Mama speaks, and you don't understand a word, but the sound of her voice is a song woven through the bones of you. It's a part of you like the still-sharp air in your lungs, like the grass underfoot. You know it because you've heard it since before you could think. I mean, you're still not super great at thinking, but... Your head tips up and your delicate features are animate, alive with a vacant, utterly blissful brilliance. You lean into your mother's touch like a flower (moonflower?) growing toward the sun (and other stars?).

(Okay. That metaphor was bad.)

You receive your name now, though it means nothing to you. In time, I think it will. In time you will be Virga — something strong and warm — whatever that means, right? Ignorant of both prediction and intention, you snuggle close to your mom, and her lips are warm and welcome against the crown of your head, though her whiskers brush your ears in a ticklish sort of way and eventually you duck your head and give yourself a full-body shake. Impressive! I mean, considering you couldn't even stand a few minutes ago. You almost don't make it through the shake, but some kind of autopilot is coming online in your head and beginning to account for this reckless behavior. We'll call this another prediction: you're gonna need that not-quite-conscious athleticism in the future. Hopefully it levels up with you as you grow.

So, for a while you're busy nursing because that's what foals do, right? Right. You've got your head shoved up under Mama's stomach and you don't notice much about the rest of the world because you're hungry, so hungry. Being born's hard work, after all! Eventually you get tired of that and want to do some other stuff, though. You have a name and you can stand and move around and — holy shit! There's some kind of — of — monster other thing in here and when did that get there?

You go all freezy bow-legged for a long time and you just sort of stare at it. You've never seen anything like this. And if you had the capacity to think about it you might realize there was another voice joining Mama's before, but you weren't really clued in to the whole voices-belong-to-people fact and now your little heart wants more than anything to claw its way out from between your ribcage and run off and live feral with a colony of rabbits. Your tail stands straight up to express this calamity, and your head goes straight up, too, milk dripping from your long, fine whiskers.

The — wings? — on this mare don't immediately strike you as wings. Actually, nothing about the stranger screams kind like Mama sings kind, like Vesper does. And you remember Vesper suddenly, and skitter over to hide behind her or something. Maybe you just want to be next to her; maybe you feel like you're only facing things the right way if it's at her right side. Maybe you just want to make sure she's seen the danger and is not about to get gobbled up, because that's how a good brother behaves. Yeah, actually I'm sure that's it. So you stumble over to her to protect her because you're brave and shit, even though you look like you might actually fly apart any second due to nerves. Suddenly those spindly legs are spindly again, untrustworthy, and you're glad Mama's close by in case you fall or really need to hide under her stomach. You don't quite feel the need to hide yet, though, and your neck cranes as you try to stare the weird mare down, little ears twitching and twitching, like satellites looking for a read. Safe? Danger? Safe? Danger?