Good question, {open}

[Silver]

Why were Nata and Laetath in the Hatching grounds?

That was a very good question.

Laetath couldn't clutch after all... and even if she could, she hadn't Flown, so a trip to the Sands would have been completely useless.

Laetath had recently taken a lot of amusement in her ability and quite enjoyed testing it out. However, it was rare that all the dragons in the Weyr could be found in the same place, so if she wanted to mimic their colors, she had to go looking for them all, and in the end, that was just a terrible pain in her rear. So she'd dragged her Rider to the Hatching Grounds, which seemed the only logical course of action. The Grounds were encircled by flowers representing all the dragon colors, after all, though they were a bit sad looking... Nata couldn't help but wonder how they survived the intense heat of the Sands so well.

So she'd decided to bring a bucket to water them with. Which was a sweet notion, yes, but upon reaching the grounds and staring around, she realized there was no way that a single bucket was going to be able to water all the plants.... Laetath had hunkered down beside a Daffodil, staring at it and changing the color of her hide into an obnoxiously bright yellow, which would have clashed fiercely with the subtle browns and teals of Nata's ribbon had she been anywhere near her Chameleon.

As it were, she was not. She was standing in the entrance to the grounds with her one bucket of water, staring around helplessly as if hoping that by the force of her eyes, the sheer number of plants would shrink so that she could actually do some good. The bucket was heavy, and she wasn't one for strength when it came to things outside herself, so she set it down, huffing somewhat and staring around hopelessly. She could always get more buckets... or make several trips.... or else find someone to help her?

She glanced towards Laetath, but the dragoness was focused on a bit of Hosta, shifting her color to the mottled green, and Nata sighed somewhat. Her dragon would be no help until she'd used all the colors of the flowers.

[Ghost in the Machine]

Jaren lurked on the edge of the Hatching Sands. There weren't people here, usually... however, someone and their dragon were here. he hoped they wouldn't see him. That wasn't what he needed right now... that wasn't what he ever needed.

The woman had brought a bucket, assumingly to water the flowers. What was her name? That was right, Nata. At least, that was what he had been told her name was. He wasn't about to ask her for clarification. He was just hoping that she wouldn't see him. If she did, he would probably try to run or something. Probably.

Her dragon, Laetath, was changing colors, which interested him. things that were out of the ordinary interesting him, despite his decidedly anti-social tendencies. He watched as the dragoness changed colors. It was interesting, as he had thought before. A dragon that could change colors... cool. Decidedly so. Why did he keep repeating things in his head? Oh well.

He still hoped he wouldn't be noticed.

[Khaliall]

An even better question would be why T'vril and Death were in the Hatching Sands.
Unlike Nata and Laetath, they didn't exactly have an excuse, even one like mimicking dragon colours as represented by the flowers around the Sands.
To be entirely truthful, Death wasn't actually with T'vril. The rather odd pair had found that it was awkward enough for the young man to be in public with a dragon who was, arguably, the most loathed creature on Pern.
It made life...interesting.
While T'vril was all in favour of an interesting life, there were times when he wished that his wasn't quite so interesting...

He'd never been social, but after Impression he'd been downright...reclusive. It was almost as though he had decided to be voluntarily shunned because of his dragon. Part of it was that he was one of the older Weyrlings and he felt distant from his new peers, at 21 Turns.
Part of it was that he found it strained to be around people after his Impression. He'd never wished that Death had not found him in the midst of that Hatching, but even T'vril could tell that the other dragons, for the most part, did not like him.
As the rider of this 'repulsive' creature, it was just easier to spend time where he could not be looked at oddly.

Resigned, hands in his pockets, T'vril had come to the Hatching Sands seeking solace from the world. Since there was no clutch there just then, there was no reason for anybody to be there except him.
Apparently he was wrong.
He took one step into the Hatching Sands, and stopped short. There were people there--two of them.

One was...a Chameleon rider...and the other was a Candidate, or something like it.
T'vril hesitated, and almost turned around to go back the way he had come. He could find somewhere else to go--maybe somewhere where Death could join him.
Then he stopped, and slowly turned back for reasons that were unknown even to him.
"Do you need some help?" he asked the girl politely, noting helpless expression and the bucket of water.
He had absolutely no clue what she had been intending to do, but...eh. Why not?

[Silver]

Nata started as a voice suddenly echoed. One that was surely not hers, and not Laetath's, and she stared around wildly a while, glaring accusingly at one of the nearby plants as if thinking that it must have somehow been the one to speak. However, in glancing towards it, she caught sight of another movement, and bright blue eyes lifted to a man as he approached her. From the knots on his shoulder, she saw that he was a Rider, though she didn't recognize the pattern... well that was curious. Did he have a unique dragon as well?

She blinked at him a moment, glancing towards the bucket settled at her feet before looking to him again with a rather sheepish smile. "I don't quite know what I was thinking." She admitted with a slight shrug. "I thought... well some of these plants looked sort of sad, probably from the heat, so I thought I'd water them... but there are a lot more of them than I'd expected." She admitted, smiling again rather sheepishly and wrinkling her nose in that endearing way of hers. "Oh, I'm Nata, by the way! That's Laetath there." She added, gesturing towards the dragoness, who crooned and shifted her color to that of a Columbine.

The young woman glanced upwards as two firelizards appeared suddenly, flitting through the air and chasing one another before coming to settle to her shoulders. "These here are Tara and Raen." She added, and the creatures chirruped in turn.

"Uh... well I guess I could... get more buckets? Or..." She huffed somewhat and glanced back towards the plants, catching sight of a young man in the entrance that she hadn't noticed before and narrowing her eyes at him somewhat. How long had he been there? She was a very social creature, yessir, but she didn't much like being stared at by someone who wasn't even going to come and greet her....

Still, she smiled at Jaren and offered a friendly wave while Laetath uttered a distracted croon.

[Ghost in the Machine]

jaren saw the new arrival come in and start talking to Nata. It was... T'vril of Death, if he remembered correctly. And he usually did. he saw him start talking to Nata. Maybe it would distract her so that she wouldn't see him. Maybe he could stay here in peace, without being disturbed.

It would seem that reality was against him. She did see him, and she even waved at him. Shards. Maybe if he stayed here he wouldn't be noticed. Maybe she'd lose interest and just leave him alone.

He frowned. What to do. He didn't want to approach her. He also didn't want to seem like a total jerk. This was a problem. There had to be a course of action he could take.

He decided to settle on a small, awkward wave and to just stay where he was. He desparately hoped no one would try to talk to him. He wasn't in the mood for social activity. Then again he never was. Oh well.

[Khaliall]

T'vril, besides having noticed Jaren, made no move to speak to the young man besides a slight nod of acknowledgement.
He was not a chatty person--he knew when to leave well enough alone. If he wanted to talk, he would. He could certainly sympathise...Though, in this case, he'd brought it upon himself.
Turning his attention back to the girl, a Weyrling he noted from her Rank knots, he gave an uncertain smile.

"The plants do look a bit sad," he agreed absently, looking at the plants as if he had never seen them before, arranged around the sands. "I can't imagine that it's easy to grow in this heat..."
Thinking about that, he wondered if plants like this ever grew in the hotter terrains of Pern, or if it was just Blue Orchid Weyr's skill that allowed them to flourish, after a fashion, in the Hatching Sands.
"There certainly are a lot of them. It wasn't a bad idea--your intentions were good."
He looked at the bucket, then back to the plants.
There was no way that the water would suffice for all of them.

"Erm...Is there somebody whose responsibility it is to look after the plants?" It had never occured to him before, how they managed to keep them living between Hatchings when the Cavern was in use.
He couldn't resist a lopsided smile, that vanished as she mentioned her name.
Shards. That meant it was his turn.
"I'm T'vril, of Death." As he said his dragon's name, he cringed inwardly, not sure what kind of reaction to expect. "It's a pleasure to meet you." He felt incredibly 'out of it' for not knowing her name. If he'd even been to the last Hatching, he might have...

He nodded gravely to the firelizards with that serious face of his. "You too, Tara and Raen," he said directly to the pair.
"Getting more buckets of water might work," T'vril added, speaking to Nata again. "Or..." He thought for a moment. "Huhn. I don't really know."

[Silver]

Nata noticed the small wave that the Candidate sent his way, as well as his clear intention not to approach, so she decided to disregard him for the time being. Not ignore him, mind you, just... not make an effort to strike up a conversation. He didn't seem social, and if he wasn't going to put effort into talking to her, she wasn't going to try to force him into it. He could just stand there and... stare. Creepily. If he wanted.

She smiled a bit when the man mentioned her good intentions and nodded her head somewhat, sighing again and turning her attention back to the plants. "I'd wondered that... whether or not it was someone's job to water them. If so, they've been slacking off." She commented vaguely with a little shrug. "But that's all right. I don't have much to do today, so I can devote myself to the lovely little flowers." She added with a mischievous sort of smile.

She tilted her head somewhat when he mentioned his dragon, glancing towards Laetath who was suddenly interested, and her hide promptly changed to a deep, seething red with silvery overtones and 'thread' ghosting along her sides. Death? She asked T'vril, clearly curious as to whether or not she'd gotten the color right. Perhaps merely because she could change her color so easily, she didn't seem to have a bias against the Red Star dragon, and in fact seemed to like the color that her hide had taken.

"Where is your Death?" Nata asked curiously, peering quietly up at the man and lifting a hand to brush a bit of hair from her eyes. She supposed a lot of people didn't like the Red Star dragon, though of course Thread didn't fall anymore... she thought it was silly to dislike the creature, for he couldn't help what color he was. It wasn't his fault.

"I think I'm... we're? Going to have to make quite a few trips." She informed the man, staring at him quietly. He certainly seemed to have volunteered to help her, but she didn't want to rope him into it if he had something else to do. It was going to take a while, after all....

[Khaliall]

T'vril shot one more look at the Candidate who did not seem inclined to speak, then turned his attention once more to the girl.
"They certainly have," he muttered, looking at one of the drooping plants. He didn't look it--but T'vril had, back at his hold, occasionally had to deal with plants and these ones did not look healthy.
At least, not from what he knew. "Maybe between Hatchings, since nobody's supposed to be here, they assume that they don't need to take care of the plants," he inferred absently.
A corner of his lips turned up at the mention of devoting time to the lovely little flowers.
He assumed that they must, normally, be, but at the moment they were precariously close to...dead.

T'vril followed her gaze as it moved to Laetath, and he nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw the hide change to the roiling red streaked with silver that characterised his dragon.
He blinked, dazed, at the Chameleon. He had known what they could do but it had never occured to him that they could also change into the 'Red Star' shade. On that--why would they want to when his clutch siblings had tried to kill him?
"Er...yeah," he said weakly, staring at Laetath. "That's right."
She'd certainly...nailed it.

T'vril bit his lip and waved a hand vaguely towards some unspecified part of the Weyr. "Oh, Death's out there somewhere. He doesn't like to be around the Weyr very much." He looked sheepish, as if expecting to be criticised.
"Most dragons don't really tolerate him." He shrugged. "Usually I'd be with him. I suppose I could call him here...?" He trailed off inquiringly.

At the mention of making trips to get water, T'vril nodded. It hadn't even occured to him that he might not help--he simply assumed that he was. "Quite possibly. But I have nothing better to do, so I wouldn't be ignoring any important tasks to do this afternoon." He smiled wanly. "Unless we get a dragon to help--then it could go by quicker." But Laetath, he guessed, was too young to fly.
That meant Death. Or...He glanced at the Candidate. Would he help?
Well, he could if he wanted. T'vril wouldn't be the one to ask.

[Ghost in the Machine]

Jaren just continued to stand there and listen to the conversation with vague interest. They were planing to somehow water the plants... he just watched them brainstorm.

He should probably offer to help... but then he'd have to talk to them, which he wasn't sure he was willing to do. That would mean confrontation, which he wasn't ever willing to do.

So he just stood there and risked looking like a jerk, staring at the unfolding conversation.

((curse the short post disease))

[Silver]

"They certainly look unhappy." Nata agreed, lowering her eyes sympathetically to a small bunch of daffodils near her. Yes, she imagined that if they had faces, they would be pouting. That was a rather amusing mental image, and it almost caused her to smile until she remembered how dire the situation was. Those poor flowers were suffering, she couldn't smile about it! That would make her a terrible person, and she most certainly was not a terrible person, thank you very much....

"Maaaaaybe...." She murmured when he suggested they only watered the plants around hatchings. That would have been a sad truth, though she supposed the Weyr was rather busy, and it was likely very easy to forget a bunch of plants. Especially when they had no voices to tell people they were thirsty with. Still, though, all the plants in the Greenhouse were tended to (she'd checked), and she would assume that someone similar would have been charged with taking care of the flowers in the Hatching Grounds... which suggested to her that someone had been shirking their responsibilities.

Laetath crooned softly for the reaction that she got from the man and toddled over towards them, looking at the candidate in the entrance for a moment before returning her attention to the Red Star Rider that was standing next to Hers. The Chameleon preened somewhat when the man commented on her 'nailing' the color... she wasn't quite sure what that meant, and it sounded a bit painful to her, but Hers seemed to think it was a good thing, so she went with it.

"That's a shame, I'm sorry." Nata commented, sighing somewhat and shaking her head a bit. Yes yes, Thread was bad and all that, but the Red Star was gone, and there was no sense in getting upset at a dragon for reminding people of it. In fact, maybe it was a good thing that he was colored like he was. Eventually, people would probably be inclined to forget that Thread had ever existed, unless they had a reminder of some kind. "And you could do that if you wanted, but you don't have to." She replied, not wanting T'vril to think she was trying to get him to do any such thing. If the dragon didn't feel comfortable around the Weyr, she didn't want to force him into it...

I can help a little. Laetath commented, her hide deepening to such a dark midnight blue that she nearly appeared black, and she tilted her head slightly at the humans. She was not full grown by any means, but she was still quite large, and though she hadn't enough experience with flying to be able to carry something that might throw her off balance, she could walk just fine and hold a bucket in her mouth... a larger bucket than either of the humans could carry?

Nata regarded her dragon thoughtfully a moment before returning her attention to the Rider. "What do you say? Want to try it that way and see what kind of progress we make?" She asked.

[Khaliall]

((My brain huuuuuuurts >.< Blah post, hoping to get SOMETHING out here finally.))

T'vril, interestingly enough, was thinking something along the same lines--of the flowers having facial expressions. Obviously they didn't, but he was trying to imagine what they might look like if, in fact, they did.
"Mmhmm," he agreed absently, admiring the colours of the poor plants, and noting with a hint of bitterness that, of course, they did not have one for Red Star.
Of course, the Red Star wasn't a plant, and they couldn't grow a flower to represent it, but still...
He shook that off.
No time for that. It was just childish of him to think about it.

"Don't be sorry," he assured her with a wry little smile. "It's just...life. Dragons are dragons. They were made to fight Thread. Death...reminds them. I'll call him. He should get out...if you don't mind?"
He quirked a brow inquiringly. He knew she didn't care as much as some--her behavior had shown that. But it was better to be safe than sorry.
Most dragons didn't like to have Death around. After all, his own siblings had tried to kill him.
Death, could you come down to the Hatching Sands? he asked silently. I'd like your help. And there's somebody here who'd like to meet you.
Like to meet me? He sounded deeply suspicious.
Well, I don't know he ammended. But her dragon seems quite nice.
There was a moment of hesitation, then--
Very well

"Death is coming," he said aloud. "He doesn't mind helping a bit." T'vril was strong enough--he could probably carry two buckets at a time, then with two dragons...
"Sure, let's give it a shot," he agreed, looking towards the entrance as he heard wingbeats.
Edging past the Candidate standing there, was the infamous Red Star dragon, looking extremely uncomfortable.