On the morning of the nineteenth day of the hottest month of the twenty-fifth year of the reign of Vata Luika, tyril flowers bloomed in all seven territories of the Uvyali continent.
At midnight of the same day, in a quiet nursery in the Vata castle, Inoua, the youngest daughter of Luika, finally hatched from her egg.
The newborn girl, a chubby three year old, lay quietly on the soft Kituo bear rug, her tiny hands clutching a piece of the silver and black eggshell scattered around her. Her chestnut skin had a silvery opalescence to it and atop her head were two small horns curved towards the nape of her neck.
She didn't cry, didn't fuss. Just quietly looked around curiously as the jagged piece of eggshell crumbled into powder in her hands. Slowly, inch by inch, it disappeared as the whites of her eyes turned a swirling charcoal colour.
The shimmering moonlight illuminated the suffocating darkness, tracing the outline of the heavy furniture and thick wall to wall carpet spread across the room. Across from her was a set of firmly shut double doors. The air was thick with the cloying scent of flowers.
"See, nobody was here when you hatched. I told you you were an unwanted burden." The disembodied voice of a woman dripping with malice cut through the silence. The girl remained unmoved, her chubby hand reaching for another piece of eggshell. The voice had been silent for much longer this time. A whole six hours. She was getting stronger.
"The precious daughter of the chimaera Vata, without even a maid by her side. How pathetic."
Another piece turned to dust. Faster.
"How long do you think it will take them to find you? A day? Two? A week? You might be half starved before they think to come check on your egg. Do you think your mother even knows that you've hatched?"
"Shut up." The calm tone in her childish voice was undercut by a slight tremor. The voice always knew where to poke to get a reaction from her. She took a deep breath and held it, the eggshell piece cracking in her fist as she tried to calm the trembling.
It's not your fault you don't have a bond with mom. It's not your fault.
She vaguely remembered the warmth of being held in her mother's arms; her gentle voice humming a lullaby and her soothing touch as she held and stroked her egg.
Then the hateful voice appeared. And the warm hands were replaced with cold and critical medical examinations. Then, nothing.
She vaguely heard a lot of raised voices as she sensed the fear and worry in her mother turn into pain and anguish at the cruel verdict. Dead.
At first mom came to see her everyday. Sometimes crying, sometimes humming. A lot of times just holding her in dead silence. She could still feel it then, their bond. Her pain, guilt, denial. She had tried to send out comfort and reassurance but each attempt was a small ripple that was easily and inexplicably blocked.
Eventually the visits became fewer and fewer until there were no more.
She was abandoned and their bond weakened with time and distance until it vanished altogether.
She knew it was the hateful voice that did it. It had somehow convinced everyone she was a dead egg and no matter how she yelled and cried, nobody would hear.
She was isolated and alone in the dark, dead silence.
Until one day, someone came.
"Don't be afraid," she had said, "I will always be by your side. No matter what. There is no rush to hatch. All good things take time."
She made the maids clean her room, talked endlessly to her and even dared to hold her before leaving with the promise to return. Family. Unafraid of the bad luck touching a dead egg would bring.
But not mom.
She was unable to sense and communicate her longing, fear, and distress. There was no way to form a bond. In those moments of despair when she almost gave in to the unrelenting taunts and temptations of the voice in her head, the longing to see the owner of the voice increased her urgency and determination to hatch. She wanted to be held in those warm arms that dared cradle her egg so gently.
"If only you hadn't taken so long to hatch. Maybe there would still be room for you in this family." The voice let out a frustrated sigh.
She was not fooled. She could feel the schadenfreude emanating from it. It seemed to feed on her fear.
Most younglings hatch between five and ten years after being laid. She had taken twenty nine. Another one of its misdeeds.
"Go away."
She felt the resistance as the voice tried to overcome her defenses and was unwillingly forced into a corner of her mind and locked up. This was the only ability she had to protect herself from it. It was a cancer, drilling deep into her mind as fast as she could cut it out. Her arms fell heavily by her side, her body going limp from the effort, the whites of her eyes unknowingly reverting back. Blearily, she rolled over into her shell and fell asleep. As the hours crept past, the shell slowly decomposed, revealing her restless sleeping face.