"There is absolutely no excuse for what you have done!" Triana said in a furious tone, the mask of emotionless slipping from her face. "Do you have any idea how many laws you've broken? Do you realize that by all rights of law and custom, I should kill you right here and now?" She hunched over the little girl, looming over her like a shadow of Death herself. "Well? Answer me!"

Jasana looked up at them, her green eyes wet with tears, and they were all Tarrin could see. No matter how furious he was with her, he still could not deny that he loved her. Her punishment would be severe, but her life would never be in jeopardy. There was a pleading look in her eyes, on her face, but she flinched away into an expression of chagrin and good, honest fear when she saw her father's grim face.

Kimmie was the first to see to the heart of it. She gasped loudly and actually collapsed back into her chair by Mist's couch, her paws over her mouth and a look of sincere shock in her blue eyes.

"What are you talking about, mother?" Jesmind demanded, coming around the couch.

Triana looked up at her daughter, and the coldness in her eyes made Jesmind stop in the act of walking forward, with her foot still hovering off the floor.

"Jasana was the one that turned Tarrin!" she announced in an dark tone that was literally dripping with cold fury.

Jula paled, her tail sticking almost straight out, Mist closed her eyes and muttered several choice curses, and Jesmind just stared at her mother, still with her foot in the act of coming down onto the floor. Jasana fell to her knees and began sobbing in very loud waves, paws over her face and her tail thrashing behind her like a dying snake.

"She what?" Jesmind asked in a low, cold tone.

"She turned Tarrin," Triana seethed. "We know she took the blood that turned him."

" Jasana!" Jesmind gasped in shock, almost falling to her knees herself. "How could you do such a thing!" she demanded, then she did stagger back and sit down hard on the couch behind her.

Eron wandered over to her mother and put his little paws on her arm. "Mama, what's going on?" he asked in an innocent manner. "Why is ev'yone mad at Jas?"

"Jasana did a very bad thing, cub," Mist said in a low tone, but it was not one of disbelief. "And now she has to be punished for it."

Tarrin could see, sense, that all the animosity in the room was going to make Jasana unintelligible. All the adults were mad at her, and the very real fear of the kind of punishment that someone like Triana could hand out would be the only thing dominating her mind. He wanted answers, and he realized that that meant taking a less dramatic approach. He put a paw in front of Triana to tell her that he would handle this, then he knelt in front of his crying daughter, now bent over with her paws over her face and weeping uncontrollably. His looming over her seemed to make her come out of it a little, and she looked up at him with her heart in her eyes, a heart that was breaking. She gave out a forlorn wail and threw herself against his chest, cowering between his arms and gripping his vest with her little claws digging into his skin.

He did not comfort her, but he didn't yell at her as Triana had done either. "Look at me," he said in a level tone, a tone that demanded obedience. She sniffled and looked up into his eyes with apprehension and a little stark terror, still gripping his vest.

"Why did you do it, Jasana?" he asked in a surprisingly calm voice.

She could only blubber for a long moment, then she sniffled loudly and bowed her head, unable to hold his penetrating gaze any longer. "B-B-Because everyone was sad," she hiccupped. "Everyone was sad, and it was all because you were a h-human," she continued. "You an' Mama were fighting, an' you were mad at each other, an' you promised me we'd be a family again. I just wanted everything to be the way it was supposed to be!" she wailed in a plaintive tone, looking up at him with anguished eyes, clutching at his vest so hard that she was rending it. "B-But you're alright now, and we can all be together again!" she said in a desperate voice. "Don't be mad at Mama, Papa! It makes her so sad when you're mad at her!"

Putting a huge paw on each of her little shoulders, he pushed her out away from him. She refused to let go of his vest, trying desperately to hold onto him, tearing the leather away in her little paws. "I am very mad at you, cub," he said in that same calm voice, a voice probably more terrifying to her for its even temper than the raging outburst that would have probably been more what she would expect. "Do you have any idea what you've done? Do you have any idea how much it hurt me that you'd do this to me?"

"B-But you're the way you're supposed to be!" she objected tearfully, as if that explained everything. "Everything's supposed to be alright now! It's supposed to all be alright!"

"It wasn't your choice to make," he said in a seething manner that made the little girl flinch from him. "You were with me all that time, girl. You knew how I felt about it! Why did you take that away from me? Why?"

Her eyes quivered, and she started crying again, holding onto his paws, trying to get them off her shoulders so she could collapse against him, but he wouldn't let go of her. It hurt him to do this to her, but it had to be done. She had to be made to understand that if she didn't stop, she was going to do something that would be absolutely unforgivable. As if what she'd done to him wasn't unforgivable in the eyes of the law of Fae-da'Nar, but these were rather special circumstances.

"Did you once think about the consequences, girl?" he asked in a level tone. "Answer me," he ordered after a moment of listening to her sob.

"Everything was supposed to be alright," she said in a miserable tone, sniffling. "You and Mama would be happy again, and we'd be a family."

"So you didn't," he surmised. "You decided you knew what was best for everyone, and you just went and did it without ever once thinking about how it was going to make anyone else feel."

"I just wanted-"

"It's not about what you want!" he cut her off in a sharp, angry tone. "Now you're going to learn, cub, that there are consequences to the actions you take. If you'd have left things alone, they would have worked out. I would have decided to be Were again, and I'd have come home. But because you interfered, now I'm mad at your mother, and I'm so mad at you I can't even explain it to you. I am so mad at you I went into a rage and very nearly killed my own sisters, and your grandmother had to risk her own life to stop me. Because of what you did, I almost killed several people that I love as much as I love you, and if that would have happened, I would have never been able to live with myself. Because of what you did, I came this close-"he took his paw off her shoulder and held his finger and thumb the barest of spaces apart in front of her-"to destroying almost everything in my life that matters to me. And it all happened because you interfered. I want you to think about that, Jasana. I want you to really think about that, and I want you to know how close you came to losing me forever because you couldn't wait, because you didn't like things and you decided to try to make everything the way you wanted them to be. Well, you've done that, but now nothing is like you want it to be, and it very well may never be that way again. And it's all because you interfered."

Gently, the voice of the Goddess touched him in a very private, intimate manner. To keep Jasana from overhearing it. Remember, she's only a child. You're getting close to destroying her life.

I'm about done, Mother, he thought grimly. But she was right. Jasana had the mind of a six year old child, and he was treading very close to shattering the entire foundation upon which that life was set. It was time to reassure her of a few things.