This threw him off, because she was right. Tarrin would never harm a child. And since he saw her as a child, that meant that he would not raise his paw against her. He realized that she was going to use that to basicly flaunt herself in his face. And no matter how aggravated he got with her, it wouldn't come to an end with blood. He didn't accept her as a friend, but he also wouldn't attack her as an enemy. That put Denai in a curious gray area, where her presence bothered him, but he wasn't willing to put her off by force.
"Now that we've established that, why don't you sit down and talk with me?" she invited. "I'm curious about some things, and Sarraya won't answer my questions. She said you had to tell me."
So that's what this was about. Denai was curious, that was all. That was easy enough to assuade. "The less you know, the safer you are," he said honestly. "I've killed men over just thinking they knew too much, Denai. I may not be willing to raise a paw against you for being friendly, but I will kill you if I think you know more than what's needful. Do you understand me?"
The sheer honesty in his voice put Denai back. She stared at him in surprise for a long moment, then finally nodded her head. "I don't think everything I want to know falls into that, though," she said. "Tell me about your daughter. How old is she?"
That, he didn't mind talking about. He looked down at her and gave her a neutral look, then stared out over the chasm in thought. "She's older than I am," he answered. "She's what you may call adopted."
"Strange, but then again, you're not Selani, so you must have customs that seem strange to us. Some of our customs must seem strange to you too."
"Some," he agreed. "Jula is like me, turned. I took her in because she needed someone to help her adjust to it."
"To what?"
"To this," he answered, holding out his paw. "I wasn't born this way. I was changed into this by one of my new kind."
"You're a Lycanthrope?" she asked in sudden intense curiosity.
"I didn't think the Selani knew about them."
"There are some stories," she told him. "Old stories about creatures that wandered the desert, creatures that could change from humans into jackals. One of the Watchers called them Lycanthropes, or Were-jackals. The stories said that they preyed on our herds, so our ancestors chased them from our lands."
"Possible," Tarrin mused. "There are many kinds of Were-kin. I've never heard of Were-jackals, but that doesn't mean that they don't exist."
"What is this Jula like?"
"I don't like her," Tarrin said bluntly. "I did what I had to do because it was my duty, nothing more."
"Honor and blood," Denai recited. "Duty is honor, and the cost of that honor is blood."
"It feels like it sometimes," he agreed.
"Are all your people as tall as you?"
"No," he replied. "Only Triana, my bond-mother, is my size. Everyone else is a little taller than you on the average."
"Bond-mother?"
"My patroness, much as I'm Jula's patron," he explained. "Triana was the one who took me in and taught me how to cope. Unlike Jula, I very much love and respect Triana. She's my second mother."
"It sounds like you have two families."
"I have one, but it's rather large and diverse," he said with a wry smile. "I have my original family, my blood-sisters, my bond-mother, and my friends. They're all family to me." He looked at her. "My world is centered around family, Denai. You're either family or you're not. Family is trusted, everyone else is not."
"Not even me?"
"Not even you," he said bluntly. "I'll talk like this with you because I see you as a child, and my kind have a strong impulse to protect children. If I didn't see you as a child, I would have probably killed you the moment you said no to me."
Denai blanched. "Sarraya explained some of that, but I thought she was joking," she said in a slightly sick voice.
"Believe her," he said gratingly. "I'm not a gentle person, Denai. Some would call me evil, and they'd probably be right."
Denai snorted. "Nobody who cares so much about family can be evil," she stated, looking at him with steady eyes.
"That's your opinion," he told her calmly.
"Well, what do you think?" she challenged. "Do you think you're evil?"
Tarrin was silent a very long time. "Yes," he finally replied.
"Well, you haven't done anything evil to me, so I say you're not," she said with her charming smile. "Now then, I think our dinner is getting cold. Let's go eat."
"I'm not hungry," he told her.
"You haven't eaten all day," she protested. "Come on! You're going to eat!" She grabbed him by his tail and began to pull. She wasn't strong enough to hurt him, but from the force she was exerting, it was clear that she had no intention of letting go. "Let's go!"
"You're toying with death, woman," he warned in a grim voice.
"I live for the danger," she said with an impudent grin. "Now are you coming, or do I have to pull this from your backside?"
That sounded so familiar to him. He had said that to a woman some time ago, and she had replied with the exact same answer. But it had been so long ago, so much had happened, he couldn't remember who it was who said that to him. Was it Allia? Keritanima? Maybe it was Camara Tal, or maybe Sarraya? It irked him a little that he couldn't remember, but he'd had so much on his mind lately, it was amazing that he remembered his own name.
Well… he was a little hungry. Maybe a meal would help him remember. Denai squeaked in surprise when Tarrin flexed his tail, pulling Denai up and off her feet. She probably hadn't realized that Tarrin's tail was almost as long as she was tall, and he pulled it up to where she was yanked off her feet. Her feet dangled only a finger or so off the ground, but it was enough. He then moved her aside, and then dropped her back onto the ground. Denai laughed delightedly at that, then let go of his tail and bounded up beside him as they returned to the campsite.
To: Title EoF
Chapter 13
" This is your idea of a path?" Sarraya said in surprise.
It was late morning, and the four of them were on the edge of the vast chasm of the Great Canyon. Tarrin and Sarraya looked down at what Denai had called a safe pathway down to the valley floor… which amounted to little less than an angled irregularity in the rock that formed a very steep ridge that descended to the valley floor so very far below. The ridge was wind-eaten, and extended out from the chasm wall by no more than four fingers. It was a toehold, nothing more, a toehold at about a fifty degree angle that plunged into the shaded canyon.
"Compared to the rest of the canyon walls, Sarraya, this is as close to a pathway as you will get," Denai said defensively. "We've used it before."
"How can there be so many Selani when all of them are insane!" Sarraya said hotly, throwing up her hands and drifting out into the vast gulf. Drifting out of reach.
Tarrin didn't have his mind on that at the moment. He was still trying to figure out Denai. The Selani girl had slept close to him last night, and her presence had begun to wear on him in strange ways. She didn't seem to be willing to give over on the idea of trying to draw him out, almost feeling as if she were trying to tame a wild animal. He didn't want her attention or her company, but the Selani seemed totally oblivious to that fact. She had some kind of agenda in mind, and she was going to carry through with it. She wasn't afraid of him anymore, and she'd already begun to take some very shocking liberties with him. That morning, he'd been awakened when she reached down and picked him up while he was sleeping in cat form. That nearly startled him into shapeshifting, but he stopped himself at the last minute. She hadn't been trying to hurt him, she only picked him up, carried him a few paces, and then set him down by the rekindled fire. And he had the feeling that she did it on purpose. Not to put him by the fire, but to see what would happen if she picked him up. And since he hadn't reacted violently, it made her even more bold with him. Her actions irritated him, but for the life of him, he couldn't even bring himself to even pretend to warn her off. She wasn't afraid of him, and it felt foolish trying to intimidate someone who had no fear of him. It would have been the same as if he'd tried to intimidate Allia or Keritanima; those two would have just laughed at him. Since Var was not granted the same tenuous liberty, he didn't want to appear to be weak or impotent while the male Selani was within view. So he simply endured the attention she showered on him, doing his best to ignore her.