Dayo shook the empty food sack. "Not even a grape is left." The princes were surrounded by the Winged Mountains that stretched from Gzrel to Zuriel and expanded as far as Asbeel. It had been two days since the brothers had left the capital.

Neither of them could sleep the first night in the wilderness. They held no understanding of creating a fire other than in the winter months and they had never created them for themselves. They weren't use to sleeping on the hard ground nor did they know how to keep their horses from running off in the middle of the night. It had been the worst night of their lives.

The travels the next day hadn't been much better as they were too tired from the night before. Their only comfort was the food and drink they had on hand that kept up their energy. By the second night they managed to figure out how to tie their horses to some trees. The princes were so worn out they slept in the cold using their capes as their blankets that night.

Kovu crossed his arms. "I figured father would give us more food than that. What are we suppose to do now?"

Dayo dropped the bag. "We could give hunting a try."

Kovu looked toward his horse that held his bow and arrow. He also examined the weapons he held on his person. Tucked inside his belt was a pair of throwing axes and his golden steel blade with a Redemption crystal embedded in the bottom of it. "Maybe, but we are not that far from Hasmal if I remember the map correctly."

"Sounds fine by me. No need to stay out in the wilderness longer than we have to," the second prince responded. The two then got back on their horses and finished heading their way through the mountains until they reached Hasmal.

They rode into the city. The young princes journeyed through the broken down shopping district of the city. Booths were set up in rows as merchants sold what little wares and food they had. The princes got off their horses and headed over to a fruit stand.

Kovu stood in front of the counter. He looked up at the merchant with bags under his eyes.

“Can I help you, sir?” the merchant questioned.

Kovu swallowed hard. “Yes.” He felt his stomach grumble, and rested his hand on it. He reached into his change purse to pull out several golden wealth. He splattered the coins onto the counter. "We need some food."

The merchant gazed down at the amazing amount in front of him. Enough for a full year supply of his goods. He then looked up at the owner of the wealth to notice his royal garments. “Say, minster, you wouldn’t happen to be a noble would ya?”

The man’s words caught the attention of three men who were not far from the booth. They too quickly took notice of the rich clothing the princes wore.

“Shouldn’t you have a slave take care of buying your food?” the merchant questioned.

Stiffness soared through Kovu’s limbs. He pointed down at the wealth on the counter. “How much will this get me?”

The merchant ogled at the gold.

“A noble, huh?” one of the men who stared at Kovu spoke deviously.

“No, check out that cape,” the leader said. The leader was a man by the name of Gamba. He was a year older than the prince with thick dark purple hair that flowed around his head. His eyes shined a rich green with dark skin and possessed the body of a warrior. He wore simple brown sandals, white shorts, white and green robe style shirt with a white sash that held a green and bronze trimming tied over it. Green bands clung onto the tops and bottoms of his arms and legs. All and all he appeared rather high class for a mere commoner. “A blue like that only belongs to the royal family. I think we just found our meal ticket.”

The three men approached Prince Kovu as the merchant handed a basket of food over to him. Kovu grabbed an apple from the top of the basket. He took a bite that instantly helped to start restoring his strength.

"Hand one over here." Dayo stuck out his hand for one of the delicious fruits.

Kovu tossed an apple in his brother's direction before he took another bite from his own.

“Excuse me.”

The princes looked in the direction of Gamba and his men. The one on the right had golden hair and eyes along with light skin. His garments were pure white with patches of dirt on them, named Simba. Simba had claws attached to his arms. The other was a man name Haytham who held brown spiky hair, blue eyes and light skin. He wore a white tunic robe and had a sword tucked under his belt.

Kovu dropped his apple back in the straw basket.

Gamba spread his arms out wide. “Excuse me, my prince.” He wrapped his hand around his fist and bowed his head. “I know we aren’t worthy of speaking to someone of your status, but can you please come and talk to us. We need your help.”

“Certainly.” Kovu turned fully to face them and stepped forward when his brother's hand spread out in front of him.

Dayo stared coldly at the three men. "What exactly do you desire of my brother?" It was more than clear that the second prince had no trust in these men. He stepped forward to stand directly in front of the leader. "What is it that you truly wish?"

Gamba narrowed his eyes. "So I guess royals are only blind when they want to be." He ripped his sword from his cloth belt, holding it at the prince's neck. "Now hand over all your treasure if you don't want to lose your head."

The blade of an axe smacked against the sword from the opposite direction to send Gamba stumbling sideways. Kovu yanked his brother back with his free hand. He grabbed his second axe from his belt. He twirled the weapons in his hand to better his grip before swinging them at the remaining men.

Both men had already drawn their own weapons to block the ax swings. Still both men had been surprised by the attack and almost fell over.

They quickly recovered. The two began to attack the dual wielding prince. Kovu launched his own assault on them. He repeatedly slammed his axes into his opponent's swords to force them back.

Dayo drew his double swords from his own belt. He took up his position against the leader of the group. "I knew you were no more than bandits. You think you have enough sense not to attack people like us."

"Is all you know how to do is talk?" Gamba swung his blade toward the prince's head.

Dayo easily blocked the blade before it could connect. His eyes grew sharp. "I can." He stabbed his other sword forward.

Gamba sidestepped out of the way. He swung his blade overhead to strike at his opponent again.

Dayo lifted his blade above his head to block the strike.

Gamba grabbed his sword with both hands to push it down.

Dayo crossed his second blade with Gamba's to keep it from coming down. He slammed his foot into the older male's gut to send him sliding back. He stuck out his blades as if to release lightning only for nothing to come.

He cursed within himself for already not being able to use his power. He instead glanced around to get a full grasp of his surroundings so he knew how to best fight his opponent. He could not afford to let himself make a mistake in unfamiliar territory.

Gamba came at him again. The second prince pulled one blade back behind him as he blocked the next strike from the enemy. Following after he swung the spare blade down from behind him to knock Gamba's blade away.

He adjusted the other sword in his hand, resting it at Gamba's throat. A smile of victory rested on his lips. "You said something about losing a head. You meant yours I suspect?"

Gamba clenched his teeth. He lifted his head up which further exposed his neck to the blade.

Kovu whirled around and knocked both of his opponents' weapons aside with a single ax. His cape flew about that further distracted his adversaries. The back of his foot smashed against Simba that sent him to the ground.

The prince finished yet another spin that he used to hook Haytham’s wrist with his axe to flip him over onto his back. The man hit the ground so hard he bounced off it. Kovu slid his feet to a stop to see the fallen bandits.

He looked down at them with eyes colder than winter. "And here I thought that you needed help."

"Do not be too discourage, brother," Dayo said as he kept his eyes on Gamba. "Not all of our people are bad apples such as these." The other people in the market place looked at the sight in awe.

A soft melody slowly began to fill the air. "Huh?" Dayo lifted his gaze up. "Is that a lullaby?"

Kovu stumbled on his feet. His eyes grew heavy as the song continued to fill his ears that beckoned him to sleep.

"Shit!" Gamba covered his ears and shut his eyes to cut out the music.

"Hey, what do you know about..." Dayo yawned unable to finish his sentence. He lowered his sword down from Gamba's neck. His whole body became unable to continue standing. The prince dropped on the bare street and slept like an infant in his mother's arms.

The rest of the people in the marketplace soon followed the younger princes’ leads. Gamba had been the only one to resist the entrancing song by covering his ears. He did however drop to his knees.

Gamba opened his eyes. He lowered his arms down as he looked behind. "I suppose I owe you."

The song ended.

*

Kovu rested soundly in a bed of hay that night. Angry voices of people arguing brought him out of his peaceful state. His eyes slowly opened to a hazy fog. Kovu sat up, holding his head as he tried to gather his thoughts. He shut his eyes for a moment while he ran his hand through his hair. “What happened?”

He looked around the dark room that he found himself in. His eyes fell on his brother. He lifted himself off of the hay bed he laid on and moved over to his brother. He began to shake the younger prince. "Dayo, wake up."

The voices that had awakened him got his attention yet again. He looked over at the bedroom curtain to see a light sweeping through the bottom of it. He got off the bed and headed over to the doorway. He pressed his ear to the curtain.

“Stop yelling at me!”

“You tried to rob the princes. How stupid can you be?”

“You're the one who's' stupid. We have to leave this death trap.”

“You wouldn't have made it ten feet before you were put down like a dog."

Dayo moved up behind his brother. "Where are we?"

Kovu looked back. "Let us find out." He slid open the curtain. The two figures stopped their fighting to look over at the doorway as the princes entered the main room of the house.

The princes stopped cold at what they saw. Their eyes widen with their pupils trembling. They couldn't believe what they were looking at. The most beautiful woman either of them had ever seen stood at the table. She looked in their direction that made them both forget how to breathe.

The woman's lovely purple hair cascaded down her slender back at the age of seventeen. Her piercing forest green eyes instantly captured their attention, her body the shape of an hourglass. She wore a white robe dress with light green trimming, separate stylist sleeves, a green wrap as well as green sandals, and a golden flute resting between her breasts tied to her neck. A detail that no other would noticed were the whites of her eyes were shape as angel wings.

"Your highnesses," her beautiful voice flowed from her lovely lips.

Kovu blinked a couple of times to make sure that he wasn’t dreaming.

The beautiful woman stepped toward the princes. Her hair and clothes flowed as she moved like a painting in motion. She stopped before them. She placed the back of her hands on top of her forehead that overlapped, lowering her head down that hid her face with her long sleeves. She lowered herself down on her left knee then right. It was the most respectful bow for a woman to make to someone of their rank. It was also very cute in the princes' opinions. “My name is Busara. It is an honor to meet you both.”

The princes still found themselves speechless.

Busara brought herself back on her feet. She gestured over to the man who attempted to steal from them. “This is my older brother, Gamba.”

Kovu managed to turn his gaze to the man who held a dark glare in his eyes. Kovu gave the man a stony look. He would not back down. The prince slowly reached for his weapons that were not there. He patted his leg a couple of times to make sure. He looked down to see only his belt.

“Missing something?” Gamba teased.