Stormbringer: King

O N E

"Once upon a time, there lived two brothers.
The older was a glorified warrior.
The younger, a meek soldier."

・ ・ ・

For a prince, Storm was too much of a wimp.

At least, that was what he felt about himself.

A prince had to be strong. Brave. Ready to rule.

He was none of that.

He was rather pathetic, actually. Constantly moping, being obedient, doing whatever his parents wanted him to do without any complaint.

And being weak, dumb and cowardly.

Storm felt like a fool.

At least his brother was different from him.

For a seven-year-old child, his brother Xenor was quite intelligent. A prodigy, one might even call him. He was outstanding in all sorts of ways.

His intellect was unbeatable (he scored full marks on a mini IQ test at age four).

His strength was indomitable (he could lift seven kilograms at age five).

Not to mention his ambitious dreams of becoming the king (he would yell, "I'm going to become the king!" about twice a week).

He was the perfect prince.

It was discouraging to see Xenor being showered with praises every single day. Storm felt jealousy at the amount of attention his brother was getting, but also admiration.

His brother was a role model.

Storm wanted to be like him.

However, he didn't want to become as mischievous as Xenor was. Not at all. He was lucky to be a humble boy, rather than the naughty prankster his brother was.

Xenor often liked to use his sharp intellect for the wrong things, after all.

About a year back, his brother happened to uncover a bottle of itching powder in his cabinet. It was just a small thing. Their parents decided to let him keep it. No harm done, right?

How wrong they were.

Xenor somehow managed to slip the itching powder into their father's underwear drawer. He coated all of the garments in there with the substance, and made it look like nothing had been dumped on them.

The next day, Storm had woken up to what sounded like lions rampaging in the Palace and roaring their heads off.

That was, obviously, not the cause of the massive ruckus in the hallways, because they didn't keep lions anywhere in the Palace, nor in Argon, for that matter.

In actual fact, Bayne had been throwing a tantrum, and had been screaming at his mother, Liss, who screamed right back.

Bayne had also been scratching rather madly at his lower regions.

It had been a ridiculously comedic sight, and as much as Storm had tried to look at the matter seriously, he couldn't help but laugh.

The screaming escalated rather quickly into a brief slapping session between his parents.

Both adults eventually retired to their chambers, and Bayne had to wash all of his underwear, after discovering more itching powder on them.

When Storm confronted Xenor later that day, his brother admitted that he had been the one behind the scenes, and couldn't stop laughing for five minutes straight. Storm didn't understand why his brother would do such a thing, until he explained (after calming down from his hysteria, of course).