"Thanks, Dar, I was getting a little hungry," he said, taking the bowl. "I'm surprised Dolanna let you bring it."

"She didn't," he said with a cherubic smile. "I didn't exactly tell her."

"You'll get in trouble."

"So?"

Tarrin smiled in spite of himself. "Is she still mad?"

"Not exactly mad," he replied, sitting down on his narrow bunk as Tarrin did the same at his bunk and began to eat. "I think annoyed would be a better term. She was rather irritated that you did what you did."

"He had it coming," Tarrin said immediately, enjoying the cacophony of various tastes in the stew. Kern's cook was a skilled man, capable of doing wonders with salted sea rations, and Kern both cursed him for his eccentricities and praised him for the morale he brought to the crew. He was a Shacean, and they were well known for the many fine chefs that their kingdom produced. Shace was a kingdom of indulgent diners, so they demanded fine cuisine prepared by highly trained cooks to satisfy that desire.

"That may be, but I think you'd better avoid Allia for a while."

"Why?"

"Because she is mad at you," he told him. "She wasn't happy at all over what you did. You know how Selani are. She said what you did was dishonorable."

"She'll get over it."

"She will, but until she does, we have to suffer. Have you ever seen her when she's angry?"

Tarrin chuckled. "I have," he said. "Maybe you should send her in here."

"I guess. Maybe Kern will let me ride behind the ship in a rowboat until it's over."

Tarrin gave him a slight smile as he got up and left, and he took that opportunity to finish his stew before Allia arrived. When she did, he very prudently put the bowl under the bunk, out of her immediate reach. She looked very hostile, and her scent was sharp and almost emanated her displeasure. She glared at him a moment. "Dar said you wanted to see me?" she said in a stiff voice, in common. That was a certain signal that she was very unhappy.

"I always want to see you, Allia," he told her. "Now just get it off your chest."

That was done with no reservations. Tarrin's head snapped to the side when her open palm struck him in the cheek. Allia was slender and had a very feminine form, but her wiry arms held deceptive, considerable power. Arms used to swinging weapons put enough behind the blow to jar a tooth partially loose. "You dishonor the clan, brother!" she snapped at him in Selani. "You killed a defeated opponent, then you killed a prisoner, someone who could not fight back! That is cowardice! If the Holy Mother were to witness such dishonor, she would burn your brands from your shoulders!"

Tarrin rubbed his cheek, looking at her calmly. "Be that as it may, sometimes we have to do things that seem dishonorable to survive, Allia," he told her. "Keritanima would agree with me."

"There is no life in dishonor!" she raged. "You have shamed the clan, and our family!"

"Why? Because I saved us alot of grief, or because I retaliated against someone who tried to kill me?"

"What do you mean?"

"Didn't they tell you? That prisoner stomped on me. He broke my back, and if I had been a normal cat, it would have killed me. I may have killed a chained prisoner, but he tried to murder a defenseless animal."

She looked a bit taken aback. "No, they didn't tell me that," she admitted. "In that situation, I guess it would be sanctioned to strike back. He did hit you first, and so he was prepared to accept the consequences. But that doesn't absolve you for the priest," she said sternly. "Honor demands showing mercy to the defeated. Killing him like that was dishonorable!"

"He wasn't helpless, and he was far from defeated, sister," he told her. "If he'd recovered, he would have used his powers to call the entire Wikuni fleet down on our heads. I did that to protect us, and no other reason. I wasn't about to let him call in more ships to try to sink us."

"That doesn't matter, my brother," she said sternly. "You can't judge people by what they might do."

"I wasn't. I was judging him by what he already did," he told her. "They attacked us, Allia. That made them enemies! You told me yourself that you show no mercy to an opponent."

"Unless the opponent surrenders!" she snapped.

"He never surrendered."

"He wasn't capable of surrendering!" she said, with a bit of exasperation in her voice. "Stop trying to dance around the matter, Tarrin. It's not going to work!"

"Honor may not like what I did, but the situation justified it," he said bluntly. "He was in a position to bring harm to us, and I won't let anyone hurt you, Allia. I'll kill a thousand men to keep one from laying a finger on you."

"I don't need your protection, my brother," she said in a cool voice. "I am an adult, a branded member of society, and if you don't recall, I taught you how to fight. I don't need you standing behind me with your arms around my waist."

"It's not just you," he said, turning around. "It's Kerri and Dar and Faalken and Zak and everyone. You're all I have, and just the thought that something may happen-" he bowed his head and crossed his arms before him. "I feel myself slipping more and more every day, sister," he said quietly. "I'm changing. I'm turning, hard. And I don't care. If someone were to hurt one of you, I don't know what I would do. I'd probably destroy myself and everyone around me."

"Tarrin," Allia said gently, putting a slender, four-fingered hand on his shoulder. "You shouldn't worry about such things like that. We are your friends, but we are not your children. We can take care of ourselves."

"I know that, sister, but I still can't help worrying," he said gruffly. "I've heard Dolanna talking. I know what's happening to me. She says I'm turning feral. Well, I guess she's right. She keeps saying that you are the only things keeping me from slipping away from the civilized world. I think she's right again. If you were-" he stopped, then collected himself. "If you and the others died, there wouldn't be anything left for me. I don't think the Goddess herself could keep me out here. There isn't a day that goes by when I don't yearn for the forest, for home, but my oath to the Goddess keeps me out here, on this damned ship, away from where I want to be."

"Home is in your heart, not at a fire," she told him, embracing him from behind. "I think you're wrong about things, my brother. You're much stronger than you'll admit to yourself. You don't have to cling to me, to cling to us. You can stand on your own feet."

"Sometimes I wish it were that easy, deshaida," he sighed. "I've been trying."

"That is why you're staying away?"

"Partly. I don't go to your classes because I don't want to learn Sorcery right now. The main reason is, well, I guess I don't have much to say."

"You've said a great deal to me today," she challenged. "We are family, Tarrin. These are things you should have told me rides ago."

"Probably, but it's hard to put it in words, sister," he said. "And I don't want to worry you."

"We worry as a family, brother," she said to him in a voice of unshakable resolve. "We are a family. The burdens of the clan are shared equally." He turned around and looked at her. "Keritanima and I, we are your family, my brother. There is nothing you can't tell us. We will always be here for you."

More than once, he'd seen Allia's nearly unnatural ability to completely overwhelm someone with an eloquent sentence or two. She didn't speak much, but she always knew exactly what to say. He embraced her wordlessly, letting her loyalty in him bolster him, calm his worries. Allia was a being of unfathomable strength. He tended to forget that, and the reminders of it always managed to surprise him. With her support and love, he knew that things would eventually work themselves out.

The morning was bright and sunny, but a bank of clouds hung heavily on the western horizon. Tarrin sat sedately on Miranda's lap as she worked on a sleeve of one of Keritanima's dresses, her hands moving with that exacting precision and speed that always impressed the Were-cat. She could write even faster. She was embroidering tiny little roses on the cuff of the sleeve of the cream-colored dress.