The rain was pouring in rivers down over the trunks of the trees. Ferns shivered in the wind that blew, the cave's weather system insistent today upon a storm. Deep beneath a tangle of grasses, nestled into the waterlogged moss, a faint consciousness stirred.

It was aware of the pattering rain outside; Eridanus was full of water and full of life, and the storms were hardly new to it. They brought the creature comfort, though it knew little else. It could not see through the vibrant golden spectrolite that encased it, but it knew the sounds, and it felt the faint drop in temperature that sometimes heralded thunder.

And this time, there was a crack--but it was not the deafening, earth-shattering crack that the creature expected. It was sharp, but quiet, and it suddenly became aware of a pressure lessening around it, a pressure it had not even noticed. It stilled further, quiet, alarm making it wary--but there was another crack, all the same, and abruptly the hatchling was spilled face-first out into the world.

Suddenly, there was color: the emerald green of the moss around it, the shifting blue-grey of the travelling mists. And there was sound, clear and unmuffled, now: the rush of the wind, the rattle of water over fibrous trunks and trembling leaves. There was also cold, bitter cold, and wet, and the hatchling scrambled out and blindly into the ferns, overwhelmed by all the sights (which hurt its eyes) and sounds (which hurt its ears), trying to find some warmth.

It darted over the path, briefly visible, if with the clumsiness of youth: golden pelt, streaked with rich spots. At first glance, it might have been a jaguar cub--yet its legs were black and birdlike, its long tail pointed and stiff. A strange, feathery black down shrouded its limbs and head, barely stubble, and soft points covered its spotted hide, like young thorns.

Tattered, scaly wings folded half-over its back, half instead dragging to either side as the youth darted into other underbrush to hide.

Shango knew, vaguely, who he was: a name had come to him at once. He had no memory of his maker, however, nor the words that had been whispered to his stone upon his creation--no memory of the wishes of the plague-ridden horse that its child be his successor. He only knew the cold, and the wet, and he hid beneath the ferns, for now.

His bright, glowing green eyes blinking, he peered into the rain, trembling in the shadows beneath the jungle growth.

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I AM THE STORM