I may or may not ever finish this, just like all of my Res stories, so be prepared for me to drop this.

My mother's name was Arianna. She was sleek and Silver, with searching grey eyes. I knew because the ice surrounding my egg acted as a magic window; a magnifying glass, opening my blank eyes for me. Mother was fierce; she fought off sirleon when they tried to take me away, even full-grown ones. After the blood-tinted water had cleared, I would always see Mother's face gazing fondly back at me, me in my snug egg in the seaweed.

A few weeks before I came into the frigid Atquati waters, Mother attracted the attention of a large Cream bull, and he brought her gifts to please her. He dueled another bull, a calico, over Mother, therefore winning her heart. Or so she said. I only saw Father once; he looked regal and strong, and I was glad that his blood ran in my veins.

 I'm proud of both of my parents, both of them noble and selfless Narwis. I hoped that one day I would have a family and a horn to protect them with. I wished that I could stay with mother forever, yet I knew somewhere inside my growing body that I couldn't. I had a soul, and that soul was only half-formed at the moment, and it would undergo various hardships and joys in the coming years. I, only a week or so in my egg, didn't yet understand this concept. I viewed the world as mother, me, father, and the seaweed surrounding my egg. I didn't know we were underwater, it just seemed so natural.

This time of peace would not last. A few days after mother promised me freedom, I was ready to hatch. As creatu cannot hatch without being ordered to, mother had to try for hours before I was ready. As I reared up, prepared to use my stubby horn to burst through the eggshell and the ice, a great rumble sounded from above. Mother's tail swept the seaweed aside, so that I had a clear view of the trail of bubbles racing across the ocean, just below the surface. At first sight I thought the thing trailing the bubbles was Father; it was large and lightly colored.

As I peered closer, hatching completely forgotten, I saw the form glide to an abrupt stop. I started. Nothing I had ever seen could swim and halt with such precision. Apparently neither had Mother, for she charged the shape, eyes glaring, nostrils flaring. She was in a rage, the likes of which I had never seen her in. Just before mother hit the gliding shape, however, something black and sleek slipped into the water next to her. She hit this instead, and I was startled to see flecks of blood disrupt the currents of water.

Maybe this was a Black... Skaldyr? A hint of a thought, almost like a memory, flickered in my mind, and I found that I knew most of the native Atquati creatu species. The Skaldyr thing paddled into the water, although its movements were rather harried now; it had one flipper pressed onto its wound. Mother, now thouroughly incensed, charged again, but this time the Skaldyr thing was ready. It pulled out a cruel-looking machine seemingly from under its skin, and pointed it at Mother's face. I wanted to cry out to her, but it was as if I had no voice box. Maybe I didn't; that didn't matter right now, as I was filled with dread at Mother's fate.

The machine, with a handle and a nozzle, the handle where the Skaldyr thing clutched it with its free front flipper, for it had only four and two were oddly positioned and useless for interactions underwater; the nozzle was poised, as if ready to strike. I banged into my eggshell, trying to burst it open, ready to save Mother from the Skaldyr machine. I only made my predicament worse, as I rolled out of the clump of seaweed and into a sandy indention on the seabed, in plain view.

The Skaldyr thing clenched one of its flipper's membranes over the machine, and as a tiny, torpedo-like dart zoomed towards Mother, the Skaldyr thing swiveled its oddly-shaped head towards me. I shivered, otherwise petrified with fear. Mother, unaware, swam straight into the dart, and I tried to gasp, but it was turned into a strangled cough as I choked back tears. Mother, looking dazed, had drifted down onto the ocean floor and lay there, unmoving.

When I finally found the guts to turn back around to the Skaldyr thing, which I would soon learn was called a Hue-man, I nearly snapped my stubby horn as it slammed into my eggshell from the force of my jump. For I had jerked in suprise as I realized that the Hue-man was coming for me. It was only a few yards away, its hurting machine once again inside its pouch, for I didn't know about pockets then, and two of its flippers working madly to draw closer. I wanted to roll away, or maybe swim to mother, or else curl into a little ball and die, but I couldn't bring myself to do any of those things. I was frozen, terrified and helpless. 

The Hue-man, once close enough so that I could hear him breathing, like wind through a tunnel, reached out a flipper for me. I started to do the same before I realized that this Hue-man had probably just killed Mother. Was she dead? I didn't know, and I still don't. And then, as I stared into its cold, black, lifeless eyes, I was filled with hatred, later known to me as a "hunger for vengeance".

I wanted to drive my stubby little horn into its face, and see how it likes it. But just as I was backing away inside my egg, readying myself to strike, there was a jolt and a shudder, and then most of my vision was obscured by one of the Hue-man's huge black flippers. I rolled around and around, affected by the Hue-man's movements. The Hue-man was manhandling me. The nerve of it!