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On the list of things Signild had not thought to encounter this terrible, hungover morning, the warlord's warrior daughter half-hidden under a rock was very near the bottom. It was easy to tell she was looking at the warlord's daughter, even though only her back half was visible, because there were only a few lions in the pride with that kind of shimmery gold striping, and only one had black behind the gold.

It was probably really rude to stare at the warlord's daughter's bum, but Signild was very hungover and completely at a loss for how to deal with the situation she'd come across. So she stood with her head flopped bonelessly to one side and regarded the unusual sight before deciding she should probably say something to make herself known, before the other lioness noticed her on her own and thought she was weird.

Her stomach gurgled audibly and she belched. Not quite what she would've chosen, but it worked, she supposed.

Aarre couldn't believe that she had managed to misplace the emerald trinket her father had given her when she fought in his tournament. It was true she hadn't won the entire thing, and he hadn't wanted her to compete at all, but he'd still been proud of her and given her something to show her how proud he was. A lovely, sparkly green gem which she was now unable to find.

Her search for the green stone was interrupted by the unexpected sound of an unhappy but and then a belch. She wasn't startled enough to bump her head on the underside of the rock she'd been searching, but she did back out with much haste and little dignity. There was really no dignified way to get out of a position like that unless you could go through to the other side and emerge head-first, which wasn't an option in this case.

"One day I will kill you," she said automatically as her eyes focused on a somewhat sick-looking grey lioness.

"Not to day," Signild replied automatically.

"Have you lost something?" she asked.

The effort of making polite conversation was not proving beyond her current state of health, which was nice. Still, she was pretty sure she would kill a man for an instantaneous cure to her hangover. She wondered if that would help. Could she bring a priestess a corpse and ask her to make her hangover go away?

As she waited for the warlord's daughter - Aara? - to reply, Signild passed the time by cataloguing all the people she knew and ranking them in order of how willing she would be to sacrifice them to be ride of her hangover. She was just getting through her immediate family (not so willing at all) when the striped lioness spoke.

Aarre regarded the other lioness, who really didn't look well, especially around the eyes, which were squinting. Was she...hungover? It certainly looked like it, and the belch before would support the hangover theory. Well, it wasn't a fatal ailment, but Aarre still wasn't enthusiastic about having her for a companion just now. Hungover people were unreliable at best, and prone to vomiting and diarrhea at worst.

"Ja. Sort of. I was given a gift - a green gem - and I can't find it so I guess, ja, I've lost something. But I've got it under control."

This was Aarre's way of saying that she was ready for this conversation to be over, without actually bringing it to an abrupt end by bidding her goodbye or walking away. She couldn't walk away, since she needed to search this particular area, and she didn't really want to be rude either. It was a quandary.

The implication that the striped lioness - Aarre! - didn't need assistance went right over Signild's head in her present condition. The terrible part of the whole thing was that this was still far more clear-headed than she had been in weeks and weeks. Her binge had at least helped her realize that much.

"I would be glad to help you," she offered. "I have a real eye for detail."

That much was true. Signild was the sort of lioness who paid meticulous attention to detail. It was how she'd managed to turn herself from a no-nonsense cataloguer of plants and bugs into a believable impression of a bubble-headed moron that had fooled a not-unintelligent lion. At least for a while.

No. Those were bad thoughts. She tried to stop herself, but it was too late. She was sniffling again.

Aarre barely managed to stop herself from rolling her eyes at the grey lioness's oh-so-helpful offer to assist her in finding her father's gift. She really should have just told Noki to find it. Noki was a thrall. This was exactly the sort of thing she ought to be doing.

"You really don't have to...oh, Stormlords."

Aarre hadn't even gotten all the way through her polite refusal of assistance before the red-eyed lioness (were her eyes always red, or was that the hangover?) began bawling for no apparent reason. It certainly wasn't something Aarre had said or done. She knew that much for a fact.

"What's the matter?"

Signild slumped limply to the ground, her chin dropping to her forepaws in the picture of leonine defeat.

"I'm sorry. You have your own concerns. I'm just hungover because I got completely shitfaced last night for the first time in my life, all because a guy I shouldn't have been with in the first place finally reached that conclusion and told me we were finished."

Ugh. Overshare much? "Again, I'm really sorry. You can just ignore me, but I think I'm going to lie here and feel sorry for myself for a bit. I'll try not to be in your way as you search."

Signild flopped onto her side and stared dully ahead, not even looking at Aarre. That was when she saw something green and sparkly.

After completing the process of becoming one with the ground as much as she could without actually decomposing, the grey lioness went limp and gave Aarre permission to ignore her, which Aarre was just heartless enough to do, although she said as she returned to her search, "You know, I'd kill a man who made me feel as bad as you seem to. Just a thought."

Any further relationship and murder advice was put on hold when her uninvited companion made an exclamation that might have heralded a vomiting spree or nothing at all. Only it didn't. The lioness had, apparently, seen something green and sparkly that might've been her father's gift.

With careful paws and under her hungover companion's direction, since she couldn't seem to see the thing, Aarre fished the precious stone out of its awkward position and dragged it into the light with a sigh of thanks. "I feel so bad; I don't even know your name."

"You're welcome. Thanks for listening to me whine and belch," Signild said, dismissing Aarre's thanks easily.

"I'm Signild Magnusdottir. At your service." She added the last bit with a wry smile that surprised her. She didn't realize she was feeling well enough to smile in any form, wry or otherwise.

"I'm glad you found your gift. I'm going to take myself off now. I think a cold bath would probably do me some good. I stink."

Getting to her feet wasn't the easiest thing in the world, but she managed it and her stomach didn't rebel, so she decided to count that as a win. As she made her way slowly toward the stream down the slope she called over her shoulder, "Don't die in bed!"

Although Signild gave Aarre no real opportunity to protest that it had not been any great bother to listen to her while she looked, or point out that it had been Signild who found the gem. She hadn't really even had the opportunity to introduce herself in turn.

I'll figure out a way to thank her, Aarre decided. Maybe by getting her back together with that man of hers, if she's so unhappy without him.

She'd seen what being in a bad relationship was like, but she didn't really know anything about Signild's relationship. Maybe it wasn't bad. Maybe it could be salvaged. And if not, maybe Aarre could convince him to do something to give poor Signild closure. Either way, it would be for the best, definitely.

Pleased, Aarre took her treasure and went home to plan.