Buried beneath four meters of roaring water and subsurface currents was a glistening sort of sphere; gilded in color, but muted by the depths and surrounded by ever-tumbling pebbles. Within, of course, life.

Life, unceremoniously birthed by a simple strike of a river stone. Light flooded fiery eyes, young and new, much like the water that slipped through to the lungs. She gave a gurgling yelp, sputtering out what little air her shell had magickally produced for her, watching the bubbles drift away and away and away. Her muscles spasmed, at first, as the raw impulse to survive filtered into a barely-conscious brain. The sharp, jarring sensation of choking jumpstarted synapses and nerve ends, beckoned for a need to see what was beyond all of whatever her body was rejecting.

As her limbs began to kick out and carry her weakening self towards the light and the surface, her mind idly put forth a name: hargrave. Now, it seemed, was an excellent time to form an identity; her unnoticed gemstone's method of coping with the seemingly inevitable shortness of her lifespan.

Her head, by some miracle, broke the surface, and how she sputtered and whirled about. Frantically doggy-paddling towards the shore, blunt claws finding purchase on a steep, gravelly shore. With whatever energy that remained, she heaved herself and her guts out onto the rocks. It was little but a mix of water and acid, and most of it wound up on her chest, but it was out. Hargrave coughed until there was nothing left in her fragile, soaked little body oddly reminiscent of a drowned rat.

The gemstone that had betrayed her before worked gently to warm her, as she collapsed, sopping-wet and whimpering. What a life she has led, already.