What dwells in the shell | Open, Hatching

[Onyxdreams]

~ ☼ Warm, she felt so much warmer now than she had before. She could feel it, seeping in from the walls around her, so nice and comforting, keeping her alive and well, long since having driven off that creeping cold she had been coated in. She didn't know why the cold was gone, just that it was, and that she continued to live, and to grow, here in this confined space that she lived within. In fact, it only seemed to grow more confining each and every day she spent within, bumping into the hard walls around her the few times she had moved, something she was doing more and more every day as her levels of energy grew. It was not yet time though, to leave the darkness she lived within, she didn't know how she knew that, just that she did, it wasn't time, but it soon would be, so, she waited, and time passed. There were vibrations on occasion, from what she couldn't have known, and so, she paid it no mind, and continued on, waiting.

In time, things became more and more crowded, that feeling of confinement only continued to grow, as every day she seemed to find herself pressing against the hard surface of her dark home more and more often, bumping into it as she moved, rocking her home ever so slightly. Now, now was the time, she knew that with certainty, this place was her home no more, but a prison now, one that she would be free from. The surface she pressed against was hard, unyielding, the few bumps she had given it before having not weakened it in the slightest, but back than, she hadn't been truly trying to break through, to escape, now? Now she knew what she had to do. Her head angled itself downwards, pointing the top of her head to the walls of her prison, she pulled back as far as she could...and rammed her head straight into it.

In the depths of the nursery, a soft plink echoed out, from a large, gray egg, sat upon a makeshift nest of blankets, as it wobbled more than it ever had before. Over the past few days, it had been moving more than it ever had, rocking ever so slightly, soft sounds coming from within if one was close enough, or possessed keen enough hearing. Today, the sounds that came from it were practically deafening compared to what it had given before, low thuds coming from within. A spider web of cracks slowly formed over a small area of the egg, splintering further and further as seconds drew out into long minutes, until finally, a piece chipped away, skittering down to the floor. That first piece was followed by another moments later, then another, as the surface of the egg continued to fracture further and further, until, with a crack, a large section of its surface crumbled outward, a furred head shoved through the hole left being.

At first, one would have noticed that her face looked astoundingly feline, far too much for something that had come out of an egg, appearances making her seem closer to three months in age than a newborn, but, there were a few oddities with her appearance. The small, sharp, white nubs coming out of her head, were one such oddity, but a necessary one, for without them, it would have been much harder, maybe even impossible, to break through her egg and free herself. In the center of her forehead, a large, white, sun-like marking lay, alongside two red eye marks on each side of her neck. The strangest of these oddities, though it was somewhat hard to see, would have been the faintly visible line of softly shining pink growing up her throat, where instead of fur, there were scales. Shaking her head slightly, sending a few stray chips of eggshell and some of the fluid she was coated in across anyone unfortunate enough to be nearby, the newborn twisted and turned her head as much as she could, drinking in the sights around her with red, slit eyes, so full of curiosity. Her mouth opened ever so slightly, and a forked tongue flickered out from within, collecting scents from the air even as her eyes scoured every corner of the room and burned it into her mind. Whatever she was, it was all too clear that she wasn't entirely feline, nor was she completely reptilian, but some strange mixture of the two