"Hey sleeping beauty," Awash said in a singsong voice. "Wake up."

                Hero swatted him away and rolled over.

                "Wake up, Hero, wake up!" Maringa urged.

                "I'm tired," Hero moaned.

                "Oh get up!" Awash said yanking his blankets off. "Head Mistress wants to see you."

                Hero leapt awake and out of bed.

                It had been weeks since the fire and they had long left the mountain and now rented out a building in a busy suburb.

                Hero dressed and followed Awash and Maringa up the hall to Head Mistress's new apartments. They were nothing like she had before. All of her fine things had been burned up. Even her china curio was destroyed when the roof caved in. She had lost everything she owned...just like him.

                Hero took a seat in the lone wooden chair in the room. Head Mistress was wedging a folded newspaper under a desk leg to keep it from wobbling.

                "So," the emu said taking a seat behind the desk. "You must feel rather special."

                "I couldn't claim that," Hero said.

                Head Mistress gave him a disapproving look different from the one she was always wearing. "Do you know why I called you here?"

                "Have I done something wrong?" Hero asked.

                "Quite the contrary," Head Mistress said. She leaned forward on her desk. "The night of the fire you went back for a little filly."

                Hero nodded his head.

                "Well, that makes you a hero," Head Mistress said but Hero gave no reaction. "I'm afraid I haven't been clear." Head Mistress said. "That filly you saved was Lady Florence..." Still no reaction. "Lord Kasper's daughter."

                Hero looked up and Head Mistress smirked.

                "The General?"

                "One and the same," Head Mistress said. "And he wants to see you."

                Hero felt his paws began to sweat. "Is he coming here?"

                "No," Head Mistress said. "He has invited you to Manor town." She got up from her desk and went over to the window overlooking the street. "He is sending an escort today."

                Hero looked at Head Mistress. He could tell she was angry she hadn't been invited. Still, he remembered the General well. He was a nasty stallion whose reputation preceded him wherever he went.

                "You're dismissed." Head Mistress said and Hero wasted no time leaving the room. He bumped into Awash and Maringa in the hall.

                "What happened?" Maringa was quick to ask.

                "You remember that filly I saved?" Hero said and they both nodded.

                "I was happiest most when the little brat went home for summer vacation," Awash said.

                "Well that little brat was General Kasper's daughter," Hero said. "Awash I'm surprised two didn't know this."

                Awash shrugged. "There are lots of Kaspers."

                "Well he wants to meet me," Hero said as the three of them walked up the hall. "He's sending someone to get me today."

                "Hero you poor thing, you'll never come back," Maringa exclaimed.

                "Don't talk stupid," Awash said. "If I knew that was the General's daughter I would have told you to let her burn."

                "Now who's talking stupid?" Maringa said and the two fell into an argument.

/

                Manor town was only an hour or so out of the suburb by a speedy wagon which the Kasper's could definitely afford to hire. Hero dressed for the trip and around noon the escort arrived. Hero enjoyed the wagon ride. The breeze was just barely warm but the warmest it stayed in Mount Lions. Children, all free from school played in the street giving their parents grief.

                He fell asleep on the ride and the driver awoke them when they reached Manor town. The house could be seen from the road. Hero itched under his slave collar as they parked in the shadow of it. Mounts had come into the street or stood on their balconies as Hero's wagon arrived.

                They whispered among each other as he was led up the steps and into the palace by an orangutan who hero couldn't tell if he was a slave or a butler. He spoke Mount with an accent but had a certain overconfidence about him.

                Hero followed behind him on a red rug. One trailed down every hall in the house. White pillars and statues adorned the large halls and faces of family members stared pack at him from portraits. The marble mansion smelled of Cape jasmine but there was no trace of the plant. The hall ended and broke off to the left or right. On the wall ahead was a massive fish tank built into the white walls.

                Hero searched the water only to be surprised by the sudden hypnotizing color transformation of a blue ring octopus.

                "Her Ladyship's pet," the orangutan said. "She's obsessed with beauty.

                The orangutan led Hero to a set of mahogany doors then looked him over. "Well you're not as clean as you should be but I suppose you'll have to do." He knocked on the door and received enter as a reply. The orangutan went into the room leaving the door opened and whispered to the stallion sitting behind a desk.

                Hero pivoted as they both looked up at him at the same time. The General then stood and crushed out his cigarette. "Don't be shy," he said signaling Hero forward. "I'm eager to meet the savage that saved my daughter's life."

                Hero inched forward with his head and tail low until he stood before the white desk.

                General Kasper nodded with is head to the corner of the room. "This is my wife, Lady Kasper," he said and Hero looked over at the General's family. "My daughters, Lady Isca, Britannia and Florence." Each girl nodded as she was introduced except Florence who waved enthusiastically.

                Hero bobbed his head to them then looked at the general.

                "What was your name?" General Kasper asked.

                "Hero," Hero said holding his head a bit higher. "My name is Hero."

                "Ah," The General said studying the young leopard with his one eye. He then looked at the butler. "Get that collar off him will you, it's distracting."

                The orangutan hurried forward and rattled with his key ring until he found one device specified in picking locks. In a few seconds Hero's neck was free.

                "So, Hero where are you from?" General Kasper asked.

                Hero nearly frowned. He now realized that the general didn't recognize him as the boy he marched through the street. "Nagoray," he said not hiding the pride he held for his homeland.

                "All the way from the holy land," Lady Kasper said. "I couldn't phantom such a trip."

                Kasper laughed. "You see, Hero to females the Imperial City is too far but us males know what a real journey is like, don't we?"

                Hero looked at Lady Kasper then at General Kasper. "I reckon," he said.

                "I heard Nagoray doesn't have a military is that true?" Isca asked.

                "Well—"

                "What military they had, daddy crushed," Britannia said. "Isn't that right Daddy?"

                "That's right," Kasper smiled as she came over to his desk and embraced him, "and all to make the world a better place for my girls." Father and daughter kissed.

                "We should visit Nagoray someday," Isca reasoned. "It's a province now." She went over to a large globe in the corner of the room in front of a bookcase. "I hear they have mild winters."

                "And scorching summers," Lady Kasper said. "You'd never stand it."

                "I concur, my dear," General Kasper said as he pulled Britannia onto his lap, "I was there in autumn and sweating buckets."

                "But Hero lived there," Florence said. "It can't be too bad."

                "Hero is a native," General Kasper said. "His blood is thinner." He looked at Hero. "I bet you right froze in the winter here." He laughed. "Have you spent a summer here yet previous to this one?"

                Hero silently shook his head.

                Kasper said, "You'll find they're mild, all mild and very brief." He raised his chin over his daughter's head. "What, Dear...two months, three months?"

                "Three, if it's a good year," Lady Kasper said adjusting the tie in Isca's mane.

                "Do the savages have an emperor?" Britannia asked.

                "They had a king," Isca said, "but Emperor Cato owns it now."

                "Oh," Britannia said playing with a pen on her father's desk. "Did he have kids?"

                "I'm not sure," Isca said. "Daddy?"

                "I think they had two," Kasper said, "and maybe a grandchild, I get the kingdoms mixed up."

                "What happened to them?" Florence asked.

                "Dummy they were all killed," Britannia said. "That's what Daddy and the emperor say has to be done with savages so we can live in peace and grow."

                "I know that," Florence pouted.

                "Then why did you ask?" Britannia snapped.

                "Alright you two," General Kasper said. "I think it's time you practiced your music lessons." He lifted Britannia off his lap. "Isca." He beckoned his eldest daughter who led her sisters out of the room with her mother. He then dismissed the butler and Hero was alone with him.

                "I'm impressed with you Hero," he said after a moment and Hero looked up at him.

                "I did nothing special," Hero said. He did not want this monster to be pleased with him.

                "Don't give me that," General Kasper said. "You ran back into a burning building and retrieved my precious daughter. You a Nagorin, a slave no less, risked your life for a Mount. Why?"

                Hero looked at the window behind the general. "My parents raised me well."

                General Kasper took a sip from a blue mug on his desk. "Are your parents deceased?"

                Hero forced tension into his paws and looked down. He took slow deep breaths then looked back up at the general. "You're more qualified to know than I am," he said looking straight into the pale face.

                General Kasper's eye darted around and he slowly lowered his mug. "That's unfortunate." Regaining his composer, he leaned forward on his desk. "Had these events...my invasion and your saving my daughter, occurred in the opposite order I would have spared more Nagorins, and your temple."

                Hero swallowed a lump in his throat and sucked back the drainage in his nostrils. "Well General," he said ignoring the burn of withheld tears. "Now I see the true way we are different."

                General Kasper took another calm sip of his beverage but he was eager to hear what this little leopard had to say. "How?"

                Hero held his trembling head up. "Nagorins don't need a reason to be kind."

                There was a knock at the door and the butler entered. "My lord, Istanbul the Pyrologist is here to see you."

                "Good," General Kasper said. "Well, Hero I'm afraid our time is up. Something tells me we won't meet again." He nodded to the butler who led Hero out of them room.