He didn't know anymore. Nothing seemed to really make any sense. Not him, not his mission, not the world, not anything.

None of the others would really understand. Besides, he doubted that he could look any of them in the eye, even Allia, and admit to them that he was almost militantly indifferent to the suffering he had left strewn behind him. They'd probably never look at him the same way again. And he wasn't sure if their rejection of him would impact him. If killing a few hundred people and laying waste to a portion of a city didn't incite any remorse in him, he couldn't see how being rejected by his friends and sisters would.

There are many kinds of pain, my kitten, the powerful, choral mental voice of the Goddess sang into his mind, overwhelming him with her presence and her power, subjugating his soul by the mere contact she made to speak with him. She was the reason he was going against his instincts, his own desires. She was the driving force behind his current position, and there was no way that he could deny the fact that he loved her, both as a goddess and as a friend. That in itself never ceased to confuse him, but it seemed to be the way that his mysterious, capricious deity preferred it.

He felt a sudden wave of intense shame. Nobody but her could look inside him, to see the ugly truth within. She knew his turmoil, so she knew its cause. To think that she saw his soul bare caused a powerful pang of both pain and embarassment.

Stop that, she said harshly. When I accepted you, I fully understood what I was taking. I know you're not perfect, my kitten. And we all do things that we would prefer nobody knew. But I think you know that everything I see in you never goes any further. To break your trust like that would be a horrible transgression.

"Transgression? Against me?" he asked with a derisive snort.

Of course, she said. You may not understand it yet, my kitten, but the relationship between a god and a mortal devoted to that god works both ways in many respects. Just as I preclude you from speaking my name aloud, I'm expected to keep the inner thoughts and dreams of the mortals under my care in the strictest confidence. If you really studied it, I think you'd find that for every single thing that you give to a god, by devotion, sacrement, vows, or devotions, you receive it back in the form of a favor or gift. It's not a one-sided relationship. Because of that, even us gods have some rules to follow, or we'll lose our mortal followers, and in a way, our own power. But what's worst, we'd lose the respect of other gods. Not even Berrok, the god of corruption and strife, would dare divulge the secrets of one of his followers.

"What does that have to do with anything?"

Nothing, she replied with a light chuckle. But I like to give my followers a more enlightened understanding of things than other gods. Most like to keep their followers in the dark, to maintain that mystique surrounding them and their power. Keep a mortal in awe, they think, and he'll be a bit more devout. I happen to think that when a mortal makes a conscious choice after all the cards are laid out on the table, his devotion is twice as powerful as the awed mortal's would be. There was a short silence. I guess what I really want you to know is that I'll love you no matter what, kitten, she said. I accepted you for what you are, and despite what you think, I knew that your actions would occasionally go left of center.

"Thanks," he said quietly, but with utter sincerity. The powerful shame he felt lifted somewhat; it was still there, he doubted that it would ever go away, but her kind words had lifted it partially away. "But what does it mean, goddess? Why don't I feel anything?"

That's something that I can't answer, my kitten, she said seriously. For me to simply explain it away wouldn't do you any good. I told you once before that there were some things that you had to discover for yourself. Well, this is one of those things. It won't have any meaning for you unless you're the one who discovers it first.

"Sometimes I think you say that just because you don't want me to know."

Time will tell, she replied calmly. When you have the answer, you can look back to this moment and make that conclusion for yourself.

"It doesn't make it any easier."

It was never supposed to make it easy, she replied. Anything gained easily isn't valued as much as that gained through hardship. There are some lessons that can only be learned in pain, Tarrin. I don't like seeing you in pain, but it makes you stronger, and it teaches you to learn how to make the pain go away for good. If I were to soothe that pain, it would make you feel better now, but then the pain would never go away. If you learn to conquer it yourself, then it will be gone forever. Now, which would you prefer?

"I hate logic," he growled after a moment.

There was a sound not too much unlike a girlish giggle. Just keep your chin up, my kitten, she told him. I have to go now. Be well, and I love you.

And then the sensation of her was gone, leaving him feeling peculiarly empty inside. And it left him even more confused than he'd been in the first place.

She wouldn't help him. That stung a little bit, but part of him could understand why. Just like letting a child stick his hand in the fire to teach him not to do it, she was leaving him to sort things through for himself, so that experience would be more help to him in the long run.

But what if he messed it up? Tarrin's control had evaporated over the months. The short term, the now, that always hung so heavily in front of him that he often forgot to look at things from more than one side. Had he simply stepped back a moment and thought things through, he could have easily led the female away safely, rather than get into a fight with her. But he hadn't. He had looked at right now and had acted on it with little regard as to what his actions would incite in the future. What if the answers to his questions were found in the long view, and he passed it over to take the shorter, more immediate path?

Doubt, worry, they had become such unwelcome friends lately. He doubted himself, his mission. He worried over what he would do next, how badly things would turn out. There seemed to be no escape from it. It surrounded him like the walls of his tiny cabin below, hemming him in and making him feel like he was trapped.

The wind kicked up a loud whistling keen through the jags in Shipkiller Rock, and Tarrin pulled the blanket a bit more around his shoulders.

There just didn't seem to be answers to anything this night.

The ship plied the surging waves ever southward, and everyone was on edge. There were a various number of reasons for it. The ship was on half rations until they reached the port of Roulet, because they hadn't loaded up all the supplies before the explosion. The reduced food made most of the men on the ship cranky, and numerous lines were cast out by sailors not on duty, to try to supplement what salted meat and hard tack remained with fresh fish. The explosion itself had put many of the men on edge. Such a thing had never happened before, at least not that any of them had seen, and it was all the men talked about between grumblings of a light breakfast. Tarrin's solid position near the bow itself had unnerved many of the men, for he stood at the rail and gazed out to sea for hours on end, unmoving, only the swishing of his tail reminding all who stared at him that he wasn't some kind of elaborately decorated statue.

But it was the birds that unnerved everyone the most. Hundreds of them, gulls, albatross, darts and even land birds like swallows and pidgeons, they peppered the sky like a moving cloud. They seemed to follow no specific pattern, yet they seemed to be moving in a general direction, circling and gliding on the brisk sea breeze blowing in from the west. None of the sailors had ever seen so many birds concentrated into a small region before, and it seemed unnatural. Sea eagles, hawks, and other raptors shared space peacefully with the birds which would usually be their prey, as if they had put aside their natural rivalry for some other purpose. The ship was travelling southerly, but the birds seemed to be drifting to the north, and they had already passed underneath the majority of them. The deck showed that passing in the many splatters from the birds above, which caused the captain to grumble and spit irritably. The captain was a compulsively neat man, and such a mess certainly got on his nerves.