[Marley]

Sorrel pressed his lips together and hugged the tree that steadied him tightly. With the worst initially over, Sorrel blinked open his eyes and breathed heavily as Lacerta's hands ran over his middle. Suddenly, he was more aware of just what was happening and he nudged at Lacerta's hands with one of his own pulled away from the tree in a lame attempt to try to get his attention. "Don't knot," he warned feebly, unsure of how their conception would even come to be. Faun were too small to carry centaur foals... weren't they? Not to mention how would the rest of the herd react to this? "D-don't knot!" His mind was telling him no but his body wanted more than anything to be knotted.

[bhdire8]

Lacerta was aware his hands were tugged, but he didnt have enough in him to interpret the action.  He linked the hand with his own and once again placed it on the abdomen. With this subtle movement, his member finally flicked across the inner entrance, a sensitive area to the carrier.  Lacerta smiled proudly when he felt the body flinched and a sweet moan was heard. Making sure his partner had some pleasure from this was an inbred idea, regardless of the violence at first.  His thrusted more powerfully aiming at that sweet spot, wanting to plough it open for his knot.

[Marley]

Sorrel knew that Lacerta hadn't heard him when he didn't get a reply back. He could feel his heart pounding at the new fact that this might take and they might conceive from it and it worried him a lot, not only for physical reasons but for societal reasons too. If he ever found his heard would they take him back? Or would the centaur herd want to keep him? When Lacerta snapped out of his haze what would he do? Sorrel sniffled and yelped as he felt the centaur thrust madly inside of him, face flushed and eyes welling with tears at the overly full sensation. He instinctively pressed back against the tree to try and pull a bit away from the wide girth slamming him but it was nearly impossible to move at this point.

[bhdire8]

Lacerta could feel the inner entrance gradually relent under his constant pounding. The tip of his head poked inside, widening further the circle of muscles.  With a particularly forceful pound, he breached the final barrier. The knot at the base started flaring, making his movement more and more constricted. The slight struggling of his carrier only made him even more annoyed, he pressed the body on the tree, finding his scent point at the back of the neck he prepared to bite down at the moment when he knotted and seeded the carrier, forever marking him.

[Marley]

Sorrel yelled out briefly at the last forceful thrust into his womb, panting heavily and whimpering as Lacerta finally knotted him. He swallowed thickly and turned his head away to the side, ears lowered but not long before he felt Lacerta mark the back of his neck in a swift bite down. He let some kind of mangled cry pass over his lips, his legs struggling to keep him on his feet. Sorrel took a sharp breath in as he tried to adjust himself to Lacerta's large shaft, his smaller body shaking as he was more or less hilted on Lacerta. He let his eyes fall half shut and he prayed that maybe their species weren't compatible and conception wouldn't be something to worry about. Already his abdomen bulged subtly from the amount of seed being pumped into him though. Sorrel didn't want to think about it.

[bhdire8]

His knot still lodged squarely inside, the orgasm had made Lacerta a bit more aware of his surroundings. Feeling his carrier - mate now - trembling, he placed a supportinf hand around his delicate torso. He could feel his seeds filling up the womb, feeling quite accomplished and spent, he carefully shifted down, trying his best not to hurt his mate when moving while still linked, and laid down on the ground together. Instinctively he wrapped his mate in his arms, both for protecting him and also for warming him.  Both of them fell asleep some time later with Lacerta still pumping seed in sporadically, and the whole process would repeat again.  This would last for a whole day before Lacerta have any chance of coming back into his senses.

[Marley]

Nearly three weeks would pass and Sorrel was still feeling the effects of that evening with Lacerta. He was sure by now some of the herd knew about it all but he didn't speak of the encounter since it had happened. He'd been hoping he might not have to worry about conception but with early nausea most mornings and the noticeable curve of his abdomen already, Sorrel's fears seemed to be a reality. The gestation for a faun was just over five months, but was he carrying faun? His stature was too small to handle any centaur foal, his legs too slender to even close sided holding the weight. Most faun had to be put on bedrest nearing the end of their pregnancy as their bodies were unable to handle the sheer weight of one faun. So with reason, this concerned him. A lot.

He didn't know how long a centaur pregnancy lasted so he had no clue how far ahead he should be considering, but with the visible bulge of his middle thus far, maybe they were as short as faun pregnancies. He still didn't know what to make of he and Lacerta together. Technically they were mates but what had happened had been a result of lust. Moving with the herd today felt more sluggish than normal, and Sorrel was forced to go off sometimes and throw up his stomach contents at various times during the day, like he'd just done.

Sorrel wandered back to where the herd was, eyeing Lacerta from afar as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

[bhdire8]

To say Lacerta was in denial was an understatement. Returning to his senses, he had found himself a lapful of Sorrel, unconscious and still bleeding from the tear on his opening. He had carried the faun back to their habitat discreetly, going directly to their leader's cave and explained to him the situation. He had then avoided at all costs to meet with the faun, deeply ashamed of what he had done, but he never leave too faraway from the faun either, always keeping a watching eye over his mate, albeit from afar. If he was being honest he would admit he feared he would be rejected and despised by his mate if he confronted him about this. He knew what he did was unforgivable, yet the thought of his mate hating him devastates him to no end.

He had noticed the nauseousness and the swelling of his belly too. He had asked the medi of their herd, somewhat confidentially, if there was any record of a centaur-faun offspring. The answer had been negative. He was at a lost to what to expect and how to deal with the situation. 

Lately he had started to worry about Sorrel's health. The burden was clearly taxing on his energy and the unsettling stomach had made him lose weight.  He yearned to be able to take care of his mate. Feeling the faun peeking at him and noticing he had thrown up again, he decided to brave through this, finally confronting his own fault, he approached Sorrel for the first time in 3 weeks.

[Marley]

Sorrel had seen the disapproving looks tossed his way from some of the other centaurs while others seemed to be empathetic towards him overall. He didn't know what to make of the situation and he really just wanted to meet back up with his old herd and continue on with them. They'd know how to help him and he wouldn't be around mostly strangers. He'd never heard of a centaur and faun conceiving successfully before, or at all for that matter, so he wasn't sure what to expect when it came to what was happening to him. He knew he was pregnant, he could make it out from his own scent, but what he was carrying was what he was a bit frightened by. A faun he supposed he could do despite being a newbie to this whole thing, but a centaur? That made things a whole lot more complicated.

Seeing Lacerta approach him for the first time since their heat made Sorrel nervous but he did his best to stand strong and he gave the centaur a wary look, lips curled into a frown. "So you're alive?" he joked cruelly, shaking his head. "I'm fine, if you came to ask how I was doing."

[bhdire8]

"This is no place to talk. Let's go somewhere with more privacy." He said in a calm voice and turned around, leading the way. He heard tiny footsteps following him after some initial hesistation, and sighed a breath of relief. He had been worried Sorrel would not even talk to him.

Stopping at a clearing beside the lake, Lacerta faced Sorrel directly. He mustered all his courage and said, looking into the faun's eyes,"I am very for what I had done. I was blinded by the rut. I have taken advantage of your stage and forced myself on you, even marking you and got you... bearing our young. I am very sorry." He continued after pausing a little "and for how I have reacted after the incident, I am also very sorry. I was a coward and a disgrace of my honor. I wish .. i hope you would allow me the chance for redemption."

[Marley]

Sorrel didn't know if he wanted to follow Lacerta to wherever he was taking him but he didn't really have a choice, and maybe the talk would turn out better than what he'd been expecting - being kicked out of the herd for being some sort of distraction. He was nervous initially but when the centaur began to speak to him and apologize, he frowned a little and rubbed at his face

"It's fine. I forgive you. Neither of us could control the heat so it wasn't only your fault." If that were the case, Sorrel should have had enough energy to get away while he could, but he'd been a willing participant to some extent... just not for the pregnancy bit of it. "Yeah, sure." Sorrel shrugged halfheartedly. "There's no use in staying bitter over it, but..." He looked up at Lacerta. "I'm worried. About this pregnancy. I mean it's obvious but centaurs and fauns..." He trailed off and shook his head. "It's dangerous." He glanced around quickly and then spoke softly. "Faun aren't meant to carry centaur foals, we can barely carry our own." He sighed. "This? This is risky."

[bhdire8]

"I have consulted with our medi and she told me there was no record for any offspings between our species. I guess we would have to let nature take it's.course. afterall if it is conceived, I guess it meant he is healthy... to a certain extend?" He looked at the faun, his belly already bulging quite obviously this close. "Centaur gestation is a year long, I understand it was much shorter for fauns. I guess we would have ro keep a careful eye throughou this pregnancy.

He moved closer to Sorrel, his instincts screaming at him to take care of his mate. "Are you.... are you feeling any discomfort now? I see you had.disappeared earlier to.. are you still feeling nauseous?"

[Marley]

"We can let it take its course, sure, but not knowing what'll happen is pretty dangerous, don't you think?" Sorrel bit the inside of his cheek and lowered his ears. "So we don't know how long this is gonna last then, huh?" Anywhere between five months and a year was a long stretch of time, and if he was to grow at the rate that he was now, already with somewhat of an obvious curve to his middle, then there was no telling how big he might get, or more importantly how big he /could/ get before his slender legs would be unable to support the weight; he'd seen it with all faun pregnancies of his kind, but this was no normal pregnancy and there was more at risk.

"I'm fine now. Can't really stop walking off to throw up though." He shrugged. "I guess it comes with the woes of pregnancy."

[bhdire8]

Lacerta had never felt this powerless. As one of the leaders, he always could ome up with some solution to solve problems, yet now with everything unknown, he was at a lost. He felt even worse for his mate, who had to deal with this fear alone the past few weeks. 

He approached his mate and carressed his twitching ears that were soft and sensitve. "Sorry for letting you deal with this fear alone. I have heard there is medi who ks the oldest one among this area, she might know something about this. Let's see if we can find her and ask for her advice."

[Marley]

((Hey sorry this is late!! Had midterms and then got hit with that hurricane so power was out for a few days ))

Sorrel grimaced but nodded. It would be a good idea to go see the medic but if no one knew about what came out of a centaur and faun then Sorrel had doubts that even the oldest medic would know. It wasn't as if they really had a choice though. There was no telling how long everything would take for this gestation seeing as there were no records of any centaur and faun ever mating. Sorrel couldn't imagine having to do this for a year like Lacerta had said centaurs go through so he was hoping it might be closer to the five or six months fauns endured. Either way he thought he'd be in trouble.

"Alright, lead the way." Sorrel looked up at the other centaur and waited for him to go. "What do we do if they don't know anything?"

[bhdire8]

(It's fine I was worrying I was making this bored for you. All are good now, after the hurricane?)

"Well it's not that simple. They say the medic was very evasive. We would have to leave the pack for a few days to track her down. Perhaps, we should wait for a few days before we go? I dont think you are in the best physical condition right now. Also, we may need to take a few days' food with us"

[Marley]

((nah lol I've just been busy because after the power went out I fell behind on my homework and stuff. it's all good, back to normal now! ))

"Oh. Well if you'd like. The quicker we can find her the better." Sorrel wouldn't be calm until he knew the extent to which he was going to have to suffer through this for and in a few days he might be worse than he was now. There was no telling what would happen though. They just had to wait. "Yeah, we can get some food." He wondered if his old herd was looking for him or if they'd already forgotten about him. He had no idea how they would react to the news if they ever met again, and by that time he'd either still be pregnant or already having had the foals. "I'll try to gather some stuff up as we go."

((Do you want to skip ahead to when they meet the medic?))

[bhdire8]

(Ya sure) 

They departed after a few days with the permission and blessing of the centaur leader. With proper care Sorrel had recovered a little though the worry he had towards the pregnancy was still bothering him. Lacerta could only keep close to him and get to his needs as best as he can.

The 5-day hunt for the medic had led them to the deepest of woods. Lacerta made sure Sorrel was close to his side at all times - this was the most dangerous part of their forrest. They finally saw the legendary medic in one of the highest caves. Lacerta looked at the deep and dark cave and yelled. "Hello, I am here to ask for your help." 

[Marley]

((Sorry again, I think I'm going to be slow with replies for a bit more. Some stuff popped up :/ ))

Sorrel only felt slightly better after the next few days, but it was enough to get his mind off of most things that were bothering him. He'd been glad they'd been granted permission to see the medic - it was for no small reason after all - and had felt even more so relieved to get away from the herd for awhile. They all probably didn't care, but Sorrel still felt at times like they were scrutinizing him for what had happened. At least with only Lacerta it didn't feel so weird. The trek through the forest was a nice change even if not the most safe place, and Sorrel was amazed when they finally found the cave of the medic. "They really love out here all isolated like this?" he asked, eyeing the cave warily as there seemed to be no movement for some time.

Before long, another centaur appeared from the cave, looking down at he and Lacerta until they began their descent to them. Sorrel bit his lip nervously. "And you're sure this medic isn't crazy or something?"

[bhdire8]

(Sure no problem. Just come back whenever you are free :)) 

"We don't really have a choice. She could be our only shot." Lacerta squeezed Sorrel's much smaller palm a bit before proceeding to the messiest centaur he had ever seen. He bowed deeply as in centaur custom, showing his respect to the medic.

"Medic Ira, I am Lacerta from the Lake Tan herd. I have come to seek your old and wise advice on some unprecedented case of gestation. My mate, Sorrel the faun, is pregnant with my youngs, yet it had never before been heard of such case between breeds. We pray, honorable medic Ira, that you may shed lights on the situation." Lacerta lowered his head, waiting for the medic's answer.i