Herbalists' Cache the promise

As with every new star, the beginning of Caan's world starts in darkness.

It is in the dark he is shaped. His being fashioned from the same model of the countless generations before him. A form left to him in a miraculous code that he would never understand beyond the miracle that life simply is.

His awareness of this miracle is fleeting. Confined in ways he does not understand, but it is warm. It is warm, and he is fed, and he is safe within this crucible of life.

He is not alone here.

Others crowd beside him. Brother and sister are words unknown, but he understands that they are like himself. He can hear it, the beating of their hearts. They beat as does his own and this knowing of their existence is his. They belong to him as he does to them. Bound in blood, spun from the same brilliant stars, and forged together.

He also knows that their maker has been with them since the beginning, for he hears her heart too. It both envelopes him yet sounds far away. The ever-present cadence of which will be the most soothing lullaby he would ever know.

His is safe with his maker, and her other creations. There was nothing more to existence then the contentment that came to it.

Until his maker became enraged.

The soothing song of her heart was no more. It now beat as a wardrum, started by the battle of biology and other things beyond Caan's comprehension.

He was not ready for any of it. The cramping, the pushing, and the jostling that came in relentless waves. His heart raced in tandem with his maker's. The safety of the darkness having been stripped away, and the warmth he had been accustomed to was replaced with the coldness of fear.

Then Caan fell to the earth as a star. Newly born.

He is wet, and freezing, and weighed down by the remnants of birth. His paws paddle wildly, the world is still dark. The caul is removed from his body, as a loving tongue cleans him. They are warm. He draws first breath, and his voice leaves his mouth in desperate, fearful cries.

Where is my maker? Why did she cast me here?

He is then drawn to his maker's side, assisted by someone unknown. She does not the feel the same as she had before. She is soft beneath him, but warm all the same. And the beat of her heart dances beneath her skin.

His fear washed away, Caan rest his head against his mother's belly, reunited with the others of her creation.

His mother's heartbeat soothed him just the same.