🦧 Monkey See, Monkey Do
First Draft Created: 2024-03-18 19:40
Last Updated: 1 month, 3 weeks ago
"Flattery." his mother had always told him. "When in doubt, just tell them you want to be like them. And bide your time."
King Louie sighed. Honestly, he did not want to be like this man-cub. He had started to realise it pretty much the moment he had seen the boy Mowgli's dancing style. It was the level of cringe that could cause an aneurysm.
Who raised this kid anyway? Humans?
It was frankly embarrassing to be around him. Not that any of the lower primates would dare to mock him for imitating the boy. Not to his face, anyway.
Still, Louie had a strong sense of internal humiliation, as he leaped down with the rabble, grabbed the boy's hand to swing him around, let go and started mimicking the clumsy lad's movements, making his own limbs' movements imitate the child's gangly ones, and feigning fascination with the boy's inferior climbing and jumping abilities as he sprang up onto a rock as if it were some huge feat before leaping back down again into the centre of the dance floor.
A king had to be gracious to his host, and Louie had seen enough of man taking over the jungle to know that forging a diplomatic relationship was crucial in this case. It wasn't that he wanted to be like man, to walk or talk like man, as he had told the mancub. No, it was man's power he craved, and the respect they commanded.
This social ... visit (for what was a kidnapping between friends? The kid seemed happy now) was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, as the boy currently had no relationships or any allegiances to his own kind yet, had no idea even what powerful weaponry his own people possessed, and seemingly himself had no ambitions to wield them or to dominate the jungle.
This thus presented a golden opportunity for Louie. By the time the man-cub inevitably could no longer keep pace with the wolf pack and had to return to his own kind - what would doubtless be a massive and off-putting culture shock - perhaps Louie could have befriended him, gained the boy's trust, and won over his loyalty enough to get him to bring him more than simply the fire that kept them warm and scared off predators - a power Louie had feigned ignorance of and called the "red flower" - but to also bring him some of those booming sticks the men brought with them when they ventured further in, the ones that felled even elephants from a distance! Hell, maybe the boy could even get him an elephant to parade around on!
Of course, this would be an elephant specially tamed by man to obey, not one of those wild jungle brutes.
Then just SEE those little punks try to mock him when he rode on an elephant and carried the loud stick that killed!
And then, finally, once the army of younger apes was all in line, once he had his powerful mount and artillery, it would be Sheer Khan's turn to know what it was like to be prey.
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