Iskra

Let it go, just let it be, you be you, and I'll be me

The eggshells seemed to breathe as they bulged and moved and struggled against the treasure bursting forth from within. Iskra was so intent upon the egg, his attention entirely stolen by the process, that the rest of the world had dropped away from him - even Squishy. He crept even closer, his breath tangled in his lungs as he watched, and waited in eager anticipation, his whole body tense as if he himself were fighting for that freedom just on the other side of the thin calcium casing.

Finally it was free, a little tail fluke popping out with an abruptness that made Iskra pull back suddenly and gasp, and then he laughed as the rest of the whale came spilling out onto the sand. At some point during this, his mother's bellow had stormed across the beach, but it had been drowned out, not by the ocean, but with love. He couldn't as easily ignore her however as she landed behind him with all the qualities of a dragon. Sand billowed against his fetlocks and peppered the infant cetacean; Iskra's wings lifted like a shield as he turned his head to look over his shoulder at the commotion. Before his features had even shifted from his unfettered joy to pure terror, he felt her heat, and though his mother had never possessed fire magic, she had always been capable of leaving a similar burning sensation. He felt it now as her teeth latched onto the folds of his haunch and tore into him.

That alone would have been horrible enough, but combined with the brief period of bliss, and the sudden and intrusive sensation of another sliding against his soul (a much more intimate feeling than Matheo's projected thoughts had ever been) as he bonded, well Iskra's emotional capacity was blown past its limits. He broke down into the most base feelings, wailing out with agony and fear, only accentuated as his mother's magic shoved him further away.

His wings wheeled in the air beside him, reaching out towards the tiny life he had helped nurture into emergence, that very same one that huddled beside his being, its own confusion and echoes of terror palpable as Iskra remnants of electricity and blood slid across Iskra's tongue. He landed in a heap in the sand, head spinning, heart full and yet aching. Bleary eyed, the boy lifted his head just in time to see Ampere advancing upon the hatchling, buffeting Squishy to the side as well, a tumbling gangle of stony limbs and mindlessness that for a moment threatened to crush the tiny whale, an event which dragged a strangled "NOOOO!" from Iskra's throat.

Holding onto something we don't need
All this delusion in our heads
Is gonna bring us to our knees