And Tarrin never noticed them.
After he'd walked himself into exhaustion, he returned to the Tower grounds, mainly because he had nowhere else to go. He was allowed in unchallenged, and when he was halfway there, Allia and Dar approached him together, a bit wary, and started the task of settling him. It took both of them, and it took them nearly two hours just to get him to sit down. And that took Allia pushing him down and literally sitting in his lap, straddling his legs and holding him down with both hands. "Tarrin!" she snapped in a harsh voice. "You dishonor yourself acting this way!"
He gave her a flat, deadly look, and his ears laid back on his head.
"Don't lay your ears back at me, boy," she challenged hotly. "You won't hurt me, and you know it. Now stop acting like a sun-baked shivat and talk to me!"
Tarrin stood up, picking her up with him. Then he set her gently on her feet and walked away. She moved to follow, but Dar put a hand out. "No," he told her.
"He will hurt someone like this," she told him.
"No, I don't think so," he replied. "I know where he's going."
"This is something he needs to work out for himself, Allia," Dar told her. "We calmed him down, but that was just putting the lid on the boiling pot. He needs more than we can do for him."
She looked at where they were on the grounds. "Yes, that is the only place he would go, is it not?" She sighed. "I think you are right. When he is ready to talk, he will seek us out."
It wasn't until he was standing at the base of the fountain in the courtyard, gazing up at the incredibly beautiful face of the marble statue, that some semblance of rationality returned to him. He sank to his knees in front of it, putting his face in his paws, as he realized just how close to madness he'd went. He'd terrorized people, destroyed things, even killed animals. That rage was replaced with self doubt, loathing, and fear of himself, at what he had almost done. If someone other than Allia had gotten in his face, he wasn't sure if he would have killed him or not. If it had been the Keeper, then he had no doubt what would have happened. She would have died.
It just seemed so complicated, even though it was so simple. He knew how the Cat thought. He even knew what it was going to do most of the time, but it was as if he was a spectator in his own body. Even knowing what it would do, he felt powerless to stop it. The Cat was so much stronger inside him than he ever dreamed, capable of throwing him aside like a forgotten toy whenever the mood suited it. All day it had not been a struggle for control, but a struggle for containment, to keep the Cat from doing something that Tarrin would regret for the rest of his life.
And yet, staring up at that beautiful face, it was as if everything he'd done that day was washed from his soul, and he felt at peace with himself.
And that peace allowed him to think, for the first time in nearly a day. Yes, the amulet would not come off, but it did not control him. He controlled it. And it was not a symbol of his slavery. The shaeram was the symbol of the katzh-dashi, an amulet just like any other. It was up to him to use it to his own advantage. It took him a fairly long time to reach those conclusions, and it was well after dark the next time he bothered to move his eyes off the statue.
He had to control it. If he didn't, it would drive him mad. All his training was about control, all his experiences of life were about control. He had to start using them in his fight with the Cat, or the Cat would overwhelm him, and Tarrin Kael would be no more.
Tarrin had thought he'd reached a balance inside himself. He knew at that moment that he could not have been more wrong. The real battle for himself had just begun.
Sniffling a bit, Tarrin stood up again, looking at the soft light of the Skybands casting multihued radiance over the statue on the fountain, and it all but took his breath away. Such loveliness seemed impossible for the human hand to carve with such perfection. Without quite knowing why, he waded into the fountain and climbed up onto the base, standing in front of the statue. He put his paws on its shoulders, and leaned in and rested his forehead against the shoulder of the statue. "I don't know if I can do it," he admitted out loud, confiding in the statue, voicing the truths he felt in his heart. "I never would have done what I did just a month ago. I'm losing myself, piece by piece, bit by bit. I don't know if I'm strong enough. I never dreamed the Cat could be so strong. I just feel so, so lost. And I'm scared, and I don't know what to do. I'm, changing," he said with a shudder in his voice. "And I can't stop it."
Faith.
The word just seemed to echo through the courtyard, though he knew that he had heard no sound.
You must have faith.
Tarrin looked around, quite mystified at the strange voice he heard. It was sweet, melodic, but it had an odd choral quality to it, as if it carried a power inside it that was more than what a single voice could hold. "Who are you?" he called.
Faith, my kitten, it repeated. Faith.
Tarrin looked around in confusion. "What do you mean? I don't understand."
But there was no reply.
Tarrin started to wonder if he really was going mad. He backed away from the statue quickly, almost falling off the ledge of the statue's base. He hesitated only a moment, drinking in the calming beauty of the statue and the fountain, and then he turned and left.
The events of that day were more or less forgotten; that was, Tarrin wasn't punished for it. Not a word was mentioned of it, but it had its own effects. The most obvious was that the Novices now would have absolutely nothing to do with him. They stayed as far away from him as they could. Before, where he got nervous looks, now they refused to even look at him. Novices would turn around and walk in the other direction, or duck into doors or side passages, when he walked the hallways. At dinner, the only time they were forced to be near him, the people who sat at his table finished in moments and hurried away.
Their rejection of him hurt, and it hurt deeply. He could understand their fear, but that didn't make it any easier. He had lost control of himself, and shown them the monster that lurked underneath. And now they were treating him like that monster. He became moody and out of sorts the next few days. Not even Allia and Dar could get him back to his usual self for any extended amount of time.
It wasn't the only shock he received, however. Three days after his rampage, he and Allia were visiting the baths for their after-practice bathing, and Tarrin saw Jesmind in the baths, soaping her red hair vigorously. The sight of her made him grit his teeth together, and he extended his claws almost out of impulse. Allia put a hand on his shoulder quickly. "She is not here to fight," she warned, soothing him. "Do not dishonor yourself by attacking one who has no desire to fight."
"Alright," he said stiffly. She looked up, catching his scent, and those green eyes locked with his for a few moments. Then she just looked away, dunking herself underwater to rinse her hair.