The Emperor's New Emperor

Ch. 9: Regretful Kiss of Life

~~~~~ 1st Person POV ~~~~~

     After we fell over the side of the waterfall, I pushed the branch and vine pieces away from me and started swimming to the surface. Once I reached the surface, I heard Dad calling for me.

     "I'm right here Dad, I'm okay," I called out to him. He trudged through the water towards me, holding my face to examine me. After a couple seconds, I interrupted his examination.

     "Dad?" I panically asked.

     "Yeah, what is it?"

     "Where's Kuzco?"

     We frantically looked around till we saw his body half in the water, half on shore. Hurriedly, we stole a glance at each other and then rushed over to Kuzco. Dad dragged him so none of him was in the water and tried to listen to his heartbeat and wake him up. When neither seemed to work, Dad turned to me.

     "You remember how to do CPR, right (Y/N)?" he asked.

     "Yeah, why?" I responded.

     "Try giving him CPR"

     "Wha- Dad?! Really?"

     "You know how to do it better than I do, otherwise I would."

     I groaned and turned back to Kuzco's unconscious body. Turning his head and opening his mouth, his tongue grossly shoots out. I give Dad a pleading look, but all he does is give me an apologetic look back and gesture to Kuzco.

     "We are never talking about this again, agreed?" I state.

     "Agreed," Dad responds.

      With a sigh and a deep breath, I move forward and start performing mouth to mouth. Suddenly, Kuzco's eyes fly open and he pushes me away with a yell. We turn away from each other, spitting and coughing. Then we turn to the other at the same time, lock eyes, and grimace away from each other.

~~~~~ Time Skip ~~~~~

     "For the last time, you two, that was not a kiss," Dad said as Kuzco and I gargled water. I lightly glared at him before turning back to spit my water out and get some more. Kuzco spit out some of his water as well and walked towards Dad.

     "Well, whatever you call it..." Kuzco said before spitting the rest of the water onto the fire that Dad just got going, "it was disgusting. And if you two would have done what I ordered you to do in the first place, we all could have been spared his little kiss of life."

     "I was just trying to save you! I didn't want my first kiss to be with a llama, yet here we are." I snapped at him. He gave me a weird, confused look as Dad gave me an apologetic one. Then Kuzco turned away and shook his coat out, causing a lot of water to fly and the fire that Dad lit again to go out, again.

     "But now that you both are here, you two will take me back to the palace. I'll have Yzma change me back, and then I'll start construction on Kuzcotopia. Oh, yeah."

     I watch as Kuzco walks away from Dad and lays down, stacking some rocks to make 'Kuzcotopia'. I look over to Dad to see him mentally preparing to talk to Kuzco, so I make my way over to him to offer moral support.

     "Ok, now, look, I think we got off on the wrong foot here." Dad started. Kuzco just hummed in acknowledgement and grabbed Dad's poncho from where it was hanging to dry to dry himself off. I glared at Kuzco's back as Dad continued talking and making the fire.

     "I just think if you really thought about it, you'd decide to build your home on a different hilltop."

     "And why would I do that?" Kuzco asked, throwing Dad's wet poncho onto the fire once again. He really needs to stop doing that. Dad was about to yell or do... something, but a deep breath and my hand on his shoulder calmed him down.

     "Because," he started, getting up to hang his poncho and walk over to Kuzco while I started working on the fire, "deep down, I think you realize that you're forcing an entire village out of their homes just for you."

     "And that's... bad?" questioned Kuzco.

     "Well, yeah," I chimed in, "Nobody's that heartless."

     Kuzco looks at me and Dad before turning from us, thinking, nodding, and humming. Then he turned back to us and ordered, "Now take me back."

     Startled , Dad said, "What? Wait, wait. How can you be this way? All you care about is building your summer home and filling it full of stuff for you."

     "Uh, yeah. Doy. Me. Everyone else in the kingdom gets it. You two are the only ones that don't seem to be with the program. Eh, Pacha?"

     Fed up, I walked over and said, "You know what? Someday, you're going to wind up all alone, and you'll have no one to blame but yourself."

     "Thanks for that," Kuzco sarcastically replied, "I'll log that away. Now, for the final time, I order you two to take me back to the palace."

     Dad and I share a tired and fed-up look. Dad then shook his head and stated, "Looks to me like you're stuck out here, because unless you change your mind, we are not taking you back."

     Together, we turn and walk back to the fire. We each take a seat by it while Kuzco mutters to himself. Suddenly, Kuzco throws a small acorn that hits Dad in the head. We both turn and glare at him as he tries and fails to act innocent. He finally leaves us alone to go lay down by a big rock a little ways from the fire.

     Dad sighs and mumbles, "He's never going to change his mind," as he rubs his face.

     "Hey," I say as I put my hand on Dad's shoulder, "It will take us a couple days till we reach a village or even the palace. Who knows what will happen during that time."

     Dad smiles at my attempt of cheering him up and replies, "Who knows," before going back to lighting the fire.