FOX OF FRIENDSHIP CHAPTER 14. ON MY WAY PART 2
ENJOY THE READING.
Much later...
...after Judy had dragged Nick away from those mammals and birds, Judy had not bothered to waste her time to scold Nick - at least not much - for disappearing like that... but instead, Judy sternly forbid the fox-kitten from doing something like that EVER again when they are in a hurry to the mountain...
...both the fox-kitten and the young adult fox - or the rabbit in the fox's clothing - were walking across the field, in the middle of which was the large carpet of beautiful golden flowers, whose golden color was due to the abundance of pollen.
Judy, of course, didn't paid any attention nor interesting towards the carpet of golden flowers but kept going forward past of the flower carpet.
However, the carpet of golden flowers caught Nick's interest.
"Hey Judy, have you ever bathed in the carpet of flowers before?" Nick asked from Judy, though Judy paid a little attention and interest to Nick's question.
"No." Was her only answer, with a quite rude tone.
However, Nick didn't take Judy's answer's rude tone as an offense.
"Well, I have... and many times over in my life. You see, me and some of my fellow fox friends used to bath in the carpet of flowers when we were a bit younger. And I've also bathed in the carpet of flowers many times over with my mother after I had managed to convince her to join me. It's so relaxing and so fun." Nick said.
However, Judy wasn't as convinced and interested of such of thing unlike Nick.
"Merely destroying the beautiful part of the nature, that's what you're doing to do to the Mother Nature's garden... and worst of all, it's only the waste of my time." Judy answered, without stopping for a moment and paying any attention nor interest to Nick and his idea to bath in the carpet of flowers.
However, it was Nick's time to be unconvinced after hearing Judy's rude-toned answer.
"What are you talking about, Judy? I mean it, it's fun. You should try it by yourself even for once. Besides, A long journey without some fun in addition of the travel companion, it's incredibly boring." Nick protested with the eager feelings.
"Besides, one bath in the flowers doesn't destroy the Mother Nature's entire flower garden." Nick said...
...and with that, Nick jumped off from Judy's side and rushed towards the carpet of flowers.
Even though Judy paid a little interesting of what Nick was doing, Judy eventually turned her head to Nick's and the carpet of flowers direction...
...and followed with her eyes at the fox as Nick climbed to the top of the small boulder and leaped from it into the air and flew in arch towards the carpet of flowers and "dived" among of them like into the water, which splashed the flowers and golden pollen into the air.
Nick disappeared briefly out of the sight, before he emerged out from the carpet that his head, shoulders, arms and the rest of his upper body were above of the surface of the carpet of the flowers and waved his paws at Judy to have her attention to himself.
"This is great, Judy! You should try!" Nick encouraged.
"It's so fun to dig the tunnels to underneath of the flowers like a mole..." Nick said, as he dived into the flowers again and out of the sight...
...but the small bulge above of the flowers and the shaking flowers told to Judy that where Nick was moving among of the flowers.
And after being five minutes out of the sight, Nick emerged again out from underneath of the flowers.
"...and not to mention about pouring the armful of flowers into the arms, tossing them into the air and letting them to fall over me like the rain with the sweet scent." Nick explained...
...as he poured some flowers into his arms, sniffed them to fill his nose with their sweet scent, before he tossed the flowers into the air and allowed them to float down around and over him like the rain.
Nick kept doing this over and over, sending numerous of flowers into the air and their either remained floating above of him or slowly floated to the ground.
Nick then jumped down by all fours and started to ran all around of the carped of flowers, making the makeshift and with the each others messing labyrinthine tunnels into the carpet, marking his path in them.
And that also caused even more and more flowers - and tons of golden pollen to be sent into the air.
Judy followed from aside as Nick kept running among the flowers, laughing out of fun, even though he was pathing in the carpet of flowers all alone.
"Great, just great. now is another carpet of flowers again ruined and soon to be destroyed by that dumb fox, depending on that that how many carpet of flowers that dumb fox has already destroyed before." Judy said with the sarcastic tone, as she kept walking past of the carpet of flowers.
"Well, if there happens to be a plenty of bees gathering the pollen from these flowers, and if that fox-kitten happens to mess with the bees, managing to make them angry at him, the sight would be more than just amusing." Judy said with the smug smile and sarcastic tone...
...nearly hoping that Nick happens to mess with the bees and antagonize them enough that they would give chase after him, and punish that fox-kitten for disturbing their peace.
However, completely something else happened instead of that, which Judy realized too late, before it already happened.
The more Nick ran all around in the carpet of flowers, the more he sent more flowers and pollen to the air...
...and yet the wind blew all of those in the air and above of Nick and the carpet of flowers floating pollen straight towards Judy's direction.
"HEY! WHATTA!" Judy shouted out of surprise...
...as the blow of the wind and all of that with the wind floating pollen floated unexpectedly against her, causing Judy to back off and cover her faces with her arms to protect her faces so that the pollen cannot flow into her eyes nor mouth.
"NICK!" Judy shouted Nick's name with the scolding tone.
Nick heard Judy calling his name and stopped running among of the flowers, turning to the direction, where judy was standing in the middle of the cloud of against her floating flowers and pollen.
"What? It's the wind, who is to blame, not me. I can not influence to the wind. Nobody can influence the power of nature in any way." Nick said innocently.
"Besides, as I told earlier, it's fun to allow the flowers to fall over me like the rain with the sweet scent." Nick added.
However, by Judy's opinion, this was far away from fun.
But when, as the wind began to fade away, and the flowers and pollen started to float back to the ground...
...the cloud revealed to Nick the very amusing sight.
Judy was completely covered by the tons and tons of pollen all around of her body, that only her faces were still in seen.
In fact, abundant pollen on Judy, including the ball of pollen around of her fox tail, made her look like the giant bee, without the wings of course.
The wind had also blew a pair of branches, that were hanging in each side of Judy, between of her arms and legs, making it to look like Judy had, like the bees usually have, six limbs.
There was also one branch, which was sticking out from behind of the ball of pollen like the bees' sting.
And yet, Judy had two flowers above of her head like the pair of bees antlers.
After seeing Judy's new "bee-costume" after the cloud of flowers and pollen had completely faded away...
...Nick immediately burst into hearty laughter, and the fox-kitten laughed so loudly and heartily, that he fell over to the ground among of the flowers and rolled in them, while having his paws and arms wrapped around of his stomach as he laughed.
"HA-HAA, BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA! AH-HAA, HA-HA-HA-HA-HA! WHO-HO-HO-HO-HAA-HI-HI-HI-HE-HE-HE- HA-HA-HA-HAA!" Nick laughed, much to Judy's annoyance.
"It is a pity that we do not have a stone wall nearby or paint included, it would be fun to perpetuate this sight and moment... yet with the name "Bee-fox" or "Fox in the bee's cloths." Nick said, while trying to hold back his laugh.
However, Judy wasn't as amused as still a bit giggling fox-kitten.
"Lucky for me! But unlucky for you, dumb fox, that there is going to happen something very soon! Something what you will remember quite long time without forgetting it!" Judy said with extremely frustrated tone...
...and took several steps towards Nick in attempt to give him such a whipping that the fox-kitten would not forget so easily.
However, Nick had prepared for this.
As Judy approached her menacingly, Nick poured some pollen into his paw and lifted his paw and the pawful of pollen in the level of his nose.
"It usually requires cold water to make the people to calm down, but because we have no water, I'll use the sneezing season as my advantage to fend off the opponents." Nick explained, as he blew the pollen from his paw to Judy's node...
...which caused Judy to stop like in the wall, after she suddenly felt something tickling in her nose.
"Wha... wha... what di... did you... do to... to me... ah... ah... AH... AH!" Judy said, as she tried in vain to remove the tickling source from her nose, until it appeared like she was about to sneeze.
"And yet, my apologizes, if you happen to be allergic to pollen, Judy." Nick innocently apologized.
"And in addition to all, I've used it as my advantage once when stampeding herd of mammoths was once nearly about to ruin the festival in Foxtopia. The pollen had quite effective effect to the mammoth herd as it sneezed itself back to where they came from." Nick added.
"AH-AH-AH-CHOO!" Judy let out the loud sneeze...
...which echoed all around of the large area in the air, startled every bird in each tree and, who knows, draw the attention of every animal nearby area to the direction of his sneeze... just like her own scream in agony on that morning, when she found herself in the fox's cloths.
Her sneeze was also powerful enough to shook all the pollen off her, making her to loss her "bee-costume"...
...as well as it pushed her backwards, making her to land on her butt to the ground and among of the flowers.
"Gesundheit." Nick said.
Nick then took out the piece of fabric and handed it over to Judy.
"Here. Use this." Nick offered.
Judy, however and as Nick expected, grabbed the fabric quite rudely and unceremoniously from Nick's paw and sneezed into it...
...before she tossed it back to Nick, without even thanking him.
"Have you already bathed?" Frustrated Judy asked from Nick as she was about to get up on her feet.
Nick, after hearing Judy's - quite rudely asked - question, was about to say something as an answer, until he was quickly and quite rudely interrupted by Judy.
"In fact, no need to answer. I'm not interested to know because I already saw it." Judy said with the rude tone, as she turned her back to Nick and and started to shake with her paws all extra pollen off from her fur, from her clothes and from her tail.
"Now come on. Your bath-time has already wasted MY time here!" Judy ordered as she, without wasting more time to give to Nick "such a whipping that the fox-kitten would not forget so easily", turned her back to Nick and started to walk away from the carpet of flowers.
"Whatever." Nick said with no-offended tone from Judy's harsh and rude attitude, before starting to shake off all extra pollen from his fur, clothes and tail as well, before the fox-kitten rushed after Judy.
...
Later, tonight...
The day had already turned into the night.
It was a quite bright night, because there was no any single cloud in the night sky.
The dark-blue night sky was filled with the bright stars and the bright full moon, that lightened the entire area with its light.
It was also quite calm in the air.
After walking quite long and enough for one day and when the day was getting dark, Judy and Nick had both searched the whole area to find the perfect place where to sleep their night in safe from the many possible fox-eating predators.
It didn't took long from them when they crossed the paths with the large rock standing in middle of the forest and which was towering up to the sky, reaching above of the trees.
In fact, Nick was the one who had discovered the rock... because the whole forest was quite familiar to Nick, meaning he had walked with his mother through that certain forest before on their way to the south, and during of which he had also discovered the rock.
It was Nick's first - and only - choice as their shakedown for tonight...
...and although Judy a bit hesitated, due to the fact that even though the high places could offer them the protection from the ground predators that hunts and eats foxes, that does not offer then the protection from the birds of prey, such like the fox-eating eagle owls that hunts at night time...
...Judy was too tired to search any other perfect and yet safe place to spend their night in safe from the fox-eating predators.
And soon, they both had started to climb along the rock's side.
And after Judy and Nick had managed to climb on flat edge, which was a quite near of the rock's narrowing top and the edge, to which they had climbed, reached to high above of the trees, they both immediately went asleep.
And, as in the last night inside of the glacier on that day when they met, Judy - still unwilling to sleep the fox in next to her - had once again sternly told Nick to sleep in the another corner, which was nex to the rest of the rock's still upwards towering tip, while she herself remained to sleep near of the edge, so that she could keep the distance between of them.
However, despite being calm air, that night was pretty cold.
Though Judy, as having experienced a many than just one cold nights while hunting with her father and Jill in the northern woods in her own rabbit skin, did not allow the coldness of the night to bother her... though she slept her clothes on her and having curled into the ball for the warmth.
However, unlike Judy, Nick was inexperienced and unused with the cold nights and was shivering out of cold in the corner of the flat edge... despite sleeping with his own clothes on him.
And because of the coldness of the night, Nick was nearly completely unable to go to sleep.
Usually, when Nick had cold in the night, his mother had kept him warm by curling around of him to bring to him the warmth through the night.
But now, because his mother was not in the scene, the only one who was in the presence was Judy.
Despite having sternly ordered by Judy to stay in that corner where he was struggling between of his own sleeping and the coldness of the night at the moment...
...and also despite of Nick's knowledge of Judy's clear and open cold, cranky, ill-tempered, grumpy and stubborn attitude, probably because of some bad experience in her past that had caused Judy to avoid any kind of company in Nick's eyes...
...Nick's desperate attempts to ignore the coldness and his need of warmth started to get best of him.
And with that, having enough of the coldness and in the need of warmth, Nick jumped off the ground on his feet...
...and started slowly and quietly sneak towards Judy, temporarily stopping three times to check Judy's status, hoping that she would not wake up, or that she would let him to sleep that night next to her, before continuing approach her...
...even though Nick already suspected that what would happen in the seconds after he had settled himself comfortably in next to her to sleep.
However, under of her cold and in need of comfort and warmth bested his alternate opinion to stay in the corner, where he was struggling to get sleep and kept carefully and silently approaching towards Judy.
And eventually, Nick finally reached to Judy's side and carefully - so that he does not wake her - the fox-kitten settled himself comfortably next/against to Judy's back and was about to go asleep.
However, after a couple minutes after Nick had settled neck to Judy in need of warmth and comfort...
...Judy suddenly stood up on her feet from the ground, revealing to Nick that she wasn't completely fallen asleep at all unlike he had thought.
Murmuring sleepily, yet annoyed of Nick disobeying her direct orders to stay in another corner of the edge, Judy moved away from Nick and headed towards the corner of the flat edge, where Nick had lied and struggled between of the coldness and sleep a moment ago.
"If you would hunt by yourself in cold conditions, instead of staying in the warm conditions hustling and stealing from the others stuff earned with the hard work, you would get used to cold conditions." Judy said to him with the rude tone, as usually.
Even though Nick did not mind of most of Judy's cold and rude tone, harsh treatment and attitude towards him so far on their common trip towards Foxtopia and the Three-Pointed-Mountain, he took the words of "hustling" and "stealing" as an offensive.
Nick only watched from aside, as Judy walked and eventually stopped to the next to the rest of the rock's tip.
And with that, Judy then lied down on his left side to the ground and turned her back to Nick's direction.
"Now, go to sleep! And stay where you are now... away from me. Got it?" Judy ordered Nick, yet again sternly.
Nick himself was too tired to protest back...
...though he still kept wondering that what was wrong with her, that she needed to act like that.
Of course, Nick knew some foxes who have had enough of ill-treatment and prejudice without any good reason for foxes coming from the other animals, that it had caused some of the foxes to live the known motto among the some foxes...
If the world is only gonna see the fox - even one so small, pure, honest and innocent - as cunning and untrustworthy, there is no point of trying to be anything else, except to be that kind of fox the others - particularly prey but even some predators - want to see from even a single one fox.
...meaning that the foxes either start to live as dishonest, cunning and deceitful foxes, who lives their miserable life by cheating others and stealing from others to survive in the world, that is not friendly towards the foxes... which only worsened the rare belief of foxes being honest, friendly and trustworthy, giving them even badder name in the entire animal kingdom.
And Nick knew that too well.
And that's why, Nick had developed for himself his own motto...
Never let them see that they get to you.
...which he had spread to the other disheartened foxes, that had fell as an victim to the others ill-treatment and prejudice, in order to encourage them to not care what the other (prey) animals says about the foxes but to look into the better and brighter future and work hard and to prove that the prejudiced animals have been wrong about the foxes... instead of remain under of their discouraging self-pity and emotional misery brought upon of them by the prejudiced prey animals and live like they all want the foxes to live, so that they can have more excuses to make more bad and ill-founded rumors about the foxes.
But in Judy's case, by Nick's opinion and in Nick's eyes, Nick has never before seen a fox that has supposedly experienced such misguided treatment and prejudices about her - due to being the fox - that she has developed for herself some kind of self-hatred towards herself and her own species...
...which was as if Judy actually hoped to be some other animal rather than fox.
...
Later on the morning...
The morning wake was anything but pleasant to both Judy and Nick.
The morning sky was covered with the gray-purple thunderclouds, as the thunder rumbled deeply and a small distance away from the duo and they were caught by the slightly pouring rain.
Fortunately for the duo...
...this was not the fierce thunderstorm, because these clouds above of them were not the clouds of such of fierce thunderstorm, that could have cause such of storm winds that could destroy the most of the forests.
And along with the destructive storm winds, the fierce thunderstorm could have cause such of pouring rains that could cause both devastating floods and land- and mudslides, which were extremely dangerous threat for those who lived in underground.
And along with the destructive storm winds and pouring rain, the fierce thunderstorm could cause such of fierce and fearful lighting in the stormy sky, and such of powerful thunderbolts are capable to tore with one strike the large pieces out of the rocks, cut down the large, thick and strong trees to the ground, and in the worst case cause the forest fire
Judy had experienced such of events, because her Bunnyburrow village had been once destroyed by such of thunderstorms.
And that day will never be forgotten among the Bunnyburrow bunnies.
...
On that night, when such a fierce thunderstorm had arrived upon Bunnyburrow village, the thunderstorm had brought with it such of fierce storm winds that - along with the frequent lightning's powerful thunderbolts that struck to the threes all over the place, causing them to fall over to the ground - caused most of the forest around of their village to fall over their tents and rabbit holes, destroying the rabbits tents and trapping most than half of entire tribe of bunnies underground.
And that storm's massive pouring rain had caused the massive watery mudslide to slide down from the upper hill above of the tribe, threatening to cover the entire Bunnyburrow village and tribe under of tons and tons of mud.
The watery mud bothered greatly the tribe warriors attempt to rescue trapped tribe members from the mess, and yet the watery mud flowed down into the warrens and threatened to fill the tunnels with mud, yet the tunnels of the warren were full of panicking rabbits trapped in underground.
But fighting against from the upper hills flowing the mudslide, as well as the thunderstorm's fierce wind and pouring water and their worst enemy on that moment, time, with all together, the Bunnyburrow tribe's brave warriors managed with the suicidal courage and the strength of numbers to lift some fallen logs off from blocking the exit from the tunnels of warrens, thus managing to free/rescue most of those trapped rabbits who had gathered into the large groups in tight spaces of the tunnels that led out of the warren to wait for to be rescued, before the mudslide would get worse and bury all the rabbit holes with mud and thus filling the warrens tunnels and caves with it as well.
However, the tribe warriors did not succeed to push the heavy logs off from all of the rabbit holes in time, because when the mudslide worsened and even more mud slid in the village, the mud started to bury the rabbit holes one by one while there was still panicking rabbits trapped under of the exit-blocking fallen logs.
And as even more rabbit holes got buried under of the mudslide, even more watery mud flowed into the warren beneath of the mudslide that the water and mud in the warren started to reach to the ceilings of the tunnels and underground caverns faster than what the warriors were capable to move the logs away from blocking the exit out of the warrens...
...thus sending all the rabbits inside of the warrens into stampede-like panic in the exit-tunnel, as they all pressed in desperate attempt to get out against with each others into the cage-like formation in front of the rabbit holes messed thick branches of the fallen trees, as even more and more mud flowed into their tunnels before they got buried alive by mud... and their desperate pleads for help and cries out of fear of death still traumatically bothered many rabbits that survived from that day.
And that's why, the Bunnyburrow tribe suffered its history's the largest number of death in the hands of nature, as the fallen logs that blocked the exit from the warrens' underground tunnels and into the warrens floating flowing watery mud of the mudslide together killed more than half from entire Bunnyburrow tribe's population of over four thousands rabbits.
And from over three thousand and five hundred rabbits that were inside of the warrens caverns and tunnels in the beginning if the storm, the tribe warriors managed to rescue from the certain death in the half-filled tunnels of warren one thousand, one hundred and sixty-eight rabbits, vast most of which were the bunny children, but the rest of two thousand, three hundred and forty rabbits, mostly bucks and does, got killed as most of them got buried alive by the mud and water, drowning them all in their own warrens.
And the casualties only rose when the mud flows killed three hundred and thirty rabbits more, who were mostly the tribe warriors - who sacrificed their lives to rescue as many rabbits as they were capable and got buried alive under mud - but also from the partially with mud filled tunnels rescued rabbits, who were caught by the mud flow and taken back into the rabbit holes to where the mud was flowing and got buried alive and drowned.
The incident left slightly over one thousand and two hundred thirteen rabbits alive, most of which were bunny children - including young Judy and Jill back then - and less than half adult rabbit does and bucks - including Stu and Bonnie.
And several years after the incident, the vast majority of the current population of the tribe were to the young adulthood reached descendants of those rabbits, who had experienced and survived from the killer storm, and their own generation.
...
However, despite small thunder and pouring rain - or simply not even caring about the thunder and pouring rain - Judy and Nick climbed down from the flat edge of the rock and kept moving on their trip towards Foxtopia and Three-Pointed-Mountain.
And later on that day, after leaving behind the forest... when the small thunderstorm was still going on...
Judy and Nick were walking in the open area, where the ground was wet and muddy due to the pouring rain, that has been rained already throughout the morning and forenoon, and the and thunder rumbled above of them in the clouds.
And Judy, during of her and Nick crossing the open muddy area where was no trees to shelter them from the rain, had picked from somewhere the large and wide leaf to shelter herself from the rain, while walking in the mud.
Judy was also one of those rabbits, who didn't like to get their fur dirty, so Judy tried her best to not get her fur dirty, despite the fact that she was still wearing the clothes Nick gave to her.
However, the muddy area did not seemed to bother Nick...
...as the energetic and eager fox-kitten was walking along the mammoth-sized footprints - which were now the puddles filled with the muddy rain water - alternately bounced from one footprint to another for fun...
...and during of which, Nick bounced past of Judy and kept jumping ahead of her, though the fox-kitten accidentally kicked the mud into her clothes in the process.
So much for trying to not get herself dirty.
Even though Judy get a bit annoyed that Nick had got her clothes dirty - which she still doubted Nick having stolen them from someone else - Judy's only reaction to this was a deep sigh, which for the first time since meeting Nick was not out of annoyance nor frustration...
...but this time, more likely out of slight amusement, as the small smile briefly visited on her lips as Judy looked at Nick and shook her head... before she continued walking after the fox kitten.
to be continue...
I gotta stop this On My Way Part 2 chapter right here.
I hoped that you guys liked reading this chapter.