The face of the moonstone was scratched with the dust and pebbles that the wind whipped back and forth against it. It was pure luck alone that it was still standing, even in its little almost-shelter located underneath the slightest overhang of a rock. The pastel marble was covered in a thick layer of dust to hide it from view-- but the scars along its facets shone white like bone between cuts.

She had been awake inside it for a while, eyes open, drinking in the dark. Awake, but not entirely aware. It was utter randomness when the switch was flipped: when one second she was somewhere else, and then the next, she was here. Conscious. Looking. Thinking. Drowning?

There was a thick fluid all around her; her limbs, her mouth, her lungs. Drowning.

With a twist of her neck and spine backwards, she realised that she was confined to this space of thick water-- but not for long. Hairline cracks formed a latticework joining the gouges in the moonstone, splintering and spreading more and more with each hard kick from her little hind leg. Like glass, it shattered around her-- marbled blue-and-white crystals raining around her, and she cringed in the face of it.

It was wet, and then it was cold. Embryonic fluid pooled around puppy paws, and she gasped for air as the wind whipped her fur back and forth. She winced with this, too-- her shoulders hunched upwards, and her head dipped to try and protect her face and the marbled gemstone embedded in it, uncoordinated legs struggling to twist around.

Ahh... well, this was a lot to deal with, when you are seconds old.

The wind picked up, and her first survival instinct kicked in-- as her delicate, pink paws threatened to be lifted off the ground with the force of the distant twister, a sharp "wah!" escaped her throat. It wasn't eloquent: words were difficult when you were dealt so much stimulus in thirty seconds of being aware-- but perhaps it'd be just enough to alert some stranger that a puppy was struggling with too much wind.

Through the corner of her pale eyes, she saw a figure-- large and lumbering, but a sort of hazy grey. At first, she was afraid-- or perhaps intimidated was the better word? It was all the same, however, in that little moment of panic.

Another cry left her flushed-pink snout, and the puppy spent a moment pushing her face between her forelegs tighter, shaking against the wind, her eyes squeezed shut. Despite her swept-back ears sticking to the back of her skull, she could still hear the sounds of the wind, of footsteps, and--

A voice.

Light at the end of the tunnel, perhaps. The figure's voice broke through all the stress and the cold and the wet and the wind. The puppy opened her eyes and saw that they were closer. At this distance, she could see her more clearly: warm eyes and warm gemstones sticking out of their face. Their body was bulky and strong, warm. Their voice was comforting-- not only in drowning out all the bad, the overstimulation, but deep and rumbley like a cat's purr. A very large cat.

Nemesis's words weren't entirely processed through the puppy's mind, but eventually, milky nails skidded against the cave floor as she took her first few steps forward. Legs trembly, and mostly copying what she could see-- her face found Nemesis's leg first, before she went nestling into the rhino's side and loafed in much the similar way that she had: forelegs underneath her chest and legs splayed out behind her.

It wasn't an elegant impression. But it was an impression nonetheless.

Here, it was warm. The pup had a moment to settle and lick her paws. They, as she soon discovered, tasted gross-- dust and icky fluid still stuck to them. With fur still plastered thin to her quivering body, she settled against Nemesis and shut her eyes with a very long little huff for such a tiny thing.

Better. It was better. The wind that was rushing in her ears had dulled out to a low, constant thrum-- a lulling sort of drone that eased her limbs. As her eyes fell half-shut, she wondered, distantly, what other words this creature would say to her.

... and if she would understand them, this time.