Weeee. The last edit chapter. I hope you'll enjoy this and the rest of the story.

Disclaimer: I don't own it, if I did then the story would be really wierd.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 6: Future friends or foes?

Muarim's PoV

" Gaah! N-nng!" Each of Tormod's groans made Muarim's heart twist in terror. The lance had hit his left leg, witch was now bleeding badly.

" Heh. Not so brave now, are you kid?" The Knight said mockingly before pulling back his lance and prepared for a another attack. Tormod took this opportunity to get out of the knight's range but Muarim knew that with that wound Tormod wouldn't be able to hold out for so long.

Tormod tried to release an another spell but when he started chanting the book suddenly got caught on fire. That was what happened to magic books that had been overused. Muarim gasped when it happened. The Knight laughed.

" Hah! Never use the same weapon you are using for training in a battle, take that knowledge with you to the afterlife!" He screamed and prepared himself to attack. Tormod managed to avoid the attack just in time and picked up the other tome he had with him, raised his arm and started chanting. The Knight dashed towards Tormod who didn't make any attempt to avoid the hit but continued chanting. Muarim felt the panic rise up inside him. If Tormod didn't avoid the attack he would die or get mortally wounded! The Knight was closing in but Tormod still chanted the spell.

'Does it take that long to chant a Fire spell?´ Muarim thought. Then Tormod pointed his arm towards the Knight and smirked.

" Elfire!" The spell hit the Knight in the chest, flames appearing around him, scorching every inch of his body.

A scream. A thud. A dead knight.

Only four feet away from Tormod. Muarim sighted out of relief.

" Muarim!" Tormod came running, or he tried to but his injury made that kind of hard to do, towards Muarim who sat down leaning against a wall, dizzy from the loss of blood. He grunted loudly when Tormod sat down on his knee and hugged him tightly.

" Muarim! Muarim! I thought I was to late! I-I... Whaaa!" Muarim hugged him back and patted his head.

" There, there... And besides, I thought you would die to, little one. Then I would be all... Alone..." Somehow that was hard for him to say. They had lived together for so long, he could not imagine himself a life without Tormod.

They where a family.

They where inseparateable. He hugged Tormod even harder, as if he would lose him if he didn't, he failed to choke a sob when he thought about how close he was to losing him. His left shoulder, which Tormod was leaning his head on, was getting wet from the little beorc's tears.

" M-Muarim. D-don't ever fight without me again. P-promise me th-that..." Muarim pondered this for a while before replying.

" Little one, if you get killed out on the battlefield, I will never forgive myself." He said stroking Tormod's head softly.

" And I'll never forgive myself if I can't protect you! Why do you think I'm studying magic!" Tormod replied and continued sobbing.

" I-I don't want you to die! You are the only family that is left for me! My own parents died! It was my fault! I don't want to lose you in that way!" Tormod was now hugging Muarim o close that Muarim had trouble breathing.

" Li-little one! Not so tight!" Tormod loosed his grip but didn't say anything, only his cries and sobbing broke the silence.

' Wait, what did he say? My own parents died. It was my fault´? He never told me the last part.´ Muarim thought as he continued to pat Tormod's head that he had been doing the last minutes.

" It's okay now, we're safe. Don't cry." Tormod stifled a sob and asked,

" Muarim, what did those men want from you?" Muarim thought he knew pretty well what they wanted.

" I think they wanted to catch me and sell me as a slave." He said calmly. Tormod's reaction was far from calm.

" That's horrible! They would destroy our life!" He screamed loudly making Muarim's sensitive ears suffering.

" Calm down, I lived as a slave, I escaped. I could do that again, you know that." Tormod sniffed and looked Muarim straight in the eye with tears rolling down his cheeks. Then he hugged him again and they sat like that for a while. Then Muarim thought of something.

" Wait a minute, they said that with me they would have seven laguz. You don't think they..." Then it hit him.

"... A heavy unit such as a knight can't walk in the desert. But laguz are hardly affected by the sand..." He picked Tormod up in his arms and stood up, flinching at the pain that struck him.

" I have to go and look outside, stay here." He said, putting Tormod down on the ground but Tormod wouldn't let go of his arm.

" First of all: You're wounded, you should sit still. Second of all: there might be more of them outside. I won't let you go by yourself. I won't leave your side unless I want to!" Tormod said, still holding on to Muarim's arm. Muarim looked at Tormod with a I-won't-let-you-go-you-could-get-hurt stare.

Tormod pouted and tried to convince Muarim to let him come.

" Muarim, you are like a father to me. And it's part of being a child to disobey your dad's order!"

Muarim couldn't help but to smile at Tormod's argument, even if it was silly and desperate, and gave in.

" Okay, but stay close to me all right?" He said and Tormod finally let go of his arm.

" Okay. I'll watch your back." Muarim smiled at his friend and started walking but stopped when Tormod didn't show up next to him.

" Little one? Are you okay?" He asked the boy who was limping along behind him.

" I-I'm okay it's just... M-my leg hurts.." He said gesturing towards his leg that where half covered in blood.

" I'm-I'm okay thought. I'm coming!" He said hurrying up next to Muarim.

" We should get these wounds fixed up soon. I'm sure those thugs have some medicine..." Muarim said looking at both of their wounds before they walked outside.

Muarim gasped. Tormod's eyes widened and he tugged in Muarim's tail.

" Muarim, those are laguz, right?" Muarim nodded.

In front of them was a carriage that where designed for trips in the snowy mountains that made it easier to travel in sand as well and tied to that carriage was four beast laguz and two bird laguz. They all looked like hell. They had bruises after being punched and shallow wounds that where meant to cause pain and not death. They where thin and looked like they hadn't eaten in days.

Muarim studied them for a while. Two cats, two tigers, one hawk and one crow. The crow had long hair down to his, or hers Muarim didn't see that, shoulder blades. Since he/she was sitting down it was hard to judge how tall he/she was and the black clothes hid his/hers body shape.

The hawk had blonde hair down to her, this time Muarim saw that it was a girl, shoulders and she had basic green clothes, nothing special.

One of the cats, a girl too, had light brown hair, longer than the hawk but shorter than the crow, and torn clothes. They, too, where nothing special. Just green trousers and a brown tunic. Her yellow eyes where shining in the light of the moon, a common thing for beast laguz.

The other cat, a man, looked so fragile so that Muarim didn't understand why someone would see him as a potential slave. He had short orange hair and green eyes, they too where shining, and just plain brown clothes.

The tigers, both men, had similar body shape, broad shoulders, big arms and so on. One of them had short dark brown hair and almost the same eyes, a similar attire to Muarim, white tunic and brown trousers.

The other tiger was unique. He was a albino which made him quite a sight. He had black clothes with a good contrast to his pale skin.

" Come, little one. We must help them." Muarim said which made all the other laguz notice them.

" Who are you?"

" You're covered in blood!"

" What happened?"

" Did you fight the humans!"

The prisoners talked at the same time making it hard for Muarim to answer any of their questions. Muarim untied the birds and Tormod tried to help but the knot was to tight and hard to undo.

" Hey, beast brother!" The crow said, who Muarim now noticed that it was a man.

" I'm Jerme, who are you?" He said quite politely and Muarim answered in the same manners.

" I'm Muarim, and this is Tormod." He said putting a hand on Tormod's shoulder, the boy was still struggling with the knot.

" Huh. What kind of laguz is he? I see no tail or ears nor any wings. Is he a dragon perhaps?" Jerme asked. Muarim was about to tell him that Tormod was no laguz when the others started saying things at the same time. Tormod had tried to burn the rope with his candle magic he had showed Muarim the first time they met and thus making everyone shocked. Muarim could only make out a few things they said.

" Magic!"

" He's no laguz!"

" Stay away from me, human!" Tormod took a few steps back at the word 'human´ and looked at his feet. Muarim thought that it was a good idea because then he didn't see how the laguz´ faces where twisted in disgust, everyone except the orange haired cat looked disgusted.

He understood them but Tormod didn't deserve it.

" Hey, stop it, he's just trying to help you out. Don't blame him for what species he is."

That only caused the laguz group to look at him with a are-you-crazy-he's-a-human stare, again the fragile looking cat remained neutral.

" I'm s-sorry..." Tormod was so quiet so Muarim was unsure if the birds could hear him without superior hearing.

" I didn't mean to offend you or something. I just wanted to help... Sorry..." He tried to make himself look small but that was hard when everyone was looking at him.

Muarim noticed that Tormod was about to cry. He understood why. First, he almost lost his only family member a while ago. Then he killed someone, that isn't something you do everyday when you are seven years old. And he's badly wounded, a child starts to cry from a lot less. And now he's being blamed for his race.

' That's unfair. Then again, so is laguz slavery. These laguz don't hate beorc for nothing.´ He was about to comfort the little beorc when Tormod said,

" I-I should go... I don't... I should go..." With that he limped back inside the ruins. Muarim was about to follow when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

" Why is that human here? And why is he hurt? You, I can understand because of the slave sellers, but him? And how did you defeat the knight. He had a laguzguard, right?" The albino laguz said, looking like a big question mark.

" Tormod is bleeding badly because of that he fought one of the beorc, the knight with the laguzguard that I could barely scratch, he risked his life! And he saved mine! Don't you dare treating him like crap again!" Muarim said with anger in his voice. He was about to follow Tormod when he thought of something.

" These ruins... If you are able to live next to a beorc without hurting him with either words or physically you are welcome to stay. The desert are protecting us and if you treat him nicely I'm sure Tormod wouldn't mind..."With that Muarim went inside to look for Tormod leaving a group of quite surprised laguz behind.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

There. I wish to thank all of my reviewers who tried to help me with my English and everything else. A big THANK YOU to all of you and to Flarebreeze who became my BETA. I will now continue writing the chapters and I hope you will like them.

Please review.