Disclaimer: I do not own All Hail King Julien or any of its characters. But I do own Emily, Patch, Weasel, Lilian, and Elizabeth, and the idea of this story.
After King Julien, Maurice, and the rest of their friends left to show Patch around, the other lemurs returned to the center of the kingdom, the clearing where everyone liked to gather. Among them was Weasel. Lilian and his sister followed him.
Elizabeth kicked rocks out of her path. "I still say we should have driven him out," she grumbled.
"He's the king's brother!" Lilian reminded her. "Exiling him would have been wrong."
"You just say that because you have a crush on Julien." Elizabeth snorted and kicked another rock, but this one went soaring through the air.
"Ow!" a lemur exclaimed when the rock hit him in the head. He turned a glare on Elizabeth. Standing her ground, Elizabeth glared back at him. The lemur lowered his gaze with a sigh and walked away.
"Ha, I win!" Elizabeth cheered, sticking her tongue out at the retreating lemur.
Weasel glanced at Lilian, noticing that she was blushing. Clearly Elizabeth had embarrassed her by saying loudly that she liked Julien, and Elizabeth didn't even seem to care. And she was laughing that she had hurt a fellow lemur. He was ashamed to call her family.
"Elizabeth, do you always have to be so mean and cause trouble?" Weasel demanded.
Elizabeth shrugged. "I don't have to. It's just so much fun!" A smirk crossed her muzzle.
Rolling his eyes at her, Weasel turned to Lilian. "Are you okay?" he asked her. Lilian felt more like a sister than Elizabeth ever had, and he felt a strong brotherly instinct toward her.
Lilian nodded slowly. "Y-Yeah, I'm fine. Try to ignore her," she added, glancing at Elizabeth. "She's just a bully."
Was that supposed to make him feel better?
To his relief, Elizabeth walked away, but he frowned as he watched her push lemurs out of her way to cut in line for the water slide. "So what do you think of the return of the king's brother?" Lilian asked him, changing the subject.
Turning his attention away from his sister, Weasel turned back to Lilian. "I'm still not sure if we can trust him," he admitted. "We got tricked into believing we could trust the mountain lemurs, but you saw what happened… I don't want to be a prisoner ever again."
"I don't either," Lilian sympathized with him. "But like I said he doesn't have their muscles so even if he was up to something, I'm pretty sure we could take him." She punched the palm of her hand determinedly. "We outnumber him after all!" As if to prove her point, she gestured to all the lemurs around them.
Weasel narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. "We need to find out if we can trust him or not before it's too late."
Lilian put her head to the side. "How do you suppose we do that?" she asked in confusion.
"I have an idea, but we need some help, and I can only think of one lemur for the job." Lilian leaned in so Weasel could whisper his plan in her ear.
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Patch had been gone for a considerably long time, and the others were starting to worry about him. Did he get lost? Did a predator get him? Julien didn't think he could handle losing his brother for a second time. At some point, Emily had noticed Mort's absence as well, but the others didn't seem to notice or if they did, they didn't care, so she decided not to mention his disappearance.
He probably went after Patch, she guessed, remembering his distrust of the king's brother.
Finally Julien couldn't take it any longer. "I'm going to go look for him!" he announced, turning toward the path Patch had taken into the jungle. But suddenly Clover appeared in front of him, holding her hands up.
"Wait, Your Majesty," she said. "If there's trouble, you shouldn't go toward it. We should hide you."
"I'm not hiding when my brother could need help!" Julien insisted, crossing his arms. "I lost him once; I'm not losing him again… even if that means... he loses… me…" He unfolded his arms and gulped. Did he really mean that?
Maurice walked up. "Julien, that's very noble of you, but the kingdom needs you. We survived without Patch before, but we can't survive without our king. I'm sorry, Your Majesty," he added when Julien widened his eyes in shock. "I didn't mean for that to sound so harsh, but it's the truth."
The king looked torn. Emily stepped forward. "I'll go with him." She smiled to herself. She loved any alone time she could get with Julien. But she frowned when Maurice and Clover also offered to go with the king. She couldn't say no though. She had no reason to. After all, four lemurs were safer together than two.
They started heading away when they heard rustling behind them. Julien turned around hopefully, expecting to see Patch, but he sighed when Lilian stepped out of the bushes. She blinked, looking them over. "Where's Mort?" she asked.
The others started glancing around. "Where is Mort?" Maurice questioned.
Julien shrugged. "Who cares?" he murmured. "I'm more worried about my brother."
"Patch's not here either?" Lilian looked worried.
Emily frowned. "What's wrong, Lilian?"
The young lemur avoided eye contact and shifted her feet. Finally she sighed but still didn't look at anyone. "Weasel thinks we can't trust Patch. He's worried because of the mountain lemurs."
"Yes, he said all that during our private meeting that wasn't so private because you all were there!" Julien facepalmed. "Anyways," he went on," Patch is my brother. I know my brother. We can trust him."
For a moment or two nobody spoke. Then Maurice cleared his throat and everyone turned to him. "I know you want to believe you know your brother, Your Majesty, but you never really got to know him. He was barely walking when… the fossa… took him..." The aye-aye spoke slowly toward the end, finally trailing off, looking thoughtful and confused.
"What is it, Maurice?" asked Emily.
"I just realized something…" Maurice paused and glanced around at the others.
"Just spit it out," Julien ordered, starting to lose his patience.
Maurice looked up at the king. "How did Patch survive the fossa?"
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