Work Text:
Everything and nothing was happening all at once, overwhelming senses just realized, terrifying, agitating, curious, and wonderful. A nightmare truly, had the word been known by this creature.
Too new to this world to understand what was happening around it, if anything was, where it was, and what it was. But it knew well enough the feeling of warmth, the rapidly cooling slick layered upon its skin holding onto the vague memory of somewhere warm, wherever it had been before this.
Warmth slipped under the coarse skin wrapped too tight around a skull too large for this body. Had it known what it was meant to be, its predecessors before it, it would have known it was a monster. The creature squealed and one set of skin slid back, splitting in two, then a second slid back, sliding across orange sclera, pupils retracting at the onslaught of stimulation.
The creature’s body moved as it tried to wriggle closer to the warmth and the creature realized the ends of its body, twitching limbs that weakly scrabbled against the penetrating cold beneath the creature; a squirming, whipping fifth limb, a tail, slapping against the cruel floor. It squealed again and this time there was a following echo of a sound.
Soft and loud all at once. Harsh and gentle, the warmth beneath its head moved to cradle the weak bones of its neck, offering much needed support. A second warmth swept over the creature’s body, wiping away the tacky gloss from wherever it had been before.
Something leaned over the creature, dwarfing the creature in size many times over, cutting away at some of the grating stimulus gnawing that the creature’s head. Panic momentarily ran through the creature, bringing about more pathetically weakly scrabbling and prompting another cracking squeal, calling out for the echoing cry once more.
The sound repeated, softer than before, but just as harsh. It came from the thing looming above. Pupils adjusting to the changes, details of the thing’s visage came into view and the creature realized the echoing call was coming from this looming monster. The panic settled as the monster continued to coo its devastatingly soft–harsh– song and the creature realized it was the warmth.
The creature had no way of knowing the staggering differences between them. It stared up at the monster’s large eyes, wondering what this creature was to it.
Was it this creature’s mother? The creature had no way of knowing, it had no way of even understanding what a mother was, but it accepted the creature’s warmth and echoing call.
The creature slowed its wiggling limbs and the monster continued to run its rough hand against the creature’s equally coarse skin, replacing cold with scorching heat. The creature stared up at the monster and the monster stared back down at it.
Slowly the monster’s features pulled back, skin pulling taut as it bared its teeth to the creature. Despite the sight, the creature felt no fear, no more panic as the world around it slowly started to settle into focus.
The creature had no knowledge of this gesture or its meaning, but it did not wish to lose this warmth or the gentle song, so the creature mimicked its mother as closely as its muscles would allow, and the creature smiled back at the monster.