There were only three left, and one was wounded. They looked around and suddenly began to make shrill barking sounds, and turned to flee. But the enraged Were-cat would not accept that. It rushed forward with blazing speed, taking the head off the injured one as it turned to run with a swipe of the sword, then the sword was cast aside as it grabbed the tail of one of the remaining two. The creature barked in alarm, but that bark turned into a squeal when Tarrin yanked it into his clutches, then broke its back with an overhead smash of his other paw. He put his claws into the wounded animal and heaved it over his head, then hurled it at the last one as it started to dash away. The two collided several paces from him, and the weight of the thrown inu drove the other one to the ground.

He was on them before they could even move, and with clawed paws, he took their throats.

He stood up slowly, taking in the situation. All the inu were dead. There was another figure, back to the wall, not far away, and in his enraged state, he could not identify the figure as friend or foe. He turned on that figure with a narrow-eyed hiss, then spread his paws and roared in challenge at it.

"No! That's enough!" a voice shouted at him, and suddenly a little blue winged thing dropped into view, hands out to stop him. In his rage, he had trouble identifying this new interloper, but a part of him, somewhere deep inside, recognized this as a friend. This was not one to kill. He blinked as the rage drained away, as his conscious mind returned to full control, and he realized that Sarraya was before him.

As always, he was a bit fuzzy after coming out of a rage. He couldn't remember exactly what happened, what he did-that would return with time, as it always did-but he did remember that he was attacking a pack of inu. He looked around, and realized that he'd killed all of them. They were laying all around him, or at least parts of them were. Some of them were more than dead. He was covered in blood, and had quite a few deep gouges in him, gouges that were already regenerating. He had one tooth sticking in his shoulder, lodged there by one of the inu, and he reached up and pulled it out absently as he realized that the figure was the Selani woman. He looked at her, and saw that she was staring at him in complete shock. And that her eyes were fixated on his shoulder. On his brands.

"You should be more careful," he told her in Selani, in a cold tone. "Next time, I won't be standing on the rock over your head."

"W-Who are you?" she demanded. "I don't know the clan-brand you carry."

"I'm nobody," he told her, feeling his distrust of her rising up already. He looked at her face, and realized that she looked a little bit like Allia. She had the same cheekbones. But her jaw was a bit broader, and her eyes were golden instead of blue. Her hair was about the same color as his, and she was shorter than Allia, shorter and if the fall of her desert garb were any indication, not as endowed as his sister with feminine curves.

"I'm Denai Shu'Dellin, of the Clan Dellinar," she introduced. "You saved my life. I have blood debt with you."

"Save it," he grunted. "Consider your debt paid by leaving me be."

"Debt is debt," she said sternly. He took a good look at her, then sifted through her scent. This one was very young, barely more than an adult. She didn't have the sense to leave things alone. She was so much shorter than him, so young, it caused him to look at her as a child, a little lost child far too away from her parents for her age, getting into more trouble than she was ready to handle.

"Listen," he said in a sudden growl, a growl that made her put her back against the wall. "I don't care what you think. If you don't put it away and count your blessings, I'll leave you right here with the rest of this vulture food."

"If that is how my debt is to be paid, then so be it," she said calmly, stepping forward. She reached down and picked up his sword, drenched in inu blood, and held it towards him hilt-first, holding it by the blade. "After what I just saw, I know better than to challenge you over your decision."

Tarrin gave her a glance. She was serious! She'd let him lop off her head in a heartbeat, if that's what she felt that honor demanded. Damned Selani and their honor!

"Just drop it," he sighed, glancing at Sarraya. But she only shrugged her shoulders. He felt a bit wary to get too close to her, so he reached out carefully and took his sword, then pulled away more quickly than he intended. The result was that he left two lines of blood on her palms, from where the lethally sharp weapon sliced into her as he recoiled. She didn't even flinch.

Now he felt foolish. Before he realized what he was doing, he was in front of her, looming over her, her slender four-fingered hands caught up between his paws. She looked like a child, a little girl, so close to her, and her small size compared to his own only reinforced that conception. She looked up at him without fear, her amber gaze unwavering as he reached within, through the Cat and into the All, and then did what Sarraya had done for him so many times. The will and intent within manifested without, and it caused the Selani's body to accelerate its healing process to such a degree that all her clawed gouges and her sliced palms healed over in mere seconds. His intimate understanding and knowledge of the Selani made it very easy for him to accomplish, and so the Druidic magic did not tire him in any way.

"You healed me!" she said in surprise, looking at her hands. "You're a shaman."

Shaman was a Selani term for magician, someone with the power to use magic.

"Among other things," he said gruffly. Where did that concern come from? Just that close to her made his fear of her return, and it was all he could do to back away quickly. It was almost as instinctual as his fear, he realized. He saw her, thought of her as a little girl, and it incited a protective response in him. Were-cat instinctual urges to protect children were powerful, even in the males. He looked at her again, and again he looked at how small she was, how young she was. That was it. Looking at her and thinking that way caused the fear in him to ease, caused other, equally strong impulses to protect to rise up. "What are you doing out here alone?" he demanded. "This is not the place for a child!"

"I'm not a child any longer," she flared. "I wear my brands as proudly as you. I was trying to catch those sukk, but the inu had the same idea. After I killed a few of them, they decided to hunt me instead."

This little slip of a girl, killing inu? It seemed ludicrous, but he'd seen Selani fight. This little slip of a girl had probably been trained in the Dance since she could walk. He had no doubt that she had done exactly what she said she did.

"I saw them bite you, but you have no wounds," she noted. "Did you heal yourself too? And what is that little winged thing?"

"That is Sarraya, my friend," he told her. "She can't understand what you say."

"How about if I use the Western tongue?" she asked in Sulasian, which served as something of a common language throughough the West. Most outside Sulasia could speak it who commonly dealt with travellers or traders. It was heavily accented, but understandable.

"Where did you learn that?" he asked in shock.

"My father taught me the human tongues of both east and west. I am training to be my tribe's obe."

An obe was the tribe diplomat, of a sort. They often advised tribal or clan chiefs in dealings with other tribes, clans, and humans. They served as translators when necessary. It was a very prestigious position, affording high honor, and only the brightest and most clever were trained for it.

"Wow, a Selani that speaks Sulasian," Sarraya said in surprise. "I thought Allia was one of the rare few."