Disclaimer: Zootopia and all canon characters are owned by Disney. All other characters, product names, trademarks, and copyrights belong to their respective owners.

Note: Dr. C. Amera Skunk is an OC owned by CameraSkunk and used with permission here. Dr. Pachter is an OC owned by Mikey2084.

…..

"Thank you, and that concludes the formal part of the presentation on our treatise, Mors Tristis, A study in Vulpine Physiology. And for those interested, my associate and co-author, Dr. C. Amera Skunk, and I would be happy to answer any of your questions."

"Professor Pachter," started a llama with thick glasses and a mussed-up sweater with patches on the elbows, "Doctor Lindsey here. Why Physiology and not Psychology? This Mors Tristis, uh… Sad Death condition you're describing sounds more like a form of depression than a systemic physical condition embedded in vulpine physiology. And all this coming from a rabbit. I mean what does a rabbit doe know about foxes, besides how to run away from them?"

Pachter nodded and waited for the chuckling in the room to die down before saying, "Yes, well, as you so eloquently pointed out, being a lagomorph, I was able to take advantage of my species' rather low pre-civilization position in the food chain to provide a unique perspective on foxes and their culture. One that promoted a fairly unbiased view of their physiology and psychological makeup."

Lindsey cocked his head.

"We're not perceived as a threat," added Pachter, "That helped promote open communication and access to vulpine species history, especially the unwritten parts passed as legends or stories from generation to generation. And as a key point, I can't emphasize enough that as a history professor, I've found that pulling together disparate pieces of information to form a cohesive hypothesis is as much an art as it is a science."

"But how did you gain access to these animals' histories?" asked Lindsey. "Foxes are loners. They're notorious for shunning decent mammals and keeping to their, what are they called, skulks? Seems a fitting name for a group of disreputable animals that pride themselves on being scavengers and hustlers."

A young arctic fox vixen with beautiful pure white fur and blue-purple eyes coughed loudly from the back row and glared at Lindsey when he turned toward the interruption.

"Mister Lindsey–"

"Doctor," spat the llama.

"Be that as it may, we are in an institution of higher learning, my home institute as a matter of fact, so in the interest of information sharing and learning, if you would please keep your biased opinions to yourself, all of us here would appreciate it.

"Now, as to the reasonable parts of your question, you are correct in that foxes do not form large groups like packs, prides, or sleuths, but you are incorrect in stating that skulk is a derogatory term in this context. The term skulk refers to the vulpine family unit and, unlike most Camelidae genera, vulpines mate for life, are extraordinarily faithful to their mates, and are doting parents to their kits.

"And to your question on how I was able to get close enough to fox culture to identify a previously undocumented physiological condition, that was due to one of my subspecialties; ancient social history. As part of my research into ancient Lapine culture and law codexes, I cataloged social customs and mores and was then able to leverage their use by another… legal scholar who, in return, provided access to the equivalent vulpine treatises. Those aids, along with Dr. Skunk's data mining of anonymized medical records broken down by fox subspecies, sussed out and highlighted the existence of Mors Tristis and the cultural records confirmed it.

"This brings me back to your first question: Why Physiology and not Psychology? For that, I will turn it over to Dr. Skunk."

"Good afternoon," said Dr. Skunk adjusting the microphone on the table in front of him before focusing on the glowering llama doctor sitting in the front row. "As is described in the supplemental section of our paper, I am a medical doctor, board certified in Emergency Medicine and Forensic Pathology. I also have a minor degree in statistics and an interest in homeopathic treatments as developed in ancient societies."

Dismissing Lindsey with a look, Dr. Skunk turned to the rest of the audience and said, "With the information that Prof. Pachter was able to gather from our alpha group of vulpine subspecies, namely Pampas, Corsac, Sand, Fennec, Island, and most prominently, Red foxes, I was able to cross-correlate medical records with familial records, statistically account for endemic diseases and comorbidities, and after filtering out the influences of larger predators on small-mammal society, we were able to identify a group of markers that indicate Mors Tristis."

"Markers? What's a marker?" asked the arctic fox waving her paw.

"Symptoms and causal categorization," replied Dr. Skunk.

"Symptoms vary depending on the prevalence of Mors Tristis in the subspecies," continued Dr. Skunk. "And thus far, of all the subspecies we have data on, red foxes are by far and away the most severely impacted.

"In their case, Mors Tristis can present itself as a severe anxiety attack or the worst parts of an unsupervised drug withdrawal. Both of which were often categorized as stress-induced heart failure on the death notice or necrology."

"Death?" cried the vixen, "Are you saying that every fox that gets Mors Tristis dies?"

Pachter put a paw on her co-author's arm as she answered, "Mors Tristis isn't something a fox catches like a disease. It's something that's initially driven by a strong emotional event but quickly turns into a… well… the best way I can describe it is as a physical feedback loop that, once it becomes dominant, causes unbearable stresses on a fox's physiology."

"Yes," added Dr. Skunk, "Imagine a long-mated pair of foxes, both fully imprinted on each other and–"

"Wait. You guys know about imprinting? But… you're not–" sputtered the vixen.

"What's imprinting?" asked a coyote wearing a ZMU sweatshirt.

The vixen shook her head, "You have to be a fox to understand."

Nodding, Pachter added, "The young lady is correct. Imprinting is another physiological response that foxes, especially red foxes, experience when they become part of a mated pair."

"Think of it as finding your soulmate and forming an unbreakable bond with them. And then think about the stresses a fox undergoes when that unbreakable bond is broken. An accident, cancer, foul-play, even old-age; in all the data we've gathered, breaking the bond of imprinting is the number one root cause of Mors Tristis."

The coyote shrugged, "That's not how it works for the rest of us canids."

The vixen sniffed and blew her nose.

"This is a bunch of crap," said Lindsey. "Foxes are emotionally thin-skinned and psychologically can't handle a breakup. It has nothing to do with their physical being. It's all in their minds. Drug them up, or lobotomize them, but to make up a condition is ridiculous. You're wasting everybody's time."

"It's real," yelled the vixen standing up and waving a claw at the llama. "I know it is because…"

Looking around at the audience with their muzzles hanging open, the vixen went teary-eyed before sitting back down, covering her muzzle with her paws, and stuttering out, "I'm sorry."

Nodding toward the vixen, Dr. Skunk motioned for Pachter to end the Q and A session.

"Mister Lindsey, that is enough from you," spat out Pachter. "Mors Tristis may be a strong physical reaction to a psychological event, but the precursors to that reaction appear to be hereditary traits that, so far as we've found, present themselves strongest and most commonly in foxes. And if you'd set aside your obvious biases, you'd be able to see the markers that are apparent to anyone willing to look."

"Thank you, everyone," added Dr. Skunk taking a thick notebook out of his fuming co-author's large paws before she could use it to beat some sense into an annoying llama, "please email us if you have any other questions."

As the room cleared, Prof. Pachter and Dr. Skunk rushed over to the sniffling vixen and asked, "Are you okay?"

"Can I get you some water or juice?" asked Pachter.

"Yes, please, some juice would help. I'm so sorry, but that animal–"

"Here you go," said Pachter handing a bottle to the vixen and setting another on the floor. "You're wearing a Tri-Burrows varsity jacket. Are you a student there?"

The vixen chugged the juice bottle empty and then nodded, "Yes, ma'am. It's my uncle. My psych professor told me you were giving a talk today. I was at home in Hillsburrow when my grandma said it was Mors Tristis, and there wasn't anything anyone could do. I've never heard of it before, but my mom's crying, and… and, I just had to do something, so I haven't slept since I found out. Is there anything you can do to help my uncle, please?"

Pulling up a chair, Dr. Skunk said, "Well… uh… I think I picked up on some of that… let's see…"

Dr. Pachter took another chair and, handing the second juice bottle over, said, "We're very sorry to hear about your uncle. If maybe you could slow down and tell us again what's happening, we'll try and see if we can help."

Taking another drink, the vixen shrugged, "Sorry, I'm just really tired, and this all happened so fast. My aunt passed away suddenly, and my uncle has just stopped, and that's when I heard about Mors Tristis from my grandma. So, I'm here to see if there's a cure."

"Well," said Dr. Skunk, "there's not exactly a cure, but we've documented a few friends and family based support techniques that the Pampas and Island foxes have successfully used. And some physical therapies, including a specialized version of acupuncture and a high-intensity exercise regime, that Sand and Fennec foxes utilize. And more recently, we've heard about positive outcomes with a regimen of homeopathic herbs and naturalist lifestyle oriented therapies that Corsac foxes favor. But for all these subspecies, the impact of Mors Tristis is not as debilitating as it is in red foxes, so, depending on where arctic foxes fall on the severity spectrum, we might be able to craft a therapy or a combination of therapies that could potentially help."

"What Dr. Skunk is trying to say is we have almost no data on arctic foxes, so we don't know what might or might not work for them."

"No data? That's crazy. From what my grandma said, arctic foxes are right up there with red foxes in how hard Mors Tristis hits us."

"I'm sorry," said Pachter, "we had no idea there was a community of arctic foxes in Hillsburrow."

"No one knew," added Dr. Skunk, "nothing about your town or the mammals living there ever showed up on any of my data searches."

"Well, Freefoxton is real, and there's plenty of us foxes living there. My uncle used to tell stories about how when the Commonwealth was forming, foxes, especially arctic foxes, escaped from slavers or worked themselves out of being servants to be able to build their own place in the High Mountain region of Hillsburrow."

And then, with a grumble, the vixen added, "Just because we don't spend all of our time in the lowland villages doesn't mean we aren't civilized with clinics and computers and stuff.

"So, will you help me or not?"

Pachter looked at Dr. Skunk, who pulled out his phone, examined his calendar for a few moments, and then nodded.

"Yes, and with your permission, Dr. Skunk and I would like to return with you immediately to your family and see what we can do to help."

The vixen gasped, "You'll come home with me? Right now? Really?"

"Of course," said Prof Pachter, "what good is our research if it can't help foxes in need? What's your name, dear? And we'll see about getting faster transportation back to your uncle for all three of us."

"Skye. My name's Skye Winter. I was named after one of the founding foxes of Freefoxton."

…..

Clinical description:

Mors Tristis, also known as the Sad Death. General morbidity is often attributed to myocardial infarction due to the sustained and increased stress hormones resulting from a physiological feedback loop type of response to anxiety and depression triggers. The most prevalent triggering event is related to the sudden severing of a bond between mutually imprinted vulpine life-mates, (Reference: Pachter, et al, The Psychological and Physical Manifestation of Bonding between Mates in Select Mammal Species [Unpublished manuscript], Zootopia Metropolitan University) or, less commonly, the loss of a close littermate. Case attribution to this phenomenon is generally based on family or friend observations that include the lack of comorbidities or other physical or health factors and/or the cause of death documented as the physical death of the heart.

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A/N: A while back when I started writing Chapter 62 of the Long Game, I needed a 'condition' to reference when a mammal goes through a physical/psychological trauma related to losing a mate or close loved one. A couple of PMs later, CameraSkunk came up with Mors Tristis and a good bit of lore to describe it. As I was finally getting ready to post the completed chapter, I wanted to credit CameraSkunk for the idea by posting a separate short story about Mors Tristis so readers would have a feel for my headcanon and how it fits into the Long Game AU.

If you'd like to read some of CameraSkunk's work, please visit him on FF, AO3, and DA and fav/kudo/comment on his works.

On another note, I've decided not to mark this story complete because it might be fun to add more to it as a side story to my long fic.

~Mikey