"Ari, this is my daughter, Jasana. Jasana, that's Ariana. She's here to help us."

"Is that the wicked lady who did magic on you, papa?"

"No, it isn't," he replied evenly. "That's a different winged lady."

"Oh. Alright. Hello, winged lady."

Ariana laughed. "Ariana," she corrected. "And I've been dying to meet you, little Jasana. I wanted to see if Tarrin's child looked anything like him."

"What's it like to have wings?"

"I could ask you what it's like to have a tail," Ariana winked in reply. "It's not something either of us can describe easily, now, is it?"

"Well, I guess not," Jasana admitted. "But I can't fly with my tail."

"You have me there," Ariana smiled.

Jasana squirmed out of her father's arms, then padded over to the Aeradalla and boldly reached out and grabbed her by the wing.

"Jasana, mind your manners!" Jesmind barked.

"I don't mind, mistress Jesmind, so long as she doesn't claw me," Ariana said patiently, looking down at the little girl and allowing her to touch and explore her feathered wings.

"Just Jesmind," she corrected bluntly. "I don't need any silly titles tacked onto my name."

"Jesmind," Ariana repeated with a nod. "It's the nature of children to be curious, and I'll guarantee she's never seen anything like me before."

"Be gentle, Jasana," Tarrin warned. "Her wings are very delicate."

"Why?" she asked.

"Because my bones are hollow, fledgeling," Ariana explained patiently.

"Why?"

"So I'm very light," she replied. "It makes it easier for me to fly."

"That matters?"

"It matters very much. The heavier I am, the harder it is for me to fly. If I weigh too much, my wings wouldn't be able to pull my own weight off the ground."

"Are all things that fly like that?"

"I don't really know," Ariana replied honestly. "I know that most birds have hollow bones, but drakes don't."

"What is a drake?"

"A little flying lizard."

"I've never seen one."

"I'd be surprised if you had," Ariana smiled.

Tarrin tuned them out as Jasana continued to pester Ariana endlessly with question after question, turning his attention to turning the spits and the meat roasting from them. Ariana seemed to be very patient with Jasana, willing to answer any question she posed, and Jasana certainly seemed to take a liking to the winged woman. Even to the point of sitting in Ariana's lap. Jasana was certainly a very affectionate child. Tarrin retrieved one of the dwindling casks of apple wine from the storeroom under the stillery, deciding that this would be a good time for it, but when he came out with it, scents on the wind made him pause in the act of setting it down.

The scents of both Rahnee and Thean reached Tarrin's nose at about the same time as Jesmind rose up from where she was putting more wood on the fire, looking towards the road leading to Aldreth. Tarrin looked as well, and to his surprise, there were five Were-cats walking along that track. Rahnee was leading Thean, and behind them was another male Tarrin hadn't met before. Behind them was Singer and, to his surprise, Kimmie. He would have thought that Kimmie would either stay with Mist or not be willing to fight. Kimmie was an extremely gentle and sedate Were-cat, almost like a house cat, the mildest of them all. She represented the other extreme in the Were-cat spectrum.

Tarrin and Jesmind stood near each other as the five reached the firepit. Then looked just as Tarrin remembered, the handsome face with the scar, the striped gray fur, the tall, stocky body, the sober expression and the light eyes. He was shorter than Tarrin remembered-at the time, Thean seemed towering, but that probably had to do with the respect Tarrin afforded the elder. He was larger than life in Tarrin's mind, just like Dolanna. The other male was shorter and much thinner and more slender than Thean, with tabby-colored fur and brown hair, and wearing a baggy green shirt and strange baggy black pants held up with a sash. His face was sharp, fox-like, alot like Rahnee's, but he had a kind of ferocity about his eyes that made it clear that he was much more dangerous than his slight body suggested. This male looked extremely young, and couldn't be much more than thirty. Singer looked just as he remembered, though she was wearing a torn linen shirt with its right sleeve half torn off and a pair of leather breeches that had dried blood on them. Kimmie too looked just as he remembered, even down to a simple brown peasant dress of similar style as the one she'd worn when he met her.

"Good gried, lad, what happened to you?" Thean said immediately. "Triana didn't say anything about you growing as big as a tree! And you've fetted!"

Tarrin sighed in irritation. "I'll explain what happened to me later," he promised. "You're looking well, Thean."

"You too, lad, outside of the obvious," Thean grinned as they shook paws. "Lad, this is Jeri. Jeri, this is Tarrin, Triana's bond-child. Though calling him a child seems a bit outlandish," Thean added with a wink at Tarrin.

The other male Were-cat looked up at Tarrin with a stiff posture, and his scent radiated his strength. Thean was right; Were-cat males really did put up their hackles when they met. But no matter how much Jeri postured, he couldn't match Tarrin's overwhelming aura of power and confidence, the same aura that surrounded his bond-mother Triana, and made her so intimidating. An aura Tarrin radiated without even trying. "Thean's told me some about you, Tarrin," the smaller Were-cat male said guardedly.

"All the bad things, if I know Thean," Tarrin said with a neutral expression.

That made Jeri laugh suddenly. "Of course. It enhances a male's reputation," he said with a surprisingly disarming smile.

"Jesmind, you're looking as lovely as ever," Thean said with a smile, taking Jesmind's paws. "It's been what, fifty years now?"

"About that, Thean," Jesmind replied, smiling. "You're looking as ratty as ever."

"You really have to tell us what happened to you, Tarrin," Singer said, taking his paw as Kimmie took the other one.

"I kind of miss the smaller you," Kimmie smiled.

"How are you two doing?" he asked.

"Same as always," Singer laughed. "Mother keeps me hunting."

"Where is Shirazi, anyway?"

"I have no idea. She wandered off before winter. She'll wander back in my direction when she feels like it."

"Mist told me to say hello, Tarrin. Well, actually, she threatened to gut me if I didn't tell you that," Kimmie laughed.

"That's the Mist I remember," Tarrin chuckled. "How is she, and the baby?"

"They're both doing just fine. If not for Eron, she'd be here herself."

"I know, and I'm just fine with her staying to be with her baby," he told Kimmie with a smile.

"Jeri, you're growing again," Jesmind greeted the younger Were-cat with a laugh. "You're almost a half a head taller than that last time I saw you."

"That was when I was eight, Jesmind," Jeri told her. "I'm nearly twenty now."

Tarrin was right; the male was indeed very young.

"I thought you'd done all your initial growing by then," Jesmind told him with a grin. "You're going to be a very tall elder, cub. Maybe as tall as my mother, or Tarrin."

"I hope so," Jeri sighed.

Jasana had gotten up from Ariana's lap, and was tugging at Thean's trousers urgently. The male elder looked down, then laughed and picked her up, holding her over his head. "And this must be Jasana!" he announced brightly. "It's good to meet you, little cub. Your grandmother can't say enough good things about you!"

Jasana giggled and allowed Thean to spin her around, then he boldly passed her to Jeri by literally tossing her through the air. Tarrin was about to intervene, but when he saw that Jesmind was taking no such similar steps, he decided to let it go. Jeri bounced Jasana up in the air a few times, making her laugh, then handed her off to Singer. He watched as all the adults took turns picking up and holding Jasana, handling her and letting her get close to them so she could learn their scents and see that they weren't a danger to her. Tarrin wasn't sure what custom or practice it was, mainly since his bond-mother had been very brief about her conversations about Were-cat society. She hadn't told him anything about things like this. Jesmind allowed the adults to handle her child, and when Kimmie held her in one arm and tickled her with the other paw, Jesmind nodded and turned back towards the fire to turn the meat.