Beast to beast.
Dar knew he should go for help, but for a moment, he was so horrified by what he saw that he couldn't move. Tarrin and that woman were, quite simply, ripping each other to pieces. There was a look of the most terrifying mindless fury on both of them, and they dealt each other the most grievous wounds with absolutely no regard for their own lives. He'd never seen such a display of sheer animalistic mindlessness in his entire life. They were on the floor, clawing, gouging, and even biting each other in an elemental display of abject fury, rolling to and fro and smashing chairs. The floor was quickly smeared and spattered with blood and bits of flesh and torn clothing, and huge patches of bare muscle and bone began to show on each of them. What was even worse, Dar could see that those hideous wounds were slowly closing themselves. They were both regenerating their wounds, and Dar almost got sick when he realized that the winner would be the one that could withstand more raw punishment than the other, which could keep up the healing even as the other sought to rip the flesh from the bones. It was a war of attrition, and Dar shuddered to think of the pain that either of them were feeling.
They rolled over the edge of the pool and fell in, and Dar's paralysis vanished as they did. Blinking, he rushed up the stairs, hoping beyond hope that Tarrin was still alive when he returned.
Tarrin managed to regain some part of himself at the shocking touch of the water. He kicked Jesmind away, put his feet under him, and kicked off the bottom, sending him out of the water like a sling bullet from a sling, catapulting him back up to the pool's edge. He was torn and beaten, and many of his muscles had been severed. His right arm hung limply at his side, the muscles used to move it ripped apart by Jesmind's claws. The pain was there, but it was a dull thing, something that festered at the back of his mind rather than dominating his every thought. She wasn't half as hurt as he was. She was much deadlier in a mindless rage than he, falling back on instincts that had kept her alive for five hundred years. He could not match her sheer brutality or mindless resistance to pain
Jesmind climbed out of the pool slowly. Her tail was missing more than half its length, which floated in the pool, and most of her left calf had been raked away by Tarrin's feet. She'd lost every bit of clothing, shredded in their brief savagery, but the look of mindless rage was still stamped onto her face. He knew that if he lost control again, she would kill him. She was more suited to it than he. He focused his rage, focused it into what he'd learned, what he knew. He'd met her on her own battlefield, and he had paid the price. Now he had to make her fight on his. She lunged at him, but he spun away, sliding just out of reach of her claws, bending like a blade of grass in the wind. He then then elbowed her in the back with his good arm, a move that was part of ji'shen, then kneed her in the side, which was a move in the Ways. They fell apart for a second, as Jesmind gasped for breath, then she turned around and rushed him again, straight ahead, uncaring about any defense he may erect.
It was almost too easy. Tarrin turned partially aside, as if to flee, then he pivoted and brought his right leg up, folded it around his knee as his back came to her, and kicked absolutely straight up, performing a standing split. The ball of his foot struck Jesmind right under the chin, the claws of his feet punching three holes in the base of her jaw. Her head snapped back audibly, and the raw force of the blow knocked her into the air. She made no attempt to right herself and land on her feet, coming down right on the base of her neck instead. She crumpled in on herself like a rag doll, and when she settled to the floor, she did not move.
Tarrin wilted, almost falling down, as the blinding pain of too many wounds to count suddenly screamed at him all at once. He'd survived by the skin of his teeth, and he looked it. The skin of his teeth was about all he had left. He limped over to her and rolled her over with a foot. She was unconscious, bleeding from her many wounds, wounds that were closing even as he watched. He mused at that; he thought that, since they were both magical creatures, that they would deal real damage to one another. It was a good thing they did not, for he'd have been dead in the first few seconds had that been true. Her face, wet from the pool, was untouched, aside from the three puncture wounds under her jaw, and the blood had been washed from it by their bath. Just looking at her reminded him how beautiful she was, and he knew that he just couldn't kill her. Not now, not ever. Regardless of how she felt about him, he didn't hate her. And he wouldn't kill her.
He knelt by her, checking her pulse to make sure it was strong, then he smoothed the wet red hair back from her face. "Why do you have to be so damned stubborn?" he asked her weakly. Then he bent down and kissed her lightly on the lips. "If you'd just wait a while, you stubborn witch, I'd go with you." He stood up. "But it's too late for that now, I guess. I hope you're happy with your decison. If you'd have waited, or came here with me, I wouldn't have ran away."
He turned around. "Goodbye, Jesmind. Have a nice life." Then he hobbled away from her.
As soon as he'd gone far enough up the steps, Jesmind opened her eyes. They were lucid, calm, even mischievous, and she smiled a victorious little smile. But then that light look hardened over into one of firm resolve, and she shook her head as if to clear her mind of unwanted thoughts. She waited until the sound of his passage were too faint to detect, then she scrambled to her feet and darted up the steps, making less sound than a ghost.
Tarrin was met in the hallways by three Sorcerers as he hobbled back towards the Novice's quarters, two men he did not know, and the red-haired Ahiriya, who were rushing towards the baths. She was in the forefront, and she took only one look at him with those penetrating eyes. "Did you kill her?" she asked.
"Hardly," Tarrin said a bit weakly. He hadn't completely healed from the grievous injuries he'd suffered at Jesmind's hands. "It was all I could do to get away."
Ahiriya put her hands on his shoulders, and the icy sensation of Sorcerer's Healing rushed through him, putting him up on his toes as his blood seemed to turn to ice. The other two Sorcerers obeyed Ahiriya's short command to search the baths, rushing away quickly. When that icy rush faded, it took the pain along with it. Tarrin staggered back and away from her, his strength, taxed by her healing, flowing back into him. Unlike a Priest's healing, a Sorcerer's healing took some energy away from the person being healed, using it to heal the recipient, and that always left Tarrin feeling slightly drained.
"Your things have been moved to another room," she said. "That boy who rooms with you demanded to be put in the same room with you," she chuckled. "He's got guts, I'll give him that. Let's get you a robe or something to wear, and we'll take you to your new room."
That touched Tarrin. Despite the obvious danger, Dar was going to stay roommates with him.
The room Tarrin was led to was on the second level, not far from the room that Allia held alone, and it was at the very end of a hallway. The fact that there were two mailed guards standing at the entrance to that hall, quite a distance down, was not lost on him. Even though there were a goodly distance away, they defended the only way in or out, and thus stopped anyone from getting so close to him again.