Pressure, driving pressure, disturbed the dark tranquility. The steady drumming to which her heart kept time increased rapidly, and the pressure kept driving upon herself and her sibling until abruptly there was but one heart keeping her company, the one that strained. And then the pressure drove her out, out of the dark and the warmth, and into the light and the relative cold.

Petite nares flared to draw in crisp lungfuls of the alien substance of air, startling cold but refreshing as it expanded her sides with each inhalation. The surface below her was hard, cool, and prickly. Enough so that it drove her to lurch more-or-less upright, drawing her legs against her body as she held up her head from the uncomfortable ground. Quizzically she began to look around, only to be transfixed by a twitching, swaying thing just beyond her farthest legs. At first she was unable to comprehend that this thing was a part of her, until she reached out her muzzle toward it and realized she could flick it closer. Tail, was the satisfied thought that crossed her mind, before an enormous head suddenly interposed itself between herself and the enticing view of her twitching tail, and she started slightly before registering the tender nature of the touch of muzzle against skin. She looked up, and up.... and up... past the other's head and neck until her own was craned to the point of discomfort. Big, she thought, blinking at the giant's leathery wings.

From the corner of her eye she saw another like herself, and she twisted her neck to regard the filly with the golden scales. Sister, she acknowledged with a thought, intuitively knowing that this was the one who'd shared the dark with her. Somewhat belatedly she noticed the crumpled appendage the rested on her sibling's side, and then peered up again at the giant who'd touched her. Father? she wondered, oblivious to the rumbling words that had earlier been uttered, for now oblivious to the others who stood and lay so near, yet beyond herself, her sister, and her father.

Suddenly she felt a drive to be as tall as the giant who stood over her, and she gathered her legs beneath her in preparation for the effort, then lurched upward. Her forelegs managed to get braced on the ground, but the nature of the lurch had set her own wings flailing outward. Surprised, she turned her head to sniff at the leathery appendage that sprouted from her shoulder, then peered around at the other one. A few moments' thought and concentration garnered an intentional up and down wave of one, then the other. Quite pleased with herself she then lurched forward to stick her hind feet beneath her. Precariously she stood balanced on all fours, wings and legs splayed to maintain that balance, while her golden eyes peered around quizzically again.

There, another giant figure stood nearby. Not quite so giant as Father, and its wings were feathery instead of bare like her own. She wanted to sniff them, feel them, but didn't feel secure enough to toddle the few steps required to reach them.

There, a huddled group. One standing, golden like her sister's scales and marked with a paler color. Two others lying down, dark like the darkness that marked her earliest moments of awareness. "M-Mother?" she queried, unsure which dark figure was which. For the moment she was oblivious of the dragons and the griffon, transfixed with discovering who was Mother.