One of the eggs moves, slightly. A crack forms on its surface, then the broken shell lifts just enough to allow a little golden eye to gaze out upon the world. Apparently someone wants to investigate before coming out into the world properly.

Sneaky little trickster. Alexstrasza hums softly to herself, pretending not to notice.

Hmmm. Mhmmmm. Yes, yes, this whelp definitely understands everything she's seeing here, yep. The little whelp squints at her mother from her egg, clearly judging carefully with every ounce of her five seconds of life experience.

Then her judgement concludes, and the little whelp bursts from the egg all at once, flings herself towards her mother on clumsy fluid-soaked limbs, and gives a mighty squeak! of delight.

Oh no! She is caught completely off guard by this sudden ambush and is bowled over by the impact!

She lands on her back and lets the whelp crawl all over her face and chest, a wide grin on her face.

Excellent. Her daughter squeaks in victory and immediately begins investigating the most interesting thing she's ever seen! Alexstrasza is sniffled, nosed, crawled on, and a bit of her necklace is Industriously Nibbled.

Then the whelp carefully inspects her mother's face. Her grin is nosed at, complete with a tilted head and a pair of curious eyes, and then—

—there is a warm rush of the feeling of lovelovelovelove, and a little whelpling snuggling happily into the crook of her neck. She makes happy little chirping sounds.

That's her baby, yes it is. She sends the lovelovelovelove right back. Along with pats. And snuggles.

Eeeeeeeeeeee this is a happy little baby that loves her very much!! She nestles happily into her mother and coos contently.

There are crackly noises from the other eggs back by the shellshards that the baby had recently abandoned.

!!!!!

The whelpling gives a little chirp of surprise, then turns to look at the source of the noise. She spots the eggs.

Squeak!!!

She scrambles back to her siblings on awkward limbs and squeaks impatiently at them. Do they need help getting out of their eggs??? Because she can help, the world is very neat and if they're having any trouble getting out of their eggs she can be so helpful, she wants to meet them!!!!

They seem to be doing all right on their own! No one's exploding out like she did, but shells are being nosed aside with a reasonable amount of vigor.

Clearly they are going far too slowly. They must need help! She will assist with perfect precision and accuracy!

She attempts to bite and drag an eggshell off of one of her slower siblings, and sort of succeeds at this, but mostly succeeds at breaking the bit of eggshell into smaller pieces. Mission success.

"Careful there, small one." Alexstrasza's voice is warm and amused. She reaches past to brush the eggbits off, carefully and gently. The whelp squeaks and grabs onto her hand, riding it up and back as she pulls it in.

But the whelps require assistance!

She's marginally better at removing the next eggshell wrongly keeping her sibling captive, in that she noses it more than bites it, which results in less eggshell breakage and more eggshell removal. Then she nuzzles her little gooey sibling! Hello, little whelp!! You are alive and it is great!

Chirrup chirrup! It is indeed great to be alive! This whelp seems interested in the project of getting everyone out of their shells and into the world. They are somewhat clumsier at it.

That's okay! With the power of their combined might, they will rescue their siblings from the foul shells and all be out in the world together!

Hooray!

In short order, the project is achieved and the area of full of coos and stumbling legs and flapping wings. One of the babies is momentarily alarmed when a period of too-vigorous flapping lifts him off the ground.

!!!!

This is an important discovery!!! The little adventurous whelp chirps, then attempts to replicate this most impressive feat! Come, siblings! The skies will be filled with tiny flaps!

So many flaps! All the flaps! A bustling cloud of flaps, bumping into the leaves and shaking the branches!

Alexstrasza laughs delightedly.

Her adventurous whelp thinks flying is the best. She figures out how to go up and down soon enough, then how to steer, and then figures out how to swoop. After this is achieved, it's quite obvious that the thing to do is to swoop down upon her mother, land clumsily on the top of her head between her horns, and nestle regally to make a cozy little nest. From her new perch, she sends lovelovelovelove at her mother and each and every one of her siblings!!! They are so great!!! Everything is so great! The world is big and beautiful and it's very exciting and she's definitely going to go ruthlessly explore every inch of it, but first she will let them know that she loves them so much!

Aww! All babies are good babies, but her babies are the best babies.

Lovelovelovelove!! She nuzzles her mother's hair and coos again.

Once she feels this is sufficiently communicated, the whelp swoops off of Alexstrasza's head and immediately begins investigating all of the everything. She makes a little squeak of follow me!! as she flaps off to investigate the grove. So much stuff to see!

She's followed by a cloud of flappy red bodies.

There's the trees, of course, and there's a patch of flowers, and there's a family of rabbits, and there's a squirrel trying to fit its jaw around an enormous red acorn, and there's a hole under that root wherein a badger lurks, and there's some dragonkin tending to groups of eggs that are not ready to hatch yet, and there's a pair of dragons napping in a patch of sunlight, and there's coterie of drakes swooping lazily through the sky.

Aaaaa so much stuff!!

She loves the trees, and the flowers, and gosh, the animals are really neat and deserve some sniffing and some draconic love. The whelp investigates the rabbits immediately. To do this, she dives into the burrow that is their home to figure out how it works. She is just the right size for this, this is an excellent use of resources! Hi, rabbits!!! This little whelp loves you!

One dragon whelp investigating the burrow is fine. The six or seven more that follow, well. It's a somewhat crowded burrow now. The rabbits are somewhat distressed by this.

The others are still milling around outside. The entrance is too small to fit more of them, so they begin looking for alternate routes in. The thud-thud-thud of these attempts does not alleviate the rabbits' discomfort.

Squeak! This was clearly a miscalculation! Too many whelps in the burrow!!!

Does this burrow have a back exit or something, or does she have to go through her siblings to leave? Oh, and while she's here, she should make sure everything is good and sniffed, so she doesn't have to come back. Especially the rabbits. It's okay, rabbits, they're your friends! They love you!