Bearclaw Valley frozen

tag for reference of how laurel's been acting/feeling around y'alls! all welcome :D

Over the past week it'd become increasingly clear to Laurel that she was pregnant. She had somehow not seen it coming at all. She'd been ravenous and sick but she hadn't thought that she was pregnant; Laurel'd had sex before and it had never happened like this. Maybe the scent that had enveloped her had changed things for her now. Finally all of the moments of the past weeks fell into place; why she had been hungry, why she had been sick, why she had been moody thinking of Xan and mostly why she had sobbed her face off when she'd found the @Reigi and @Blondine that day and had seen by her pronounced stomach that she was pregnant. Embarrassed, Laurel had avoided them since, because she didn't want to be reminded of the facts again. It surprisingly had come as no surprise to @Indra, who supported her, of course, because she always did.

Apart from Indra Laurel felt dreadfully alone, however. @Xan seemed to be tending to the dumb girl's upcoming litter first and foremost and she was afraid that her children would be born into a world where they had no real place. She considered running away often but where would she go? Who would take her in when she was already pregnant? And what sort of life would her pups have then? Indra said that she would talk to Xan but there was no conclusion yet and Laurel felt torn apart. It felt when she was with him that things were fine and that he was great, but she knew all too well that he cared for the other girl too and that he would always choose her over Laurel. She just wanted her children to have a better future than she and Indra'd had. She just wanted a caring father for them. She just wanted Xan.

As thoughts raged through her already usually unruly mind Laurel neared the center of the territory where she found a slowly running creek that she leaned down to lap water from. Around her the world was still frozen which to Laurel seemed like some sort of poetic representation of how she felt inside. Her upcoming children seemed to have no such qualms however as they steadily grew, unaware of the cold world they would be put into.