8 Why so respectful to him?

After eating the mammoth apple, they felt alive and strenght flowed through their bodies. Despite them being old, if they fought someone one on one, they would probably win with ease. That was the effect of the mammoth apple. As it slowly dissapeared the strenght they initially had would be lost, but a tiny bit would remain forever. If someone wanted to nurture soldiers, this was what they should eat in order to create a massive and unbeatable army.

Time slowly passed, Lufti took care of moving the armadillo in a position to make things more believable and sat next to Leon, talking to him about the ideas he had in his mind. Sometimes Leon would propose different things to Lufti and the latter one would show his approval of this. It was obvious that Leon was the leader of this weird trio. Usually, siblings would fight over different things, like parents love, toys, position in the family and even more. Some were really united, while others were enemies. It always depended how they were raised and what they did while growing up. But these kids were different. They had different personalities and that was easy to see. But be it Leroux or Lufti, both of them had a really high opinion of his big brother. It was a mixture of admiration and respect.

After setting their camp, they erected a big tent made out of fur and prepared everything to stay there for a few days. The process in which they did everything was smooth and either Leon or Lufti knew what tools the other one would need so they passed them fast with almost no comunication. They were talking about minerals, weapons to make and food to collect instead. The guards forgot about their initial duty and spent their time trying to learn from the young men outside the gate. After a short time, Leon and Lufti decided that Lufti would be in watch tonight and that Leon would try to sleep for a bit before replacing him, so Lufti sat outside facing the forest on his own.

The guards felt sleepy and their long shifts would continue for a bit more. It was unfair, but only deep during the night would they be replaced by younger recruits, and taking advantage of this situation they decided to ask about the thing that was eating their brains and filled them with curiosity. "Big kid, why are you and your brother so respectful to Leon?" asked the second guard. They tried to reason it, but no matter how they couldn't understand how come they respected him so much. It seemed as if they were loyal soldiers instead of siblings, and being from a big and important family, they should be fighting for succession and power and not hanging around together as if taking a stroll through the park.

"Well, maybe it is because our master said so... but since we were kids Leon saved me and Leroux many times. We always fought and we had equal positions when we were younger but one day, Leroux and I left to compete who could find the shiniest rock and gift it to our master. We were only 11 years old during that time and we were fairly strong already but it wasn't enough. We thought too high of ourselves and that made as fall in a green chest monkey's trap. We tried our best to fight it, but it used the plants on it's territory to their advantage. After exchanging a few blows with it, we fell for another trap, being pinned in place. We heard our Master's voice from far away, so we had high hopes that we were going to be saved. When the monkey realized he wouldn't be able to eat us, it decided to kill us and run away. It's poison spit wasn't powerful but it would kill us no doubt. My Master went for the kill and took that monkey down in a swift swing of her sword but my brother Leon decided to get in the middle. He closed his eyes and swung down his rod to split as much venom as he could but it still got him in the eyes and body. Despite having his eyes closed, the venom corroded his iris and in many places of his body there are scars. Since that day forward, my brother had to start all over again and despite my master's efforts to save his eyesight, nowadays he can only see blurry shadows but his hearing, sense of smell and touch improved. He is better than us at everything, despite him telling the opposite. He saved us and that is enough for us to admire and respect him. That is also why our Master chose him to be her successor" Lufti looked down with a look of guild on his eyes.

That was why. The respect and admiration came from the self sacrifice their brother had to make in order to save them for being reckless. It was understandable now.

The guards could understand. If someone saved them and had to face a fate worse than death then they would probably feel indebted to that someone as well. Not long after, they finished speaking a whistle could be heard and Leon came out of the tent as neat as always, while Lufti started to check his body in order to see if he had all the things he needed. They took a bag each and dissapeared all of a sudden. It was probably a call for help.