Ankyra Sound VIII. Standing in the back door crying, now you're going to need a friend.

Her arrival did not come quietly. Forced carelessly onto the cold stone floor of the grotto, the newborn Eyjolfur writhed uncomfortably within the fluid-filled sack that still encased her.

It was when she was freed from it, following that first inhale of air meant to inflate unused lungs, that the newborn released an ear-shattering yowl that echoed throughout her late grandmother's sacred halls. She didn't appreciate any of this: the biting cold that seeped into sodden furs, the vulnerability of being out in the open, the newness of it all.

Her voice quieted to pitiful little mewls when at last she located some of comfort. A sibling, another small being who she'd shared a confined space with, which was enough to settle her. The babe bundled against her brother in a desperate yearning for warmth, driven only by a powerful instinct to survive.