"Just move back home already, Vivian! We aren't going to be around for forever, then what'll happen to the Reddish Orchards?"
Every few months it was the same thing. Vivian's aging father kept trying to guilt trip her to come back to the Reddish Orchards in Bunnyburrow, where they had quite a famous name for themselves. They were a worthy, if much smaller, competitor to the Hopps Farm, at least where their fruit was concerned, anyway. However, not only did Vivian not really see herself as a farm vixen, she had her own reasons for staying away from her parents. Two reasons, in particular, that were very important to her.
Their names were Catherine Marengo and Avery Pawsfeld.
Vivian was polyamorous, and both of her parents held strictly traditional views when it came to relationships. She had actually messed up one night; her parents, dropping by her house unexpectedly, found out about Avery. This caused Catherine to have to flee from also being discovered as well. So, not only was pressure being put on her to go take up her family's orchards, but they heavily frowned upon her living with Avery without being married to him.
"Why don't you two get married, then?" Catherine shrugged, bluntly speaking her mind as she always did. "We could get tax benefits and your parents would be happy. It wouldn't have to mean anything, necessarily."
"I'd prefer to see you both in a dress, myself," Avery said sheepishly, imagining both of the vixens in his life in lovely, white dresses.
"I'm not getting married to anyone unless I can marry you both, and we all know that's not legal," Vivian grumbled in frustration. "And no, Cat, my parents are never going to be happy until I'm on their orchards with a doting husband and a belly stuffed with a kit or five."
"Oh come on," Catherine folded her arms, smirking. "You know your and Avery's kits would be adorable." Vivian showed her teeth briefly, which was a rare, but potent warning sign to Catherine.
"I'm not bringing kits into this world," Vivian said plainly. "I'm not going to have them bear the burden of their mother's eccentricities. I'm not going to have them be bullied for having three parents."
"Okay, okay, let's just calm down," Catherine said gently, holding her paws up in defense. Avery winced, not liking to see his mates fighting. "Maybe you should at least sign up Avery as a domestic partner, though." Vivian glared at her, but softened. Catherine was usually so excitable; how could she look at this from a more rational standpoint than Vivian could? Vivian was technically "in charge" of their dealings with the Reddish family, so she had the final say. They only rarely brought the subject up again.
On the more positive side, Catherine was having a lot more fun in her spare time now that Nick and Judy Wilde-Hopps knew of their relationship arrangement and accepted it, at least to some degree. Catherine loved sharing stories with them and really got into their chats. Nick and Judy found themselves over at Vivian's house more and more, filing her gray fox ears with their adventures and gossip. Nick wondered how much he really gained from uncovering the truth about Vivian's living arrangements, but Judy thought Catherine was quite fun to be around. Catherine had no censoring when it came to her words, or volume control, for that matter.
Once, Nick told Catherine a story that lasted for almost thirty minutes. Catherine sat with rapt attention the entire time, but when it came time for the story to end, Nick admitted that he had made the whole thing up. After he finally got Catherine to stop screaming to try to apologize, she yelled that she didn't care if the story was fake or not, that it was intriguing and she wanted to know the ending to it. When Nick revealed he hadn't thought that far ahead, the screaming continued, even louder this time.
Avery had finally found his style when it came to painting. He loved to paint natural settings, using more vivid colors than in nature and adding accents of other, contrasting colors, such as purple for accenting green leaves or grass. He managed to get some of his paintings into art shows and museums, but he was never more than a minor success, which didn't bother him. As it was he disliked showing up in person for signings or the like because often people would often want to get pictures of him more than his art. He was a melanistic color morph of a red fox, called a silver fox, and a rather handsome one at that. Avery knew internally that he was unusual and interesting-looking, but he still only bore that "burden" for his mates. He felt a past shame when he rather easily made ends meet as a model.
The silver fox still was having a little bit of trouble fully accepting himself and his place in the world, but he was nearly there. Avery's father, who had left him soon after his mother died, was nowhere to be found and never tried reconnecting with him. Catherine's parents, on the other hand, reacted to finding out her situation with utter apathy. Catherine often joked that they wouldn't care if she ended up being a serial killer. With Vivian's parents to hide from and Catherine's to not care about, Avery didn't feel much drive to go find his own father. He felt like Catherine and Vivian were his family, and he loved them both very much.
After Vivian's father died, her mother became more desperate for Vivian to claim the Reddish Orchards.
"What will happen to them? What will happen to our long legacy? Vivian, you're the last of the Reddish line! Will our legacy really end here?"
Vivian assured her mother, on the latter's deathbed, that she would take care of the orchards. Surveying the land, though, she knew she couldn't do it. She couldn't live out in Bunnyburrow, where there were scant few mammals to see unless you went looking for them. She couldn't endure the long commute and ask both of her mates to take long periods of time without her. She wanted to observe and chat with mammals, not tend to unfeeling trees and bushes.
"I have to sell the orchards," Vivian confessed to Nick and Judy. "I don't suppose you'd know of any interested parties?"
"I think the Hopps Farm is big enough," Judy chuckled. "Pretty soon Bunnyburrow would be taken over by the Hopps Empire."
"Maybe I have something," Nick looked on his phone, "Gideon Grey's kits are all grown up and looking for a farm."
"Surely they couldn't afford a prestigious orchard like the Reddish's?" Judy pondered aloud.
Vivian shrugged. "I could give them a good deal."
The deal was proposed, and while still pricey, the Grey kits, James, John, and Esther, were giddy with the prospect of having an orchard they could have to their own. They figured it would be great to provide their father fruits from their own labors and wean him from his dependence on the Hopps farm. Meeting with a certain weasel financial advisor, they secured a loan and bought the orchards from Vivian. And just like that, the "color" drained from the Reddish name. The legacy was now the Grey's.
Sometimes Vivian was struck with bouts of melancholy while she was alone at her frozen fruit stand in the midst of Mezzo Park. She was the last Reddish and it was likely to stay that way. But, in some ways, she felt like a criminal. From her family, she had taken one of their houses, the one in Zootopia, the seven golden, gem-tipped rings that were her birthright, and a tidy sum of income from selling the orchards. She felt a compunction while she tried to rationalize her actions.
Vivian felt like a thief, almost. She took what she wanted from her family and tossed the rest away. Though it was legally hers to do with what she willed, she knew that if the concept of a Vulpine Afterlife was even close to true, her parents would be infuriated at her, looking down at her both metaphorically and metaphysically.
"Well, here I am," Vivian said, staying at her stand way later than she normally did one night so she could greet the stars with her arms open. "Once I get past you two, I'll be at peace. I'm happy with my two mates and my the way I'm living my life. But you still made me feel guilty for who I am and what I wanted to do, for my whole life. I never came clean, even on your deathbeds. What would it have helped? You'd just meet eternity with hate in your hearts. No, I think sometimes you do have to keep secrets. Even if the only real secret I kept was that I was truly happy."
Though portraits weren't his strong suit, Avery eventually painted one of Vivian, and one of Catherine. The two were enchanted; he used his signature style to make them look almost ethereal, and brightly-colored besides. They had almost convinced him to paint one of himself as well to complete the "collection". He'd get there, eventually, he assured them.
Vivian took a look into her small treasure chest that contained the seven golden rings she inherited. She almost felt like she didn't deserve them, but she had remembered so long ago when Nick and Judy came into her life, they had helped find the rings and gone through so much trouble to do so. She had been afraid of wearing them for so long, and for various reasons. But, she decided to wear the ruby ring, the "reddish" one. She hoped she would feel less guilty, in time, by doing so. Catherine liked the look of the yellow topaz ring, and Avery favored the violet amethyst one.
"Maybe we should get four more, huh?" Catherine joked. "We still have four rings, after all."
"Oh, hush," Vivian rolled her eyes. She really hoped she had learned something concrete from all this, but she had to admit that she didn't really know. She did know, however, that as she and Catherine had been there many times for Avery when he was dealing with his own inner troubles, that Avery and Catherine would be there for her both physically and emotionally while she dealt with hers. It was nice to be loved in that way.
Speaking of learning, however, a particular peculiar chinchilla had made it his goal to teach in Zootopia's schools. He didn't realize, though, that he too had some things to learn.