[PRP] Uh Oh! Your Eggo Is Preggo! (Peregrine x Organa)

[Pollack]

Weeks had passed since that fateful night, after a rough couple of days of Peregrine pushing her past her limits to gauge just what exactly he was working with both of them had fallen into strict (or as strict the Bahari could get) routine. Eat, do laps in the wading pools for a few hours, eat again, then go and crawl back into the little corner she had staked out for herself in his den to sleep.

Rinse and repeat to do it all again.

Why it might have been tedious work already she had been showing signs of improvement. She still might not have been able to walk on that leg quite yet, but at the very least she was able to put weight back on it without toppling over. Not much, but she would take it.

There was just one tiny problem that had been bothering her for this past week - she was getting fat! Alright, alright, she'll admit she might have been a little over indulgent with her eating habits ever since arriving here but it still didn't line up with amount of weight she was putting on at such an alarming weight. Yesterday she had even noticed her stomach was bulging, ******** bulging!

Doggy-paddling her way back over to the edge of the water she peered up to Peregrine. "Cloud-foot, I think I'm going to have to cut this session short for today. I'm exhausted." And sore, hot, and more importantly - hungry. Always she was damn hungry now a days! "Can I get a paw up?"

 

[Epine de Rose]

She had taken to giving him a variety of names as her treatment had continued - this was in large part due to the fact that she had never been formally introduced. In fact, Malphas didn't even know what the healer's name was and it seemed they had all simply kept up the charade. No doubt they both could have asked around and received the introduction relatively quickly, probably coupled with a warning regarding the quirks of their assistant, but for the time being... Nicknames it was.

This morning was to be of no exception as the lioness made her way towards him and proceeded to make her way back out. Unsurprisingly, Peregrine didn't aid her immediately and instead, waiting for the point in which she really began to struggle before he pulled her from the water. It was taking longer now, which meant that she was slowly but surely regaining her strength.

...She'd never be perfect, but she would be able to run on it again eventually.

"I would assume you are always exhausted nowadays," Peregrine remarked dismissively and moved away from the rock pool. "Most expecting mothers in the Bahari simply up the amount of food they eat so that they can continue with their duties," he glanced over his shoulder.

"Perhaps you should do the same thing, given you have a considerable amount of work to do before you are recovered."

Pollack

 

[Pollack]

She had long since figured out his name. With the Bahari being so relaxed it made her little hobby of people watching extremely easy. With Malphas leaving for some emergency he had yet to tell her of - something she was insanely curious about - it left her with little to do outside of her exercises but lounge and watch.

To be fair though, she had gotten a great deal of help from some of the other locals about Peregrine after she broke down, cornered one who wasn't busy, and interrogated them about not only his name but also exactly what was up with his....special mannerisms for lack of a better word.

She just generally preferred the nicknames. It kept things distant, professional, and with no strings. It would make things a lot easier when she inevitably had to move on.

With a grunt as soon as he pulled her up she was back down again, her chest heaving as she struggled to catch her breath. "Are you kidding me? I need to cut back on the food as it is, Baby Blue. Look at me! I'm getting faaAAaaaT-!" WAIT. WHAT.

Her eyes widened as she shot up, or gave her best attempt anyways before slumping back down. Damn this leg to the afterlife and beyond! She did not have time for this right now! "That can't be possible, unless things magically changed, last time I checked it takes a mommy and a daddy loving each other very much and doing a horizontal tango for offspring to be made. A tango I haven't done in a very, very long time!"

Unless...no, that couldn't be it. They had chatted for a period of perhaps an hour tops why she nursed her drink. He was attractive, she wouldn't deny that, but what he had to offer wasn't worth risking this exact situation, not when she could take care of her own damn needs herself, thank you very much.

They had parted ways after their little talk....hadn't they?

Taking her time this attempt she got herself upright back onto her good legs. Hobbling over to the pool's edge she examined her form with a heated glare. "Are you quite sure that this isn't just from your food? It is quite sweet here." Sickeningly so for her tastes. She shot him a questioning glance over her shoulder. "Do you have some sort of...test to confirm or deny this sort of thing?"

Epine de Rose

 

[Epine de Rose]

"If you want to pretend you had an immaculate conception then by all means, feel free to do so," Peregrine responded with the same ease as he was accustomed to. She might have been in shock, but he saw no point in joining in with the denial, whether she cared to admit it or not, she was pregnant. "You are however, expecting," he added with a shake of his head.

What others chose to do in their spare time, particularly beyond the borders of the Bahari, was entirely up to them. They might have had cultural expectations here, but even his mother could confirm based on her own past experiences, that such things did not exist beyond their home. Or rather, they didn't exist in the rogue lands where rules were very much based on ones family and own moral compass...

"And if you dislike our sweet foods," he raised a brow and purses is lips. "Then eat the fish without the dressings."

There was another pause...

"As for your desire to test whether my assessment is correct," he glanced at her abdomen briefly. "We can arrange to have someone kick you and see whether or not there happens to be a reaction, if you are most certainly confident that you are not, in fact expecting, and are simply experiencing a severe case of bloating." Blunt as always, his approach certainly lacked any form of tact, but at least she wouldn't have any reason to doubt his confidence!

Pollack

 

[Pollack]

Her eyes rolled at his sharp reply. She wasn't going to be one of those foolish lionesses who run around screaming for everyone to light the alters cause they didn't want to deal with their mistakes. It was evident whether she liked it or not there was proof blatantly staring right at her face that at some point in time she had participated in a certain kind of stress relief.

The problem was for her was who and when? And more importantly what the hell was she going to do with cubs!?

She didn't know a damn thing about them besides that they were loud, annoying, and masterful poop machines that she didn't want anything to do with! They would only slow her down and get themselves hurt or killed during her mission at some point in time since she absolutely refused to procrastinate on it any longer once her shoulder was healed.

Organa might not have been the most emphatic or kind lioness, but she did have enough mercy in her not to bring children into this world only to put them through drawn out trauma, pain, and finally a untimely and senseless death.

She would have to figure out an alternative and soon. Currently there only three were presenting themselves to her right now: 1. Find them a new and stable home.
2. Mercy kill them herself before they have any sort of conscious.
3. Or last but not least, make the long trek back home to dump them off with the child rears to handle until they were ready to be paired with their roles and mentors.

Normally if this situation was brought up in a hypothetical 'what if though?' setting she would default to the latter option. Though she would have no part of their lives it would have satisfied her to know that her bloodline was still producing productive members for the good of the pride.

Alas, that option had clearly been blown to smithereens. Damn it all! Her wonderful sense of timing was rearing up to show it's lovely head once again.

Her ears swiveled back as he pulled her once again from her thoughts. There would be plenty of time to weigh the pros and cons of each option without distractions later on, right now it was time to keep focused on the conversation at hand!

"I believe as you once said to me, 'Eat it or starve'" Pausing she let out a wary sigh as she readjusted her body to get another view of her bulging stomach from a new angle. Her lips pursed in a distasteful sneer down at the bizarre reflection staring back at her. Ugh, first her shoulder and now this? Honestly she was starting to wonder who replaced her reflection because this certainly wasn't an accurate image!

"So it's not my fault you put so much dressing on it that you have to dig for gold for an hour just to find the meat underneath." Hey, even she could be a picky princess. After all, wasn't there always a saying about pregnant women suddenly becoming snobbish and weird about their food? At least she could use this horrible turn of events in her favor one time.

Her eyes widened at his proposal. Abandoning her previous task of trying to glare her pregnancy away she snapped around to fully address him. "Oh? Now there's an idea. Would you mind that? And when can we do it?" She inquired quite seriously, not really understand that he most likely was jesting about actually attempting to abort unwanted children.

Epine de Rose

 

[Epine de Rose]

"Your priorities are certainly unusual," Peregrine remarked as she seemed to take him up on the offer of removing her own offspring from existence. Fortunately, Peregrine was not about to conduct such an activity today, and instead he simply dismissed it. While the lioness was undoubtedly in shock, this was not a service he could currently provide in good conscience. If, in time, she genuinely didn't want her offspring then he wouldn't judge her for dealing with it as she saw fit, but this particular solution wasn't something the Bahari would generally approve of.

...Truth be told, they would have preferred that their children were born into loving families to begin with!

"However, you do need to eat something or starve, I do not believe I specified what you had to eat," he pointed out smoothly. "While you might have been provided with the same meals that we eat here, there is nothing to stop you from consuming something you might feel more fitting," he tilted his head to the side to consider what such a meal might be comprised of. Given she still didn't have full motion in her leg (but it was getting markedly better), she certainly couldn't hunt at the moment.

"Bugs, perhaps?" He shook his head. "Alternatively, just tip the food upside down and extract the meat from underneath it," he pointed out, once again enforcing that fact that stating the obvious was second nature to him.

"That aside," he clucked his tongue softly, the cogs in his head turning. "Perhaps we should consider putting more strain on that limb of yours," he mused. "It might be time to change your routine, and it might help you slim down..."

Pollack

 

[Pollack]

"Perhaps in your society, yes. Where I'm from getting rid of anything that compromises your assignment must take top priority." She explained as she shook her head. "But if that's not a service you're willing to provide I suggest you don't offer it in the first place. After all didn't your mother teach you it's not nice to tease people with things?" She added on, a teasing smirk forming on her face as she regarded him with a side-ways glance.

There was a slight pause as Organa took one last long look down at her reflection in the water. She had gotten herself in quite the pickle this time, hadn't she? Honestly she couldn't really blame Peregrine for not preforming the operation she had already noticed the high expectation and value that this pride put on family relationships. Children were a treasured blessed things, something that the whole pride actually looked forward to. Why that whole idea might have been strange, almost alien in nature to her she would respect not crossing that line.

Turning her back to the water she finally began to hobble her away over to him. Though her leg was starting to be able to hold some of her weight it couldn't withstand it for long periods, thus she mostly used it as a balancer when she got to uneven ground. She might have looked ridiculous but at least she was able to move around by herself again! Progress, baby steps, all that other inspirational crap people loved to jam down the injuried's throats.

"Bugs?" She paused for a moment, her brows furrowing together as she contemplated over the idea of adding a new food source into her diet. "Honestly that might not be a bad idea, they are a rather good source of protein. However do you have someone who's documented which bugs in this area are and are not safe to eat?" Once again she was proving that her ideals and priorities were vastly different from what could be considered the norm around here.

If he was expecting a larger reaction from her he was surely going to be disappointed!

Her whole demeanour perked up once more at his suggestion. Lifting her injured leg she gave a slow, testing roll of her shoulder as she spoke, "It's not hurting so much anymore after our sessions so that sounds good to me." She certainly wasn't going to be one to turn down the chance to work off some of this annoying extra baby weight. Killing two birds with one stone!

"So, Freckles..." She started, regarding him with as mild of a smile as she could muster. "What did you have in mind, and when can we start?"

Epine de Rose

 

[Epine de Rose]

Organa had met her match whenever it came to Peregrine; she might have thought her quick lipped responses would be enough to unseat him, but she was merely met with the same bored expression she should have long since been accustomed to. If she wanted to eat bugs then he was most assuredly not going to stop her from that either; she was her own being after all, and what she chose to do with that form of her's was entirely up to her.

"The Hlare," he pointed out, as if she had asked a rather ridiculous question. It seemed that despite her time here, she hadn't quite learned who did what. Not that he blamed her, she had been largely restricted to putting up with him, but she did have time to socialise. Alas, maybe the roles of those within the pride hadn't really come up in conversation...

"They are the masters of all things poisonous and not," he finished and then raised a brow. He wasn't surprised by her nicknames, truth be told he was quite used to them by now, and her constant creativity meant that she wasn't suffering from depression. All in all, her behaviour simply reinforced that she was in good spirits and making a suitable recovery, which was a vast improvement on her snappy nature when she first arrived.

...Although that was mostly towards her companion.

"We're going fishing," he said finally and smirked. "If you want to dictate what you eat, and how you eat it, the best way to do that is to catch it and serve it up yourself, no?"

Pollack

 

[Pollack]

Ah, it was a darn good attempt at the very least! If he refused to crack under her amazing comedy skills then she would just have to give herself a pat on the back. It was bound to be sooner-or-later she would be able to find something that would at least pull a real smile from the damn man.

Alas, till then it was back to olde faithful resting b***h face Peregrine.

Blinking rapidly her head listed to one side in confusion. "The who?" Wait, she should have known this by now, yes? It was some sort of title that they gave their members. It wasn't a title or family name giving to certain breeding statuses, those names she was thankful the Bahari seemed to keep short and simple. But they did love to give their different job classes weird names. Wait, was that it? "That's a...rank around here?" She asked hesitantly. She didn't get a chance to ask him what exactly the rank entailed before he was right on cue giving his own brief summery of the job duties.

"Sooooo alchemists basically." She gave a short shake of her head. "You know you could have just said that?" She added on. Here she thought that he was the king of stating the obvious!

"Fishing?" She repeated back to him slowly before she dumbly nodded her head. "Alright I'll take a bite of the bait. Anything to save my poor palate from your sauces. Come on then let's get to learning how to fish."

Epine de Rose

 

[Epine de Rose]

"I did just say that," Peregrine glanced over his shoulder towards the lioness and shook his head. He hadn't been imagining it when he had said 'Hlare', and while they might be alchemists in her tongue that didn't mean they were in his. Given his sarcastic drawl had merely been present to confirm that they were in fact one of the few individuals who could categorically advise her on it, it had seemed to be an appropriate tidbit of information to provide.

...Especially when she had a bad habit of trying to bring up semantics!

Nevertheless, she could complain as she saw fit; for now though he simply made his way towards the shores. He'd elected to locate the rock pools where he knew the currents would be much more gentle. More importantly, he knew that there would be several hunters out that might be able to provide some guidance. Or rather, he knew there would be one in particular that would provide guidance best suited to this quick-lipped lioness.

Suffice to say, Peregrine was curious as to whether or not her patience would hold out for this lesson.

Pollack

 

[Pollack]

Letting out a drawn out sigh she chewed the inside of her cheek to keep herself from letting out a nasty string of curses. Had she more mobility in both of her legs she would already chunking a pebble at his head for that comment, but falling on her face just to be able to cause a minor annoyance just didn't seem like a fair trade-off. Instead she elected to take the (arguably) high-road and responded with a hissed, "Smart a**."

The rest of the way Organa was uncharacteristically subdued and silent besides the occasional warning that she had to slow down, or go around something. Her thoughts were far off from stressing over the future fishing lesson, or who it might have be taught by. Much bigger issues had taken over her thoughts for the time being, such as how she was going to deal with this horrible pregnancy, what fate were the offspring that she would inevitably have to bring into this world face? Would she even give them that chance? Or would she just cut the problem off at the source?

Decisions, decisions. At the very least she would soon be thrust head-first into a fishing lesson she was unlikely to ever forget...

Epine de Rose

Annnd fin~