Andrew stood there for a minute, watching Laurel cry her heart out, not quite sure what to do. "It...it'll be okay," she mumbled, hoping to comfort her new friend.
"How will it be okay?" Laurel wailed. "I'm twenty years behind everyone I know! My mom is sixty, my sister's forty-two, and my grandpa's got to be dead by now! My friends are probably married with kids! How is that okay?"
"I guess it's not," Andrew said. "Sorry, I just..."
Laurel continued crying. "You were trying to help, I know," she said, her voice trembling. "It's just...everything and everyone I ever knew has changed. Even if I got back, I wouldn't know them. I've got nothing left."
Andrew wrapped her wing around the other girl. "You've got me," she said. "But...I guess that's not the same."
Laurel sniffled and looked up at her, the faintest hint of a smile on her face. "D-don't s-say that!" she stammered. "Oh God, you have no idea how much it means to me just to have someone to talk to again; please don't think I'm not grateful for that! It's...well, I've spent the last two-plus years thinking about how much I want to see my family again, and...and now I'm sure they think of me as dead, twenty years later..."
She broke down again. Andrew nodded, still embarassed by her clumsy attempts at comfort."It must be awful," she said; at least that didn't sound so stupid. Laurel looked at her again, and she almost did smile this time. "You know what's awful?" she said, finally beginning to pull herself together. "Your hair, that's what. I guess you can't do much about it, but it's just too tangled to ignore. Wait here."
She slithered off towards the back of the cave again, and Andrew sat down on the mat. It was rather uncomfortable, since she had to lean forward in order to keep her tailfeathers at a workable angle, but Laurel's table didn't seem to have a stool to go with it, probably because the gorgon-girl's tail seemed to be adequate for her seating needs.
Presently, Laurel returned, carrying a comb chipped out of flint. "Oh," she said, "I suppose I should've made a chair, huh? Well, why don't you sit up here, it's bound to be more comfortable." At her direction, Andrew hopped up onto the little wooden table after Laurel had cleared the different items from off of it. This was indeed more comfortable, since she could hang her fan of tailfeathers over the back edge and her legs over the front.
Once Andrew had gotten comfortable, Laurel threw another log on the fire and began working over the harpy-girl's long red hair, combing out the tangles and snarls as best as she could. "Never thought I'd get a chance to use this comb," she said, indicating her snake-tail pseudo-hair. "But I have so much spare time I wind up making things I can't even use. Anyway, I'm glad I did; you have such lovely hair, it would be a crime to leave it like this. You'll look so nice when it's fixed!"
"Um, thanks," Andrew mumbled, not sure what to think about being told her hair was pretty, but not wanting to offend Laurel. The other girl could sense her embarassment, though. "Oh, don't worry," she giggled, "I won't try to gussy you up with makeup or anything, not that I have any. I just think your hair is very nice, and anyway it'll be more comfortable to have it untangled. Besides, you're going to be a girl fora while yet, so you may as well get used to people treating you like one. Which reminds me, there's a few things you'll need to know about your new body."
Andrew suppressed a cringe as Laurel continued. "First, you're going to want something to support your breasts, but it sounded like you already know that." Andrew nodded as Laurel eyed her naked breasts appraisingly. "I'd guess you're a large B-cup," she said. "I'll have to see if I can work up a homemade bra for you to use, at least until we find someone who caters to people like you. The other thing is that you can't just leave your eggs lying around; you have to move them away from your home, or they'll decay and start attracting scavengers."
"Eggs?" Andrew yelped, barely keeping herself still as Laurel continued to de-tangle her hair. "I can't have eggs! What do I look like, a chicken?"
Laurel shrugged. "Do I look like a lizard?" she said. "I know, it threw me off at first, too; you seem to have the same-er, well, normal girl parts, anyway, and then surprise! But you get used to it, after a while."
"Doesn't it hurt?" Andrew queried, not sure she wanted to know the answer. Laurel chuckled. "Not as much as you'd think," she said. "You're built to take it now, after all. And on the bright side, once you're over the soreness, that's it; no days upon days of cramps and bloating and dribbling fluids. Not that you'd know much about that."
Andrew groaned. First she was stuck in a time-dilated game world, in an entirely different body, and now she was going to lay eggs, to boot? This was turning out to be the worst day ever, even if she had made a new friend.