"Remembering?" Jesmind asked as she came up the stairs.
"I guess," he admitted, not looking back at her, continuing to watch their daughter delaying in her chore to try to scoop up little fish with the bucket. They confounded her, but even from that distance, he could see the look of serious determination on her little face. "I little of both, actually."
"Both of what?"
"Remembering the past and looking towards the future," he replied as she came up behind, leaned over him and looked out the window.
Jesmind chuckled. "It'll take her about ten minutes to stop playing and bring in the water. Usually I have to take the minnows out of it. She does this all the time."
"Children are supposed to play," Tarrin said gently, watching her.
"I know. But I get a little tired of throwing the minnows back into the stream."
"Why not eat them?"
"Because if I did, there wouldn't be as many minnows for Jasana to chase," she replied with a chuckle, putting her paws on his shoulders.
"Sophistry," Tarrin laughed.
"About what?"
"Complaining that she catches minnows in the water, then putting them back in the stream so she has more targets."
"Well, all mothers endure some things they don't like for their children," she admitted with a wry chuckle. "What do you want for breakfast?"
"Surprise me," he replied.
"I will. You can do me a favor."
"What?"
"I have to hunt today, and it's alot easier when I don't have a loud little pest scaring away the deer. Take Jasana with you when you go into the village."
"She can't quite learn to be quiet, eh?"
"Not even." Jesmind laughed. "She keeps wondering why we come home without a kill. She just won't comprehend that she's scaring them away."
Tarrin chuckled. "Just tell her she won't eat if she's not quiet."
"I do. It doesn't help."
"She'll calm down when she's not quite so young."
"I know."
"I'll take her off your hands for a while," he told her. "I won't mind."
"I know you won't," she assured him. "Just keep an eye on her when you take her to the village. She doesn't go there often, and you've seen how energetic she can be."
"I'll keep an eye on her," he promised.
She bent down and gave him a quick kiss on the side of his neck, then patted his shoulders and left him to watch their daughter playing.
After a meal of ham and porridge, Tarrin was off for Aldreth. Jasana skipped along happily, but when it became apparent that her towering father could outpace her at a walk even if she ran, she ended up riding on his shoulders. Tarrin held onto her feet as she played with his hair and braid, talking up a storm as they walked along the overgrown cart track that Tarrin could travel in his sleep, he knew it so well. Her chatter was inane and without direction for most of the trip, at least until she went quiet for a long moment and started again.
"What was it like to be a human, papa?" she asked curiously.
Tarrin was quite startled by that question, and it forced him to really think hard about the answer. In the end, even after a long moment of intense introspection, he honestly couldn't come up with one that would answer her satisfactorily. "I'm afraid that's a question I can't answer, kitten," he said directly.
"But you were a human once."
"Yes, I was a human once. But that was a long time ago, and what I am now made me forget all about it. I really can't remember what it was like to be human."
"Mama says that they're funny people, the humans. With strange ideas and things, but she also says that I should always respect them."
"That's good advice," he agreed. "They're our neighbors, and they can also be our friends. You'll find the humans here in Aldreth to be rather nice and friendly, at least after they get used to you."
"I like the funny old man," Jasana giggled. "He always brings me presents."
"Garyth," he named with a chuckle. "Garyth is a very good man. If he brings you presents, then he must like you."
She was quiet a moment longer. "Do you think I could be a human some day?"
"I'm afraid not, kitten," Tarrin said with a slight smile. "You'll be able to change the way you look so you can look like a human when you're older, so you'll at least be able to pretend that you're a human."
"We can do that? Mama said that when I'm older, I can change into a cat."
"You can," he affirmed. "It's what makes us what we are."
"Mama never said anything about turning into a human."
"That's because it's something that you won't be able to do for a very long time," he told her. "It's something that you'll only be able to do when you're much older. Even your mother has trouble doing it, so don't think that it's only a problem you'll have."
"Can you do it?"
"Yes, I can do it. But I have trouble doing it too."
"Do you remember what it was like to be a real human when you're pretending to be one?"
Jasana's insight surprised him, and it reminded him that his daughter did not have the mind of a girl her age. She was very intelligent. "Not really," he replied.
"Why are you so much taller than mama?" she asked. "Aunt Mist and Kimmie were shorter than her."
"Now that, kitten, is a very complicated subject," Tarrin chuckled. "The easy answer is that I'm just supposed to be."
"What's the real answer?"
"I don't think you'd understand."
"If you tell me, we'll find out if I can."
Tarrin was surprised again by the subtle logic of that response, and it reminded him that he was dealing with a cunning little girl easily as sneaky as Keritanima. Jasana's intelligence, coupled to her immature, self-centered world, made her formidably sneaky and devious.
"Alright, I will," he laughed. "Remember when you asked me about the winged woman?"
"Umm."
"Well, she has a magical power, and she attacked me with it. When she did, it made me grow, it made me grow old in the blink of an eye, and I'm sure that your mother told you that we keep growing as we age, even after we're adults."
"Umm."
"Alright then, there's your answer. I used to be your mother's height, but after the winged lady attacked me with her magic power, it made me grow to be as tall as your grandmother. If you count my age in years, the humans wouldn't even consider me to be a full adult, but because of the winged woman, now my body is older than anyone but your grandmother."
"I hope you got her back for hurting you, papa," she said with a sudden eagerly sadistic tone in her voice.
Jasana was definitely a Were-cat.
"I got her back for it, ten times over, kitten," Tarrin assured her with a wicked little chuckle.
"Mama said you have to leave tomorrow. I don't want you to go."
"I don't want to go either, kitten," he assured her. "But bad people are loose in our homeland, and it's my duty to make them go away. As soon as I'm done kicking them out and taking care of some other things, I'll come home."
"What other things?"
"Well," he hedged, but he realized that Jasana would dog him ceaselessly until she got an answer. "I'm doing something very important for someone," he answered carefully. "I'm looking for an old magical object, because it's a very, very powerful thing, and we don't want any bad people to find it and use it. That's what I've been doing since before you were born, and hopefully I'm almost finished. After I kick the bad people out of our homeland, I'll go get that magic object and hide it again so nobody can find it. Then I'll come home."
"If you don't know where it is, why do you have to find it just to hide it again?"