Chapter 2:

Words and Shapes

Serpentes


Father sweeps away the blood trail with his tail and leaves some huge marks with his tail in front of the hole, I guess that's supposed to scare away any unwanted guests. Mother's looking after the eggs which haven't shown any reactions no matter how many times I poke them. Hmm… maybe I should hit them just a little bit harder.


As if to almost read my mind mother gives me a stern look, I guess that's a no huh… Well, I guess I'll just admire father's tail in the meantime; Father seems to be taking a nap so this should be easy. His body is much longer than Mother's, his scales are tougher and more uniform and his fangs are long, black, and glisten slightly.


His tail is shaped differently than mine and Mother's; unlike our's the shape of the tail sifts gradually from the cylindrical body to a much sharper and refined shape especially at the sides. The top and bottom of the tail are covered in the same type of scales as the main body though these are much thicker, the scales close to the sides on the other hand are a completely different shape. They aren't as thick as the other scales, but they've got a sharp edge and feel rougher than the other scales. It's like a sword...


It's just so cool.. but why is it so different from Mother's? Mine is pretty similar to her, her's is just bigger, maybe my siblings will have different tails.


Just as I was wondering that I spot movement from one of the eggs. Mother doesn't seem to have noticed yet since she's busy covering our food behind rocks, I should tell her. The egg isn't moving anymore, but I'm pretty sure its resident is waking up. I poke Mother a few times; she notices my call for attention and picks me up by the tip of her tail.


I point with my tail at the egg that was moving and she forms a coil around the eggs again, just as she had done when I hatched. I hop off mother and lightly push my head against the egg, I can hear it moving inside.


Alright, it should start any second now…. any second now.. maybe now.. maybe it needs just a little bit of encouragement, mother immediately stops me with a quick hiss. I was going to be really gentle, well I guess it just means we'll have to wait.


The other egg moves a little, expands slightly and cracks start appearing, I turn to tell Mother. but it seems that she has already noticed. As we were waiting for the egg resident to emerge, father wakes up and noticing our focus on the eggs makes his way to us.


While the cracked egg was breaking apart slowly but surely, the other egg that still didn't have a single crack moved again. I can feel it moving inside, but it's hasn't made a crack. Mother and Father are more focused on the cracked egg.


I lightly tap twice on the other egg, Mother notices and moves me away from the eggs. Now all I can do is wait for the eggs to hatch. This is pretty annoying, but one of them is pretty close to hatching so it shouldn't take too long.


It's been an eternity, but at long last, the egg is almost about to hatch, I thought I was going to die of boredom if it had taken any longer, but finally, the time has come. The other egg has been moving more frequently, but it still hasn't cracked even a little bit; what's it doing in there?


A tiny head pokes out, the piece of eggshell falls off its head and it looks at us and immediately hides back in its shell. Hey, I'm not that scary… oh, it's probably because of mother and father. I look back at them and yup, I can see why anyone would be scared of these two giants, especially when one of them is showing off its fangs, Mother closes his mouth and while the fangs are still visible he still looks less scary.


Mother expands her coil while I make my way to greet my new sibling. The other egg again spins then tilts one way heavily; just as I notice it, a huge piece of the eggshell flies over me and a hatchling lands right in front of me, talk about an entrance.


It takes a second for it to get used to the light, after which it starts examining its surroundings. I can't tell what it's thinking while looking at me. It notices Father eagerly shifting closer behind me and seems confused; he's not that scary when he isn't showing off his fangs.


Remembering that there is still one sibling that hasn't left its egg, I make my way towards the shell and tap it lightly twice. It pokes its head out and makes eye contact with me. Looking closer, this one has a much sleeker head compared to my first sibling, it's more similar to Mother's head in shape. 


 It slithers out of its shell and tries to take in its surroundings, after spinning around a few too many times I stop it from continuing. I get it this cave is huge and the crystals are shiny, but please calm down. 

Mother slowly approaches us which results in it hiding behind me. Mother then lays her head and body on the ground to make herself more approachable. I move towards her and show that she means well. It nervously moves towards her and touches her scales, then looks in her eyes to see a reflection of itself.


Meanwhile... I turn to see that the first sibling is enjoying a joyride on Father's head. Both of my siblings have normal tails like me, so Father's is an anomaly for now. Mother raises her head off the ground and places a piece of meat from the Lepus Class... This has been happening constantly, names and words appearing in my head out of nowhere. I don't mind it since they help me understand things like eggs, crystals, caves, blood, swords... that last one I don't understand, but I think it is something similar to Father's tail.

Then there are these classes, Lepus for this long-eared furry creature with long teeth and Canine for the thin-snouted one with fangs. There was also the thing that was my first meal, an Insect. The thing that bugs me the most is where these things are coming from, they don't feel like things I've thought up at all.

That's as far as I can understand this for now, because I'm hungry. We ate the meat and drank water from a pool in the corner of our cave, it was really cold. Nothing happened for what felt like a long time.

-june-
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Glaiviator
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