Sunlight pricked at Andrew's eyes, and he shut them tighter, trying to block it out and get back to sleep. He had had the weirdest dream last night, from which he was glad to have woken, but he could really use a few more minutes of rest. Unable to block out the light with his eyelids, he covered his face with one arm.
Something was wrong. The arm in question somehow covered a much wider area than normal, and was covered with...feathers? Andrew groaned, a soft, feminine sound, as she realized that it hadn't been a dream after all. Now more or less awake, she rolled onto her back and opened her eyes. Stalactite-studded rock greeted her. She stared up at the cave ceiling for a minute or two before finally sitting up.
She was immediately aware of the fact that sitting up tended to pull uncomfortably at the base of her tailfeathers. She leaned to one side and lifted them out from under her, discovering, in the process, that she was able to angle the up away from the floor, instead of having to lean forward when she sat. Having finally managed to sit up comfortably, Andrew looked around the room.
Laurel wasn't there. There was no indication of where she might have gone, but she was probably out hunting or something, Andrew reasoned. Wherever she'd gone, Laurel had left a slice of meat speared on a roasting stick, which Andrew eagerly began turning over the glowing coals in the firepit.
It took a few tries to get it cooked enough, and some parts were more done than others, but before too long Andrew had made a fairly satisfying breakfast out of the...whatever it was (probably still venison, she figured, but she really couldn't tell one game animal from another.) But now her face was covered in grease and flecks of charred meat, and she hadn't had a shower in two days; she was feeling more than a little grimy.
Andrew made her way to the entrance of the cave, to have a look around. The cave exited right onto the rim of a small pool, which was fed from a tiny waterfall that trickled down from the hill the cave was located in. It was a beautiful sight, but Andrew was primarily interested in getting washed up.
The icy water took a bit of getting used to, and the fact that the cold left her nipples hard made Andrew feel embarassed for the assorted times she'd made a crack about that before, but overall it went pretty well, and she was able to get herself about as clean as was possible without soap or shampoo. (Incidentally, Laurel was right; she did look nicer with her hair straightened.) The ruffling of her feathers to dry them took a little figuring out, but she managed, and before long she was sitting on the ledge above the pool, swirling her talons in the water and letting the morning sun dry the rest of her out.
It was while she was sitting there, drying off, that Andrew became aware of a slowly increasing pressure in her gut. It was rather like the sensation of needing to take a dump, except it wasn't coming from her intestines. Andrew wasn't sure what, exactly, was going on, but the pressure was steadily increasing, and she didn't want to make any kind of mess on what amounted to Laurel's front porch. She sprinted around the side of the hill a ways, and then squatted down to await the inevitable.
As it turned out, it was exactly what Andrew had hoped it wasn't. There was a large object making its way down her - what was it, again - birth canal, and she realized that this was the oviposition Laurel had warned her about. Andrew was laying an egg. Fortunately, the process itself was distracting enough that she didn't have time to feel too embarassed. The egg was getting down towards her pubic area now, and the feeling was pretty uncomfortable. Her earlier appraisal had been fairly accurate; it was a lot like the feeling of passing a gigantic stool. Her eyes tearing up a little as the egg began its exit through her vagina, Andrew focused on pushing it out of her body as quickly as possible. Finally, after what seemed like forever, the egg dropped to the ground, and it was over.
Andrew spent the next minute or so catching her breath. While that hadn't been at all pleasant, at least Laurel was right and it wasn't as bad as she'd feared. It was certainly nowhere near as bad as the childbirth video they'd had to watch in health class. Still, she really hoped she and Laurel would find a way back to normal before she had to do that again.
Unsure what to with the egg, Andrew scooped it up and cradled it in her wings, carrying it back to the cave, where Laurel had returned. She took one look at Andrew and gasped. "Oh, you poor girl!" she said. "Did you have to do that by yourself?I'm sorry, I was going to walk you through your first time."
"Um, well," Andrew said, rather embarassed by being referred to as "you poor girl," "it's not like you could've predicted it would happen when it did."
"Well," Laurel said, carrying the egg to the back of the cave and dropping it down a deep, coffee-can-sized hole in the floor, "at least you've got the first one over with; it gets easier after that. You'll get used to it."
Andrew moaned. She knew Laurel was just trying to make her feel better, but she didn't want to get used to it!