Thread is backdated to 5/17 through 5/20, she is walking slow.
![[Image: 3cffdc614f8365755a476c0de39c8db0.jpg]](https://i.pinimg.com/1200x/3c/ff/dc/3cffdc614f8365755a476c0de39c8db0.jpg)
Speak your mind, even if your voice shakes.
3-3-3 OC
3-3-3 OC
SpeechEmotional Actions Thoughts
Bao had never liked feeling slow.
It was a quiet humiliation she carried with her now, one step at a time, as she moved through the ancient sequoia gateway that marked the edge of Dawn’s Cuesta. Once, she would have slipped through terrain like a shadow between heartbeats. Now the forest moved faster than she did.
Seven weeks.
The thought pressed at the back of her mind as insistently as the weight in her belly, as she kept her path steady toward Tianlong—her home, far beyond these woods, hidden in the mountains a few days’ travel from here. Every instinct she had still pointed upward and east, toward those distant peaks, even if her body no longer agreed with the urgency of her mind.
The trees here were immense. Towering sequoias stood like silent guardians, their trunks so wide it would take several wolves just to circle them. They formed a natural gate between regions, their dense growth swallowing sightlines and turning the forest into a maze of shadow and filtered gold. Somewhere nearby, a lake rested in stillness, broken only by the tireless work of beaver clans whose rhythmic labor echoed faintly through the silence.
Bao paused at the edge of the waterline, gaze briefly lifting to the reflection of the trees.
She should not linger.
She knew that.
And yet her body demanded otherwise.
Another wave of nausea rolled through her, sharp enough that her jaw tightened. The small prey she had managed to catch earlier had been left untouched hours ago. Even the thought of it now turned her stomach. Hunger came and went in unpredictable surges, replaced just as often by aversion or emptiness.
Her ears flicked back as she forced herself onward.
Tianlong was still far. A few days at least, if she moved without rest.
Except she could not move without rest.
Not anymore.
Her steps had changed without permission. Once precise and light, they had become heavier, uneven—an involuntary sway accompanying every stride. The waddle, she thought bitterly, as her body shifted again under its own altered balance. It was infuriating, unfamiliar, and completely beyond her control.
And yet she continued.
Because stopping was not an option.
Not when Tianlong waited.
The flutter came again then—soft, unmistakable, alive.
Bao stopped so abruptly the forest seemed to pause with her.
Her gaze lowered, as if she might see through fur and skin to the life stirring within. She could not. But she felt it all the same, a small insistence that did not belong to her alone anymore.
A faint exhale left her.
Focus,she muttered to herself, though it lacked its usual sharpness.
The word did not change the truth.
She was not alone in this journey anymore.
The realization settled like stone in her chest, heavy and entirely unwelcome. She didn't want these pups, she should've rid herself of them as soon as she realized, but that meant pain she didn't want to bear, and guilt that'd eat at her heart more than bearing them would.
The lake glimmered to her left as she continued onward, beavers sliding through the water in practiced patterns, oblivious to the weight she carried. Beyond them, the forest thickened again, roots twisting like veins beneath the soil, guiding her forward whether she wished it or not.
Tianlong lay ahead.
Stone and mountain and sky.
Home.
Bao set her jaw, adjusted her pace as best she could, and began to walk again—slower now, steadier, but still forward.
She'd get home, she must, and then, she'd settle down, get comfortable, see if the den she'd claimed had been taken or if it was still hers.
