2024-07-03 - Cold and Hot and Cold Again

The cold of the flight to this new place was barely noticeable at the time. Neath had been too busy spreading its mind over every sibling it could reach to protect them to pay attention to anything outside - it had barely even noticed the world shaking past a certain point. Being picked up and carried away from its beloved others had panicked it too much for it to feel the cold, and by the time it had stopped panicking it was simply too drained to notice the change.

It notices now, though. Oh, it notices. The first thing it notices is a sudden rush of cold that breaks through its exhausted doldrum. The feeling is startling - it has never felt cold before, not really. Its past perceptions of Mother's absence as cold feel silly in comparison to this. It doesn't last long, but the warmth is different here than it had been on the sands. Mother is cold, it knows, and it wishes she wasn't. Then the whole world warms again in yet another new way, Mother included in its comfort this time. It cools, warms for the eggs, warms for Mother and everybody else, cools again in a new cycle it becomes more aware of the longer it's part of it.

It's... Pleasant. It reminds it of an earlier time, when Mother's presence and absence were all it truly knew. It's different - more complicated the way all things seem to be as time goes on. There are nuances to it, there is no sudden there-and-gone-and-there-again, but it's predictable and slow. The rhythm eases Neath back into itself. It only realises how far it had drifted when it, through the external minds around it, takes in the heave and flow of a sandstorm for the first time. The light - light! Light that it is the perceiver of! - is dimmer, the wind howls, its misshapen shell catches sand in the depressions and grooves left in it and Neath feels it all again.

It will not reach out to its siblings again, not yet - that it is still too weak for. But it feels like itself again, taking in the storm and the knowledge that after it will come the sunlight again.