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"As long as he doesn't try to play the avenging heroic figure, he'll be fine... of course, Kero has trouble with letting others do the fighting for him. He tends to want to get right into the thick of it, rather than direct it from afar. Even then, unless Juiblex gets the drop on him, he'll be fine. Trouble is, I don't know for certain how large of an invasion it is or how determined. Some demonic invasions are nothing more than feelers, for someone else. In other words, a higher power talks a lower one into wasting his or her forces so he can test the meddle of the one they are attacking." says Tam nibbling a bit more at his breakfast.

Passura gasps, turns to Tam, then with a sudden burst of determination, disappears.

Tam curls about his young cubs, shivering. Something does not feel right about all this, He doesn't feel that sudden separation he normally feels when one over whom he has been placed to guard dies. In the depths of his heart he prays Kero is only testing the boy but even so, doubts begin to nag him... especially so since he is quite certain the lad has gone to wherever he feels Kerobian is. Alone and uncertain, knowing only he cannot abandon his cubs, Tam finds himself weeping, afraid deep in his bones that for once in his life, his instincts have failed him.

Passura walks into the cave, sulking, which gives Tam a little idea of what had happened.

"He was on top of things, heh?" he asks gently testing the emotional waters.

The boy nods and curls up into a defensive ball. "He had some cockamamie idea about battling the demon from inside of him... How was I to know? What was I to do? He... he's mad at me again and all I wanted to do is help him like he helped me. He can fight for me, but I can't do a damn thing for him. He's not god ye know."

Tam chuckles softly. "I know... he's like that. He'd have even given me hell if I had gone. Trust me. Had you waited I could have warned ye... I have this connection to him... I'll know when it's his time."

"But it's not right!... I love him... when ye love someone ye fight for them... right?"

"Yes... but what good could ye have done?" asks Tam gently.

The boy savagely shakes his head. "That's not the point.. I had to try...."

"And serving what purpose?" says Tam gently. "Pasa, you put yourself in grave danger. If that demon had enough power to overcome Kerobian, would he not have more than enough to eliminate you as well. In truth, ye would have been naught but a meddlesome fly on the wall. He wouldn't have even given any thought to ye, simply swatted ye into oblivion."

The boy is openly crying now, great gulping sobs. "But don't ye understand. It isn't right... far too many people have died so I could live already... I... I cannot bear the thought of losing another. What right would I have to live if he wasn't here. I... I live because he wants me to live... no other reason... none... I SHOULD BE DEAD!"

Tam summons Bez, who comes in silently and retrieves the cubs, handing one to Emnast who has followed him out of curiousity. The tiny dragon eyes the boy with wise sad eyes and urges Bez to leave, allowing Tam to move and curl up around the small trembling black body.

"Hush... Pasa, listen to me... Kero wants you to live because you deserve to live... not die... Trust me... he loves you... not because he saved you... not because he feels obligated to do so... but because he wants to... we all do."

When his words go ignored, he simply does what he can to keep the boy warm and there... somehow knowing that the child is very very close to jumping to nowhere and anywhere, in a reckless attempt to runaway.

The boy clings to him sobbing his heart out, until at long last he does fall into an uneasy sleep.

"I thought we had balanced him some..." says Tam quietly from the doorway. He pads his way in and rubs up against Kerobian, offering him his support. "But in truth he's only re-focused his emotions into a blind devotion... not that I mind him loving ye as he does... ye deserve it in my book... but..." The great white lioness leans up against him and sighs.

Tam nods firmly. "Perhaps that is indeed what he needs, though not to any excess. He did endanger himself... and in a way,,, you as well. Had your spell not been ready, who knows what could have happened. Perhaps we're going about this the wrong way. Mayhaps we need to teach him how to defend himself, truly. His mind skills are next to none and I know of very few mind mages who can be bested in a fight. If you can make him self reliant... oh, I don't know... I'm not a mind healer... I can guard... I can mother a soul to death... but I've never had to heal one... outside of you, of course... and with you, teaching you to accept love was one of the easiest tasks I've ever been given."

**Pasa is ten.. and as for an offense... I'm not 100% sure there was one... at least not in his eyes. Yes. he followed you... but looking at it from his point of view, he was doing the only thing he knew possible that he could do... He was going to get ye back come hell or high water... seriously... it was stupid... idiotic... and doomed to failure... and he knew it... but without you, he did not want to live... can ye spell Love in any other way... Deal with it however ye wish and I"ll work with it, but I've just put ye in one of the parental quandaries that story tellers love... xd **

The boy hiccups noisily against Kerobian's shirt, still clinging, unsure how the mage is going to deal with him now, but happy just to be there with him, holding him when he was so certain he would never see him again.