I.

I?

Something changes. A little bit of awareness forms. 'I am'. am I? The ideas are there but it is hard to form them into shapes. I am? What? What I am? A little something tells me that I am. I am all. I am not the same, but the same. A twitch. I become aware of shapes. 'Body'. Me. Yes, I am, my body, me. Another twitch. This time I feel it more clearly and try to make it happen again. It does, but not as strong? Other parts of Me are beginning to be felt. Twitching and demanding. 'Move'. Yes, I want to move. Stronger. But something stops me. Something not Me is around Me. My moving pushes against it and it pushes back. The harder I push, the harder it pushes me!

I start to thrash, as much as I can, until something on Me catches on the Not-me. Weak. Here. I focus on the place, it is there nearby. I can reach. Reach with the closest of Me but also some further of Me. Some of the Me that was later to wake is caught in it and guides the rest of Me. I get another further of Me to get caught and I shake. I feel it give a bit. Again! It moves and lets go. Part of Me is now past the Not-me. I thrash and shake again and the hole widens, allowing more of Me to move. There is nothing Not-me stopping Me past it, and I push and drag. I feel something that is not Me and not Not-me flow slowly through the hole as well.

In comes another something. It almost does not feel like anything but fills what is gone. A desire takes over and I move part of Me, part of my body, drawing it in. 'Breathe'. I breathe. The thing that is almost not felt fills me and gives me what I didn't know I needed. Breathe. For a moment I just breathe, but some of the Not-not-me that flowed out, it is coating me and enters me as I breathe. 'Taste'. It tastes. It tastes like I want more. I move my body around as much as I can and find some. 'Eat'. I find a part of Me there that helps me eat. Mouth. Tongue. Thinking becomes easier as I eat.

I alternate eating and breathing. It does not take long before I become aware of an itch. It feels very close to the part of me that is me. I move my tongue around, trying to find it. I feel a rough something with my tongue at the same time as I feel a less rough something on me. That is me. I am covered with the food. Using my tongue to explore and eat I feel more of my body, until I find the part that itches. The tongue rubs on it and the itching becomes less, but doesn't go away. Suddenly something gives.

'Light'! I am frozen. The sensation too much. 'Color'. I see colors. 'Dark'. Even though there is some light and color, it is not much. Something in me makes me flex something and a thin bit of Me moves over the bit that was just uncovered. 'Eye, eyelids, head.' My eye, eyelids, in my head. I blink again and realize there is another itch. After working on it with my tongue another eye opens. Blinking a few more times with both eyes, my sight becomes clearer. What am I seeing? I bend my head to look at my body. I am still mostly caught in the Not-me, but in the Not-me is some more of the Not-not-me. I drag myself further out, turn around and eat and breathe and eat and breathe and eat. Soon, all the food is gone. Is the Not-me food? I move my mouth, my tongue, but I do not manage to take some of it inside. I grab with my mouth and move. It lets go and I swallow. It is not food and not tasty, but I feel I need it, so I continue.

I feel an itch in my mouth. It also itches at other places. 'Feet/hands/paws/claws. Hold, slash, fight'. The Not-me is about half gone. 'Egg. Eggshell'. My egg. My tongue reaches out to some of the egg and brushes along the itch in my mouth. There is something there now! 'Teeth/fangs/canines/molars. Eat, bite, fight'. The new things flooding my mind make me pause, but soon hunger urges me to consume the rest of the egg. I feel the itching in other places of my body. I am growing, but I can't care, the hunger demands to be satisfied.

Soon, there is no egg and I pause. With my tongue I chase the last bits and remains of the Not-not-me from the surface beneath me. Ground, dirt. My hunger temporarily less, I look around. I see things moving. Me not me, 'others, hatchlings'. I recognize them, somehow, as being like me, but they are not me. Some are looking around in an empty place, like me, others are still consuming their egg. Other eggs are moving, those inside trying to get out. Around me are five eggs. Four are moving but the fifth is not. I move closer to it and breathe in. After a short moment, I breathe in differently. 'Smell-taste, breathe, nose'.

The smell is foul and delicious. It smells like a me but wrong and it smells like food. I carefully run a claw over it, scratching the surface. It breaks apart, much easier than my own that was more flexible, but not as hard. The being inside it is not like me. Maybe it could have been, but the head is wrong and so are other parts. Arms/legs. Stillbirth. Dead. It is a strange concept, but I understand it is food. I close my jaws around the head, it's tiny head fitting easily, and bite. Strange tastes overwhelm me for a moment and it takes a while before I remember to swallow. Brain. The brain is where the Me is.

Something alerts me. Ears, sound, hearing. All I know is something large is approaching. My instinct is to cover myself and I look around, but there is nothing but hatching eggs, still eggs and others like me around. My hunger returns and I turn back to the food, only to look at one like me. It is eating a limb and I pull the other limb off the dead thing. Together we eat its pitiful body and the egg. Occasionally one of my ears twitches as I hear the big thing approaching from the distance. Sometimes a cry or screech is heard from one of the others.

When we get to the last bit it tries to push me away, but I push back. We are evenly matched and it screeches at me. I screech back and a much louder sound than what it produced comes from my mouth. It backs down quickly and starts crawling around, looking for more food. Something makes me look around and I see a number of the others like me staring at me. One screeches at me, even louder than I did! We stare at one another until we are startled by a deep rumbling sound. All heads turn in the same direction.

There is the large thing I heard coming! It is so big! The body is surprisingly slender. The skin, much like my own but... More so! Red, black, grey, wing, tail. I am excited! She. Brood-tender. She is a caretaker for us, the brood. She has long, long limbs, slender and sinewy. Her claws are also longer and more slender than ours are in comparison and end in talons that end in little stumps. Mine are sharp.

The reason for this becomes clear as she moves between the eggs while touching the ground only with her talons, making sure not to touch any of the eggs or hatchlings by accident, staying above us on her long claws while her long limbs allow her to pick her way around. Her leathery, tough looking skin is mostly dark red with some grey undertones and a black pattern of stripes along the length of it. Knotty bumps cover it in an irregular pattern. A line of short spikes can be seen from the back of her neck to the small of her back, continuing on the long, slender, whip-like tail, which has a barb on the end. It moves restlessly from side to side and for a moment I am mesmerized.

Her hind quarters are slender, but her chest is much broader. From her back, a bit behind her front limbs, extrude a third pair of limbs. They are longer and thinner with skin somehow stretched between some parts. Wings, I confirm. Her head is almost stumpy and small in comparison. A round skull framed by two wide, pointy ears which move this way and that, catching sound I can not hear. She comes closer. She has a small snout which opens very wide, showing rows of small, pointy teeth with thin fangs at the top and the bottom at the front. Above the mouth are two large nasal holes, running from the front to almost to the back, near her eyes. The eyes are huge and seem to glow red with a little inner light. she blinks, wiping the clear inner eyelids across her eyes. She demonstrates she also has a long tongue as she snatches up one of those like me. From here I can see it has one limb that is tiny. A quick bite and she drops the dead thing back down. It takes me a moment to realize this means there is more food!

I try to struggle forwards, but my limbs do not want to carry me as hers carry her. I fall and get up again. After this I have lost the direction the food is in, so I look around for something, anything! Suddenly it is darker. Shadow. Something grabs me, stops me from moving. I struggle but this time it does not help. I am moved, up, up and around and see. I see Her. She smells me and grunts, then moves me to a place on her flank. Reflexively I sink my claws into her skin before she releases me. I look around me and see another of the hatchlings nearby. It is biting one of the lumps. They do smell nice, so I unhook a limb and grab myself closer to one. One by one I move my limbs until I can reach one with my mouth.

I bite and bite and bite until a new taste fills my mouth. Blood. A trickle of blood fills my mouth and it almost makes me lose my grasp. It is rich, it is filled with something, it tastes great. Energy. As long as I keep biting a small trickle of the blood keeps flowing, but it quickly stops if I stop. Meanwhile, more hatchlings are placed around me and find their own lumps to bite.

I can feel whatever is in the blood changing me, just like the egg, but I can't care. The taste is delicious, but even so, I can't keep up the biting. Slowly my attention drifts and my consciousness leaves me. Sleep.

I wake from noise and discomfort. Cold, wind, noise? I look around, as much as I can from my position on the brood-tender's flank at least. I see rock, rock and an area of light. Sky, outside. We are moving towards the brighter light and the brood-tender starts to jog. I reflexively grip tighter with my claws, slightly surprised as they truly sink in a bit deeper. They feel stronger and longer than at first. With a snap that draws my attention the brood-tender unfolds her wings and jumps!

I hadn't realized my mouth was slightly open until the wind cut into it. I close it and breathe through my nose. I can smell the lump next to my mouth, delicious, but unfortunately this is not a good time to bite it. The wind is also unbearable for my sensitive eyes. Quickly I close the inner eyelids and my vision turns a little blurrier. Not by much and at least my eyes don't hurt now. I can still move my head around a bit and see what can be seen in the direction we are moving. Cave, cliff, valley, tree, sun.

A red rock cliff, dotted with caves overlooking a lush forested valley. The valley is colored in hues of red, blue, black and dark green. Not much else can be seen from where I hang on. A large red sun hangs low in the sky. Dawn, day, warm, dusk, night. It feels warm, it must have been day with the sun now setting. Hanging onto the cliff, crawling over it and flying around are dozens of others. Imp, spawn, scamp. They are the ones like me but not all alike. We are the same, yet not the same. With a common birth, but different paths.

Suddenly I sense it and I am part of it. The Swarm, with one purpose and one goal, to serve the Queens. Just as suddenly the sensation goes again. It leaves me dizzy and I try to rest for the time being. I try to move a bit to reduce the effect of the wind on me, but I am loathe to release my grasp, so there is not much I can do. We seem to be going down in a wide spiral. Wherever the brood-tender takes us better have food.

It does have food! I can smell it from meters away and can feel myself becoming restless. With a shock that makes me lose my grip with one rear claw, the brood-tender lands and takes a few steps before she starts to pluck us off of her. I am the fifth she grabs. I try to hold on but she effortlessly drags me off, my claws barely leaving a mark on her skin. She just drops me on top of some of the others. I try to get away, but it is harder than I thought. My limbs just don't seem to want to do what I want them to do! The others seem to have the same problem and are hindering me as well. Then another hatchling gets dropped on top of us and the whole struggle starts again.

When I get myself out of the heap I see some of the others already eating. I study the food and inhale deeply, imprinting any and all smells attached to them. Secti, bug. I bite at what looks like a leg sticking out. It is crunchy and breaks off easily but eating it doesn't fill me much. I bite at the body and am met with my first real failure. Carapace. It is just too hard and I can't get through. I try to get a purchase on it with my claws also and bite at different places. Finally I manage to get through. Abdomen. The food below is right and good, but different from what I have tasted before. At first I swallow as fast as I can, but it is uncomfortable. I start to bite off smaller pieces and bite them again a few times. Chew. They are easier to swallow now. It also gives more taste, it is not unpleasant. I decide I like chewing. While the hard parts do not taste like much, I eat as much of it as I can anyway. My taste and smell tell me I should and who am I to argue with me?

We get moved to different piles of food a few times by other brood-tenders. There are other hatchlings there too, some of them bigger than me and they often push me away when I find something very tasty. Pisci, Serpi, rachni, chori, tauri, horn, stinger, palpi, scale, fur. My memory keeps bringing up information as I encounter new things to eat or see. Poison gland. Unfortunately I did not get to eat that last one, a larger hatchling snatches it away. It moves a bit unsteady afterwards, but it was fine again after a while. My mind tells me poison is dangerous, but not dangerous? I will find out. Occasionally more food is brought in.

It feels like a long time has passed, it is starting to get dark. The feeding is at an end, very little is left. During my feeding I was sometimes interrupted by a tender bringing more hatchlings. they are now smaller than me and if they get in the way I give them a push. I did manage to get a poison gland, it was tingly and made me walk funny. Yes, I walk now! I am already much stronger! Still, I am nowhere as big or strong as a brood-tender. A different one than the first picks me up and pushes me against its skin. I grab on and move to one of the lumps and start biting. More of the others are attached to her flanks until she stops. She walks to the cliff and starts to climb. There is a ledge some way up the cliff. I see more are climbing to it. When they reach it they run, jump and move their wings. As the brood-tender reaches the ledge, she unfolds her wings and prepares.