While he nurses, his velvety lips fumbling feverishly with his mother's udder to draw more milk out, the warm, soft ceiling of stomach above him suddenly booms with muffled sound. He had heard her speak minutes before, when she had beckoned him to the oasis, but now, so close that the reverberations hurt his tiny ears, it's a new and overwhelming sensation. In a heartbeat he pulls away, scrabbling out from under The Warmth only to fall in a heap upon the sand. His heart is racing and for a moment he lays stunned by the whole thing, dark eyes wide with incomprehension.

Then he notices that his vision is clearer than before. What previously had appeared as a huge blurry shadow now is a complete being, with eyes and ears and a nose and legs and a tail. Even without words he understands what these parts are, and that, miraculously, he has them too. In wonder - though not without some hesitation and trembling of extremities - the colt rises to inspect The Warmth's body. He can see every individual hair right before his nose: could even count them if he knew how to count. A vague comprehension suddenly dawns on him and he looks down at his own knobbly knees, which are still caked in the remnants of dry birth fluid. His legs are the same black color that covers her entire body.

He is amazed. It's almost more than his brain can handle.

Then she speaks again. He tilts his head slightly and wiggles his stumpy tail in response. While he cannot make sense of her words, he understands that they are directed at him, and that they carry significant meaning. He snorts, grey nostrils fluttering, bleats as if attempting to mimic her, and all the while watches her eyes: those dark orbs that seem to show him the essence of her soul. When she lowers her head to nip his hindquarters, he squeals in bewilderment, presses his body closer to hers, and rubs his head against the comforting firmness of her swollen belly.

He is complete.