It was a bad idea. She didn't understand that she wasn't like Allia. Tarrin trusted Allia, and if she hurt him, he wouldn't turn on her. There wasn't any such prohibition with her. But then again, in his humanoid form, she couldn't pose any threat to him. Her weapon couldn't hurt him, and he could easily overmatch her. Besides, he needed to learn how to trust her, and maybe crossing swords with her would help break down his distrust.

"Give us some space, Sarraya," he said as the sprite flittered from his shoulder. Tarrin reached down and picked up the sword, feeling its light balance, gripping the pommel, made so the user could wield it with either one or two hands, and feeling his paw take up its entirety. He placed the blade in the palm of his other paw and looked at the sword, then looked at her. "Are you sure you want to do this?" he asked. "I'm not a human, Camara Tal. I'm way out of your league."

"No, you're way out of mine," she replied. "I watched you fight, boy. That was pathetic."

"Excuse me?" he asked in surprise.

"I saw a half-grown kid flailing around a stick in the midst of a bunch of toddlers," she berated him. "You showed no form, no poise, no skill. You just went in there and bashed on people, relying on your inhuman gifts. That may work against a pack of untrained scrags, but you'll get your tail chopped off if you do that against someone that actually knows what she's doing. Dolanna and Allia say you're trained. That you're trained by the best. If that's true, they must be really embarassed."

Her words were starting to work under his skin. "I can take you anywhere, anytime, and with any weapon," he said threateningly.

"Like that, maybe," she admitted. "Not many humans could face one of your kind in a one on one battle and come out on top. But you're not going to face me like that. You're going to do it in your human form."

Tarrin stared at her.

"You've gotten too used to being the big kid on the block, boy," she told him. "It's time for some reality. Now change form and face me, and show me what you really know."

Her admonishment stung at his pride, but all of him wanted to smack that smirk off of her face. He was trained by the best. Nobody, not even him, could defeat Allia in fair combat. Even in his humanoid form, with his huge strength advantage, he couldn't beat her. She and his mother and the Knights and the Vendari had trained him, had taught him the true secrets of fighting. His form may occasionally be sloppy, mainly because he tended to fight up or down to the level of his opposition, but it didn't change the fact that he was convinced he could beat her. Even in human form, he could beat her.

Tarrin changed form, feeling the shoes appear around his feet, felt the weight of the manacles disappear as they went into the elsewhere, felt the painful constriction of his form into a mold which was no longer suitable for it. The sword suddenly felt heavy to him, sagging in his hand, but he gripped it in both hands and bolstered himself. It wasn't really that heavy, it was just an effect of losing the majority of his inhuman strength in the shapeshifting. His human form was much stronger than it looked, but it wasn't even a fifth of the strength he enjoyed in his natural form. In his human form, he was restricted by his human body, and was diminished with human senses. But those restrictions and senses were still greater than a true human's, for he was Were-cat, and it bled into him no matter what form he held.

Her words had angered him, but not enough to make him lose his composure. But she didn't know that. Sword in both hands, he snarled at her and rushed to the attack, furiously, clumsily, looking to do nothing more than just hack at her wildly. She set herself to accept his wild rush, but at the last possible instant he pulled up and swept the flat of the weapon low, under her unprepared defense of such a cunning maneuver, and cracked the flat of the blade against her ankle and shin. The power behind the blow as enough to pin her in place for a vital second, long enough to grab her by her halter with one hand, turn his side to her, then drag her over his presented hip in an Ungardt hip-throw. Her backside slammed into the deck first, followed quickly by the rest of her, and she bounced once before coming to a rest in front of him.

He pointed the tip of the sword at her nose, staring down the length of the blade with a flat, unfriendly look in his eyes. "Cute," she said in a bored tone. "You're a sneaky one, boy. I'll remember that."

"You do that," he said in a low, dangerous tone.

"I think you ticked him off, Camara," Sarraya said impishly from nearby. "Someone's gonna get a whipping."

"Before you go congratulating yourself, boy, why don't you put your hand on your belly." He did so, and felt the cold steel of her sword. She was holding it against his stomach from the deck, the angle of his stance keeping him from seeing it or the hand holding it. "I could have gutted you the instant I hit the floor, if I wanted. You may be sneaky, but not sneaky enough."

"I don't think you had that there the whole time," he challenged.

"Think whatever you want, it won't help you when someone decorates your hide with a swordblade." She rolled out from under his weapon, pulling hers with her, and regained her feet. "Now then, show me this touted skill you're said to have."

It had been too long since he'd fought in human form. He felt slow, clumsy, heavy, working through the sword forms his mother and Allia had taught him, the moves he learned from the Knights. The sword seemed to move too slowly, and though it moved with great skill and competence, he couldn't penetrate the Amazon's considerable defense. She was a master swordsman, moving the weapon with a fluid grace that made it seem that the weapon was a part of her. It moved like it was a natural extension of her arm, as a weapon should move, and he had to grudgingly admit that the Amazon was indeed a rare example of a master swordsman. Tarrin struggled through feeling her out, getting an idea of her speed and her strength, but he felt too strangely out of sync with himself to capitalize on what he felt were her weak points.

Blade struck blade, sometimes sending out a short burst of sparks, sending the chiming rings along the deck of the ship. Tarrin worked himself, sweating visibly as he defended himself from a dizzyingly complicated series of shallow slashes and jabs, peppered liberally with many feints and fakes to make him unsure of where the sword would go next. The Amazon seemed to be moving through her own forms, flowing from one attack or move to the next with the calm grace of the lightest dancer. The tip of that weapon got closer and closer to him with every passing moment, forcing him to commit what his mother felt was the cardinal sin of fighting, retreating. He backed away from that weapon as it overwhelmed his ability to follow it, gaining precious distance from her to give him enough time to get a feel for the unusual style she used. He blocked a slash at his flank easily, but out of nowhere something hit his hands, and it jarred the sword out loose. It clattered to the deck, and he realized that she had kicked him in the wrists. He had never seen it coming. She leveled the point of her sword at his nose, staring down the blade with a serious expression.

"If I were an enemy, you would be dead," she declared.

"If you were an enemy, Tarrin would never have picked up a sword," Allia's voice came from the side. Tarrin looked at her, and he saw that she was holding his staff. "He may fight you in human form to even the field, but if you wish to see him fight, let him fight with his own weapon. With this in his hands, you will lose," she announced, holding up the staff. "Or perhaps he will keep the sword, and I will give you the staff. That way you will both fight with weapons you do not prefer."