That was the most important thing to him. Jasana was his daughter, and even if she was a different species than him, he loved her and he wanted to be around her. He understood now how his own parents must have felt when Tarrin himself had been turned. It was a terrible thing, but he was still their child, and no matter what, they would love him. He'd never really understood that until he was on the same side as them, with a child of his own. That kind of boundless love was usually unfathomable to anyone who had not experienced it for himself. Now that Tarrin had looked into the eyes of his own child, he completely understood how his parents must have felt, and understood how they could have accepted him as what he had become. No matter what happened to him, no matter who he became or what he did, no matter how evil he had acted, he was still their son, and that kind of bond was too powerful for almost any worldly act or situation to sever.
Sometimes it surprised Tarrin how he could feel so much love for a little girl of another species that he barely knew, and was admittedly just a little bit afraid of. But then again, she was his daughter. That was all the explanation he needed anymore.
Walking along by himself, invariably ending up in the cool gardens, he thought about what he'd heard at the meeting. After they'd decided to lock up the Tower, they'd talked about who they'd get and how much it would take to secure their cooperation. Keritanima promised to send her Marines, and they were going to get some of tha Arakite Legions to come onto the grounds, and even some elements of the Sulasian army that were still in Suld to ensure another attack wouldn't be attempted. They already had the Sorcerers, and he wondered why they were going to try to get anyone else in the first place. Wouldn't the Sorcerers be enough to stop just about anything? Now that they had the Sha'Kar back, he couldn't think of any reason why they'd need any additional support. Weren't the Sorcerers the most powerful of all the magical orders? Why would they need additional help?
For the moment, he guessed that really didn't concern him. All that mattered for him was trying to keep his own rather crazy life from getting any crazier until Phandebrass finished that potion.
He still felt wild mood swings about that. He wanted his memory back, but on the other hand, he was afraid of what it may mean. He knew that some of those memories may be absolutely awful, and he was honest enough with himself to admit that he was terrified of the idea of having memories of being so vicious. He knew he couldn't make a sincere decision without those memories, but he was afraid of having to remember the bad as well as the good. It was a touchy situation for him, and he felt trapped between the need to regain his memory and the desire to stay away from them.
It was about more than what he wanted anymore, and that was another thing that concerned him. He'd honestly forgotten what he was carrying, but he realized that everyone else not only would not forget, they were still working to protect it. It was easy to forget about the Firestaff when he never took it out to look at it, and he had no memory of searching for it or finding it or what it did to him when he did. It seemed more like a story he'd been told that the actual past, and that made it much easier for him to discount or ignore than it was for those who remembered what they'd gone through in order to get him into a position to acquire it. He knew that he had a duty to all those others to take back his memory, that because even if he was incapacitated at the moment, he was still the chosen guardian of the Firestaff, and he had to do what he could to protect it from everyone else until Gods Day came and went.
That was the one thing he didn't really want to think about. The Goddess had said that it would be his choice, but making that choice, he knew, would mean much more than simply what he wanted. After he got his memory back, he was afraid that there really wouldn't be a choice. It would be alot easier for Tarrin the Were-cat to protect the Firestaff than it would be for Tarrin the human. That Tarrin was bigger, stronger, faster, more magically powerful, and lacked the comparative morality that may make Tarrin the human hesitate in a moment of extreme danger, and put everything at risk. He wanted it to be his choice, his decision, a choice based on nothing more than his own desires. But he had a feeling that it was going to be alot more complicated than that. Maybe it was selfish and childish for him to think that way, but he couldn't help it. It was his life, after all, and he wanted the chance to make of it what he wanted, not what others would need of him.
Worries, worries, worries. Nothing seemed simple now, not even for him and his altered sense of being. They'd given him time to himself, kept him out of the loop of information to spare him heavy thoughts, and at least for that he could appreciate their looking out for him. But no matter how much he liked being distanced from the center of things, the simple fact of the matter was that he was the center of things, and he couldn't be outside the hub for very long. Any decisions that were made were going to affect him in one way or another, and he'd learn about them one way or another.
But there was little he could do about that right now. What he could do was what he'd already decided to do. Learn as much as he could about who he had been and what he'd been doing, stay away from Auli, and spend time with his daughter. They were rather simple things, but he had to start somewhere, and he had to get busy with the task of trying to make his choice.
Things were going to work out. He had faith in that, and after all, there was little he'd be doing to make that come about. He'd just have to let things go on their own and hope that the currents they made caused him to go in the right direction.
The decision to stay away from Auli was a very simple one. After all, it was a simple concept, that being to avoid the girl whenever possible and make sure that when he did see her, he wasn't alone. It seemed easy enough, taking little more than a watchful eye and caution when venturing out from his rooms.
The problem was, he didn't take Auli herself into account when he decided how simple a matter it would be.
He knew that she was clever and rather cunning, and he knew that she was very bold. What he didn't count on was how persistent she could be. Everywhere he seemed to go, she was never very far away. Either alone or in the company of other Sha'Kar girls, he seemed to encounter her in the passages, in the library, in the kitchens, in the gardens, on the grounds. It seemed that no matter when he left his room, no matter how short his trip was, Auli found some way to put herself where she would cross his path. When she did, she would always try to get close to him, brush up against him, or whisper something seductive in his ear. The other Sha'Kar girls, seeing what Auli was doing, though it to be devilish fun, and they even began to help her by blocking his path and giving her more time to try to work her magic on him. Tarrin realized that when he left his room, the Sha'Kar network of shallow girls got the word back to Auli that her prey was out of his protective den, and she would swoop in to try to make a kill.
Tarrin countered by always keeping someone with him when he went out. Dar was usually his escort, but much of the time, it was Koran Dar or Camara Tal, one of his sisters, Azakar Kanash, Jenna, or one of the Were-cats. He was still a little angry with them for how he treated him, but in that one narrow instance he was usually happy they were around. Auli seemed unafraid of Jesmind, Kimmie, and Jula, but she wouldn't come anywhere near him when one of them was with him. For the few days after Auli started following him around, he made sure that he wasn't too far from one of them. They would often take him up to Jesmind's room, where he would spend hours and hours talking with Jesmind, his sisters, and whoever happened to be visiting, and playing with his daughter. She taught him all sorts of things about herself and himself, chattering on animatedly about things that nobody else had really said to him, very private and somewhat embarassing things about how he and Jesmind carried on when they were together.