What dwells in the shell | Open, Hatching

[Onyxdreams]

~ ☼ So much open, emptiness, strange surfaces made up the wall, made of a color that was dark, but not like the darkness she had just freed herself from. So many scents, she could taste so many different things that had been here, that were here now, these soft things her former white home sat on, those walls, everything, it was all so different. Pushing herself forward, in an attempt to get closer to it all, to investigate all of these new things so many new things, she found that...she couldn't. Her home still confined her, only her head had managed to get free, and the hole was too small for the rest of her to fit through, leaving the egg to simply tilt sideways in her nest, with its occupant still stuck in it.

Fidgeting in discomfort, the newborn attempted to pull her head back through the hole she had left, only to be met with failure, she may have squeezed through somehow, but getting her head unstuck was going to take some effort. A sudden sound catching her attention, her head swiveled, slit eyes locking onto the thing that had made the noise. It was similar to herself, in some ways, and dissimilar in others, it was a different not-black than she was, a less dark not-black, it...no, he, her instincts told her, was stood not far away from her now, and the newborn curiously flicked out her tongue in his direction. She didn't know what the noises were for, but something told her that there wasn't anything bad about those noises, not a threat display, however they did feel...good? There was something good about them, at any rate.

Giving another attempt to squeeze her head back into her old home, she was once more met with futility, her head refusing to slip back into the breach she had made. Her head turned, this way and that, in an attempt to yank it back into her home, a loud mewl echoing from her mouth, partly hissed out, tinged with distress. Then, when she was finally about to give in for the moment, with a loud crack, a section of shell that had been catching on her horns gave way, giving her just enough room to yank her head back inside, and, moments later, resume using her horns to break away the last little bits of her old home that stood between herself, and all these things on the outside.

It took her another short minute, to chip away at the hole further, her head occasionally poking out as she checked her progress, testing how much of herself she could fit through, until, finally, with much wiggling and squirming, she managed to pull herself the rest of the way out, sliding down to the much colder stone floors below, immediately giving out a sound of discomfort the moment she made contact with it. Fully outside her shell, it was clear that the scales didn't just cover her neck, extending down along her belly, coating her hips and all of her hind-legs, which looked more like reptilian claws than cat paws, before extending out and down the long, sinuous tails stretched out behind her. The wings on her back, far larger than wings had any right to be, ruffled, the fur covering their outside just as damp as the rest of her, which only served to worsen the cold, paws unsteadily pushing her up off the ground after two failed attempts, her attention immediately snapping back up to the not-black not-her thing that had been watching her this whole time. Her gaze locked onto it, for a moment, then two, then a few more, before finally, her mouth opened again, and a soft cry left her, her legs, haltingly slow in their movement, carrying her straight towards him, bit by bit.