He knew exactly what she wanted him to do. With a mere thought, he released himself from the human form, and returned to his natural humanoid form. The aching throb vanished immediately, replaced by a sensation of rightness that marked the return of his paws, ears, and tail. His shoes vanished into the elsewhere, and the manacles returned from it, trading places in a way. He regarded the assembled performers with steady, emotionless eyes, daring them to stare.
"As you can see, Tarrin is not human. And you will find him to be no more or less amiable than any other person," Dolanna told them. "Necessity requires him to hide himself in public, but when the ship gets under way, he will appear either like this, or as a large housecat. It is in his power to assume that form." She pointed to Binter and Sisska. "They are the second issue. Dar," she prompted. Tarrin felt both of them touch the Weave, and then the illusions hiding them were gone, showing the performers a pair of monstrous Vendari warriors. "They are Vendari, travelling with us for reasons best left undiscussed. The third is Allia," she said, pointing. "Allia is Selani, and her customs are not like those to which you are familiar. Treat her with respect, and you will find her to be a good person. I do not think I have to say what will happen if you do not."
"So," Renoit said, stepping forward again, "we have some very special guests with us. I would like to remind all of you that this is the best time to display the hospitality for which we are well known. And remember, they will be performing alongside you soon, so welcome them into our family."
Tarrin snorted, then turned his back to them all and started walking away. More strangers was the last thing he needed. Surrounded by strangers on another moving prison, and this moving prison looked like a floating perfume shop. Embarassment added onto insult. There were a few gasps from behind when he shifted into his cat form, gasps of surprise that he ignored as he padded through the open door.
"You will have to excuse him, Renoit," he heard Dolanna say after he turned the corner. "Tarrin is not a, friendly, person. He is very hard to know. Your people should approach him with care."
Hard to know. He wasn't hard to know, he just didn't want to be pestered by strangers.
Tarrin spent the entire day in his room. He didn't want to go out on deck and mingle with the performers. He didn't want to deal with strange people. What he wanted was to go back on land, go back into the city, but he had a good understanding why. The cabin and the ship were already starting to seem too small. The city was large, expansive, and though there wasn't anything natural left on the islands, it was unexplored territory that didn't feel like a floating cage. Compared to the ship, it was almost a paradise. He would even risk crossing paths with Triana just for one more night in a place which he couldn't cover in a matter of hours.
It all seemed so ridiculously unfair. This trip, this quest, everything, it just kept having less and less meaning for him. He understood why he was doing it and the importance of it all, but more and more it was becoming a major chore. He had no idea what he had done to deserve to be treated in such ways. He wasn't sure why his mind and heart were changing, but he could feel it happening. Perhaps it was the Cat, perhaps it was just his reaction to months of enforced limits. He'd felt those limits keenly on the Star of Jerod, after spending so much time on the ship that he knew every nick and ding in the companionways and on the masts. He'd developed cabin fever after about a month with Kern. He already had cabin fever now, and the ship hadn't even slipped its hawsers yet. He felt that the feeling of being trapped had started eating away at what civility he had left, and it was also making headway into undermining the underlying need of his journey. If only they could get to Dala Yar Arak by land.
The upcoming trip was looking to be extremely unpleasant, and there was no doubt that it would be hard on him and everyone around him. He understood that he'd changed a great deal in just a couple of months. He remembered a time when he would talk to strangers, to try to get to know them. But that seemed a lifetime ago. Now everyone that he didn't know was a threat, a challenge, an opponent. Anyone he didn't already know was a potential enemy, and that wouldn't let him try to befriend anyone else. But in his situation, he guessed that that was a good thing. He remember what Miranda said about men looking for him. There was no telling who was hired by the ki'zadun to track him down and try to kill him, so it was best to treat everyone like he was sent by Kravon to do him in.
There wasn't going to be another Jula.
He wasn't going to let an untrustworthy person that close to him again, and because he wouldn't let anyone get close enough to prove or disprove his trust, then that made everything all nice and neat. There wasn't going to be another misplaced trust. There wouldn't be another episode of believing someone was good just because they belonged to an order he thought was good. No more turning his back on someone he thought was his friend.
That still stung, and deeply. He hadn't spent alot of time with Jula, but the time he had spent with her or around her had totally disarmed him. She had with a few short meetings totally subverted his suspicions. He was amazed that he had done what he did, now that he thought back on it. He wouldn't have put down his guard around someone else he'd known as well as her. Maybe he was just weak over a pretty young lady. Perhaps that helped disarm him, then allowed her to strike the first time he let his guard down.
Just for a fluttering instant, there was chagrin over what he did to her. He had left her to die, knowing full well that he had delivered a mortal wound. He had just walked away, leaving her to suffer in a pool of her own blood. That seemed, callous. But then he remembered what she did to him, and it suddenly didn't seem good enough. He should have clawed out her eyes, tore out her tongue, broke all four of her limbs, then driven a spike through her back and let her try to find her way out of the room. Instead, he had been merciful. Well there wouldn't be any more of that. Mercy was for the weak, and he wasn't going to be weak.
That was the old Tarrin. That was when he had the luxury to be friendly or trusting, before harsh reality had taught him some very hard lessons. Out here, in the cruel world, he had to meet its cruelty head on. He had to fight tooth and claw for what he wanted, or else he would never get what he wanted out of life.
He was getting worked up. He settled down and closed his eyes, conjuring images and memories of Janette. That was always easier in cat form. His memories of her all took place while he was a cat, and they were flavored by the cat's mind and instincts. They always made more sense when he remembered them in cat form. It never ceased to calm him down, to make him content. Just the memory of her scent, a scent that had the power to make him feel completely secure, was usually enough to bring over him a kind of temporary feeling of safety, of home, though it was a mere shadow compared to being held in her arms. When he was there, it seemed that the world was being held away, and she would be there to banish everything that made him worried or afraid. That kind of security seemed so distant to him now, the selfless, almost blind trust that only a child or an animal could have for another being. He had that kind of trust in his little mother, and to a much lesser extent, Dolanna. She too could soothe him in ways that nobody else could, not even Allia. Perhaps it was an extension of trust, a trust that she could make things right again, no matter how wrong they seemed.
Had he been in humanoid form, he would have chuckled wryly. The mighty Were-cat, so wrapped up in his self-reliance, was almost childishly dependent on others for his own sense of security. Without Dolanna, Allia, Keritanima, and Miranda around him, he would feel totally lost. Each of them had that strange unspoken power over him, the power to make him feel secure, something that he couldn't really bring to himself anymore. They were family, and Tarrin's human part was powerfully grounded in family. That was something that was strong enough to carry over, to make him want to form a new family group, so strong that it overrode the Cat's independent nature.