Red’s eyes remained firmly squeezed shut against the feeling of the fluid surrounding her. She’d come into consciousness suddenly instead of gradually, and the shock of it had kicked her survival instincts into gear. The fluid told her brain not to activate her lungs yet, since she was still inside of her chrysalis. The problem was that the rest of her brain had no idea what any of that meant. Her four limbs flailed for a moment, having never moved purposefully before, and then found the limits of their reach against the walls of the chrysalis. She pushed, wanting to get out, knowing that that was what she needed to do. Nothing happened. Her newly-developed muscles strained against the walls of maw sit sit stone that enclosed her, but the stone did not budge — did not even crack. Her ability to not breathe would not last forever. She needed to try again or she would suffocate before even being born.

Asimona's eyes snapped open. She didn't know why, but something had caused her to jerk awake. Something was happening nearby. She sniffed the air and detected a strange scent, something new and something that smelled like gem.

She stood up from her place and quickly stretched out her wings before following where the scent would lead her. It didn't take her long and she spotted the green gem fairly quickly. It sort of stood out among the gray of the rocks. She leaned down and looked at it closely. Was it a stone? A gem? Maybe a chrysalis? She hadn't seen anything like it before. Most gems she found, especially a chrysalis, were at least a little bit transparent. This was completely solid.

She heard a soft thump from the stone and she knew, immediately, that there was something inside. She immediately raised a claw and bashed it carefully against the side. She didn't want to be too excessive, since she was pretty big and, if she hit it too hard or broke it too quickly, it could injure whatever was inside. It took a few solid taps with her claw to finally break open a hole in the shell. She hooked inside and began pulling on the shell. "Break free! We'll do it together!"

"Find the one who'll guide you."
To the limits of your choice.

tags: @Red
notes: here

Red’s limbs jerked at the tapping sound she heard on the outside of her stone. She did not know what the sound meant or whether it was dangerous, so she froze momentarily to try and assess the situation. Unfortunately she didn’t think forcing her eyes open while she was still covered in amniotic fluid was a good idea, so there wasn’t much she could do in terms of looking to see what had made the tapping sound. It didn’t matter in the end, anyways. A second or two later, something was tugging on her chrysalis and a shock of adrenaline coursed through her at the rocking motion her cocoon made.

Part of the chrysalis was tearing open and the fluid that had suspended Red inside of her shelter for so long was leaking out onto the floor. Terrified of whatever might be tearing at her chrysalis, she pushed all four paws against the maw sit sit stone once again. The combined efforts of the dragon and the coywolf succeeded in shattering the chrysalis once and for all this time, and Red came tumbling out and landed on her side on the stone floor. Swallowing her nerves, she stared up at the dragon with nervous green eyes. She was vulnerable in her current position and was wondering if she was about to become a snack for a giant scaly thing with large teeth…

@Asimona

She tore at the shell, feeling the creature inside join her attack and, within a few moments, the stone shattered and a small dog came tumbling out. She stepped back to give them a little breathing room, while also lowering herself so that she was on their same level.

"I won't hurt you," she comforted it, gently, "I'm just here to help. My name is Asimona. Can you speak?" She didn't want to scare the little thing. She'd had many past experiences of gembounds being terrified of her large form and sharp teeth and claws. But she didn't want to be threatening. She didn't know what her purpose was with being friends with the dog, but she was figuring out that it was better to follow the flow then to question or fight against it. She would go where her heart took her.

"Find the one who'll guide you."
To the limits of your choice.

tags: @Red
notes: here

The scary thing made sounds come out of its mouth, gentle sounds that didn’t seem so scary, although they were certainly foreign to Red. She did not comprehend what it was saying, or indeed, that it was saying anything at all. She continued to stare up at it, but her eyes were now curious more than anything else. She figured that if it had wanted to eat her, it would have done so by now. Maybe it was friendly. Feeling a little more confident, especially considering the scaly thing had backed up to give her more room, Red rolled onto her belly with the intent to stand up. There was a problem, however. She rose up onto her paws, but they wobbled and shook beneath her like there was a mini earthquake right below her. She tried to adjust her weight but this caused her to become unbalanced and, with a yelp, one of her ankles twisted and she crumpled to a heap on the ground, whimpering in pain.

@Asimona

When she didn't respond, Asimona assumed that she couldn't speak yet. She wondered why some gembounds could speak when the hatched while others, like this dog, could not. Maybe some had the instinct and others had to learn. Would she teach them to speak? Or would they learn themselves?

Why was she always the mother, the one who came to the new ones and nurtured them and taught them? She was barely a baby herself! But...she didn't have a lot of complaints. She liked caring, being the protector. Even though much swirled just beneath her consciousness, threatening to spring forward and ruin her happiness.

When the dog began to stand, her wings raised slightly, excited that the newborn was beginning to move. But then it fell and she lurched forward, trying to catch it, but she was too late. The dog crumpled, its ankle twisted strangely. She gasped and leaned forward to sniff the pup's leg. "Oh no," she murmured, forgetting that the dog wouldn't understand. "Are you hurt? What can I do? Maybe you should lie your leg out straight." She bent her head to try and nudge the dog's twisted ankle so that it was lying straight on the ground.

"Find the one who'll guide you."
To the limits of your choice.

tags: @Red
notes: here

Red yelped in pain when the big scaly thing nudged her twisted ankle with its nose. Her ears pinned back along her head and she bared her teeth and growled as if to say, ’What are you doing? That hurts!’ She scooted farther away from the big creature, hoping it would stop touching her if she did so. She just needed to give her ankle a second to stop throbbing with pain, and then she would try again. She couldn’t lie here forever. Gingerly, she stretched out her right front leg, the one with the hurt ankle, until it was a bit straighter. It didn’t hurt so much anymore, so she thought she’d better try again.

Red slowly lifted herself up on her three good paws, careful not to put weight onto her injured ankle. Her legs still wobbled a bit, probably now because she only had three of them to lift her, but she was able to keep herself from falling again. Feeling better about all this, her tail wagged behind her, and she looked up at the scaly thing and grinned.

@Asimona

Asimona flinched when the dog yelped and growled. Oops. She took a step back, scared that she had hurt her. Maybe she had been too rough or maybe she had touched the wrong spot. "Sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you." She flattened herself against the ground to stop herself from getting too close again in case the pup was now scared of her.

But when it started to struggled to its feet again, she crouched, preparing to leap to her aid if she fell again. But there was no need - she managed to wobble to her feet this time. A sound of approval rumbled in her chest and she grinned happily back. She felt a little better about her mess up now that she was standing. "Oh, good job! Look at you go!"

But she wouldn't be able to walk with her ankle hurt like that. What could she do to help? Well, she could make cold things. And ice. That usually helped when she hurt herself. Perhaps it would help with this.

She nodded towards her ankle. "Do you want something cold to press on that?"

"Find the one who'll guide you."
To the limits of your choice.

tags: @Red
notes: here

The coywolf sat down with a huff, feeling that the act of standing had drained her of energy. She continued grinning all the same, though, happy with her progress after such a rough start. The scaly thing was making sounds with its mouth again, and looking at her as if it expected her to understand. All she heard, though, was random noises that made absolutely no sense. Her head tilted from side to side, ears perked. Curiously, she opened and closed her mouth, but nothing happened. How was the silvery scaly thing doing that with her mouth? Was it the only one who could make noises like that? Red knew she could bark and growl, but those noises were not the noises that the scaly thing was making. The scaly thing’s noises were more… sophisticated. They had a cadence and a rhythm. Barking just sounded rough and simple. Red whined again, this time in frustration and curiosity. How are you making those noises?

@Asimona

This was annoying. She had no idea how to communicate or teach this wolf to communicate. The tip of her tail twitched irritably as she tried to think of a way to get across to this small wolf. If she had a spell of empathy or telepathy, then it would probably be a different story, but she knew none of those and she had no idea how to learn them either.

Maybe if she took it one step at a time. Go slowly, one word at a time. "You can learn," she murmured. "I'll teach you." If she understood, somehow, maybe she would understand what she was doing.

She pointed at herself. "Dragon." She said it slowly before turning her claw towards the wolf. "Dog." She repeated it, pointing at herself and then the wolf. She nodded at the dog and looked at her expectantly, hoping that she would pick up on it.

"Find the one who'll guide you."
To the limits of your choice.

tags: @Red
notes: here