You enter one of the candidate's rooms. Inside there is very little. A cot, brown blankets hastily folded, sits squat against the wall. The candidate's single trunk is shut, but the sleeve on a tan shirt hangs limply out like a lifeless tunnel snake.
The ceiling of the weyr is dome-shaped, and has been smoothed somewhat. The sun's rays steams in from a half-shuttered skylight. The weyr is so quiet, you could head a water drop fall to the floor if there was occasion to be so. Your footsteps echo of the walls.
A second pair of footsteps airs behind you from the doorway. You turn. A boy of about 14 is looking at you quizzically. His dark brown, medium-length hair is shaggy, and his eyes are bleached blue. He's short, but about average height for a 14 year old. In his right hand is a wherhide vest.
I just wasn't expecting a visitor! Drat, my room's a mess. I'm Kila; the dragon who lives here is named Shinglee and is from Zodiac Dragon Impressions. Eh, she can speak to herself, just let me find her. I't nice to meet you."
He reaches forward to shake your hand. His own hand is small and cool, surprising in the midday heat of the desert. You ask him about being searched.
"Actually," Kila say, thinking, "it was a relief to our parents, who knew that they'd have to foster us out soon. Tekin and I- Tekin's my older brother- just don't have the same political skills of our sister, Limne. We're more the type that like doing things rather then sitting around trying to discuss things with a bunch of hidebound landowners. Oh yeah- Shinglee!"
:Can't you leave me along? I know the visitor is here; I was trying to pretend I was asleep. I don't see anything special about her.:
Kila's face turns bright red. "Shinglee, we've been trhough this before, you have to shield your mindspeech if you're just talking to me!"
:You're right, you know, but this way the visitor will leave all the quicker. I see no reason why she shold be inrerupting my afternoon nap."
"Shinglee..." Kila whines, then sighs and gives you a helpless look.
"Oh, if you'd like to I guess you can read this," Kila says as he tosses you a small slate with a oddly sharpened bit of wood tied to it. "This is my journal, or at least something of the sort until I can get a real, paper journal from the storage."
Dragon from Zodiac Dragon Impressions.