"You should have warned me."

"I did. You just weren't paying attention."

"I guess that's my fault," he grumbled.

"The fight is over. Shall we kiss and make up now?"Jesmind asked with a wink.

Smiling in spite of himself, Tarrin leaned across the table and did just that.

To: Title EoF

Chapter 25

The first of the people they'd been waiting for to arrive was, of all people, Ariana.

She swooped in about an hour after Tarrin and Jesmind made peace, when Tarrin happened to be outside patching a hole in the stillery building; he knew that his father would kill him if he didn't seal that up before it made the whole stillery fall down. It had been a while since he'd seen Ariana, and he had to admit that the time had been good to her. Her blue hair was tied in a tail behind her, and she wore a tight-fitting vest and breeches that wouldn't flap in the wind as she flew. She had a crossbow hanging from her belt, a curiously small crossbow with what looked to be a metal bowstring and bow arms, and a quiver with bolts hung at her belt from the other side. Her face was still just as brown as he remembered, browned from the sun and wind, and she wore a tinted crystal visor of the same design as what the Selani wore. "Tarrin!" she called with a raised hand. "I told you we'd see each other again!"

"So you did, Ariana," he called, setting down the hammer and coming over to her.

"What are you doing?"

"Patching," he replied.

"Strange occupation for someone who called for an Aeradalla scout," she laughed. "Why in the four winds are you doing that?"

"Because it needs doing," he answered calmly, looking down at her. "Was your flight safe?"

"Boring," she complained, reaching back and smoothing some of the feathers on her wing. "When the message reached us for one of us to come here, I had to do some negotiating to keep Darius from coming instead of me."

"Darius?"

"He was closest," Ariana admitted. "But then I told them I knew you and you were rather tempermental, so it would be best if I was the one to come."

"That actually was a pretty reasonable argument," Tarrin chuckled in agreement.

"They thought so too," she grinned. "So, now what?"

"Now? Now, we wait," he replied. "We're waiting for a few others, and we're leaving in the morning."

"Anything you need scouting before then?"

"Aren't you tired?"

"Naw," she said, adjusting her vest. "I caught a tailwind almost all the way over here. That's easy flying."

"Why don't you come in and have something to eat?" he offered. "You can meet my mate, Jesmind."

"You're married?" she asked curiously. "I never thought you were the marrying type."

"I'm not married," he said. "My relationship with Jesmind is what you'd call purely physical."

"So she's your mistress," Ariana reasoned.

"Whatever makes the most sense to you," he shrugged. "You wouldn't understand, even if I explained it to you."

"Alright," she said, letting it drop. "I'm glad you were outside. I wasn't sure I had the right place. It doesn't look what I was told it would look like."

"It's changed since anyone in Suld has seen it," he explained, leading her to the house.

Jesmind was busy carving up the deer when Tarrin led Ariana into the house. The rabbits were already skinned and cleaned, cut up and waiting to be either stored or eaten. The deer was about halfway ready, for Jesmind was cutting it up into small portions. She glanced towards the door, took one look at Ariana, and immediately turned around and assumed a slightly hostile posture.

"Jesmind, this is Ariana," Tarrin introduced as he stepped in behind her. "She's the Aeradalla scout I had mother send to help us."

"Oh. For a minute there, I thought you were an invader," Jesmind said in a gruff voice. "Come in and make yourself at home. Tarrin, we're going to need a larger pot or something. Thean and the others are going to be hungry when they get here."

"You want that stove now or later?" he asked.

Jesmind seemed to consider it. "No, that would be cheating," she said, mainly to herself. "But I think maybe we should build a firepit outside. We'll roast it there. I don't want all those people running around our house anyway."

"It's good to meet you, Jesmind," Ariana said. "Tarrin said you was your, ah, mate."

"He is," she affirmed with a nod. "Don't bother asking. You're not Were, so you won't understand."

"He said the same thing."

"Sometimes, even Tarrin says something smart," Jesmind shrugged. "Go find a place to dig the pit, my mate. I'll start bringing the meat out in a bit."

"Alright. Come on, Ari, you can help," he said, filing her right back out. Jesmind was in a pecky mood, so it was best to remove any kind of negative influences on her at the moment.

"She was a bit pert," Ariana said with a slight frown after Tarrin closed the door and led her off the porch.

"She's not in a good mood," Tarrin told her patiently. "She lost a fight with me earlier, and it's starting to gnaw at her. It's natural. Give her a while, and she'll be more friendly."

"Things must be interesting for you two," Ariana laughed.

"Usually," he agreed. "If we're not fighting, we're making up. Then we're fighting about something else."

Ariana laughed. "That almost sounds like me and Andy."

Tarrin looked around, and decided that it would be best to dig the pit beside the garden they'd planted earlier, for that ground was always marked for plowing anyway. They wouldn't be tearing up any grass that wasn't meant to grow there for long in the first place. "Do me a favor and fetch the spade from that building over there," he said, pointing to the old shearing shed, which was now a smaller barn.

"You're going to dig?" Ariana said in surprise. "They told me that you're a magician! Why don't you magic it?"

"Because Jesmind takes a dim view when I do that," he replied cooly. "And right now, making Jesmind mad is not a very good idea."

"You're scared of her?"

"Any sane sentient being would be very wise to fear Jesmind," he replied bluntly.

"Well, if you're afraid of her, then I guess it would be best to do as you say," she said with a little smirk.

"Ari, you know how some women like to yell, some like to cry, and some like to throw things when they get mad?" he asked directly, to which Ariana nodded. "Well, Jesmind likes to kill things. And since you and me are the only living things around at the moment, who do you think she's going to come after?"

Ariana's face screwed up for a moment, then she laughed. "I see your point," she said with a quirky grin. "She's just like you."

"More or less," he agreed. "You don't stomp around Jesmind unless you want to lose your foot."

"I'll remember that. Let me go find that spade," she said, shuffling off towards the shearing shed.

Tarrin had some of the larger stones from the bed of the small stream piled up for the firepit by the time Ariana came back, holding a recently cleaned spade. "It's a mess in there," she accused. "I couldn't find it."

"She keeps it right by the door, Ari," he said, looking at it.

"Tarrin, I think I've seen one of those things about four times in my life," she said, putting her hands on her hips. "Forgive me if I couldn't point it out among all that other junk in there."

"I guess that could be a problem," Tarrin agreed with a chuckle, starting to spade up the grass. "I would ask you to go help Jesmind, but that wouldn't be a good idea."

"No, it wouldn't. What can I do to help?"

"Well, you can go get some more stones," he said. "There's some of them in the stream over there."

"No problem."

Tarrin bent down to drive the spade into the ground again, but a scent on the wind caused him to stop short and raise his head. He tested the air with his nose, sorting through the myriad smells that came from living in the forest, isolating that one scent that was new and different. It was a scent he knew, a Were-cat scent. It was coming from upwind, from the south, and he managed to remember who owned that scent just as the figure broke the treeline.