The ancient city center was dark enough on its own; a small, black gemstone that'd been growing here wasn't much more to notice against its shadowed corners. The creature within was miniscule: a runt even by her species' standards, and that species in and of itself was--compared to some of this nest's behemoths--already quite small.

The one inside was awakening a little too early. Not so much that it was dangerous for her; but enough that her weak scratching at the thinned Snowflake Obsidian shell was at first fruitless. She wasn't fully conscious yet, at least--not enough for panic to set in.

For the time being it was just a shift, now and then; a little scrape in the dark.

Awareness grew, the tickle of knowledge in the back of her mind. She... existed.

Yes, she existed.

She was... touching hard textures all around her. Shadow did not yet know the words for rock or stone, or gem; certainly not "snowflake obsidian," nor "chrysalis." She felt her way quite literally through her first moments of half-awareness, paw pressing to warm rock.

She tested, pressing harder, kicking a little against it, instinct telling her it was time to break free. She was no baby bird, but in this world, this instinct was a necessity nonetheless.

Shadow wanted to... breathe?

She felt the need to breathe.

She could not do that here. She pressed harder, and now the first edges of fear did intrude on her nascent consciousness. Darkness, fear, a choking wet. Where was she?

The wolf pup kicked again, and again, scraping and struggling with clumsy limbs.

Fear.

Instinct turned to panic. Knowledge of the confines slipped into claustrophobia. Terror rose in her, and her blind struggles became panic, twisting and kicking.

A sharp breath became choking, drowning, and fear rose higher as her newly minted consciousness threatened to fade back into darkness. Then--a crack; a spill of fluids, and she was dropped in her own chrysalis as its liquids flowed away. Within the broken stone she stood, trembling, small and thin: a runt in every sense of the word. Her eyes were still closed, and she spent a moment simply huddling, half-cradled by broken stone, choking and gasping to clear infant lungs.

Her heartbeat in her ears faded gradually, and beyond it there was silence. Her eyes came open: a silver gleam of light, one that sought anything to fix on and found only darkness.

Shadow pushed forward, twisting, and fell outward, now: the walls of the gemstone giving way, dropping her to the ground below.

Instinct reacted in disparate paths.

The first was comfort. Something large, reassuringly warm, something gentle and rumblingly calm and soft-...

The second was fear. The scent of predator--a kind not her own--was strong in her nostrils, pricking her brain with tiny sparks of terror.

A third path--that not of instinct but physical necessity--was exhaustion. Shadow was a runt; her first battle--with her own chrysalis--had taken a great deal of energy from her undersized body.

Where a healthier, stronger child might have settled upon that fear and trusted it, fleeing with all their might, she--after a moment's inner battle--collapsed into the 'comfort,' instead. Her weariness gave her little choice but to trust.

And it seemed to have been a wise choice, though she was too young to truly gauge. She did not understand most of what he said. She could barely see him, past a tired glance, a vision of... spots, she thought; but her eyes slid closed before she could gain much more of a glimpse.

The next time she opened them was in darkness.

She had slept.

She wasn't sure when, or for how long. She didn't quite remember being left here. She remembered a warning: not to go near 'plants.' Shadow didn't know what plants were... maybe she would know when she saw them.

But she was in the dark; it was not too cold, or hot. Nothing accosted her here. And she had not slept enough.

After a moment, sneezing once and weakly past the dust thick in her nostrils, she settled head back on limp paws and fell back away into dreamless sleep.