Chapter Text
Claws prick at the shell. An egg tooth does not form just right, but she is born with fully-hardened claws.
Chirping, chirping. Chirp chirp. Begging for mother-father-mother-father-mother to help crack open the soft-hard shell with her jaws. Chirp, chirp.
She does not come. Chirp chirp. Crooning, mewling, bellowing. Nails prickle at the shell, and light-sensitive eyes meet white. It reeks. It reeks. She has no name for it.
It reeks. The air burns her nose, her throat. She claws at the shell further. She cannot stay there. She will die. Dead eggs, but they have not rotted yet- or she cannot smell the rot? Nostrils flare. A leg pushes through the shell, hitting another; chirping from within, chirp. More effort. More effort, wriggling and clawing, bashing.
Pitiful and weak. Pathetic. Damp. Quills prick, sensory information - it is cold. Everything is cold. She is cold and the air burns, desperate crooning. The other egg rocks, shaking. Sibling. Family. These things she recognizes are important. Strength in numbers. She is.. weak, and she is heavy. Heavy?
Whistling from her chest. The second egg begins to hatch. Her eyes are bleary still and to move is a struggle; she is heavy where her instincts say she should not be. Four? She crawls on all four, pushing herself up onto four. Her jaw is heavy. Whistling breath, whistle. She does not move very fast and her front lists downwards, even though some instincts suggest this is how she should move.
Other instincts say she should walk on two, though. She does not know.
Something large picks her up; wriggling bits, burning smell. Cold. Cold, cold cold, cold and dry. She writhes, hands flailing.
To be removed from the nest by something cold cannot be good. Predators, say some parts of her mind. A few choice ones insist it could be parents, but they are vastly outnumbered. It is still enough to stall her mind, which does not know what it could be. And then- pain. Stinging. Something sharp sinking into her back and she howls, reptillian screeching. Her throat cannot decide on a noise to make. She howls, and the sound is interpreted into too many things to count.
It is fear, but it is also aggressive/get you. It is territory-yours and in the same breath danger do not go here. What is she doing? She does not know the right sound to beg.
The cold-sharp retreats from her back and it stings all the while, scales too soft to keep it out. Those same hands put her down inelegantly. She does not have the words to describe what she sees but for white, shining, pain. Her sibling screams.
She wails.
fear, get-you fear danger do not go here..
And soon the both of them are wailing until something large, larger then either of them can comprehend, barks.
She thinks she knows what that means. She sees teeth, and she is afraid. But she is not alone.