Fenmyre was second, and she knew it - understood as she collided heavily with the bubbling ground that she was being left behind already. Something bitter seeped through the gaps in her teeth, something warmer, hot, hurting - was this blood? Was it hers?

No, it wasn't. Not exactly.

As much as her body already ached with the weight of existing, she rose above the hissing pool, inner mechanisms clicking to life for the first time. She heard something else, close and heavy, crying in pain - the wailing filled her head as soon as she noticed it, as if everything inside her had been waiting to make a noise just like it.

The cacophony stirred instinct. Run.

But she was no better than her sibling as her claws slipped. She found that this would be an uphill climb, a crawl from some horrid primordial bog to better places. The oil began to eat at her now, a sour smell creeping around their struggling bodies.

Fenmyre stayed quiet.

"This is speaking." This is thinking. This is corruption.

Flesh and fur sizzled, beginning to dissolve, unmade -

Unborn.

The panicked squeals grew further and further. Was the first moving forward, or was Fenmyre being pulled back into his embrace, to end and begin and end again? Her mind was a centrifuge, animal fear and chaotic impulse split and screaming, all in different pitches, all in different voices.

One, finally, rose above the rest: Draconua's.

The Valkhound rose again from the boiling muck, crawling further and further. Her claws scraped against the dark rock, searching for any kind of purchase - the sound rang in her ear cavities, yet another kind of shriek. She would not be second, she would not be last. She would not be left behind.

As her forelimbs wrapped around the edge, preparing for the final push upward, Fenmyre felt something else brush against her knuckle - flesh. Body. Sibling. Competition.

Her talons sought to wrap around Cavally's rump and drag it back down into the pit, so that Fenmyre might take its place at its apex.

"This is speaking." This is thinking. This is corruption.

Some mix of instinct and immediate, paralysing fear kept Fenmyre from resisting the sudden tug of teeth at her scruff. She felt the vibrations of Draconua's vocal chords travel down her throat, out and through her smaller body, the crackling hum stilling her mind in the face of something greater.

She remained limp even as she was whisked roughly toward that greater power, back to an uncomfortably warm embrace after escaping the first. But Fenmyre did not question it - this was the kindness promised. This was to be her first lesson learned.

In her newfound safety, the infant allowed herself a small expression of the pain of her birth: A small, pitiful whimper as her mother's tongue scraped against injured skin, scrubbing it clean of residual rot.

And then she was gone, and Fenmyre was left mewling on cold stone. She stumbled to her feet, her hollow mask stretching up in a mimicry of a wondrous gaze upward at her mother, not yet secondary to her god. This, to Fenmyre, was more akin to an outstretched hand. She was reaching, yearning for another kindness spared.

It would come - just not in a shape either child had expected.

Perhaps blindness was a blessing, but Fenmyre was still given enough auditory information to guess at the source of the squirming, wet mass in front of them. She bit down any revulsion the more primitive, misguided parts of her attempted to surface - this was mother, and mother was kindness, and kindness was the bitterness of oil sliding down her gullet.

And she ate, her flank pressing against the first, the weaker. They would learn and grow together.

She would not leave its side.

"This is speaking." This is thinking. This is corruption.