Jesmind had managed to capture his interest, even now, but thinking of her made him give a moment of thought to Mist. Mist was another Were-cat, a Were-cat whose feral nature was so severe that she wouldn't even trust her own kind. Her mental state had come about because she had been wounded long ago, wounded in a way that made her barren, and her inability to have a child of her own had hardened her to the rest of the world. Were-cats were beings grounded in instinct, and in the females of their kind there was no instinct more powerful than the instinct to reproduce and care for the young. The denial of that most primal of instincts had probably been one of the reasons she was so intensely feral, being denied the one thing she felt she was born to do, taken away from her by the hatred and anger of humans. But Tarrin had healed her of her barren condition, an act of impulsive compassion, an act that had caused the feral Were-cat to reach out to him and place her trust in him, the first time in centuries she had placed her trust in another. Tarrin had felt so sorry for her. She had been so tortured inside. He had such compassion for her that he had agreed to father a child for her, her own child, the one thing that would make her life complete. His human morality had been a bit outraged at the idea, it still was, but even it could not deny the lonely Were-cat the one thing in this world she had wanted above all others.
Were-cat males didn't have a hand in the raising of the young. After making her pregnant, she had left him, left him to return to her home to prepare for the coming of her child. Tarrin hoped that she was well, and that the child would bring everything she hoped it would bring. After all she had suffered through, she needed some happiness in her life. Mist trusted him, something he was very proud about, something that he appreciated for its great value. He hoped she was well.
The sun was nearly fully above the horizon. Sarraya groaned slightly and stretched her arms, then sat up and yawned languidly. When she did so, he could see her bare back, a back that looked unusual with no diaphonous, multicolored wings attached to them. She had two small ridges on each side of her spine, where her wings attached so they wouldn't hit her back when they fluttered, and the slits where her wings had been were still raw, open wounds. He worried about them getting infected, but she had blown off his concern with that same careless frivolity that she used for anything that didn't interest her. She turned and looked up at him quietly, then her tiny, pretty face broke into a bright smile. Amber eyes gazed up at him, glowing in the morning sun, and he returned her gaze calmly.
"Tarrin," she hummed. "You should have woke me up. It's already past sunrise."
"You needed to rest," he answered in the unspoken manner of the Cat, a language of silent intent that all felines used to communicate with one another, a language that the Faerie could understand. "They needed to rest as well."
"Who?"
"Them," he answered, nodding his head towards the southeast. "They can't keep up if their horses start dying ten minutes after they start moving."
Sarraya laughed in her piping, very high-pitched voice, a voice created by the fact that she was only about a span tall. The sprite could squeak like a mouse if she wished to do so, her voice capable of reaching such high tones that no human or creature human sized could manage to find. "You're certainly caring today," she grinned. "I didn't know you cared about them."
"Not them. I do feel a bit sorry for their horses, though."
Sarraya laughed again, standing up. "Well, let me conjure up something to eat, and then we can move. You hungry?"
He shook his head. "I caught a couple of mice before dawn."
The hunting had calmed him. In cat form, the instincts dominated him, and so he found absolutely nothing wrong with stalking, killing, and eating mice and other prey suitable for a cat, or doing any of the other little things that cats did. He had a particular fondness for squirrel, though none lived in the savannahs of Yar Arak. The rhythmic ritual of hunting had caused him to concentrate on it, to distract himself from his worries, and it had made him feel better.
And those strange long-tailed mice were rather tasty.
He watched absently as Sarraya conjured forth a few large blackberries, which seemed to be her favorite. She rarely used her Druidic magic, and because of that, he only understood a few of the things that it could do. He had seen her Conjure many times, to cause to appear small objects and materials, seemingly from thin air. Related to that was Summoning, the apperance of a specific object by bringing it magically to the Druid's hand. That had been what he had used against the Demon in their battle, Summoning his dropped sword to his paw after the Demon had grabbed him and was threatening to crush him. He had seen her heal, a curious healing that was affected by magically accelerating the subject's own healing mechanisms. Aside from those and the fact that Druidic power had a controlling influence on the Weave and Sorcery, he had never seen her do anything else. He knew that she could use Druidic magic to send messages to other Druids, who were distant from her, and Triana somehow used her Druidic magic to cross an entire continent in the span of a day.
He wondered how Triana was doing. She was with his friends now, taking care of Jula. Jula had been his enemy, a human female Sorceress who had been secretly working for the ki'zadun. She had betrayed him, locked a magical collar around his neck to enslave his will. He had escaped, and in retaliation, had ripped out a section of her spine and left her to bleed to death. But she had managed to procure a vial of his blood, and used it to escape death, to drink it and become a Were-cat herself. But unlike him, she could not control the beast within, and it had driven her mad. The ki'zadun had sent her to Dala Yar Arak, a mindless, rampaging beast, to have her wreak havoc and cause the populace to turn against him and slow him down as he searched for the Book of Ages. He could have killed her, but he didn't. He had had something of a moral epiphany, looking down at her filthy, naked body, and had found it in himself to pity her. He took her for his own daughter instead of killing her, separating her instincts from her conscious mind with Sorcery, giving her a second chance. She had been loyal to him after that, because she understood that her only hope of finding balance within herself was to listen to him. He'd only had her for a few days, before all the insanity with Shiika had turned everything on its head. But even in that short time, he'd seen marked progress. Triana had come to complete her training, and he felt more than confident that his aged, wise bond-mother could be as successful with Jula as she had been with him. Not that Jula would like it very much. Triana didn't know Jula, and she knew that Jula had once betrayed him. Triana could be a bit rough with people she didn't like, but he wasn't afraid that Triana would just give up on his bond-daughter. She would do her best to help Jula find her inner peace, to keep her from going insane again. He knew his bond-mother, knew her well.
He hadn't felt anything from Jula's bond for a few days now. When he decided to take her for his own child, he had taken her bond, a mystical connection to her brought about by taking her blood. It was something that all Were-cats could do, probably an extension of their affinity for Druidic magic, and he used it to gauge Jula's mental state and her general location. He could feel it when she experienced powerful emotion or physical pain, something that hadn't happened for a few days. He had known when Jula had met Triana for the first time, judging by the panic that roared through her. She had felt several other episodes of powerful emotion since then, but nothing that compared to that first tidal wave of fear.