AN: Wow! I'm posting quickly, aren't I? *lol* Anyway, this focuses a lot on developing the character Jzni and revealing hidden motives of Yzma (if you've got the TENG CD and have heard her song "Snuff Out the Light", you'll get an idea) as well as defining Chel's friendship (maybe more?) with Kuzco (and he reflects on his views on the girls). There even might be some stuff helping sand the edges of Llana's foggy personality! Gee, if only…

*
Never Said Love
*
Part Six
*
Motives, Flashbacks, and Friends - Not Necessarily In That Order
*

Jzni leaned against the windowsill, propping his face up with his elbows as he stared unseeingly out at the folding jungles outside the palace. The moon shone gently, mystically and he smiled to himself. The moon was lovely. His smile hardened. The sun he hated, the sun he cursed…

Kuzco's emblem was the sun, whereas his father's had been the panther.

Their father's emblem.

He could remember…

(((His mother touched his face gently and he felt tears idle down her cheeks: thick, fat, silver tears. Jzni couldn't understand it…he just wanted to go back inside the grand palace, back inside with his half-brother.

"Kuu-oh!" he wailed, crying in the talk of an infant for his comforting twin. Kuzco and he himself had known Kuzco had a different mother, a woman that wasn't married to Father. "Why go 'way fwom 'ome?" he sniffled, curling up in her arms as she stumbled down the path of the jungle.

Her eyes hardened and, though she still wept silently and bravely, she spat, "That mistress of his, Iutnnola, is preferred over me." Mother fell silent and he sobbed louder.

"Want go 'oooome!!!"

That was the first time she struck him.

"I refuse to be below a bitch, to be a mere birthing tool, in his eyes!" she screamed, dropping him to the jungle floor with a jarring thud, and she struck Jzni once more, bringing blood up to sting his cheek.

A moment passed and she pulled him into a deep hug, whispering in a soothing voice, "It's all right, everything will get better…"

She lied.

Months, years passed and he grew older, bore scars on his body from where, in a fit of rage every now and then, she struck him, lashed him, beat him. Mother drilled it into him that Kuzco was the source of all this, that Jzni was the true heir to the throne. HE was older than the sun-child, HE wasn't a 'bastard,' HE was the moon-child, the chosen one who should govern the land. She trained him, taught him.

And then she died.

He met Yzma returning home to the village, where people knew him, loved him as he was.

A talking kitten of purple promised him the throne, promised him the moon.

Jzni accepted.)))

A tear slipped down his cheek, his chest contracting painfully, throat suddenly squeezing in on itself.

Kuzco hadn't even remembered him.

"I don't want the throne," Jzni whispered to the stars and the rivers and the sleeping people, his voice a lonely breeze dying without a sigh. "I want my brother back…but I can't have that any more, can I?" His voice became bitter. "I never wanted to become my mother!" he cried. Enraged for the moment, he slammed his fist into the wall, felt the skin over his knuckles split and crimson blood spring up. The pain was comforting, soothing. "It's too late now, isn't it?" he asked the moon softly. "And what's done is done…"

What a horrible world, indeed.



To be young again, Yzma thought to herself, cleaning her paws diligently. Ah, to be young…

Technically, she mused, she *was* young again, but if she were to become human again, escaping this accursed feline body, she would need to be older than a child! This cat was merely a kitten…so, she would need to be *younger* than his previous human body, but *older* than the human body she was on the verge of gaining.

A crafty smirk twitched her lips (lips?). She would simply wait until Jzni 'became' Kuzco, then she would have him send out some of those mercenaries of his to capture the Amethyst of Ages.

She purred and kneaded a now tattered banner-of-the-sun that had once hung as Kuzco's emblem with her unsheathed claws.

What a marvelous world, indeed!



Kuzco wasn't sure how the two sisters could move at such a fast pace on their llamas, while reading the marks of a broken twig or a snapped spider web for the path *and* hold the reins of the rest of the herd firmly. However, it wasn't as if he was complaining. The sooner they returned to the palace, the sooner he could stop feeling so darn jumpy about his Kazoo identity! Still, he would miss Llana…prefect, gentle, feminine Llana who could be sarcastic as hell when she wanted.

Seemingly of their own accord, his eyes landed on the firm, small back of compactly lithe Chel. Chel, who was as flawed as Llana was unflawed: imperfect, rough, feminist Chel who was blunt and open, though awkward about her softer side…if she *had* a softer side.

By the gods, he was going to *miss* being around them. It wasn't like it was with Pacha and his family, either. They lived close enough he could visit them or they could visit him every other week, at least. With Chel and Llana, it would be once a year at the most…

He very nearly groaned. Why couldn't life be simple, like it was before the whole llama incident?

Absently, he bent over to one side on his llama, rubbing the lengthy pink scar formed on his tan leg.

((("You're welcome, Kazz. Now sleep.")))

((("Oh, I like alphabetizing things.")))

"Chel?" he called out loud, "Llana?"

They twisted around at the same time, both saying, "Yes, Kazoo?"

Kuzco caught a laugh and instead smiled. "Thanks."

He meant it.



Chel prodded the dying fire with a stick, watching the golden honey flames dance up the thorny, knobbed length of the piece of kindling before she thrust it into the pile of burning wood so it would be devoured by hungry, licking heat. A soft rustling sound warned her of the so-called Kazoo's approach.

He sat down beside her, green tunic and pants folded or fanned out in sections. "Hey," he said.

"Hey," she replied dully, half-smiling for a second.

They were silent and, softly, Kuzco asked, "So…whatcha doing?"

"Fire-gazing," she responded slowly, turning her face to smile directly at him, black eyes reflecting the firelight. "If you look at it, you can see a thousand pictures in the fire."

He quirked an eyebrow and looked hard at the flames. Finally, he sighed ruefully, "All I see is lots of bright light."

She shook her head, laughing quietly so as to let Llana rest peacefully. "My brother, Feripu, used to take Llana and me out in the middle of the night to the fireplace, where he'd have a dwindling fire. He said if you closed your eyes halfway and forgot everything about the world, you could see images in it. See?…There's a panther!"

Squinting, Kuzco laughed, somewhat awed. "There is! Oh, look! There's a man and a woman!"

Chel's laugh was subdued, sad. "Yeah…looks like my parents."

He glanced over at her sharply, but she had stood up and was moving away, grasping a spare wool blanket, throwing it over herself as she curled up into a ball.

Looking back into the fire, he sighed. "You didn't have to make her cry," he informed the flames coldly and then he swept up the pouch of water, dumping it over the fire, extinguishing it.

A wisp of sad, black smoke trickled away slowly and his shadow left for sleep.



End AN: Hey, wouldja believe it? TWO chapters in one day! Whoa! *laughs happily* And you're getting a third before eleven tonight!

Remember: I'd like reviews a LOT and thanksies to EVERYONE who has!!! Luvya! (Don't worry, I haven't forgotten Kronk.) Ja mata!
PallaPlease.