"Your Majesty, we can't just ignore this. I saw Ted return today with a collar as well. We need to hunker down for a while, get a plan together… and King Julien, we may need to leave."

This was the fourth time today Clover had come to his hut to bug him about the prospect of moving the kingdom. She had forbade him from leaving his royal hut, providing him with meals and water, but it was still annoying. He was an energetic, active lemur, and a small hut did not serve well for him. He glared at her when she repeated herself.

"I heard you the first three times Clover, okay?" He flicked his tail at her, just annoyed at this point. "The lemur kingdom has always existed here. Always! Those huts didn't get built overnight, you know. And what about the beach? If we move we'll be too far from the beach."

"We could move closer to the beach," Clover mused hopefully. She then blinked in a confused expression. "Wait, no, scrap that. Way too few fruits down over there. Really bad idea. Don't listen to that, Your Majesty, please."

She scratched at the underside of her collar. Where she raised it just barely, he could see it chafing her skin, and her scratching was digging her own fur out. He winced. He had decided since she first showed up with the thing that he definitely didn't want any part of that.

"Just think about it Your Majesty. What's more important? Your kingdom's safety or a beach?"

A pang of guilt hit him, and King Julien's tail straightened in hostility. "I've heard enough! Out, Clover," he shot at her. She looked at him in surprise, her green eyes round. He had never felt such an unexplainable amount of anger at a person in his life. But he was finished, he wanted her to go away, and he wanted her to go away now.

"Yes, Your Majesty." Clover finally said, turning and walking out the room. He knew she'd sit by the door and still listen for him if he attempted to escape, but it was better than having her in the same room, whining at him about leaving the kingdom behind. It hadn't been built in a week, it had been built over the culminated effort of months and months to maybe a whole year or two of work. He wasn't going to trash that simply because some furless wanted trees!

With that, he crawled back into his bed and lay there, listening closely, hoping Clover would go to sleep or potentially leave out of boredom. Maybe she'd think he was asleep, even.

Finally, he heard light snoring. It was dark at that point, and he was beginning to doze off. But the darkness meant he could leave! He'd show them. He'd show them that the furless only wanted a few of their trees and then they'd be out of their fur.

He stood and stretched, carefully jumping through a window in his royal hut to escape. He landed on the smooth branch of a nearby tree, wrapping his fingers around it lightly, and then proceeded to hop from branch to branch down the smooth bark.

The cool night was comfortable against his skin and while the quietness of the area was eerie, and definitely out of his area of expertise, it was a relief for one reason. He could go visit the furless without any trouble and then explain how well the trip went in the morning.

While it took him ages to figure out what direction was south, King Julien finally found the southern borders, and the felled trees that dappled it. He also located the huge machines the furless were using on the trees as well. Two enormous, boxy shapes loomed in the night, shaded jet black in the darkness of night. A lot of the fallen trees were piled onto a flat deck behind one of the boxy things, the logs strangely smooth at the bottoms, and their tops had no leaves.

He paused at the edge of the forestry, looking at the many stumps and the multiple large piles of leaves in confusion. Some of the leaves contained fruit in it. They were chopping fruit trees and wasting the fruit? That didn't make any sense…

He dared to creep out from the shade and into the open area. When he heard a clanging noise, he ducked to all fours, looking around at the machinery with wide, round eyes. Still, he saw nothing move, and he heard nothing else. He could clearly see what one of the huge machines was here for - trees - but what about the other?

King Julien stealthily moved to the other machine, climbing over the broken and splintered stumps, and masses of sticks and leaves that covered the floor here. There were so many sticks it hurt his pads to walk over them.

He finally reached the other boxy shape. He wondered how it was supported by six or so round, black things; didn't round things roll? Ignoring that, he continued to investigate. It was about as big as the other machine, except instead of a flat deck behind the front of it, it sported a large, mesh box with more mesh boxes inside of it. He couldn't make out what was inside of the mesh in the darkness (curse the half-moon, he thought). So, he made an even bigger dare, crawling onto the mesh by climbing it like a tree. The open holes in the mesh made it easy to climb.

His heart pounded when suddenly he saw ten or twelve sets of eyes open and lock onto him. He gave a squeal of surprise and jumped, launching himself off the mesh. The smaller mesh boxes contained lemurs!

He heard more clanging, and watched from behind a pile of dying leaves in dismay as a furless stepped from the vehicle with all the mesh. It was so tall, and so hard to make out in the darkness. King Julien's heart pounded and he fought his own heaving breath, frozen in spot when he should have been making the maddest dash home he could possibly imagine.

It was only then that he realized his regal, fluffy tail was sticking out over the leaf pile and easy to see, even in the cover of darkness. The white rings stood out as if they glowed. He squeaked when he realized that and quickly grabbed his tail, wrapping it firmly around his legs. His frozen state was broken, and he turned to run, only to feel a piercing sensation in his thigh.

It shoved him forward a few centimeters, and he attempted to get up and run after that, but didn't make it very far. He tripped over a few sticks and landed face-down against the debris. His crown toppled off his head and into the mass of sticks.

He managed to get up just enough to look back and watch as the furless got closer, eventually getting close enough to pick him up. King Julien went to struggle, to fight to get out the creature's grip, only to find he had been sapped of all his energy. It alarmed him, he had felt cool and energetic when he arrived!

The world swirled and faded in his vision, and disappeared when his eyelids gave up and shut on him.