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Frjokorn looked over his shoulder as casually as he could manage it, checking to see if the grey lioness was still watching him as intently as his best friend Midas had told him she was a few minutes ago. He heard Midas hiss at him not to look, but he couldn't resist the impulse anymore. It wasn't every day he was informed that a lioness was watching him intently. Or "staring at him creepily" as Midas had put it.

And...yes. She was. She definitely was still looking at him and, ja, Midas had a point. The look in her eyes was a little intense. It was kind of unnerving. Was she angry at him? How could she be? He didn't even know her. There was no possible way that he could have done anything to piss her off.

"I'm going to talk to her," he told Midas, who looked at him like he was a fool but made no attempt to stop him.

"Stormlords! He's looking!" one of Signild's friends exclaimed. She kind of squealed when she said it. Signild's ears flicked in annoyance. They were too old to squeal over boys. Signild had always been too old to squeal over boys.

"Shut up," she said. It came out more harshly than she had intended, but she offered no apology. Her friend's squealing was annoying, and it irritated Signild that her own voice was a little squeaky when she observed, "He's coming over!"

This was an unexpected development. She had been watching boys since she was old enough to take an interest in them, but few of them had ever looked back, and none of them had ever approached her. She wasn't sure what she should do, and there was no time to make a plan.

Frjokorn could see that there was a hurried conversation taking place between the grey lioness and her companion, but they both fell abruptly silent when he came within a few yards of them. At this range he could see that the grey lioness had dark red eyes and markings of the same color below them, which explained why her eyes had looked so very large from a distance. It wasn't an entirely unattractive effect.

"It is a good day to die," he greeted her, letting his gaze sweep to the side to include her companion in his salutation, just in case she was somehow vital to the conversation. From her wide-eyed expression, he rather doubted it, but that didn't mean he couldn't still be polite.

"I don't believe we've met. I'm Frjokorn." He wanted to add, Who are you, and why were yo staring at me? But he didn't. Manners and all that.

"It is," Signild replied automatically. "And we haven't. I'm Signild Magnusdottir."

She did not fail to notice that Frjokorn had not offered his patronym, but she didn't read too much into it. There was no particular stigma to being vikingborn, and she could tell from the fact he was lazing with another lion he wasn't a thrall.

"You're wondering why I was staring at you, right?"

Instantly Signild wished she could take that back. For one thing, she had no ready answer that didn't make her sound like an idiot. Of course, he would probably prefer to think of her as an idiot. There seemed to be a large number of Stormborn who preferred their females pretty but dumb. Signild didn't really consider herself either one of those things, but on a whim she decided to see what would happen if she pretended otherwise.

Well. That was unusually blunt and to the point, based on Gruvan's experiences with females (though these were mostly limited to his sisters, who he thought were pretty silly creatures, all told). He could appreciate that kind of bluntness in a lady lion.

"That very thought had crossed my mind," he admitted. "I'm hoping you will explain."

He was also hoping her explanation might be something along the lines of how attractive she found him and how she had not been able to resist staring at him. He didn't think it likely that she would say that, even if it was the truth, but a fellow could certainly hope. It would be so nice if things could be simple, but they never seemed to be.

"Is it something we'll need privacy to discuss?" he added on a whim.

Signild's eyes widened for a moment and she kept them that way, hoping that it made her look adorable and interested. He wasn't a bad-looking lion, but he wasn't so good-looking she thought she would be in any danger of actually falling in love with him, either. They'd just have some fun and she'd be able to say she wasn't all synapses, no sex.

"We can talk privately if you prefer," she said with what she hoped was a coquettish giggle. "But really it was just that I'd never noticed you before and you looked so..."

Oh, stormlords, what was she supposed to say?

"..."

"...interesting. I'm really kind of embarrassed you caught me, but I'm glad you came over. I don't think I would've been able to say something to you if you hadn't."

Frjokorn wasn't sure that interesting was the most flattering thing he could have been called, but he hadn't ever been called anything more flattering by a female, so he couldn't really complain.

"Thank you," he told her. "I think you seem really interesting, too."

He wasn't sure if he meant interesting as a compliment here. Something about her giggle and the long pause seemed a little off to him, but maybe she was just really nervous. Or shy. The way her friend was looking at her, she was clearly surprised by what she was overhearing.

"Should we maybe go find that private place to continue our conversation, or was that the sum of it?" he asked, glancing over her shoulder to indicate that he was thinking of the potential that her friend was eavesdropping.

Signild glanced over her shoulder at her friend and noticed how huge her eyes had grown. It had probably been her giggle that made them do that. She gave a wave of her tail that equated to a shrug and giggled at Frjokorn once more. It didn't feel any less weird this second time.

"No, there was definitely more to it," she said, scrambling for a topic to propose. "But I think you're right that we should find a more private place to continue our conversation. It's a little crowded around here, don't you think?"

Should she say anything else? Wasn't that enough? Why was interacting with boys so stupidly difficult?

"I'd love to know what you think is interesting about me, seeing as we've just met and know nothing about one another," she concluded, trying to achieve a sultry purr with her voice.

Frjokorn realized abruptly what it was about Signild's giggle that struck him as odd: she did it without smiling. In fact, she had not smiled once throughout this entire conversation. Neither had he, to be honest, but he wasn't the one giggling. If you were going to giggle, you should smile. It was just weird otherwise.

"Maybe we could get together and continue our discussion another time," he suggested, instinctively backpedaling now that he had realized why Signild seemed strange. "Midas and I - my friend's name is Midas - we're supposed to be meeting our captain for a briefing on our next viking...right about now actually. We're probably going to get in trouble for being late as it is."

He was physically backing away as he called to her, "Don't die in bed!" When he reached Midas he muttered, "Go go go! Now!"

Signild watched Frjokorn make a seemingly random decision to beat a hasty departure and could only stare in bafflement as he practically fled her company, collecting his friend for a supposed "meeting with their captain." Zebra s**t.

In the background she could hear her friend barely stifling her completely genuine and not at all forced sounding giggles, which was suddenly a sound she could not stand to hear for one moment longer. She turned away with a snarl and stalked off, not even bothering to bid her friend goodbye as she made her way home to brood over what had gone wrong. She'd make her apologies later, when she was in a more solicitous mood. Maybe.