Areli

It is too soon to leave this place, the warm dark world that has always been your home, but it seems that the landlady has decided to evict you without warning. You shift in protest, trying your best to wriggle your way deeper into the womb, but she’s having none of it. Out you go.

What follows next is the most uncomfortable experience in your young life. Wherever this wave is taking you, it’s unpleasantly tight here—not the comforting kind of cozy that your home was. Though your thoughts are still half-formed and fuzzy, you get the picture. In your primitive version of, “All right, you win!” you submit to the contractions, letting them carry you forward. It’s too cramped in here anyways.

It seems that your instinct was correct, for nearly as soon as you cease your struggle, there’s suddenly more space. A lot more space. Tiny heart beats faster as you feel your hooves slip into a great unknown. Your teacup muzzle does its best to follow suit, stretching forward, eagerly probing through the damp darkness in search of the space ahead. Tightness, tightness…walls contract around you with alarming force, but with all of the determination in your little body, you burrow your head into…

…the world. In a powerful rush, the contraction releases, propelling you into what your infant mind can only comprehend as emptiness—pure emptiness. It is unsettling, the feeling here: all your life you have been held, cradled and cushioned in a floating world, but now there’s simply…nothing. Panicked, you thrash about, seeking the boundaries of this new place, but your flailing hooves meet with nothing but the embryonic sac, which gives way at your touch. Without thinking, you gasp for air, and the transformation is complete. Things will never be the same.

• • • • • •

Blearily, baby eyes blink and long lashes flutter, drawing back the curtains to three suns: one big one on the outside, and two little ones reflected in the pale gold of your irises. Images bombard your brain, and you snort in childish surprise—there’s just so much here! Then, as if from a distance, you hear a voice. It is oddly familiar, as if you’ve heard it before…but how could you? Just a moment ago, you were in a completely different place! “Areli,” it whispers, and you feel a sense of wonder flood your body as you look up into the face of your mother for the first time. It’s a creamy blur, but a beautiful one, you think as you crane your neck. Wait, where’s it--? The blur is getting bigger, and bigger, and bigger, until…! Something warm and rough and strong caresses your forehead, and your muscles relax instinctively as she cleans you.

“Areli.” There it is again! But this time, you realize, turning your head to see a more gold-ish blur, someone else is making that sound. And a lot of other sounds too. “Grea…ahead o…Areli…all…Edge…deavors…will love youas…rown." Transfixed, you stare at this blob, wobbly neck doing its utmost best to hold your oversized head steady. Whoa.

OOC: Yay!