Chapter Text
It was a mundane day at the Central Park Zoo. Nothing out of the ordinary happened today. After the zoo closed, the penguins waddled into the gift shop for their meeting with the other zoo animals. This meeting was also pretty uneventful, that is until King Julien and Skipper started fighting. No one even remembered what originally started the argument, but it was getting pretty intense. Rico was the only one who seemed to be enjoying the chaos.
“You can’t even lead Ringtail! And you expect me to believe that ‘your people’ looked up to you- haha!!” Skipper spat out at the kingly lemur.
“They did!” King Julien snapped back. “You know I like uh- fought a dictator before? And won!” He crossed his arms, smirking while he said that.
There was a brief moment of silence before everyone in the room broke out into a series of laughter. Well, almost everyone. King Julien, Maurice, and Mort stood there, puzzled.
“W-what!?” The king nervously said as he looked around the room frantically.
“Nothing, nothing sorry!” Marlene said in a wheeze. “It’s just that well, I don't think any of us can imagine you fighting-” She said while raising her arms defensively.
After the brief conference, most of the animals had left, either because they found the arguing annoying or just got bored. The penguins and Marlene started to talk amongst themselves leaving the lemurs out of the conversation. King Julien stood there dumbfounded with his hands balled up into fits. He could feel his heart pounding as his face grew hot with embarrassment.
He looked down at Maurice and Mort with a frown. He knew what he did. He defeated Koto! But they all just laughed at him. They didn't believe him. He hated feeling inferior to his own subjects. He would never admit it but he did. His hands loosened up and he quietly left the room in a huff.
“Y-your majesty!” Maurice stuttered while following him out of the room, raising a hand cautiously.
Mort stayed where he was and blankly stared at the penguins and Marlene. Shortly after the gathering, Private looked over at him curiously.
“Uhh Skippah?” Private questioned.
“What is it Private?” Skipper replied, turning around to look at him. Private just pointed his flipper at Mort who just continued to stare.
“Do you need something, sad eyes?” Skipper said with a sigh. Mort walked up to them sheepishly.
“My king isn't lying!” He proclaimed firmly, throwing his fits down while his tail puffs up. “You have no idea what we went through! What I went through!” He was starting to get emotional. “Koto almost killed him! I could have lost my King, I could have lost the feet!” He looked away as he said that. No one knew why Mort loved ‘the feet’ so much, in fact, the idea of Mort loving King Julien’s feet was weird. But the thought of losing them was distressing him, making the small group pretty uncomfortable.
“But Mort…” Kowalski started hesitantly. “The likelihood of an event such as this happening, well... it’s astronomically low!”
“N-no! What my king says is true I was there-” Mort tried to retort before he was cut off.
“Sad eyes you heard the man!” Skipper stated. “Unless you have some sort of proof to back up Ringtail’s weird claim, this is just an outlandish story made up by your mad man of a king.” Skipper stated while pointing his flipper at the small mouse lemur.
Mort looked up at Skipper, his eyes teary with disbelief. He ran out of the gift shop while sobbing hideously and screaming nonsense.
“Well that finishes that meeting, men move out!” ordered Skipper. The penguins slid out of the room leaving Marlene behind.
“Oh… bye guys, I guess…” She grumbled to no one.