The idea for this fic was that, well, in Fables proper, Mowgli sort of dropped off the map. Not only that, but so did Bluebeard and Shere Khan despite being resurrected for what looked to be some big plotline...that seemed to have been dropped. I wanted to write something that tied that all together and gave Mowgli some closure in the style of the last Fables issue; hence the title. It takes place after the comics end and has some references to The Jungle Book as written by Kipling as well, but I think you can still enjoy the story without knowledge of one or even either.
Mowgli is sitting at a little table outside of a beautiful café. The windowsills are adorned with flowering plants with tendrils so long they drape the stone. His drink has an umbrella in it. Miniature umbrellas, not for miniature people, but why then do drinks need to be protected from liquid? Mowgli wonders if his problem is that he thinks too much. Back in the jungle he hardly thought at all, and wasn't he happier that way?
He sits back and watches the people pass by. The only part of him that's moving are his eyes as he watches a mother push a stroller with one hand and thread strands of red hair back into her ponytail with the other. He watches an employee of the bookstore across the street sweep the doorway, watches a man tap the side of his car impatiently as he waits for the light to turn, watches a cat shift with the sun's track across the sky to sleep, all without moving an inch. The Law of the Jungle never leaves you, not even if you try.
When the people approach him, his head snaps around. It's not on purpose, and his face floods with color. He never blushed before he came to this world.
The couple steps back in surprise. The man has a camera around his neck, tan lines visible at the edges of his flower patterned shirt. Tourists. After centuries of traveling around this globe, Mowgli will say that if tourists are anything, they're pervasive. The cockroaches of humanity. Mowgli is one of them, technically, in name. It's his profession, however, and he likes to think he's at least a little less irritating to locals.
"Can I help you?" he says, smiling effortlessly.
Bagheera has commented on how well he has adapted to the rules of human etiquette (especially considering the first time he tried to live with other humans, but the old panther graciously didn't mention that). Mowgli's almost insulted when he says it. Hundreds of years in tame cities are taking the wild out of him.
The tourists exchange excited glances. The man's fingers are gripped around his camera so tightly they're white.
"We're looking for Fabletown."
Mowgli had almost forgotten that tourists are going to come, in trickles and then streams, people clamoring to see the fairytales come to life with little consideration for the fact that they are all living breathing people, whether they are humans or animals or even humans trained to think like animals. Soon the cockroaches will click and hover over everything they once held dear until the paths Fables had trod for centuries are worn down with unfamiliar plastic shoes.
Then again, does it really matter? Fables are returning to their homeworlds in droves; Mowgli wonders how they know with such certainty that their home is waiting for them. Mowgli isn't going home. There's no point. He can never be truly wild again.
"It's the giant castle that way," he says, pointing to the big black structure looming in the distance. He has directed tourists to Big Ben and the Taj Mahal, to the Great Wall of China and the pyramids. He is not surprised by the obliviousness of mankind.
"Thank you," says the woman, unconsciously pressing back on her heels in a rocking motion. Her checkered dress is crumpled with the same sense of eagerness that her husband possesses. "We'll be on our way then!"
"Wait," says the man suddenly, letting one hand fall off his camera so he can grip his wife's arm. "We should tip him. That's what they do in New York."
The man rummages in his pouch from where it hangs over his front like a marsupial. Mowgli has seen them on tourists before and wonders why they don't catch on. He should get one for himself. He considers his options while the man pulls some money out.
"What's your name, son?" asks the tourist. Mowgli wonders exactly how young he looks.
Half a dozen fake names flash through his mind. His current springs to his lips, instantly ready to lie to these people. Instead he meets the man's eyes and does something that, until recently, would be unthinkable.
He tells the truth.
"My name is Mowgli," he says, flashing them that charming smile of his. Lots of teeth. People seem to like it.
The woman gasps and the man's stubby fingers fly out of his fanny patch and latch onto his camera. He blinks at the bright flash. It does not put him in a good mood.
"The Mowgli?" she asks, voice high from what Mowgli assumes is a lack of oxygen. He is very tempted to tell her to breathe. He almost wishes she wouldn't.
"That's the one," he says, smile intact. Bagheera would be so disappointed in him. "Now, that tip?"
The wife is snapping photos in her mind as the man drops a few coins into his palm. He's still smiling, but there must be more teeth in his grin than usual, because the couple does not linger.
His eyes are fixed on their backs as they retreat when he hears a voice. "King Cole expects people like that to boost our economy. He's already printing t-shirts."
This man does not surprise him either. He doubts a single creature in Fabletown could sneak up on him (and he's including Maddy in that estimate, whether the black cat likes it or not).
Mowgli's smile turns genuine at the sight of an ugly Hawaiian print shirt. "Hello, Flycatcher."
Mowgli doesn't know the frog-turned-janitor-turned king very well. He doesn't know anyone in Fabletown very well. It's not an accident. He remembers escaping the Indu with Bagheera and Baloo, not only the Adversary on his heels but the reanimated Shere Khan trailing him as well. They had arrived in a world of white faces, a world where people took one look at him and treated him differently, one where the people who were supposed to be his allies and friends waved away his tales of mistreatment in favor of adopting the Puritan lifestyle of their colonial counterparts.
It grew tiring to hear the other Fables parrot the mantra of American freedom when he was so often turned away from buying a drink. Combine that with his preference for those who warm his bed and no wonder he took the Tourist gig.
But Flycatcher is nice enough. Most of them are, even if they don't understand him.
"I've seen you here before," says Flycatcher.
"The café? Yes, they have good pastries."
Mowgli watches Flycatcher examine the sign. The man is clearly interested in pastries. His attention shifts to the window display showcasing the best of the food off and Mowgli chuckles at his empty plate.
"What do you think you'll do now that you're out of a job?" asks Flycatcher.
"I'll have to thank Snow for that," he replies. "That family feud ended up changing everything."
"It was a long time coming," says Flycatcher, eyes moving from the pastry display to meet Mowgli's gaze.
"Fair enough," Mowgli replies. "I wasn't here for most of it, but you could tell even from a distance that something big was happening. Now that it's all over, I think I'll stick around here." There's nothing for him in the Indu.
"I wasn't expecting that," says Flycatcher, orange eyes flying up in what is the very definition of comical. Mowgli, for his part, is surprised that Flycatcher is even thinking of him.
"There are forests here that could do with some protection," he adds. "I'll find a way, whether I take the humans' methods or my own. These people are worse than Shere Khan in many, many ways."
Flycatcher shakes his head. "I don't like to think about the havoc he and Bluebeard are causing out there."
The sounds of the city do not quiet around him, but sharpen until he can hear every creature nearby rustle and breathe. He can feel the blood coursing through his veins, see every pore on Flycatcher's skin.
"Shere Khan is alive?"
There are few left to watch Mowgli finish his preparations, but that is all right, because it will not take Mowgli long. King Cole, the cat Maddy, Flycatcher, and his dear old friends Bagheera and Baloo all stick around.
Training might be a better word than prepare for what he has been doing. He's soft, out of shape from his time with the mundies; the wolf fight while looking for Bigby is only further proof of that. If he was inclined to wait he could get back in shape the way the people here liked to, by pulling weights up and down and pretending like parroting real running on a treadmill makes any kind of a real difference.
He does not look soft to the humans who watch him tie a hunting knife to a cord and sling it around his neck. The animals understand, even the witch cat.
Mowgli has long accepted that he is a man, but he has almost forgotten that he is not normal (even if no one else has).
"Ready?" asks Flycatcher, tilting his hat slightly.
"Wait," he says. "May I have a moment alone with these two?"
He does not gesture to the two he means because they all know. The old man, the new king, and the cat all shuffle out of the room, leaving him alone with his friends in a castle built for dark purposes. He doesn't meet Baloo or Bagheera's eyes because he knows they won't be able to sustain the gaze.
"My friends," he says. "We are all that's left. Kaa, Akela, Hathi, Raksha…we are all that is left. Or we should be."
"Shere Khan still lives," says Bagheera slowly, words arching past his tongue in a sultry purr, yellow eyes flicking from place to place, always ready for the attack.
"Not for long," says Mowgli. "Not if I have anything to say about it."
"What a curiously human expression," says Baloo. "Wouldn't your actions matter more than your words?"
"That's another human idiom," he replies, pacing. His feet make no noise on the stone floor. "But it doesn't matter. We are long past the time when I pitched a fit at every reminder of my humanity. I know what I am."
Baloo sighs. "There are days when I forget you are no longer a little frog."
"I am always your little frog," he says, and softness bleeds through the armor only the panther and the bear can see. "For you two? Always."
The two exchange looks. Some would probably find it comical, the idea of these three meeting and so seriously talking. Most would find the idea of being trapped in a room with these creatures terrifying.
"We're going back to the Indu," says Bagheera.
"We have spent too many centuries trapped in this world," adds Baloo. "Trapped on the Farm. We're wild creatures. I would have stayed in the Indu if I had known what awaited us here."
"Trapped in a cage for some of it," says Bagheera, slinking around Mowgli's bare legs, the very top of his fur brushing Mowgli's cargo pants.
"I understand," he replies. "Do not let your fondness for me hold you back. You deserve to hunt on old grounds once again."
"But you're not coming back."
It doesn't matter who says it. They're both thinking it.
"No," he says. "It took much longer than any of us thought, but I'm not going back to the jungle. My kind calls to me, as bittersweet as it is."
Mowgli hates this castle. When he takes a breath he tastes decay on the tip of his tongue, the very air particles tainted by the dark creator of this place. It's funny that Cole is planning to begin anew here with his special school for the magically endowed. And by funny he means morbid.
They will see each other again, but it won't be the same. Mowgli bends so that he can brush his calloused palms across their fur, from their heads down their backs. They will miss it, but it has been so long since he was a child. This too has been a long time coming.
When Mowgli stands there are no tears to wipe, but Bagheera and Baloo look at him and see a flash of the boy who frightened a tiger with fire and cried under Council Rock. Mowgli opens the door and catches Flycatcher's attention. "I'm ready."
His eyes are not as hard as ice. That is the wrong metaphor for the tenacity underneath. No, a closer one would be that his gaze is as impenetrable as the thickest jungle.
Flycatcher takes him to the last world he knows the bridekiller and the tiger have been seen. It's been months, Flycatcher tells him, wringing big knuckled hands, but Mowgli has tracked down an old wolf far more adept and intent on covering his tracks than a couple of washed-up old villains like the ones he's looking for.
It takes time, but Mowgli has learned through the centuries that he has all the time in the world. He still learns every day, regardless of the subject, except that it is no longer old Baloo teaching the lessons.
They're in hiding, the tiger and the bridekiller. That makes Mowgli smile when he hears it. He tracks them to an old ruin surrounded by lush forest. Mowgli wonders how many centuries the tiger has terrorized now, whether it be in rough scrublands that left red lines on your arms, desert plains that burned the heels of bare feet, or places like here, beneath trees so thick that you cannot see the sky when you look up. The green roof above him makes him think of home, but this forest does not chatter the way his did.
There is no one in the ruins when he arrives, no one except insects and birds and the ghosts of the Adversary's misdeeds. He doesn't mind. He perches in a tree outside the single worn trail (distinctive, he imagines, even to a non-expert due to the strange trail that could only be made by one dragging paw). He sits in the tree and waits, feeling the commotion brought by the human world empty his mind bit by bit. He has missed this.
The tiger is not the one who appears when dusk hits. It is the exiled billionaire, a man with more money than sense and a trail of murdered women behind him. Mowgli never knew Bluebeard before the run from the Homelands, but he has known many women who would fall for his trap, entranced by good looks and money and kind words. Mowgli feels something he doesn't quite know to place, but if he were forced to put on a range of emotions, he would rank it somewhere near hatred.
Bluebeard doesn't hear him when he lands on the soft ground behind him, rustling so few blades of grass that the bird pecking at seeds less than a foot away does not stir. Mowgli pulls his knife out of its sheath and approaches the man from behind. He has never hunted man before, not in all his long life.
He will not kill if he does not have to. He tells himself this until his knife is at the man's throat. He can feel the man's jugular, the way he swallows, the scratch of his stubble on his cheek. He wants to draw the blade across this second, but he waits.
"Who is this? A local finally discovering us?" says Bluebeard, adam's apple throbbing against the knife.
"You wish," says Mowgli.
The man stiffens beneath his knife. Mowgli imagines that if one's life really does flash before your eyes before your eyes, it's doing that just about now for him. He wonders if even one part of the scoundrel regrets his killing sprees.
"The jungle freak."
"That's not a very nice thing to call someone."
"You've come for Shere Khan."
"I'm certainly not here for you," he says.
"You don't have to kill me. I can reward you handsomely."
"You're not a billionaire anymore, Bluebeard," he replies. "Cole took all of it, found all of your secret rooms. It was a project he was very passionate about. Didn't like the contents of some of them…but others, oh, well that's a very different story."
Bluebeard doesn't say a word.
"I bet you love hearing that King Cole is spending your money any way he wants." Or was, before the Business Office disappeared, but this is too much fun to mention that.
The man under his knife- Mowgli once heard doctors refer to their surgeries this way, putting people under the knife, which Mowgli thought was funny- squirms, cutting himself on the blade. Blood begins to drip. Mowgli can smell the iron tinge. His eyes shift, watching the birds in the trees, the wind in the grass, a cricket flitting from stone to stone, and wonders if he is the only one who has noticed the scent.
Bluebeard shakes with every rasping syllable Mowgli voices, throat against the man's ear, cheek brushing the beard he is so very famous for. Mowgli wonders if Bluebeard has ever shaved with a knife. He wonders if he would like to try. He doubts it; he can tell that this man is very afraid just in the way he is breathing. He likes it better this way.
"What did they say about me in Fabletown?" he asks. "I know there were rumors. I spent a long time away from home, after all. What did they say about me?"
"They said you were brave, that you do what's asked of you. That you're strong in ways only that damned wolf can match. That you're not fit to live among people." The man grunts out every word like it is paining him, the journey from stomach to throat past teeth strenuous and draining.
"Maybe they're right," he says.
He pulls the knife away. Bluebeard stumbles forward in surprise.
"You're a man," says Mowgli. "If not much of one. That means you get a fair fight."
Bluebeard turns to face him. He knows he can't outrun Mowgli. Mowgli is standing there in nothing but his cargo pants, bare chest toned and muscled from centuries of hunting. He would look no different in a suit. Mowgli is a man in his prime. Mowgli is a man who has been in his prime for hundreds of years.
Bluebeard is a man who was so recently a ghost of his former self- literally. He still flickers in spots, the Adversary's magic not quite enough to restore him to his full humanity. His beard is unkempt. His eyes are bloodshot. He used to fence, Mowgli remembers. He remembers the day when Bluebeard had come up to him and challenged him to a duel. He had told the murderer that he would give it a try the day Bluebeard kissed him. The look of disgust had been everything he had ever wanted, and Mowgli had smiled for days.
Mowgli is in shape, Bluebeard isn't, and he knows this and he knows he can't outrun Mowgli. And yet he's still smiling, which tells Mowgli what he's going to do before his fingers even begin to twitch. Bluebeard grins. Mowgli imagines the other man thinks it's frightening. It's not.
Mowgli's knife is in his hand, bone handle warm, familiar. Bluebeard pulls a weapon out of his tattered pants and brandishes it. Mowgli is not surprised to see a gun.
"Man versus beast," says Bluebeard, aiming for Mowgli's head. He thinks himself the hero in a Bond film, except that his one liners aren't funny and Bond, no matter how sexist, is no serial killer.
Mowgli is too fast for him, but not fast enough. He used to be fast enough. The bullet catches him in the leg. He ignores it and keeps going, the pain a not even close to enough to deter him from his course. His instincts tell him to go for the throat, and his instincts have been fine-honed by creatures of the wild.
He stabs Bluebeard in the balls instead.
He doesn't know if any of Bluebeard's former wives are still out there. He hopes so. He hopes someone tells them about this in spectacular detail someday.
Bluebeard's cry of pain (more like a screech, a horrible cracking whine, if Mowgli is inclined to be less kind, and he is) mirrors the sounds a dying wolf makes. A comparison that wolves are too good for. Birds scatter from trees. Man versus beast indeed.
It is the Law of the Jungle to end every creature's suffering quickly, so Mowgli slices him across the neck, blade cutting clean past his stubble and into his trachea with ease. He doesn't mean to cut off his head, but he doesn't know his own strength, and he finds that he isn't unhappy when it topples to the ground.
Something shiny catches his eye. He bends down, wincing as the adrenaline wears off. He rather likes the earring Bluebeard is wearing, so he takes it, slipping it out of his ear with a gentleness that belies the strength in his long fingers. He leaves the head and body for the tiger to find.
He sits down next to the corpse and rolls up the end of his cargo pants, exposing the bullet wound. He digs the bullet out with his knife. He has to keep quiet or the tiger will hear. He relishes the challenge, or at least he forces himself to think that as he grits his teeth and extracts the bullet from flesh that feels like seal rubber by the end.
When the bullet is out he places it in the single pouch strapped to his belt and rips a strip from Bluebeard's stained vest, watching it shimmer in the wind, still only half-corporeal. Mowgli doesn't care about the fancy fabric it's born from or the state of its appearance or even how ghostly it might be as long as he can use it for a tourniquet. He'll get his leg taken care of properly when he has the time.
Shere Khan should be able to smell the blood from wherever he is. He should have heard the scream as well, Mowgli realizes. He didn't need to be quiet as he removed that bullet, but he doesn't give that much thought. It's done, and the next item on his list is far more important. Shere Khan will come.
While Mowgli waits he examines the earring he took off Bluebeard's decapitated head. He has never gotten his ears pierced (he considered it a few decades back, but no one could seem to decide whether it was the left ear or the right that was for gay men, and he certainly didn't want anyone to think he was straight) but he figures the process must be rather simple.
He pushes the sharp edge of the earring through his earlobe, concentrating on the throbbing of his leg. He doesn't hesitate, and it goes through the soft skin like parting through butter, if butter left blood smeared on your fingers when you pull your hand away.
He hopes he catches a mirror soon, or even a calm lake. He is touched the earring with stained fingers when something in the brush moves, sending dead leaves skittering to the dirt packed ground. Mowgli feels his heart pick up the drum beat inside his chest, his gaze focusing on the spot in front of him.
His grin is wolfish even if his teeth are white and straight, unable to bite and chew the way the animals who raised him are. Mowgli doesn't need the teeth of a wolf to follow the Law. He doesn't need the eyes of one either to know what is happening.
Shere Khan is here.
"I see we both have lame paws."
The tiger sneers at Mowgli's cheerful words. Mowgli smiles. Once, when he was small and skinning a tiger took more strength than he had in his tiny body, he had had to use wit to kill the mean old tiger that liked to snatch little boys and girls away from their mothers. He'd brought two herds of stampeding buffalo, fur bristling and teeth gnashing, crashing into each other as Mowgli had watched from afar, witnessing the death of a tiger from a distance. It is nearly comical to think about now, he thinks, considering how personal the whole business was to the young boy who'd just lost his pack.
He won't need to do that here. The knife is an extension of his hand, but more importantly, Mowgli has a trick up the sleeve he isn't wearing.
They do that dance you see in movies, the tiger and the man walking around each other in a circle, every foot placed carefully, as though a misplaced heel will cause a landmine to go off.
The tiger lunges, but Mowgli steps aside. This happens several more times before Shere Khan decides to take a different approach, hopefully (in the tiger's eyes) more successful than before. He returns to pacing around Mowgli, putting one paw in front of another ever so slowly.
"The tale of the man cub ends tonight," says the tiger.
"How many times have you died now, Shere Khan?" he replies, smiling with razor eyes. "Even twice is more times than most get. Once by buffalo, once by Snow, and the last time by jungle freak. I'm going to put that spirit of yours to rest."
The tiger laughs, a strange sound coming from that mouth. It's meant to frighten him. It wouldn't have frightened him when he was ten.
The tiger lunges again, and this time Mowgli doesn't move fast enough. He grunts as claws make contact with wounded flesh. His vision clouds, colors flashing through his mind without stopping long enough for him to sort through them. He shakes his head, clearing his head. The injury hurts more than he'd like to to, but isn't that how it goes?
"You cannot defeat me, man cub. Not after the Adversary you so hate lifted me to a higher status than you, restoring my ghostly form to this superior body. I have more power than you could dream of, child. I am the true master, and all others, from the lowest jackal to the highest elephant, will bow to m-"
Mowgli uses the time bought with the self-righteous speech to circle around the tiger once last time. He sets down the knife and picks up something else. He stands with his back straight, blood running from his leg down his calf and into the soil, staining the blades of grass around his foot red. He points the object in his hand at the tiger.
"I am going to bring your pelt back to the Indu, the land that spawned you and nurtured me," says Mowgli. "I'm going to dance on it, dance on Council Rock one last time." Alone.
"Are you now, boy?" says Shere Khan.
The tiger turns, baring his teeth and readying himself to take a bite out of the man before him. Instead he comes face to face with the barrel of Bluebeard's gun.
"Any last words?" A very human expression, but is that not what he is?
The tiger roars, one of those roars Mowgli has seen on camera, like that lion at the beginning of some of the pictures Mowgli pays to see. Shere Khan bounds forward, the rattle of his roar ringing through the forest. There is fear in the big cat's eyes when he reaches Mowgli.
Mowgli smiles and pulls the trigger. The bullet shoots into his mouth and rips through the animal's stomach, tearing through nearly ethereal insides. The tiger falls dead for the third time.
The orange and black stripes are striking against the blood-soaked grass. Mowgli admires the beauty; it doesn't stop him from skinning his dead enemy with clockwork skill.
Mowgli is sitting at a little table outside a beautiful café. A half-eaten pastry sits in front of him. He drank his coffee hours ago. If a tourist saw the serene look on his face they might have added "Namaste" before snapping their unasked photo of him. Mowgli doesn't mind at the moment. Other people's behavior has no reflection on him.
He touches Bluebeard's earring with clean fingers. King Cole has asked him to teach at the school he's forming. You know things the rest of us couldn't begin to dream of, Cole keeps telling him. Mowgli remembers what Bluebeard said about him and accepts. At least he knows better to shut children up in a dark castle all day and night. With him they will see the outdoors. With him they may feel like they're seeing too much of the outdoors, but at least they will see stars without a haze of pollution separating them.
Mowgli raises his fingers in the air, ordering a drink with a fancy umbrella in it so he can push it in circles around the inside of the glass. Things don't feel much different after returning with Shere Khan's pelt on his back and Bluebeard's gold earring in his ear, but things have changed at least a little. For once, Mowgli feels better. He smiles with all of his teeth.
He is Mowgli, of the Seonee Wolf Pack, raised by wolves, taught by a bear, friends with a panther, but he also belongs to the world of men; a Tourist, a teacher, perhaps a friend and a lover, if he can find those who'd want those services. He is not an animal or a man. He can be both. He is both.