"So, I just sorta jump and grab? Sounds dangerous"
"Well… When you put it that way-"
"I don't like danger. Bagheera always told me not to take any risks."
"Just keep your eye on the vine, and watch out for any trees."
"Bagheera really wouldn't like this."
The teenage boy perched in the highest branches of the large jungle rainforest tree eyed the ground warily. It was an awful long ways away. The large man who perched next to him patted his back awkwardly.
"Pretend you're only a few feet off the ground and you'll be fine." Tarzan encouraged.
"That drop is more than a few feet." Mowgli muttered.
The vine that Mowgli was going to attempt to grab was only a couple of feet away, but to Mowgli, it felt like a few miles.
Because he was raised by wolves, Mowgli had spent a lot of time close to the ground, rarely climbing up in trees and attempting to swing from vines. Yet Tarzan insisted that it was necessary to learn how to navigate the trees like an ape.
Mowgli took a deep breath and readied himself to leap. Ignoring the ground hundreds of feet below, he launched himself off the branch with a scream, his eyes squeezed shut.
"MOWGLI! EYES ON THE VINE!" Tarzan shouted.
Mowgli forced his eyes open to see a indistinguishable haze of green rushing about him. In the middle of it all was the vine. A life line.
Mowgli's hands reached out and grabbed the vine, pulling it taunt. A jolting pain filled his shoulders as his momentum carried him forward through the air.
He wrapped his feet around the vine and let out an adrenaline filled scream as he soared through the air. Branches and leaves whipt past him, some cutting into his skin.
"TREE!" Came Tarzan's voice again.
Mowgli caught sight of the trunk of the rain forest tree, which was rapidly approaching.
He twisted back and forth like a fish on a line and managed to change his course enough to miss the tree trunk. The vine began to swing back towards Tarzan, but this time it was slowed as it became increasingly entangled in nearby branches.
Mowgli saw a large broad branch that he could land on, located a few feet away from where Tarzan was still standing.
Hesitatingly, Mowgli dropped from the organic green rope and landed on the wooden walk way.
Tarzan gave him a thumbs up and Mowgli, despite the shallow cuts on his arm, the sore shoulder, and the multiple near-death experiences, beamed happily.
"WHAT ARE YOU TWO DOING?!" The shrill voice rang out from below.
Mowgli and Tarzan glanced down to see Jane staring up with a horrified expression.
"You could have DIED! You could have fallen to a painful death and been paralyzed for the rest of your life and-"
"Jane." Interrupted Tarzan. "He is fine."
"Fine?!" Jane shrieked. "Tarzan, we agreed that we would do absolutely nothing to endanger this child! He trusts us to care for him, and then you go and tell him to jump out of a tree!"
"Child?" Mowgli huffed, rolling his eyes.
Frantically, Jane began to climb said tree, presumably so she could get to Tarzan and Mowgli and yell at them from a closer range.
"Jane, He is a natural." Tarzan argued.
Mowgli felt a strange swell of pride knowing that he had Tarzan's approval.
Tarzan grabbed a nearby vine and started to descend from the topmost branches, but Jane yelled for him to stop.
"You stay right there! No more vine swinging for you two!"
Mowgli was more than a little scared, and from the look on Tarzan's face, he was too. Jane-when-she-was-scared was a sight to see. Jane-when-she-was-scared-for-her-family was even more terrifying.
Still, in the midst of all her anger, Jane was having trouble getting up the tree. Her foot was uncomfortably wedged in between two branches, the other dangling in mid air; her arms hugged the thick trunk of the tree as if it was her lifeline to the earth. On top of that, Jane had chosen that day, of all days, to wear the old and ripped yellow dress that she had brought with her from England.
"Jane, let me help you up." Mowgli insisted. Maybe if he was nice he could score some points with Jane and she would be less angry with him.
"You stay right there, Mowgli!" she said, shaking her finger at him. "We are going to have a long discussion about jungle safety and then we'll have a talk about-"
Mowgli never did find out what he and Jane would be discussing (besides jungle safety).
Jane had climbed very high in the tree; she was directly below Mowgli, who was several feet below Tarzan. At that moment, Jane had reached out for a cluster of vines, only to have them come loose as soon as she put her weight on them.
Mowgli guessed it would happen before Jane actually fell. Something about living in the Jungle his entire life had attuned him to the possible dangers around him.
Somehow, he knew that Jane was going to fall before she did- It was that sixth sense born and fine-tuned in the jungle that saved Jane's life.
As soon as the cluster of vines were ripped from the tree, Mowgli was in the air, flying towards Jane. He let gravity pull him downwards.
Faster.
One hand shot out and grabbed a vine. The other was reaching for Jane.
Faster.
Mowgli willed himself to move faster towards the woman that had taken him in.
His hand closed on faded yellow fabric.
He briefly registered that there was a chance that this vine could not support two people before feeling his shoulders jolt once again. Mowgli began to worry that his grip on the vine could not support two people.
Mowgli had slowed their fall considerably, but the momentum was still swinging the teenager and the woman through the air.
He didn't see the tree branch coming. The branch was thick and sturdy and right in Mowgli's swing path.
THUD
It got him right in the stomach. The shock from hitting the thick wood branch knocked all the air out of Mowgli's body, and effectively got him to release his death grip on the vine.
Suddenly, Mowgli was free falling once again.
He couldn't help but think that Jane was probably right- he was going to fall to a painful death. His only regret however, was that Jane was going to fall too, and he was pitifully unable to save her. The ground was getting horribly close.
Then, strong arms wrapped around Mowgli and Jane.
Tarzan.
Easily, as if it were child's play, and gracefully, like a panther, Tarzan swooped from above, catching Mowgli with one arm, and gripping Jane with his legs.
He deposited the scared teenager and the flustered woman gently on the ground.
Jane sank to her knees, attempting to process what had just happened.
"I- I think I'm going to be motion-sick." Mowgli announced, collapsing next to her.
Instantly Jane shot back to her feet
"Mowgli, are you alright?" she asked worriedly, surveying the "child" for damage.
Mowgli's shoulders were hurting and he was pretty sure he was in a little bit of shock, but he recovered quickly and nodded.
"Mowgli, you saved me! Thank you so much!" Jane cried, embracing the teen.
"Jane, are you alright?" Tarzan asked, placing a hand on his wife's cheek
Jane rounded on him quickly, shoving his hand away.
"It's your fault that this happened!" She accused. "Mowgli could have died trying to save me because I slipped and fell out of tree!"
"Um, I saved both of you." Tarzan pointed out.
"But it's your fault that I was in the tree! This only goes to prove my point. And it's your fault that I slipped!"
"It… Is?" Tarzan asked, confused.
Jane got a bit carried away in her angry accusations. "You started this whole thing with your silly acrobatic stunts! From now on, if I so much as see you and Mowgli anywhere near a vine…"
The rant continued on in this fashion for several days.
Admittedly, it did stop Tarzan from taking Mowgli up into the trees for another vine swinging lesson.
When Mowgli asked Tarzan about it, Tarzan said,
"When I saw you jump off that branch to save Jane, I realized that you did not need lessons. You are a natural."
"But I couldn't save Jane." Mowgli pointed out.
"It was a matter of strength. Your body was simply not strong enough to carry that much weight on one arm."
"But I had a grip on the vine. I had it, and then I started to fall and I tried to hold on but I just couldn't do it. That stupid tree branch hit me. I needed you to save both of us in the end."
"You slowed down Jane's fall. It gave me an important few seconds to react. It gave me the time to save Jane."
"I guess. It's too bad I can't practice anymore vine swinging without Jane killing me now." Mowgli complained with an apathetic shrug.
For a moment, Tarzan was remorsefully silent. Then, he looked around quickly to make sure Jane was not in sight. A sly smile lit up his face as he suggested, "There is this other thing I do called vine-surfing. I should show you how to do it some time..."
