Replace What Was Once Lost

The voices of a hatchling’s parents are often the first thing that they will hear. Soft, encouraging words to welcome them into a world which will undoubtedly challenge them and often cause them hardship but for now, as they are just coming to be, they are safe.

A hatchling’s parents should greet them with love and warmth in their eyes. They should look upon the tiny miracle that they created in awe that something they created something so small, and yet, alive. The product of their love for one another, made real and tangible.

The tiny hatchling tropeo heard the soft, encouraging words as she forced her way out of the shell that had been her cradle for so long, but she was met by an uncertain and unwelcome silence when she finally fell upon the nest and breathed fresh, clean air and filled her tiny lungs for the first time.

Instead of the warmth of a happy family pleased with its newest arrival, hushed voices, whispers with reluctant and even sorrowful notes surrounded her. This was highly abnormal - a hatchling that was as white as bone, and when she managed to open her eyes to see a blurry, almost painfully bright world, the whispers continued. Blue eyes. It was painful to admit it but this one… this one was unlikely to make it to adulthood.

They had heard the stories of dinosaurs that hatched like this. If she was encouraged to grow, her vision would likely begin to fail before she was very old, if she could even see now at all. There was every chance that, with her colouration as it was, that she would be entirely deaf. She would struggle to hunt, she would be an obvious target to carnivores, she would suffer under the sun.

It was unlikely that she would even make it out of the nest, if she proved to be weak as well as… malformed.

It was better to accept that this hatchling was a loss. Dismay and sadness turned slowly towards despondent acceptance. Their energy was better devoted to trying again. It was better for them, and for this unfortunate hatchling, for them to abandon her entirely. It was more kind to let nature take its course rather than trying to sustain her and draw out what would undoubtedly be a short life full of suffering.

There was a rush of wind around the nest, blurry shapes shifted quickly away from her view, and then… there was nothing. No quiet voices, neither objective or kind. There was neither grief nor love in the eyes of her parents as they looked upon her, because they were gone entirely. Just as quickly as she was hatched, she was alone.

The warmth of the air dried the residual albumen on her pale, fragile hide. It was comfortable, until it made her hide start to itch and crack. The sun was indeed cruel, and it was only thanks to the rocky overhang above the nest that there was any shelter from the uncomfortably hot rays at all. Shadows slowly crept across the nest and the pale hatchling almost blindly followed them, crawling from one side of the nest to the other as the day went on.

It was a relief when the sun finally started to sink down past the horizon, taking its crippling heat with it, but the hatchling soon came to miss it. The night air was cold to such a young thing, especially as high up as the nest had been placed, where the wind whistled over rocks and through the gnarled branches of twisted, stunted coniferous trees.

She shivered, cold and hot at the same time. Her pale, fragile hide had been burned by the sun, and radiated heat despite the chill in the air. She curled in the warmest corner of the nest that she could find, but moving hurt, and even the softness of dune grass and moss woven together into what was supposed to be a comfortable, warm bed felt sharp and scratchy and irritated her burned skin.

It was a miserable first night outside of the comfort of the cradle, and the next days and nights made no promises to be better.

A hatchling’s parents should provide safety and comfort. They should provide sustenance, and shelter from the wind, the sun, the rain. The fresh-hatched tropeo had no idea that was what parents were supposed to do. She just knew that she was alone, with the faintest echo of the certainty of her unfortunate existence, her untimely demise, as the only company that she had.

The clouds were likely the only thing that kept her from desiccating entirely in the nest tucked among the rocks. They passed by the sun, shielding her from the scorching light, infrequently at first but then more and more often. Raindrops stung when they hit the surface of her sensitive, fragile skin, but at the same time brought cool relief.

Which was why, when the rain suddenly stopped, she opened her eyes in exhausted protest. Her head was pounding, her stomach was turning, she was too hot and too cold at the same time - why did the sky take away the one nice thing that she had experienced in her short time outside the egg, after only giving it to her for a brief moment?

The answer was simple, really. It was because another tropeognathus had landed at the edge of the nest, shielding her from the wind and rain. An old female, white markings scattered across her stone-grey feathers.

“Little trident,” Matriarch sighed quietly. “What did they do to you?”

The pale hatchling whistled a wheezy, weak sound as she crawled towards the sound of the old female’s sad, gentle voice. Matriarch had flown by this spot a couple times now. She had hoped, when she passed by on a strainer expedition and first saw the lone hatchling, that the parents had just been off finding food, a little too trusting in the safety of their nesting spot. When she passed by again and there was still no sign of them, and then again with the hatchling still looking worse and worse… well. It was obvious now that the nest had been abandoned. It was likely that the only reason the hatchling was not dead yet was because she was still being sustained by her yolk, which had almost certainly now dwindled into nothing. Without the care of her parents, the hatchling would wither away.

“It’s alright,” Matriarch soothed. The hatchling’s skin was badly scalded by the sun, but that was nothing that a little salve could not remedy, once they were back at the ship. The journey might be uncomfortable for the hatchling, cradled in her teeth, but she would be well-protected from the sun, wind, and rain when they got there.

The old female bowed her head, murmuring soft words of comfort. “I’ve got you now. We’ll get you all fixed up, right as rain.”

The hatchling made quiet sounds of discomfort and protest, but her movements were weak, and almost unnoticeable.

Most hatchlings did not get to experience flight this early. They had to grow first, to strengthen and test their wings before they made the jump and put all their trust in the wind. The pale, sunburned, dehydrated, weak hatchling was lucky. She got to experience flight mere days after she had hatched.