POV: Ayomide, Femi, Adeola, and glimpses of Moremi and Bayo
---
Old Shadows, New Sparks
POV: Adeola
The circle had formed again — not for blood, but for pride.
Adeola squared off against Bayo, their feet stirring dust beneath them. The crowd of legion fighters watched with silent anticipation.
Yemi crossed his arms. "No holding back."
Bayo smirked. "Don't blink, boy."
But Adeola didn't flinch.
The match began.
Bayo lunged like a storm, his blade arcing toward Adeola's ribs — but Adeola met him, calm and calculated. He didn't fight with rage. He fought with rhythm, restraint… memory.
A voice echoed in his mind — his foster father's voice.
"Stay light. Let your opponent exhaust himself. Then strike."
Adeola ducked, twisted, and struck Bayo's side with the blunt edge of his training sword. Clean.
Gasps rippled through the crowd.
The prince of Ibadi took a step back, eyes wide. Then he chuckled, winded but impressed.
"Well… seems your scars taught you something."
Adeola offered a hand. Bayo took it without hesitation.
---
Brothers of Owulu
POV: Ayomide
Ayomide sat atop the watchtower that overlooked Akinwumi, his legs folded, eyes scanning the twilight horizon. Below, Femi sat by the fire, animated as usual, laughing too loud at his own jokes.
But Ayomide knew better.
The laughter was armor. It always had been.
Long ago, in the kingdom of Owulu, their family had lived simply — their father a respected swordsman, their mother a healer. They weren't nobles, but they had peace.
Until the Ojora Empire came.
Ayomide remembered the smoke. The screams. The day their mother threw herself between an Ojora blade and her sons. She died protecting them.
He remembered carrying Femi, who was barely thirteen, through the woods — bloodied, crying, begging to go back.
But there was nothing to return to.
They found shelter in the ruins of a temple, surviving on scraps and river water. Femi grew silent, angry, and small under the weight of shame — shame that he hadn't saved their family. Shame that he wasn't a fighter like Ayomide.
One night, they nearly froze to death.
That's when Chief Alade found them.
He didn't speak much. Just extended a hand and said, "You shouldn't have to survive alone."
That was the beginning.
---
The Mask of the Fool
POV: Femi
Femi kicked a pebble into the fire and sighed.
Everyone saw him as the fool. The chatterbox. The jester of the legion.
What they didn't see was the shame.
He wasn't strong like Ayomide, or brave like Bayo, or mysterious like Adeola. He wasn't the one people followed into battle — he was the one they joked about afterward.
But he remembered his mother's lullaby.
He remembered the bruises on Ayomide's hands from protecting him.
And he remembered the promise he made after they escaped Owulu:
"I'll make them laugh… so they don't see me cry."
He had kept that promise. Even if it cost him parts of himself.
Even if Damilola never looked at him the way he wished she would.
She was strength in scars, and he felt like a shadow beside her.
Still… he smiled. Because someone had to.
---
Quiet Connections
POV: Adeola
That night, after training, Adeola found a quiet spot by the creek. Moremi approached, her expression unreadable.
"You surprised everyone," she said.
"I surprised myself."
He told her about his foster father — how the man taught him discipline when the world offered only chaos. How those old lessons had saved him today.
Moremi sat beside him, fingers grazing the water's surface.
"I had a brother once," she said softly. "You remind me of him. Always asking questions. Always rushing into fire."
"Where is he now?"
Her gaze drifted to the stars.
"I don't know."
Silence fell between them, gentle and warm. A spark passed — unspoken, but understood.
---
Laughter and Ghosts
POV: Damilola
By the fire, Ayomide and Femi were sparring again — this time with words, not weapons. Their banter was easy, their bond unbreakable.
Damilola watched from a distance, arms crossed, lips twitching in a rare smile.
It reminded her of her sister — before the darkness came. Before screams filled the night.
Ayomide noticed her, raised a brow. "You're staring again."
"I don't stare," she called back.
"Then join us," Femi blurted, then instantly regretted it.
Damilola raised an eyebrow. "Maybe next time."
She walked away — and Femi buried his face in his hands.
Ayomide just patted his shoulder. "Smooth."
---
The Beginning of Three
POV: Adeola
Later, as the fire burned low, Bayo sat beside Adeola.
"I used to think you were just another lost boy with a sword," Bayo said.
Adeola arched a brow. "And now?"
"Now I think you might be the one who makes all this worth fighting for."
Moremi joined them quietly, sitting between them. She didn't speak — she didn't need to.
In that moment, the three of them sat — forged by pain, drawn together by purpose, unaware of what fate had planned for their growing bond.
But something had begun.
A unity.
A storm.
Perfect choice. Here's a full flashback chapter that dives into Ayomide and Femi's escape from Owulu, revealing the emotional scars, the brutality of war, and how their brotherhood was forged in survival. This will deepen their characters and explain the weight they carry in the present timeline.
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Special Chapter – Ashes of Owulu
Flashback POV: Ayomide & Femi
(Takes place 4 years before Episode 1)
---
"Run, and don't look back."
The words still echoed in Ayomide's mind.
The streets of Owulu were ablaze.
Screams.
Steel against bone.
The scent of fire, blood, and burning yam leaves.
Ayomide, barely sixteen, dragged his brother by the arm as smoke coiled through the air, blinding them.
Femi was crying.
He tried to be brave — he always tried — but he was just thirteen. Small. Frail. Scared.
Their home had been shattered in a single night.
Their father — gone. Killed defending the west gate.
Their mother — her body still warm when Ayomide pulled Femi away from it, whispering a lie neither of them believed.
"She's just sleeping. We have to go."
Femi had screamed her name the entire way out.
---
The Fall of Light
Owulu had been known as the Kingdom of Quiet Strength — a place of art, peace, and restraint. Their father, a royal guardsman, had served honorably. Their mother brewed medicine for nobles and street children alike.
But peace meant nothing when the Ojora Empire arrived.
The empire's soldiers came without warning.
They didn't speak.
They didn't bargain.
They destroyed.
Ayomide saw one of them kill a neighbor's child with a casual flick of the sword — like swatting a fly.
That was when something inside him broke.
He stopped waiting. He stopped thinking.
He became instinct.
---
The Temple Ruins
POV: Femi
They ran for hours.
Into the woods.
Across the streams.
Until their feet bled and their lungs begged for air.
Eventually, they found an old abandoned shrine on the edge of Owulu's border — a place their mother once told them was sacred, long forgotten by the world.
They collapsed inside, shaking, starving, too tired to cry.
That night, Femi lay curled in Ayomide's lap, afraid to sleep.
"I wasn't strong," Femi whispered.
Ayomide didn't speak. He just stroked his brother's hair gently.
"You were scared," Ayomide said at last. "And you lived."
"But I couldn't save her—"
"You're not supposed to."
Femi clutched his brother's tunic and sobbed.
Ayomide's arms didn't waver.
He became father.
He became mother.
He became the wall that would not fall.
---
The Promise
They stayed in the ruins for days.
They ate bitter berries, chewed bark, drank rain from carved stone.
Femi began to change — less crying, more silence. His jokes faded. So did his smile.
One night, Ayomide found him sitting alone, staring at a knife.
"I should've died with them," Femi whispered.
Ayomide slapped the blade from his hand. Not harshly — but enough.
"You live. You hear me?"
Femi didn't move.
"Even if you can't fight. Even if you never lift a blade. You live. For her. For them. For me."
Femi looked up at him, tears running dry.
"I'm weak."
Ayomide knelt beside him. "Then stay close to me until you're not."
That was the moment they truly became brothers. Not by blood — but by survival.
---
The Stranger in the Dark
On the seventh night, a fire burned just beyond the trees.
Ayomide stood protectively in front of Femi, holding a sharpened stick.
Out of the shadows came a tall man in a green cloak. His face was weathered, his eyes sharp, but not cruel.
He looked at the shrine, then at the boys.
"You're from Owulu?" he asked.
Ayomide nodded. "What's left of it."
The man tossed a wrapped loaf of bread onto the floor.
"My name is Alade," he said. "I fight those who did this to you."
Ayomide narrowed his eyes. "Why should we trust you?"
Alade stepped forward, knelt, and set down a second loaf — one smaller, shaped for a child's hands.
"Because I don't bring promises," he said. "I bring chances."
Ayomide looked at Femi.
Femi took the smaller loaf.
That was the beginning.
> The Lost King © 2025 by (Idris Bilal Adavize).
This is an original work protected by copyright. No part of this story may be reproduced or used in any form without the author's written permission.