The day arrive, another day where the royals get to sleep in a little longer before departing for their royal duties. Birds once again doing their routine by singing and making their rounds to tree to tree looking for food, meanwhile inside the tree roots in not all complete darkness with the sun's rays sparkling in through the small gaps in the vines and roots, it gave the royal family enough darkness to sleep and not get disturbed by the sun's heat and blinding sight. Rani with her head on Kion's back spine yawned awake, lifting her head removed the warmth it gave to Kion who woke as well, the cold wind pushed down and shivered his fur, they stare at each other as they say good morning, Kion moved in and rubbed his head against her head, this means affection, love and beauty in itself, looking down the cubs were peacefully sleeping, how can they sleep when they are lying on each other? With Carlos on the bottom and Karla forty degrees to his right and Rafi lying on Karla, cubs are so weird sometimes but Kion and Rani just watched their bodies raise and lower in sync, admiring their beautiful cubs as they hopefully dream of something wonderful. The king and queen let them sleep as they talk about the days plan, "I gotta go to the annual meeting with the PPO, so I won't be here for a while", " okay, well I'll probably just do some patrols and maybe even go talk to my grandfather", "okay, well I better get up and get ready, Nirmala is coming with me", " why?",
"since the discovery of the other Tree Of Life and Queen Kass, they need to meet and I guess teach them and help", Kion agreed and kissed Rani, " You can wake the cubs up when your ready I guess", Rani leaped down from the rock and headed out, the sudden light that came from outside as Rani lifted the vines blinded Kion, it was nice and warm but it kind of hurt, squinting still the vines stop swaying, looking down as the cubs began to wrestle awake. Smiling to himself he licks them awake, "good morning little ones", they grunt awake and yawn, their mouths widening, looking in you can see how small but yet deadly their teeth are.
"Hello daddy, where's mum?", " mum is getting ready to go on a meeting, she'll be back around mid afternoon", the cubs get up and start walking out and so does Kion, lifting up the blinds and greeting the sun.

"Okay, now listen carefully, I gotta go on patrol, so me and mum won't be here for a while, please stay out of danger okay, if something is wrong go straight to Azaad and if she isn't there than go to Makini", " okay", the cubs looked distracted and so Kion repeated it with a stern look," promise me?", "yes dad, we promise you"," good, now go get some breakfast, Kion walked down to the meeting point where the rest of the Day Pride was waiting for him to go on their patrol, "good morning Kion", " good morning guys", "sleep well?", Kion thought about it for a while, " yeah I guess, Rani was keeping me warm though", Kion said quickly changing the subject, "so how is Rani?", " ahh she is great, she's gone to a PPO meeting with Nirmala, the cubs are hopefully behaving themselves", Bunga joined in and asked if he could have a day off to play with them, looking towards the tree the three cubs were playing baobab ball already, it looked tempting but duty calls, "okay, today's plan is to go around and check the new animals, hope they fit in well, than go around the borders and check the outskirts, we'll take our break and continue making our way down south and finally if all goes well, finish up back at the tree. " sounds good", "okay than, let's roll out".

It became midday when the safety of the three cubs were in danger, having a little nap just under the tree in the shade, after playing many mini games, tag, hide and seek, baobab ball and pretend, they tired themselves out and being cubs fell asleep straight away, they slept next to each other and looked so cute, maybe too cute to catnip them but in Makuthca's words, " after embarrassing us too many times, talking what we wanted and of course let's not forget taking out scar and Yassain, it is time to take something that means to them, their precious cubs will be mine, they'll follow me", "what will we do with them?", Regan asked, " we'll use them to get over the Tree Of Life", "what if they don't?", " than we'll kill them, eat them and than we'll decide ", the other three leopards evilly laughed in sync as the plan was set, to catnip three cubs and take them back to Makuthca.

The three leopards made their way towards the tree, they know that Rani and Kion are gone and won't be back for a long time, now you'll probably wondering why they don't just attack and eat the animals, but no, who knows when the Day Pride will come back, the Night Pride is still around and for the long run it is better, Regan lead his two companions towards the three cubs, sleeping it would make it even better to grab them, Regan ordered them to take one each, carefully lifting them by the scruff, not waking them up and pitting them on their back and carried to the meeting point, sounds simple right?, the plan was set, they were about to grab them when Rafi begins to wake, reflexes threw them towards the tree as they climb and wait till he either goes back asleep or walks off, and so Rafi yawns, walks off towards the pond, " new plan, grab these two and leave, I'll take care of that one", they nod as they head down the tree, the plan was failing, Carlos was waking, forcing them back up the tree, they were getting annoyed as the cub follows Rafi to the watering hole, "GREAT", he said it too loud and Karla wakes up.
" shit", they had to make a quick decision, the two other cubs were coming back so Regan ran down and grabbed Karla by the scruff and ran off, it all happened too fast and they were already half way out of the entrance when Karla realised she was being taken, she screamed, kicked and tried clawing Regan as she tried freeing herself but no use, the two cubs return and was about to wake her up when there is no sign of her at all, "Karla?", they check the tree and no sign of her, " okay, no more games, dad said for us too stay together, where are you?", Rafi and Carlos looked all around the tree but no sign of her, they decide to go get Azaad, but it's too late, leopards are too fast and by the time Azaad knew about Karla's disappearance Makuthca was already too far away to be stopped, yelling at Regan and the others for not completing their mission, meanwhile Karla is crying. Karla was catniped.