Shere Khan's Return

[Shere Khan]

Shere Khan had returned to an all-too-familiar section of an Indian jungle. The animals in the jungle had all slept easier at night with the notorious tiger away. But ever since the rumors of Shere Khan on the prowl again had spread, the wild animals became nervous once more. Their fears were justified, if Shere Khan's lunch on the day of his return was any indication.

On his way back to the familiar jungle, late in the afternoon, Shere Khan had kept a low profile in the tall grass. He sacrificed speed for stealth, until he found a delectable victim: a deer, idly eating without a care in the world. This was a golden opportunity for food. The tiger took his time to prepare himself. He crouched in a manner that revealed the shoulder blades from within his body. He readied himself. There was nothing to stop him: the air was still, there wasn't a noise to be heard, and, most importantly, there wasn't a ridiculous Colonel Hathi and his herd to spoil his catch.

It was over within seconds. Shere Khan, with deadly finesse and accuracy, had subdued and slain the deer, and soon devoured his prey. After he had finished, he smirked, turned, and continued on his way, after his destination. "What a delightful meal," he chortled in his throat. It was a most satisfying lunch. It was satisfying to be Shere Khan.

Following his kill, Shere Khan had entered an area of the jungle that was heavy with trees. It was exactly as how he remembered it, much to his pleasure. It made it much easier for him to navigate.

[Kaa]

If the tiger's memory was truly that reliable, he would recall that a certain python favored this particular part of the jungle as a haunt. Shere Khan would have quickly been reminded of this by an unexpected sight on the forest floor; an immensely long, shedded snake skin, that lay haphazardly on the ground and seemed to lead to a nearby banyan tree.

A soft, cheerful and self-satisfied humming could be heard coming from said tree.

[Shere Khan]

The tiger, wearing a disinterested and bored expression on his lofty face, casually and quietly walked through the jungle. The tiger never had the need to keep his eyes fully opened, especially in such a familiar environment. However, there was something not seen often in this portion of the jungle: the obsolete skin of a very recently molted snake. Shere Khan gradually stopped when he noticed the skin from the corner of his eye. He shifted his weight to look at the skin, opening his mouth and tilting his head in minor surprise.

He recognized the discarded skin just before the distinctive voice's humming reached Shere Khan's ears. The tiger grinned, closed his eyes, shook his head and chortled, because he knew exactly who was responsible for the shedding. With a cool smile, Shere Khan approached Kaa's tree, sat, and raised his right paw. CLICK! His retractable claws were exposed, and the tiger used his deadly weapon to noisily and repeatedly tap on the tree, aiming to get the python's attention. After Shere Khan 'knocked' on the tree several times, he lowered his paw and prepared to get up and move to where he could comfortably speak to Kaa, if he had to.

[Kaa]

Kaa blissfully carried on with his improvised song, apparently very happy about something. The melody came to an awkward and abrupt halt, however, as it was interrupted by a sudden noisy tapping on the tree trunk below. Somebody had come to visit, it seems... and if Kaa wasn't on cloud nine, he would have recognized the familiar claw-tapping greeting.

"Jussst a minute!" the snake's silky smooth voice hissed out in a sing-song tone from the canopy above. In far less than a minute - just a few seconds - the ridiculously-long serpent lowered his head from out of the branches and leaves obscuring the rest of his body. Shere Khan would immediately notice Kaa's brand-new coat of scales. Slick and shiny, the afternoon sun reflected off of the python's form and shimmered almost like glass. A very smug grin, even for Kaa, was on the snake's scaly face.

"... Erm, hello? Anybody?" Kaa mumbled as he whipped his head around. He had absent-mindedly lowered it to just above the tiger's head, which was out of sight at the moment... until Kaa happened to look down, and meet Khan face-to-face. "!!!"

Kaa gasped as if he were choking on an obese rat, jerking his head away from the tiger's and causing his massive body to slip from the branches above. Like a stack of dominoes, a chain reaction was set off, as each part of his over 25-foot body slipped off of a branch and caused another to follow, until eventually the snake's head was yanked back into the canopy. Spectacularly, the reptile rapidly slid down from the tree and collapsed onto the forest floor below in a heap of coils, just next to Shere Khan.

"... Sssshere Khan..??" Kaa's voice whimpered, his forked tongue poking out of the scaly coily mass as he spoke.

[Shere Khan]

Similar to Kaa before the tiger's arrival, Shere Khan's continuous smile was smug. He didn't change expression when his lofty (though not widely opened) eyes greeted the shocked python. Shere Khan's only notable reaction to Kaa's accident was closing his eyes and pursing his his lips after hearing and feeling the impact of Kaa's collision with the jungle floor. After the fall, the calm and collected tiger opened his eyes and leered down to the enormous snake.

"Indeed," he replied simply. Shere Khan's voice was deep and rich. If he weren't such a terrifying and ferocious entity, one could probably describe the tiger's voice as sultry. It was true that Shere Khan was feared and beyond intimidating, but nevertheless the tiger had an air of sophistication and coolness to him. At least, he thought so, and made it known.

Shere Khan paused for a moment before relaxing himself on the ground, so that his head could better face the coily mass. This was partially to intimidate the snake, but also simply because it was proper manners to look someone in the eye when one talks. "I just dropped by, Kaa. Forgive me if I... heh-heh-hah.... startled you." A chortle emitted from his throat near the end of his comment. The small laugh was condescending in nature, and the noise from his nostrils as he inhaled was blatant. He had looked up to the tree and then back down to Kaa. As Shere Khan relaxed on the ground, his tail leisurely swayed left and right continuously.

[Kaa]

Kaa was surprisingly quick to recover from his fall, and his head popped out of the ring of coils to face Shere Khan. As he emerged, a crooked nervous smile wrapped around his snout, and he seemed to almost cower before the big cat. His chipper mood had quickly diminished; he had heard nothing of Shere Khan's return, and it was a rather unpleasant surprise to be suddenly greeted by him.

"Oh, it'ssss no trouble at all!" he brushed off the tiger's 'apology' and waved the tip of his tail nonchalantly like a human hand, masking his contempt for Shere Khan with a misleadingly agreeable and welcoming disposition. "Quite a sssurprise to see you around again," he spoke with a chuckle to help his friendly image.

The snake may have been feared throughout the jungle, but the tiger's reputation surpassed him; he was powerful, deadly, and unpredictable, moreso than any jungle creature. Kaa certainly knew his place next to the cat, and wasn't keen on displeasing him in the slightest, for his own sake, so he continued to smile for Khan.

[Shere Khan]

In response to Kaa's comment about the tiger's visit being a surprise, Shere Khan closed his eyes, proudly tilted his head upward, and continued smiling like the smug predator he was. "Yes, isn't it?" he replied. Shere Khan hardly ever had to try to be frightening and fearsome, a fact which benefited the tiger. Simply being feared because of his name, or his visage, did much of the work for him, and he was grateful about that.

Shere Khan opened his haughty eyes and looked from the python to the discarded skin. "I see you have a new coat," he said with his cool voice. "It seemed to have lifted your spirits." He looked from the skin back to the python's eyes. His lofty smile segued into a smirk. "I heard you singing."

[Kaa]

"Oh, you heard that?" Kaa piped up, shrinking his head back a little and seemingly a little embarrassed. This quickly dissipated when his thoughts turned back to his shiny new set of scales, which Shere Khan, erm, "complimented" on (it was always difficult to tell if the tiger was sincere or not).

"Oh... erm, yesss, how kind of you to noticcce," the snake perked up and grinned, shifting a glance down towards his coils - he just couldn't stop admiring them, himself.

[Shere Khan]

Shere Khan nodded, and he idly scratched under his nose with a retractable claw from his right paw. "Yes... I am in high spirits, myself." He finished scratching. He rested his paw on the ground again. His smile widened, and his eyelids covered even more of his eyes; by now they were barely even slits. "I had just finished a sumptuous meal," he continued. "It's a good day, indeed." He inhaled and exhaled with an air of intense pride and arrogance.

[louie]

Just then, one, two, three bananas fell from high above, in the trees, and unfortunately headed straight for the top of Kaa's head.

[Kaa]

As the python preened over his shiny new coat, he listened as Shere Khan began to go on and describe just how wonderful it was to be him, again. Kaa couldn't help but grimace in annoyance as the conceited cat prattled on and on in that smug, arrogant tone of his; mockingly, Kaa mimicked the tiger's mannerisms, wobbling his head and deriding him behind his striped back.

As he was silently ridiculing the so-called king of the jungle, he was caught off-guard by something falling from the treetops above, which landed directly onto his scaly head. Yelping in pain, Kaa's head wobbled about a bit in a daze, before he shook it - but he didn't even have time to examine what had struck him, as another one landed upon his skull immediately after. A final blow was made after this, ending with much more of an impact; the mystery object, a banana, splattered all over Kaa, the opened peel having neatly landed atop his head.

Groaning and dazed from the triple attack, Kaa's upraised head fell to the ground, his eyes becoming colorful swirls in his stupor.

[Shere Khan]

Shere Khan had continued to describe how perfect his day was--appropriate for a perfect hunter and jungle animal such as himself--so much that he did not notice the python mocking him. The python was fortunate that Shere Khan did not notice, but he was unfortunate to have been hit on the head by three falling bananas.

Shere Khan eventually recognized the silence of Kaa. He turned so his lofty eyes could examine the large python. "Kaa, are you listening?" The large tiger soon realized what had happened. He tilted his head up and looked at the monkey that had accidentally (or purposely; he didn't care) dropped the bananas. The monkey made eye contact with the tiger, eeked, and swung away with the assistance of vines and branches.

Shere Khan grinned, and looked down to the dazed python. He shook his head and chortled condescendingly. "Ahh, Kaa. I'll take my leave now."

Without wasting another word, he turned and casually walked away, out of Kaa's area. He did not have a specific goal in mind; now that Shere Khan was back in the jungle, he scouted everywhere just to ascertain what had happened while he was gone.