Six Will Stand (First Draft)

Chapter 13

Fai woke up to a low growl. "He'd better wake up soon, or you're toast, moron."

He opened his eyes to see Panther, sitting rigid against a tree, his head outlined by daggers that had clearly been thrown at the tree. They outlined his head so perfectly; whoever had thrown them must've had perfect aim. He looked too scared to move.

Before Fai could react, he heard the sound of rock scraping metal. He turned to see Josh sitting with his back against a tree, casually sharpening one of his blades. He looked at Fai and narrowed his eyes. "Welcome back to reality." He angled his chin toward Panther. "You know this one?"

"The heck happened while I was out...?" Fai put a hand on his throbbing head, wincing slightly. "Oww..." Fai hesitantly felt around his head for the wound Alregon had inflicted on him. There it is... Dreamscapes are weird. He found the cut in his leg, too, and the broken rib was still there. "Kole~! It hurts!" Fai whined in exaggerated pain. The brunet with the daggers around his head scoffed.

"Idiot, help me." His glasses were falling down; he was too scared to move his hand to push them up. "Your bodyguard here doesn't seem to understand that I was trying to help you."

Josh cocked an eyebrow. His voice was steely. "Fai shouts in pain and I wake up to see you, a person I've seen only once before, standing over the unconscious wounded form of my friend who was supposed to be keeping watch. You're lucky I didn't chop your head off, moron."

Kole growled, "Did you even check to see if I had a weapon or not? I hardly think my violin case counts as a valid weapon."

"You finally got a new violin? Awesome!" Fai grinned at the memories. "I'd like to learn how to play..."

Kole sighed, ignoring the redhead. "Besides, how exactly was--" Kole eyed his falling glasses. "Can I please fix these without having the terrifying consequence of you murdering me?"

Josh narrowed his eyes. "Whatever, idiot. Fix your glasses. Also, yes, I did check you for weapons, just not physically. There are plenty of places to hide something as small as a knife, and you can usually tell when you're often around people who carry ten a piece. As for the violin case as a weapon, I've seen a lot weirder. I saw this one man kill someone with a spoon once. You'd be surprised." He sighed. "I assume you know him, then? Okay. You can never be too careful." He went over to where Kole was sitting and grabbed each dagger from the tree and put it in a clearly specified place in his clothing. When he finished, there was absolutely no way to tell that he even had any weapons other than the sword at his side. It was rather alarming.

Kole stood up and dusted himself off. "Filthy," he muttered under his breath. Fixing his glasses, the brunet nodded. "I do know him, as I've said before. Have I passed your little 'test', then?"

"Someone fill me in here. Last I checked, comas aren't usually a good thing." Raising his eyebrows, Josh continued, "That head wound and the cut look nasty. Here, let me--" He didn't finish his sentence, but rather grabbed his pack and began to gently clean the head.

Fai groaned. "Ugh, baths..."

"It's not a bath, idiot. He's cleaning your head to keep it from getting infected," Kole muttered, opening his violin case. "...You better not have done any damage to this, brat," the brunet aimed at Josh.

"Ehh," the redhead turned his head so Josh could clean his wound better. "Ehhhh..."

"Here." Josh tossed a bag of something at Kole, then continued to clean Fai's head wound. "Go buy yourself a better one. Or, if you're one of those people who's extremely stubborn, don't." Kole opened the bag and his eyes widened. The bag was full to the brim with gold coins.