A wave of hot air billowed out of the sauna as Nick pulled the door open before Judy could get out so much as a word. Through the foggy haze, Judy could see a number of mammals in the room. The sauna was a far cry from the one that the Jänisinens had, which was perhaps twice the size of an outhouse. The sauna in the Mystic Springs Oasis was enormous, a cube that had to be at least thirty feet on each side if it was an inch. The pleasant and fragrant smell of cedar came from the planks that made up the walls and benches of the sauna, glistening with a slight reddish color in the moisture of the air that filled the room. In the center of the sauna was a little square island of rough stone, the inside of which was divided in half on the diagonal, one side filled with smooth and polished rocks and the other a copper basin filled with water. Two matching copper spigots, covered with little droplets of condensation, trickled water over both sides, making the rocks hiss on one side and conjuring dense fog from the other. It was difficult to tell how many mammals were in the sauna, but they seemed to range in size from a bull elephant whose gray hide was nearly invisible in the dense and thick air down to a little brown ferret. Other mammals were visible only as vague shapes, but Judy thought that she could see the distinctive orange and black stripes of a tiger even if she couldn't make out anything else.

As Judy followed Nick into the sauna, she was actually grateful that the visibility was so poor, since it made it much easier to imagine that the mammals were fully clothed instead of completely naked. Unfortunately, it wasn't possible to do the same for the mammal at one end of the room who was leading the others through some odd sort of calisthenics in a low and mellow voice. The yak wasn't just naked; he was entirely hairless, or at least the parts of his body that Judy could see were as she refused to allow her gaze to dip below his waist level. It was a peculiar look that had made it difficult to identify his species, as without the long coat typical of a yak it made his pale flesh look both oddly thin and strangely lumpy; his head seemed almost comically undersized without fur, although it made his curving horns seem especially long. His large liquid brown eyes had lit up in recognition as Nick entered, and he stopped his odd movements and instructions to run over and embrace the fox.

If Nick was bothered by being hugged by a shaved, naked yak, he didn't show it, and simply clapped the other mammal on the back as they greeted each other. The other mammals in the room broke their silence as they murmured to each other in confused-sounding tones until Nick called out, "I just need to borrow Yax for a minute," and guided the yak out of the sauna.

Judy gratefully followed them out; while she had always enjoyed saunas, her fur was too dense to be able to spend very long in them without overheating. It was one of the reasons that the Jänisinens had only used their sauna in the winter months, as being able to escape the heat by jumping out into the snow made the sauna much safer for bunnies than using it at warmer times of the year. She suddenly realized that the yak might have shaved himself to be better able to withstand the sauna, which was still strange but at least made some kind of sense. "Nick!" Yax had beamed, "It's been a real long time."

Judy kept her focus firmly centered on Yax's face, as outside the sauna there was absolutely nothing to hide the yak's shame. Nick, however, continued to seem completely unperturbed, and nodded his agreement. "Since '25," Nick said.

Yax brightened. "May 24th," he said, "It was Tuesday, and you were wearing that blue tie, the nice one with the white stripes that Edna said she liked."

Judy wondered if he really could remember those details so accurately, but Nick didn't seem surprised. "It's nice to hear Edna liked it," he said, smiling, "She never told me that. How's she doing, by the way?"

"Oh, you know," Yax said, gesturing vaguely, "She married Tommy last year. Great wedding, they had those little tuna sandwiches, you know, the little bite-sized ones with the celery mixed in you like? Tommy gave her the real absent treatment though, which was a shame, 'cause she's a real floorflusher and he's always been a heeler. He stepped on her toes three times when they were dancing to 'It Had to Be You.' Then her mother went all blooey and his father got all blotto. Real blow, you know? You should've been there."

"I'll wait for her declaration of independence," Nick said casually, "I'm sure that'll be an even better party."

Yax's expression suddenly shifted, and a puzzled frown darkened his features. "They said you weren't there 'cause you were dead and all. But you're here now."

Nick, who must have sensed Judy's growing impatience with the rambling about a wedding involving mammals she had never heard of and doubted had any relevance to the case, gave a delicate cough and gestured towards her, causing Yax to notice her for what seemed to be the first time. "About that," he said, "I'm sort of helping the Bureau of Prohibition now."

Yax looked down at Judy fearfully and waved his arms frantically. "This isn't a gin mill, agent lady," he said, the words tumbling out of his mouth, "The Mystic Springs Oasis is about peace and... and understanding and tearing down the barriers between, you know, mammal and nature. I follow all the laws, I swear I do."

"She's not here to arrest you," Nick said, and then shot Judy a sidelong glance, "I think."

"Agent Judy Hopps," she introduced herself, offering Yax a paw that he tentatively took and shook with his hoof, "And I'm not here to arrest you."

"Oh," Yax said, seeming relieved, then his expression became concerned. "Are you alright, Agent Judy? You're not looking so spiffy. You know you've got some burns?"

He gestured vaguely around his body to where the parts of Judy's body visible at the moment had burned fur or blistered skin. Judy repressed a grimace, both thinking of how bad she must look for him to point it out, and trying to avoid noticing what the motion of his limbs was doing to the rest of his body. "I'm fine, thank you," she said, trying to sound official.

She shot Nick a glance of her own. "Nick said you might be able to help me find someone."

"I'll try to help, but my memory's not that great," Yax replied.

From the way that he said it, Judy didn't think he meant it as a joke, but she didn't know how he could possibly think that he didn't have a good memory. After a moment of silence that started getting awkward, she asked, "Do you know where we could find Emmitt Otterton?"

"That's a real easy one," Yax said, beaming, "Emmitt's been working here since he closed his shop. He should be in the courtyard."

Judy enthusiastically thanked Yax and then grabbed Nick by the paw and pulled him after her before Yax could engage either one of them in conversation again. "Well, that was easier than I thought it would be," Nick admitted as they hurried down the corridor away from the sauna, which Yax had cheerfully returned to.

Judy just hoped that Nick's lead would be worthwhile. Emmitt Otterton had been, in Nick's estimation, the best candidate for getting somewhat more up to date information about Mr. Big's gang. The unspoken undertone that Judy guessed at was that Otterton was unlikely to either want Nick dead or spitefully turn him over to those who did, and might be some help in guiding them towards other mammals more likely to help than hurt their investigation. "It's perfect!" Judy said brightly, "I just hope that he knows something."

Before they got to the door to the courtyard, Nick warned her, "Just so you know, he's probably going to be naked too."

Judy froze in her steps and pointed in the direction that the signs on the way said led to the courtyard. "You said that they didn't wear anything in the sauna. You didn't say anything about anywhere else."

"I didn't think we'd be going anywhere else here," Nick admitted, scratching at the cut beneath his ear, "They're naturalists. That's what Yax meant about barriers between mammal and nature."

"But..." Judy struggled to wrap her head around it, "Outside?"

"That tends to be where nature is," Nick said dryly, "Besides, there's a wall."

Judy swallowed hard. It was going to be much brighter outside than in the sauna, and there wouldn't be any obscuring steam. Keeping focused on Yax's face had been hard enough, but she wasn't going to stop when they were so close. "Then let's go," she said, probably not as firmly as she would have liked.

They found Otterton exactly where Yax had said he would be, at work in the courtyard of the club. The grounds between the building and the wall that surrounded it had been beautiful, but the courtyard was something else. The stonework of the walls was covered with climbing vines, delicate flowers adding brilliant bursts of color. There was a contrast maintained between portions of the grounds; carefully raked white sand, fine as flour, had been artfully arranged around interestingly-shaped rocks and hardy desert plants, which stood out against the beautiful shrubs and flowers in riotous colors that covered the rest of the ground. There wasn't any sort of pattern that Judy could discern, but the courtyard seemed to invite the eye to linger over each element in turn, and it was obvious that an extraordinary amount of care went into maintaining the plants. Although her eye, which she considered a critical judge of the health of plants thanks to a lifetime spent on a farm, didn't see anything needing care, the bucket of clipped twigs and flowers next to Otterton's side showed that he clearly did. As Nick had warned might be the case, the little otter was entirely naked, and Judy shifted awkwardly as he rose from his knees, trying desperately not to catch a sight of anything and painfully aware that she herself was wearing nothing but a towel held up with the pin of her badge.

Emmitt Otterton looked somewhat pudgy to Judy's eye, but perhaps it was just because he was an otter. His brown fur, at least on the parts of his body that Judy was willing to look at, didn't have any gray in it, except around a thick scar on his left shoulder. Judy thought that he was probably around Nick's age, maybe a little older. Otterton's broad face seemed open and honest, and despite the pair of horn-rimmed glasses perched atop his short muzzle he still squinted at their approach. "Nick?" he asked, "Is that you?"

Nick grinned. "It is. How've you been, Emmitt?"

Otterton brushed the dirt off his knees and switched his garden shears from his right to his left paw. "I can't complain too much," he said cheerfully, shaking Nick's paw, "How about you? I heard you were dead."

"Things went south with Mr. Big," Nick said, by way of explanation, "I had to lay low."

Otterton nodded sympathetically, but didn't seem surprised. "Who's you friend?" he asked, turning to Judy.

"Agent Judy Hopps, Bureau of Prohibition," she said, deciding against unpinning her badge to show it to him.

"I only did flowers for Mr. Big," Otterton said mildly, with none of the fear that Yax had shown, "I'm not sure I'll be much help, whatever it is you want to know."

"What happened to your shop?" Nick asked.

Otterton shifted from foot to foot, appearing somewhat hesitant to say it in front of Judy, before giving his answer. "After Mr. Big got arrested, the shop didn't have as much, ah, protection as it used to," he said at last.

Judy thought that she knew exactly what he meant. The florist's shop had been in one of the parts of Zootopia that Mr. Big had laid claim to, and the shrew had almost certainly been extorting money from the businesses in that territory. The charge hadn't stuck in court, but she thought Otterton's carefully chosen words meant that had been a failure of the prosecutors. "After the third brick through the window of the shop, I knew I had to move someplace safer for my family."

"That's terrible!" Judy said, "The police didn't catch whoever was doing it?"

The look that both Otterton and Nick gave her was pitying, and she felt horribly naïve for asking. Of course the police hadn't caught the mammal responsible, if they had even bothered investigating. All of the other businesses that Judy had seen around what had been Otterton's shop were run by prey, and she would be willing to bet that no one had tried to scare them out of the neighborhood after they stopped paying Mr. Big. "Not yet," was all Otterton said, and then he continued with a remarkable levity, "I like working here, though. Mr. Yax pays me just as well as his other employees, and he doesn't care what I plant as long as it looks good. Plus..."

Otterton gestured downwards at his naked form, and Judy could feel her cheeks heating up as the result of instinctively following his paw downwards.

Judy coughed to cover her embarrassment. "The flowers are beautiful," Judy said, hastily but sincerely, looking around to take in the otter's work again to avoid looking him in the face.

Closer to the flowers, she was able to identify them. There were great masses of hydrangeas, ranging in color from white through light blues and into dark purples, but a surprising amount of the ground had been given over to violets. Bumblebees buzzed lazily from flower to flower, and the air was full of the sweet smell of the flowers. Nick looked down at the flowers. "It's time for violets," he said, and it was a statement, not a question.

Otterton nodded. "This time every year," he said quietly.

Judy was curious as to what their exchange meant, but after already having put her foot in her mouth she didn't want to risk offending him. She explained, with Nick's help, what they were looking for, and Otterton willingly provided a number of names, although he noted that a few of the mammals Nick had suggested were dead. All of the names, she couldn't help but note, were ones that had come up in the Bureau's files, but reducing the number of options from dozens to a mere half dozen of likely leads was a huge help. Otterton had even provided a scrap of paper and a stub of a pencil that Judy used to write the name down, and right when it seemed as though they had exhausted his knowledge Nick asked after another name. "You wouldn't happen to know where Fru Fru lives now, would you?" he asked, "It can't be in the Biggliani estate anymore."

Otterton scratched his head. "No, she's Mrs. Petruccio now; they've got a beautiful house in Little Rodentia. I did the flowers for her second daughter's christening. Hold on, I think I've got the address somewhere."

He murmured the last of it somewhat distractedly, and vanished into a little shed cleverly disguised by vines so that it hardly stood out at all. He returned with a piece of paper no bigger than a postage stamp and, holding it close to one eye, carefully copied the minuscule script on it into his own much larger writing on a scrap of an envelope. As he was performing this delicate task, Judy realized the piece of paper he was copying was a tiny engraved invitation, presumably for the christening Otterton had mentioned. Once he was done and had given her the address, Judy thanked him gratefully and was itching to leave as Nick made his goodbyes.

"Do you mind if I take some of these violets?" Nick asked suddenly, gesturing towards a few flowers in Otterton's bucket of clippings.

Otterton instead made a few snips from the plants still in the ground, and pushed a little bouquet into Nick's paws over the fox's protests. "Mr. Yax won't mind, and I don't, either," he said, "Not for another soldier."

Nick thanked him again and then let Judy drag him off, the flowers in one of his paws.

"Did the two of you serve together?" Judy asked curiously, once they were out of earshot as they walked out of the courtyard and back towards the locker rooms.

"Me and Otterton?" Nick said, "No, he served on the front. Did you see that scar on his shoulder?"

Judy nodded, and Nick continued. "He charged a machine gun nest. Alone. He got hit once, but he still took it out."

She could hardly imagine the friendly little otter doing something like that; the only other veteran of the Great War she knew who had seen combat was her coworker Douglas Ramses, but the sheep was about as far from Otterton in his personality as seemed possible. It didn't seem right, that Otterton had fought and suffered for his country and had come back only able to make a living for his family with the generous patronage of a mob boss. "I wouldn't have guessed it," she said.

"Don't underestimate him," Nick said quietly.

Judy nodded. "Do you think Mr. Big's daughter will be able to help?" she asked, wondering why Nick had wanted her address.

Nick shrugged. "Maybe. He made sure Fru Fru didn't know where their money was coming from, but she knew all of his friends."

"And she likes you?" Judy asked.

Considering that Nick had been largely responsible for putting her father behind bars, it seemed like a valid concern, especially if she knew he was responsible. "Oh, Carrots," Nick said, shaking his head while wearing a broad smile, "Everyone likes me. And if they don't now, they just haven't figured it out yet."

Judy thought that was a ridiculous display of egotism, but it was that thought that he left her with as they split off to change in the appropriate locker rooms.

After they had both changed back into their clothes and left the Mystic Springs Oasis, Nick surprised Judy by pulling the violets he had gotten from Otterton out from inside his jacket and offering them to her. "They match your eyes," he said.

None of the bucks in Bunnyburrows had ever offered her flowers or really made any kind of romantic overture to her before, but she automatically grabbed the flowers. The flowers really were beautiful, each petal a perfectly even shade of purple, and their perfume actually reminded her somewhat of Nick's own smell beneath the shampoo he used. Nick must have seen her surprise, because the sides of his mouth quirked up into a small smile. "Don't read anything into it," he said, "You'll need them for your hat."

"What hat?" Judy asked, confused since all of her clothes were almost certainly ashes.

Nick paused. "Well, I suppose you could just keep wearing one of my best shirts and the belt of my bathrobe," he said, looking her over with a critical eye.

Judy looked down at her clothes; she had been in far too much of a hurry to continue their investigation to think to pick up some of the clothes that the Bureau maintained for disguises, and while she didn't care too much about the way she looked it would have been nice to get to wear something that stood out less. "But if you show up on Fru Fru's doorstep looking like that, she's going to insist on dressing you like a doll for, oh, at least two hours or so before letting you get a word in edgewise."

At Judy's frown, Nick continued, "You should've seen what she'd do to the 'servants.'"

His mocking tone made the air quotes he put the word in entirely unnecessary, and Judy supposed that Mr. Big's goons must have been particularly patient or afraid of their boss to submit to that kind of treatment. Probably both, actually, but she pushed the thought aside. Nick frowned thoughtfully himself and tugged at the lapel of his suit, which was somehow still crisp despite having been put in a locker. "I'll need a new jacket, too," he said with a sigh.

"We're not going to waste time shopping for clothes," Judy insisted.

She didn't think Nick was deliberately trying to waste time, but his concern seemed ridiculous, particularly with regards to his own clothes, which looked perfectly fine to her. Still, he persisted. "That's right," he said, "We're not wasting time. We're investing it."

"Fifteen minutes," Judy said firmly, "That's it, to get in and out. And it has to be on the way to her house."

"I can work with that," Nick said agreeably, cocking his head to the side in apparent thought.

As they approached the Buchatti, its brilliant blue bodywork standing out against the drab browns of their surroundings, Judy asked, "Why do you need a new jacket?"

"Not that I'd expect you to know, Agent Carrots, but this is two years out of style," Nick said, sounding more surprised than anything else that she hadn't realized something that was obvious to him.

"Does that mean that Fru Fru dressed you—" Judy started to ask, wondering if she had come across the reason the fox seemed to care about clothes so much.

"Oh look, we're at the car," Nick cut her off, quickly getting into it.

Judy couldn't help but smile to herself as she got in herself and watched Nick make the preparations to start the Buchatti. That, she thought, is definitely a "yes."

Author's Notes:

I published the very first chapter of my very first story, "Black and White, Red and Blue," on September 4th, 2016. In the past year, I've published 57 chapters across three stories, totaling a bit over 200,000 words if my (frequently lengthy) author's notes are counted. I'm unfortunately a little past the anniversary as I didn't have internet access on September 4th of this year, but as my thanks to you, the reader, I'm posting this as a bonus chapter.

The response that I've gotten to my stories has been incredible, and it really means a lot to me that so many people have read and enjoyed my work. I've received a lot of wonderful feedback; I always like knowing what people did or didn't like about a particular chapter or a story in general, and I'm always trying to become a better writer. I like to think that my skill as a writer has increased over the past year, and I hope that I'll be able to say the same thing next year too.

My next story up will be the sequel to "A Study in Gold," but I've also got some other projects in the works. I'm working on a fantasy AU that is, I think, a very unique take on the possibilities of that kind of setting and I'm helping another writer with an AU set in the 1970s which will be my first ever collaboration. I'm still working on the sequel to "Black and White, Red and Blue" and I've got a few other stories that fit in with the movie's canon that I'm currently fleshing out, including some one shot works. I've been working on getting to the point where I can have more than one story running at a time, but I can't promise anything just yet. I will, however, stick to at least a chapter a week for as long as I can. It's a pleasure to write, and I want to thank you again for reading!

With that, I'll move on to my notes for this chapter. The title, "Where the Shy Little Violets Grow" comes from a 1928 song by Guy Lombardo, and was chosen simply in reference to Otterton's garden. The violets being in remembrance is in reference to Violet Day. The tradition started in Australia in 1915 (while WWI was still in progress) with bouquets of violets being sold to raise funds for returning soldiers. Violet Day was originally held in July, and then later August, until 1970, and served to memorialize and commemorate those who had served. Although Violet Day was never observed by the US, there were a significant number of Australian troops who served in WWI, and it's not unreasonable to assume that an American who served could have heard about the holiday from one of them and remembered it. The use of remembrance poppies, in reference to the poem "In Flanders Fields," dates to 1921, and was quickly adopted in Australia, Canada, the UK, and the US. The use of poppies would have been a much more familiar memorial in 1927, but as noted Judy wanted to avoid asking to avoid being tactless. The natural smell of a fox, particularly a male fox, is indeed somewhat similar to violets, although with the addition of something a lot like a skunk. Hydrangeas would be blooming in the summer, when this story is set, and violets can bloom year round with proper care.

May 24, 1925 was indeed a Tuesday; in the movie Yax seems to have an incredible memory for trivial details, which I've included here. The absent treatment is 1920s slang to mean a timid dancer, while a floorflusher was slang for an enthusiastic one and a heeler is a poor dancer. Blooey means to emotionally fall apart, and blotto means to be extremely drunk. A blow is a crazy party, and declaration of independence was slang for a divorce. "It Had to Be You" is a real song that would have been reasonably popular in 1926, although since it's about the singer admitting their love for someone despite their many flaws, it is perhaps not the best song to play at a wedding. It's a fair sight better than playing "Every Breath You Take," at a wedding though, so that's something.

Horn-rimmed glasses were popular in the 1920s, although their popularity waned during the 1930s when more durable metal frames became desirable during the Great Depression.

Mr. Big's protection racket, as described, is an example of one of the reasons why mobs were able to flourish. While in many cases gangs simply extort money from businesses in exchange for not attacking them, some gangs did in fact provide protection to those businesses that paid them. This worked reasonably well for both parties, as the gangs got money and the businesses got a defender that may have been more liable to take action than the police.

The last name of Fru Fru's husband, which she apparently took for her own, is Petruccio in reference to Petruchio, the male lead of the Shakespeare play The Taming of the Shrew. I thought it was an appropriate name for an actual shrew. As to whether or not the relationship between Petruccio and Fru Fru is like the one between Petruchio and Kate, well, that'll come up when they show up.

Thank you again for reading, and I'd love to know what you thought!