Rahnee's pained shriek made the hair on the back of Tarrin's neck stand up. The bloodied female bounced in the embers as Jesmind let her go, and for a very unpleasant moment she seemed unable to move. The smell of burning hair and cloth and singed blood and burning flesh washed over the small encampment as Rahnee convulsed on the fire, screaming in agony, until she seemed to regain control of her body and roll out of the flames. Red-hot embers clung to her blackened shoulders, back, buttocks, tail, and upper legs as she whimpered and scrabbled on the grass on her belly, in the general direction of the stream that was some distance away, as small licks of fire burned in her red hair, her black fur, and in her blood-soaked clothing.
There was silence. All the Were-cats, even Jasana, stared at the wounded Rahnee with expressionless faces. Tarrin was shocked that Jesmind would do something like that, would actually hurt Rahnee like that. He stared at her in dismay and surprise, in disbelief that she could be so… so monstrous. But in that moment he realized that now he knew how others thought about him when they saw some of the things he did. How Allia felt when Tarrin had killed the wounded priest after destroying Sheba the Pirate's ship. About how Dolanna felt when Tarrin very nearly killed the arrogant acrobat aboard the Dancer. About how many felt about him after he destroyed the arena in Dala Yar Arak. Tarrin could not look at Jesmind and accuse, not without pointing the finger at himself as well. He had no right to make such moral judgements, not with the darkness in his own past. What she did only reminded him of his own past deeds, and it caused deep slash of guilt to cut into him. That guilt translated to anger when he looked at her, even though he knew none of it was her fault.
Despite that, he found that he couldn't think kindly of his mate at that moment, and probably wouldn't for a while. No matter how much she may have needed to have been beaten down, Rahnee didn't deserve to be thrown into a fire. Jesmind had her beaten, and every Were-cat looking on knew that. She had gone beyond merely establishing her dominance. She had tried to kill Rahnee, and Tarrin felt deeply in his heart that he wasn't worth Rahnee's life. If Jesmind was going to attempt to murder every female that showed interest in him, then he wasn't sure he wanted to continue their relationship.
He also couldn't deny the cries of the burned Were-cat. Levelling a flat look on his mate, Tarrin quickly made his way to where she still clawed at the grass, groaning as smoke wafted up from her severely burned back. He put a paw on her and exerted his will against the Weave, sending flows of Earth, Water, and Divine power into her, the flows of healing. Rahnee's back arched severely as the icy sensation of Sorcerer's Healing drained off some of her own inner energy to assist in the healing of her charred back, as the weave attacked the burned flesh, excising it and growing new, unmarred flesh to replace what was removed for the good of the whole.
Rahnee's groans were replaced with a heavy panting, and her jerking struggles eased. She put her head down on the ground and breathed deeply as the icy sensation melted away, taking the pain with it. Tarrin stood up and stared at Jesmind, telling her without words that his displeasure with what she had done went far beyond a simple difference of opinion.
He couldn't even look at her. Turning his back on them, he started stalking away.
"Tarrin! Tarrin, wait!" Jesmind suddenly called, and he could hear and sense her rush up behind him. The closer that she got, the angrier with her he became, until it came to a head just as she was starting to slow down. He turned on her so fast she didn't even register it, and struck her dead in the face with the back of his paw. She was driven to the ground by his inhuman power, a power much greater than her own, leaving her dazed and looking up at him with unfocused eyes.
When they did focus, she found herself staring up into ominous green slits, his eyes ignited from within as a clear indication of his anger.
"Get away from me, or I'll throw you in that fire," Tarrin hissed, then he whirled and stalked away, leaving his mate sprawled on the ground, holding her cheek in her paw, staring at him in stunned disbelief.
It was a difference of opinion.
Tarrin sat on a rock well away from the others, listening to the song of the night, arms wrapped around his legs and tail curled around his ankles as he worked through the conflict within him. It was a difference of opinion, that was all. His two halves had different views over what had happened that afternoon, and their conflict was why he felt so confused.
The Cat saw nothing wrong with what Jesmind did. She had simply defended her territory, defended her rights to her mate, and when it came to something like that, there was no quarter. In a fight, there were no rules, and the end justified the means. Jesmind had probably done what she did to establish beyond any doubt just who was the dominant between her and Rahnee, by nearly killing her to prove to the other Were-cat that she was the stronger of them. That part of him understood why Jesmind did what she did, even appreciated that she could do it, would do it, and was baffled by the reaction of his other side. The Human in him was horrified by what Jesmind did, horrified and shocked. He had never believed that Jesmind could be capable of such calcuated cruelty, depite the fact that she was a Were-cat. The Human was prepared to accept the fact that Jesmind and Rahnee had to settle their dispute, and it would come to a fight. Sometimes fights were necessary, even in the Human perspective. But fights over dominance weren't supposed to be fatal. That was all that was, all it was supposed to be, a fight over who was dominant, over who had the right to court a mate. But it had gone beyond that, and that was the part that Tarrin couldn't rationalize in his Human side. He felt terrible about it, because Rahnee had suffered tremendous agony, and he knew that he was the reason for it. He should have rebuffed her firmly. He shouldn't have been so neutral. If he'd have told her no emphatically, she wouldn't have tried to fight Jesmind. That guilt just added on to the confusion.
And in a way, it conjured up memories of his own evil deeds. That caused him pain, and he transferred that pain onto Jesmind's shoulders. He had done things like that himself, and when he did them, there had been a grisly… eagerness about it. More than once, he had acted like that for the sheer need to inflict pain, like when he had fought and beaten Jula. It eroded a bit of his image of himself and his own kind to know that they all shared that tainted trait. He had seen Jesmind lower herself to a level he hoped he'd never see either in himself or any other, and that hurt.
Maybe he'd been fooling himself all along. Jesmind was a Were-cat. She wasn't the pristine little doll he had created in his mind as an impression of her, an impression fueled by her recent flexibility, her desire to accommodate his peculiar nature to keep him as her mate. He had known what she was like, even if he didn't want to face it himself. She was the same Jesmind as before, with the same fiery nature and rather ruthless approach to things. She had been very tranquil lately, but she had never tried to hide who she was from him. The truth of her had always been right there, only he chose to cover it with an illusion that she wasn't as bad as he was, that she would give to their daughter a gentleness that he no longer had inside, an innocence lost. He had to face the fact that she was just like him, that she was just as capable of evil and monstrosity as he was. He didn't want to believe it, but he had no choice.
Jesmind had become a mirror of himself, and he found that he couldn't bear to face the reflection of himself he found in her.