The world was so bright. Moments ago I had been warm and secure, comforted by the steady beating of a heart held close, but now everything was bright and cold. As I lay, still entangled in something I did not know the name to, I turned my gaze up at the riot of colors that soared overhead. I did not know the names for the different shades, but I could not look away. Small pinpricks of light faded quickly as dawn gained strength above.

It was only the affectionate bump of a very soft object that brought my attention back to the present, and I turned my bleary eyes to the face of my mother. I wasn't entirely sure how I knew who she was, as her face was as new to me as the sky overhead, but I knew that I belonged to her, and she to me. My dusky nostrils flared in a sound that I had never made before as I tried to echo her, the volume barely audible above the quiet cacophony of the world.

I no longer had the steady thrum of my mother's heart as a lullaby, but the world around me was filled with a riot of sounds that I did not understand. A soft whooshing over the ground, made by wind I did not understand. Birds that called from near and far away. The soft shush of sand beneath our hooves as we moved. The rustle of stiff aloe leaves as they rubbed against each other in the breeze. My ears flicked wildly from one thing to the next before focusing on the beautiful face of my mother again as she spoke.

The words did not mean much to me, if only because I did not understand the definitions. But that mattered little. I could hear the love in her voice, and stored the words away to examine later when the world did not seem so big and strange.

As she rose, so did I, although with far less grace. My first attempt sent me careening wildly into her legs and sent me back to my knees with a mouthful of coarse sand. The subsequent shake of my head in an attempt to dislodge the nasty tasting material nearly upended up upright hindquarters.

Eventually, however, I managed to figure out that each limb needed to point out at different directions and made my way to my mother's side, following a most delicious scent, to partake in what was the best meal I had ever had in my short life.