It is black and wet and warm where I am, cramped and crowded too for I am not alone but I do not mind.  This other has been my constant companion all this long while and I find the presence to be a comfort.  I am content here perhaps because I am yet too simple to desire more and perhaps because I do not know that more exists.  I am drifting on a hazy cloud of half formed almost dreams, because my mind has no true impressions to dream of, when the disturbance begins.  There is a firm shoving combined with constricting squeezing as if some unseen force wishes to squish me flat.  My body is forced to move away from the other that I have grown so attached to and my mind is gripped by red panic at the fuzzy concept of loneliness.  I kick and thrash in a feeble attempt to resist separation but the opposing force is so very much stronger nothing I do appears to have any impact at all.  Then all of a sudden I am alone and so, so cold...

After some time the mares struggles come to fruition and she is joined on the sands by a small but bulky boy child colored and marked much like the sire with a small rounded stub of a horn that is not yet long enough to show it’s final pattern.  His limbs are flung out gracelessly as if he’d been fighting the whole idea of birth but they appear at first glance to be whole and healthy.  In fact there are no obvious health or confirmation flaws in the lad and the mother is no doubt thinking herself lucky, if she has even thought through this far at all yet.  She moves to clean his nostrils and he breathes shakily at first but with an encouraging strength by the second or third of these breaths.  Her tongue moves to his eyes and then she becomes occupied with something new.  The colt gives a huffing, disappointed breath at the sudden lack of attention.

At first I am so cold that my body shivers and then I am suddenly warmer than I have ever been.  Still, the space along my spine where the other used to press against me remains empty and so the warmth is no comfort.  I am touched by something new, a rough and damp thing but this I do find comforting simply because it moves.  The touch is firm and gentle at the same time and tickles just a bit as it swipes across my nose.  Freed of constricting goop my nostrils flare wide and take in something else new.  Now I know breath and real life and it is good.  Good, but still lonely.  The thing swipes next across my eyes and then it is gone.  I do not know that my eyes are eyes and that they should be open but my muscles seem to, after a few tentative flutters the lids lift and remain lifted.  Dark and black is apparently not the permanent state of the world, how pleasantly surprising…

For some time all I can see is bright and I assume that this is all I will see, it makes sense coming in the wake of flat darkness.  As the seconds pass my eyes focus and I can see shapes and motion.  I see a large hulking mass stretched out not far beyond my location.  I do not yet know that this is mother or that it was the source of the short, rudimentary bath I received moments ago.  I am drawn to it though for I am not used to being alone.  While my wishes are small and lacking in conviction at this point in the span of my living, I know that alone is not something I wish to be.

The colt’s eyes flutter open and his head follows the path of mare’s withdrawal until he is steadily watching her as she sprawls again in the sand and suffers the pain of labor a second time.  His small skull tilts this way and that in what appears to be interest and then droops somewhat in what might be boredom.  The mother’s struggles continue and the boy child turns his young mind to other things… things like working out the use of his spindly legs.  At first his luck is limited, he is able to kick his hooves out and shove himself across the sand little bit by little bit but he can’t quite seem to figure out that his body is supposed to be up right.  After a few tries he becomes distracted and drops his head completely, stretching his neck out along the skratchy sand and wiggling oddly.  Still, despite his lack of focus he did manage to create just enough space to prevent his sister from landing on top of him as she joins the quickly growing family group.

These long things seem only to be good for kicking with, still some instinct suggests that there is something else I ought to be doing with them.  For a short time I put all my limited effort and energy to the task of figuring out what that is.  It does not take long before I am distracted however, in the heat the slime covering my body has begun to dry and my entire hide itches.  So I sprawl in the sand and wiggle which gives a small relief before another distraction surfaces.  An exhausted sigh of satisfaction erupts from the large thing and lifting my head again I see a small thing stretched out beside me.  Something tells me that this is the other I remember from the before time and suddenly everything is right in my little world again.

A low grunt of pleasure escapes the lips of the colt as he is joined on the sand and he rolls up, gathering his legs beneath him in what should be the start of an attempt to stand.  He does not rise yet though.  The smaller filly seems to have a better grasp of what they should be doing than her brother does but she is having greater difficulty with it.  It is not this that has distracted the lad though.  As she fights against the sand the girl has begun to cast vivid colors across her surroundings.  That cascade of brilliance is what has captured her twin’s attention and he sits there frozen eyes wide in wonder as he watches...