2024-07-05 - [5.3] Nevermind the weather, get it together

Outside, the eggs are more exposed to changes in light and dark, and the associated changes in activity around them. Dawn, when the light slowly increases and there is the quiet purposeful mindtalk of dawn patrols, day with even more activity - patrols, hunting, social interaction, dusk when the world darkens and slows again, and then the long dark watches of the night.

Liorenth doesn't understand but he feels the changes in the environment, feels more connected to the outside world. Sometimes this feels new and scary, and he feels the clutch reacting also, as unsure as he is. But mother stays near and if she is not afraid then he accepts this change also.

The pattern of the light and dark remind him of something beyond time, beyond memory. The passage of time. A day then a night then a day. Daytime - the welcome warmth soaking in from ... a different direction. Nighttime - the peace the quiet but also the cold (he is not a fan of the cold but the dark is restful). Dark time should also be warm he grumbles, tilting it to the clutch. (the hatching sands were dark and also warm) Why must I endure this cold and this silence.

It is difficult to pitch a temporary lack of sunshine as genuine suffering when all of them are recovering from the trauma of the earthquake, but he tries it out, to see how it sounds. Alas, if only the warmth would return, would not leave when the dark arrives, how much better it would be!

Then when it does return, he makes a performance of greeting the dawn - maybe one day he will unfurl his wings and stare into the rising sun to greet the dawn every day -- Yes! It comes back again. Come back, warmth-light! You are welcome here.

The sandstorm is unsettling. The noises, activity, preparations around the clutch are briefly terrifying. What is this? Will the earth move again? AM I SAFE? But mother is not afraid, no other queens scream, the earth does not move.

With a small amount of controlled peril Liorenth dares to feel the howling wind and sands buffeting the canvasses - maybe this is not as scary as the earthquake. There is though ... something wild and exciting about it. Almost a kind of music. He is sad when it stops.