While Amazon lay curled, sleeping, the ragged shard of cinnabar she'd been harboring for cycles at last began to stir. She'd watched it every day (keeping a safe distance), trying to see the growing neonate through the haze of the gemstone, but it had never looked back. She was worried that it had died...but it had not. It had merely slept through the time, unconcerned with its worrying mother, taking its time to finally wake up

At last, many cycles later, eyes blinked open. Consciousness finally flared in the young one's head and it twitched in its chrysalis. It couldn't see anything but red. It was almost overwhelming and fear began ticking in its mind. Head jerked around, looking for a way out of this cramped, dark space but there was nothing. Nothing but deep red and a strange sense of hyperactivity. It needed out. Now. Now!

It jerked violently and that was enough to break the gemstone, which was already week from cycles of waiting, into shards that flew across the den. They emerged with a squeal and flopped on the ground, eyes bulging, lungs gasping for their first breath, still drenched in fluid the color of blood.