Back in the village, Tipo and Chaca were still awake and waiting on their father and older sister to return from the capital. Their mother, Chicha was measuring their heights on the door frame.
"Mom! Mom! I think I'm still growing! Measure me again!" Tipo exclaimed loudly, bouncing around.
"All right, Tipo. Stand still and let's see." The very pregnant woman said, humoring her young son.
"Mom, you and I both know that it's impossible for him to have grown in the last five minutes. Isn't it?" Chaca asked her know it all tone changing to confusion since she wasn't sure.
"Look how much you've grown," Chicha said, marking a new line in the door frame above her son's ponytail.
"What? Tipo, get out of the way. It's my turn again. Measure me." Chaca tried to push her younger brother out of the way but their attention was pulled elsewhere when Tipo saw the two missing family members returning.
"Dad and Atoc are home!" His eyes widened in excitement, as he and his sister bounded down the steps to greet their returning family, laughing as they went.
"Hey! Come here." Pacha exclaimed, catching Chaca and Tipo as they leaped into his arms. Chicha slowly stood up from her crouched position in the doorframe, almost losing her balance a couple of times, as she watched her husband reunite with his youngest children.
"Dad! I ate a bug today!" Tipo told Pacha, stealing the soft brown hat from off of his head.
"Oh! Was Mom baking again?" Atoc asked, tickling the little boy. "Don't tell her I said that." She winked at her younger siblings, with a grin on her face.
"I heard that." Atoc's eye's widened and her grin fell to a shocked face, before turning and giving her adoptive mother an apologetic grin. "Okay, everybody, move aside." Chicha patted her swollen stomach before continuing. "Lady with a baby comin' through."
Pacha raised his two youngest up into the air, one in each hand, as he kissed his wife.
"Dad! Dad! Dad! Look at how big I am." Tipo and Chaca jumped out of their father's hands, the hat flying off of the boy's head as he fell. Pacha was able to catch it before it fell too far, as he watched the kids run back to the house, Atoc following close behind.
"We were all measured today," Chicha explained, as Chaca grabbed her father's hand in an attempt to make her father move faster.
"Oh." Pacha and Atoc said, their tone showing their understanding.
"I'm going through a growth spurt. I'm as big as you were when you were me." Tipo exclaimed, excited, pointing to the old line from when his father was a child.
"Mm-hmm. Sure are." Pacha crouched beside the door to see the new marks on the door frame. Chaca, not wanting to be outdone by her brother, decided to show off her new loose tooth.
"That's not as impressive as my loose tooth." The girl ran around her brother to show off her tooth wiggling in her mouth. "See?" she asked, then proceeded to make the tooth wiggle.
"I bet that's going to come out soon!" Atoc exclaimed, scooping up her sister to hug her.
"Okay, okay, you two. Our deal was that you could stay awake until Daddy came home. Now say goodnight." Chicha reminded the children, knowing they needed to go to bed soon. The two children gasped and turned to their father.
"Dad, do we have to?" They didn't want to go to sleep. They wanted to hear all about the capital and the palace and the Emperor. They had been waiting so long to find out what it was like; they couldn't stand to wait until the morning to hear it. So, they gave their father the cutest, saddest look they could, making their eyes as big as they could, to try and stay up just a little bit longer. But Pacha knew exactly how to get them to go to bed.
"No, you two can stay up." Chicha looked at her husband as he stood, surprised that he was going to let them, at least until she caught on to what he was doing. "We're just gonna be sittin' here tellin' each other how much we love each other. Right, honey?" The two adults made kissy faces at each other, which was enough to gross out the two youngest members of the family.
"Goodnight." The children said hurriedly, before running off into the house.
"I'm going to go start unpacking the stuff from the cart," Atoc said, heading back down towards the cart, allowing the adults to talk.
Atoc managed to lead Misty, their llama down to her stable before her father showed up. He seemed visibly frustrated. She didn't know how to comfort him. She wanted to say that everything would be alright, but she didn't know that it would be. So she sat beside him and leaned onto his shoulder, like she did as a child, to let him know she was there for him.
Pacha appreciated the company of his daughter, but like he'd told his wife, he was tired from the trip, so he got up off of the bench to begin unpacking the cart while Atoc began to unhook Misty from the cart.
Pacha walked past the back of the cart, but stopped when he saw a brownish shack begin to wiggle. He didn't remember buying anything that wiggled. Atoc would have told him about buying something that was alive.
"Huh?" He opened the sack, wondering if someone accidentally put their purchase on his cart. The contents surprised him. There was a dark-colored llama, which looked like he'd been hit on the head. "Whoa. Where'd you come from, little guy?" He reached out towards the llama and received a shock when the llama spoke.
"No touchy." The words were slurred, but understandable.
"Demon llama!" The village leader fell backward away from the talking creature, scared for his life, and the lives of his family.
"Demon llama? Where?" The talking llama looked around and came face to face with Misty, making him, the other llama and Atoc scream. Atoc fell away from the llamas and the darker llama ran away, on two legs, from Misty, and past Pacha. "Oh, no! Oh, no! Oh, no!" He screamed before tripping and tumbling into the wall. "Ow! Ow, my head."
"Okay, demon llama. Just take it easy. I mean you no harm." Pacha talked slowly waving his empty hands around, hoping to come off as non-threatening. Atoc was behind him, peaking around his shoulder, wanting to know what was happening, but also frightened by the talking llama.
The llama squinted at Pacha, confused, "What are you talking about..." Then a look of recognition crossed his face. "Oh, wait, I know you." The llama rolled over to stand upright. "You're that whiny peasant."
Pacha gasped, the pieces coming together. "Emperor Kuzco?"
"Wait, that's the emperor?" Atoc whispered. Her father nodded, mouth agape.
"Yeah." Kuzco was annoyed with the dumb peasant in front of him. Who could forget the emperor? "Who do you think you were talkin' to?"
"Uh," Pacha moved forward, Atoc still behind him, "how did... Um" Pacha tried to figure out how to explain to the young man that he was a llama. "You don't look like the emperor."
"What do you mean I don't look like the emperor?"
"Um…" Pacha was trying to think of a way to break the news to the emperor turned llama. "Do this..." The older man wiggled his fingers back and forth. The emperor looked unamused but lifted his hoof to mimic the gesture anyway.
"What is this, some kind of little game you country folk like to..." He noticed his hand wasn't a hand. Instead, there was a hoof! "It can't be!" he looked around wildly, before noticing the well. He ran over to it, hoping that what he feared wasn't true. "My face! My beautiful, beautiful face!" He sat on the side of the well, pulling at the side of his face crying.
"Okay, okay, okay." Pacha approached the distressed man, llama, trying to calm him down. "Whoa, whoa, whoa."
"I'm an ugly, stinky llama!" The emperor continued to cry.
"Oh, come now." Atoc moved closer and crouched next to her father. "You aren't that ugly of a llama." She was trying to help but the vain emperor only whined harder.
"Wait, okay, Your Majesty. Shh." Pacha was trying to keep the crying llama from waking up any of the village because he certainly couldn't explain this to anyone.
"Llama face!"
"What happened?" Kuzco slapped himself out of his shock at the village chief's question.
"I'm tryin' to figure that out, okay?" The llama struggled to stand on his hind legs, not used to having to walk on all fours, only to fall over with a hysterical laugh. "I can't remember. I can't remember anything." Neither the father nor the daughter knew what to do as Kuzco floundered on the ground. "Wait a minute. I remember you." Kuzco pointed at the man, their meeting earlier coming back to him. "I remember telling you that I was building my pool... where your house was, and then you got mad at me." His front hooves came to his face in shock. "Oh! And you turned me into a llama!"
"What? No, I did not." Pacha was offended at the accusation. He would never do that to anyone, granted he had no idea how to turn anyone into a llama, but he wouldn't even if he could.
"Yes, and then you kidnapped me." The emperor continued to yell accusations.
"Why would I kidnap a llama?" The point was valid and poked a hole in the emperor's line of thought, but the angry llama wasn't swayed.
"I have no idea. You're the criminal mastermind, not me."
"What?" Pacha was baffled by the argument, and so was Atoc, who had been listening shocked. But at the criminal mastermind argument, she began to laugh.
"You're right. That's giving you way too much credit." The emperor decided that he was right, this peasant had turned him into a llama for revenge. Time to plan how to become his beautiful self again. "Okay. I have to get back to the palace. Yzma's got that "secret lab." I'll just snap my fingers and order her to change me back." Now that he was needed Pacha became the focus of the ruler's attention again. He grabbed onto the fence and began to shakily move toward the forest, and his palace. "Hey, you. No time to waste. Let's go." Pacha didn't move, neither did Atoc. They stood and watched the llama stumble his way down the fence. When Kuzco realized that nobody was following him, he called back over his shoulder. "Hey, tiny, I want to get out of this body. Wouldn't you? Now let's go."
An idea struck Pacha. "Build your summerhouse somewhere else." His demand was said with finality and authority. If the emperor wanted help so badly, he would have to bargain for it.
"You wanna run that by me again?" Kuzco wasn't used to people not listening to him. He was the emperor, everyone was supposed to listen to him. His word was law.
"We can't let you go back unless you change your mind... and build your summer home somewhere else," Atoc spoke with the same tone as her father. She had been trained to handle situations of conflict, just in case her father didn't have a son and her husband was out when someone needed help.
"I got a little secret for you. Come here." He beckoned the two villagers closer, though Atoc hung back further than her father did, as she was cautious. "No, closer." The pair moved closer. "I don't make deals with peasants!" He screamed at the two, Pacha having been closer had a ringing in his ear.
"Then I guess we can't take you back." Atoc crossed her arms defiantly and stared at the llama. Her father wiggled a finger in his ear to rid himself of the ringing he heard and copied her pose.
"Fine. I don't need you." Kuzco began to walk off toward the forest, his legs still shaky even when he walked on four legs. "I can find my own way back."
"I wouldn't recommend it." Pacha slid in front of the proud llama, trying to warn him of the dangers that would await him. "It's a little dangerous if you don't know the way."
"Nice try, pal." Kuzco didn't believe him, thinking it was a scheme to keep him in the village, and kept walking.
"No, really. I'm telling you..." the emperor began to sing loudly to block out the warnings, "there are jaguars and snakes and quicksand." Atoc watched her father try to save the stupid emperor from walking straight to his death by the man wouldn't listen.
"I'm not listening." He walked down the path towards the jungle.
"He's not kidding." Atoc cupped her hands around her mouth to help project her voice, "Listen, you cannot go in there."
"Ow! Still not listening." But Kuzco wouldn't listen. He'd been raised to believe that everything he did was right and that nothing would harm him. He thought he knew the way back home, despite never having left the capital before.
"Aw, you..." Pacha gave up trying to warn the stubborn llama. "Fine. Fine. Go ahead." He yelled after the man, before mumbling to himself. "If there's no Kuzco, there's no Kuzcotopia. Takes care of my problem."
Atoc watched the emperor turned llama walk into the woods. She knew he was going to get lost and in trouble. She knew he was going to need help, and maybe if they helped him he would consider moving his summer home to a new hilltop.
"Dad, you aren't really going to let him die out there, are you? I mean he's selfish, but he doesn't deserve to die in the jungle just for that." Pacha turned around to look at the forest. His guilt at leaving the man to fend for himself getting to him.
Pacha sighed, knowing his daughter was right. He couldn't leave the emperor to face the dangers of the jungle alone.
"Go tell your mother that we're going back to the capital, I'll put Misty up and then we'll go after him."
Atoc smiled and gave him a kiss on the cheek, before she gathered up the presents from the back of the cart and ran up to the house, leaving her father staring after her.