The land of Sanitatum is said to be filled with magic, but it is also plagued by a contagious curse that threatens humanity's survival. It is the purpose of the heir to the throne, Simba Adofo, to inherit his father's crown and find a way to vanquis...
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"I told you; I don't remember anything from before I came to the forest," Hari stammered, flustered by the Prince's barrage of questions. Freshly reunited, Darwin flapped his wings hotly at Simba, affirming Hari's answer.
Simba grunted loudly, putting his face in his hands.
"Yes, I know that," he growled, rubbing his temples with his fingers. "But even if Nanna lied to you, your memories didn't just disappear. You are important to my father somehow. If you can remember why that is, then we can be prepared for whatever he is planning against us. You have to know something that can help."
Hari sat across from Simba blankly, his body gently swaying with the carriage as it bumped against the cobblestone beneath its wheels. The forest dweller was a gentle thing accustomed to the unhurried pace of mundane chores. Urgency was a tempo Hari wasn't acquainted with.
"Just look at your clothes," Simba irritably heaved, pointing to Hari's shirt. "You can still see the outline of the Columbine's symbol on your chest."
Hari let his fingers traipse the contours of his shirt's faded outline, as if trying to grasp the image of it in the depths of his mind.
"Time unwound the Columbine's kingdom, but you are a living relic from its former dominion," the Prince elaborated, remembering his last meeting with Kurona. "You are now my only connection to a world I was told wasn't worth knowing."
"I remember that my clothes were once bright and new," Hari said, clutching his shirt in his fist. "Yet... I don't remember this symbol or what it meant."
On the pages of Hari's journal, Simba recalled Hari's self being lost within the compounds of his very mind, locked away by Nanna's foul persuasions. Simba wondered how he himself would react to his own reflection if the man staring back at him were an unrecognizable ghost. Such a horrifying thought was enough to bring even the mightiest of warriors to their knees.
"The symbol is a bird; the animal of the Columbine kingdom," Simba explained, gently placing Kay's locket in Hari's palm. "The bird was used to represent the Columbine royal family like the lion is for mine."
Engraved within the locket's smooth surface, Hari could see the bird with a poppy in its beak sparkle gently in the light that oozed through the wagon window. Hari let his fingers wander over it, fascinated by the emblem so delicately etched into the beautiful material. He watched his reflection warp in the locket's polished curvature.
"That's why they called it the War of Birds and Lions," Simba continued. "After my family's Invasion, the Columbine's symbol was banished from the land. It hasn't been seen in over a decade."
Hari let his fingers caress the smooth surface as if longing to grasp something just out of reach.
"Nanna told me that birds fear lions," Hari recalled.
"I believe a coincidence of that magnitude would be considered a miracle," Simba remarked.
"How could this be?" Hari shook his head adamantly. "I only stepped foot in this city for the first time yesterday- and it was a stranger to me. If I had lived a whole life here, time must have truly undone any trace of it."
