"Why does she wear a dress with the top missing, papa?" she asked him innocently.

"Because she likes to, cub," he replied shortly.

"Young girls like showing off a bit, young one," Garyth told her delicately.

"If she likes showing off her-"

"Jasana!" Tarrin warned sharply.

"Well, if she likes showing them off, why not just go without a top? That's showing them off better than hiding most of what she wants everyone to see."

Garyth burst out into laughter, and Tarrin shook his head. Jasana said it more than loudly enough for everyone to hear her. Millie Korlan turned and glared venemously at the little girl, her cheeks flaming and her arms crossing over her breasts almost as if she'd been stripped bare before the common room. "Humans are picky about things like that, cub," Tarrin told her calmly. "Especially females. There are some things they just don't show in public."

"I think it's silly."

"It may be, but that's the way we are, child," Garyth told her with a grin, then he turned and winked in Millie's direction.

"But she's already showing them."

"She's showing the parts of them acceptable to be seen in public," Tarrin explained patiently. "If she showed-"

"Tarrin, lad," Garyth cut him off with a laugh.

"Well, let's just say that there's one part there that she can't show in public. Everything else is acceptable. Maybe a little scandalous, but acceptable."

Millie turned and fled from the common room, accompanied by more than a few chuckles.

"Which part?" Jasana pressed.

Garyth laughed. "Millie left. Why not tell her?" he said with a wide smile.

Without batting an eye, Tarrin did in fact inform his daughter about just what part the human female wouldn't reveal in public.

"That's not such a big deal," Jasana scoffed. "It's not like she's-"

"That'll do, cub," Tarrin said flintily.

"Yes, papa," she said obediently.

"Children are children, no matter what race they are," Garyth chuckled.

After Jasana calmed down, getting interested in the deck of cards Wylan Ren brought out to distract her, Tarrin let Garyth bring him up to date on all the news of the village. A more detailed account of what happened when the Dals invaded, as well as the recent goings-on with the Rangers and the struggle to choke off the Dal supply lines. Tarrin sat and listened for quite a while as Garyth filled him in on everything he could remember, at least until Jak returned. "Everyone's in, Garyth," he said in his dead voice. "They've brought in everything, so we're ready."

"Thanks, Jak," Garyth said with a nod. "Alright then, lad, it's time for you to do your part."

They went outside. Alot of the dispossessed familes form the outer farms were piled up in the green, carts and horses loaded with everything that they didn't want to leave behind. It made Aldreth look like a refugee camp. That saddened him a bit, to see his home turned upside-down as it had, but there wasn't much choice about it. He looked around and made sure that everyone was within the boundary of the buildings, and seeing them safely inside, he nodded and stepped into the center of the green.

Closing his eyes, he prepared, thinking over exactly what he wanted to do. He worked out the size of the Ward he wanted, and went over how he'd have to weave it together. He didn't want it to be permanent, but its size would demand that he use High Sorcery. Normal Sorcery or Weavespinner Sorcery wouldn't be able to form a Ward of that size.

He was ready. Opening his eyes, he reached out and exerted his will against the Weave, pulling in the power that had once flown into him unforced. His paws erupted with the ghostly radiance of High Sorcery, which made many of the villagers gasp and turn quiet to watch the mystical power of Sorcery exercised among them.

But nobody, not even Tarrin, noticed the look of intense, deliberate concentration on Jasana's little face as she watched her father perform his magic.

The power needed drawn in, Tarrin turned his attention to the weaving. Massive flows of Air and Divine power, the main flows of a Ward, radiated out from him staight up, then cascaded down in a truly huge circular pattern around the village, reaching the ground about a hundred spans past the outside edge of the village, well in bow range but not close enough for men to throw torches. The flows expanded and filled in, going from ropes to sheets, then the merged to combine into the singular magical construction that was the Ward. Tarrin continued to feed energy into it, saturating the formation of its matrix, charging it so it could maintain itself for a considerable amount of time. He filled it until the Ward's integrity couldn't withstand any more extra energy, and reasoned that a Ward of that size with that much charging would last for nearly ten days. More than enough time for the villagers to march down, take Torrian, then march back before it failed.

The air beyond the village shimmered visibly for a short moment, and then it vanished from sight.

Closing his paws, the light fading from around them, Tarrin released the residual energy inside him back into the Weave and let go. "That's it," he said calmly. "Nobody other than humans or Were-cats can cross the Ward, and no steel or iron can cross the boundary from outside the Ward. I set it so it will last about ten days. I think that's more than enough time."

"It should be, lad," Garyth agreed.

"Good. What time will the men be ready-"

Tarrin was brought up short as a sudden shift of the Weave warned him that something was going on. He looked around as that feeling became more pronounced, and then his eyes locked on Jasana just in time to see her close her eyes and assume an expression that was both serene and intensely focused. He could feel her reaching out with her power, reaching for the Weave, and what was worse, the Weave was reacting to her!

"Jasana, no!" he said with sudden fright. She wasn't trying to touch the Weave, she was trying to touch High Sorcery! He took three quick steps towards her, nearly reaching her, but he recovered from his frighetened reaction and went about stopping her in the only way he would be able to do so.

There was no time. The Weave was reacting to her, and if he didn't move quickly- now -she was going to succeed in what she was trying to do. Flooding himself with the power, causing his paws to explode into Magelight, he diverted that energy away from his daughter by draining it into himself. She opened her eyes with an almost exultant look on her face, Jasana reached out towards him with those tiny paws-

– -and he felt her power reach out to him, exactly as it had done the day before. But he was joined with the Weave this time, joined in power, and he was too busy managing that power to attempt to deflect his daughter a second time. Before he could conceive of a way to use the power he held to stop her, she managed to form that bond between them, managed to lock herself to him in a manner that he had only experienced a rare few times before.

Jasana had formed a Circle with him.

The shift in the Weave was dramatic and unmistakable. Their two separate powers combined into a whole that was stronger than the sum of its parts, and a tenuous link materialized inside him, a tiny piece of his daughter's mind that had joined to his own. That link of minds was something that the Cat violently rejected every time he had tried to Circle before, but this time, it saw in the link something that did not seem alien to it. The Cat welcomed this link where it had rejected all others, because the one at the other side of the link was another Were-cat.

Jasana's child mind had formed the Circle with Tarrin leading it, acceding to the authority of her father, and he could feel her through that mental bond. She had no fear of what was happening, what she had done, more satisfied that she had done something she thought she could do rather than fearing this strange new sensation.