Well, looky here! A parody! I never thought I'd write one of these things... but here I am! Anyway, enjoy!
Disclaimer: I don't own YGO, or Disney, or the origional Jungle Book
Yami padded softly across the leaf-littered ground, leaping carefully into a tree and settling himself on a wide branch. From his position, he could see the village, and all the man-things going about their daily business. He watched for a long time, a strangely sad look in his eyes. A tall young man came out of the village gate, whistling a cheerful tune. A woman ran after him.
"No… Tristan, you can't go out there! It's dangerous!"
"Serenity, calm down… I know my way around the jungle. Don't worry."
"Of course I worry – what if… what if Marik – ?"
"I'll be fine, Serenity, I promise."
"I'm not just worried about that…" The woman touched her strangely swollen stomach tenderly. "I don't want our baby to grow up without a father!"
Tristan's face softened, and he put his arms around his small wife, enveloping her. "Okay," he said gently, steering her back into the village. "I wont go." He knelt by his wife's stomach and said light-heartedly, "You win, little man!"
"We don't know that yet."
"I have a feeling…"
"You and your feelings!" laughed Serenity as they walked through the gate and disappeared from sight.
Yami sighed, got to his feet and stretched. He leapt lightly from the tree and stalked back into the heart of the jungle. He jumped over a log and continued walking, lost in thought.
Yami stumbled, tripping over his paws as the face of a large bear came into his sightline.
The bear's face broke into a huge smile. "Yami, hey." The rest of the bear emerged from within a bush.
"Oh, no," Yami groaned. "Not you."
"Oh, that's nice, that's real nice Yami. Great way to treat your friend!"
"Sorry." Yami looked at his paws. "I was just…"
"Thinking?" asked the bear, standing up on his hind paws. "Man, you do to much of that… you gotta learn to just let things…"
"Flow. I know." Yami rolled his eyes. "As… inspiring… as your theory may be, it's not quite going to work."
"You went there again!" The bear's happy-go-lucky tone became flat. "I know you did. Yami, if I've told you once I've told you a thousand times – it's dangerous!"
Yami got to his feet. "And so what if it is? I can take care of myself." He began to stalk away.
"Now, wait – wait, Yami. Please. I didn't mean it that way and… and you know it."
Yami stopped. "Sorry, Joey," he sighed, turning around. "Got a little…"
"Carried away?"
Yami smiled. "Not quite what I had in mind, but close enough."
"Thought you'd say that. Hey, Yami, the wolf cub were looking for you earlier."
"The wolf cubs? Whatever for?"
"How should I know? Nobody ever tells the bear anything."
Yami laughed and gestured with a paw for his friend to follow him.
When they reached the Wolf Den, they heard a loud whoop of delight, followed by a cub flying right at them. He bounced off of Joey's stomach and flopped to the ground. He looked up nervously at the two friends.
"Sam!" An angry-looking female wolf burst out of the cave, and stalked over to her cub. "Sorry, Yami… Joseph…" She picked up her cub in her mouth and placed him at the entrance to the Cave. "Go inside. I'll deal with you later," she growled, and then turned to face the visitors.
"Sorry to bother you, Jhazeera, but I heard your cub were looking for me?"
Jhazeera nodded. "They were… until they decided to play catapult."
Yami chuckled. "Would it be getting in the way of punishment if I spoke to them for a while?"
The she-wolf smiled. "No, not at all. Children, come outside… Uncle Yami's here to see you!"
"And me?" asked Joey, pretending to sound offended.
"Uncle Joey!" yelled several high-pitched voices, cutting off their mother. The cubs bounded out of the cave and raced to the bear.
They stopped dead when they saw Yami.
"Uh, Uncle Yami!" said one cub politely. "Thank you for coming."
Jhazeera looked pointedly at the other cubs, shining a rare smile on the polite one.
The cubs dutifully repeated what their sister had said, and then they turned back to Joey. Yami laughed, but there was sadness in his eyes. He could remember another young cub who had done that, once…
"Tell us a story, Uncle Joey!"
"A story?" The bear scratched his head. "I don't know any stories…"
"What about the story of Tristan?" piped up the polite cub, hopefully.
"That story, I know!" exclaimed the bear. "I was there, you know. I was the one who started it all!"
"Were you?" asked Yami, raising his eyebrows.
"We-ell," conceded Joey. "Yami was the one who found the little tyke, but I taught him how to be a bear!"
"But he wasn't a bear. He was a man."
"Yami, stop interrupting and let me tell the story! Okay, so once upon a time there was this bear…"
"Joey! You're telling it all wrong. Any minute now you're going to say that you fought off Marik! Allow me." Yami sat down, and the cubs formed an obedient circle around him. Joey grumbled under his breath, but joined the circle, too.
Yami took a deep breath and began, his voice unconsciously taking on a storyteller's timbre. "Many strange legends are told of these jungles of India. But none so strange as the story of a small boy named Mowgli. It all began when the silence of the jungle was broken by an unfamiliar sound."
Well, feel free (wink, wink) to leave a review telling me what you think!
Fare Thee Well,
Lady Flames