[HATCH] I'll become the smog around you

The Hive alerted him of the arrival long before Juggernaut had gone to check on the litter's chrysalises, An excited buzz that grew more and more intense as he traveled through the tunnels to where her new creations lay. More family, vulnerable family - something he'd have to work to foster. To buy them the time they'd need to prepare for this world, so often cruel, so often hostile to what they were and what they lived for.

He hoped their childhood would be gentler than his. He'd fight to make it so. They would accrue flaws, yes - dents and scratches in their armour - but they'd be given the space to find wisdom in life and suffering, rather than be overrun and overwhelmed as The Juggernaut had.

~~She would be the kindness her Mother could not offer.~~

It hovered over the swollen lumps of Clearstone, eyes scanning the surfaces for any imperfections, any hint of emergence. It would be the first to truly see them, and it would carve the image into its brain. The closest thing to permanence any of them would truly have.

His emergence was quick, with hardly little chance for time to elapse between the first crack and him tumbling out of the chrysalis in a lump on the ground. He blinked for a moment, trying to let his eyes adjust as he slowly pushed himself to his feet, swaying and unsteady. He wasn't sure where he was, who he was, or really anything else that was happening. It was all strange, new and he didn't like it. His feathers poofed out as he tried to look threatening to anything around him. Only then did he take the chance to look around his surroundings.

He blinked up at the creature before him, his eyes widening slightly at how large they were in comparison to him. No, that wouldn't do. He was meant to greater things, he knew that, he could feel it, even if he didn't know how to achieve that yet. He had a feeling this creature before him, someone he already felt a connection to, would be the way to gain what he wanted. But still having no idea how to do that, and of course talking wasn't the first thing that came to his mind, he would let out a growl before scrambling rather unsteadily over to their feet where he would begin to try and pounce on and paw at them, wings flared out behind him to make him look so much scarier.

The new connections blinked awake, moments before the cracks had begun to web through the various stones. The Juggernaut's insides fluttered suddenly as it rushed to reach them all, to know them as soon as it could. It was Mother's family... But these children where hers.

But he was not like his Mother. He could not compartmentalise or partition like She could, a skill She'd practiced through her eternal time as their omniscient caretaker. The first began to clamber up his side, bringing Sister's previous near miss to the forefront of his mind. He'd have to peel this one off-

And suddenly the muttering it'd heard from the second turned to a pained wail, its call for help like a chant, bouncing off of the walls of the Juggernaut's head. WHY. WHY. WHY. WHY-

And then the third, oh Mother the third. It saw it crawl slowly to aid its sibling first, before Juggernaut had time to react. It was about to be proud of it, for thinking so swiftly of its family. But then the drone figured out what exactly it was seeing, and it recoiled. Asymmetrical.

And distantly he could hear the ticking of a clock, the roar of a fireplace and the stench of cigars, that awful sense of something slipping further and further from his reach. This would pass, all of it, and something small and pitiful screamed at him to make something of it, anything at all, before it was gone.

But he did nothing but await Her call.