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Freyr watched his sister gamboling on the rocks and snorted. He could do way better than that if he felt like it. Just now he didn't happen to feel like it, but he knew he could do better.

"Brilliant," he muttered just loudly enough that Freya could hear his derision. Honestly. Who got stuck on rocks?

"Freya, will you teach me to climb like you?" he teased in a sing-song voice. "You're so good at it after all."

To prove his point, even though he wasn't really in the mood to climb, he scampered up the same rocks Freya had just been on (it was harder than it looked). At the summit he turned to say something clever, but stopped short.

"Hey!" he called unhelpfully.

Fast couldn't believe that his father had gone out and sired a litter of cubs. For someone who claimed the most important thing in his life right now was mending things with his estranged son, Galning sure had a funny way of saying it. Who knew that starting another family with someone else was the best way to show that you're serious about building a relationship with a son by another mother?

Of course Galning had asked Fast to come with him and meet the cubs, and Freyja, their mother, but Fast had refused. He had already met Freyja when he was a cub and had not been terribly impressed at the time. There was little reason for him to play nice now, just to please Galning. And yet, Fast was curious about the cubs.

Finally he had decided that he had every right, as their half-brother, to stop by and see what they were like. He was going to go out on a limb and guess small and fluffy, but beyond that he wasn't sure what to expect. Hopefully nothing like either one of their parents.

"Someday I will kill you," he said to the cub who had shouted at him, not smiling at all.

Freyr sighed at his sister. Hiding. That just meant he would have to be brave enough for the both of them, he supposed.

"Of course I'm not," he said with more confidence than he felt. He might well be stuck, but he would die rather than admit it, so for now he would just refuse to consider the possibility. "I'm making sure I've got a good spot if there is going to be any killing."

He glowered at the newcomer to emphasize his point. His mama seemed to know the grown-up, but Freyr himself didn't, and so he was suspicious. He wanted to make sure that the older lion knew he would not allow the womenfolk of his family to be threatened. His mama saying they were blood had gone right over his head.

Fast's eyes slipped from one cub to the other. At this age it was basically impossible to tell them apart. Lovely.

"You named one of your cubs for yourself?" he asked, unable to hide his astonishment at that feat of ego. "Did my father do the same? I remember there were four cubs."

Freyr's glare didn't faze him any more than Freya's hiding. So far they seemed to him exactly as Freyja had described them: fluffy little buggers. The identical markings were unexpected, and the maddeningly similar names. He could imagine his father had a wretched time with that, which was an amusing thought.

Freyr watched with what he hoped was a fearsome expression as his twin decided to welcome the stranger, who still had not introduced himself, even though he now knew the names of everyone present and Freyr's other sisters, too. It had been implied that they shared a father, and the older lion did have some of their father's look, but he remained suspicious.

"I protect them when our father can't be here," he added, even though this was not quite true, strictly speaking. His dad always told him to look after the girls, but really it was basically their mum who did most of the looking after.

"What's your name anyway? You still haven't told us that." He did his best to do that thing their dad did where he made one eye seem bigger than the other. It was really creepy looking, and Freyr was sure it would be great for getting people to do things.

"Thanks. I like the stripes on your tail." He bent and whispered, "They look much better on you than they do on Freyr."

Fast wasn't sure what to make of that comment about his dad having one moment too much of Freyja's time. Was that a sex reference? That was so inappropriate. He didn't want to talk - or think - about his dad having sex.

"I'm Fastklump Galningson," he said, addressing himself to Freyr, since he was the cub who had asked about his name, although the introduction applied equally to both twins, he supposed. "Fast, if you like."

He decided that he was going to make an effort to like these cubs. They couldn't help who their father was any more than he could. Besides, Freya, at least, was cute. And Freyr's prickliness was funny.

"I can hear you, you know," Freyr growled. "And if you're going to insult me, you had better be prepared to defend yourself in a holmgang." Just as soon as he was big enough for it to be a fair fight, which might be a while, but Fast could wait.

He looked meaningful at his mother, trying to convince her to send this horrible lion away. When that did not immediately have the desired effect he began to whine, "What are you doing here anyway? You're not really our brother, and you're not welcome."

He hoped Fast wasn't really his brother, anyway. Sure they looked alike and they claimed the same lion as their father, but surely his mama would have mentioned if she'd had another litter of cubs with their dad. Wouldn't she? And wouldn't any real brother have come around sooner?

"I wasn't going to say that," Fast whispered back to Freya, but his smirk said he didn't disagree with her.

"I think I have overstayed my welcome," he observed, glancing over to Freyja and deciding he would probably be less likely to kill her only son if he ignored him. It was a terrible crime to kill family, even if they were only half-brothers, and even if the kid was a real brat.

"Perhaps it would be for the best if I left now." He paused before turning to go and added, "You probably won't want to tell Galning I was here. He really wanted me to meet the whole family."

The fact he had told Freyja something which might seem to have been intended to spare his father hurt feelings didn't mean he actually cared one whit about Galning's feelings. He just didn't want to deal with his father coming after him and nagging him later.

Freyr rolled his eyes at his sister, his mother, and their visitor. They were frustrating. Terribly, terribly frustrating. He was trying to do the right thing, and they were just...argh.

He would have stomped off to the den except he was a lot higher up than he had thought and he wasn't sure he could get down easily. In other words, he was having the same problem his sister had, but he wasn't willing to admit it.

"Staaahp!" he groaned at his mother. Did she not understand that he was trying to be the man of the family in his father's absence, and that she was making him look juvenile?

It didn't matter. Fast was leaving. At least he'd better be. Freyr shot another glower at their unwelcome guest. Get gone already!

"Thank you, but I really do think it's time I left. I will have to meet the rest of my half-sisters some other time."

He met Freyja and Freya's gazes directly. Among the Stormborn, direct looks were not disrespectful. Not exactly. They could be challenges, but a challenge was a form of respect, too. It acknowledged the other person as an equal, worthy of being challenged.

"Do not die in bed," he bid the two lionesses with the identical names. He paused and looked straight at Freyr. "I'll see you on the sands, brother."

And then he left. Clearly family relations had not been made any simpler or more pleasant by this visit.