Ragnar was not yet aware of what had transpired between Gavriil and Pump — though he had been aware that Gavriil had intended to court Pump and even at that, had been the encouraging push behind the other man’s audacity to approach Pump regarding it. Of course, when he did learn of it — because certainly Gavriil would eventually be hunting him down to either tell him he succeeded or failed — Ragnar would ascertain that he would have handled it in a very different way than his friend had done it. Then again, maybe being bold was better to be left for a ruthless creature like Ragnar where rejection would only hurt his pride rather than his heart because he didn’t have one; but Ragnar was used to getting what he wanted especially when it came to women. Thistle accepting his proposal as sudden and based off of fondness for her (at first) as it had been did nothing to help the solidification that Ragnar was just that good. In fact, it hadn’t helped it at all. If Thistle would have, alternatively, rejected him Ragnar would have licked his wounded pride, suffered through his inane jealousy and that would have been that.
Looking back on it, knowing that he was inherently and wholly in love with Thistle, he could not imagine his life without her by his side. Maybe wolves like Gavriil were meant to be more subtle with the fairer sex than wolves like Ragnar. Ragnar was assertive and cruel and carefree when it came to silly things like emotions, and Gavril …wasn’t. Perhaps advice of what Ragnar would do was worse than no advice at all. Pump’s voice called out to him and Ragnar paused in his limping patrolling to peer back at his shoulder over the hybrid woman who approached him — bizarrely with a smile and a secretive glint in her eyes.
For a second, the Viking contemplated being coy and assuming that things had went well between Gavriil and her but something (thankfully) held him back.