Brother · 5:22am Feb 27th, 2021

Based on a doc that me and Hero did quite some time ago. Enjoy.

Pharynx shoved all the other nymphs his age out of the way. Some growled while others simply walked away. He paid them no mind, though; he was too busy trying to see where his new grub sibling was. “Where is he?!” He continued to follow them, finally finding a small cave-like room.

The nurse carrying the grub turned to him. “What are you doing here? This is no place for a nymph.”

“I don’t care! wanna see my brother!”

The nurse looked at him, then to the grub. “This one is your sibling?”

Pharynx nodded. “What are you doing with him?!”

“Calm down, little one. We’re just cleaning him of the egg mucus.”

Pharynx simply stared. “Oh.”

By the time they were finally done, the little grub was wrapped in a cob-webby blanket. “Here you are.”

She kneeled down to his height, showing the sleeping baby changeling. Pharynx hesitated for a bit, before slowly taking the little grub with his forelegs, cradling him.

“Be gentle.”

Pharynx looked at the grub. He couldn’t help but chuckle a bit at the baby sleeping, his tiny muzzle twitching every few seconds. “Heh. He’s tiny.”

The grub’s head moved a bit as he made tiny noises. Then, the baby slowly opened his eyes. Pharynx silently hoped for bright purple eyes like his, but the baby revealed his bright teal eyes. Pharynx sighed with disappointment.

Well, looks didn’t matter that much to him. He playfully hissed at his brother.

The baby’s eyes seemed to water, and a few whimpers escaped from his mouth. “Wha...w-wha… WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

Pharynx flinched. “Ahh! Chrysalis’s mercy!”

The nurse carefully picked up the newborn. “It’s okay, shhhh…”

“WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

“Hmph. What’s wrong with him?” Pharynx complained.

“He’s crying. It’s what babies do.”

“So what? I don’t cry like that!”

“You sure did when you hatched.”

“Did I?”

“You don’t know half of it.”

“Whatever.” Pharynx folded his forelegs, continuing to pout as the older changeling continued to comfort the infant.

“Waaaaaaaah! *hic* Waaaaaah!”

“Shh… Shh… it’s alright, little one.”

She levitated a bottle of nectar over to him. The baby stretched his tiny hooves out, pulling the bottle towards him and drinking the nectar, finally starting to calm down.

Pharynx looked at the baby. “Why’s he drinking nectar? Why doesn’t he eat normal food? Like… love?”

“He’s only a newborn.” She explained. “He needs to know the difference between love and other emotions, and he needs to learn how to consume them.”

Pharynx thought for a moment. He didn’t know that there was so much to know about his little brother. He reached his hooves out to him.

“Don’t scare him this time,” the nurse said as she handed the baby to him again. He took the small grub, this time, not hissing.

As Pharynx looked at the tiny grub, an idea suddenly took seed in his mind. “I wanna name him Trachea!”

“Uhh, not to be rude, but why Trachea?”

“Because my name’s Pharynx?”

“Well… that’s fair, but, why Trachea, aren’t there any other respiratory terms you could use? Like Larynx?”

“Actually…”

The two changelings looked over to the queen, who was carefully stepping around the other slithering grubs. “Your majesty.”

Chrysalis kneeled down to the baby. “I was thinking of naming him ‘Thorax.’”

“‘Thorax’ your majesty?”

She nodded, gazing down at her newest subject and rubbing his tiny head, eliciting a few coos and gurgles.