The she-wolf had worked herself ragged but, finally, she felt that she was ready.

The Chrysalises were due to hatch any day, if you asked her. She'd only ever given life to a single Gemstone before, and so she was no expert, but the Gemstones had all grown big--varying sorts of big, but big--and she could make out shapes inside. So, in her opinion, they were ready.

She had prepared the new Tunnel as best she could--seeing as she didn't know what was inside, however, she had had to guess. There was a heap of meats of varying freshness against one wall, dead bugs not far from it, and a massive pile of bananas near those. She was no plant-eater, but she was able to eat those as well, so they were a safe alternative if one of the Gemlings couldn't eat meat nor insects. Jayberry worried that she should have hoarded some plants, as well, but she wasn't sure how to tell which plants were edible, and how to tell if they'd gone off, and so went for the safer option.

She had made a primitive nest of sorts, nothing like the one she missed so dearly. It was nothing more than clumps of fur that she had shed, and that she had found as she went along, or tore off the carcasses of her prey. Feathers, that she had found or plucked. Mosses, as well. It had not, however, seen a night's sleep, as she had spent the last several days pacing the length of the tunnel, fearing that she would wake to find that the newest Bloodberries had hatched in her sleep, and that the white stag or the green cat had slipped in and stolen them away.

And so she continued to pace, tail lashing as she anxiously waited for the Chalcedony, Jet, and Bloodstone to hatch. She had such high hopes for them all and, despite how hard she had tried not to, she had the most hopes for the largest one, the Chalcedony. But either way, she would love them all.

Long had the pale blue chalcedony grown, twisting in strange shapes, layers of gem making up a crystal around the size of a medium-sized dog. It was hard to see the creature inside, as it was barely a shadow - absolute black and no variation.

Within, the creature stirred, at long last. And the first thing it knew was pain. Mostly in its mouth, where the shard of chalcedony pressed down against their tongue, uncomfortably sitting in an unfortunate spot. Blood red eyes snapped open, but they were strange. Clouded. Everything was blurry and dim and all they could see was darkness. They felt squished and scrunched, their body now too large for the confines of the shell and they thought, perhaps, if they were free, the pain would go away and they would be able to see better.

So they braced their front legs forward, wolf-like paws pressing against the shell while their second set of legs tried their best to help, but the deformed lumps of flesh could do nothing to weaken the chrysalis. It took many tries of slamming against the shell, the creature growing more and more frustrated by the second, before cracks finally began to appear and the blue gem split open.

They were dumped onto the ground unceremoniously, their chin banging against the rock beneath them, sending a stabbing pain through their mouth from the gemstone. They made a shouting, gurgling noise from the pain and tried to pull themselves the rest of the way out of the gemstone.

When they looked back, however, everything was still blurry and dim. They could barely see at all. They thought that leaving the chrysalis would make their vision better. Why wasn't it getting better?

A distressed sound came from their throat as they blinked and whipped their head around. There was someone nearby. A black thing. With fur like theirs. Instinctively, they crawled forward, trying to use the more useful front paws to carry themselves, but quickly realized that they just weren't strong enough. The horribly deformed feet, instead, came forward, scraping at the rock, trying to support their weight as they crawled towards their mother. She would help, wouldn't she? Right? She could make them see and she could make the pain go away?

@Nettleberry

She was tired.

The Bloodstone had grown, but not much. It remained rounded, but grew outward, could be considered oval in shape if it weren't so rough. The creature inside was little more than a blur, pressed up against the chrysalis, hidden by the shadow of the little cave her Mother had tucked her Gemstone into.

The hybrid was sprawled awkwardly, shoulders arched up as her own Gemstone, the one set half-inside her chest, propped her up. It was uncomfortable, but she didn't know otherwise, and so didn't struggle much as her hind paws whump-whump-whumped weakly against her chrysalis. When it didn't give, she took a moments break.

Jayberry, of course, was on the opposite end of the tunnel when the creature inside of the Chalcedony began to come to life. Her ears perked, picking up the familiar sound of something striking against its Chrysalis, the whuth-whuth-whuth of soft flesh against something hard. She whirled, eyes widening. It was time, it was time! Which one was it? The Jet, the middle sized one? The Bloodstone, the smallest? Or the Chalcedony, the biggest one? Her mind immediately went to the Chaledony, admittedly, expecting the largest to be the strongest, the most aspiring.

She whirled about, and began to sprint, stumbling and tripping like an over-eager puppy not used to their too-long legs. Her claws left gouges in the dirt, and she skidded, but she made it to the Chalcedony in time to watch, breathlessly, as the pale blue chrysalis finally, after the half-a-cycle she had been aware, split open.

Jayberry dug in her hind legs, staring in horror at the monster that crawled clear of it. It slammed into the ground, chin slamming into the ground. The she-wolf flinched, ears flattening, staring in horror at the monster she had made. Long, twisting antlers, clumps of black fur. Misshapen paws, and three sets of legs. One was too short to be of any use, ending in paws, another ending in nothing useful. They looked like something from a horror story, making horrific sounds as it began to drag itself towards her.

She jolted forward, lowering her head to place it under there's, attempting to help lever him to his feet. "It's okay, Gojiberry, it's okay. You are my child, my Gojiberry, you can do this. On your feet, my child, on your feet."

@Agony

The creature looked up at the wolf as they got closer but then froze. They couldn't see very well, but they were close enough to catch all the horror in her expression. They could see the revulsion and the shock on her face. And they knew that she hated them for what they were, that they were a monster.

Desperate to know why, why she was looking at them like that, they looked back and really looked at themselves. They had seen the patch of fur on their neck before and thought it had covered their body but now...now they realized that it was only a patch. The rest was scaled hide and the patches of fur were uneven and scraggly and horrible to look at. And they already knew about their feet, the misshapen flesh that made up their front legs and the useless, weak paws that hung in front of them. Their cloudy eyes turned back towards their mother, long ears pulled back as they stared at her.

Her nose was under their body but they were frozen in shock. They barely gave any effort into getting to their feet. The name rang through their head. Gojiberry? And that was the first streak of anger that they felt. That this wolf, who looked in shock and horror, who's fur they carried and who's paws hung before them, who they realized had been the one to create the monster they realized that they were, had the absolute audacity to give them the most ridiculous, the dumbest and stupidest name she could think of.

"No," they snarled, finally putting effort into standing. And instead of letting the wolf help them up, they pushed against her with their front paws and staggered away, but the deformed paws they were forced to stand on were awkward and their instincts said that was wrong. They stumbled and flopped back to the ground, glaring at the wolf, but then quickly looking away.

@Nettleberry

The Gemling in the Bloodstone was weak, and still tired. Her paws thudded, again, against the chrysalis, so weakly that her Mother, so worried with her already-beloved Son, didn't hear her.

But she was unable to put enough effort into it to make even a crack, and so went back to resting.

Her heart twisted as Gojiberry refused to stand, refused to attempt to get to their feet. 'Please, don't do this. Don't give up.' she couldn't lose any more family, she couldn't. "Up, my son, up." his scales were rough against her skin, and she wondered what his stone-giver may have been. But he was Gojiberry, now, and so it didn't matter. He was her son, her blood, her child.

"Up, Gojiberry, up." she murmured, nudging them more insistantly, pressing the rounded tops of her hurns into the underside of their chest. "You are my child, and no child of mine gives up." He was a monster, a poorly creature who she should have killed, who she should have put out of its misery, but he was her child, and she would do whatever he needed until he could care for himself.

And for now, that meant helping him stand. His first time getting to his feet, the beginning of his life. If he didn't rise, his life wouldn't begin, and she would not abide that. She would not beget a failure, would not stand by and watch as her child collapsed and died before her. She would not lose another member of her family.

To her relief, they stood. And they did so without her help, shoving himself to his feet without her help. It was a good sign, he would be independent. But, "No?" she stepped forward, wanting to help them again, "No, what?"

@Agony

The newly named Gojiberry glared at the wolf where she stood. There was so much emotion churning through their head that they couldn't help but tremble from it all. Their eyes looked from the wolf to the chrysalis that was moving around and that was when they realized that there was more. Two more. Eyes widened and their mouth gaped open. Two more monsters.

Clouded eyes moved back towards the wolf and a snarl curled their lips. They ignored her question and everything else she said. "Who are you?!" Their words were warped and muffled, crushed by the gem in the roof of their mouth. As she stepped forward, they shuffled back, tripping on their own front legs and sprawling back on the ground. With a low gurgling noise, they scrambled back to their feet, determined to not let her help them. Instead, they glanced at the bloodstone and an idea came to their head.

That would prove to her that they didn't need her help. They tripped forward and opened their mouth, grabbing the bloodstone between their blunt teeth. The long canines stabbed at the stone and they bit down, hard enough to try and break the fragile chrysalis but not so hard that they would lose control and bite on whatever was in their mouth.

@Nettleberry

The Gemling didn’t have long to rest.

Her Gemstone collapsed around her, and hazy red eyes snapped open. She gasped, inhaling embryonic fluid, immediately coughing as she found herself on the ground. The hybrid kicked her legs weakly, squirming around, gaze darting this way and that as she tried to make sense of the blurry mess that was this world, only able to make out a pair of black shapes not far from her.

'Who are you!?' her son demanded, and the wolf's long tail twitched. He was looking, looking with eyes hazed, seemingly coated with clouds pulled from a sky she had never seen, coated with the fog from Cetus, between her and his two unhatched siblings. The Jet had yet to move, and she was worried, but the Bloodstone was twitching, surely preparing to Hatch as well.

"I am your Mother," she said calmly, pain curling in her chest at the muffling of his voice, the way he didn't know her. This was wrong, she had failed. She wanted Mother, Mother would know what to do. Her ears flattened back, feeling nothing less than pure shame at the way he was so desperate to get away from her--was she so monstrous? So horrific to look at that even a newborn Gembound that knew no different was afraid of her?

And then he was lunging for the Bloodstone. Her eyes widened, and she jolted forward "Gojiberry, no!" but she wasn't quite fast enough, and suddenly there was another monster, a sickly looking windhopper-looking beast, sprawled out on the ground. It kicked out, and she couldn't tell if it struck her son, but she quickly stepped between them, growling "Gojiberry, we are family! You, me, Nettleberry, together we are all Bloodberries. No matter what, we never hurt family."

@Agony