonet, or perhaps because its occupants had forgotten to direct it higher again.

"Hencan," Anovadiell said shortly as chair and passengers passed Keum.

There were three eggs left, all rocking slowly and methodically, as if their occupants were getting tired. The remaining candidates were starting to look unsure and worried, but Tegwenessa crooned encouragingly, giving one a nudge, then nudged another, then finally gave the third an impatient tap with one foreclaw. It reeled away from her, hitting the one next to it, and both eggs cracked enough to reveal their occupants, one brown and one green. The brown one pushed his head out through the hole in his shell, blinking sideways at the rest of the room before slowly spilling out into the moss. His sister, the green one, crawled out of the remains of her own shell to sit beside him.

Tegwenessa, who had been turning her attention to the third and final egg while those two finally broke themselves free, craned her neck around and gave another encouraging croon. The hatchlings blinked back up at her as one, and the poor cream managed to actually look flustered at whatever they said back to her. Leaving her last egg to its own devices, the dragon-mother nudged her offspring towards the candidates. They went obediently, looking up into expectant faces, but there was no moment of light dawning that meant a bond. From what Keum could tell, there was no understanding of what they were supposed to do, anyway. In fact, when no bond presented itself among the candidates, the little brown continued to Keum and gave her the same obedient, slightly blank look he had given all of them.

"It's all right, cub," Keum told him, a little confused, herself, and she guided him and his sister past her with a forepaw, directing them towards the food; instinct took over, and they bounded towards their first meal. Obviously, they weren't going to bond, either.

"The green is Aka," Tegwenessa's rider told her, "And the little brown is Cihteli, but I don't know how Tegwenessa knows that, because she says he can't talk."

"Unusual," Keum responded curiously, looking over her shoulder at the supposedly silent Cihteli.

Though still a little distressed by those two, Tegwenessa turned her attention back on the final egg. The dragonet had finally managed to work his way free of his shell, a grayed brown male with stripes of a darker version of the same, and lay on his back, staring at the candidates upside-down. With a little prompting from his mother, he rolled over with an amiable smile and ambled lazily towards the waiting group. Keum hoped this one, at least, would link up. Four out of the total ten, so far, had gone bondless. None of them seemed to be suffering for it, but Keum didn't think that a hatching that ended on a bondless note would be enough of a happy ending for crowd or report.

It seemed that she would get her wish, for the final dragonet meandered through the candidate bunch and settled himself in front of one, a young man named Botril. He looked up at his chosen, and pleasure drifted across Botril's face-- but when the hatchling didn't move for several very long moments, his expression turned to surprise, then frustration, then finally he waved for the dragon to come with him and led the way to the feeding tables.

"His name's Efannuk," Botril said with sigh as he and his new bond, the latter still smiling benignly, passed Keum. She was hard pressed not to chuckle at the young man's face.

"So that's the last of them," she told Lao. "I hope you got enough scribblings out of that." The boy flushed lightly, but smiled and agreed that he had. "Good, I'll be expecting a full report in a few days. Come on, we've still got four sponsors to record."

Rising, Keum padded around the table, giving the hungry hatchlings and their bonds a healthy berth-- especially that Zoatch, who still looked ready to hurt something, and Yonsa, who seemed to be paying less attention to his meal than to looking around him suspiciously. The Flights and Hatchings Minister, Siche Four, was surrounded by a pack of off-worlders all trying to make themselves heard and state the best case why they should be able to take a hatchling home.

Finally, after most of the hatchlings were done eating and gone off to whatever they had planned, Siche finally sent away the throng, some satisfied, some disappointed, and the one approaching Yonsa looking a little apprehensive. Keum couldn't blame him.

"So who have we got going where?" she asked as Siche approached her.

"The green one Agywa is headed for Enzan Shi," the irritated-looking Minister began. "The little blue monster, Yonsa, is headed for Weyr Eriol."

"And good riddance," Keum agreed mildly.

Siche gave a little "heh" and continued, "That last green, Aka, is going to the Obelisk, and the brown Cihteli is heading for Shivran Aerd."

"Too bad," Keum commented. "I would have liked to see him in adulthood, to see if he ever developed the ability to speak."

"Yeah, well, I'm just glad we've got them placed. Do you have everything you need for the report?"

"That I do. And thank you." Without replying other than a wave, Siche sauntered off, presumably to actually find someplace quiet and relaxing.

And Keum, herself, was content. That wasn't as bad as she'd thought it would be. In fact... she rather liked hatchings. "I wonder when the next one will be," she murmured to herself as she led her apprentice away. "And I wonder if Linaeas will let me record it...."