The third time I awaken in this body is to a peaceful quiet. The urge to stretch as long as my tiny body can is overwhelming. A bump to the nose shows that my new home doesn't have the space to do so. My hidey hole is only just big enough for me. Instinct comes into wakefulness with a languid yawn.

We share a quick conversation of not words but thoughts and impressions. I don't think Instinct knows what words are yet. Maybe someday we'll be able to share words, but that day will be far off. The conversation boils down to needing more space. So I set about making that happen, lifting the second spines on our necks and filling the stone around us with the brown glow. The earth magic seems slightly easier to use today, but the difference from yesterday is negligible at best.

So we get to digging with magic.

Dig, dig, dig.

I lose track of time, not that I have a way of keeping time anyways. The only changes in the monotonous digging are when we have to stop and rest to let our magical stamina refill. By the time we finish, we've had to stop and rest three times.

The end result of the tedious but relaxing work is a small rectangular room. It's about three slithers long and two wide. The floor is smooth and flat, polished almost. The ceiling is much higher than before, letting me rear my head up and have some space left above. The entrance is the same as before, but the wall is a proper wall. Flat and uniform as the longer walls to its sides. The back wall is the only wall with any embellishments. There is a small alcove in it which houses my new pet rock.

This rock found me more than I found it, so I say that fate brought us together. Jokes aside, I happened upon it by accident. I was just digging the last little section of the back wall out, when out of nowhere it fell on my head. Spooked, I proceeded to blast it with fire magic until I ran dry. Since it's a rock, it did nothing. A closer look reveals the pebble has a faint glow. The color under the scorch marks is that of a pale blue-green. Getting closer, I could feel a faint aura of what could only be magic. Instinct is just as clueless as I am about this small rock. Now, magic rocks are cool and very pretty, but to a baby hydra they are less than useless. So I just decide to make a place to set it up.

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I decide on an alcove, and making the small shelf in the wall is easy enough, though the wait to have enough magic after blasting the rock is long. Thankfully, the air has been circulating fine after all the fire. To be truthful, the fire I was bathing the rock in was less than that of a propane blowtorch. So while I may have thought it looked mighty, it was really quite pitiful. Also, healing my self inflicted burns was starting to get annoying. It was nice, but it just took that much longer to fix all the damage I did to myself for getting spooked by a shiny rock of all things. Hopefully I can find a better solution soon to this inconvenience.

Anyway, the shelf made and myself fully healed, there was one last problem that revealed it's scaly head. My lack of hands. Or arms. Or appendages other than heads. So picking the small magical rock up was proving to be a challenge. My tail doesn't really seem made for grabbing. I was wary of picking it up in my mouth since it was small enough to swallow, but that proved the only option to get it up into the alcove. I was able to maneuver it safely, spitting it onto the shelf and adjusting it so the less scorched side faced out. While I rest again to refill my reserves, another thought crosses my mind.

I should name my new pet rock. It deserves a name. A fitting name comes to mind. Rocky. It may be a bit on the nose, but I like it. I set about carving my pet rock's new name into a section of wall right above where it rests. About halfway through the "R" I realize this is an extremely stupid waste of my time. Instinct is staring. Whether in amazement at my genius or in judgement of my mental state, I can't tell. I could if I decided to dive into their head, but I'd rather not. It'd be an invasion of the last bit of privacy between us. Stubbornly, I finish carving the letters with magic. I lean back, a slight pride filling me for finishing something so simple, yet so grounding.

What? Yes, you can feel pride, too. You literally did half the work, Instinct. Yes, I know it looks kind of dumb, but I think it's endearing. What would you have done with it? Exactly. What's that supposed to mean? Well, jokes on you, we're the same person.

Are we a person, though? That's a weird thought. I'm not exactly human, but I think I'm a person.

Sorry Instinct, it hurts my head to think about that, too.

Whatever.

I think I'm just tired.

Goodnight Instinct.