Andrew sat down again, waiting for the residual soreness of the experience to dull a bit. Laurel must have read something in her expression, because she shook her head and sighed. "Don't hold your breath. That'll probably be with until lunch or so, assuming there aren't any more in the clutch."
Andrew moaned, trying to face-palm in exasperation, which would have worked better if she had had hands. "More? One was bad enough!"
"Well, you can lodge a complaint with God, then," Laurel replied, focusing her attention on some project she was working on on the table. "Or natural selection. Or whatever it is they believe in around here."
Andrew sighed. "How many should I expect?"
The gorgon shrugged. "Depends," she said. "It varies by subspecies, individual, and a die roll, at least back home. I typically have two or three, but for all we know you might have anywhere from zero to maybe four more in the pipeline."
"Oh, peachy."
Laurel chuckled. "You've just never experienced menstrual cramps, you poor naive little girl."
"Can you stop referring to me as a girl?" Andrew asked. "Factual accuracy aside, it's weirding me out."
The snake-girl looked back over her shoulder at Andrew, her expression a mixture of pity and irritation. "Nope," she replied. "I'm sorry it bothers you, but it's for your own good." She turned to face the embarrassed harpy. "I don't blame you for wanting to get back to your old body, but the simple fact is that you are a girl, and you're going to be one for a while, even if this does work out. And I'm not going to be an enabler for a friend's denial, especially when she's the only friend I've got."
Andrew half-smiled at that. She still wasn't really in agreement, but it was nice to have someone that concerned for her well-being. And she couldn't think of a good retort anyway.
The two of them sat in silence for a while, Laurel focusing on her project and Andrew counting stalactites on the ceiling because there wasn't really much else to do. After a bit, Andrew stood up and moved behind Laurel to get a look at whatever she was working on.
As it turned out, she was making clothes. She had a set of crudely-fashioned needles carved from bone, and was working with a spool of thick thread and a bolt of brightly-colored, floral-patterned fabric. "I snagged that this morning," she commented. "Sometimes I have to steal from passing merchants, when I can't make something myself, but I figure that it all balances out in the long run, since I scared off the local bandits when I moved in."
"Uh, sure," Andrew said. She thought it was a little odd to be thinking of morality in a video game, but then her own experiences indicated that this place was more than just a scaled-up game world, so the RPG cliche of adventurers just walking into peoples' houses and taking their stuff was a lot less justifiable. And it probably seemed more real to Laurel, who'd been living here for nearly three years.
Andrew simply stood there for a while, watching. Laurel was fashioning a makeshift brassiere, for which Andrew was very grateful. The straps were apparently tied rather than elastic, which meant that she wouldn't be able to put it on herself, but anything was better than another day of having her unrestrained breasts bouncing around and knocking into each other. Andrew still appreciated the aesthetic appeal of human mammaries, but she was beginning to see the other side of things now, which she found a little unnerving.
Some time later, Laurel put the finishing stitches in the bra, knotted and clipped off the thread, and turned to Andrew. "Well," she said. "I kind of hoped there would be a girl here who could use this, but I already have one, and since you're a guy..."
Andrew frowned. "Are you trying to bribe me?"
"I'm trying to help you," the gorgon-girl answered, looking hurt. "I know this must be hard for you, but ignoring your problems isn't the way to deal with them. And in the case of breasts, all it's going to do is make your back hurt and eventually cause them to sag."
Andrew sighed. "Fine," she said. "If I admit that, for now, I am a girl, will you let me have that?"
Laurel's smile returned. "That's all I wanted," she said. "Now lemme see if I did this right..."
Some amount of fiddling later, it was on properly. It wasn't a perfect fit, and it did more towards holding Andrew's breasts against her chest than actually supporting them, but it will still much better than letting them hang free. Andrew managed a smile despite her apprehensions, as a guy, about wearing a bra, and the unfamiliar sensations of having fabric against her still-unfamiliar breasts. "Thanks," she said.
Laurel smiled back. "Don't mention it," she said. "Just let me throw together a new shirt for myself and then we can pack."