Silvertip Mountain I will personally stab you in the eye with a foreign object

Laurel hadn't been herself since the incident. She didn't feel like she belonged here, but she wasn't sure there was a place for her anywhere else either, and what good would wandering alone in winter do? She found herself wishing that Seff was here, even though she had only met him once. And then he'd left, just like everybody else. What could she do to make them stay? Maybe running away was the better option, to find a place where nobody looked at her like she was a monster. She could not bear to look at them, the happy family. She should be grateful for getting a new chance, or that was what she felt was expected of her, but guilt and bitterness were not very good advisors.

And leaving? Well, it wasn't like she could run away from herself, change who she was, and make herself more beautiful and interesting. She was stubby-legged Laurel, with her boring fur. Even her nose and paws didn't want to be anything special. Everything about her was boring and she hated being herself.

They stopped along a mountain and Laurel lay down around the fringes of the cave — away from the rest — staring out into the snow with an empty feeling in her stomach. It hit her then that things would never be the same now that they knew what she had managed to keep inside before, what a boring, ugly and terrible being she was. Was there anything she could even do to make her father love her again? Or was it better to look for greener pastures and find someone else, somewhere else, and make them love her so that they would not abandon her like everybody else had. Even Raas must hate her for what she was, and for making her go through all these things, she thought... If he existed at all.