Ankyra Sound as your heart measured in mountains, fell and climbed

Life had only just begun, but for a melodramatic newborn, it felt like an abrupt rollercoaster straight into H-E-double-L.

Wylla's little pod within Lusca was a warm and comfortable place. Sure, she was submerged in nastiness tweny-four hours a day, seven days a week, and there was no such thing as orientation or eating or breathing, but it was nice. Warm, cozy, stretchy and free of jostling. She could've floated there forever and been content with it, even if her contentment was the result of a lack of awareness. Indeed, within Lusca's body, Wylla had no consciousness and therefore no way of even knowing there was life beyond it, or life within it, or life at all.

Fast forward to today, where her warm bathing fluid was lost and then she was brusquely squeezed and dropped upon the floor and brought to life by an overwhelmingly huge wet thing. As anyone who has recently been run over by a truck might know, Wylla ached something fierce, and though her body would show no lasting effects, there were imperceptible bruises from the ordeal and her head was a little misshapen from coming out a little crooked and her teeny tiny shoulder still smarted from where it had struck the ground upon her entry into the world. All of these things would be remedied in short order, the shape of her softened skull included, but today they compounded into one miserable, squalling child with a grotesquely lopsided head.

There were a few comforts that Lusca made quick work of. Nursing shut the babe up quite effectively, but Wylla couldn't nurse forever lest she burst like a water balloon. Even if she tried, the zeal with which Ingram went about the task prevented her in other ways. More than once already was the tiny girl the victim of one of his powerhouse kicks. The other comfort was her mother's gentle touch, the tactile stimulus almost more keen for her than a typical newborn. Wylla practically purred when Lusca rearranged her, though in truth they were tiny whimpers and growls rolled into one strangely happy sound.

Yet it would come to light that this ability to calm Wylla with a touch was singularly unique to Lusca, and that even a days old babe was able to tell the difference between mother and any other, and even an hours old babe knew the sweet taste of love and adoration, without the consciousness to comprehend it, as she fell into a milk-drowned slumber in the crook of Lusca's forelimb.