There was a chrysalis, in Polaris. Though mainly brown, it was interspersed with streaks of green and blue, vivid and entirely opaque. It was near the Crystal River, though a distance enough away that the life inside would not go tumbling into the water upon exit.

And it was time for that life inside to wake up from its dreams, which so vanished upon that waking. There was an innate sense of loss, but a lack of understanding to why.

Even forgotten, the dream seemed more reality than the chrysalis, though the hatching gembound knew neither word. The new reality was dark, and it thought it had not been in the dark before, even if it did not know what before was, if there even was one.

It was also...

Tight? The gembound within had never thought of space before, perhaps had dreamed of a limitless realm, but here there were confines.

Only time would tell if reality's confines would ground or trap this gembound.

Was this all existence was? Wet and uncomfortable?

Without intentionality, a spell was cast to try and sense. And suddenly the life knew there was fellow life out there, still and rooted, yet not. It was not alone, it realized with delight. Occasionally, that life swayed, it realized, not entirely still at all. How could life sway when everything was so tight?

Perhaps this was not everything, then?

As suddenly as the awareness of the other life out there had come on, that awareness begun to fade. And the very thought of losing that connection felt anathema to this particular life. Prior curiosity combined delight vanished.

In place of those prior emotions, it was set upon by a new emotion entirely; panic. The child thrashed, lashing out with the tail that was most of its current length.

The confines that held it until now shattered away into shards as the desperation of this child broke itself into freedom.

It had been right to think there was more to the world, it realized, turning its head to look around with its one functioning eye- not that it yet thought anything strange about possessing only that eye. How would it, when it had seen no other living entity thus far?

Speaking of living entities, the child was quick to look around for those gently swaying, yet rooted, lives it had sensed.

Yet... Though it knew what it had sensed, its eyes did not know what to look for.

Perhaps... Perhaps it could regain its prior sense of that life? It had not thought to try that earlier, but if it had done it once...

Well, there was no harm in trying.

There was nothing ambiguous about the way life bloomed back into its awareness. Its gaze snapped towards the nearest- The... green?

It did not yet understand. Were its senses fooled?