"Go take your bath," Jesmind said to her daughter sharply, shooing her off with a paw on her bottom.
"Aww, mama, I hate baths!" Jasana protested.
"Tough. Now get moving."
Pouting a bit, the little girl shuffled into the back room, where his sister's bedroom had once been.
"She's getting to be a handful," Jesmind sighed, sitting at the table. "She's a devious little monster, to be honest about it, cunning and sneaky."
"Sounds like Kerri," Tarrin said absently. "She's certainly smart."
"I have trouble keeping her interested in things," Jesmind admitted. "She learns so fast, I'm running out of things to teach her."
"She's a Sorcerer," Tarrin told her bluntly.
"I know," Jesmind replied. "I can feel it in her. And if I can feel it in her, she must be pretty strong." She blew out her breath. "I know you're very mad at me, Tarrin. I just hope you can forgive me for all this."
"I'm not sure I can," he said stiffly. Without Jasana there, his anger had free reign to rise up again.
"That's your decision, but I'm not going to let our problems stand in the way of our daughter," she said bluntly. "Jasana needs both of us."
"I thought females didn't let males interfere."
"Not usually, but she's a Sorcerer, Tarrin," she said with a little fear in her voice. "I don't know what to do about that. You're a Sorcerer, so I was hoping that you'd know what to do. She's starting to be a problem."
"What do you mean?"
"She's starting to use her power," Jesmind told him, reaching out and putting a paw on his forearm. "I don't think she understands what she's doing yet, or if she's aware of it, but I've caught her using her power three times so far. That doesn't count what I haven't seen."
"She shouldn't be able to do that. She's just a girl. Sorcery doesn't manifest until puberty."
"Should or shouldn't, the fact is that she is doing it," she said calmly. "I'm afraid of what might happen. I remember what happened with you, and I don't want her to be in any danger."
"What is this I hear? Jesmind is admitting that she was wrong?"
Jesmind gave him a hot look. "Of course I can admit it when I'm wrong. I let my hatred of the Sorcerers cloud the fact that you were better off with them than with me. Does that make you happy?"
"No, it doesn't. What would make me happy would be for us to go back to that time and have you not leave," he said gruffly, glaring at her. "That hurt me, Jesmind. Alot more than you think it did."
"The past is past," she huffed. "I made my decision, and I have to live with it just as much as you do. We can let it poison us, or we can accept it and move on with our life."
"I don't forgive that easily, woman," Tarrin said ominously, his ears twitching.
"I'm not asking for your forgiveness," Jesmind snapped. "I apologized for leaving you, but it was the best-the only -thing that I could do under the circumstances."
"That doesn't help, Jesmind!" Tarrin told her in a rising voice. "If you had even an inkling of what I've been through the last two years, you'd never have left in the first place!"
"Am I a psychic now?" she asked archly. "I did what I had to do at the time!"
Tarrin rose to his feet, slamming a paw down on the table with enough force to crack it. He looked down at Jesmind with rising anger, but she stood in the face of his wrath calmly, stoically. "How would you feel if you came home after two years and found your old mate living in your house with a child you never knew you had!" he raged at her, pushing his paw down into the table with enough force to split it in half. "Do you have any idea how tired I am of surprises! How tired I am of having my life turned on its ear every two months?" he asked her as the two sides of the table clattered to the floor. "I'm trying to stop an army from overrunning Suld, and I find you and this waiting for me on the road back!" He threw up his paws. "Damn it all, I give up!" he said in exasperation. "I'm going to go into a monastary!"
Jesmind looked at him for a long moment, then she suddenly burst out into helpless laughter. Tarrin fixed her with an unholy stare, but she kept right on laughing, even going so far as to tip backwards in her chair and fall to the floor. Tarrin's fury with her melted into an indignant kind of embarassment, because he had no idea what she found to be so bloody funny.
"Ohhh, my," Jesmind managed to heave, then she laughed a little more. "No matter how much you say you change, Tarrin, that tells me that you're still the man I remember. You're still my Tarrin."
Tarrin glared at her.
"I'm done with my bath, mama!" Jasana called, coming out of Jenna's old room. Tarrin glanced at her, then shook his head.
Jasana forgot to put clothes on.
"Why are you on the floor?" she asked her mother.
"It's alright, cub," Jesmind chuckled. "Go put your nightshirt on."
"Yes, mama," she said obediently, then padded into his parents' old room.
Jesmind pulled herself off the floor, looking up at Tarrin with slightly mischievious eyes. "I know you're mad, but you're a Were-cat, Tarrin. You'll get over it," she grinned.
"Don't count on it," he snorted, crossing his arms defiantly.
"Well, I seem to remember this one time that we hated each other," she smiled, "and it didn't last as long as I thought it would. Face it, Tarrin. You like me, I like you. You may be mad at me, but that will pass, and we'll be nice to each other again."
Tarrin glared at her again.
"I may not be your bond-mother anymore, but I know you, Tarrin. I know you better than you think. Look me in the eye and deny that you feel anything for me."
He couldn't do that, so he simply looked away from her.
"That's what I thought," Jesmind chuckled. "Don't worry, Tarrin. Anger is natural for our kind. I've tried to kill my own mother, and I meant it at the time. It keeps our relationships invigorating." She put a paw on his forearm. "You'll come to realize that I did what was best for Jasana at the time, and that I'm sorry that it hurt you," she said gently. "Believe me, it was the last thing I wanted to do, but I couldn't think of any other way to protect Jasana."
"I, I don't know, Jesmind," he said gruffly.
"Just sleep on it, Tarrin," she said. "Stay with us tonight. Get to know your daughter. I promise you, you won't feel so angry in the morning."
Jasana padded out from the room and immediately set herself in front of her father, arms out expectantly.
Tarrin reached down and picked the little girl up, holding her close to him, letting her scent and the sense of her saturate his senses. He couldn't deny the love he felt for this unexpected bundle of joy cast across his path. Despite the seething anger he felt for Jesmind at the moment, he couldn't ignore the powerful feelings that the little girl inspired in him. This was his child, his daughter, and he wanted to know her.
There would be reckoning with Jesmind later. And probably reckoning with the Goddess, who had no doubt sent him here to find them.
"So, the rabbit went down into the hole, but mama reached in and grabbed it," Jasana chattered along exuberantly. It was later that evening, and Tarrin laid on the floor where the old rug used to be, laying on the pillows with Jasana just beside him. Jesmind had quietly withdrawn from them to allow Tarrin time alone with his daughter, time to talk to her, get to know her.
He'd discovered several things about her already. She was bubbly, for one, full of energy and life, always racing around. She talked alot, which reminded him of Sarraya, chattering on about things that had great importance to a child, yet meant very little to an adult. He wasn't sure if that was normal for her, if it was just excitement at having him with her. She liked to touch people, touch things, touch everything around her. And she was very affectionate, having seemingly formed an immediate bond with her unknown father, acting like he had always been a part of her life, like it was nothing special that he had finally shown up for the first time in her life.