Timo blinked as Clover, King Julien, Maurice, and Mort all showed up at his doorstep at a junkyard. Clover and King Julien both sported almost matching collars. He tilted his head as they got closer, and sat on his haunches. This explanation was going to be good, he supposed. His slender, pink nose twitched in cautious anticipation.
King Julien donned a black, sleek, rubber band around his neck with a thick pendant at its front. The king appeared to be struggling just slightly to keep a straight posture. He wasn't quite as surprised to see Clover, as she had approached him before about the similar gray band around her throat.
"Timo," King Julien started, his hand raised in an attempt at regal expression. "I need this… space collar off me." King Julien gestured to the black device around his neck, and then crossed his arms. His eyes were still trained on the odd collar.
Clover shook her head. "Timo, the furless that are coming up in the south are capturing lemurs, and some of those lemurs are returning with these things on their necks. I don't know what it does, and you can afford to leave it on me, but I refuse to let it stay on the king's neck. If we don't know what it does, it must go. For all we know this is another charade from someone who wants the king dead."
"That's right," Julien grinned, "the royal neck cannot be contained!" He then paused when he finished processing what Clover had said. "S-say what now?" While they continued speaking, he looked down at his collar, gingerly touching the thicker piece.
"Well… Clover, yours nearly broke my cutters but… I can try to find a set of stronger wire cutters in the junkyard. I still haven't sifted through half of this place, heh," the mole-like tenrec replied nervously. He swallowed before either one could speak again and disappeared into the metallic trash heap, practically swimming in it.
This part of the beach was considered a sacred cove of sorts. It was where King Julien had found Boombox, and it was where a lot of the old kings' gadgets and special devices had come from. Maurice had referred to it as a 'buttload of garbage that washed up on the beach,' but King Julien knew they had come here more than once for help. With Timo around, it was just that much more useful. The beach was covered in scraps of metal, old gadgets, and rusted components that may have very well originally come from the furless. Surely Timo could find something to get this unattractive gizmo off his neck.
The tenrec quickly returned, holding a set of thick, and sharp, rusted cutters. King Julien winced at the sight of it, tucking his tail between his legs. "Is that… necessary?" He pointed at the cutters cautiously, flattening his ears.
"If yours is anything like Clover's, this probably isn't even enough," Timo shrugged. He began to waddle towards King Julien.
"It better be! Or you'll be digging through your metal garden a lot more," Clover snapped. The tenrec flinched, nodding his head out of reflex.
"O-of course, Clover! Of course." He waddled closer to King Julien in a much slower fashion, and once he reached him, he gently pulling the king down to his level. King Julien swallowed, looking at the cutters apprehensively.
Timo used one hand to pull the collar away from King Julien's neck as far as it would go (which wasn't very far at all, maybe enough for Timo to get three fingers beneath it), and used his other hand to nestle the cutters underneath the collar. The cold metal glided over King Julien's skin, parting his soft fur, and King Julien pulled back out of fear. "King Julien," Timo breathed a deep, fast breath, his heart beating just that much faster. "Please don't do that. I don't want to cut-"
"You cut him and I'll do much worse to you," Clover threatened quietly. "I can kill someone in thirty-six different ways with just my tail."
"Yes ma'am," Timo corrected himself quickly, holding King Julien's collar much tighter and using his other hand to press the cutters. The blades paused, refusing to cut into the thick band. King Julien felt a slight pinching on his neck, and raised his hands to shove Timo when the tenrec gave a loud shout. "King Julien, please be careful! Don't move too much, or you'll push the blades on yourself!" He pressed tighter on the handles of the cutters, clenching his eyes shut with the force of the effort.
He heard a metallic snap, and opened his eyes to find the cutters broken in his left hand. King Julien jumped back as the blades fell away from him, crossing his arms and straightening his crown again. "You could have cut me!"
"If you didn't wiggle so much…" Timo mumbled under his breath. "Okay. So, those collars are really tough… Have you tried just, you know, pushing it over your head?" Timo raised his shoulders curiously, and then demonstrated by pretending to push on his neck in the direction of his face.
King Julien blinked blankly back at him. "Just shoving it over my head? Like this?" He proceeded to push on the backside of the collar, flattening his ears in an attempt to make the slope of his head smaller. The collar caught on the back of his jawline, however, and wouldn't go any further. In a harder, more desperate effort, he cocked his head and pressed on the box shape of the collar, ignoring his crown as it toppled from his head and to the ground (which Mort, having been strangely silent the whole time, was more than happy to collect).
He felt ridges and bumps beneath the box shape on the collar, but otherwise managed to do nothing more than make his jaw sore and irritate his skin. He stopped pushing, and the collar sank like a rock back onto his neck. "That was a stupid idea, Timo. And where's my crown?"
Mort giggled childishly behind him. King Julien turned to find the mouse lemur sitting with his bushy tail curled around him, and his, King Julien's, majestic crown on top of… its head. King Julien grunted in annoyance and swiped the crown off Mort's head, placing it back where it belonged - on his royal head.
He looked back to Timo, raising a paw, and gesturing to the boxy shape on the collar. "I do feel… bumpy parts behind this on the collar. Maybe that can get it off?"
Timo's expression brightened, a grin spreading across his face. He darted over to King Julien, pulling on the collar and once again forcing the king to stumble and bend over to his height. "Timo, you're a great friend man, but this is a bit humiliating, dude."
"No, King Julien, I'm looking for buttons. If there are buttons on the back of this thing I think I can get it off!" Timo reached a paw behind the collar and slowly stroked it. King Julien sighed, giving up on how silly the whole situation made him look.
He was bent over, held at the collar by Timo. His back was hunched awkwardly, and his tail was swirling here and there to keep him balanced. He had otherwise relaxed (now that there weren't sharp, rusted blades involved, he wasn't quite as on edge as he had been before). When Timo's ministrations failed to stop and the collar didn't loosen, he shoved the tenrec off him. He dusted himself off and stood back to full height.
"Clover! I'm done with this. I guess I can get used to the… furless bling. Maybe it isn't so bad. Ohh, I wonder if it gets reception? Maybe it makes music!" King Julien danced a little, bouncing from one foot to the other while his tail swirled in a circle behind him.
"King Julien, I really don't think furless would capture us to put… music-makers on our necks," Maurice said, rolling his eyes a bit. "And if they were, why would they be knocking over trees?"
"Maybe it makes the reception better. You're such a party pooper Maurice. I'll go mess with Boombox and see if it is a music-maker!" The king ended their visit with Timo abruptly, rushing towards the kingdom again and leaving Clover, Maurice, and Mort in the dust.
"If I may make a suggestion," Timo raised a paw tentatively after King Julien disappeared. "I think those things are trackers. If the furless are taking lemurs and putting those on, they may just be marking you to take later…"
"If that's what they're doing," Clover started, "then… you really need to find a way to get them off! They're going to take King Julien if that's true. Timo, you're tasked with making cutters that are strong enough to break through these collars. Understand me?" Clover stepped down to Timo's height, touching his shoulder with her tail to remind him of her earlier statement. "Thirty-six ways, Timo." She whispered.
"Of course!" Timo nodded, his nose bouncing from the strength of it. "Of course!"