Spooky Cave (Jupiter)

Jupiter’s hackles rose as he caught sight of the figure on the throne but they quickly started to smooth out as he caught sight of a few stray fireflies. Ah, it was all good then. By now he and the bugs were besties. It was fine. The throne was a little pretentious for bugs in his opinion but what did he know. If he’d been asked earlier in the day about the odds of him helping to dress a pack of fireflies he’d have laughed it off and poked fun at the asker for coming up with something so outlandish. And yet here he was post firefly dressing.

His suspicions were raised again, however, as the firefly king spoke. Whoa, whoa, whoa. His life? What the fuck had this dude been smoking to think he had any claim on that? It was an amusing scenario and not in a fun way. Jupiter’s displeasure very nearly made it to his face but then he reined it in. Nah, if this thing could make a threat like that he had to be able to back it up. Amadeus was hurt, Bubbles was dumb, it wasn’t a good idea for Jupiter to show his ass here. Especially not with the only known exit a twisty dark maze.

“I think I deserve to go free. I’ve seen many of your kind along the way and I had ample opportunity to harm ‘em in some way. Coulda swatted them out of my way in the beginning, coulda squashed them and taken the rat cloth, and when they left me in the dark I coulda drown ‘em in the river and taken the jar, because that water was magic, wasn’t it? I coulda taken some with me and been better for it, but I didn’t ‘cause I’m not like that. I,” he put a paw humbly on his chest, “Am kind to all things great and small.” Bubbles blessedly had the sense for once to stay quiet even though one of his stupid braying laughs would have been fitting. “Why else do you think I travel with a pig - that sort of animal my kind eats - and a monkey so small I could drop kick him over a barn?”

Jupiter felt like he was doing a pretty good job of stating his case, but again, he was dealing with a mass of fireflies so what did he know? “I say that we let bygone be bygones.” He chuckled. “If anything I’d say you’re getting the better deal here considering all the shit we went through to get here. If I wasn’t so kind and benevolent I’d want to talk reparations for myself.”