Gosha's eyes opened with a flutter. The blackness vanished instantly to be replaced by a searing light. He blinked a few times to clear his vision before he noticed someone staring down at him from only about a foot away. The face was upside-down, but slightly mesmerising, with pale blue eyes and wind swept blonde hair standing of its own free will. The face smiled down on him, and he couldn’t be sure if it was a boy or a girl, the features were very delicate and precise.

"Good to see your awake now, you were beginning to worry me."

The voice was melodious, and Gosha couldn’t help but watch the person's lips move as they spoke, drawn into their words. A hand rubbed his hair and touched his cheek. It was soft and gentle.

"Are you just going to lie there all day?" Megimi's rich voice struck into his world then and he sat up with a snap.

It was at that moment he realised two things. His head had been lying in the persons lap, and the side of it hurt like hell.

He slumped forward slightly as the pain overcame his for a moment, but it cleared quite quickly. He put his hand to the side of his head and his fingers came away sticky with blood.

"Don’t worry, its stopped bleeding," the person’s voice drew him around to face it.

Before him stood a boy of about the same age. His hair was still standing like it was before, sitting out from the back of his head. He wore pale loose fitting clothes, but seemed to move with ease. He was completely unarmed, but had pieces of jewellery hanging from his wrists and ankles and even a necklace. Gosha blinked. The boy smiled, then noticing Gosha's awkwardness, laughed richly. None of which eased Gosha's nerves. All that was running through Gosha's mind now was the sense of passion he had seen within this boys eyes.

"I don’t think the two of you should stay around here much longer," the boy looked sunwards into the sky, "there’s more of them coming."

"Are you some sort of angel?" Gosha asked, edging towards Megimi.

"Oh no, I wouldn’t want to call myself that. I just happened upon you as three Gemteks were leaving. I noticed the blood and thought I would help."

"Well, thankyou. But I don’t see why the Gemteks that were attacking us would leave so quickly.

"Seemed like they had another place to go."

"Whatever you say," Gosha eyed the boy up and down for any sign that he could have defeated the three Gemteks by himself. He shook his head when nothing became evident and just had to believe what the boy told him.

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"I know what you have decided. I have been watching you for a little while now. But I didn’t want to get mixed up with the bandits. They are dangerous people and not the kind I want to associate with."

"How could you know just from watching?"

"Your eyes don’t lie to me."

Megimi looked from one boy to the other, trying to figure out what they were talking about. But she got a little lost in looking at their features. She couldn’t decide which one was cuter. Gosha had defined features, dark hair and dark skin from his work outside. And with his shirt off it was easy to his muscle that he had built up with manual labour. But the new boy looked refined, with almost godly features. And he held himself like a cat ready to pounce. Megimi collapsed on the ground from all the heat rushing to her face. They both turned to face her.

"You should deal with her first."

"Deal with her? What do you mean by that?" Gosha moved over to her and put his arm around her shoulders.

"Oh," the boy laughed again, "I didn’t mean anything like that. What I meant was you’re not that far from the edge of the forest. If you take her in that," his arm flashed up and he pointed roughly sunwards, "direction you'll be able to see your village. Leave her at the edge to make her own way to the village. They'll be able to help her."

"And you say you know what I have decided?"

"After you say goodbye, come back here."

"And what? You'll kill me like you killed those Gemteks? Are you a mage? Are you the one that did this to me? Made me into this beast?"

The boy just shook his head and sighed.

"Then what?"

"You see yourself as an animal, a beast, worse than human. At least you realise you’re not human. But don’t be so easy to judge yourself. Just come back here. And leave now, the others are arriving. Don’t stop until you’re at the edge of the forest."

The boy turned his back on the two of them and Gosha grabbed Megimi by the arm and started leading her away. After a short while they broke into a jog, with Gosha muttering to himself the whole while. Megimi kept quiet, not wanting to attract the rage of this young man.

A gap in the trees allowed them a brief look of the Tower. At the distance they were now they could only see the top, but beside it they saw a funnel of wind whipping leaves and branches around. A light shone from the middle of it.

"He is a friggin mage!”