Julien's eyes snapped open. He felt confused and disoriented, like whenever he partied too hard. "Where am I? What just happened?"
"Calm yourself, your majesty." he found Masikura standing next to him, her tone reassuring. "You are right at home. Don't you recognize it?"
Looking around, Julien realized that he was in a very familiar place; his plane. "Wow? How did I get in so fast?" he wondered out loud. "I am not recalling climbing in? Last thing I remember..."
"That's because you aren't physically there, we are actually in the deep recesses of your mind, King Julien." Masikura explained.
Julien, however, had no time to process that revelation. His attention was instantly drawn to another ringtail who was sitting on his throne and wearing a perfect replica of his crown, casually reclining while two crowned lemur guards with spears presented him with a tied-up and trembling red ruffed lemur.
"Hey? How dare that guy sit on MY throne?" Julien was outraged and stormed towards the intruder. "Yo, buddy! Get your smelly booty off my throne!? I did not request another body double! The last one tried to kill and replace me!"
"Marcus, buddy? Words cannot express what an honor it is to serve your kingdom, I truly envy you." the other ringtail ignored him and instead addressed his captive, his voice oily. "You should be proud of yourself, as should your family."
"No, please! Your majesty, have mercy!" the tied-up lemur begged him. "It was an accident! I won't serve you a banana smoothie again!"
"Hey! You deaf or something! I said get off my throne!" Julien snapped but the other ringtail ignored him again, as well as the pleas of his captive.
He yawned before making a shooing gesture. "Take him away, boys."
The guards nodded firmly and dragged the squirming and pleading lemur away. Julien ignored that as he was too preoccupied growling and snapping his fingers in front of the other ringtail's face, but still got no response.
"What's his deal? How dare he snub the king!" Julien lamented when Masikura approached him.
"I'm afraid you won't get a response. For that lemur is just a shadow of the past, as is everything else you're seeing."
"Huh?" Julien made a face, making the chameleon sigh.
"This is a memory, King Julien. Your memory."
"Memory? Oh, I get it now..." Julien started to understand. "You used your tongue thingy to tap into..."
Something dawned on him and he glowered. "Hey, I did not give you the royal permission to do that!"
"I'll humbly apologize in due time." Masikura replied. "But regarding your previous question...well, doesn't this lemur remind you of someone?"
"Well...if this is my memory..." Julien mused as he took a second glance at the phony king and he couldn't help but feel a sense of familiarity.
Besides wearing his crown, the other ringtail looked very similar to Julien, but with a meaner, more conniving face, thicker eyebrows and he had a hint of a paunch. And his voice sounded weirdly familiar too.
"Ah, it's good to be king." the ringtail laughed to himself while reclining, when a familiar reptile manifested in front of him, hanging by her prehensile tail.
"Masikura, it is you?" Julien noted. The chameleon nodded.
"Your majesty." the younger Masikura said. "I do believe it's harmful to your public image to keep sacrificing half a dozen lemurs each week to the fossa under the pretense of "serving their kingdom"."
"Don't be absurd." the king waved his hand. "It keeps those blood-hungry monsters satiated, doesn't it?"
"PLUS!" he raised his finger in a smug fashion. "Since I staged that coup against my diabolical uncle and trapped him in that cave, I'll look like the greatest king ever to those credulous peasants, no matter what I do."
Julien raised an eyebrow. This phony baloney had an evil uncle too? And he replaced him as king too? Talk about major déjà vu.
"Well...yes..." Masikura looked unsure "...everyone is bound to look like a saint compared to King Julien the Terrible. But regardless, oppression tends to lead to disgruntled subjects, and disgruntled subjects become more inclined towards revolution."
"King Julien the Terrible?" Julien's brow furrowed, slowly connecting the dots in his head. "Wait, if Doc Sugerfoot is the uncle of this phony loser...then...that means...?"
The other ringtail rolled his eyes. "Alright, alright. Maybe you're on to something. Just a little bit. From now on, I'll allow everyone to vote, anonymously that is, for who should be line as the next ritual sacrifices."
He grew a wicked grin and wrung his hands. "THEN I'll rig the votes behind the scenes and send my preferred choices to their doom anyway! The facade of democracy is a win-win. Uhh...I'm so smart, it's scary sometimes!"
"Eh...that's an option." Masikura sighed dejectedly, clearly questioning why she even bothered.
The other Masikura shook her head. "I really thought Frank had given up on us and every new King Julien would be another tyrant."
Julien knew who he was looking at. No other lemur he knew emitted this much smarmy sleazeball energy. "I...I recognize him and that evil leer of his, that guy is-"
"Hey, uncle!" they heard a child's voice with a weird accent as a big-eyed little ringtail with a tuft on his head, looking even younger than Keke, came out of nowhere and jumped onto the older ringtail's stomach, knocking the wind out of him.
Julien's eyes widened. There was no mistaking who that pup was.
The king of the past fumed and scowled at the little bundle of joy and fluff while forcing a teeth-clenched smile.
"Nephew?" he said faux-affably, with an underlying tone of disdain. "You haven't been eaten yet-eh...I mean, how are you doing?"
"I'm doing swell! I came to see ya!" the little lemur clapped his hands, as blissfully oblivious as his adult self.
"Now wait a minute?" a skeptical Julien marched closer to the wide-eyed pup and the grouch on the throne, rubbing his chin. "Something isn't right with this picture? I recall being way more adorable as a pup?"
He glared back at Masikura. "Are you like messing with my memories?"
"Not at all, your majesty." Masikura caught up with him. "This is your mind after all. Even with my mystical powers, I cannot distort let alone fabricate memories, just tap into them, including those buried deep in your subconscious. This is all your mind's creation."
"Oh, in that case?" Julien shrugged and turned to look at his younger self, gushing and cooing. "Wasn't I the most precious thing in the universe?"
"Yes, you certainly were." Masikura agreed. "But your uncle didn't think so."
"Is there a particular reason you're bothering the king with your...existence?"
"Are we gonna play now, unc! Are we! Are we!" little Prince Julien bounced on his uncle's belly, making the latter growl.
"Will you calm down!" King Julien snapped before trying to compose himself. He rubbed his temples and offered another strained grin. "I'm afraid the answer is no. Your uncle is terribly busy now."
"No, you aren't." the Masikura of the past said flatly.
"Shut it, reptile." King Julien hissed and sent her a death glare before turning to his visibly distraught nephew.
"Why not?" Prince Julien pouted while sporting huge puppy dog eyes.
The adult Julien scowled and put his hands on his hips. Being able to resist this adorable face proved beyond all doubt that his uncle was pure evil!
"You promised!"
"I did?" King Julien blurted and after seeing his nephew nod, forced another grin. "Well...eh...things change, some urgent business has come up. I'll have to postpone my promise."
"But you poss-poned it like..." Prince Julien tried to count on his fingers and showed all ten of them "...this many times now."
The adult Julien clenched his fists, suddenly remembering that it was far more than just ten times. To say nothing of all the times his uncle broke his promise after this one.
"I remember this?" his face hardened. "He never kept his promise to play me with! It was always "Poss-pone this?" and "Poss-pone that"? He sure loved that word."
"Yes, he did." Masikura shrugged. "That's because he didn't want you here. I should hope you figured that one out five seasons ago? He even considered having you assassinated on multiple occasions, but he was always too lazy to go through with it."
"Oh, really?" Julien asked before chuckling with some nostalgia, despite himself. "Heh. That is classic Uncle King Julien.
"Are you starting to see the root cause of your abandonment issues?" Masikura asked, earning a peeved glare.
Julien wanted to retort when he suddenly saw his uncle shoving his younger self towards the door.
"So run along now, nephew. Go play with a stick or something. I have to go and have a polite conversation with some disagreeable commoners." King Julien said patronizingly and sent a sly look at the window.
Julien and Masikura (both of them) saw a shadowy lemur with a ninja mask made from palmettos crouching on a branch just outside, holding a bow and arrow, along with a loaded quiver. He gave a dark nod, and the king winked at him in return.
"Okay..." Prince Julien glanced down in disappointment before he was pushed towards the exit, nearly losing his balance and plummeting. "But you will play with me the next time, right? Right? Right?" he asked with naive hopefulness.
"Sure, sure, I will..." King Julien said off-handedly as he walked away, before grumbling to himself "...as in never."
"Never?" the prince heard him and made a big, pouty face, causing his uncle to halt and seethe.
"Eh...yes." he added hastily. "As in...I've never been more excited to spend quality time with my darling nephew." he said in the most insincere tone imaginable as he came back to pat the prince's head, but it was convincing enough for the little lemur to perk up and clap his hands.
"Really? Thanks, unc!"
Julien narrowed his eyes. "He obviously didn't mean what he was saying!"
"Progress." Masikura noted.
"Yeah, yeah. See ya." the older ringtail said quickly and slammed the door in his nephew's face, before bolting all the locks.
"Damn you Julienne, you spoiled, shiftless wench..." he grumbled and rubbed his temples as he jumped onto his throne. "That rotten, freeloading lil' brat is gonna take years of my life. What did I ever do to deserve being stuck with him?"
"Don't answer that." he added sharply as his advisor drew a breath.
"You know, your majesty?" Masikura suggested. "It wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if you kept your promise to the prince once in a while. A little exercise should help you stay in shape."
"Yeah, right!" the king snapped his back laughing. "As if that's gonna happen. Commoners get fat from sitting around all day, but the blue blood pumping through my veins will keep me in prime shape until the end of my days."
"It would also keep the prince from indulging in any... treacherous thoughts." Masikura suggested. "Like what happened with you and your own uncle."
"Pfffttt..." King Julien was not moved. "That hapless little buffoon ain't no threat. He'll probably run off a cliff chasing a butterfly before coming of age, and good riddance I say. I've got nothing to worry about."
"Ha!" Julien said triumphantly and turned to his Masikura. "It's funny because he's so wrong! Double wrong! He will totally turn into fat and unattractive old man! And I will totally replace him as king!"
"And the best part? I won't even have to lift a finger?" Julien said smugly while looking at his fingernails. "He'll just fork over the crown in a half-baked attempt to avoid destiny."
"One cannot escape one's destinty. It will always catch up to you." Masikura said sagely. "And I can't deny that I took some schadenfreude in seeing your uncle do himself in after ignoring my advice for years."
"Yeah, yeah..." Julien replied before realizing something, causing his brow to knit. "Wait...something doesn't make sense here?"
Masikura smiled knowingly. "And what would that be?"
Looking around, Julien asked, "If these are all my memories, how am I remembering my uncle saying hurtful things about me behind my back when I wasn't even there to hear it?"
"Who says you weren't?" Masikura shrugged while unsubtly eyeing the window with one eye (and not the other), prompting a curious Julien to do the same.
To his shock, he saw his younger self ducking out of sight quickly.
"No way?" the dumbfounded Julien rushed towards the window and looked out, seeing the little prince standing on a nearby branch; slouching, pouting, and wiping a tear from his eye before running off.
The older Julien watched with a sullen face, desperately wanting to comfort his younger self, tell him that karma would bite his uncle's booty hard in due time, but he was unable to do anything.
Masikura walked up to him on the window's frame. "Interesting." she feigned surprise. "Seems you were repressing this particular memory. It's a common coping mechanism when faced with heartbreaking grief, especially for a child."
"What now?" Julien made a face.
Masikura sighed and simplified, "You didn't want to think that your uncle was a big jerk who didn't love you, so you pretended like it wasn't the case."
"Oh, right? I was using my imagination to keep my spirits up." Julien remembered fondly. "I was such a clever kid."
But then his mirth waned and he grew uneasy. "Why does that sound like a bad thing though?"
"Because this is what we call denial, your majesty." Masikura explained, making Julien wince. "It can make you feel better in the short run, but in the long run..."
The ringtail let her words sink in and suddenly had an epiphany. It was a scary thought but he could not ignore it now.
"Say...did this..." he pointed over his shoulder at his uncle "...did this kind of thing happen a lot? Me hearing my uncle saying such nasty things about me and me pretending like he didn't?"
Somehow, Julien already felt like he knew the answer, and it hurt knowing.
"Oh, yes. Like every youngling, you had an innate desire to snoop around and eavesdrop on private conversations. I spotted you spying on my meetings with the king several times."
Julien grinned nervously, like a child who just got busted, when Masikura's narrowed her eyes pointedly.
"But do you think your uncle was the only authority figure you eavesdropped on, making you privy to things you'd rather not know?" the chameleon asked rhetorically.
That simple question filled Julien with an immense amount of dread, making his heart beat rapidly. He didn't know why and yet felt like he knew exactly why, as if he was remembering something without remembering it.
"Eh...no. I really don't." he insisted sincerely, only to see the scenery around them changing.
"W-what are you d-doing?!" he blurted fearfully.
"I'm not, you are. You cannot escape your own memories in your subconscious." Masikura pointed out as Julien started wheezing.
They were now standing in front of a large tent in the jungle.
"Where are we now?" he asked nervously, biting his fingers.
"I believe you know already."
"Eh...no I don't."
"So you're saying you forgot your first meeting with Maurice then?" Masikura probed him.
"Huh? What do you..." Julien's eye twitched and suddenly, in front of them, he saw a vision of a baby ringtail in a leaf diaper helping a teary-eyed baby aye-aye out of a patch of vegetation, the two looking at each other with big, googly eyes.
The former seemed happy and inquisitive, like he didn't have a care in the world, while the latter looked unsure, timid, and like he was on the verge of tears, understandable for an infant who had been adabondened in the middle of a jungle. The ringtail laughed cheerfully, which caused the previously tearful aye-aye to laugh as well, forming an instant connection.
"Oh course I didn't!" Julien snapped at the chameleon with genuine anger.
"Why would I do such a jerk thing! I even reminded him of his backstory just..." his voice trailed off and a look of shame and regret crossed his features.
"Of course you wouldn't. You and your parents were "camping" in the very same tent when you easily crawled away under their "watch" and found the abandoned infant and your future BFF." Masikura continued in an even tone.
Julien's look of shame gave way to an anxiety-ridden one as his gaze shifted towards the tent, once he heard a familiar female voice lamenting.
"Shall we go in?" Masikura held her arm out and it fazed through the fabric.
Julien was on edge. "I...I wouldn't. Isn't it wrong to eavesdrop?!"
"Perhaps. But you already did the deed, otherwise we wouldn't even be here." the chameleon reasoned. "It's not a repeat offense."
"...no! No, I won't do it. And you can't make me!" Julien yelled childishly and crossed his arms, looking away from the tent. Masikura, however, seemed to already know that his defiance would be in vain.
"It was awful, Barty. He...he actually requested that I kiss his dirty little pinky after he stubbed it!" Julien heard his mother's voice, as clearly as if she was standing right in front of him.
He heard Barty audibly gasping. "Goodness gracious, you didn't actually... do it?"
"Of course I didn't, but he kept pestering me about it."
Startled, Julien grew a look of shell-shocked horror before trying to cover his ears. "How am I hearing this?"
"Because you evidently heard it once before." he still heard Masikura as well, loud and clear, despite covering his ears.
"Alas, that boy can indeed be very unreasonable. We have hundreds of servants at our beck and call but he keeps insisting that I personally teach him to ride a tricycle?" Barty said incredulously. "I can't fathom how a royal could fail to understand the point of having servants."
"Yes, he never was the brightest star in the sky either, I'm afraid." Julienne said stiffly.
Sweating from anxiety, Julien couldn't take it anymore and peeked through the tent, seeing a lavish interior and his parents sitting on large cushions and being pampered by half a dozen servants, one of which was used as a footstool by Barty.
As with his uncle, they too looked younger, his father was quite a bit slimmer and their fur had more color, with the rings on their tails and black eye markings being as vibrant as his own. They still wore their respective tiara and dicky.
"Confounded it all. We've been living a lie for all these years, Julienne." Barty shook his head. "All this time, we've been led to think that the Baby Patch was real. I can understand why lemurs might be hesitant to talk about the truth behind our way of reproduction, but still."
"Please, don't remind me." Julienne said with thinly veiled anger as she accidentally smacked away the servant who had been filling her nails. "It was the most painful, unpleasant experience imaginable, I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy."
"For the first and only time, your mother's grievance was understandable." Masikura commented, much to Julien's confusion, until it finally hit him, and he shuddered.
"Oh...I don't think as son is supposed to hear this?"
Fortunately for him, royals were too prudish to discuss such matters in detail.
"Remember your meditation technique, dear." Barty told his wife as he leaned forward and patted her hand. "Simply pretend like the traumatic thing you don't want to think about never happened, then you'll feel like it truly never happened."
Julien grimaced. Was this where he picked that up? As a parting bit of "advice" from his parents? Wait? How did he know this was the last time he saw them?
Julienne breathed in and out while pressing her fingers together. "Yes...I never had a child. All that horror did not happen."
Barty chuckled. "See? Now you feel better knowing how that never happened. Instead, think about that beautiful and luxurious island condo we'll be departing for tonight."
"Uhhh...I do love luxury." Julienne clapped her hands like a giddy child. "So much more pleasant than thinking about that...unspeakable experience."
Masikura observed Julien as he slowly walked closer to his parents, being oddly quiet and reserved as he listened to their conversation.
"I wholeheartedly agree. Some things are best left forgotten. If you thought that experience was hard for you, just imagine having to be seen in public while your wife sports a morbidly swollen belly?" Barty shuddered at the mental image.
"I most certainly did not deserve that humiliation." he continued while holding up his scepter. "Nor do I deserve to still be stuck with this old scepter. I've had it for a week now, I've really been slumming it."
Julienne gave him a glare before sighing and pressing her knuckles against her forehead. "You're right, Barty. How inconsiderate of me not to think about how those dreadful few months affected you."
"Think nothing of it, dear. That little mishap will soon be behind us." Barty chuckled. "Out of sight, out of mind, as they say."
The two laughed poshly while a sullen Julien was standing next to his mother. His expression wasn't angry or sad but rather just hollow. One might have expected a bigger reaction, one filled with shock, grief, and/or denial, but Masikura knew why there wasn't one.
Instinctively, Julien shifted his gaze towards the flap of the tent. There he saw his younger self, who was barely trying to stay hidden. All the servants clearly noticed him as well and looked away uncomfortably, some of them whistling innocently.
With a pitiful look, Julien saw his younger self shed a tear and drop a crudely put-together scepter made from twigs and human bones, before disappearing from sight.
The dejected adult Julien just stood there when Masikura approached him.
"You knew all along." she said sympathetically, while all the color slowly drained from the scenery surrounding them and the phantoms of the past vanished.
Julien sighed. Though seeing this unfold felt shocking, the shock soon gave way to clarity, more than he had experienced in a long time. "I kept telling myself this didn't happen."
"Until you started believing it."
Julien nodded weakly and sat down, curling his arms and tail around his knees. "I know...pretty pathetic, right?"
"Desiring affection isn't pathetic, but you can't force someone to love you, even if you share the same blood coursing through your veins." Masikura said sagely while patting his side, before adding, "Well... as the king, you can technically force people to love you, but at the end of the day, it's not genuine. It's just pretend, make-belief, a charade enforced by your regal decree."
Julien wiped his nose. "But it IS pathetic of me. Think about it? I can get almost everyone not named Hector to adore me with my charisma, wits, and good looks alone, and yet my own family either wants me dead or wants nothing to do with me. I know half of them are like psychotic despots, but still..."
Masikura gave another knowing smile. "That's not entirely true, your majesty. Family doesn't always mean blood. You should know that."
Julien didn't follow until he realized that they were suddenly in the middle of a brightly lit field and he heard the sound of flowing water. Looking to his left, he saw his younger self sitting by the shore of a river, and someone else approaching the little ringtail.
Watching this, Julien couldn't help but feel like dirt.
A new year, and I was really hoping to make more updates to this fic by now, but this part has been particularly difficult to write. From the get-go, it was a challenge trying to figure out a way for Julien to finally accept the truth about his parents that felt in-character and hopefully not too angsty. I initially tried to write him as being completely oblivious about their apathy towards him but wound up leaning more and more into the idea of him being willfully ignorant, complete with twitching eyes and angrily rejecting any attempts by his friends to talk sense into him, which ultimately led to Masikura taking the king on a trip down memory lane, with the twist being that Julien was not only aware of the truth but he's always been aware of it, since the beginning and has been repressing the memory of evesdroping on his parents candidly talking about their plans to fly the coop and abandon him.
They say that the goofier, more eccentric, and tryhard someone is, the sadder they are on the inside, and I thought that worked perfectly for King Julien's character, given the tragic irony surrounding him; him being (relatively) popular with his subjects but neglected and/or actively despised by his own flesh and blood relatives, which also worked as a decent in-universe explanation for his lack of maturity and desperate need for adoration; he's still a wounded child that never got his parents and uncle to love him, and he's been overcompensating his entire adult life.
I originally wanted this part of the story to be covered in one chapter, but after postponing this chapter several times, I decided to split it into two, given Julien's big epiphany here.