Lion Head Mesa fucked around and got attached to you

Pregnancy had made her clumsy, but even so, Serein was diligent in her self-assigned task. It was only a few days prior that she had discovered the first of what would turn into many bones of wolves long gone. In the time since, Serein had transformed her den to something less like a home and more like a study in the most essential anatomy of the deceased.

She turned a rib bone over between her paws, gnawing at the ridged end of it. Her swollen belly was pronounced in this position, prone on her side. Serein paused to pluck an errant tuft of fur from her bared skin. Redness bloomed over the tender flesh, but she hardly noticed. She'd been plucking herself bald for days now, driven by the least glamorous of instincts.

Serein had the ability to make Disa say and do stupid things. Something about the glum mother-to-be inspired her to push the limits of her social skills, and the results never quite landed. Her compliments were often just statements, and it was difficult to see them as positive observations - you are round, you have a face, you do not smell so bad today.

She shuffled back to Serein's den now, feeling that she should qualify that round was in fact a good thing - a biological triumph. 

Late-stage pregnancy had the dusky female looking like a blimp attached to four twigs. Disa could not help but stare as she drew near - the skin on Serein's belly had stretched, making small saucers out of her nipples. There were so many. "You have big nipples," Disa announced, because that paired so well with round.

Serein had grown fond of Disa in spite of herself. The woman showed up seemingly only to catalogue the changes in Serein's body in that blunt, toneless cadence of hers. Today it was big nipples. She glanced up with the hint of a grin forming around the bone still lodged between her molars.

After a moment she let the bone slip out of her teeth. Hello, Disa, she said softly, tilting her head as she studied her packmate. They're sore, too. And leaky. No one mentions that part.

Disa, similarly, found that she was comfortable in Serein's presence.  The had the soon-to-be mother's grotesque physique to talk about, so conversation never ran dry - much like her nipples, apparently.

"That seems wasteful," she commented with a frown. Perhaps they ought to catch the dribble and feed the pack. "Does it hurt? The belly."

Sometimes. It itches more than it hurts, Serein frowned at her own belly. The fur turned brittle and thin, so I started pulling it out... She reached down to pluck another clump of fur she'd spotted, as if to emphasize her point. It came out easily, though it left a few spots of blood that she was quick to clean.

My body is gross now, she announced, pulling the rib bone closer to continue her gnawing with renewed enthusiasm. How's the garden? Not as gross, I bet.

Serein's fur came away like dead grass, exposing more raw skin. Without knowing it (but very much hoping to), Disa finally said something comforting: "Fur grows back."

She slumped to her side, pulling a thin bone from the scattered scraps on the ground around Serein. Just to hold.

"They garden is very gross," she assured her packmate. "It's full of fish and bones and dead plants. I make piles. They smell. Then it gets very hot." She flexed her paw around what was likely a piece of vertebrae, frowning.

"It makes a black thing. Plants like it," she finished. It was the only gardening skill she had; a custom among the scattered tribes of her home to keep prey close to the desert.

The little wolf's ears suddenly perked up. "Do you know any poisonous plants?" It was a weird thing to ask a stranger, she  had discovered - there was always a look - but Serein was on track to be family.

Serein's gnawing intensified as she listened to Disa's vivid descriptions. She was thoroughly enjoying herself; eyes half-lidded, ears flicking in every direction, bone cracking noisily between her teeth. Then the question registered, and she stiffened.

I don't kill anymore, she asserted first, an echo of the words she'd exchanged with Kemal on that first day. Then she shifted, letting the bone drop again to really look at Disa. For a long moment she only studied the woman.

Yes. I know many poisons. It was my job, before.

Disa's face lit up - but in the way supermarket lights switch in the early hours of the opening shift. Cold, detached interest. She wondered briefly why @Kemal would entrust her with the garden when she knows so little, and Serein knew so much.

Perhaps he thought her dim, and expected little more than mud. Disa does not mind.

"It's a poison garden," Disa clarifies. "I have put rocks and skulls." Just to make it clear. "I like nightshades," she continues, gaze drifting. "I know thorn-apple, and belldonna. They are very bad. Other things just give you hot poo, or take your eyes. I met a healer that told me about poppies and Azaleas. There's stoneseed," she eyes Serein's swollen belly. "Tell me more things. I can grow it, and you don't have to kill anyone. They are just plants. Then someone eats them, and they are poison."

Slowly, she began to nod. This was fine. Serein didn't really mind if Disa wanted to kill wolves with poisons, so long as she didn't try to poison Kemal or the children. It was only that Serein herself would not, could not be the catalyst for another wolf's final breath. She had promised.

What poisons do you want to know? The killing kind? Serein paused, then added: I know those better than the pooping kind. But there are fewer. And some do both, depending on the subject's consumption... She trailed off, momentarily lost in remembering.

"Any," she requested, dropping the bone to focus wholly on Serein. "But nothing like the green. Soul-stealers. I do not like those." A shadow passes over Disa's blank face, and for a moment she looks grim.