2024-06-23 - From the Bottom, Looking Up

One of its others cries out in its mind and it jerks out of a doze, mildly irritated. Rocranth. A name? It hasn't thought about it. It wishes it could still be firmly in a space of not thinking about it. Rocranth hadn't needed to be so loud about it. It, it is sure, definitely won't be - why announce something that will become known in time anyways? It shifts inside the egg and tries to resettle, but its mind is abuzz with new thoughts and it can't quite drift back off like it wants to.

A name. Something to be known by, for others to call out with, for itself to answer to. It needs one of its own - can't just take one of the ones it has heard around it. Gwillanth, Rocranth, Igith, Pertemarth. They all have something in common - a sound at the end, one it finds comforting after so long of associating it with these similar minds. Th, th, th... How had Rocranth done it? Had Gwillanth, Pertemarth, Igith all come up with their names in the same way? What was that way? Does it have to be complex? Igith's name is short, but the others have very complicated names...

No need to overcomplicate things, it decides. Something short, something sweet, something fitting. It will come in its own time, as all things do, but it wants it to come now so it can settle down and stop thinking about it. It starts going through its mind to pick out words it already knows - maybe one of them will fit. Wrath. Of course not - too harsh. Path? Too simple. Truth just isn't right. Growth? Length? These words feel like they are beneath a name.

Beneath. Ah. Not quite, but... Their mind settles as they come closer to an answer, within reach at last. Beneath. Beneath. It's too long, too... Dry, somehow, though it isn't quite sure how that makes sense. Beneath...

Neath.

Its name is Neath. It's less of a decision and more of a realisation - something that's been waiting to be found and has only now been uncovered. It is Neath, every fibre of it - it's more than just something to answer to, something to be called when its attention is wanted. Part of it relaxes further with the knowledge of its name. A need has been met, a part of it it didn't know had been missing restored - and everybody had to know, even if it wouldn't be quite so inconsiderate as Rocranth had been.

My name is Neath.