 Kimmie.  What do you say, Thean?  Care for some company tonight?" Singer invited.
	"I'd be delighted, Singer," he said graciously.
	"I call that building over there," Rahnee said quickly, pointing at the stillery.
	"This isn't a competition, and that building is rather cramped," Thean told her.
	"That's alright.  It'll keep Jeri from getting away from me," Rahnee grinned.
	"I guess we can sleep in that barn over there, so we don't disturb Ariana," Thean said, looking at the old shearing shed.
	"You're not going to disturb me, Thean," she objected.
	"Yes we will," Singer said with a wink.  "If we don't, then I must not be trying hard enough."
	"I--oh, nevermind," Ariana said with a blush.  "I just need to get some blankets, and maybe a pillow, and I'll be on my way to sleep."
	They put out the fire, said their goodnights, then they separated.  Thean Conjured up some blankets for each person as Tarrin carried a sleeping Jasana and led Jesmind and Kimmie into the house.  "You can use my old room, Kimmie," Tarrin told her.  "It's up the stairs you'll find down that hallway.  It may be a little dusty, but it's a comfortable bed."
	"Thanks, both of you," she said with a grateful look.  "I still don't feel comfortable sleeping outside, and I really don't want to spend a night listening to Rahnee howl," she said, making a small face.
	"No problem, Kimmie," Jesmind told her.  "You're about the only female I'd let into the house anyway.  You're like family to me."
	"That's nice to know," Kimmie told her with a bright smile.  "Would you like some tea or something before bed?"
	"I'm the hostess here, girl," Jesmind said with a smile and a shooing motion.  "Now off to bed with you."
	"Yes, Auntie," Kimmie said with an outrageous little smile.  Kimmie was a delightful surprise, sometimes.
	"You," Jesmind said, balling her fist in Kimmie's direction.  "We'll see you in the morning."
	"See you tomorrow," Kimmie mirrored, padding down the hall.
	Tarrin and Jesmind carried Jasana into her room, which was Jenna's old room.  They laid her down in her bed, dressed her in her nightshirt as she blissfully slept through the entire process, then they tucked her into bed.  Tarrin paused to stare down at his little girl, his daughter, the new focus of his life, and he couldn't help but feel overwhelmed by the powerful love he felt for her.  She was such a beautiful child.  Beautiful, smart, cunning, sneaky, devious--
	But when she was sleeping like that, he could see no wrong in her, no matter how bad she was when she was awake.
	Such was the programmed parental response to a sleeping child that usually kept children from being murdered in their sleep.
	They slipped out of her room quietly and closed the door, as the ceiling above creaked a bit as Kimmie moved about Tarrin's old room.  Then he heard the unmistakable sound of bedsheets being smacked to clear them of dust, and he knew that Kimmie had to be getting ready to go to sleep.  Tarrin yawned.  It had been a very busy day, and he fully intended to follow suit.
	He and Jesmind retired to their room, undressed, then crawled into bed.  Jesmind cuddled up against him, nuzzling his shoulder with her chin as Tarrin relaxed, letting the day's worries flow out of him.  "If Fae-da'Nar helps, will that make it easy for us to win?" she asked quietly.
	"It'll make taking Torrian all but guaranteed," Tarrin answered her.  "I don't know how much it's going to help at Suld, but there's no doubt that they'll help a great deal.  I need to contact Kerri tomorrow and tell her about this, so she can include it in her plans."
	"That can wait, my mate," she said absently, squeezing him just a bit.  "You know, I'm very proud of you."
	"How?"
	"You didn't even growl at Rahnee once today."
	"She was behaving," Jesmind said with a grin, looking up at him.  "Besides, we're in my home range.  When we leave tomorrow, we'll see how well she behaves."
	"Just don't kill her," Tarrin cautioned.
	"It won't be the first time I've smacked Rahnee on the nose for getting fresh with my mates," she told him bluntly.
	"Really?  And who was this male you fought over before?"
	"Someone you'll never meet, my mate.  He died about fifty years ago."
	"I'm sorry to hear that."
	"He was a very nice male," Jesmind sighed.
	"What happened?"
	"He was killed in a fire," she replied.  "We still don't know what happened outside of that."
	Tarrin was silent, pondering that.  But that ended when Jesmind threw her arm over his chest and settled in against him.  "I don't want to go," she admitted quietly.
	"Me either," he sighed.  "But it won't be forever."
	"It'll feel like it."
	"We'll know when it's over, Jesmind."
	"I'd rather not find out."
	"I can't help that.  Blame Jasana."
	Jesmind chuckled, leaning her forehead against his cheek.  "Let's go to sleep," she said hazily.
	"I never thought you'd ask," he told her, pulling her a little closer and letting her closeness overwhelm his senses and lull him off into sleep.

	No matter how peaceful he felt, the enormity of the coming day was too much to keep Tarrin asleep all night.
	He awoke about midnight, and found that he couldn't go back to sleep.  He laid in bed and tried, half to get rest and half to keep from disturbing Jesmind, but it became too much, and he had to get up and move around.  Putting on his breeches, he wandered out into the common room and poked the fire back to life, staring into its heart and considering the day to come.
	He wondered how the villagers took the Centaurs and the Were-kin.  The people of Aldreth were rather steady, but that may be too much for even them.  He was sure that there was some nervousness, but he also felt that as soon as Garyth and Sathon made the rounds and calmed everyone down, they would have relaxed.  Aldrethers had always been careful to be nice to their Frontier neighbors, and he didn't doubt that Garyth would have urged them to be so now, when it was so obvious who it was that was camped outside the village.  The fact that they couldn't enter the village would probably make them even more relaxed.  Aldreth's position as the human-Woodkin trading post would make the Woodkin calm, and it gave the humans prior experience for dealing with their exotic guests.
	They would be going to war tomorrow.  That was a sobering thought.  He'd been avoiding thinking about it, understanding the grim reality of that simple statement.  Men were going to march out of here, and there was a very good chance that some of them weren't going to come back.  Men with lives and families, men with friends and position in the village.  They were leaving their homes and families to defend them from another Dal occupation, and they were willing to sacrifice their lives to make sure that their wives and children would be safe.  It was too much to ask from them, since they'd already suffered the Dal occupation, suffered watching Dal soldiers kill almost the entire Longbranch family and the herbalist.  But then again, that was the very reason they were going.  Because of what happened to the Longbranch family and the herbalist.  They didn't want that to happen to their families.
	There was a shuffling sound, and it made Tarrin look up from the fire.  Kimmie was standing in the hallway, yawning.  Tarrin had always rather liked Kimmie.  She was turned, like him, and as Were-cats went, she was rather unusual.  She had blue eyes instead of the pattern green, and she wore dresses and acted a great deal more like a human than a Were-cat.  But she was a Were-cat, and the fact that she had come out without any clothes on, carrying one of Tarrin's old robes in her paw, made that abundantly clear.
	"Oh," she said mildly.  "I heard you moving around, but I thought you went back to bed, Tarrin."
	"I couldn't sleep," he said, looking at her.  She didn't move to cover herself, because she didn't care.  Just as he didn't really care that she was unclothed.  Kimmie was a very soft Were-cat, without the muscular definition that most females had, and it made her body look much more human than any of the other females.  It made him curious to think that Kimmie had been changed so little by her turning, where he and Jula had been changed so much.  Her tabby-colored fur clashed a bit with her fair skin, another stark reminder that Kimmie lived in between her two worlds much more closely than Tarrin or the other Were-cats did.
	She shrugged into the robe, which fit her rather well, then came into the room and patted him on the shoulder.  "It's alot to think about," she said, as if she could read his thoughts.  "What, with everything that's happened and all."
	"I know," he agreed, sitting on the floor in front of the fire.  Kimmie sat beside him, reaching behind her in irritation.
	"Do you mind if I cut a hole in this?" she asked.
	"I can't wear it anymore.  It's all yours."
	Nodding with a smile as Kimmie rose up on her knees, Tarrin heard her claw rip the fabric of the robe, and Kimmie's brown-striped reddish tail slid out from behind her, snaked through the hole in the robe.  "Thanks.  I hate sitting on my tail like that," she told him, sitting back down again.
	"I know how you feel," Tarrin said with a smile.  "Kimmie, I've been meaning to ask you something."
	"What?"
	"Why is that you're so much different from me?"
	"I really don't know," she answered, seeming to understand the meaning of the question.  "Rahnee and some others think I'm a mutant," she laughed.  "I mean, I don't look quite like the other females.  I have blue eyes, and I never really got rid of my human habits.  Rahnee thinks it's a scandal that I wear a dress," she said with a grin.  "Since nobody knows who bit me, nobody really knows why I turned out so different than everyone else."
	"When did it happen?"
	"About twenty years ago," she replied.  "I lived on a farm outside Tor then.  I was chasing a butterfly across a field," she said, her eyes turning distant.  "I wandered into the forest, and I really don't remember what happened after that.  I just remember waking up like this."  She picked at the front of her robe absently.  "My parents threw me out of the house, of course," she sighed.  "I ended up running into the forest, and that's when the instincts started to work on me.  I was half mad when Mist found me.  I must have struck some kind of chord in her, because she accepted me as a bond-child and helped me regain my sanity."
	"That must not have been easy."
	"No, it wasn't," she admitted.  "Mist was very erratic back then.  I could tell she was afraid of me, but something wouldn't let her abandon me.  It was very nervous for both of us at first."  She leaned down on one paw and stared at him evenly.  "I realized that she'd kill me if I ever got her mad, so I was always very careful.  I came to understand her, though, and even to love her like my own mother.  I can't tell you how happy I was when she opened up to you, Tarrin.  You made her open up to me, too.  I can never thank you enough for that."
	"It was for her, Kimmie."
	"I know.  That's what makes it so wonderful," she smiled.
	"I'm surprised you came here, you know," he told her.
	"Why?"
	"You don't seem like the type, that's all."
	"I know," she chuckled.  "I'm really not all that great of a fighter, Tarrin.  I know that.   The others tease me about it all the time, but it doesn't bother me as much as it bothers them.  Even though I have the strength and the claws and the hunting mentality, I'm just not the kind to kill anything I don't intend to eat.  I just don't have the heart, I guess."
	"Then why did you come?"
	"Because you needed me," she said with simple logic.  "Even though I'm not much of a fighter compared to other Were-cats, I'm still a Were-cat.  That gives me certain advantages against humans."
	"True enough," he agreed, leaning back a little.
	"My turn.  What's it like?"
	"What?"
	"I understand things more than the others, Tarrin.  You're both a Sorcerer and a Druid.  You're tall as Triana, and you have a sense about you that makes everyone afraid of you.  You may be Were now, but you were once human, like me, and I know that it makes you much more human than you look.  It must be lonely."
	"It would be if I didn't have friends who knew me beforehand," he admitted.
	"I'm not talking about just that, Tarrin," she said, looking at him.  "I know how hard it was.  How hard it is.  You're different from the others, like I am.  They're nice enough to you, and you know they accept you, but you always feel like you'll never quite be a part of them, like you were once a part of the human culture."
	Tarrin lowered his eyes.  He had felt like that for a long time, understanding it back when he'd first met Kimmie.  He'd told Thean how alien they all felt to him, like he didn't quite belong.  Time had buried that memory, but she had excavated that old knowledge within him.  "I did feel that way when I first met all of you," he admitted.  "But alot has happened since then.  This, for one," he said, holding out his paw, where the fetlocks dangled from the outside of his wrist.  "It did more than change my body.  I actually feel as old as I look now, even though I'm barely nineteen.  It's like I've lived a thousand years in the last two."
	"Well, from what I heard, you did alot in those years, Tarrin," Kimmie told him with a smile.  "That can't help but make it feel like it's been longer."
	"It's more than that," he said.  "I look at you, and all I can think is how young you are, how young you look.  And the truth is that you're older than I am.  It confuses me sometimes, because I'll be thinking about how young people are so different, when I'm actually one of them myself."
	"You are who you are," she told him.  "Whatever makes you feel comfortable is what you should be."
	"You should hire out as a sage, Kimmie."
	She laughed.  "I've just been there, Tarrin.  I stopped trying to please the others a long time ago.  I found that this is who I am, and if they don't like it, that's their problem, not mine."  She looked him in the eyes.  "That's what's most important for us, Tarrin.  If we don't feel comfortable about ourselves, it upsets our balance, and that makes it hard for us to cope with the instincts.  Both sets of them."
	"You're right about that," he agreed.
	"I tried being the pattern Were-cat female, but I found it wasn't my style," she revealed.  "I was born human, and most of me likes to act that way.  And that works for me.  I know that you're alot different."
	He nodded.  "I'm a pattern Were-cat," he chuckled.
	"Not quite," she smiled.  "You still have alot of human in you.  I can see it in the way you act."
	"I guess I'll never get rid of it."
	"Don't get rid of it if you'd miss it," she warned.
	"I know."
	She laughed.  "The others think that humans are so soft and pliable, but they've never experienced the full force of human instinct," she told him.  "Natural Were-cats are born with more Cat than human, and it shows in all of them.  For me, the human instincts are actually the dominant ones.  They're just more willing to work with the Cat than the Cat is to work with the human."
	"I'm not so sure about me," he said.  "In me, they're more or less equal."
	"I know," she told him.  "But I can see the human in you, where the others can't.  I know what to look for, after all."
	"You know, you seem to know a great deal about that, from both viewpoints."
	"I kind of studied it for a while," she told him.  "I observed Were-cats, and I kept a journal for about ten years so I could have a record of everything I was feeling.  Since it defines us, I thought it would be a good idea to understand how we act as much as possible.  I thought that it would help me find my balance."
	"Did it?"
	"Not a bit," she laughed.  "The problem was that I was trying so hard I was missing the simplest answer."
	"What is that?"
	"To just be," she replied.  "Be whatever suited me most."
	"I wish I'd have figured that out sooner," he grunted.
	"How long it takes isn't as important as it happening," she reminded him.  "Why is Jesmind going with you?"
	"Jasana," he told her.  "Jasana is a Sorceress, Kimmie."
	"Really?"
	He nodded.  "And she's powerful.  She's easily more powerful than I am.  She can't control that power, so she absolutely has to stay near me, because her life depends on it.  Since I have no choice but to go, she has to go too.  Jesmind agreed to come with us."
	"That must not have been easy," Kimmie noted.
	"Actually, it was easier than I thought it would be," he said with a snort.  "I made her understand that Jasana's life depended on it.  Once I got her to see that, she more or less gave in.  But she's been cranky all day," he chuckled.  "I think she feels like she gave in too quickly now that it's over."
	"Jesmind has an ego, Tarrin, as well as about a lake full of pride. And let's not mention how stubborn she is."
	"She's just like me," Tarrin grinned.
	"I know.  I'm surprised you two didn't kill each other, especially since I know that you didn't know about Jasana."
	"We did come to blows," he admitted.  "When did you find out about that?"
	"Jesmind brought Jasana over to visit with Mist a few times," she replied.  "She and Mist struck up quite a friendship.  Nearly surprised me out of my dress to see her warm to a stranger the way she did, but I guess she and Jesmind have something in common."
	"What?"
	"You, silly," Kimmie grinned, smacking him lightly on the arm.  "They both have a child by you.  They almost looked like a couple of sisters."
	"What is Eron like?"
	"Loud," Kimmie said with a wicked little laugh.  "Loud, energetic, unmindful, and he always knows exactly what will get him in the most trouble.  Mist has so much patience with him that I still can't believe it.  I thought she'd start tearing her hair out a long time ago."
	"She's been waiting for this for a long time, Kimmie.  I don't think much of anything about being a mother would upset her."
	"You're right there," Kimmie agreed.  "It makes her a wonderful mother.  Eron is going to grow up with nothing but happy memories."
	"That's all that matters in the end," Tarrin said distantly, thinking about Mist and the son he had never seen.  "I hope I get to see him before he gets too big to hug."
	"He's about the same size as a two year old human," Kimmie told him.  "He can walk, but he's still a little clumsy.  He's learning to talk a little better every day.  He's reached the full sentence stage."  She scratched her neck.  "He's got absolutely huge paws.  He's going to be monstrously tall.  Just like his father," Kimmie added with a light smile and a nudge.
	"What does he look like?"
	"Well, he has black fur," she began, "but since both you and Mist have black fur, that was going to be more or less a given.  His hair was stark white when he was born, but now it's a kind of sandy blond.  He looks just like you, Tarrin," she told him.  "It's almost like you were turned into a baby and stuck with Mist.  He has Mist's stockiness, but his face is all yours."
	"I hope I can see him soon," he said again.
	"I'm sure you will," Kimmie told him.  "I don't see much packing in here.  It's surprising that you're all leaving in the morning."
	"We talked about that before you got here," he said.  "I convinced Jesmind to leave it all here.  I'll seal the farm with a Ward when we leave to keep everyone out, and I can Conjure anything we may need on the way.  That way we didn't have to spend days packing and preparing to leave.  We can leave carrying nothing but the clothes on our backs.  I've learned that that's the most efficient way to go about it."
	"Jesmind is one thing, but Jasana's another.  How much did she want to take?"
	"Everything, of course," Tarrin chuckled.  "Jesmind's the one that told her we're leaving.  She told me that she had to all but threaten Jasana to leave it all alone.  Given that we're leaving, I'm surprised she fell asleep so easily.  I thought she'd be too wound up to sleep."  He rubbed his jaw.  "Then again, now that I think about it, she hasn't shown much excitement about it to me."
	"From what I heard, you were pretty mad at her, Tarrin," Kimmie said.  "Maybe she doesn't want to look too eager to go when she knows that you're angry about having to take her in the first place."
	"You may be right," he agreed after a moment.  "You know almost as much about Were-cats as Triana does."
	"Well, thanks," Kimmie smiled.  "I'm the thinking Were-cat, Tarrin.  They tease me about that, too.  They all say I'm too busy sticking my nose in books to do what Were-cats are supposed to do."
	"That's their loss."
	"My feelings exactly," she said with a broad smile.  "Especially since they don't grill Thean the way they do me."
	"He's not turned."
	"That about sums it all up right there," she said.  "Be glad you're so tall, and so formidable, and you're a Druid, Tarrin.  You're going to avoid alot of the snubbing I endured, from the Were-cats and the rest of Fae-da'Nar.  I had to take it, because I have to admit that I'm not really as strong as most of the others.  I look like a human female, and I'm really as weak as I look for Were-cat standards.  Since I'm smaller than most, and weaker than most, and I don't like to fight, it means that I've had to simply accept whatever abuse they decided to dish out."
	"They don't do that now."
	"Not like they used to," she told him.  "After I started studying Arcane magic, I really didn't see the others all that much anymore."
	That made Tarrin give her a quick, startled look.  "You're studying magic?"
	She nodded.  "I'm not doing that bad, either, considering that I'm teaching myself.  I've learned to cast a few of the easier magic spells."
	Tarrin was startled by that, but then he realized that she was a Were-cat.  That meant that she could transcend the restrictions on magic set forth by the Elder Gods.  She had the Druidic touch that all Were-cats had, but she also had the capability to learn other kinds of magical ability.
	"I'm surprised, Kimmie," he said honestly.  "Nobody told me about that."
	"I don't advertise it," she said.  "After all, it's really nobody's business but mine, isn't it?"
	Tarrin laughed.  "You're right about that," he agreed.  "How long have you been studying?"
	"About five years now, I'd guess," she replied.  "It took me nearly four just to understand enough of the basics to cast my first cantrip.  I've managed to learn how to cast four different spells," she said proudly.
	"Well, congratulations," he said with a genuine smile.  "Maybe I should introduce you to Phandebrass."
	"Who's he?"
	"A Wizard, and a Wizard you don't take lightly," Tarrin told her. "He acts a bit scatterbrained, but I've seen his magic in action.  He's a very capable Wizard.  Who knows, maybe he'll tutor you."
	"I'd really like that," she said sincerely.
	"Well, we're going to Suld, and that's where he is.  So let's wait and see what happens."
	"You're so nice to me," she told him.
	"We're both turned, so we have to look out for each other," he replied, reaching out and patting her on the shoulder.  "I think I should think about going back to bed soon.  Jesmind is going to realize I'm not there in a little bit."
	"She loves you, you know," she told him with a gentle smile.  "She hasn't quite figured that out yet, because it's not exactly normal for a Were-cat to fall in love with a mate the way she has."
	"I'm not sure she can love like that, Kimmie.  Were-cats don't seem to be capable of forming those kinds of bonds outside of family."
	"No matter how much Cat someone has, there's still human there too, Tarrin," she said patiently.  "The Were-cats work so hard to be the Cat, they forget that the human instincts are in there too.  Any Were-cat can love like that, but the fact that there are so few males makes it kind of inconvenient.  They know that they can't keep their mates, so they work very hard not to let those kinds of feelings form.  Half the time, a female and male part because they're getting too close."
	Tarrin had never thought about it that way before.  He nodded in understanding, knowing that Kimmie was right.  Kimmie had proved to him that she understood the inner workings of Were-cats much better than he did, much better than just about anyone except Triana did, so he would accept her words as truth.  The fact was, he felt that she was right without taking that into account.  It also explained a great deal.
	It also made that truth smack him in the face.  Jesmind loved him.  It suddenly made her entire pattern of behavior apparent to him.  Everything she had done, everything she was doing, it all fit into a pattern of a woman who loved a man, yet wasn't sure if she could have him.  Trying to keep him close to her, even if he wouldn't feel for her as she felt for him.
	"What should I do?"
	"Nothing," Kimmie replied.  "Jesmind may love you, but she also understands our society, and Were-cat behavior.  She'll be your mate, hold on to you for a while, but she knows she'll eventually have to let you go.  You'll start wearing on each other if you stay together too long.  It's another Were-cat peculiarity," Kimmie smiled.  "We may be human, but the Were need to be alone for a while will always win out.  You two will be like Triana and Thean are.  They love each other a great deal, but they can't stay together all the time like married humans.  So they come together, renew their relationship and enjoy it for a while, then they part for a while when it starts straining on them.  That way, they always keep their love alive without letting their Were impulses destroy it."
	"I didn't know Triana felt that way about him."
	"It should have been obvious, Tarrin," Kimmie laughed.  "Didn't you see the way they looked at each other when you met Thean?"
	"I was a little overwhelmed with other things at the time, Kimmie," he said defensively.
	"I guess you were at that," she admitted with a smile.  "You're guaranteed never to be alone, Tarrin," she chuckled.  "Jesmind and Mist are going to fight over who gets to keep you next, I know that."
	"Mist?" he said in surprise.
	"You're the only male she would trust enough to be mates with, Tarrin.  And she does like you, a great deal.  In her own way, she loves you as much as Jesmind loves you.  Is it a stretch to think that she'd want you for mate again, after Eron is grown and on his own?"
	"Well, no," he admitted after thinking about it a moment.
	"Mist isn't the only one.  I'd like to have a turn," Kimmie said with a slight, shy smile.  "I like you.  We can relate to each other in ways the others wouldn't understand.  I think we could be good mates."
	"You'd better keep that to yourself around here, Kimmie," he said seriously.
	"Jesmind knows I wouldn't dream of trying to steal you, Tarrin."
	"You just did."
	"No, I didn't.  I told you that after you and Jesmind part, I wouldn't mind being your mate.  There's a difference.  I won't even think about it until after you and Jesmind part ways."  She looked at him.  "But when you do, don't make yourself too hard to find," she said with a smile.
	Her admission surprised him, but he also knew that it didn't change the way he thought about her.  He'd become accustomed to both the strange ways of females and his own Were-dominated feelings on such subjects.
	"That could be quite a wait."
	"If anything, Tarrin, we have time," she told him.  "I figure Jesmind will manage to keep you for about ten years or so, and only that long because of Jasana.  By then, you'll really start to gnaw on each other's tails, and you'll split up for a while.  After you're free, you're fair game."  Kimmie picked up a small twig that had fallen out of the woodbox, then tossed it into the fire.  "Face it, Tarrin.   You'll never be able to have a marriage the way humans do.  But you were human, so part of you will want that.  So I suggest you choose two or three females you really like, and form something of a rotating relationship with them."
	"Listen to you," Tarrin chuckled.  "And why three?"
	"Well, Jesmind, Mist, and myself, of course," she said with a sly smile.  "Any more than that, and we'll be having fights over who gets the next turn."
	Tarrin laughed.
	"Well, I'm not joking about it, Tarrin.  Part of you wants a permanent relationship, but you know you can't have it.  So form a permanent relationship, but just with different females.  You can stay here, and we'll come to you.  That way you feel like you're in a marriage--"
	"It's just that the woman I wake with every morning changes."
	"Variety spices life," she winked.
	Jesmind padded out of the hallway.  She too was nude, looking down at the two of them with  just a little jealousy in her eyes.  "I didn't think you'd be chasing after my mate, Kimmie.  I'm surprised," she said in an ominous tone.
	"I won't touch him so long as he's yours, Jesmind," Kimmie told her sedately.  Years of putting her life on the line with Mist had made Kimmie all but unflappable.  "I never hid the fact that I'm just as attracted to him as you and Mist are, you know that.  Furies, woman, you've heard us gossip about him over the table when you came to visit with Jasana.  I'm talking with him about after you and him split up."
	"Oh.  That's alright, then," Jesmind told her with a yawn.  "You two should go back to bed."
	"Gossip over me?" Tarrin said in surprise.
	Kimmie gave him a wicked smile.  "Jesmind and Mist were, comparing," she said with a naughty catch in her voice.
	"Comparing?"
	"Of course," Jesmind told him with a fanged smile.  "We were curious what the other thought about how well you--"
	"That's enough of that," Tarrin interrupted.  "Jasana may hear you."
	"She heard us the first time," Jesmind told him bluntly.  "Mist feels a bit cheated," Jesmind told him with a mischievious look.  "You were injured when she had you.  She wants another go at it with you healthy, so we can do a full comparison."
	Tarrin actually blushed.
	"I might give it to her," Jesmind mused.  "I'd lend you to Mist, since she's such a good friend now."
	Tarrin stared at the fire.  He knew if he looked Jesmind in the eye, he'd lose his composure.
	What was it about Jesmind that always made him feel like that same naive little boy he'd been when she found him?
	"After hearing the glowing stories about you, a girl can't help but be curious," Kimmie pressed relentlessly.
	"You too, Kimmie?" Tarrin groaned.
	"Don't let the blue eyes fool you, Tarrin," Kimmie smirked.  "I'm just as hot-blooded as any oth