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Her eyes widened a little at his declaration, his voice sounding quite loud as it echoed off the surrounding floe. Meerkat began to chuckle, her cheeks feeling a little warm at his words. "Not on purpose," she jested in reply, grinning despite her sheepishness.

It caught her a little off guard when he repaid her compliment and a telltale tingling began somewhere in her core, spreading outward. Meerkat hadn't experienced this feeling since her romance with Atlas. That bittersweet realization made her chest tighten a little, even as she let out a shaky breath. She'd forayed with Finley (as much as she tried to forget it) and crushed on Wintersbane but this, she knew, was on another level.

She wasn't that sweet, innocent girl of yore anymore. Meerkat hadn't given much thought to relationships for some time now. Life had been so frantically busy for so long. But now that she was settled, maybe there was time to seriously consider these things. Did she want to meet someone? Did she want to find a mate, maybe start a family? These were things she could think about now.

Well, maybe right now wasn't the time. In any case, she wasn't in a place where she'd take initiative like she had with Atlas. Meerkat wasn't sure she would ever be in that head space again, truthfully. If she was developing feelings for Issorartuyok, she wasn't going to act on them beyond her initial, accidental flirtation, not unless he demonstrated his own interest.

"Life here is treating me well," she said in reply to his comment. "I always wanted to be a life coach." Her mind flicked briefly to Atlas again before a wisp of breeze blew it away. Simultaneously, a sunbeam peeked from behind the clouds, prompting Meerkat to shade her eyes against the sudden glare. "Scouting was always meant to be secondary. It's nice, being able to focus on what I really want to be doing, find that balance. You know?"