Panduri's eggs chose a bright and sunny afternoon to begin hatching, but that was fine with most of the people involved. Lian would have spent the day in the archives anyway, and well, the aspirants were more excited about the chance to Pair a drak than they were about the weather. Kortrvan was the only one who was really disappointed.
"I wasss planning to go forr a sssswim today," the Earth drak grumbled.
"You don't have to come, you know," Lian told him, grinning. The drak disagreed anyway. He liked watching the Pairings with Lian, and liked being able to help him sometimes too.
Panduri came bursting out of the Deep Caverns, followed by a pile of draklings climbing over each other to meet the aspirants. "Hi there, hello, welcome, pleased to meet you. Here are my babies!" Panduri stood proudly by her offspring, and greetings to the aspirants finished, let the draklings come forward.
The first one was a rather round Mud drakling; he had a serious and determined look on his face, but he waited patiently until he recieved a nod from his mother, signalling it was his turn. Still solemn, he stepped towards the aspirants and met with Viddun. "I like you. I think we can do grrrreat thingssss togetherrr: Corrina and Viddun!"
The next drakling had been twitching her tail impatiently while her brother chose, not being as serious-minded as Corrina nor as shy as her other sister, and she was eager to get the Pairing over with. The moment Corrina had announced his Pairing, she ran forward, laughing happily. It didn't surprise the onlookers that she was a Rain drak, and no doubt her cheerful personality had a sneaky side as well. She went straight to Kaleste. "Come on, let'ssss get out of herrre, I alrrready have ssssome grrreat ideass for trricksssss. Oh, my name'sss Olnari, by the way."
The last drakling was a female Night drak, and like most of her color, she was very quiet. She was also very shy, however, and rather than approach the two remaining aspirants, she had circled around nervously to hide behind Kortrvan's wings. Kortrvan looked at her oddly, but now the drakling had noticed Lian's book of clutch recordings, and was staring at it in fascination. "Ooh, issss that a book? Isss it interrrresting? Can I rrrread it?"
Kortrvan gave a little chuckle. She was like Lian in drak form. "Don't you think you sshould Pairrrr firrrst?" he told her.
The Night gave the impression of blushing and ducked her head. "Oh, rrright. Okay." She went over to the aspirants and nudged Hoina gently. "I'm Vaknari," she said softly. "Pleasssed to meet you."
That left one aspirant unPaired, though Lian supposed that was better than the alternative, but there'd be plenty of clutches in the future to give Larkin a chance to Pair a drak. As soon as the Pairings were recorded, Lian snatched up his book so he didn't lose it to overly-curious draklings.