OOC -- Rated M for swearing. Making this private. This is a struggle between himself and the world now. XD

Raziel awoke with fire in his soul, and the urge to move. He opened his maw to intake air, and choked on the fluid inside his chrysalis. He coughed, and tried to breathe again, but only inhaled more liquid. Patience was not a word this creature understood. He wanted out and something was in his way. He placed his large bear-like paws against the blue-and-pink chrysalis that held him prisoner, and then struck the side as hard as he could with his horned head. Absolutely nothing happened, except for the sound of a dull clanging and a dizzy sensation that flooded his thoughts. Damn it!

Without wasting any time, he pushed his right front paw against the beautiful prison as hard as he could, intent on shattering the thing. That’s not… quite what ended up happening. Suddenly, his paw-pad hurt like a bitch and was simultaneously… melting through the chrysalis? What the f*ck? Well, it was working! And that’s all that mattered, right? He continued pushing as hard as he could, but he only got about halfway through the thick gem before his paw cooled down and stopped helping. Damn. F*cking useless Magic. Meanwhile, his lungs continued screaming for air. Back to head-butting then! He would destroy this stupid egg or it would kill him. Either way, he was fine with it.

Raziel slammed his blue-and-pink horns against the side of the chrysalis again, and failed. Again. Well, at this point if he suffocated, it would be entirely understandable and he would accept it. Because, apparently, he had been born weak. What was the point of life if he couldn’t even survive the first thirty seconds of it? Clearly, his birth had been a mistake. What kind of weakling was he, anyways? He squinted his black eyes against the liquid that burned his lungs and stared out that discolored world he would never see at this point. He wouldn’t give up yet, of course. He’d fight ‘til his body stopped functioning. But if he did succeed, he’d need to do something seriously badass to make up for this utter failure.

In his anger at his immediate failure at life, his right paw began to glow white-hot again and he gritted his teeth against the pain. Pain was good. It meant he was still alive enough to feel pain. He pushed against the opal chrysalis – hard – screaming curses in his head. And then he felt his giant paw break through, and cold air licked at his burned paw-pad. Yes! He was getting somewhere. Still, he couldn’t really, you know, breathe. Of course, all of this had taken place in about forty-five seconds, but there was only so long a creature could hold his breath. He yanked his paw back into his egg, and liquid began pouring out through the hole. In the meantime, he’d try again. More head-butting.

At the third failed attempt at getting the f*ck out, Raziel was utterly disgusted with himself. He floated to the bottom of his egg, intent on letting himself die for his pitiful excuse at life. His lungs screamed for air and his head pounded from the lack of it. Finally, he dragged his weakening limbs to the top of his prison, where there was a pocket of air now that some of the amniotic fluid had drained. He took in a big rasping breath, filling his lungs for the first time, and stared out at the world again. Was it really that stupidly colorful outside, or was it his gem… He really couldn’t tell.

Raz sighed and swam with powerful legs back to where he’d punctured a hole in the side of his egg before. It slowly drained the amniotic fluid, and made glugging noises every few seconds now. Still, it wasn’t a very big hole, so the draining process would take a while. He placed his right front paw next to the hole in the hopes of making another one, but his Fire Magic didn’t even come on this time. F*cking hell. Did the world hate him already? Well, the world could go screw itself. If it wanted him to die so much, he’d just have to do the opposite, and live despite all of the odds stacked against him. He’d fight the world ‘til it crushed him!

Raz swam upwards, to the slowly expanding pocket of air at the top of his chrysalis. He took a deep breath, then held and it and swam back down towards the hole he’d managed to create. He slammed his horns against it once, twice, three times, until he was seeing stars, but nothing worked. Fuuuuuuck. HE WOULD NOT GIVE UP. He was too damn stubborn for that. And if anything happened to get in his way once he got out, he swore, it would be the worst day ever for them. Increasingly dizzy, he let himself float to the top of the amniotic fluid and rolled onto his back for more air. He would do this, goddamn it!

After a bit of time spent breathing and floating on his back, he pushed his way down to his paw-sized hole and placed his paw next to it. If he could just burn his way through this egg a bit more, the hope was that it would lose enough structural integrity to break. His Magic did work again this time, but it was weak, like it had been before. Once again, he burned through about half of the fire opal prison before he ran out of power. By this time, his paw-pad was blistered and raw and it throbbed from constant contact with fire plus hot, melting chrysalis. At least he was making progress… ish.

He took his left paw and placed it against the half-melted hole he had created. He wanted to head-butt the damn thing again, but even with his stubborn attitude, he was a bit worried about what would happen to his brain if he kept slamming into shit. He pushed with all his might, but nothing happened. It didn’t shatter. It didn’t even give a little bit. All it did was make him angrier and leave melted goop on his paw. Why the f*ck was this so hard? Was he really this pathetic? What was even going on? Maybe this wasn’t real… Wouldn’t that be a trip. But… when he tried to think back on something that was real, all he got was darkness. So this had to be real. Hm. The real world sucked.

At this point, he was only in this to prove to himself that he deserved life. He had to get the hell out of here, or he would go insane. And – finally – his Magic seemed to understand that. Because suddenly his left paw burned hotter than his right ever had, and it was melting through the rest of the chrysalis with ease. He felt it glide through the opal like a hot knife through butter, and then he heard the most satisfying sound all: CRACK! He’d finally broken the damn thing! YES! Suddenly he came spilling out into the world, covered in amniotic fluid and his two fronts paws hot and blistered and submerged in melted blue-pink goop.

The air was cold, and he immediately liked it. He dragged his paws across the ground until most of the melted chrysalis was gone, and then buried them in a pile of snow. The sudden shocking cold after he’d burned them was both pleasant and painful. He let out a carnal yell at finally being released into the world. Then he took off at a run, to where he didn’t know. Nor did he care. He was FREE.

[Exit Raziel]