When she woke again she was surrounding by pale sleeping lizard infants, all her size and with rumbling stomachs. She squeaked, she started to get hungry again. Soon enough the same female as before picked her up. Instead of giving her the food she deserved she was carried outside, another adult entering the hut immediately after they left.

The village of her birth was small - more of a hamlet really - she couldn't even see a dozen huts! They were in the middle of a forest, tall trees concealing most of the the sky above. Her carrier went towards the group of fires she could hear somewhere to her left. Most of the fires were surrounded by about five to eight people while one only held two. One was taller than all the lizards she could see while the other looked decidedly average. She was pretty sure they were important, some kind of leader.

The female presented her to the two leaders. Both stared at her for a little while - she started back - expressing her displeasure of being withheld her food with an indigent squeak. The two looked at each other and the tall one said a single word, “Ves” nodded at her carrier and went back to her dinner while the other one took a small piece of meat from his fire, feeding it to her eager mouth.

That action seemed to cause quite the commotion among the villagers and made the female break in a big, toothy smile once the leaders couldn't see her face. They went to one of the smaller fires and sat down. Every one of the five at the fire gave her a little bit of meat to eat after they settled down.

Over the time until she ate her fill eleven other lizards came with a newborn, each getting a unique identifier like her, though none were given food by one of the leaders!

Shortly after the last newborn came - joining her at the fire - she felt full and with the warmth of the fire seeping into her she slowly drifted to sleep.

---

When she woke again she was alone. She was, once again, surrounded by comfortably hot stones. She was quite hungry so she looked around to see if any food was available. There was, she smelled something delicious just above her head. She struggled on her stomach and crawled towards the food. She arrived at the food, ate and went back to sleep.

She woke a little later when someone placed another bowl of food on the opposite side of her pit. She did what anyone would do, crawling towards the food and eating again.

The next twenty three times she woke there was food waiting for, going back to sleep after eating each time. She was startled by her own growth, Ves grew a few handspans every time she slept.

When she woke the twenty fourth time something had changed, the food wasn't easily available anymore - being placed on a wooden log out of reach for her crawling form. Ves wasn't discouraged, she crawled towards the log and clawed herself up, taking the bowl down with her. She sat down, her back against the log and was happy to discover she had more food than normal.

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Ever since that day her food became increasingly harder to get to, yet she started sleeping less and less, she was able to spend a whole quarter of a day awake! The challenge of getting her own food also resulted in moving out of the pit, she was far too agile to be confined by it anymore. She now slept with the others of her band, sharing their warmth and slowly learning their language. Her sibling joined her a week later, the boy was noticeably smaller and weaker than her, it seemed he ran into some problems acquiring his food.

The hunting-band of kobolds she was growing up with had six adult members who were all living in the same long hut she did. The hut was quite big, half submerged in the ground as it was. They had another, smaller hut adjacent to theirs, to store weapons and food. Each day one of her band would educate both of them to the best of their ability, be it speaking, crafting weapons or other necessities.

The language was easy enough, consisting of mainly growls, yaps and hisses so she only needed a few weeks to learn it.

While her sibling would occasionally go out and play with their other siblings she did not, they were all stupid. At first she tried, but ran out of patience soon enough. They were all smaller and considerably more stupid so she stopped bothering. Instead she spent her free time scouring the village for any edible bugs she managed to catch.

The village was really small, nine big huts, seven for the different bands and one for each the shaman and the chieftain. Still, she had enough space to keep herself active.

The small stream running through the village proved ample entertainment as well, trying to catch the small fish living there was entertaining her good enough.

Two weeks after she was left out of the pit she noticed a change in behavior, her band took more and more time to hunt and less to stay home.

“Why are you hunting so much? Are we eating too much?” Tes'ro looked at her, amusement sparkling in his eyes.

“Don't worry youngling, we prepare for winter. We can't hunt in winter - even with the shaman’s blessing - and have to store as much food as we can so you will be able to come hunt with us once winter ends.”

“Winter?”

“That’s when you will be allowed to try and earn your second name. The shaman will teach all of the younglings and you will attempt a second hatching.”

“But I'm already out of my egg!!” She protested, loudly. Tes’ro laughed. “You’ll see in time.”

“Ok.”.

Three months later Ves was waiting for her band to return, dozing in the two suns when she was woken by a cold, biting wind. She shivered a little and looked east. What she saw frightened her, huge, menacing black clouds were rushing towards her village.

She ran back towards her hut, running inside to find Zet'ra - their teacher for today - she took her hand and started dragging her outside.

“What's up? What happened?” She asked.

“Huge monster coming.” She said, frightened.

Zet'ra followed her, laughing a little as she saw the imposing clouds. “Nothing to worry, just a storm.” Ves pouted, they could have warned her.

She decided to stay outside and continue to watch the storm near the stream. Soon enough all the bands rushed back into the village and retreated into their respective hut. Ves stood under the leafless trees, wanting to experience a winter storm firsthand.

Strong winds came first, bending the trees all around her. Afterwards she could hear lightning, bright flashes of light and loud cracks followed by collapsing trees. Last but not least came rain and ice and cold, unending and uncomfortable.

She went inside soon after, she didn't want to stay outside with the weather stealing all of her warmth.