Movement

(Brother)

Hearing the voice of Sister, the big light who had been the center of my whole world as for long as I could remember, I was filled with joy and relief so much so, that for a few moments I forgot to breathe.

Once I had recovered from that shock of joy, I eagerly reached for the mental link in order to reply to her, and soon ran into another surprise this one much less joyful.

The ease of speaking mentally was completely gone, instead just reaching for the ability to connect to her, a gift that had been simple in the past was now akin in difficulty to reaching over to another across a great distance without the support of the mental web.

I struggled for a short while, which no doubt would have been much longer if Sister hadn’t quickly noticed my troubles and after she her strength with me for a temporary ‘boost’. I was able to, though clumsily at first grasp the method to connect to the web of minds.

This new first time that I connected I was unable to hold myself there longer than a few moments, and neither was I even able to use any form of words, in fact I was only barley able to transfer some emotions and feelings in the short time I was able to hold the connection.

Despite this fact, I was pleased with my success and strangely proud of myself for being able to do it at all. Sister didn’t seemed surprised or even troubled by my current inadequacy and instead of answering my reply with more words she came down to my level and instead sent to me, a small rush of love, patience with a little bit of amusement, after which she ‘left me.

However I no longer felt the unease that I had felt before, for I now knew that though it was more challenging than it had been when I hadn’t hatched, I was still able to connect to the mental web. Also I felt a reassurance in the clarity of her first reply to me.

It was obvious that even if I continued to remain completely incompetent in being able to link up with the mental web now that I was hatched, that Sister would still be able to easily link up with me. Nonetheless I decided to practice linking up from outside the web until it became if not as effortless as it was in the past then at least not as much as a struggle as it was now.

Satisfied in this promise I made to myself, I let my mind drift back to focusing on my body. Part of the reason  that I had such struggles with linking up is that the sensations and feedback I was getting from being able to truly and completely feel my body, not through choice but rather than the lack of it, were very distracting.

First of all, and most noticeable was the temperature. It felt really cold. If I were a mammal my fur would have been standing straight up and I would have been shivering. Later on, when I was older and came back to a hatching camber for a visit, I would wonder that I had ever felt the place as cold for in actuality the hatching chambers were kept to be quite warm.

But apparently the shell of my egg was quite insulating for the difference in temperature was to me extreme, and it took me quite a while to adjust to it enough that if I didn’t feel warm at least I didn’t feel distractingly cold either.

Along with the temperature, was the feeling of feeling anything, I had been completely desensitized to the liquid in my egg to the point that I didn’t even notice it was there the rare times I practiced ‘feeling’ my body. But now that I hatched, having air touch me instead of liquid, was strange or odd to say the least.

Even stranger then feeling the air on my scaly hide was having to breathe it in. It was very good that my body possessed many instincts else I would have suffocated from not knowing how to breathe.

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Once I adjusted to and got over the feelings of temperature, air and breathing, other sensations made themselves known. Such as the things underneath the skin. I started to recall what it had felt like to move my muscles and I experimentally attempted to see if I could move now, without the instincts of hatching imposing their will on me.

At first my expectations were so low that I felt quite pleased when I managed to twitch, but soon I was able while lying on my side to kick my legs and swing my tail. I don’t think that it was to much long afterwards that I somehow managed to flip from lying on my side to lying on my belly.

And from there it wasn’t much of a leap to begin to move my legs against the floor, and slowly but surely through trial and error learn how to crawl.  

I don’t know how long my fixation on teaching myself to move lasted, but it must have been not that long because by that time I had begun to feel hunger.

If a dragon hatches with in their first year, they will usually have an egg sack still attached to them. Thus they don’t have too eat during their first few days of life because the egg sack continues to supply all that they need.

However I, and my fellows had stayed in the egg much longer than a year. We had not used an egg sack for quite some time and were instead relying on the mana stones that we had created for substance while in the egg.

As a side note the hatchery workers had already taken my abandoned mana stone and shell remains, and put them in a safe place. Later as per gem dragon tradition they would be given back to me and I would then have the opportunity fashion them into some sort of jewelry or weapon for good luck.

Right now though I had completely forgotten about both mana stone and egg shells, and all I could think of was my hunger.

I am told that there are some dragon species that require the consumption of metals and minerals in order to stay healthy. With such species after hatching they would immediately eat their egg shells, (and mana stone if they create them).

Gem dragons, though we do on occasion consume small amounts of precious minerals or metals, it isn’t a main part of our diets, so unfortunately even if they hadn’t been taken away and I had been able to see clearly at that time (I was currently near blind and kept my eyes closed for convenience sake) my shell and mana stone would not have looked edible at all.

However it was soon proven that there was no chance of me starving. For although I hadn’t really noticed their existence until then the hatchery room was filled with servants, egg watchers. And since as I later found out my egg was located in the more private and luxurious hatching room reserved for royalty, there was even more ‘nanny dragons’ then there were eggs, and hatchling (and not too much later) hatchlings and eggs.

As soon as the servants noticed that I was showing signs of being hungry, they acted.

It is to be noted and commended that all hatchery workers out of all dragons that have somewhat servile positions in the clan, they were the most trusted, most loyal and for the overwhelming majority they were the most devoted to their jobs.

I heard a small thump right in front of me and after stumbling back a bit as much as I was able to in statement and froze in place from that unexpected sound. I learned a new aspect of being unhatched when the extremely delicious smell of raw bloody meat gently wafted into my nostrils.