Qeya River star

star eater follows his gaze, though she knows exactly where it lands. the gentle swell of her stomach, pink whelping points peeking through her pale fur—proof of the life growing inside her. proof of the bond she had forged, not with him, but with another.
her breath catches for a moment, and then she exhales in something that sounds almost like laughter, soft and breathy, her face warming with the flush of pregnancy. you should not say such things. her voice is lighter than usual, touched by something softer, something unguarded. she presses a paw over her stomach without thought, feeling the warmth of her own body, feeling them.
perhaps it is the weight of the moment, or the sway of hormones that make her more sentimental than she should be, but for a flickering instant, she sees him not as blackfell, the man she has clashed with, the man she has betrayed, the man who should hate her—but as the boy she once knew. the boy who had once looked at her with something akin to reverence.
but then he steps back, pulling away as if the air between them has grown too thick, and she lets him. whatever had threatened to take root between them is severed before it can bloom.
perhaps, she allows at last, her voice quieter now, as she watches him retreat into the ice. and she does not say it, but she thinks:
but fate did not see fit to make it so.

fade in this or your next?