tags for reference, all welcome!
Ever since her roll-about with
@Xan, Laurel hadn't spoken to him. She hadn't thought it weird until she talked about it with
@Indra and realised they hadn't seen each other since. Now the scent was no long around her she wondered how he would look at her... Would he still like her, or would he be back to being his old indifferent self? Laurel had never cared about it, knowing that she meant nothing to anyone but Indra, but somehow it made her feel on edge now. She'd noticed a change in her body lately and wondered if she was getting sick. Laurel had never gotten sick easily but lately it was hard to keep her food in. She was hungry a lot but at the same time she couldn't hold in a lot of the food she ate, which was frustrating her. She hadn't told Indra about it, but was sure that her sister had noticed, considering they spent a great amount of time together every day. Surely when they were curled up asleep together it showed that more often than not Laurel got up a couple of times because she felt pressure on her bladder.
Today in the late afternoon Laurel was chasing a rabbit. She dashed through the snow, sending it flying everywhere as she followed it. What she hadn't counted on however was a log that she didn't notice immediately because of the snow. An obstacle seemed to come out of nowhere and it sent Laurel flying onto her face in the snow.
"Fuck!" she called out angrily into the snow, causing her words to be muted, but when she looked up the rabbit was long gone.
Just as Laurel collected herself off the ground, of course someone came round the corner. "Do I look okay?" she snapped back at him as she gathered herself to her feet. The run-in with the dumb girl still lay heavily on her mind, especially now that the girl had gotten that weird thing 'round her neck and there was something distinctly different about her. The way she smelled, mostly, and it was somehow threatening to Laurel even though she herself did not understand quite why yet.. Not until she had seen her just recently, seen how she had swollen in all the wrong places. While she herself did not understand what was going on within her, her biology was already at works of wishing other girls but Indra out of the equation for her own brood. Laurel had been tense ever since, at least in the presence of anyone who wasn't Indra. It was perhaps also her uncertainties that drove her to snap at Xan now, as she instantly regretted it the next moment. But she knew in the light of the dumb girl's pregnancy that she had already lost him regardless, for he would always choose her and always choose her pups.
Soon, it would be time for her and Indra to leave, because there would no longer be a place for her. The thought made her sad and it angered Laurel that she cared so much about whether or not she could stay here with him. But no matter how much she tried to tell herself that he was just another nobody she cared nothing about something was different somehow.
After shaking the snow from her fur Laurel glanced hungrily at the hare he carried. Of course he would succeed where she failed miserably. "Is that for her?" she asked with a twinge of hurt and anger in her words. She'd meant to ask 'Can I have that' or 'Are you going to eat that' or something else that implied she was hungry and wanted his food, but somehow the words she really wanted to say rarely ever escaped Laurel's mouth.
He didn't seem to know what to do with her comment, though it surprised Laurel that he'd be taken aback by it. For a moment it looked like he'd agitate but then he relaxed again. Nothing happened until she asked about the food and he said that it was for him. Then he nosed it towards Laurel and though she didn't really want his hand-me-downs Laurel couldn't deny her hunger. "Thanks," she said though it was hard to sound well-meant as she focussed on the food and started to eat it. A bit too fast, perhaps, for after she'd eaten only a leg of the rabbit Laurel turned 'round and threw up beside her.
Embarrassed, it was hard to choose between simply ignoring it'd ever happened and saying something. Laurel picked the rest of the rabbit and dragged it a few meters away from the vomit so at least it was out of her nostrils; before she had to go again. She continued to eat, a bit more careful this time, while she watched Xan to see what he would do or say from the corners of her eyes.
Shame crept up on her and she had hoped that he would simply let the subject hang in the air and eventually pass rather than emphasise it. As if it wasn't bad enough that it had happened at all, he asked her if she was okay and offered to get Blondine. She shook her head swiftly and said,
"No, that's okay. It's nothing." She swallowed and looked at the remainder of the food, then glanced at Xan.
"I'm sorry, I should — I should go." Her voice broke up a little as she grabbed the rabbit and stood up. She cast him one last brief glance before she took off in a hasty trot, giving him one last possibility to say something,
anything that would make her stay.
*makes space for new thread* :D unless Xan says anything as she takes off you can archive this!