Mud had been seeping in between her toes for hours. Lethe's tail steadily swayed back and forth with annoyance while she made her way through the forest. With each step, her anger increased. What purpose did the abundance of foliage have, if not to block the rain from hitting the ground?

She had explained to her new subordinate, a fierce looking tiger named Mordecai, that they would travel under the cover of the forest to remain hidden from any Daein soldiers. However, Lethe knew that if they were to have such luck, stragglers would stand little chance against their combined might. Her main reason would be to avoid getting her fur wet.

Lethe glanced back towards Mordecai to convey that she had caught the scent of their targets.

The tiger had been following close behind his superior. He made eye contact with her, acknowledging the signal.

He might have smelled the beorc sooner, but his senses seemed to be overwhelmed with Lethe's anger. He had been watching the entire time as she lifted her foot, vigorously shook it, and then placed it back down in the stuff that she hated once more. Mordecai at first thought it was funny, but as time pressed on he grew ever tense at the sight. He felt that at any moment Lethe would go crazy and attack a poor, defenseless, imaginary opponent.

The larger cat had welcomed the rain, and was appreciative that their journey would have such a refreshing end. His paws were to readily find puddles for the rest of the course.

-xXx-

Lethe paused at the sound of metal striking metal. She remained standing while Mordecai stopped and sat next to her. The two of them were able to see the clearing and an aged stone structure at the center of it, but not the beorc they intended to aide. Yet, they did see the black and red colors of Daein.

Mordecai looked at the scene warily while Lethe moved on ahead. He stood up to follow her as he always did, but Lethe stopped and turned to give a stern stare. Mordecai lowered himself into a submissive crouch, and broke the eye contact they once easily shared. He was not to trail her.

The Crimeans were surrounded. The cats would split up in order to surround the site themselves, and from there they would attack.

It took only moments to find a spot beneath the shadows to wait. Lethe imagined herself "accidently" striking down the Crimeans. Her inner voice snickered a bit, silencing only at the prospect of disappointing her king. She reminded herself that she had a task and that she must maintain the responsibility to complete it with utmost efficiency. The idea that their allies really couldn't be that great danced at the edge of her mind. These people had allowed themselves to get surrounded by other dirty, metal-clanking people, therefore, she rationalized, they must be terrible cowards when faced with battle. The very thought tested what little patience she currently held.

Attentive ears picked up many voices. Two of them stood out: an older and a younger. The elder sounded at least somewhat dominant. The other was exhausted, touched with agitation, but Lethe was able to hear bravery within it.

She suspected that this was the end of the fight, and the older one would be prepared to strike the final blow. Her hopes were that the older voice belonged to the beorc called Ike. Goddess knows that it would be more than helpful to have not only a wise with age leader, but a winning leader to carry on with.

"Prepare to die!"

Lethe jumped up at the words.

"Aaah! Nooo!"

A yell of painful agony came from the opposite end of where Lethe stood. Mordecai must have begun.

That was her cue.

Her muscles sprang, and within seconds she jumped over the steps, slid passed a tight corner while using her speed and momentum to launch herself onto a mount, landing her extended claws right into the face of the rider. His arms were already raised in defense before he fell from the loss of balance.

She allowed little time for the horse to buck her off. Lethe jumped from the startled thing, flew into a soldier, yanked down yet another soldier off of his mount, and lastly, tore into an archer before sliding to a stop around the last corner.

The opposing soldier's eyes were wide with disbelief. His mouth started to open, both in shock, and to speak.

"Cursed Gallian beasts…"

Mordecai was already there. He listened, lowered his head, and looked down. Lethe's presence prevented him from looking any sadder.

"There are only two of them! How could they have brought my army to its knees?! How… How are they so strong?"

Lethe took the opportunity to stand tall with pride. This was the dominant sounding man.

She darted forward right as the soldier pulled his spear back. Lethe immediately dodged it, advancing with the speed to kill as quickly as possible. Her claws tore into his flesh.

The man fell to his knees. His eyes were not as surprised as she had hoped. He touched his wounds and examined his blood covered hand, all the while emitting a dying noise.

"Is that why people fear the laguz?" She heard the blue-haired one say.

She looked up from her kill at the sound of his voice. Blue hair was what the two were told to identify when finding Commander Ike. Lethe then observed her surroundings.

Everyone was silent…

The only real sound was created by rain hitting stone. Not even the sound of panting after a battle hit her ears, making the rain the only thing that reassured her that she had not gone deaf.

Beorc sat around the entrance to the castle holding their wounds, faces bloodied or bruised. Healers continued to heal to the best of their abilities. But each gaze had been directed towards the laguz. Fear, surprise, pain, and relief lined their faces. The ones that burned into her brain, however, were the expressions of anger.

For the first time in her life, Lethe felt a bit of shame because of her blood covered paws. There were no words of praise for her kills. She was going to be alongside the very creatures she ripped apart moments ago. The cat was grateful that it rained that day; the water and mud had helped rinse the crimson liquid from her paws.

-xXx-

Mordecai seemed to be quick to respond the entire day. He was the first to make his way towards the humans. Beautiful bright light burned away at Mordecai's blue fur and skin. It only took mere seconds for paws to be replaced with sandals, and for the four-legged tiger to become bipedal.

His expression was of awkward friendliness, which was not returned by the majority of the group.

Their leader looked around his people and motioned for the laguz to come into the castle. A hushed murmur arose as everyone helped one another back inside.

For the most part, Mordecai did the talking.

The orange feline felt so out of place within a building full of strange humans. Her nose worked overtime trying to get used to all of the scents, her ears swiveled in all sorts of directions. She had followed Mordecai and shifted upon entering.

They hated her. How could they not? Lethe guessed that they must view her as a raging beast, because it was often that she was. She couldn't understand how they saw themselves as any better. These humans caused war for what she saw as the most ridiculous of reasons. They killed her people just on the fact that they looked different. They killed because they had no other way to cope with their weaknesses compared to the awesome power of the laguz.

"Ranulf told me that Ike was not a bad stranger. Mordecai and Ike… We will become friends."

Lethe raised an eyebrow. These were such trusting words intended for someone they hardly knew.

"You don't know that. You don't know if we can trust him. It's too soon to tell. He's a beorc, a human. You know how humans have two faces."

Within that moment Lethe made a pact with herself. She and Mordecai would escort the lot to the palace as quickly as possible. If there were any Daein soldiers that cut them up along the way, she would have to explain to the king that the humans got lost, or didn't understand know how to handle themselves. If they hated her, so be it.

Lethe would just have to hate them back.

-xXx-

Yesterday had such a terrible start.

"What did you say?" Lethe remembered Ike ask.

"Lethe! You are being bad. The king forbids this. We cannot fight with beorc!" Mordecai reminded.

A little flicker of reason had entered Lethe at the mention of her king, but only for a second. The cat had realized that she was too far in to succumb to the only thing that held her back to what she truly wanted, what Lethe had secretly longed for.

At the time, the hated title "Sub-human" roared within her repeatedly without end when she looked at Ike. Lethe swore she knew that the same phrase came to him when he looked at her. Word after word was formed by an untethered tongue, but speaking of her source of anger gave no relief.

"-look at us with eyes filled with scorn."

The imbedded image of the angry beorc came to mind

"Is that how beorc treat their friends?"

Lethe most definitely felt unfriendly.

"Is that how beorc treat their allies?"

She no longer wished to work with the inferior beings.

"You're right…Some of us use that name far too readily."

The commander went into an explanation, one that Lethe did not take into her at the time because of a slight distraction.

The young man had the deepest blue eyes that she had ever seen. She had averted her gaze often to avoid them, but these eyes held strong to her with a tenacity she could not hope to overcome. She wanted to rip them out of him, she hated them so much.

"What's your point? Did you come all this way to complain to us? Ha ha… typical sub-humans."

She turned from Ike to the black-haired one. Everything she had said felt like fire. She knew that like fire, it would hurt someone within the establishment. But this did not change the fact that Lethe had felt an overwhelming sense of power that increased with every word that left her. She examined the small-framed child. Or at least, with such a small stature and with such a large mouth she can only assume he was a kid. Lethe targeted her anger at him.

What the boy had said wouldn't have hurt as much if it weren't for the fact that he continued to add on to it. Somewhere along the line, Mordecai lost his usual demeanor and had begun growling. The severity of the situation was only apparent to her once she heard this, and she had known that only a string of sense kept him in his human form, and Lethe wanted nothing more than to cut it.

"Mordecai! Kill him!"

And with that a ferocious tiger took shape in the room and bolted towards the boy, but somehow struck down the commander. It all happened so quickly that the cat took a few seconds to understand.

Mordecai was deeply upset at the sight of a bruised up Ike. He softly growled out words of apology. Ike looked at himself, looked back up, and smiled slightly while he spoke to lighten the situation, to calm the tiger down. The boy moved in towards the two only to be stopped by Ike.

"Mordecai, Lethe. I apologize on behalf of my company. Please forgive Soren. It's a poor excuse, but we recently lost… Some companions."

Ike paused, not for any sort of emphasis, but to take in a deep but quick breath. Lethe was probably the only one who noticed this pause. His short-lived smile disappeared.

"We're tired, and we're not thinking clearly…"

Of course not. The slaughtering of her people was also a result of these humans not thinking clearly.

Lethe wanted to laugh at the memory. She sat up and dusted dirt, grass, and whatever else clung to her clothes.

She looked around to see everyone catching their breath around the castle. They fought a relatively easy battle that day. She suspected that maybe the company would lose sleep after the unfolding of previous events. Ike had assured her that the mercenaries were able to do it, which surprised her. The idea of traveling to Gallia didn't seem to bother the company much. Everyone looked hopeful and with that hope they looked refreshed. She wasn't prideful enough to ignore that fact.

As she watched, a shadow silently crept over her thoughts. Not everyone knew, but the group was also preparing for war.

The news didn't shake her the way that she thought it would. Laguz were known to be beings that spoke with body language. Misunderstandings were common amongst the general population that didn't know the beorc tongue, and Lethe often found herself being sent out to break up the feuds. Sometimes these fights grew so wild and so large that she can almost imagine a war being no different.

What worried her was the fact that she would expect to be allied with humans for far longer than what was hoped for.

So many things were happening all at once. It was her training that kept her mind sorted and prepared to endure any sort of stress, and she recognized from the reaction of everyone else that they were taught under the same beliefs.

A boy and a girl stood next to each other, smiling. The two were giddy with excitement and obviously glad that the battle wasn't too bad. If it weren't for the professional environment they probably would have played. She wanted to imagine the pair with tails and ears. They would play fight like kittens, swiping at one another with sheathed claws. Her soldiers would laugh at the sight while she ordered every one of them to focus and to get back to their training. All the while Lethe would smile and laugh under that soldier exterior. It would have been a hot day back at the palace, her home…

As she thought, she grew a little nervous. It wasn't the type of nervousness that came before fear, but instead it was the kind she wished to swat away like a fly so she may continue her thoughts. Someone was apparently looking at her. She turned quickly and found Ike staring at her. He didn't immediately look away as a person who was caught would, for he wasn't doing anything wrong. Or at least, he felt he didn't. His eyes met hers and his face revealed an expression of question, then he returned to his thoughtful look. So it would seem that the young man was curious. Lethe was sure that Mordecai received the same inquisitive stare. Ike probably wondered how it was possible for Lethe to sense his eyes so easily.

Lethe glared and released a hiss. In cat language, a direct stare at another was considered a sort of challenge if not aggressive behavior. She was used to others looking away as soon as she looked towards them. This was the reaction a leader earned. Ike wouldn't give her that courtesy.

The commander realized his wrongs, and had backed off at the sound of the hiss. Ike wasn't stupid. She was relieved that he didn't just waltz on over, taking the communication as something positive.

She growled with frustration. She pleaded, almost begged Ashera for the idea of war to be the result of beorc paranoia. Lethe couldn't take this for much longer.

A/N: My first story ever published. I welcome constructive criticism. Seriously, let me have it. Hopefully the next chapter can be better.