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Elisef's ears twitched toward the sound of sobbing coming closer to her den. Not having the faintest idea who might be coming to her in tears, she decided to ignore it, assuming that the crying lion must be someone else's visitor and making up her mind not to get involved.

Unfortunately, it seemed the gods had other ideas about how Eli would be spending her evening, as the sounds of weeping stopped outside her den and became a whimpered, "Eli?"

For another moment Eli tried to pretend that she wasn't about to be spending her evening consoling a miserable friend, but it was impossible. Her uninvited guest was seeing herself in and making a direct line toward the furs Eli had just finished arranging the way she liked them in preparation for a nice, indulgent sleep.

"Hello, Siggy. It's a good day to die," Eli greeted her friend drily.

"I'm sorry, Eli," Signild wept as she flopped bonelessly onto a nicely plumped pile of furs.

Under ordinary circumstances, Signild would never have turned up at her friend's place unannounced and crying as if the world would end, but these were not ordinary circumstances and even though she knew rationally that the world would not be ending because her heart was broken, it felt as if that was exactly what it was doing.

"It really is a good day to die. I wish I was dead," she sniffled, ending in a full-out wail by the time she completed her statement. At another time, she would have been utterly appalled and humiliated by her own behavior, but Frjokorn had changed things. He had changed her.

"Let's put off the dying for the time being," Eli said as she found an alternative place to recline and make herself comfortable. She suspected this would not be a brief visit.

Her suggestion was met with a miserable wail that told Eli this would not be the place for humor or sarcasm, as Siggy was apparently not in any sort of state to appreciate either. That came as no great surprise. Siggy hadn't really been herself for weeks. Not since she had taken up with that reaver, Frjokorn. Against Eli's advice, by the way.

"Why don't you tell me what's wrong?" she suggested. She hoped she didn't sound as irritated by Siggy's sobbing arrival as she felt. Was it too much to ask for a nice, quiet evening at home with some mint?

Evidently the answer was yes.

Signild sniffled and snorted and tried to stop crying, but she simply couldn't. Everything was ruined and awful.

"I'm sorry," she wept, apologizing for a great many things all at once, none of which had anything to do with Eli. Mostly she was sorry for whatever it was she'd done that had made Frjokorn decide he didn't want to be with her.

She was sobbing in great, heaving, miserable gasps now as she said, "I don't even know what I did wrong, or if it was something I didn't do, maybe? I don't know!"

And the worst part was that she really didn't know. When she'd asked him, Frjokorn hadn't actually told her. He had just looked at her oddly and professed his astonishment that she didn't know. Except she didn't and when she'd told him that he'd just shaken his head and told her they were done.

Eli's ears and nose twitched in irritation, but since Siggy was completely involved in her self-pity party and weeping, the movements went unnoticed. It wasn't that she was actually annoyed at Siggy's unhappiness. She was even becoming resigned to the fact that her plans had been irreparably altered, since her friend was evidently in dire need of comfort right now. Mostly she was annoyed with the fact she would apparently have to piece together an explanation from non sequiturs.

"Siggy," she said gently, "is this about Frjokorn? Did he say something?"

She still couldn't believe how enthusiastically her friend had thrown herself into that relationship, but then it was her first relationship and she hadn't taken the same route Eli had and just decided to have sex with a random lion she found attractive. She had decided to become a different person completely.

Hearing Frjokorn's name made Signild sob even harder, until she almost couldn't breathe, her sobs were so huge. Her lungs actually ached from the way she was crying, which now bordered on hyperventilation.

"Yes!" she exclaimed wobbily. "But it's not him. It's me. I did something. He just won't tell me what it was!"

Had she been more herself and less the silly, brainless lioness she'd been pretending to be with Frjokorn, Signild would have been disgusted with this weeping version of herself, and the attitude she was showing with regard to her terminated relationship. She definitely would have been horrified that she was willing to shoulder all the blame. But Signild was not herself, she was this weird other self whose heart was broken and had no idea how to handle that.

If Siggy wasn't in a state to be annoyed at Frjokorn, Eli certainly was. She was able to put aside her inclination to say "I told you so" about him for the moment, recognizing that this was absolutely not the time for recriminations, which left her almost completely consumed with righteous anger at Frjokorn for putting her friend in this unfamiliar and uncomfortable state of angst.

"Siggy, tell me what happened," she prompted, hoping that this time she would get a more coherent response. "I didn't even realize you were that serious about him."

That wasn't quite true. She'd figured Siggy was pretty serious when she changed her entire personality to be the sort of fluff-brained idiot Frjokorn apparently preferred, but Eli was fishing for information here.

"He told me he couldn't be with me anymore, and he wouldn't say why. He just looked at me like I was supposed to know. But I don't."

It was hard for her to wrap her mind around what Eli said next, but when she did the portion of her mind which was still herself was struck by the oddness of the idea that she'd allowed anyone to have this kind of an effect on her. The heartbroken part of her dismissed that common sense part though.

"Well, we are. We were," she sniffled. "I don't understand what I did wrong, and why he doesn't want to be with me anymore. Do you think maybe it's his family? I know he's related to the high priestess somehow, and so maybe they don't think I'm good enough? I come from a really old blood family though!"

Eli stared in amazement as Siggy experienced a brief period of near lucidity which all too quickly devolved once more into sobs and snuffles which were getting snot and tears on her nice furs. This had to stop.

"You did nothing wrong," she told her friend emphatically. "It's not about your family either. He's just an idiot."

"You don't need him, Siggy." Suddenly she was struck by inspiration in the midst of her cliched platitude. "What you need is some good mint and fermented fruit. I happen to have a stash of the former, and I know where we can get some of the latter. How does that sound?"

This was a just cause for giving up her good stuff, Eli supposed, but she never kept fruit around. It didn't hold its usefulness as well as mint did when stored.

Signild was prepared to argue with Eli about whether or not Frjokorn was an idiot and how much she absolutely needed him, but she wasn't given a chance. Instead, she was presented with a rather intriguing offer.

Ordinarily Signild didn't care much for mint or fruit, but she was not herself and she was in emotional crisis, and the idea of being out of her mind was wholly appealing right now. She was going to get Frjokorn out of her mind one way or another, even if it meant she got so drunk she drowned on the way home.

"Let's go," she said with as much determination and grit as a snotty, weepy lioness in her condition could summon.