His little talk with Sarraya seemed to have had a major impact. She reverted to the Sarraya he remembered very quickly after that, full of witty remarks and sly comments, and she seemed to completely relax around Allia. Allia, to his surprise, warmed to the Faerie alot faster than he thought she would, and they began trading stories of the desert and Sarraya's colony. Allia, he knew, was trying to understand the Faerie, and she'd do that best by learning about her past. Sarraya was a very complicated little female, as Allia was finding out, alot more complicated than her shallow demeanor presented to the world. Her Faerie flightiness and impulsiveness waged a constant war against the intense discipline instilled in her by her Druidic training, and those two diametrically opposed traits gave her an unusual personality. She seemed flighty and scattered, but she was as sharp as a tack, possessed of a great intelligence and also having had a very thorough education. Sarraya knew things that people would never expect a Faerie to know, like the intricacies of human politics and a great deal of human history. Tarrin was very fond of her, for she was also a good, solid companion and she never made things boring. She was always full of surprises, be it a new dig on him or a new way to entertain herself in the monotony of travel across the scrub plain.
Such an example happened three days after he talked to Jenna. She had moved ahead of them as they stopped so Allia could get the sand out of her boots, and when they caught up with her, they were rather shocked to see her aggravating a lone juvenile inu. The reptillian raptor, only coming up to Tarrin's waist, snapped in frustration at the darting Faerie, trying to catch her as she weaved and buzzed around its head. Tarrin noticed that the animal had a rather long, half-healed gash on its flank, and it looked thin and a little bony. It was a rather handsome specimen, with sand-colored scales and a darker stripe on each flank and along its spine, starting at the end of its snout and ending at the tip of its tail. It also had small irregular stripes on its powerful back legs, running from hip to ankle. The coloration would break up its profile out in the scrub, making it harder to see.
"What are you doing?" Tarrin demanded in surprise as they stopped and looked around. That inu's pack couldn't be far away, and the last thing they needed right now to was to be ambushed.
"Hold on," Sarraya said breathlessly, slipping aside as the inu again snapped shut its jaws, just barely missing her. "Would you hold still?" she demanded sharply at the animal, "you're ticking me off!" And to everyone's surprise, probably even the inu's, it did just that. It recoiled from her in surprise, then stopped trying to eat her, standing there in its hunched posture, wickedly clawed forepaws tucked in under its chest.
"How did you do that?" Allia asked in surprise.
"I'm a Druid, you silly girl!" she told her with a grin. "Druids can command animals when it's needful. Hasn't Tarrin ever showed you that?"
Allia looked at Tarrin speculatively. "Don't look at me," he shrugged. "Nobody ever taught me that."
"You are so dense," she said scornfully. "It's not a spell, you dope! Animals can sense who we are. If you speak in a commanding voice, they'll obey you!"
Tarrin gave her a very hard, flat look. "You mean to tell me that all this time, you could have just ordered anything that may attack us to leave us alone?"
She grinned wickedly. "I didn't want to interrupt your fun," she teased.
"Even after that kajat bit off my leg?" he demanded hotly.
"It was too intent on eating us," she answered. "When they're like that, it's alot harder to get through to them. That's why this one didn't just stop the first time I told it to. Besides, I'm so tiny and it was so big, I think it had trouble hearing me. They have to hear us."
"What about the pack of inu?"
"They were trying to eat Denai, remember?" she said pointedly. "And I think she really ticked them off by killing a few members of their pack. I just said that when they're like that, it's hard to get through to them. Their predatory instincts have taken over." She looked at him. "And yes, we did tell you that, Tarrin. When we were in Shoran's Fork, remember?"
Tarrin looked back through his expanded memory, and found what she was talking about. When they were telling him about Druids, they remarked that no animal would attack a Druid. Now he understood why.
"Why didn't you teach me that?" he demanded.
"Because I'm really not sure if it will work for you," she answered honestly. "You're a Were-cat, Tarrin. You're a predator, and some animals won't trust a predator no matter how sweet you talk to them. That may have been a little dangerous, especially if you'd have tried to talk down a hungry kajat. Knowing you, that's the first thing you'd do," she snorted.
"Does it work for Triana?"
"Triana never does it," she answered. "She said she never tries to talk to a potential meal. It's bad manners, and it's not very sportsmanlike. That's also why she won't Conjure anything that isn't already dead."
Allia laughed, looking at Tarrin. "I guess that makes sense. I wouldn't like having a chat with a kajat, knowing it may decide to turn around and eat me."
Tarrin, however, was a little intrigued by the idea of it. He looked at the inu and drew himself up. She said all one had to do was speak in a commanding manner. Well, if it was one thing Tarrin had learned as his time as a Were-cat, it was how to be commanding. He looked the inu right in its sinister, amber reptillian eyes, his own implacable and steely. "Come here," he told it, pointing to the ground before him with a furred finger.
The animal seemed a bit torn. Tarrin could tell that his command had reached it, but just as Sarraya said, it seemed wary about obeying something that was obviously a predator.
"I'm not hunting you, you foolish cub," he chided it. "Come here."
Bolstered by that, the inu warily stepped towards him, its sleek head snapping back and forth between Allia and the Were-cat. It stepped up in front of Tarrin, craning its head almost straight up to look at him, its long, meaty tail out to give it balance.
"I've never seen a living one from so close before, at least in a relaxed state," Allia said in appreciation. "We respect the inu for its power and cunning, but they also have a certain grace and beauty about them."
"Only a Selani would think a big lizard was cute," Sarraya huffed.
Tarrin knelt by the inu and pushed it til it turned, presenting its wounded flank to him. It was a very nasty laceration, wide and deep, and it was starting to show signs of infection. From the size of the wound, Tarrin knew that it was caused by the claws of a kajat.
"A kajat did this," he noted.
"It probably killed the rest of its pack," Sarraya added. "Allia said that they do that."
"Kajat eat inu because it gives them a meal and also cuts down on competition," she nodded. "That, and inu are sometimes foolish. They'll continue to attack, even when they have no chance of winning. Only after the majority of the pack is killed will the survivors finally turn and run."
"I'd say that's exactly what happened here," Tarrin said. The inu probably wouldn't react too well to Sorcerer's healing, so he reached within, through the Cat, and touched the vast power of the All. His intent and image were simple and clear, something he had done many times before, and the All read his intent, saw his image, and responded as he desired. The wound on the animal's side began to heal unnaturally fast, before their very eyes, as Tarrin's prodding caused the animal's own healing ability to accelerate at an incredible rate, even as the All supplied the animal with the life energy it needed to undertake the task.
"Why heal it?" Allia asked. "A lone inu rarely survives long, and I don't think we want something like this as a pet."
"So it at least has a fighting chance," he replied as the wound completely closed, and the last traces of Tarrin's magic killed off the now internalized infection.
"You're getting too sentimental in your old age, brother," Allia teased. "Why were you playing with it, Sarraya?"
"I guess I just wanted to get a close look at a live one," she said. "The ones I've seen up close weren't very whole
. Tarrin isn't very neat when he kills things. There were body parts laying everywhere," she said with a little shudder.
"Dead is dead," Tarrin said flatly as he patted the animal's flank, feeling the powerful muscle underneath those scales. Tarrin felt its warmth, and, curious, he sent probing weaves into the animal, weaves usually meant to find sickness or injury. These weaves instead inspected the internal workings of the animal, puzzling out its biology.
Tarrin whistled. "It's not a reptile," he said in appreciation.
"What do you mean?" Allia asked.
"It's not cold-blooded," he explained as he slid his paw along its flank. "It's warm-blooded. It's not a reptile. It's a close cousin of reptiles, but it's not one."
"Maybe it's in the same family as dragons," Sarraya said. "They're warm-blooded too, and it's very apparent that they're related to reptiles. You know, scales, big teeth, claws, bad attitudes, that kind of thing."
"We know that there are relatives of dragons," Allia mused. "Drakes are their relatives, and Dolanna told me that Wyverns are also related to them. I've never seen a Wyvern before, so I don't know about that."
"They're not something you want to see," he snorted, the memory of the fight he'd had with the Wyvern on the riverboat coming up to the front of his mind. "Strange." He stood up. "Alright, I'm done," he told it. "Go on."
It looked at him quizzically.
"You're on your own now, cub," he told it. "Just be careful out there, and don't try to take anything bigger than you are. You should be alright."
With a curious chain of short growls in its throat, the inu turned and started off towards the south.
"Now there's something you should have tried to tame, Allia," Sarraya said with a grin.
"It wouldn't be prudent," she shrugged. "You can't have tame inu and tame sukkand chisa around each other. They're natural enemies."
They continued on southwest at an easy pace, as Tarrin mused over what he'd learned. After looking back on things, he realized that the first time they'd come through the desert, Sarraya had never really had the chance to use that Druidic trick to help him. The fights he'd had with the local wildlife had been fast and furious, where Sarraya's presence would have only complicated an already complex situation. And the times when she would heve been very useful, like when the kajat attacked them down in the Great Canyon, she hadn't been there. That probably would have been the best time for her to calm an attacking predator, but she'd been off scouting.
It showed one of Sarraya's problems when she taught. She was a good teacher most of the time, but that was with things she thought he could use or learn. If she felt it wouldn't work for him or he couldn't use it, she not only wouldn't teach it to him, she also wouldn't even mention it. Tarrin understood the reasoning for it, because with Druidic magic, there was absolutely no room for error. By not even telling him about something, she was making sure that he wouldn't get curious about it and try to use something that either wouldn't work or was beyond his ability. But it still irked him a little bit.
Tarrin mused a little about that, realizing that he was his own warden in that regard. He was a curious one, always trying anything someone did that he saw. That curiosity was coupled to an admittedly strong power and a clever mind, and when Druidic magic was concerned, that could get him into a great deal of trouble. He was alot like Keritanima that way; when he saw someone do something he couldn't do, he just had to figure out how it was done. He couldn't help himself. At first, when he was just learning Druidic magic, he accepted Sarraya's warnings and commands without question, not trying some of the things she did. But he was more experienced now, more confident, and now she had to be careful. From the way they talked, Tarrin was probably as strong as Sarraya now, and that put anything she did in the realm of his possibility. He'd see her do something and try it, and that could get a little tricky, given he may not be capable of it. But, on the other hand, she'd also be willing to teach him, since he was more confident and more experienced.
They made camp early, as a small sandstorm roared over them an hour or so before sunset, taking refuge in a very narrow fissure of rock at the base of a broken rock spire. Tarrin had often wondered about the rock spires. They were everywhere in the desert, from the most barren sandswept sandfields to the most rugged badlands. Some were large, some were small, some tall, some short. But most of them were made of a dark stone that seemed oddly out of place with the sand colored rock most common in the desert. There were some sand-colored rock spires, but those had seemed most prevalent in the southeastern stretches of desert, and they'd shown alot more effects from the scouring wind than the darker ones had.
Curiosity driving him, he reached out and put a paw on the stone, sending flows of Earth and Divine into it. What he discovered made his tail twitch. The stone was igneous, hardened lava, and as Tarrin followed its root down into the ground, he realized that it had come pouring out when someone or something punched a hole in the ground, a hole that went all the way down to the vast sea of magma upon which the land floated.
All these dark rock spires were probably the same, the result of a breach into the magma.
They are the scars left behind by the Blood War, kitten, the Goddess told him, her choral voice echoing in his mind. The rock spires are what's left of magic that the Demons used to pull lava from the ground and kill the defenders. Five thousand years ago, this was a lush grassland. But then the Demons came, punching holes into the mantle and causing the lava to erupt. That covered large areas of this verdant belt with pools of lava. The heat and the fumes killed the grass, changed the weather itself, turning this place into a desert. At one time, this was a hellish wasteland covered with thousands of small hill-sized volcanic cones. But the winds this area is famous for wore them down, eroded them into a sand that still rests in the northeast sections of the desert, where the sand and dunes are black instead of white. The normal rock beneath too was worn away, which made the light sand and dust you find everywhere else here. The rock spires were the cores of those volcanic cones. If there is a testament to the destruction of the Blood War, my kitten, this is it. The Desert of Swirling Sands is the last great scar left behind by a war that raged five thousand years ago.
That sobered him, left him with a grim resolve. The Blood War had been so long ago, but even now ripples of it flowed through the present, showed themselves here in the wound left behind by its raging, echoed in the songs and tales of the valiant Dwarves, who sacrificed everything to save the rest of the world. So much destruction and pain, and all of it had been caused by the Firestaff. Val had used the Firestaff to become a god, then raised an army of Demons to conquer the world. They turned on him, and Val was forced to help the very ones who had been his enemies, as the entire world was forced to unite to fight off the Demonic invasion. It was the Blood War that caused the gods to take the position they had now, where the next who used it would be destroyed. They couldn't allow a god that was not bound by the laws of the pantheon to exist. Even if it meant another catastrophe on level with the Blood War or the Breaking, they couldn't allow it, because Val had proved that such a one could destroy the delicate Balance which the gods strove mightily to maintain.
After all, a world destroyed by their own hands could be rebuilt. The price in the lives of those who lived on that world would be staggering, maybe even insurmountable, but the world would survive. And that was all that mattered to them. The Elder Gods cared only for the world as a whole. The civilizations that lived on it and their accomplishments did not matter in the grand plan of things which was the Balance. The Elder Gods would grieve for their act, but they would still go through with it, because it was what had to be done.
You must be able to do what must be done. He had heard that so many times, and for the first time, he realized that he wasn't the only one in this mad game that had to live with that heavy rule.
He was shaken out of his sober reverie by a series of low growls coming over the howling wind outside, their pitch and timbre
causing him to pick them out from the shrill whistle of the wind. Tarrin's instincts warned him immediately when he realized that it was an inu, and he rose up to block the fissure to protect Allia and Sarraya, who were chatting behind him. The owner of those growls stepped around a bend in the narrow, constricting cave, and Tarrin saw with some surprise that it was the inu he had healed. It had followed them! If that wasn't impressive enough, the fact that it could keep up with them was itself quite astonishing.
"What are you doing here?" he demanded irritably of the animal.
"What is it?" Allia asked, then she rose up and looked under his shoulder. "It followed us?" she asked in confusion.
"I guess it likes you, Tarrin," Sarraya laughed.
"What is it with you and these big animals, brother?" Allia asked lightly. "First Sapphire, and now an inu. What is about you that attracts them?"
"I think we'll have to leave him behind when he brings a kajat into camp, trailing along behind him like an energetic puppy," Sarraya sniggered.
The inu looked slightly embarassed, but didn't look away, its reptillian, amber eyes unwavering as they looked up at Tarrin.
"It lost its pack. I guess it thinks we're its new one," Allia mused.
"She," Tarrin corrected absently. "This one is female."
"Ah, now I see what it is," Sarraya said in a wicked manner. "First Sapphire, now this one. I never knew Were-cats were sexy to these warm-blooded reptiles."
"Don't ever let Sapphire hear you say that, bug," Tarrin warned in a flat tone. It wouldn't do to send her back out into the sandstorm. Tarrin blew out his breath. "Alright, but keep out of trouble," he told her imperiously.
Having a little trouble turning around in the very tight space, the inu turned and laid down in the fissure with her head facing outside, keeping watch on the entrance to their refuge.
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