"Hardly," she snorted. "I've never seen you kill someone that wasn't deserving. I've seen how gentle you are when you don't feel threatened, how tender you are with children. You're not evil, Tarrin, you're just frightened. And because of that, you react in an extreme way whenever you feel in danger. It's a very basic reaction among animals, and humans and Wikuni, for that matter. It's instinctual. The only thing that sets you apart from us is that you're so powerful."
In a strange way, that made him feel a great deal better. "Thanks, Miranda," he said sincerely.
"We're friends, Tarrin," she smiled. "Outside of Keritanima, Binter, and Sisska, you're my only friend. And I don't let friends go around being all mopey."
"Only friend?" he challenged. "Don't you like Allia and the others?"
"I know them, Tarrin. I haven't decided yet if I like them. They don't really understand me, and I don't bother trying to explain myself. You don't require things like that. You take me as I am, just as I take you as you are. No questions, no regrets." She looked down into the water. "I'm really not a very nice girl, Tarrin. I'm a spy, sneak, thief, and from time to time, an assassin. I have more skeletons in my closet than you ever will. People in my line of work have trouble finding friends, because we're all naturally suspicous and distrustful. But from the first time we met, I just had this feeling that we were going to be friends. Very good friends. And here we are."
"Here we are," he agreed. He put his arm around her shoulder, and she leaned against him comfortably.
They stood at the rail and stared up into the sky quietly. Nothing more needed to be said.
Despite the fact that Miranda had helped him feel much better about himself, it didn't change his restrictive punishment. For four days, he spent his days in the cabin, and was allowed to come out only at night. And even then he was restricted to his cat form. The days were long and almost insufferable, because everyone was kept up on deck to learn their routines for the carnival performances. They didn't have the leisure to spend time with him until well after noon, nearly sunset Tarrin spent that time the only way he could, reading. Keritanima had brought several books with her, two of which were the Sha'Kari language books. It turned out it that Keritanima had used Sorcery to create written words, and used that the laboriously translate every word of Sha'Kar she knew into the common tongue, and the other way around. The result was a dictionary of the Sha'Kar language, the closest thing to a comprehensive work on the Sha'Kar language that there was. The other book was the original Sha'Kar instruction scrolls transcribed into the book, which she still studied nearly every day. Tarrin didn't understand why she did that. Keritanima had the amazing ability to remember almost everything she read or heard, with an exacting recall that was astounding. Even things read or heard months or years ago were still immediately recalled whenever she needed it. She had admitted that her memory wasn't perfect unless she studied the material a while or she was paying very close attention when she read or heard it, but she had had that book for months. Certainly that was long enough for her.
The time had had a souring effect between him and Dolanna. He was somewhat angry that she had punished him, and stewing about it alone in the room day after day did not help that at all. He was mad at her, but he already realized that it was like a rebellious adolescent stiffening against the orders of a parent. Her rebuke of him had also stung him, stung him deeply, making him feel like he was starting to drive away his own friends. His friends and family were dear to him; they were all that he had left in a very empty, cruel, and unforgiving world. Without them, he would be utterly lost, and the very thought that Dolanna didn't like him anymore was enough to send a cold wave through his heart. He wasn't sure why he could be both angry and afraid that she had rejected him, but he was.
The fifth day of imprisonment began as the other four had, with him trying to sleep away as much of it as possible. There was a kind of sublime forgetfulness in sleep, and being part cat, he had the ability to sleep whenever he wanted, for as long as he wanted. But the sounds of laughter and voices would drift in from above, and it would awaken him with a sharp pang of loneliness and regret. His cabin had no windows, forcing him to rely on the light of a candle, but it was currently out. There was no need for light, and the light shining from the crack under the door was more than sufficient for him to see if he wanted to. He couldn't read like that-it was too dim, and a cat's eyes couldn't see with the exacting clarity needed to make out letters written on a page-but he didn't feel much like doing anything that required rational thought. He drifted in and out of sleep, trying to ignore the sounds of music above him.
And then the entire ship rocked violently to the side, followed up by a ear-splitting crack that seemed to reverberate throughout the entire ship. Tarrin was hurled off the bed and head-first into the wall some five paces away, so violently did the ship lurch, as if struck by some gigantic hand. The impact dazed him, leaving him to lay on the floor woozily and try to stop counting all the pretty little stars. After what seemed ten years, he finally managed to shake the cobwebs loose from his mind. He pulled himself off the floor, fighting against a wave of intense pain that went up his skull and down his spine. The impact had broken his skull, and it didn't seem to be healing back very fast. He left his head drooping until the pain subsided, and then he quickly changed form and rushed out of the cabin.
The companionway was clogged by several fallen beams from the ceiling above, and more than one small hole let murky light filter in from the sky above. He slithered over and around several obstacles, and over the still form of Phandebrass the Unusual, who looked by casual inspection to be alive but unconscious, clonked on the head by a piece of wood. He didn't have time to mess with that now, he had to get on deck and see what had happened. He raced up to the steep stairs, then was thrown back to the deck as the ship shuddered again. Tarrin clawed back to his feet as the ship swayed alarmingly back and forth, hearing the screams and the sounds above that sounded like breaking wood and general confusion. The light from the outside streamed down the stairs, heavy with dust shaken free by the impacts. Using the claws on his paws and feet, he pulled himself up onto the deck by steadying himself against the rocking of the ship by hooking into the walls of the staircase.
Outside it was chaos. The central mast was sheared off about halfway up its length, leaning heavily over and straining the rigging that held the masts and sails in place. Debris littered the deck, as well as several still forms, and to the ship's left he could see a large fogbank. Six large, sleek black ships hung lazily in midair, moving with a silent grace as they surrounded the garishly painted galleon, and he saw men along the sides, pointing down at the decks and unleashing small, sizzling missles that looked to be purely magical in nature. Men and women rushed about mindlessly, screaming and seeking shelter, even as some of them fell to the magical attacks from the ships above. Zakkites and their skyships, probably attacking by surprise from the fog.
Tarrin simply stood there, and time seemed to slow to a crawl. He surveyed the deck, looking for his friends, for his sisters. Dar was hunkered under a fallen boom and sailcloth, looking up at the ships in raw panic. Faalken had smashed a hold hatch and physically threw Dolanna into it before jumping in himself, just as a sizzling bolt of lighting hit the deck right where he had been standing. Allia had pulled a young woman into another hatch near the bow before disappearing with her below decks. Binter was sheltering Keritanima near the bow bulwark, holding onto her, as the Wikuni kicked and gouged and seemed to be screaming, but it was lost in the loud cracks and deafening din of the coordinated attack. It was her eyes. She was in a panic, and she was desperately trying to get free of her protector and run across the deck. Tarrin followed Keritanima's eyes, and he saw them.