Tarrin turned that over in his mind, and found no insult in it. Tarrin was also a Knight, so he had a duty to defend the honor of the order. She had acceded that the Knights were a formidable order, so it satisfied him. And, after all, she was telling the truth. Armor didn't make a warrior. The Ungardt rarely wore anything more than a mail shirt, something to stop those annoying little nicks and cuts, because the Ungardt style relied on training over armor for protection.
The cook handed Tarrin a huge bowl of stew when they reached the galley, and they turned around and went back up on deck. Tarrin sat on a rope coil and enjoyed the meal, stew with hardbread, as Camara Tal leaned against the rail beside him and Phandebrass wrote something down in his book quietly. "Where's the bug?" Camara Tal asked. "She's not hiding on your head today."
"She's up in the rigging sulking," Tarrin replied between bites of stew. "She did something to Renoit, so she's hiding."
"She's going to get her wings ripped off if she doesn't stop," Camara Tal snorted. "I found a snake in my footlocker this morning."
"I say, where did she find a snake?" Phandebrass asked.
"From the sea, wizard," Camara Tal snorted. "There are sea snakes. She'd better be lucky I saw it in time. The snake she put in my locker happens to be the deadliest snake in the world. If it would have bitten me, I'd have been dead inside two minutes."
"I say, I hope she didn't know that. I'd have a different opinion of her if I knew she was being malicious."
"She's a Faerie. She probably has no idea about the animals in the sea. I doubt she knew it was poisonous, but it wouldn't take a genius to figure it out."
"Why?" Tarrin asked.
"Simple, my boy," Phandebrass said. "Snakes are well known to be venemous, and snakes kill prey either by venom or by constriction. A sea snake would find constriction to be a very difficult means of killing prey, so they must therefore be venemous."
"Why would a snake have trouble constricting in the sea?"
"Constriction doesn't crush the victim, it simply squeezes them to the point where the victim can no longer breathe," he answered. "A fish doesn't have lungs, my boy, so constriction wouldn't work very well on one unless the snake was strong enough to crush it."
"Oh. I guess that makes sense," Tarrin agreed.
"I say, where did you learn about sea snakes, mistress Tal?"
"I live on an island, wizard," she smiled. "An island surrounded by coral reefs."
"Good answer," he chuckled.
By the time Tarrin was done eating, Allia, Dar, and Dolanna came up from below decks. They had been having another learning session. The little green-scaled drake on Allia's shoulder flapped away when she approached Tarrin, who stood and took her hand gently when she approached. " Deshida," she greeted. "You should have been with us. Dolanna taught us about healing."
"How did it go?"
"I'm strong enough in the necessary Spheres," she said in Selani. "Dar, on the other hand, doesn't have enough affinity with Earth to heal much more than a scratch."
"His talent seems to be Illusions," Tarrin speculated in Selani. Usually, when they spoke to each other, they both tended to speak Selani, for it was Allia's native language, and she was much more expressive and comfortable with it. Tarrin's natural aptitude for languages made him just as comfortable with it as she was. "Earth isn't an Illusion Sphere."
"I seem to have trouble with Air," Allia frowned. "I think that's why I find Illusions so difficult. I've gotten spoiled by you and Keritanima. You make it look so easy, when I go to practice, I get discouraged."
"It's never easy for me, deshaida," he grunted as they walked away from Camara Tal and Phandebrass, without so much as a goodbye. Allia didn't really know either of them, and Tarrin didn't care enough either way to be courteous. "Kerri just makes it look easy because she can duplicate spells. She still has to practice when the spells have to be altered."
"Brother, she does make it look easy," she pressed.
Tarrin chuckled. "Alright, I guess she does," he admitted. "How much did you learn?"
"Healing is hard," she frowned. "Dolanna said that we have to go slow and be careful, because there isn't room for mistakes when you heal."
"There's not. If you mess it up, you can kill your patient."
Allia nodded as they stopped by the rail and looked out over the wavy sea. The tension in her eyes arose immediately at the sight of all that water, and she unconsciously put her hand on his forearm and held on. Allia was afraid of great expanses of water-an understandable phobia for someone who was raised in a desert-but she was very good about conquering her fear. She wouldn't hide from the water or refuse to look at it, she would stand at the rail and stare at it every day, in an attempt to acclimate herself to its presence and eliminate her fear. Allia wasn't the kind to hide from anything. "All she taught us today was the basics of how it's done," she continued. "I learned how to use it for small things, things that aren't dangerous. I healed a cut on Faalken's arm," she said proudly.
"That's a good start," he replied. "Everything about healing works on that one basic function. Mending cuts. It's all mending cuts."
Allia nodded. "Where is the little winged one?" There was no Selani word for Faerie, so Allia made do as best she could.
"Hiding," he replied. "She pulled a stunt on Renoit, and she's hiding from him."
"Someone should teach her that doing things to people that they don't like is unhealthy."
"I'll teach her the next time she tries something on me," he promised with an ominous growl.
"I've never seen such a frivilous person," Allia said seriously.
"Triana described them to me, and so far, she's a perfect example of her race. Triana said they all have almost no self control."
"That's a good description," Allia grunted. "If not for that, I'd probably like her."
"She's not so bad," he said in defense of her. "She's pretty intelligent, and she's sincere. I can understand her actions, even if I don't like them, because it's a part of who she is. We just have to get her to calm down, that's all, and I think people won't mind her as much."
"You? Defending her?" Allia said with a wry smile and a little giggle.
"I guess someone has to," he returned. "Outside of her pranks, she's not that bad. A little too unstable, but everyone has faults."
"True, true," Allia agreed. "It looks like it's time to earn my way," she sighed, looking at the acrobats that had come up from below and down from the rigging. It was time for then to practice. Allia had been teaching them new maneuvers and helping them create a new act, an act more breathtaking and impressive than their old act. They had acclimated well to Allia, at least everyone but Henri, who was still a little resentful of the graceful Selani's towering superiority over her human pupils, and had learned much from her.
Henri was one of only about five names he knew among the performers. He knew Henri from their last encounter, an encounter that had the willowy man evade him like a leper. He knew Renoit, and he knew Shelli, who was one of the dancers. She was from the Stormhaven Islands, and spoke with the most unusual brogue that never failed to capture him when he heard it. That brogue had been why he had tried to overcome his fear and make friends with her, and to her credit, she had tried hard to urge him out of his shell. Shelli was a wonderfully sweet and compassionate girl, with a big heart and a kind word for everyone. But despite her exceptional compassion and sweetness, Tarrin was just too nervous around her. It had failed, like every other attempt he had made. He knew only one other name, and that was a juggler that doubled as the ship's head cook. He was a tall, rather portly man named Deward, a man who loved to laugh, could cook like nobody's business, and could juggle six knives with a blindfold over his eyes. The human's manual dexterity had awed Tarrin, who would be hard pressed to duplicate his feat, even with his cat-enhanced reflexes and agility. The man absolutely could not be beaten darts or knifethrowing. He could throw his dart or knife exactly where he wanted them to go. Deward had once been a knifethrower, casting knives at a living target to amaze the audience, but he had suffered some kind of seizure during an act and had put a knife through the leg of his assistant. Tarrin learned that Deward still suffered from those seizures occasionally, and that made it too dangerous for him to continue with a live target. Intending never to put another assistant in danger again, Deward had moved into juggling instead, where the only person at risk was himself. He still did a small portion of his throwing act, but threw at small corks thrown into the air instead of a scantily clad girl standing in front of a wooden slab.