Chapter 6
Tarrin paced back and forth in his apartments, replaying the events over and over in his mind. Every time he did so, however, it only made him angry. Why did people have to be that way? Why did they have to be so cruel? Tarrin wasn't like that. Surely, he had a mean streak in him, and he was a bit vicious, but he didn't go out of his way to hurt other people like that Wikuni had done. Nobody ever got hurt at the end of Tarrin's claws unless there was a reason for it. The other man was to blame, and yet Tarrin seemed to be the one getting into the trouble.
Didn't Keritanima warn all of them not to do such things around him? Didn't Keritanima know by now that Tarrin did not tolerate it when people behaved towards him like that? Whatever Keritanima thought, he saw no blame in it on himself. The other man started it, Tarrin responded in kind. The man tried to kill him, so Tarrin simply responded in kind. It was that simple. He hadn't gone looking for a fight, and by all rights the other man should have left well enough alone when he got his leg broken. His pride had caused him to try to kill Tarrin, and it cost him his life.
Stupid, stupid, stupid! Why did people have to be so stupid! Was he not large enough and mean-looking enough to prevent people from doing exactly what the man did? What kind of insanity possessed people like that?
The more he thought about it, the angrier he became. So angry, in fact, that Sapphire seemed to sense his hostility and decided to spend a little time in the bathing room, away from him. He paced back and forth and back and forth, and kept getting just a little more angry with each step.
So much for looking forward to his visit to Wikuna. He was ready to leave, and he was sure that Keritanima was busily stepping up her schedule to get him out of her Palace as quickly as possible. He had little doubt that his action was going to cause Keritanima problems. He'd heard all about how cunning and devious the Wikuni nobles were. One of them would figure out some way to turn it to their advantage.
How did he keep getting into these things? It was frustrating! Tarrin turned just as his anger got the best of him in the outer parlor, bringing his fist down on the back of one of the deep chairs sitting on the carpet, shattering the wood in its back and sending down and bits of fluff flying as the cushioned back was torn open.
"I'm sure that was an expensive chair," Kimmie's voice called from the outer door. Tarrin whirled around to see her standing there, half in half out, her paw on the door handle. "Should I come back later?"
"What do you want?" he demanded.
"Do I need a reason to come to your room now?" she asked pointedly. "Actually, since Kerri sent you to your room, I figured you may want to talk to someone, or at the very least, have someone to yell at. I can do either, you know."
Tarrin snorted, crossing his arms and turning his back to her. "I wouldn't be good company at the moment."
"That's a matter of opinion," Kimmie said lightly, stepping inside and closing the door. "I've dealt with Mist in her less than friendly moments. I think I can deal with yours."
Tarrin glanced at her, but her expression and her scent both were mysterious. He had no idea what she was thinking, what she was feeling. Usually, the scent gave one or both away. "Now then, should we stand here in silence, or would you rather go into the other room and sit down in silence? Shoot, we could even go into your room and lay down on the bed in silence, or hang from the ceiling in silence, or climb the walls in silence, or hover in mid-air in silence, or—"
"I get the point," Tarrin snapped, interrupting her.
"There, see, you just spoke. That wasn't hard at all, was it?" she asked with a disarmingly warm smile. "You think you can do it again, or do I need to go fetch some treats from the kitchen and entice you?" She waved a paw. "I've gotten speak. I just need sit up, lay down, fetch, play dead, and heel, and I'll have you completely trained."
Tarrin glared at her, but she seemed to be oblivious to it. Then again, after so long with Mist, Tarrin realized that he wasn't going to ruffle Kimmie. It would take something pretty spectacular to ruffle Kimmie.
"You take a lot of chances, Kimmie," Tarrin warned.
"Of course I do," she smiled in reply. "Now, since we've gotten you past the 'I'm not talking' phase, we can talk about it." She looked him up and down. "There's blood on your shirt, you know," she told him.
"I can smell it," he said shortly.
"Well, there's half the problem," she snorted. "Let's get that shirt off of you. The blood smell probably isn't doing your temper much good."
He did try to resist when Kimmie grabbed his paw and started dragging him towards the next room, but her grip was surprisingly strong, and she totally ignored his attempt to pull away. "Why do you always have to be so contrary?" she complained. "I swear, Tarrin, you're as bad as Mist! Do you take the other side just to give yourself an excuse to argue with people or what?"
"You could leave me alone and save yourself the aggravation," he said.
"Right, and deal with you stalking around in a tiff for the next three days. Spare me," she said with a drawl. She dragged him through the inner parlor and into the bedroom, then let go of his paw and grabbed the tail of his shirt with both paws. He tried to push his shirt down, so Kimmie decided to opt for the convenience of simply ripping it off him. "You're a complete baby sometimes!" Kimmie accused. "So wrapped up in your temper tantrum that you even refuse help!"
"I didn't ask for you to come in here, you know!" Tarrin shouted in reply.
"As a matter of fact, you did," she said with a grin. "You could throw me out if you really wanted to. I know it, you know it. You're just putting up a fight because you're not sure if I'll really sit here and talk with you. You're thinking that if I stay no matter how much you fight about it, I'm not joking or playing with you. It's a test of trust."
Tarrin blinked in surprise.
"You're feral, Tarrin," she chided him. "You and Mist are a lot alike. All the things I've seen in her, I see in you. I understand every aspect of it, and I can read you like a book. Right now, you're feeling a bit sheepish because I can read right through you, and not a little nervous about it, thinking that there are things about you too dark for me to see. Well, think about it, Tarrin. Mist is my bond-mother. Do you really think I haven't already seen it all?"
Tarrin was quite honestly taken aback, because Kimmie had yet to be wrong.
"Now then, we can stop being silly, sit down, and you can talk about it," she said in a mild voice. "I guarantee you, Tarrin, you'll feel better after you talk it through."
Tarrin was impressed. It was easy to forget how smart Kimmie was, when comparing her to minds like Keritanima or Phandebrass. She was unobtrusive, quiet, and modest, a lot like Allia, now that he thought about it. Rarely if ever bringing attention to herself. Considering the life she must have had with Mist, he completely understood her behaving that way. He knuckled under to her demands, sat down with her on the bed and did just as she asked. He talked. He voiced his frustration and irritation over the whole situation, about how he just didn't understand why some people had to be such jerks, and admitting that he was a little irritated with himself that he had embarrassed and disappointed Keritanima. Kimmie simply sat there and listened attentively, letting him talk out the whole problem until he began to repeat himself.
"Well, the first thing you have to do is not blame yourself," she told him. "Keritanima understands you, no matter what you may think. If you killed the man, you certainly had a good reason for doing it. You don't just go around and kill people for no reason."
"I know, but I let her down, Kimmie," Tarrin sighed. "She asked me to her big party, introduced us to Rallix, or she would have if I haven't have messed things up, showed us to her friends and court, and I ruined it for her. I really tried to control myself, Kimmie. After he tried to break my tail, I let him go on without doing anything about it, but when that Wikuni insulted Keritanima, insulted Allia, then called me stupid, he just took it too far."
"As far as I'm concerned, Tarrin, you didn't do anything wrong," Kimmie told him calmly. "Then again, I'm a Were-cat. I'd have probably thrown him over the rail myself if he'd tried to break my tail. You lasted a lot longer than I would have."
"I can't see you throwing anyone over a rail, Kimmie," Tarrin chuckled. "You're too good-natured."
"You've never seen me angry," she smiled. "I assure you, Tarrin, I have just as vile a temper as any other Were-cat. It just takes a little more to set me off, that's all."
"I can't imagine you being angry. It's just not you."
"Well, I'll take that as a compliment," she said with bright eyes. "And I don't think you should worry too much about Keritanima. She knows you pretty well, and she'll get over it. Who knows, maybe it was actually a blessing in disguise."
"How so?" Tarrin asked.
"Well, now if any of the nobles annoy her, she can just insinuate you into the conversation. Oh, say, how she may invite you and them to a special private party, in a nice empty room with a stout door."
Tarrin chuckled. "She'd probably do something like that," he agreed.
Kimmie leaned back on her paws on the bed, looking up at him. "Feel better now?"
"I hate to admit it, but yes," he told her.
"Good." The texture of her scent changed in a most appealing manner. "Well, now that you're not going to stalk around in a tiff for the next three days, I think we could find something else to do for the rest of the night," she said in a purring tone.
"So, the true motive is revealed," Tarrin said with a laugh.
"It's just a fringe benefit, since I'm still trying to help you forget about what happened tonight," she said with a teasing smile, but her eyes were hungry. "Now shut up and kiss me."
Kimmie had done much to improve his mood before, but now she strove to make sure he forgot all about it. And she did a good job. The altercation during the party was the last thing on his mind after just a few moments.
After a very busy night, the two of them napped until sunrise, when Kimmie's stirring woke him up. Kimmie yawned and sat up, forcing him to roll free of her, and he kept his head on the pillow and looked up at her contentedly. "Morning," she greeted with a smile. "I'm going to have to talk to Kerri about these rooms. I definitely got cheated in the bed department. The bed I have is too soft."
"This one isn't exactly firm, Kimmie."
"If you don't tie a board across your back, you sink into my bed and threaten to get suffocated," she complained. "I have to sleep on it in cat form. It's like sleeping on a blanket thrown over quicksand."
Tarrin chuckled. "You know, this is the first time you've spent the whole night?"
"I've stayed with you til dawn before," she protested.
"Only after coming in after midnight," he pointed out. "I forgot how nice it is to sleep a full night with a female."
"Well, I'll just have to spend nights with you from now on," she offered. "And not just when we're feeling frisky."
"I don't mind," he assured her. "But Jesmind probably won't like it too much."
"So, you want me to move in?" she asked pointedly.
"You may as well," he shrugged. "I didn't understand why you didn't move in at first."
"You didn't ask," she said bluntly. "I know you love Jesmind, so I wasn't going to impose myself on you any more than necessary. But if you want me to move in, I'll be more than happy to do it."
"That may be a moot point here," Tarrin said. "I doubt we'll be here in two days."
"Me too," she said. "The solstice is only twelve days away. And I heard that it'll take us ten to get to Vendaka. We absolutely have to leave by tomorrow, or we'll miss our chance." She looked behind his head. "I don't like your hair like that," she told him. "You looked better with the braid."
"I was just trying it out," he said defensively. "If it bothers you, I'll grow it back."
"I don't know why, but it does," she said. "It's almost as if a part of you that's supposed to be there is missing."
"That's how it felt at first," Tarrin agreed.
Kimmie yawned, then stretched languidly. Tarrin paused to admire her form, her mixture of sleek Were tautness combined with a curious she-softness common among the humans. Kimmie was a lot different from Jesmind, who was definitely muscular, or Mist, who was a powerfully built little Were-cat, but she was still a very beautiful, very desirable Were-cat female. At least to him, anyway, since some males may not appreciate her more human-like body when they were used to seeing muscular definition and washboard stomachs on females. "Enjoying the show?" she asked shamelessly, looking down at him.
"I'd enjoy it more if you'd turn a little this way," he told her with a leer. "I want to get the full view."
Kimmie laughed, then turned and shook her chest in a manner that waggled the objects of his attention in his face. "There, are you happy now?" she asked.
"I will be in a little while," he said in a husky voice, pulling her down into an embrace.
"Ah, there's nothing better than smelling desire in a male," Kimmie sighed as Tarrin kissed and nibbled lightly at her neck.
It was well past dawn when Tarrin and Kimmie finally got out of bed, washed up, and dressed. The first thing he did, at Kimmie's behest, was cause his hair to regrow, and Kimmie indulged both of them by taking on her human hands and braiding his hair for him. Afterward, he Conjured a new shirt to wear, someone knocked on the outer door. Tarrin moved into the outer parlor as Kimmie opened it, and he saw the wolf Wikuni Amber standing there, looking a trifle nervous. She now wore a white silk dress, very fancy, very expensive, with the Royal Crest embroidered in a much smaller design than the torso-covering one on her last dress, the crest resting right over her heart. This had to be the dress of a Royal Servant, the maids, pages, butlers, and attendants that directly served the Queen herself. Keritanima said she was taking the girl onto her personal staff.
"What is it?" Kimmie asked her.
"Is Lord Tarrin here, Mistress?" she asked in broken Sulasian.
Kimmie moved aside and pointed in his general direction. "Lord Tarrin," she said with a curtsy in Wikuni. "Her Majesty asks that you join her for breakfast."
"Just me, or is it a general invitation?" he asked.
"I know that the others that arrived with her Majesty were also invited, so it must be a general invitation, Lord Tarrin," she answered.
"Don't call me that," he said sharply. "I'm no Lord."
"Begging your pardon, Lord Tarrin, you're wrong. I personally witnessed her Majesty bestowing the title of Margrave to you earlier today."
"What's a Margrave?" Tarrin asked curiously.
"It's something of a honorary title, my Lord," she replied. "It grants the recipient with the title and privileges of the nobility, but without granting lands. You're a landless noble of sorts, but it's a somewhat high rank. Only her Majesty, a Duke, and an Earl outrank you."
Tarrin snorted. "Alright. Give me a few minutes to finish dressing, and you can take us there."
"Of course, my Lord," she said with another curtsy, stepping just inside the door and waiting with her hands crossed over her lower stomach.
"What's going on?" Kimmie asked.
"She's taking us to a breakfast with Kerri," he replied.
"I hope it's formal dress," Kimmie said, grabbing the skirts of the dress she had on, the same one from last night.
"It's your fault for not bringing your clothes."
"You wouldn't let me out of bed," Kimmie challenged. "It's your fault."
Without blinking, Tarrin Summoned every single stitch of clothing that Kimmie owned, making them appear in neatly folded piles around Kimmie's feet. "You'll have to get the other things, but I'm sure you can find whatever you want to wear in there somewhere."
"These are mine," Kimmie said in surprise, holding up one of her plain peasant dresses. "How did you do that?"
"I'm a Druid, Kimmie," he told her absently. "And I've touched just about every piece of clothing you have with you."
"Ah, yes, you can only summon what you've touched," she chuckled, recalling that rule. "I'll have to let you put your paws on my spellbooks. That way I can never lose them." She held up the dress. "Think this is too rustic?"
"I don't think you have to worry about impressing Kerri," he told her. "Amber said that all of us were invited to this breakfast, so it must be a family affair."
"Family affair," Kimmie chuckled, reaching behind her and starting to undo buttons.
Seeing a woman in need, Amber stepped up and helped Kimmie unbutton her dress. "Would you like to retire to the bedchamber, mistress?" Amber asked her in Wikuni.
"She doesn't speak the language, Amber," Tarrin warned her. "She wants to know if you want to undress in the bedroom, Kimmie," he told her.
"Whyever for? The clothes are right here," she objected.
"The lady prefers to change here, Amber," Tarrin relayed. "I assure you, you're not going to be uncovering anything I haven't already seen. The lady doesn't consider me a compromise of her modesty."
Amber's face fur ruffled slightly as she nodded. The wolf Wikuni proved to be an efficient maid, helping Kimmie out of the fancy dress quickly and not having much to do other than carefully hang up her fancy dress as the Were-cat female dressed in something much less expensive and much less remarkable. Kimmie smoothed the wool skirts of her simple peasant dress with her paws as her tail slashed back and forth several times in rapid succession, a trick every Were-cat used to flatten the clothes down to the base of the tail.
"There, that's better," she said. "I felt like I was about to fall out of that dress."
"It had a good view, at least," Tarrin told her.
"Maybe I should lower the neckline of my other dresses," she mused with a sly look and a wink in his direction.
"If you take it off, I'll see much more."
"But then everyone else will see too."
"So?"
"It doesn't bother me, but you know how it tends to stop traffic," she said with a teasing smile. "As much as I like parading around naked for you, Tarrin, we have to keep the local customs in mind, you know. As soon as we visit a place where everyone goes naked, I'll be happy to do it for you."
Tarrin chuckled. "Are we ready to go now?"
"I think so, unless I've got something hanging out," she said, turning unnaturally far, twisting her back like a pretzel, and looking down at her lower back and bottom. Amber gave a rather wild look at Kimmie as she turned on herself to inspect the back of her skirts. Tarrin sometimes forgot that Were-cats had a much wider range of motion than other races.
"We're ready to go, Amber," Tarrin told the maid as Kimmie untwisted herself.
The wolf Wikuni led them to a small, cozy little dining room on the fifth floor, that had a huge window overlooking the harbor. It lacked the overwhelming decorations of most of the other rooms, with rich wood paneling covering the walls that happened to have nothing covering it up. Keritanima sat facing the window at a large circular table, with Binter and Sisska standing at either side of her chair. All the others were there, but to Tarrin's surprise, Rallix was also present, seated at the Queen's right. Tarrin took one look at the badger and saw his discomfort.
"It's about time," Keritanima said, looking at them. "This explains why my page couldn't find you, Kimmie," she added.
"You should have known where to look for me, your Majesty," the Were-cat female said patiently.
"I should have at that," she chuckled. "Sit down, please. Now that you're here, we can eat." She glanced at Rallix. "Oh, Tarrin, Kimmie, may I present Rallix. Rallix, this is Tarrin Kael and Kimmie, Phandebrass' student."
The badger stood and bowed to them as Tarrin and Kimmie approached, then held out his hand and shook Tarrin's paw. That close to him, Tarrin could smell Keritanima all over him, and it wasn't just his clothes. Her scent was plastered all over him. Tarrin leaned in a little closer and analyzed that latent scent, making Rallix distinctly uncomfortable when he realized that the large, imposing Were-cat male was actually smelling him. "Uh, a pleasure," Rallix said nervously.
"What are you doing, Tarrin?" Keritanima demanded.
"You should have cleaned him up a little better, Kerri," Tarrin said pointedly.
Kimmie glanced at him, then she too leaned in and took a whiff of Rallix's fur. Then she laughed. "Soap gets that out every time," she told the Queen with a sly smile.
The fur on Keritanima's face literally stood on end. She glared at the two Were-cats viciously, then laughed in spite of herself. "Alright, you caught me. I've been a naughty little queen. Now sit down so we can eat." Tarrin and Kimmie sat down between Allia and Dolanna as Keritanima regained her composure. "Soap, you say?" she asked Kimmie conversationally. "We don't use soap often. It makes the fur dry and flaky and hard to manage."
"Soap washes out almost any smell," Kimmie told her confidently.
"I never smelled anything."
"The hardest scent to make out is your own," Tarrin told her calmly. "Since it's always in your nose, it's almost impossible to make it out on something else."
"What are you talking about?" Dar asked.
"If you have to ask, then you're too young," Camara Tal said bluntly.
Dar looked at the fox Wikuni. "Kerri!" he suddenly gasped.
Keritanima laughed. "Shut up, Dar," she called at him. "Now, first things first. Rallix here has graciously accepted my offer of marriage."
"She didn't waste any time," Tarrin told Allia.
"Not a moment," Allia agreed.
"Seeing as how I threatened to throw him in the dungeon if he refused, I think he made the right choice, don't you?"
"Her Majesty is quite an effective bully," Rallix said mildly, still looking a little wild-eyed.
"What happened to all that talk of courtship and stuff?" Dar asked.
"That was when I thought we had all sorts of time," Keritanima grunted. "Truth is, we're going to be very busy for a long time, so I decided to take what I can get right now and worry about what I'm missing when I have the time to reflect on it. Besides, marrying Rallix is going to put him in the Palace and under the protection of the Royal Guard. When I invited him to the ball last night, I all but put a big target on his back. This way I can protect him."
"You're going to cause a row," Tarrin warned.
"I caused that last night," she shrugged. "I revealed the fact that I'm actually Lizelle Sailmender, and I incorporated her assets into my own. Since Rallix and Lizelle have had a working relationship for such a long time, it probably won't shock anyone when they receive the invitations to my reception tonight. They'll all think that Rallix wooed the young and impressionable daughter of the King without knowing who she was."
Rallix visibly winced.
"Tonight?" Tarrin asked. "You really aren't wasting any time, are you?"
"It's not going to be a state function," she said quickly. "At least not the first time. We'll have a big state wedding, but that will come later. Tonight will be a simple ceremony with a priest of Kikalli, just to make it legal under the law. Oh, yes. Binter, would you ask sashka to come see me? I want to arrange a Vendari bodyguard for Rallix."
"Immediately, your Majesty," Binter said in his bass voice, then he turned and marched out of the room, being careful not to slam the door behind him.
"I say, you don't have to sit there in silence, my boy," Phandebrass told Rallix with a grin. "We're all family here. A somewhat strange family, to be sure, but we're a family, we are."
"You're getting out easy, Rallix," Dar grinned. "Kerri had all sorts of nasty plans for you."
"Her Majesty laid out my options rather clearly, Lord Dar," Rallix said in that same mild tone. "Or lack of them," he added with a slight smile. "She made it all sound like a business arrangement. At least that was beforehand."
"Yes, well," Keritanima said with a smug little smile. "I can now say happily that I completely understand what I've been missing, Tarrin. I should have married Rallix years ago."
"Who says you have to marry?" Tarrin asked her.
"Well, things work a little different around here," she told him. "Rallix won't think he's getting a spoiled bride, since he's the one who spoiled me."
Rallix stared directly at his plate.
"Since no one else has said it, allow me to congratulate you, Kerri," Dolanna said with a warm smile.
"Yes, hear hear, congratulations," Phandebrass agreed.
Tarrin glanced at Miranda, who had a mysterious smile on her face. She looked at him, then gave him a sly wink. "The first rule around here is speak your mind, Rallix," Tarrin told him. "That being said, just what did Kerri do?"
"Well, as I said, she made it sound like a business arrangement," he answered. "She called me into her study after the ball and explained that she needed to marry me to secure her position, protect me, and protect our merchant company. She made it sound as if it would be a marriage on paper, and promised that she could have it annulled at any time. Under those conditions, I agreed. That's when she made it clear that she did not think of it as a business arrangement," he said with his face fur ruffling. "I admit, I do have rather fond feelings for her Majesty, but I had no idea she felt that way."
Dar laughed. "You got his name on the contract without revealing the whole deal!" he proclaimed. "Kerri, that's awful!"
"I am a Wikuni," she said smugly. "I out-bargained him, plain and simple. To put it bluntly, I swindled him out of his socks." She put a hand on his arm fondly. "I think he'll get over it. He's already found out how affectionate I can be, and I know he likes me. He'll get used to it. He'd better, because he's mine now," she added with a victorious look.
"Her Majesty is an effective bully," Rallix repeated.
"You already said that, and I'd appreciate it if you called me by my name," Keritanima told him. "I'll go crazy if I hear nothing but 'your Majesty' for the next fifty years."
"Yes, Keritanima," he said with a slight smile.
"Kerri!" she shouted at him.
"That seems a bit too personal, Keritanima."
She glared at him. "I'd think that'd be a moot point by now, Rallix!"
Tarrin looked at Rallix, and realized that he was playing with her. He wasn't as stuffy as he seemed, he noted. Keritanima had got the better of him, and now he was making her pay for it. Tarrin screened out all the other scents in the room and concentrated on his, and found that his scent became quite agreeable whenever he looked at Keritanima. The amount of information that could be passed along by a scent was considerable, and it was enough for Tarrin to understand that Rallix felt more than fondness for Keritanima. Keritanima had told him all about Rallix, and how he had kept working for her even after he'd learned who she was. Rallix could have made a lot of money by turning her in, or by taking over the business after Keritanima ran away from her father, when Lizelle wouldn't be around anymore to see to the business. Rallix had had any number of opportunities to turn her in or sabotage her or take over what was hers, but he did not. He had been loyal to Keritanima through it all, and that loyalty was based on more than a simple ethical position. Rallix himself may not know it, but he loved Keritanima, very much so, and it was that love that had kept him so faithful to Keritanima's interests.
Tarrin looked at Rallix, then looked at Keritanima. They were both intelligent, headstrong, and stubborn. Once he got used to the idea of being married to her, Rallix wouldn't be intimidated by her position or her crown. That was going to be a very lively relationship.
Dar laughed again. "It's a good thing you got it on paper. He may have ran away."
"You're just jealous because I got mine," Keritanima said with a nasty smile. "What did Tiella say when you asked her out?"
Dar glared at Keritanima.
"That is enough, both of you," Dolanna said mildly. "If this is the main part of the business you needed to tend here, may I ask when we are leaving?"
"Tomorrow morning," she replied. "I've cleared my desk of all the important things, and sashka can handle the rest, with Rallix's help."
"Me?" he said in surprise.
"Of course you, silly," she told him. "You're a fantastic businessman, Rallix, and running the government is a lot like running a business. After sashka gives you some background information, I'm sure that you'll do just fine in your new position as Minister of State."
"You never mentioned this, your Majesty," he said in a business-like tone. "Who is going to look after our business interests?"
"Didn't you hire Veldo last year? Veldo is an excellent administrator, Rallix. He'll do just fine running Twenty Seas as long as you go over there from time to time and help him with the important issues, the same way I used to come over and clear the in-box of all the important things."
"That was different, your Majesty—"
"Kerri!" she snapped at him.
"Kerri," he corrected calmly. "You own the company. You had to sign off on those decisions."
"And now you own the company with me," she reminded him. "You have the authority to sign off on anything you want, Rallix. It's not like I never trusted you to make important decisions, you know."
"Oh. I didn't consider that." He paused. "Since you've absorbed the Twenty Seas under your true name, have you considered something?"
"What?"
"Well, before you changed the law, the nobility didn't have to pay taxes. Since you can prove that you were the true owner of the Twenty Seas operating under an assumed name, you should be able to recover all the taxes you paid retroactively, since past law is still binding on legal issues dealing with that time frame. It would be an impressive amount, your—ah, Kerri. Five years, given the profits we made? I doubt the Royal Treasury could cover the refund."
Keritanima laughed. "Are you trying to get me to break the Royal Bank, Rallix?"
"It's more of the state paying back what it legally owes to you, Kerri. Besides, with that much operating capital, I could put some of the noble merchant companies out of business," he said, his ears seeming to twitch slightly.
"I see you're still out to put everyone else under," Keritanima laughed. "Alright, I'll have a barrister look into it. You realize that I'll be paying myself, don't you?"
"At least it will be money going from government control to personal control," he said. "You won't have to account for it under the new legal system."
"I don't account for it now," she chided. "The Royal Treasury won't go under Parliament control until after both houses are seated. Legally, every copper bit in the treasury still belongs to me. Since the nobles keep dragging their feet, they're forcing me to handle the kingdom's economics."
"You should not have given that power to this new Parliament, Kerri," Rallix told her.
"Four hundred minds are better than one, Rallix," she told him. "It may look a little chancy now, but trust me. In fifty years, we'll be better off for it. In fifty years, our economy is going to be so large and complicated that we'll need a group of educated Wikuni watching over it."
"I hope so."
"Is it a lot of money?" Dar asked.
"The treasury?" Keritanima asked. "The last time it was audited, I think there was about eighty million nobles available."
"Woah," Dar said. "And that's all yours?"
"Master Dar, you're looking at the richest woman in the world," Rallix told him mildly. "Now that she's absorbed all her assets listed under her assumed name, her combined worth is greater than many kingdoms, and that's before taking the money in the treasury into account."
"The money in the treasury is actually Wikuna's money, Dar," Keritanima told him. "You saw all those street projects out there when we rode in from the docks? I pay for all that out of the treasury. I also maintain a very large, very expensive navy and fund a lot of additional projects, like the Ministry of Science and the Intelligence Service."
"I knew that, but in Arkis, the Emperor doesn't actually own the treasury. If he tried to take all the money, the kaisra would revolt."
Tarrin knew that term. Kaisra was an Arakite term meaning nobility, but in Arkis it referred to the assorted noble houses.
"I'm sure that if I emptied out the treasury, the noble houses here would revolt too," Keritanima chuckled. "Paying for the kingdom is the monarch's responsibility."
"So your system is a lot like ours."
"For now. When I finally manage to get the new system working, the treasury will be controlled by Parliament. It will be their job to pay for everything."
"You're giving the money to this Parliament?"
"No, I'm giving them the ability to propose spending ideas," she explained. "Actually, the final authority when it comes to making spending decisions will be mine, but they'll have to approve those ideas."
"But you just said that Parliament is going to control the treasury," Dar said in confusion.
"It works like this, Dar. Either I or an agent I authorize will prepare an operating budget for the kingdom for the year. The Parliament will look at it and either approve it or disapprove it, and they can also change certain things, remove some things, or add some things. If they change things, I have to approve the changes. So in reality, it will take both them and me to pass a budget. This way, I get valuable input from Parliament about some things, but they can't slip anything by me, since I have to sign off on the budget as well."
"Strange system," Dar grunted.
"Wikuna is getting too large for the monarch to make all the decisions," Keritanima said. "Yar Arak and Nyr have beauracracies to help the Emperors, and the other kingdoms are too small to be that burdened by their sizes. This system is going to work very well as we grow, because it involves everyone in the decision making process, not just a king or queen, and it delegates authority in a way that allows small sections of the kingdom to run themselves without too much supervision."
"Wise, Kerri," Dolanna said. "You made a system that allows you to listen to many different viewpoints."
"Exactly," Keritanima nodded. "I'll have no end of suggestions about things. Some will be good, some bad. It'll be up to me to weed out the bad from the good. It also delegates a lot of my authority without me actually having to give up that power, so I can control a lot of what goes on without having to do things personally."
"A job is only as good as the man you place to perform it," Rallix said sagely.
"So I'll just have to find good people. Like you," Keritanima said with a smile, touching him on the forearm. "Where is that food?" she complained.
The food did arrive a few moments later, and they enjoyed a good breakfast together. They mainly spent it listening to Phandebrass talk, which wasn't unusual, as he filled in the others on his progress for converting the Priest spell of learning into a Wizard spell. It came down to a half hour dissertation on the forces of Wizard magic when a simple yes or no would have answered the question. Tarrin watched Keritanima and Rallix as he ate, saw how they were acting towards one another. Keritanima was perfectly comfortable, but Rallix was still a bit scattered, and wasn't quite sure how to act or what to do. Keritanima had twisted him around her little finger. For a moment, Tarrin felt a little sorry for him. The meal was interrupted about halfway through by Binter's return, leading a huge Vendari with a notch taken out of his crest, who came in and said something to Keritanima, having to bend far over to reach that far down. Keritanima nodded and said something to him in a quiet tone, and he left.
After the meal, Keritanima beckoned Tarrin and Allia to walk with her and Rallix, as four Royal Guardsmen moved ahead, four lurked behind, and Binter and Sisska moving along with them. "I'm sure you're waiting for me to yell at you over what happened last night, Tarrin," Keritanima told him. "Well, after getting to the bottom of things, I realized that you didn't do anything that wasn't given to you first, so I'm not that angry. At least not anymore."
"I'm sorry I embarrassed you in front of your subjects, Kerri," he apologized.
"Eh, it's no big deal," she said with a wave of a paw. "I care more about our friendship than I do about their respect. They'd all like to stick a dagger in my back anyway, so let's forget about them."
"Well, it was certainly, unexpected, to hear that you and Rallix have become betrothed," Allia broke the subject. "Why did you not tell me about this, deshaida? I am a little upset about it."
"I'm sorry, but it wasn't sure it was going to work, so I didn't want to say anything until I knew or not," she said with a toothy grin. "Knowing you, if I told you I wanted to ask Rallix for marriage, you would have put a dagger to his throat and forced a promise out of him."
"Probably," Allia admitted.
"I asked you two out here so you could inspect him to your heart's content."
"Inspect me?" Rallix asked in a little concern.
"Of course. Tarrin and Allia are my brother and sister, Rallix, you know that," she told him. "They have a say in my life. They'll look you over, and if they like you, they'll let you live to see the wedding."
Rallix shuddered visibly. "Let me live?" he asked in a nervous voice.
"She is teasing you, Rallix," Allia told him calmly. "I would not kill you. I would mark you and drive you away from her, but I would not kill you."
"I would," Tarrin snorted.
"We know you would," Keritanima grinned.
"I have heard all I need to hear from Kerri," Allia said diffidently. "There is no need for inspection. I trust the judgment of a sister."
"Tarrin's already looked you over," Keritanima told Rallix with a grin. "He may look big and mean, but he's got quite a nose and quite a mind. I could see him figuring you out while we were eating, and it's pretty apparent he's already made his decisions about you. Haven't you, Tarrin?" she asked.
Tarrin nodded.
"Well?"
"He loves you," Tarrin said bluntly, glancing down at her. "He doesn't quite understand that yet, but it will come to him in time. He'll be a good mate."
"Just couldn't say it diplomatically, could you?" Keritanima said archly as Rallix almost missed a step.
"If you don't understand your feelings, there's nothing wrong with someone else pointing them out to you."
"You don't have a romantic bone in your body," Keritanima fussed.
"You should know by now that if you ask me a question, you're going to get an answer. If you're not ready for the answer, don't ask the question."
"I figured that out," Keritanima chuckled.
"You do not have to go through with it, Rallix," Allia told him. "Keritanima would not force you to marry her."
"Yes she would," Tarrin disagreed.
"Tarrin!" Keritanima snapped. "Don't listen to him, Rallix," she said quickly. "Tarrin loves to dwell on my faults."
"Actually, Lady Allia, I have to admit that I'm not entirely against the idea," he said quietly. "I am rather fond of her Majesty, and I can't argue the merits of the arguments she made to go through with the marriage. I must admit, I'm rather surprised that she seems to like me so much. And, well, this may seem a bit offensive to you, my Lady—"
"You can't offend Allia, Rallix," Keritanima chuckled. "She's a Selani. They're a lot more worldly than we are."
"Yes, well," he said, clearing his throat. "Actually, her Majesty's biggest club is an obscure law dealing with Royal chastity," he said, looking very uncomfortable. "Since we—ah, since we slept together, I'm now technically guilty of high treason. She didn't reveal that until after we—ah, after it was over."
"You mean that when she seduced you, she put a legal noose around your neck?" Tarrin asked.
Rallix nodded, his facial fur standing on end to have to talk about such things. "Her Majesty threatened to invoke that law, should I refuse her. The penalty for deflowering a Royal Lady is quite severe," he said, clearing his throat again.
"Kerri, you blackmailed him into marrying you?" Allia asked in surprise.
"Well, you're the one who always talks about equal measures of sugar and the strap. I laid out the sugar before I showed him the strap," she said sheepishly.
Tarrin stared at Keritanima, then he laughed loudly. Even Allia laughed, displaying the fact that she did indeed have a sense of humor. A Selani would find that situation to be very funny. "Sister, I knew you were cunning, but that is almost deplorable!" Allia told her, then she laughed again. "But it was an honorable trap, since you would not be forcing Rallix to do anything he is not already inclined to do."
"Excuse me?" Rallix asked in confusion.
"Selani adore romantic games," Tarrin told him absently. "Prospective mates will challenge each over other the silliest things to demonstrate their strength or their intelligence or their courage. Keritanima played a game with you, a game of deception, a game you lost. Since she was baiting her trap with something you wanted, it means that a Selani wouldn't consider what Kerri did to be dishonorable. She's not forcing you to do anything you really don't want to do. It would be the same as a Selani male kidnapping his love interest. The female is given an opportunity to escape, though it may not seem apparent to her. If she doesn't escape, then she obviously wanted to go in the first place."
"Just so," Allia agreed. "You were inclined to marry her, or you would never have slept with her. As I understand Wikuni, anyway. Why is that humans and Wikuni put so much on the taking of a lover?"
"They're just backwards, sister," Tarrin replied. "At least the Arkisians and Arakites are more progressive."
"In other words, when I allowed her Majesty to seduce me, I sealed my own fate," Rallix mused.
"The bait she used was herself," Tarrin chuckled. "The one thing you couldn't resist. A clever trap."
"Thank you," Keritanima said shamelessly. "I worked quite a while to make it. Are you proud of me?"
"Quite," Allia agreed with a smile. "If you are half of what Kerri says you are, you will be a fine husband," she told Rallix. "The husband of a sister is my brother. It would honor me to speak of you thusly."
"The honor is mine, Lady Allia," Rallix said with a light smile. "Acceptance by a Selani is the highest honor one like myself could hope to achieve."
"At least he can sweet-talk," Tarrin chuckled.
"Hush," both Allia and Keritanima told him.
Tarrin, Allia, Keritanima, and Rallix spent the rest of the morning together in Keritanima's new apartments as Binter and Sisska stood quiet, vigilant guard over the room. They were huge, grand, and decorated in Keritanima's own style, a style of simplistic taste. There were only a few works of art, two tapestries, and three sculptures, but all of them were beautiful and powerful pieces, invoking great emotion. Keritanima did appreciate finery, so her furniture was all obvious antique, made of a dark wood that was highly polished, and was graceful and elegant in design. The motif of her outer parlor was blue, with the upholstery of the chairs and couch a deep yet soft-seeming blue, with a tapestry depicting the night sky over Wikuna hanging from the wall. They sat in that parlor on those comfortable chairs and did nothing but talk, giving Tarrin and Allia a chance to come to know Rallix's mind. They talked of their journey and their mission, of what had happened in Suld, and even listened as Rallix voiced his reservations and opinions about the new governmental system that Keritanima was trying to institute. Then Keritanima took her turn defending her system, explaining to Rallix how it was supposed to work in detail.
"There, that is the problem," Rallix said as he listened to her explain the concept of Parliament as a governing body. "This is why the common man hasn't become so supportive, your Majesty."
"We're in private, Rallix," she chided. "You can call me by my name here."
"I'm sorry, Kerita—uh, Kerri," he said. "The system as you describe it does make sense, and I can see the potential of it. But the common man, someone without my education, he's not going to understand the system by the documents you've distributed to the Mayor and the papers. You need to explain things, not send out a sheaf of papers with new rules. If you explain things in simple terms, as you did for me, you'll gain a great deal more support from the common man."
"Kerri sometimes believes that all can understand what she understands," Allia said mildly. "She cannot conceive of someone not being able to understand what is very simple to her."
"I've noticed that about her," Rallix agreed, looking at her calmly. "Usually, she doesn't bother to explain. It's not going to work in this instance, Kerri. You're trying to change a fundamental cornerstone of our society, so if you want people to embrace it, you need to explain it."
"I guess I should have at that," she admitted, tapping on her muzzle with a finger. "I did try to explain how it would improve the lot of the common man."
"Your statement and speech wasn't very clear on that, Kerri," he told her. "I read it from the Examiner."
"What is this examiner?" Allia asked.
"A newspaper," Rallix told her. "A printed journal of events," he explained when he saw Allia's blank look. "They pay people to go out and find information that people would find interesting, and then they print it on paper and sell it."
"It's a new idea that's just catching on," Keritanima told them. "Someone invented a machine that makes it very fast and easy to mass produce printed pages, and change those printed pages quickly. The Examiner was the first of these 'news-papers' to appear, about a year ago. I have to admit, they're making a killing. People actually pay to read the news."
"What you should do is print a detailed explanation of your system and distribute it the same way they do with newspapers," Rallix told her. "The nobility is already starting to realize that if they attack you and your ideas in the press, they can lie through their teeth and have people believe them as long as they do it first. People are starting to take what they read in the newspapers as inviolate truth. It won't be long before one of the nobles gets the idea of printing a pamphlet decrying the system and handing it out all over the kingdom."
"That's a good point. If I write this thing, how long would it take to get it printed?" she asked.
"I know the owner of the Wikuna Herald, a new newspaper. If I bring him the article you write and the gold to cover his expenses, he'll print it and hand it out. I could have it on the streets the day after you hand me what you want printed."
"Don't you love modern technology?" Keritanima laughed, looking at Tarrin and Allia. "I'm going to resort to using propaganda against myself. Ironic, isn't it?"
"You just lost me, Kerri," Tarrin said.
"I told you a while ago, what I'm doing is akin to overthrowing myself, Tarrin. Now I'm going to convince people that me overthrowing myself is actually a good idea. Using selective information to present a single view in favor of any other is called propaganda."
"I just do not understand Wikuni politics," Allia said with a shake of her head.
"That's a good thing," Keritanima grinned. "If you did, it would stain your honor." She clapped her hands together and rubbed them. "Well, if I'm going to do this before I leave, I'd better get started."
"That would be a good idea," Tarrin agreed.
"Seeing as how we're getting married later tonight, I'd like to get this out of the way," she added as she stood up. "Now, if the Ministry of Science could invent something that makes writing faster and easier," she grunted. "Binter, could you go find Miranda for me?"
"At once, your Majesty," Binter said with a bow, marching from the room.
"Well, you're going to be busy, so we'll leave you to it," Tarrin told her.
"What are you going to be doing for the rest of the day?" she asked.
"I'm not sure," he replied.
"I wanted to go down into the city and see their wonders," Allia told him. "Would you go with me, brother?"
"That's a good idea," Tarrin agreed. "I'd like to go see Wikuna for myself."
"I'll send a guide—"
"No guides," Allia said. "No guards, no fanfare. I wish to walk the streets as any other."
"You're a Selani, sister. You're not going to just walk around unnoticed," Keritanima chuckled.
"Perhaps, but I would prefer to go on our own rather than be escorted."
"Well, I seriously doubt that there's a single living thing in Wikuna that could threaten either of you, so you have my blessing," she grinned. "Just be back before sunset, alright? You don't want to miss our wedding, do you?"
Rallix fidgeted a bit. Sleeping with Keritanima was one thing, but now he had to pay for it, and the cost still hadn't settled with him quite yet.
"Just call to us when you want us to return," Allia said, touching her amulet meaningfully.
The mention of Sorcery reminded him that he was going to take Keritanima into the Weave. He sat back down, and Keritanima looked at him strangely as he used Sorcery to spin out two new strands, anchoring them to the same strand he'd used to anchor the new strand in his room. "I forgot," he grunted. "This is going to be our one and only chance to do this, Kerri. We'll be on the move again tomorrow."
"Oh, right!" she said brightly. "Writing that article can wait!" She rushed over to where he had put the strands, on the floor between her chair and his, grabbing a pillow off the nearby couch, dropping it on the floor, then sitting on it.
"What are you doing, Kerri?" Rallix asked.
"Kerri is Tarrin's student in magic," Allia answered for her. "He is going to train her in an aspect of Sorcery that can only be done when they are stationary. While we are waiting, would you like to play a game of stones?" Allia offered.
"What kind of Sorcery?" he asked curiously.
"A very old kind," Tarrin said. "And no, you can't do it."
"I'm rather sure I couldn't," he said mildly.
"I know your type, Rallix. Trust me, you can't do it, and you can't make a spell that copies it either."
"Make a spell?" Keritanima asked quickly.
"How did you know that I once dabbled in Wizardry?" Rallix asked in surprise.
"It leaves a mark on you," Tarrin told him. "I sensed it in you the moment I met you."
"You learned Wizardry?" Keritanima asked in surprise. "Rallix, that's forbidden by law!"
"I was in Sennadar at the time, your Majesty," Rallix said with a smile. "The law doesn't apply there. So long as I don't actively practice magic on Wikuni soil, it's perfectly legal."
"When were you in Sennadar long enough to learn magic?" Keritanima asked curiously.
"When I got out of primary school, I signed on with House Plantan as a sailor," he told her. "They saw I wasn't much of a sailor, but I had a nose for business, so when we reached our destination, Dala Zah in Yar Arak, they put me on at their trade consulate so I could learn about the merchant business. I learned magic from one of the local Wizards. He thought it a grandly funny thing that a Wikuni was willing to learn magic, but back then, I often didn't consider the consequences before jumping head first into things."
"That sounds a lot like someone we know," Tarrin told Allia with a smile.
"Yes, it does, does it not?" she agreed.
"I spent two years there. Long enough to learn some very simple spells, little more than cantrips, but it was enough to satisfy my curiosity. I reached the end of my contract with Plantan and didn't extend, so I was returned to Wikuna. I still have my spellbook," he said with a distant smile. "Sometimes, when I feel nostalgic, I take it out and read it."
"You were born on the wrong continent, Rallix," Tarrin said.
"Sometimes I have to agree with you," Rallix sighed. "I was always fascinated by magic. It's a pity the priesthoods of Wikuna managed to get the laws against other forms of magic passed."
"I've already started undoing those laws, Rallix," Keritanima said, patting the floor beside her impatiently. "Hurry up, Tarrin! I already have a long day ahead of me, and my night will probably be even longer," she said with a look at Rallix. The badger cleared his throat and pulled at the neck of his tunic.
"Alright," Tarrin said, sitting down beside her. "This isn't that hard. All you have to do is relax and do what you did the first time, Kerri."
"I don't remember much about that," she warned him.
"You do, you just don't realize it," he added. "First you do what you always do when working with Sorcery. Calm down, clear your mind, and concentrate on what you're doing. When you do that, you'll feel the Weave above you. You just rise up into it, that's all. That's how I imagine it, myself."
"That's it?"
"More or less. The currents of the Weave will pick you up as soon as you join with it, and carry you to the Heart. So don't get panicky when you feel yourself being carried away."
"Do you always start there?"
"At first, yes," he answered. "When you have more experience, you can hold your position and go wherever you want. But I haven't done very much of that."
"Why not?"
"Well, mainly because you have to be stationary when you do this," he told her. "We've been on a ship the last month, and there was too much going on at the Tower for me to explore the Weave very much."
"Those are good reasons," Keritanima chuckled.
"Pardon my curiosity, but exactly what are you going to do?" Rallix asked.
"They are going to join with the Weave," Allia answered him. "Certain Sorcerers have the ability to join their minds to it, and it gives them a period of expanded consciousness."
"Ah. Interesting," Rallix hummed.
"It's more like an alternate consciousness," Tarrin clarified. "While we're joined, we'll be completely unresponsive. We won't hear or see or smell, but we can feel. If there's an emergency and you need us to return, just pull our hair. We'll feel the pain and return."
Tarrin waited for Keritanima in the Heart, and it only took her about ten minutes to arrive. He allowed her a little time to marvel over the place, then he began her education. He explained things as best he could, given his limited knowledge, then taught her the same spell he'd taught Jenna, using a Sorcerer's star to speak directly to his or her mind. Tarrin used that spell to talk to Dolanna, to tell her to find a strand and attempt to join the Weave. She arrived not long after that, and then Tarrin repeated his lesson for Dolanna, who already seemed to have a much firmer grip on the information that Keritanima did. Tarrin described the Heart and the Goddess, then explained how the strands worked when traveling through them from the inside. He stressed that Weave geography didn't correspond to the geography of the real world, and it usually required help from another Sorcerer or some kind of landmark or beacon to allow a Sorcerer to find something in the real world through the Weave. He taught them spells for looking into the real world from the Weave, a form of completely undetectable spying, and taught them how he projected into the real world through the Weave, using an Illusion and then pushing his consciousness into the matrix of the weave to allow him to use it like a borrowed body.
"It's not a real body, though," he warned them. "When you move your arm, you're not really moving your arm, you're changing the weave to alter the image. It takes a little practice, but once you get the hang of it, it does feel like you're moving your arm."
"Understandable," Dolanna agreed. "I remember when I saw you doing it that you did not walk. The projection simply changed positions, sliding along the floor."
"I remember that," Keritanima agreed.
"You can weave spells through a projection, but it's very hard," he told them. "You're literally weaving over a distance between your physical body and the projection. The further it is, the harder it is."
"You explained that already," Keritanima said. "I want to try this."
"So do I," Dolanna agreed. Then she looked at him. "Tarrin, are you shorter?"
"The image here is an image of self generated by my subconscious," he explained. "In the Heart, I don't appear as I really am, I appear the way my mind perceives me to be. I guess my mind hasn't reconciled the fact that I'm so tall yet. I'm not the only one that appears differently. Jenna appears as an adult, and Jula appears as she looked when she was human."
"Ah. Interesting," Dolanna mused. "Do I look the same?"
"Both of you look exactly as you do in reality," he told them.
"Then I guess we don't have any identity issues," Keritanima laughed.
"Alright then, let's go visit Jasana," he said, giving Keritanima a rather cool look. "I want to see my daughter." He turned and looked at all the many stars, and it only took him a moment to find Jasana's star. It was one of the brightest ones, a visible marker of her tremendous power. He wove the spell to talk to her and reached out and put his paw on her star, feeling its power and vibrance pulsing into his paw. "Jasana," he called.
There was a pause. "Papa?" her voice came through the star. "I can hear you talking inside my head!"
"I'm using a spell to talk to you, cub," he said gently. "Are you alone?"
"No, papa," she replied. "Mama and gramma are here, and so is Aunt Jenna and Jula."
"That's fine. Where are you?"
"We're in our rooms," she answered.
"Tell them we're coming to see them," he told her. "We'll be there in just a minute, alright?"
"Alright, papa," she answered excitedly.
Tarrin felt back between her star and her physical body, until he knew which way to go to reach them through the Weave. He paused and then explained what he did to Keritanima and Dolanna, teaching them how to use the star of a Sorcerer to find his or her physical body, then he taught them the specifics of weaving the projection they would occupy, and exactly how to go about animating it. Then he led them away from the Heart, rising up and entering a Conduit, following that into a smaller strand, then another, then yet another, hurtling through the Weave against the flow of the magical currents. He entered a small feeder strand and moved along it slowly until the sense of Jasana was right before him. He paused and waited for the other two to join him, and when they did so, they were both looking rather amazed. "It's incredible!" she said, looking around. "We're inside the strand. In the magic!"
"Can't you feel it flowing around you?" Tarrin asked, motioning with a paw at the river of soft radiance in which they were submerged, which did reduce visibility, making anything more than twenty spans away hazy and indistinct, like looking into a fog. The boundary of the strand was clearly distinguishable as a black wall at the edge of the radiance, a physical boundary that would hinder any travel through it. Tarrin had never really paused to look around at the interior of a strand before, understanding its nature without having to look at it with his spectral eyes. He could sense much more than he could see anyway, feeling the flow of the power, the gentle eddies and currents even with in the flow, and the occasional pulses and flickers of alien magic that traveled through the Weave.
"It's beautiful," Dolanna said in Sharadi, looking around. "We went so fast, I didn't get the chance to appreciate it before."
"Yes, it is, isn't it?" Tarrin agreed. "Alright, first you look out and get an idea of where you're going, then you weave the Illusion and then enter its weaving just like a strand. That will allow you to join with the spell. Ready?"
"Ready," they both said.
Tarrin wove the Illusion of himself as he truly appeared, and then pushed himself into the Illusion. He opened his spectral eyes to see that they were all in the apartments he had in the Tower, sitting or standing in the parlor with its three couches surrounding the tea table, all set before the fireplace. Jesmind and Jasana were sitting on one couch, Triana standing behind it, and Jenna and Jula sitting on one of the others. He focused on his mate and daughter and smiled. Jasana squealed in delight and tried to jump up to hug him, but Jesmind put her paws around her daughter quickly. "It's not really your father, cub," she warned. "If you try to hug him, you'll pass right through. It's just an Illusion."
"Aww," Jasana said with a pout.
"I'm sorry, cub, but this is the best I can do," he smiled at her, feeling his powerful love for the little girl flow through him at the sight of her. Seeing Jesmind had as strong an effect, reminding him again how much he loved his fiery, temperamental mate. "Believe me, I'd give a great deal to be able to touch you right now," he said longingly, looking into her eyes.
"I feel the same way," she answered from her heart, gazing into his eyes.
Tarrin sensed the building of other spells, and then images of Dolanna and Keritanima appeared on either side of him. They were motionless, still, until he felt their minds join to the weaves, and then the Illusions became animate. Their eyes opened, and they looked around the room in wonder.
"Amazing!" Dolanna breathed, turning to look around. They both, it seemed, caught onto the trick of simulating motion immediately. In reality, it was very much like moving a physical body.
"You're about six hours late," Jenna said critically. "It's midafternoon here."
"It's still morning here," he told her. "I forgot about the time difference. We should have made it clear whose morning we'd use to meet," he told her.
Jenna chuckled. "I guess so," she agreed.
"You're looking well, father," Jula said with a gentle smile. "How are things going there?"
"Rather well," he replied. "We'll be leaving for Vendaka tomorrow, so this will be the only chance I have to do this. I can't project like this when the ship is moving."
"Why not?" Jesmind asked.
"Because we have to be in physical contact with a strand," Jenna answered her. "If we're moving, then we'll move out of contact with the strand, and I don't know what would happen to us if that happened."
"Exactly," Tarrin agreed. "Mother," he greeted Triana. "You're looking well."
"Not for Jesmind's trying to make me go bald," she said sourly. "Sometimes I think I should have killed her when she was younger. I'd have saved myself a lot of headache."
Tarrin chuckled. "I'm rather glad you didn't, mother," he told her. "She may be a handful, but she's my handful."
"Then you come deal with her," Triana said as Jesmind gave him a glorious smile.
"I'd love to, but as you know, things can't be that way at the moment," he sighed.
"How are the lessons going?" Jenna asked Dolanna.
"I was there to observe as Tarrin trained Keritanima, so there is little he has had to repeat for me," she answered. "This is our first excursion into the Weave, and it will be our last for some time."
"Traveling doesn't make for good teaching," Jula said sagely.
"Actually, since we are on a ship, we have plenty of time for teaching," Dolanna told her. "But since the ship moves, it restricts what we can learn." Dolanna wiped her brow. "Tarrin, you were right. This is demanding."
"I'm starting to feel it myself," Keritanima agreed.
"It takes practice," he told them. "Why don't the two of you go on back? You need to rest. Trust me, as soon as you go back to your bodies, you'll feel twice as tired as you do now."
"What motivation," Keritanima grunted.
"He's right, Kerri," Jula said, then seemed to blush when she realized she'd used the contraction that only Keritanima's friends used. "I almost collapsed when you saw me do it back when Dolanna crossed over. It's a good thing I was already in bed."
"Uh, Tarrin, you didn't teach us how to stop this."
"Just pull out of the Illusion and go back into the Weave," Jenna told them. "It's as simple as that. Rejoin the Weave, and when you're there, just will to return to your body. And you'll go back, almost immediately."
"Oh. I think I can do that," Keritanima grinned. "See you all later." And then her Illusion dissipated. Tarrin felt her consciousness hurtle back into the distance, as she returned to her body.
"It was good to see you again," Dolanna said with a smile, then her Illusion too wavered and vanished, and her mind rejoined her body in Wikuna.
Tarrin remained behind, however. He caused his projection to kneel before his mate and daughter, looking at them with yearning eyes. If only he could touch them! But as he was, they were insubstantial to him as he was to them. Jasana put her paw out as if to touch him, then she flinched when her paw passed through his head, disappearing into the Illusion. "That's scary, papa," she complained.
"I warned you, cub," Jesmind said softly, gazing into his eyes. "When are you coming home to me, beloved?" she asked.
"I don't know yet, my mate," he answered, resisting the urge to reach a paw out to her. "Is Jasana behaving herself now?" Tarrin talked to both Jesmind and Jasana every night, but he was leery to bring up such things when both of them could hear, so he hadn't had a chance to ask about that quite yet.
"Jenna's cracked down on her," Jesmind said with a wan smile. "If she misbehaves, she gets no lessons."
"It's not fair," Jasana complained. "I'm supposed to practice, aren't I?"
"Not without supervision, cub," Jenna told her sharply.
"How is it with you and Kimmie?" Triana asked directly.
Was she trying to start a fight? Tarrin gave her a sharp look, then blew out his breath and answered. "Well enough," he answered.
"Well, if you had to be with another female, I'm just glad it was Kimmie," Jesmind said, and that surprised Tarrin. He looked at her, and saw that she was being sincere. "At least she understands you."
"Jesmind's stopped looking at the situation with her hormones and saw it with her eyes," Triana told Tarrin calmly.
"Well, then I guess I can tell you that I told her she can move in with me," he said cautiously.
"That's the way it should be, Tarrin," Jesmind said calmly.
"You're awfully calm about it now, my mate," he said.
"I saw your eyes, Tarrin," she told him simply, but with powerful emotion. "When you looked at me, I saw that when you come back, you'll come back to me. I don't have any cause to be jealous of Kimmie anymore, beloved. Because I know that given the choice between her and me, you'll choose me."
"You knew that all along."
"Knowing with the mind isn't the same as knowing with the heart, cub," Triana said sagely. "Even I get a bit irrational right after Thean leaves me, but I get over it."
"Is he still here?" he asked.
Triana nodded. "We'll be together for at least a year," she answered. "It's been a few years since the last time, so we'll be able to stay together for quite a while."
"That's good to hear, mother," Tarrin told her, then he felt a twinge. "I'd better get back. I promised Allia I'd go with her today, and I don't want to wear myself out and back out of a promise."
"Then you'd better go. But please, talk to me a little earlier than usual, alright?" Jesmind asked. "I'm getting tired of staying up into the middle of the night to talk to you, and Jasana gets surly in the morning because she's staying up so late."
"It's the time difference," he chuckled. "I'll try to talk to you a little earlier, alright?"
"Thank you," she said with a grateful smile.
"Why didn't you say something?"
"Because you try not to mess with a good thing, beloved," Jesmind answered.
"You're going, papa?" Jasana asked.
"Afraid so, cub," he told her with a solemn nod. "I'll talk to you tonight, though, alright?"
"It's not the same."
"I know, but we have to take what we can get. You be good, and we'll talk tonight, alright?"
"Alright, papa."
He stood and looked to Jenna and Jula. "You two keep it up. You know where to find me if you want to talk."
"Can I talk to you later tonight, father?" Jula asked.
"You can talk to me now."
"I'd, uh, I'd rather speak to you alone, if that's alright with you," she said hedgingly, glancing at the others.
"That's fine with me, Jula," he replied.
"Can I use the Weave?"
"You can talk to me any way you want," he assured her. "I'm sure Jenna's taught you everything you need to know to join the Weave without her there to hold your paw."
"That's right," Jenna assured him.
"Then you come and talk to me in a few hours, alright?" he told her. "I should be back from my trip with Allia by then."
"Alright, father," Jula said with a nod and a relieved look.
"I'll see all of you later," Tarrin said, looking at Triana. "Can I talk to you privately later tonight, mother?" he asked.
"Any time, cub," she nodded. "I'll look in on you until you're not busy."
"Fair enough," he replied. He wasn't sure how she was going to do that, but then again, Triana knew so much Druidic magic she surely had some kind of way to do it.
"All this secrecy," Jenna laughed. "I'm tempted to ask if I can talk to you privately, Tarrin."
"I have my reasons, Jenna," he said calmly. "I'll talk to all of you later."
With that and one last look at his daughter and mate, Tarrin withdrew from the Illusion and returned to his own body. He opened his eyes to see Keritanima pacing back and forth, a hand on her stomach, a little out of breath. Sisska mirrored her movements, ready to catch her if needs be, but she looked like she was going to be alright. Tarrin regained his feet gracefully, pondering what Jula might want to need to talk to him alone, and his own impending conversation with Triana. Tarrin's motivation to talk to her alone was important, because he wanted to hear from her how his mate and daughter were really doing. Triana would give it to him straight. He also wanted to catch up on how Jula's education in the things she needed to know to pass the test of Fae-da'Nar was going. Triana was continuing her education, and he knew that Jula hadn't yet been tested for acceptance. It was starting to run into some time, so he was worried about how things were going in that department. That was something he didn't want to discuss in front of Jula, or even Jesmind. It wasn't any of Jesmind's business, and it may upset or rattle Jula to hear the truth of her progress from Triana, in case Triana had something bad to say. Tarrin had come to learn that Jula was a very anxious woman, nervous, a little high-strung, and not a little neurotic. If she heard something bad from Triana, she would obsess over it, the way she'd obsessed over her fear that the Goddess had rejected her. Given everything that she had to learn from Triana and Jenna, it was best that she be kept as calm as possible.
"I never dreamed that could be so exhausting!" Keritanima told him breathlessly, leaning against the back of a chair. "My respect for your power just went up several notches, deshida."
"You just wove and maintained a spell over a thousand leagues, sister," Tarrin told her mildly. "Did you think it was going to be easy?"
She looked at him, then laughed. "I guess not," she admitted. "Will it always be that tiring?"
"It doesn't get easy, but it will get less difficult," he answered. "You're still maturing into your full power as a Weavespinner. When you top out, it should be a little easier. But will always be tiring, even for me and Jenna. We can just do it a little longer than you."
"Not if I have anything to say about it," she grinned.
"We'll see," Tarrin said mildly, turning to look at Allia. "Are you ready to go?"
"I am ready," she said with a smile.
Refusing offers of guides, guards, even servants to discreetly follow behind them, Tarrin and Allia left the Royal Palace and wandered the streets of Wikuna. To say that they stood out was an understatement, for there were only a scant handful of non-Wikuni on the entire continent. A being like a Selani attracted a great deal of attention as she wandered aimlessly with Tarrin, who looked more like a deformed Wikuni to them than anything else, wandered streets and talked about absolutely nothing of importance. They rekindled the powerful bonds that held them together, a selfless, giving love that they shared, a loving friendship so deep that it defied rational explanation. Every once in a while, they just needed time to themselves, to renew those ties, and the walking of the streets of Wikuna was a perfect opportunity.
Of course, there was much to do. They visited the docks and watched the cranes loading and unloading ships, then they walked up a grand avenue that had a strip of green grass and planted trees splitting it in half. They found workers paving the road with that liquid stone that Keritanima described, and paused to watch them pour it out of wheelbarrels caked with the stuff, pouring it into molds bounded by wooden boards, then smooth it flat with long-handled tools. Tarrin managed to get close enough to put his finger into the residue in the wheelbarrel, and he used that little sample to use Sorcery on it to discern its ingredients. Powdered limestone, water, sand, fine gravel, a little lye, and some chalk. That was it. Strange to believe that this goopy liquid would dry out and harden into stone, and from the looks of some of the other paved areas, with the heavy wagons crossing them, a very hard stone.
After that, they sat at a sidewalk cafe and ate things that neither of them could identify, for Tarrin could read the menu, but the food listed were things he'd never heard of before. Then they walked along the central part of the city, and found a small Wikuni boy hawking some of those "news-papers" of which Keritanima and Rallix had spoken. On an impulse, Tarrin bought one, and then he and Allia sat on a bench in front of a large fountain that sprayed water from eight different spouts up at one another, where they collided in the air and cascaded back down into the center. Tarrin thought that it would be interesting to see what the Wikuni felt was important, and that would be as easy as reading the information in the newspaper. They had to sell the papers, and that meant that there had to be something on it interesting enough to a Wikuni for them to pay for them. Allia looked at the blocky script printed on the page, strange printing that looked very sterile. Tarrin still had a little trouble reading Wikuni, because the written language had a great many sharp letters that all looked the same, where only an apostrophe, dot, or a very slight difference in the shape of the letter distinguished from all the others that had the same shape.
"What does it say?" Allia asked in Selani. Whenever they were alone or wanted to speak privately, they spoke in Selani.
"Give me a minute, I'm trying to translate a language I'm not good at reading through three languages here," he answered shortly.
"Three? Why three?"
"How would you translate something you read in Sha'Kar into Sulasian?" he asked.
"I'd—oh," she said, her brows furrowing slightly. "I see. You translate it into you native tongue first, then translate again."
"I'll make a linguist of you yet," he told her with a smile, perusing the paper. "A lot of it deals with trading," he told her. "How much something costs for the day. Gold, silver, copper, and things like honey, tea, sugar—whatever sugar is—livestock, wool, cotton, and a bunch of others. Half of this thing is some kind of trader's guide."
"What about the other half?"
"I'm getting there. Alright, this part here is all gossip," he said, pointing at a column. "About the nobles. This part here talks about some duchess getting drunk at a party and saying very nasty things about some countess. It's a bunch of drivel." He turned the paper over. "Ah, well, there's my mistake," he chuckled.
"What?"
"I was reading the second page first," he admitted. "This is the front page."
"What does it say?"
"Give me a minute," he said, scanning the page. "Now this is more like news. The story at the top, with the big headline, is about how the city watch found three bodies in an alley yesterday morning. The headline reads 'Boscany Strangler Strikes Again.' I guess this is a recurring problem," he mused. "Over here is a story about the war in Suld," he said. "It's—wait, it's not very nice. It's ripping up Keritanima for sending over Wikuni troops. But then again, the article is complaining about the cost more than the lives that were lost. That's compassionate," he snorted. "The person who wrote it calls it, let's see, 'a foolish little war in a foolish little kingdom beneath our notice. That Queen Keritanima-Chan Eram would dedicate resources and manpower to fight for such colloquial bumpkins degrades the honor of the kingdom and the reserves of our own treasury.'" He frowned. "Colloquial. It seems that all Wikuni are as arrogant as Kerri is."
"Given the wonders we've seen here, they do have some small reason to feel that way, brother," Allia said sagely. "They have advanced beyond your people, so they naturally feel themselves superior."
"Every musket in Wikuna would be useless against a single Sorcerer that knows how to weave a Ward that would stop their musket balls," he scoffed. "They advanced with technology, we advanced with magic. I'd say that that evens us out." He read the bottom of the page. "Here's something about the new system. It says that construction on the building that's going to house that Parliament thing was delayed again because of sabotage. Do you really understand Kerri's system, Allia?" he asked honestly.
"I can comprehend it, but I feel it to be silly and redundant," she answered.
"I just don't understand it. I guess it's the Cat in me. I can't fathom any kind of system that seems so restrictive."
"It's her kingdom. If she wants to run it into the ground, that's her decision. It's not our place to interfere."
"Eh, who knows, maybe it will actually work for them," Tarrin shrugged. "Wikuni are weird to begin with. A weird system may be just what they need."
"An interesting viewpoint," Allia said with a laugh.
After finishing with the printed newspaper, they set out again. They walked along both cobblestone and new concrete streets, looking at the mixture of old and new architectures that gave the city its unique appearance. From old, fortress-looking buildings with fences, arrow slits instead of windows, and battlements to the newer plaster-faced buildings, with their slate roofs and their dark wooden beams interrupting the continuity of white on their outside. All Wikuni seemed to like fences or walls, fencing in a little extra land with their homes to serve as gardens or lawns. Those areas seemed to be generally in the back of the houses, with the front of the house facing the street and the back, with the fence or wall, facing the street on the other side. Some wider blocks had houses facing the streets on both sides, with the lawn or garden sandwiched between them. Space seemed to be at a priority in Wikuna, with the smaller houses having very little, and in some cases absolutely none, of the fenced in area with the house.
They wandered into one of the poorer sections of the city, and it was here where the differences between rich and poor in Wikuni society were so prevalent. The buildings were all run down and in poor repair, and the people who lived in them were all very thin, wearing dirty, torn clothes, and looked very tired and despondent. The worst were the children, unnaturally thin children wearing clothes that usually didn't fit them, playing with whatever was available, able even in their misery to find some escape from the harshness of their existence with a child's game or a wandering imagination. Tarrin had never heard of poverty in Wikuna, had never heard anyone talk about it. Yet here it was, glaring at them with dull eyes, the dark underside of the shining veneer that the Wikuni wanted everyone to believe was their greatness.
"So now we know that the Wikuni aren't any better than anyone else," Tarrin growled as they moved out of the poor neighborhood and into an area with slightly better buildings. "It reminds me of what we saw in Dala Yar Arak. It was so infuriating to see the humans so poor, so hungry. I couldn't believe that the other humans would just leave them like that, that they didn't care. Now we see that the Wikuni are the same way. They're much more human than your people, sister."
"My people shun contact with the humans," she told him. "I see now that that's a good policy to keep. It seems that contact with other races has affected my distant cousins."
They walked on until midafternoon, and then they both decided to return to the Palace. Tarrin returned to his apartments to find that Kimmie had taken over the study room, her spellbooks sitting on the desk and any number of strange vials, bottles, beakers, and vials holding all sorts of weird things standing on the cabinet and on a shelf that she had brought in. Kimmie knew they were leaving in the morning… why bring everything out like that? Kimmie and Sapphire were nowhere to be found; odds were, Sapphire was with Kimmie, and Kimmie was probably with Phandebrass.
As he returned to the inner parlor, there was a strange twinge in the air. Tarrin sensed it and realized that it was Druidic magic, the beginnings of a spell. It was Triana. He sat down on the couch and waited for her spell to find him, and when it did, that familiar swirling circle of energy appeared before him, then sharpened into a visible image of her. She was standing in Jesmind's parlor.
"How did you know I was here?" he asked curiously.
She gave him a slight smile, which for her was a very big display of emotion. "I once held your bond, cub," she told him. "Since I'm a Druid, that means that I can still access it without actively holding it. I keep track of all my children that way."
Tarrin looked at her, then laughed. "You don't cut any of us off your apron strings, do you?"
"The kind of children I have?" she scoffed. "I have to watch them every minute, or they get themselves in trouble. Jesmind is bad enough, but you don't know Nikki or Shayle or Laren. They're all just as bad."
"And now you have me. It must be enough to give you gray hair."
Triana looked at him, then laughed. "Some things are worth the trouble, cub," she said with a wolfish smile. "What did you want to talk about?"
Tarrin and Triana talked for quite a while about Jula. Where she was, what she needed, and when she'd be ready. Tarrin was pleased to learn that Jula was coming along very well, that Triana was beginning to teach her the laws and customs necessary for acceptance. She'd put it off because of Jula's instability, working to solidify her sanity before working with her on fitting in in Woodkin society. Triana said in no uncertain terms that Jula was completely stable now, that she had found her balance and was no longer in any danger of going mad. That pleased Tarrin, though he had already suspected it given his interaction with her when he was in Suld. He could tell that she had achieved some stability in her struggle against her instincts.
After that, they shifted to his family. Tarrin heard all about what Jesmind was up to through her mother's eyes, about how she was dealing with him being gone and granting his attentions to Kimmie. That was important to Tarrin, because he wanted to make sure that her brave talk in front of him wasn't just a front. But Triana assured him that Jesmind really had come to accept the situation—"coming back to her proper Were senses," Triana had called it—and was alright with what was going on. Jesmind's love for him was very strong, and Triana told him that such powerful emotion clouded the Were-cat outlook about such things. "I go through the same thing every time Thean leaves," she admitted. "I go through a period of intense jealousy and anger, but it fades as I come back to my senses. Thean relates it to the human female's period of irrationality when she's in heat. He calls it my period." She smirked slightly. "Then again, he's not around to experience it, so he can make fun of it all he wants. I usually retreat from everyone for a while after we split up, so I don't kill someone I'd regret killing later."
It was very strange to hear Triana admit to weakness. She was the oldest of them, and she was almost mythical in his mind as the pinnacle of Were, a solid foundation to which he attached his life. But in its own way, it was more than understandable that she would admit to weakness. She was the one that had told him time and again that certain aspects of Were mentality affected them all, from the very youngest to the very oldest. That Triana herself suffered some of those same things made her feel much more mortal, and allowed him to relate to her as a true kindred spirit.
"Does Thean feel the same way?" Tarrin asked.
She shook her head. "Males and females have different instincts, cub," she reminded him. "He doesn't like splitting with me, but he doesn't suffer irrational episodes. Males have it easy," she complained. "Males don't have an instinctual impulse to hold onto a mate. Females do. My episodes and Jesmind's, they're instinctual, not emotional."
"I didn't know that."
"Emotion does make them worse," she told him. "But that's the base of them. It has to do with the hybrid instincts of human and cat. Both human and cat females strive to find a mate. The human female tries to hold onto him, where the cat loses interest in him after he impregnates her. In that situation, we're governed much more by our human instincts than our cat ones. Remember, in a given situation, if one set of instincts reacts but one does not, we'll still be affected by the instincts that react. It's only when the instincts directly oppose one another that they cancel out."
"I figured you'd have an answer," he chuckled. "How is Jasana handling things? She's always herself when I talk to her, but you never know with her."
"She's doing fine," she replied. "She's clinging to the promise you made to come back, so as far as she's concerned, you'll be back any day now. She asks if you've come back every morning when she wakes up. It's really starting to irritate Jesmind." She glanced to her right. "How is Kimmie?"
"She's alright. Busy learning about magic from Phandebrass."
"That's not what I mean," she said sharply.
"What do you mean then?"
"Is she feeling alright? Has she been exhausting herself with her magical training? That can't be good for her right now."
"That's a strange question, mother," he said calmly.
She glanced at him. "You don't know, do you?" she asked. "Then again, she probably doesn't know either."
"Know what?"
She looked right at him. "Tarrin, Kimmie is pregnant."
She couldn't have produced a more profound reaction if she'd hit him in the back of the head with a sledgehammer. He gaped at Triana for a long moment, then cleared his throat. "Preg—how did you—there's—I don't—mother!" he finally said indignantly.
She laughed. "You can't hide anything from me, cub," she told him with amused eyes. "She's been pregnant for a few days now."
"How do you know these things?" he demanded.
"I took Kimmie's bond just before she left, then released it and took Jula's bond from her again," she said simply. "I don't let anyone close to my family go around where I can't keep an eye on them."
He was stunned, completely flabbergasted. "Why shouldn't she exhaust herself?" he asked. "She's a Were-cat, mother! She won't even start slowing down until she's ready to deliver!"
"She's a Were-cat," she affirmed. "She's also a turned Were-cat, and a turned Were-cat has never carried a child before. The sire of the cub is a turned male, and though your other two cubs came out alright, I have no idea how it's going to work with a turned female. She's also a magician, and since we're magical beings, there's no telling how her magical training is going to affect the child. That baby won't have any kind of resistance to the magical forces that infuse Kimmie when she's working her magic. I honestly have no idea how it's going to affect her, or the baby, and since this is uncharted territory, I have no idea if her status as a turned Were-cat is going to cause any unforeseen complications. So I want you to tell her to go easier for a while, cub. She can still learn magic, but she can't exhaust herself, and she can't let anyone use magical spells on her unless you do it, because Sorcery won't affect the baby. Let's not take any chances."
"Why won't Sorcery affect the baby?" he asked curiously.
"Because Sorcery affects what the Sorcerer wants it to affect," she told him. "You know she's pregnant. Any spell you use on her, you'll tailor to work around that little complication. Do you understand me?"
He mulled it over, then nodded. "I understand, mother. I can do that."
"Good. Congratulations, cub. You gave Jesmind a cub, Mist a cub, and now Kimmie a cub. Since they're your three chosen females, it's only fitting that they all share a bond with you through the children you gave them."
Tarrin stared at his paws, not sure what he should feel. Another child! Three children! Three! First Jasana, then Eron, and now Kimmie was going to give him another cub. He felt blessed, embarrassed—that coming from his human side—and strangely proud all at the same time. A sudden wave of intense protectiveness rose up in him as well, the need to defend mate and child from harm establishing itself in his mind. He was ecstatic that Kimmie was pregnant, but the enormity of what they were doing hit him. They were sailing off into the unknown, into danger, and Kimmie had to go with him! Not really, but Kimmie would refuse to be left behind—he knew her too well—and Tarrin really didn't want to let her out of his sight.
Tarrin looked up at his bond-mother and blew out his breath. "This is going to cause some problems, but all in all, it's good news, mother," he told her.
"A new life is always good news," Triana said calmly. "I'm glad you asked to talk to me, because I was going to contact you anyway."
"I guess so," he chuckled humorlessly, absorbing it all. Kimmie, pregnant! "Does Jesmind know?"
"Not yet," she answered. "I'll tell her, if you want me to."
"I—it's only fair," he said. "Go ahead."
"I'd better get going, cub," she told him. "There are things I need to do, and this spell is starting to weigh on me."
"Alright," he said. "Thanks, mother."
"Any time, cub. I love you."
"I love you too."
And then the image of her vanished as the spell was cancelled. Tarrin leaned back on the couch and mulled it over. Kimmie was pregnant. She was a Were-cat, meaning that it wouldn't even slow her down until the cub was almost ready to be delivered. Were-cat females only carried for six months, not the nine normal for human females, and they were born with much more strength and mobility than a human infant. A Were-cat infant could crawl within days of being born. Another sign of the accelerated beginning a Were-cat cub received over its human counterpart. She wouldn't start showing it for about two months, and then her waist would slowly begin to expand. But they were heading off into danger, and Tarrin was very wary of bringing Kimmie with him. Then again, he was wary of leaving her behind. He'd not been there for the births of his other two cubs, and a part of him wanted to be a part of this child's life from its birth. Kimmie was a turned female, and that meant that she'd probably be much more amenable to the idea of allowing him to remain with her until she gave birth to the cub.
Triana's warning did worry him a little. Kimmie was a turned female, and that was uncharted territory. Tarrin was a turned male, and his two cubs had turned out alright. He could only hope that a turned female would produce a healthy cub. But this was a turned female giving birth to a cub sired by a turned male. It was double jeopardy.
Kimmie seemed to know when to make an entrance. She came into the apartments and called out his name as Sapphire flew into the room and landed on his lap, rubbing her head against his paw fondly. Tarrin looked at her as she came into the parlor and she stopped dead at the strange look he gave her. "What?" she asked curiously.
Tarrin stood up so quickly that he displaced Sapphire and approached her. He didn't say a word. She was wearing a dress, meaning that he couldn't put his paw on her bare belly from the top, so he expedited the matter by grabbing her skirts and lifting them as he bent down. "Tarrin!" Kimmie squealed with a giggle, but she made no attempt to stop him as he put his paw under her skirt. She seemed a bit disappointed when he placed his palm on her belly instead of somewhere else, her expression turning curious as Tarrin wove a spell of Mind and sent it inside of her, seeking.
It was there. It was a completely unformed entity, little more than biological processes, but it was separate and unique, differing from the signature of its host.
Kimmie was definitely, certainly, and thoroughly pregnant.
He leaned in and tested her scent. It wasn't there, at least not yet. The signs would become apparent after the baby grew a little, began making changes to Kimmie's body chemistry to suit its needs.
"Tarrin, if you're going to play games, at least explain the rules to me," Kimmie protested. "What are you doing?"
Tarrin looked down at her, then leaned in and gave her a very delicate, very gentle, very intimate kiss. She seemed a little breathless for a second, putting a paw on his shoulder and looking up into his eyes in confusion.
"I have news for you, Kimmie," he told her gently. "I think you may like it."
"News? What news? Is this why you stuck your paw up my—" Her eyes widened visibly, and she put a paw on her belly, over his own, with the dress' material separating them. "You mean—"
"Yes," he told her with a smile. "Kimmie, you're pregnant."
She gave a squeal and actually jumped up and down, forcing him to remove his paw before it tore her dress. She jumped into his arms and kissed him exuberantly, all over his face, digging her claws into his back to the point where she drew blood. "I'm so happy!" she said excitedly as she kissed him. "I can't believe it! Are you serious? How did you know? How long have I been pregnant?"
"Triana told me," he told her. "She said you've been pregnant a few days."
"So we conceived on the ship coming here," she laughed. "Probably that last night. That was a wild night," she said with a bright, naughty smile.
"Triana told me to tell you that she wants you to take it easy with the magic," he told her. "She said that since we're both turned, she's not sure about how the pregnancy is going to go. And since you work with magic, she doesn't want anyone casting any spells on you except for me, or you exhausting yourself with magical study while you're pregnant. She said it may affect the baby."
"I can still study?" she asked quickly.
"She said you can still study, but don't overdo it. No exhausting yourself or exposing yourself to strong concentrations of magic. And don't you dare let Phandebrass cast any more magical spells on you!" he said adamantly.
"He won't, I guarantee you of that," she laughed, kissing him again. "We're going to have a baby, Tarrin," she said gently, touching his face with a paw. "You couldn't have given me anything in the whole world to make me happier than I am right now."
Tarrin held her for long moments, letting her continue to celebrate by kissing him. Everything else was forgotten, everything else didn't matter. For that long, sweet moment, there was nothing but the joy of knowing that Kimmie was pregnant. That they were going to have a baby.