The foal slept.
His chrysalis was getting tight, pressing in on his skin. But when he attempted to stretch out, hooves that were already rather large pressing against the gemstone, and it didn't give, he went back to sleep, but only after shifting his position in the chrysalis, leaving it rather lumpy looking.
What was the rush, anyways?
Amazon had been watching the chrysalis from far away, her face contorted with worry and her claws scratching nervously at the ground. It had been sitting there for some time, despite the fact that it had already grown considerably and seemed ready to hatch. At one point, she thought she had seen the distant flicker of movement from within and was about to rush out to meet the new hatch, but there had been nothing. No cracks, no break. And she wasn't going to go and break it for them. The last time she had didn't turn out so great.
The memory of Onye's hatching and subsequent death still haunted her like a ghost, just as the threat of her future hung over her like a stormcloud. And the irritation around her gem and the worsening symptoms only served to remind her that her life was finite. And perhaps the end was soon, or perhaps it was far. She didn't know. But she had taken back to wandering the caves, searching for more adventure. But so far it had eluded her.
She sat far from the rock, anxiously awaiting the gembound to break free, not wanting to interrupt its hatching in case she did something wrong or the creature was hurt. She didn't want to see another one die in front of her.
He couldn't sleep.
The foal gave a great sigh, the best he could while inside his Crysalis, and attempted to stretch out his legs. But, once again, the Crysalis wouldn't break, and so he rested his eyes, beginning to doze again.
@Amazon
Amazon continued to watch and detected, again, the flicker of movement inside the gem. Was it trying to break itself out? She shrunk back shyly, not really wanting to go out and help. Besides, she was tiny. What could she do to help break out the surely huge gembound inside? Nothing, that's what. She couldn't even save a newhatched baby from death.
So, instead of rushing out to help like she would have before, Amazon simply sat and watched, waiting for the creature to break out itself.
Why couldn't he sleep?
No matter how hard he tried (although it wasn't terribly hard, he wasn't much of a trier), the colt couldn't catch much shut-eye. He would sleep for only a few moments, before something would force him awake.
With a great, heaving sigh the colt gave a half-hearted attempt to kick through his chrysalis, before giving a mental shrug when he didn't break through. That was fine, it didn't matter much to him. At least he could get a few more minutes of sleep.
They weren't coming out. Was something wrong? Were they having trouble? Or was it not time to hatch? No, it was big. Big enough. She shifted uncomfortably, wondering if she should go out there. She had to, she had to help them. But...that last time she had...
No, this was different. Well, she didn't know if it was. But there was still hope that it was different. Very carefully, she crept out towards the shell and wondered how she was going to help. She was small, too small to break the gem. But maybe the thing inside just needed motivation.
The colt could hear something outside of his Chrysalis. It was a soft voice, and he could make out the words. It was female, although he didn't quite know what that was yet.
But they sounded kind of upset. And something told him he didn't want to make them upset. So, he strained, and the Chrysalis shattered around him. He blinked around blearily, before lowering his head to be level with the lizard. The colt gave a sigh, as he said,