Fowl business (for Combat Engineer)
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"Let's get a house! With a garden!"
What else could Nick do but go along with that classic Hopps enthusiasm. While getting out of the centre of Zootopia was (insert: unnerving, foreign, highly annoying given the need for early morning wakeups) to the fox, he went along with it, the pair eventually finding a terrace house out on the edge of the meadowlands. It was tall and thin, and exactly the same could be said for the garden.
Which Judy had insisted was perfect!
It soon became apparent exactly what it was perfect for when a bunch of her family turned up one morning and started digging it up. Then it had clicked! Good soil, south facing, you could take the bunny outta the farm but not the farm outta the bunny.
And the bunny was busy out getting things ready. Planting trays and big carrot fields and… -she was sifting the soil?
It was to make the carrots grow straight and true, or so she said. Whatever, it was her project anyway. She wasn't even that good of a cook, he was the one in charge of working out how to store, sell and use all that stuff! It was the simple principle of growing it all that mattered to her, which was something that he just didn't get. Then again, he wouldn't get it anyway if the reason was to grow all your own food. As far as he was concerned, why bother throwing away all your free time to grow lettuce and carrots and squash when you could just walk down to the store and buy them. Heck, buy more than his weight in them for a pawful of bucks or so!
The same could be said for the leeks, and the beetroot, and all those herbs she was getting going in her little greenhouse, and the blue… berry… bush…
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Judy was pleased to see that Nick loved gardening!
Yes, most of that involved one large bunch of bushes, currently enclosed in a newly erected greenhouse, filled with the sound of classical music… But he had been branching out, no pun intended. Some of it was just using his larger size and strength to mass move bags of compost or so on, but then there was that agricultural sniffers course he went on. Now he went about, detecting the slightest trace of fungal infection and spraying it down.
And then there was his 'efficiency drive'. Having planted large trays of salad leaves, Judy never wanted for anything… Which meant that they grew large and overflowing leaves that needed to be regularly pruned. She found him sitting out there one day, pondering how to make best used of the excess.
Judy had responded by religiously pruning them and putting the scraps on the compost heap. Along with shed and raked up leaves, various husks and peelings, and all sorts of bits and bobs that were left over. The first year of production, she ended up with a massive harvest of dried beans, and through all of that there had been piles of hard knobbly bean pods left over.
And that wasn't even getting to the trees!
Oh, she loved that they had a decent apple tree overhanging part of the back two-thirds, currently uncultivated. But they were but two mammals, and couldn't consume all the output. They could consume nothing from the acorn tree either. Even gathering and giving away didn't deal with everything. After all, many fruits grew too high up, overripened on the branch, and then… Smush!
The thing was, she didn't care. She was producing enough for her and Nick, but over that winter she saw her fox brooding over it. Oh, if she'd known what she'd opened. She should have known that, even though it took a lot of effort to get him into something, once he was in he was going to make it the most efficient of something possible!
And oh, did he have a plan.
And one day, when getting back on the train from her parents, she heard it.
"Nick, what's that noise?"
"Oh, the noise?" he began, smiling. "I'd have thought you'd rather want to know what was in the box." He revealed a cardboard box, lid punctured with holes, said noise chirping out.
"What's in the box!?"
He waved her over and opened it up, and her heart melted.
"This is Turkey."
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She hated that name. He once complained about a fox having the surname fox, and now he burdened it on their new pet! The little poult could fit in her paw, and when it wasn't running around it was eating out of her paw as Nick got the pen together. He set that up, then put chicken wire around the newly growing lettuce, rocket and other salad plants. When the leaves got too long, Turkey could reach in and peck and nibble.
Early on he brought in a few bags of chick feed but, as the main plants began growing, the bird found plenty to eat. Judy often found herself looking up from her weeding to see the growing bird digging through the compost heap, or strutting around the grass to pick off slugs, bugs and snails.
And often, she found him looking at her.
"Hey there, Turkey," she greeted, as he stood a few paces from her, just watching. Looking down and pausing, she winced a little as she picked up a worm and held it out in an open paw. Turkey took a tentative step forward, then another, and then his beak swooshed down and picked up the worm, gobbling it down in one go. His head watched her, jerking about a bit, before he let out a quick gobble.
"Aaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwww…. -Nick! Nick!"
"Where's the fire?" he asked, poking out the back door.
Judy waved her paws out at Turkey. "He made his first gobble!"
The fox rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah. Don't get too attached."
She crossed her paws. "I'm gonna get totally too attached!"
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She did, especially as he grew massive. By the end of summer he was already larger than her, and with the harvests coming in he began to grow fat. Piles of cut up old growth, husks and pods. A carpet of fallen acorns and apples. Even a final late bloom of the dreaded slugs and snails. He'd go around pecking and devouring, and he grew massive.
Judy found herself taking pictures of him as November began, sharing them with those around the Precinct. Everyone was receptive, especially the predators (after her suggestion, Nick had been busy inviting loads of mammals to a thanksgiving meal). Clawhauser especially adored him, talking about just how much he could eat that big bird up.
Judy laughed it off, taking pride in it. Just like with Wolford's comment about him being a fine thing.
Then came Fangmeyer. "He's almost too fine to eat."
The bunny chuckled. "Don't be silly. He's our pet."
"… Uh, Hopps…"
"Yeah," she asked.
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-5 minutes later-
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"NICKPLEASEDON'TEATTURKEY! PLEASEDON'TEATTURKEY! PLEASEDON'TEATTURKEY! PLEASEDON'TEATTURKEY! IWILLKILLYOUIFYOUEATTURKEY!"
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"Judy, what did you literally expect to happen?"
"I…"
"It's a boy! It's not going to go off laying eggs."
"I…" she sniffed… "Please don't eat him. I'll buy you the best turkey I can. I'll do more… I'll do way, way more…"
"Hmmmmmm…"
And so, it came to pass that that Thanksgiving, Judy Hopps served a turkey, in a turkey suit, much to the confusion of Turkey outside. Still, Nick was annoyed. There was no point in having a male turkey wandering around out there if you weren't going to eat it.
And so, that spring, coming home from Bunnyburrow, Judy saw a new box.
"What's in the box?" she asked nervously. "And please don't say you plan to eat them."
"Of course not," he said, smiling. "We're going to eat what comes out of them."
And so, the Wilde garden became home to Hen A and Hen B. As for Turkey…
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-Etrusca plaza, Little Rodentia-
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"RIOT! RIOT! RIOT!"
"WE KNOW!"
The two rioters were cut off as a third threw a minute molotov into a building, the trio whooping and cheering. They and the rest of the posse were burning the frickin' town down. And nobody was gonna stop them.
"RUUUUNNNNNN…."
They broke off as a terrified rat raced past, followed by another. There was a slam as a pika knocked into one of them. "They've brought out the mounted troops!"
Off he ran, leaving the others looking at each other, confused. "Mounted…"
'GOBBLE GOBBLE'
"DISPERSE IN THE NAME OF THE LAW!"
Before they could react, a gust of wind blew them onto the ground and, above them, loomed a terrifying sight. Judy Hopps, mounted on a turkey, and one thing was for certain.
Neither of them was chicken.
