Faalken blinked, then chuckled ruefully. "Right on all counts," he admitted. "I think I understand what you mean then. Feel better?" he asked as he put the stones board on the small table.

"Much," he replied. "Just eating did wonders."

"Did Dolanna tell you what's happened? With the other one and all?"

Tarrin nodded.

"Well, as soon as she's sure you're alright, we'll be moving out," he said. "Dolanna wants to get you to the Tower immediately. If there are any side effects or complications over what happened to you, there isn't a better place to be."

"She didn't tell me that," he said.

"She probably didn't want to worry you," he said, sitting down and pushing the mug of milk towards him. Then he opened the pouch and poured the stones out onto the board. "She probably want you to only think of one thing at a time. I can't argue with it, but I prefer a more direct method of doing things. You want white or black?"

"I'll take black," he said as he moved away from the window. He looked at the chair a moment, then managed to figure out how to sit down in it without pinching his tail behind him. He did it by turning the chair around and straddling it, crossing his arms over the back, which was now in front of him.

"Kind of hard, isn't it?" he asked.

"Sorta," he said. "So far, all the tail's done is move by itself. I can't figure it out."

"Practice," Faalken shrugged. "It'll give you something to do while you're waiting for me to lose."

"I'll do that," he promised.

Faalken was a good stones player, so there was a considerable amount of time between moves. Tarrin took that time looking back at his tail when he wasn't studying the board, sensing what he felt when it moved, what he felt when he touched it, and how it felt as it moved through the air. He took all these sensations and started picking through them, until he thought he had a good idea of where the muscles were, which ones were which, and what he had to do to get some reaction out of it. Reaction that wasn't reflexive, anyway. He sucked in his breath and tried to make it stop moving.

And got nothing for his trouble.

Furrowing his brow, he tried again, but still there was nothing.

He decided that he was going at this the wrong way. Instead of making it stop, he decided to make it move the way he wanted it to. He watched it sway back and forth of its own volition, studying what he was feeling in combination with what he was seeing. "Your move, Tarrin," Faalken prompted. Tarrin turned around and studied the board for a few minutes, and placed a stone on the board, then went back to watching his tail. After a few more minutes, he thought he had it. Instead of making it stop, Tarrin tried to make it stick straight out.

And it did.

He was a bit amazed. Straight, his tail was longer than his leg, over half the length of his body, nearly three quarters of it. A good span of it would drag the ground if it went limp. When it was moving, and looped and curled, it didn't look that long. Tarrin tried something else, bringing his tail around his body. It didn't move smoothly, but it did manage to curl around his side. It was very flexible, he noticed. It kept wanting to go back to what it was doing, and that made it hard to keep control of it.

"Having fun?" Faalken asked.

"This isn't easy," Tarrin told him. "It has a mind of its own." Tarrin let it slide up his side, feeling the fur slide by even as the tail felt his shirt ghost by, then slipped it over his shoulder and wrapped the good span of extra tail around his neck. The tip just made it past the edge of his other shoulder. He wondered how strong it was. If it had the same inhuman strength he did, then it would actually be a rather formidable surprise. It may even support his weight.

"Not bad," the knight said. "Your move."

Tarrin put a stone down on the board. "I was wondering how that creature got up to your room," Faalken said.

"With these," Tarrin replied, showing Faalken his claws. "As strong as she was, she could have driven the tips into the stone and climbed up that way. I think I could do it."

"Probably," he said, "but are you sure she was that strong?"

"Faalken, she threw me across the room with one arm," Tarrin told him. "She was strong enough."

"Are you sure that happened?"

"Would you like a demonstration?" Tarrin asked him testily.

"As a matter of fact, I would," he said, standing up. "I'm curious about this, and it'll give you the chance to come to understand yourself a little better."

Tarrin stood up, got in front of the shorter, stocky man, grabbed him by the upper edge of his breastplate, and hauled him into the air. Tarrin held him at arm's length up and out, letting Faalken's feet dangle well off the floor. Tarrin looked up at him calmly as Faalken's eyes bulged a bit, and he grabbed Tarrin's wrist with both hands reflexively. "And this isn't even much of a strain," Tarrin told him. "I can throw you, if you'd like."

"I get the idea," Faalken said, a bit weakly.

Tarrin set him down on his feet gently, then Faalken grinned at him.

Tarrin gave him a look. "You did that on purpose," he accused.

"Yes," he said. "Dolanna told me about you, about what the change did to you. I wanted to see if you were aware of it yourself. Now then, it's my move."

They played five more games in relative silence, with occasional idle chatter, and Tarrin practicing with his tail, and then with voluntarily moving his ears. The ears were easier and harder at the same time; it didn't take him long to figure out how to move them, but they instantly moved towards any sound on their own. They'd often take off on him in the middle of an attempt to move them, when Faalken made a sound. Tarrin couldn't have had anything better. It was a sense of normalcy to him, and the burly knight did everything he could to make Tarrin feel at ease. He never stared, never blinked, never flinched, even when Tarrin accidentally touched him. What Faalken couldn't understand was that the instincts in Tarrin's mind had forced the acceptance of the change onto him, that, despite it only being hours since he'd awoke to discover himself altered, he had already come to accept it as a new part of his life. Not to be pined over and fretted about, but to be learned and overcome. He was still determined to go to the Tower, to go on with his life. This just changed things. He doubted that he could get into the army like this, but he was sure that he could find something to do, something where this would make very little difference. There was so much of his life that was now thrown up in the air. And this afternoon of playing stones made everything seem like it would work itself out.

There was a knock at the door. "Who is it?" Faalken called. Tarrin didn't know who it was either; the faint scent coming under the door wasn't Dolanna, and hers was the only other man-scent he knew.

"It's Arren," came the reply.

"My Duke, come in," Faalken said, a bit nervously.

The door opened, and the middle-aged Duke Arren entered the room. He was dressed in a black doublet and hose, the doublet with silver thread embroidered into the shape of a hawk on the front. His eyes were a bit tired, and he just waved them off when both of them moved to rise in his presence. "There's no need for any of that," he said. "Tarrin, I'd like to apologize-"

"My Lord, there's nothing you could have done," he cut him off. "Nothing you could have done would have stopped her, even if you knew she was coming. There's no blame to be taken. I'm not dead, you know. I'll learn to deal with this."

"I'd have to agree with you," he said, pulling the third chair over to the table and sitting down. "She killed twelve men escaping from the cells. Twelve men, and two of them were the best fighters I had."