Tarrin yawned. "I hate to cut it short, but I need to get back to sleep. I had a long night last night."

"If you're mates with Jesmind, I'm not surprised," Sarraya teased. "Rahnee may have the reputation, but Jesmind is almost as bad as she is. Every male I've ever known that was mates with Jesmind says the same thing."

"I'm not going to argue there," he agreed. "She is affectionate."

"Well, we can catch up later," Sarraya said. "Now that I'm really looking at you, I can see that you really are that tired. And that wasn't Jesmind. You've been practicing magic again, haven't you?"

He nodded. "With Jenna."

"Ah, that explains it," she said with a nod. "Is she any good?"

"As strong as I am," he said proudly. "She's a fast learner, too. She'll be ready when the time comes that they need her magic."

"That's reassuring. I won't mind at all going into battle if there's a Weavespinner on my side," Sarraya agreed. "Let alone two of them." She stood up and flitted into the air, the buzzing sound of her wings reminding him of her, and making the time they spent apart melt away. He would always identify Sarraya in his mind with that sound as much as he did with her appearance and scent. "I'll see you later, alright?"

"How did you get in, anyway?" he asked curiously.

"You left the balcony door unlocked," she winked. "I'll go back out that way."

"I have to go see someone in town when I get up again," he yawned. "You can come with me. You can meet Janette."

"The little human girl you like so much? I'd like that," she said with a happy smile.

"I'll come find you when I get up," he promised.

"Don't bother. I want to go meet your daughter. I'll be with her."

"Fine then," he yawned again. "See you in a while."

"See you later," she said as he laid back down and promptly went back to sleep.

To: Title EoF

Chapter 34

It was well after noon when Tarrin finally got up, and it was right then that Jesmind decided to let him have it for staying out all night. Jesmind was a shockingly direct woman, and unlike a human female, she had no qualms about making her displeasure known upon his body. He was awakened to a pitcher of cold water being thrown in his face, and as he snapped up from a rather pleasant dream, sputtering and hissing in anger, Jesmind dropped the pitcher on his head and then stalked out of the room.

But that was that. Her displeasure voiced, the argument was generally over. After he dried out the bed and put on some clothes, she was almost affectionately pleasant to him when he came out to see his daughter on Triana's lap, a book in her paws, learning more about reading from her grandmother. Sarraya was sitting on Triana's shoulder, listening in relative silence as Triana corrected her granddaughter on pronouncing the words in the book. "Good morning," Jesmind said archly, then she rose up on her toes and kissed him lingeringly. "Don't stay out all night again," she warned.

"If I have to, I will. But next time, I'll let you know, so you won't worry," he promised. "I didn't realize I was there all night until the sun came up."

"Next time, I'll throw something worse on you, beloved," she threatened.

"Next time, you'll know I'll have to stay out," he assured her.

"Alright then. Did it go well?"

"Pretty well," he nodded as Triana nodded to him and handed him a tankard of water. He accepted it with a grateful smile and took a long drink. "I learned so much so fast, it's all kind of jumbled up in my head. And I can't remember half of what I was taught right off the top of my head. But I'll sort it out with a little practice."

"That's the way of it when you learn too quickly," Triana snorted. "You should slow down."

"I don't have time to slow down, mother," he said bluntly. "I have to be ready before that army gets here."

"There's still no excuse for slapdash work," she pressed.

"It won't be slapdash after me and Jenna go and practice what we learned. My teacher is actually a very good one. It's not her fault that we have so little time."

"Well, I guess not," Triana admitted finally. "Given who she is, anyway."

Tarrin gave his bond-mother a surprised look. "You know who she is?" he asked.

She gave him an impatient glare. "Tarrin, do you think I don't feel every single thing that goes on around here? Do you even use a crumb of the Druidic gift inside you? I can feel it every time she shows up, and I've been observing you and your sister learning magic." She snorted. "Sarraya, what did you teach him, anyway?"

"Don't blame me," the Faerie said quickly. "I taught him only what he needed to know, because I didn't want to take any risks."

"I'll have to take care of that," Triana said crisply, looking at him. "I'll not have any son of mine running around with so much talent and so little training."

Jesmind gave him a knowing look and then grinned. She warned him that Triana would be eager to train him in Druidic magic. It certainly didn't take his bond-mother very long to put it on the table.

"I'm afraid that you'll have to get in line, mother," he told her smoothly. "I'm kind of taken at the moment. When I'm done there, I'd be happy to learn about Druidic magic from you."

"There's plenty of time," she said with a negligent wave of her paw, though he could sense the near-truth behind the words. She wanted to start now, but she knew that he just didn't have the time. "We'll get to it when we have a chance."

"Fair enough," Tarrin told her. "Are you busy today, love?" he asked Jesmind. "I'd like to take you out into the city and meet someone."

"Who?"

"Tomas, Janine, and Janette," he replied. "The family that took me in after I ran away from the Tower."

"I'd like to meet them," Jesmind said with a smile. "Especially the little girl."

"I want to go!" Jasana said quickly, closing the book and scrambling out of her grandmother's lap. She grabbed Tarrin's tail and looked up into his eyes, her expression pleading and simpering. "Oh please, please, can I go?"

"Of course you can go," he told her, reaching down and picking her up. "Sarraya wants to go too. Don't you, Sarraya?"

"I think I can find the time for it," Sarraya grinned.

"Did you meet Kerri yet?" he asked curiously.

"The Wikuni? Oh, yes," Sarraya laughed. "She's exactly as you described her. Cunning, sneaky, underhanded, willful, and thoroughly dangerous. I liked her immediately."

"I figured you would," Tarrin chuckled. "Well, I'm a bit hungry. Let's go get something to eat, then we can go visiting."

"I've already met them, so I'll pass," Triana told him directly, standing up and picking up the book.

"When was that?"

"When I first started looking for you," she replied. "I came here first, to get an idea of you. You were there for a while, so I went to see them."

"How did you find them?" he asked in surprise.

"Tarrin, how often are you going to assume that I'm stupid?" she asked in a cross manner.

"It's not that, mother. It's that I never even told you about them, and Jesmind didn't know about them. Nobody did but a few people, and none of them would have said anything. How did you find out about them?"

She gave him a flat look. "Cub, I'm a Druid," she said, a bit scathingly. "I walked down every path, every street, every passageway that you did when you were here. Those tracks led me to them, and then I talked to them." She closed the book with a loud snap. "I think I'd better go before I get insulted by my cub's lack of faith," she told him.

"She's been away from Thean too long," Jesmind whispered to him with a knowing smile.

"Watch yourself, cub," Triana said in an ugly tone. "If I remember right, a certain daughter of mine was crossing her legs and complaining to me about every five minutes about how she accidentally got herself all hot and bothered before her mate left, and then found herself left out in the cold."