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Cold.
Minutes after emerging from his egg, the newly-hatched echidna is desperate. Instead of the soft warmth of his mother’s body and her nourishing milk, the tiny red puggle only finds a cold hard surface that seemed to sap away the heat through the bare skin on his belly.
Hungry.
Shivers racking his tiny body, his empty stomach screaming for nourishment, he emits a distressed squeak. He can’t comprehend, or even know, why he does so, but he does.
Alone.
But within moments, he feels it.
Warmth.
It’s not that of his mother. It’s not in direct contact with him, more like a presence, but it lingers, and he feels it. It calls to him.
Food.
He can’t comprehend why, or even have a name for them, but he knows.
Mother.
Making faint squeaks, the blind puggle clumsily traverses the cold stone, drawn closer by the warmth. He crawls closer and closer, until his paws stop against a ledge. He can feel the heat directly above him now. Acting more on instinct, he shimmies himself forward, just a bit more, until his nose makes contact with the source of the warmth.
Hello little one.
Instantly, a rush engulfs him. His mind, previously running on instinct, rockets to to full awareness as language, knowledge, understanding, flood into his brain. Things that moments before were beyond comprehension, beyond the awareness of his newly-hatched brain, suddenly come into focus. Even though his eyes are still shut, images fill his awareness; flashes hinting at who he is and why he is here.
A massive brilliant-cut green gemstone with immense power. Seven smaller gemstones with even greater power. A once-proud tribe thousands of years in the past. A brutal war. A horrific tragedy. A legacy of atonement. A sacred duty.
A duty I am next in line for, he realizes with his first conscious thought. One day, he will be like the beings —echidnas— in those visions: a natural-born warrior, a body defined by powerful muscles, the tiny nubs on the backs of his hands becoming lethal weapons powerful enough to shatter stone.
But not quite yet, he realizes. It will be a few years before can take stewardship of the island, let alone guard the massive gemstone — the Master Emerald. For now, even as the little puggle learns his reason for being, he’s content to bask in the gem’s nurturing glow.
Warm.
Pulling his body as close to the emerald as he can, he lays himself out flat. His once-empty stomach somehow feeling full and soothed, he relaxes completely.
Nourished.
His real mother might not be around, but he knows the Emerald, and that soothing consciousness in it, will take care of him until he is old enough to fend for himself.
He drifts off to sleep, one thought on his mind.
Loved.