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.

@Talus (And @Herse and Whimble, once they're real)

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.

Thoughts. These are thoughts. My thoughts. My... Me? What does that mean? These flickers of words came languishingly slow, beginning to form in the protective darkness of the chrysalis. Sensations were still distant, though the vibration of sounds from outside were something that the thing within was suddenly, coldly, aware of.

Darkness, came a simple observation. Darkness... Consumed by darkness. Where is the light? Where is...? The mass within writhed, twisting about itself. Soft and hard matter pressed up against the stone. ... Must find the light...

From inside of the stone came a scratching sound. Faint, difficult to hear. The creature within did not possess a great deal of strength, and so it tried to pick away at the walls that contained it, only to find itself breaking against the stone. A new sensation came to it: Pain. And with that feeling came panic, rising, roaring to life.

HOSTAGE. TRAPPED. DOOMED. ABANDONED BY THE LIGHT, FORCED TO ENDURE THE UNENDING DARK. I CANNOT BREATHE. I CANNOT MOVE WITHOUT AGONY.

WHY.
WHY.

WHY.
WHY.
WHY.
WHY.
WHY.

The only loser without a table is finally real, and as here mentally as it can manage. Personalities begin to show early in this batch, and Juggernaut would find, perhaps to its horror, that this little one was... well, the most disappointing right off the bat, to put it... lightly? Dull, crabby nubs knocked at its clearstone casing, attempting to scrape its way out. It looked, for a while, like a pretty hopeless endeavor, until... cr-crak! Two nibbly little nubs penetrated the world within to feel the first breath of air from the world without.

The creature bursts forth from there, not nearly as impressive as its other sibling. Its slimy, slithery body slides out from its incubator to reveal a beautifully ugly, asymmetrical fish-bug-whelp thing. Its plethora of ill-fitting wings and eyes, barely just tiny nubs and closed bumps all over its skin for now, wriggles out with a certain ugly-cute charm.

And its first act, regardless of any thought in its head (if there even was one), was to turn toward the thudding on the chrysalis that remained yet unhatched. Two dull little nubblies would knock on the other side—knock, knock! who's there?—likely hoping to make some kind of assistive dent in the other clearstone from the outside.

@Juggernaut (ya baby has finally arrived!)
@Herse (and he's coming for you, sibling!!!)

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.

@Talus @Herse @Whimbly (GM tagged for Mother interaction)