It's dark, until it's not. It isn't, until it just is. The colt isn't aware of much about the process, except that he's wet and cold and there's a thing rasping across his body, clearing his airways so he can gasp in his first precious gulp of air. He blinks, and light floods his ice-blue irises. He sees lots of different things; there's a sweaty grey lump next to him, the owner of the thing that's licking him, and he instinctively knows her to be his mother. There's a massive hulking someone nearby, and the newborn doesn't know what that is, except that it's big and winged and antlered and scary.

Then there's something next to him, too. Something dressed in red, something still, something not-life. He racks his confused young brain, until he realises that this not-life bundle is the sister who has nestled against him through the long pregnancy, sharing his nutrients, sharing his world.

His mother makes an odd sound, a sound of fear and misery and sorrow. The boy tries to twist around to watch what's happening, somewhat put-out that his dam's attention should leave him so quickly, but this temporary spurt of jealousy is just that - temporary. He wobbles and squirms and wiggles until he can see what's happening, and emits a startled howl as a big white thing dives in to puncture the red bag with razor teeth. Now he can see her - sister-calf, with her nubs of horns and her wings (not that he knows the things sticking out of their shoulders are wings; they're just useless lumps of feathers at the moment), but she's not moving, not gasping the air as he had. Mother licks her, and the colt watches, entranced, as finally she breathes.

This is a relief. He gives a joyous whinny and shuffles closer to his sister, snuggling back against her; entwined just as they'd spent the last dozen months.

Instinct tells him he should try to stand, so he can drink from his mother for the first time, but instinct is overruled in favour of pressing his damp, velvet muzzle into every nook and cranny of his twin. He memorises her, devours each contour and lump and sistery-bit, until he is satisfied that he is reacquainted with her after their several minutes apart. He pokes her with his nose, chirping an odd foal-noise; his way of asking her shall we try this standing business, then? Because he has no intentions of leaving the ground unless she does, too.