With this…
They were finally here, with a long crowded train ride, and the agony of the stifling shuttle bus creeping through traffic behind them. Now they all disembarked and dispersed into a broad, once empty field in front of them.
"C'mon Carrots, let's get beyond that tree line, I don't want a bunch of screaming and braying mammals to ruin this." Nick shifted his backpack and started weaving through the crowd towards the scraggly border of conifers that was at least a kilometer away.
It was amazing. Thousands of mammals of every description had arrived before them to set up cameras and telescopes that ranged from things she could hold in a paw to hulking masses of metal four times her height. More were coming behind them. They had all come to the narrow path of totality for the first solar eclipse to pass within a thousand miles of Zootopia in decades.
They walked past several likely spots as the crowd thinned, but Nick was adamant, and they finally spread their blanket with only a few other seekers of solitude in sight. He seemed to have taken to heart the words of the lady guanaco at the Zootopia Planetarium. Her advice had been to just watch if it's your first eclipse—the real thing is better than any picture you can take and you can get those off the Internet anyway.
Lunch, drinks, they had everything they needed, and Nick gave her the best seat in the house—his lap. She snuggled back and he set his muzzle in its favorite spot between her ears. It worked out really well, as only inches were required to pass the welding filter back and forth. Once the first small bite was taken out of the greenish disk of the sun by the moon, her anticipation leapt; this was really going to happen!
The next hour passed far more rapidly than Judy had expected, as the moon encroached and the sky darkened—slowly at first, then exponentially faster! As the sun's remaining crescent narrowed to a sliver through the filter, she couldn't help wriggling in excitement to the point Nick had to steady her with a paw.
"Just half a minute now until second contact," Nick said with considerable excitement himself, after a quick glance at his cellphone. "Now I need you to do exactly as I say! Hold your paw over the sun and give me the filter; I'll tell you when it's safe to look. You can only do it a couple seconds before totality." She lifted the filter to him with her right paw and held out the other. She felt like she'd explode from her repressed exhilaration as she waited for the last excruciating seconds to tick away.
"Okay, fifteen to go. Now I want you to close your eyes Carrots!" She did, and felt Nick gently grasp her outstretched forearm and move it slightly. She felt it should be time to move it away, but he held it firm. "Five…four…Open your eyes now!"
Just above her outstretched paw the most incredible thing was happening! To the right of the brilliant spot of remaining sunlight an ethereal ring formed as it faded. Sharp edged on the inside, wispy streamers started to spread against an impossibly deep blue sky. Her paw was firmly guided to it with her finger placed in the ring! Time stopped until Nick spoke.
"Judith Laverne Hopps…Will you marry me?"
The diamond brilliance on the edge of the ring winked out as Judy shrieked and twisted to seize her fox and bury her face in the ruff of fur above his shirt. "Yes," she managed to sob.
"Gotta save this for after! We only have three minutes of totality!" Nick turned her to see the now magnificent solar corona spread around the moon. "Then we see your engagement ring again and you can check it for fit!"
A.N. Dire warnings to the general public excepted, it is safe to look at a total solar eclipse without a filter for two or three seconds before the start of, through and after the end of totality. Otherwise you miss the diamond ring effect—the briefest and best part of the eclipse—along with the brilliant red of the chromosphere, visible for only a second or two right as totality begins (Second contact) and ends (Third contact). I'm an astronomer and have seen nine total solar eclipses.