The Fire Triangle, A Zootopia Fanfiction -- Part One: Fuel - 13

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The Fire Triangle-A Zootopia Fanfiction

Part One:

Fuel

Chapter 3 - Day of Carrots and Blueberries

(Continued...Pt. 5)

"Whoops, come and get it shrimp! Whoops! Too slow, Shorty. Hee!"

"Give that back!"

"Okay dude, you win...psyche! Wah-hahahahaaaaaa!"

There were two of them, a zebra and a serval-cat; high school kids...and also gangsta wannabees judging by the hoodies, backwards-turned baseball caps, and pants worn at half-mast; definitely not from the Burrows. Each of them was holding a flat, rectangular cardboard box which every few seconds they would use to taunt the animal confronting them, holding out a carton and then pulling it away at the last second.

"Give that back punk!" the other animal snarled, grabbing for the box the serval had just yanked out of reach.

The pair of homies nearly fell over laughing. It wasn't their opponent's size that they found so amusing, it was his voice; a deep-dish, gravel-strewn basso-profundo that would have been more appropriate to a musk ox than a fennec fox.

"Give 'em back!' Finnick snarled again, brandishing his trademark baseball bat.

"Ho, what are you gonna do with that thing, squirt?" the serval sneered, "Make a pawpsickle?

"I'll show you what I can do with this." the desert fox raged. He started to raise the weapon but then hesitated. A crowd had begun to gather around him and the homeboys and if he used his bat in front of a dozen witnesses, especially with him being a fox species...

Reluctantly, he lowered it again.

"Hey guys, give him back his property." a voice called from the rear of the crowd. "Come on, you had your fun."

"No way, these are OURS!" the zebra brayed.

"Heck they ain't, you stole 'em off my table." Finnick's voice was almost a roar.

"PROVE it...fox!" the serval taunted him, spitting out the last word like spoiled fruit. "These puppies belong to us and you're just trying for a sympathy hustle."

"Yeah fox, like anyone would be stupid enough." His partner agreed.

"You stole 'em off me!" Finnick insisted, "I HEARD you take 'em."

The two homeboys started laughing again, and this time a few of the onlookers joined in.

"Heard us take them!" the zebra kid let out short, derisive bray and looked at his partner, "Can you believe this shrimp, dude?"

"Yeah, like you can believe anything a fox says," The serval agreed, reaching out to give his bud a fist bump.

"Yeah, for sure." The voice from the crowd had become suddenly agreeable, "Everybody knows that all foxes lie like rugs."

"What he said," the zebra nodded, poking a thumb over his shoulder at the speaker, "I never met a fox in my life that wasn't a dishonest dirt-bag."

"You got that right," the voice to the rear agreed.

"No kidding," the serval mewled, "Species don't come any lower than foxes."

"Absolutely," the animal behind him concurred, a bit more easily heard this time; he had moved to the front of the crowd. "Every single one of is a shifty, dishonest crook."

"Yeah!" the zebra almost whooped.

"Right on!" the serval meowed...right before his face crash-dived into the ground. "Every single one...of...us...?"

Slack-jawed and trembling the pair of would-be gangers turned slowly around to find themselves face to face with another fox-this one wearing mirrored shades, a police badge clipped to his belt...and a grin that could stretch across a freeway. Standing beside him was a gray-furred bunny, also showing a badge-and also thumping her foot.

"Welllll now, is there anything ELSE you boys would like to put in your mouths while they're open?" Nick Wilde asked them cheerily. (Behind the pair, Finnick was rolling on the ground, laughing himself sick.)

For a second or two, they seemed to deflate, but Nick knew that it wouldn't last; give it minute and one or the other of these jerks would double down; it was the way these poser kids always rolled.

Even if he hadn't caught them picking on his former partner, Nick would still have retained a healthy measure of contempt for the two punks. He must have seen their kind literally hundreds of times in his day-both before and after he'd joined the ZPD. First of all, these slackers weren't real ghetto blasters any more than Finnick was a real elephant; their outfits were a dead giveaway. The serval was sporting a chromed studded wrist band and a gold neck-chain, while the zebra had a Species of Anarchy t-shirt on underneath his hoodie. Real homeboys never mixed hip-hop and gangsta duds...and they never mixed metal-head chrome with homie gold either; it was all or nothing in the ghetto.

Nooo, these two were just another couple of upper-middle class kids who thought if they dressed up as gang-bangers, (and tried to act the part,) they could pass for the real deal. If that was their game, Nick had some news for these two. More than once he and Judy had been required to come to the rescue of a fake homie who'd been dumb enough to pull that act on some real gangers. Nothing made the neighborhood thugZ madder than having some middle-class tweaker show up in the hood, 'acting cool'.

Nick not only knew the type, he also knew the script. At first these two would try to tough it out; they would act defiant, they would make veiled threats; they'd seize on any perceived holes in the fox's case like an osprey on a salmon. And when they were finally down to their last card, they'd remind him that their fathers were important mammals, and he'd better not make THEM mad. When what didn't work, that was when they'd finally give it up-and it would be a catastrophic failure, not a slow collapse.

And so the fox just folded his arms and waited.

He didn't have to wait for very long. All at once the zebra's ears laid back and his finger shot out like a bolt from a crossbow.

"Heyyy, wait a minute dude, that's a ZPD badge!"

In the blink of an eye, his partner was born again.

"Ha! Guess what, sly-boy; you're out of your jurisdiction!" The serval-cat's voice was a triumphant yowl.

Nick said nothing, only nodded over at Judy; legal niceties had always been her specialty.

She responded in her usual fashion, sweet, demure, and moistened with venom.

"Actually...no, if whatever is in those boxes is worth more than 300 smackers." She said this while looking at Finnick, who nodded vigorously, and then she turned back to the serval and zebra, laying a paw on her hip in her classic bunny-cop pose. "In that case, it's a felony and anyone can bust you; it's called a citizen's arrest sweetheart."

(Ahhh, but Nick loved to watch her work this game; sheer poetry it was.)

The zebra started to say something, but then seemed to think better of it-and then everyone's attention was diverted by a stirring at the back of the onlookers.

"Make way please, coming through," a soft voice murmured, and then the crowd parted to let a white-tailed deer and bobcat pass through. Each of them was dressed in green khakis, with a Sam Browne belt and wide-brimmed trooper's hat on his head. Judy recognized the deer immediately, Deputy Sergeant Peter Buckley of the Burrows County Sheriff's Department.

"Hey Pete," she waved.

"Hey Judy," he answered, pushing back the rim of his hat with a finger. "What's going on here?"

By rights that should have cut the pair of would-be 'boyz from da 'hood' off at the knees; instead it seemed to embolden them. Before Judy could say another word, the serval was stabbing an accusing finger at Finnick.

"This dirt-bag fox is trying to rip us off." he said.

That brought another fox-scream from Finnick and Nick got quickly in front of him before he could raise the bat again.

"Take it easy, Mini-Me." he said, muttering out the side of his mouth, "That's exactly what he wants you to do," The Fennec fox glared at him for a second and then lowered the bat and let it fall quietly to the ground.

Judy meanwhile had taken over with the deputies, careful as always to explain things as simply as possible.

"The fennec there says these two kids stole those boxes off his table...."

"That's a lie, lady!" the serval yowled. Finnick tried to say something back, but Nick silenced him with a 'shushing' motion. "Sssss, let them rant Finnick; they'll only end up digging themselves in deeper."

Once again, the desert fox backed off, but he was clearly reaching the end of his tether. Nick would need to wrap this quickly if he wanted to avoid an explosion.

That was when the zebra played right into his paws.

"We never even saw this guy until just now!' he protested, and a long, foxy grin sliced its way around Nick Wilde's muzzle. Like any good police officer, he thoroughly enjoyed watching a suspect trip himself up.

He said, "You never saw him before? Then he never saw those boxes before, am I right?"

The serval took the bait so fast, he almost swallowed it

"Darn straight, dude!"

"Okay-y-y," Nick Wilde was almost jolly, he was enjoying this so much, "In that case, neither one of those boxes would have his scent on them would they?" By way of explanation, he tapped at his nose, and was instantly gratified to see the serval's face fall like a ton of bricks-while the zebra glared at him with an expression that fairly screamed, "Well this is ANOTHER fine mess!"

Nick held out his arms and waved his fingers at the box under the feline's arm.

"Pass that here and let's find out, okay?"

"No way!" the serval held the box away from Nick as if the fox's paws had turned to magma.

"Give him the box, kid...NOW!" The bobcat deputy's ears had turned sideways and his claws were also unsheathed; after listening in silence for a couple of minutes, he'd finally decided that enough was enough.

"When I tell my dad about this..." the serval muttered, and then gave the box to Nick without looking at him.

One whiff was all Nick needed; if he didn't know Finnick's scent by now, he never would. But there were onlookers to convince and so he made show of thoroughly sniffing over the box and then getting a good scent from his former partner before delivering his verdict.

"They're Finnick's" he declared, passing the box back to his old partner...and instantly regretting his mistake. ("Hey how'd you know that fennec's name?") Maybe he'd get lucky and the pair of gangta-posers wouldn't catch it.

"Yeah, and maybe I'll get lucky and find the winning car-raffle ticket in a trash can."

"Finnick?" the zebra seized on the red fox's error like lighting on a steeple. "Hey wait a sec, you dudes KNOW each other!" He turned to the deputies. "There's no scent on those boxes, this fox is just trying to help his bud."

That was what finally pulled the pin; Finnick's claws unsheathed and his lips pulled back exposing his fangs. Nick held his breath but before the little desert-fox could make a move, a new voice entered the fray, low and gravelly with a southbound accent.

"Well I never saw that fennec in my life, but I know his scent is on that there box ...and it's a lot stronger on it than either you or your friend's is, boy."

Nick looked, and saw that another fox had just arrived on the scene, thickset and stocky, with his hair parted in the middle, and a striped apron wrapped around his midsection. He didn't have to guess who it was.

And the deputies didn't need to hear any more. "All right you, give that back to the fennec fox and let's go." Pete Buckley was thrusting a finger at the zebra; incredibly, the kid still wasn't ready to give it up.

"Are you kidding dude, he's another fox!"

Sorry kid, not this time; the air around the deer buck seemed to darken by three shades.

"Yes, and he's also a respected member of this community," He reached down to unclip one his belt holsters. "Now give that box back, son; I'm not asking you again."

The zebra passed the box back to Finnick, mumbling something unpleasant under his breath.

"Okay you two, let's go," said the bobcat.

"You know who my dad is?" the serval demanded.

"Yeah, he's the father of a jerk!" Finnick catcalled through his paws, and Nick Wilde laughed and gave his old partner a thumbs-up; it was good to see the little guy hadn't lost his touch.

"Good one, boy!" the burly fox also laughed as the thieves were frog-marched away. Nick turned and offered him a paw.

"Gideon Grey, I presume?"

"Yeah, that's me." The other fox said, taking the paw and shaking it warmly. "And you must be Nicholas Wilde."

"In the flesh and fur," Nick answered, grinning. "Thanks for helping out."

"Aw, weren't no big deal." Gideon answered with an 'Aw shucks' shrug, nodding over at Finnick, "Them city boys was wrong and I knowed it soon as I got here. So did Pete and Mac; they weren't fooled nohow by those kids and they'd have busted 'em anyways, sooner or later. All I did was hurry things up a little."

"Well it's a good thing you showed up anyway," Judy said, coming over and patting his arm, "How's business?"

"Doin' really fine Judy." The big fox smiled. He had long since shed any reserve with her over his past 'exploits'. But then his left ear cocked and he looked at his watch, "Listen, I hate to take a rain check," he said, looking up at her again, "but I got to get back to my stall; the bakery truck should be pulling in any second with a whole bunch more pies to unload. Come by though when you're done here; I'll save you each a slice of my Carrots Days Special." He poked a thumb over a shoulder. "I'm over in Row C, space 5. Y'all know what my place looks like."

"I do," Judy promised, "And we'll be there, Gideon."

"Wouldn't miss it," Nick Wilde nodded in agreement.

"See you around, now." The baker fox said, offering final wave, before heading for the exit. All around Nick and Judy, the rest of the crowd was also beginning to break up.

While this was going on, Finnick was trying as best he could to deal with his recovered property-and not having a whole lot of luck. The boxes, which resembled oversized pizza cartons, clearly contained large-mammal items of some kind; easy enough for a serval and a zebra to handle, if you split them one apiece. A fennec trying to handle both at once was another matter; it was almost like a slapstick routine. Every time Finnick tried to pick up the second carton, he'd lose his grip on the first one, (and that was without trying to retrieve his baseball bat.)

"Can we help you with those?" Judy asked, throwing Nick a jaundiced look that the red fox knew he deserved. She was right of course; he should have been the one to make the offer, not her.

"Yeah, thanks." The little desert fox answered, gratefully passing box to Judy...and nearly pitching the other one at Nick. The red fox caught it with little difficulty, but then bobbled the carton and nearly dropped it.

"What the heck?"

"What the heck is right, Nick." Judy Hopps was staring bewildered. Nick Wilde may have had his faults bur clumsiness wasn't one of them.

The red fox said nothing, only turned the box over to show her the label.

It featured a Manga image of Gazelle, with lettering underneath-in Japanese characters.

Now Judy nearly dropped her carton, (much to Nick Wilde's barely concealed satisfaction.)

"Finnick?" she said, "You're the one selling those Gazelle Japanese Tour Shirts?"

"Yeah," the fennec responded brightly, "You want one?"

"Yes, but not for ourselves," Nick told him, "We promised to pick one up for a friend of ours back in the city. Do you have any in...Mmmm, what was that size again? Oh yeah, do you have any in size TXL?"

Finnick thought it over for a second before answering.

"Hm, dunno Nick, but we should have something close. Have to check when we get back to the van." His tone was as tepid as tap-water, a fact that did not escape the red fox's notice, (or Judy's, judging by the look on her face.)

The little desert fox clearly had an issue with him-and Nick thought he knew what it was. But then something else occurred to him; Finnick had said 'we should have', rather than 'I should have'. Somewhere along the line, he'd picked up a new partner.

"I guess I shouldn't be surprised," Nick told himself, annoyed at the twinge of jealousy pricking his pride, "Finnick never was one for operating solo. I wonder who the new guy is."

Judy's voice quickly yanked him from his reverie.

"Hello-o-o-ooo, ground control to Major Nick, are you coming or not?" She and Finnick had started on their way

"Oops, sorry Carrots." He answered and hurried to catch up.

At first it was hard to tell where they were going, Finnick was taking them back to his van by way of footpath that skirted the rear of the vendors' stalls. He clearly wanted to get there as quickly as possible and taking the midway would mean stopping to answer questions. ("Are you the one selling those shirts?" "Where are you located?" "When are you opening?" Etc.)

Of course, taking this route meant having to dodge rocks and power cables.

It was just around the third bend that they spotted Finnick's van. The first thing Nick noticed was, "Hey you got the driver's door repainted."

Finnick had lost the original door after being sideswiped by a hit-and-run in the Acorn Heights neighborhood of Savanna Central. He'd found a replacement at Pig-n-Pull easily enough, but hadn't possessed the capital to have the artwork restored. And so things had remained, right up until the moment he and Nick had gone their separate ways. From what the red-fox could see now, whoever had repainted the door had done a superlative job; they'd even managed to 'age' it so the door matched the rest of the van almost perfectly.

"Yeah," was all that Finnick said, not looking back at the red fox; no doubts now; he was visibly out of sorts with his former partner.

That was when Nick became aware of something else; on the other side of the van, someone was playing a guitar, a twelve string by the sound of it.

Whoever it was, they were good; playing with deft, sure paw. No sooner did this thought stray across Nick's mind than Finnick's new partner. (He assumed that's who it was,) hit a wrong note. Barely missing a beat, he pulled back and started over again, this time getting it right.

Then a scent caught Nick by the nostrils and he drew up short for a second.

Whoops, here came another surprise he should have been expecting; Finnick's new sidekick, whoever he was, was another red fox.

When they came round the front of the van however, Nick saw that he'd been only halfway correct in his assessment-right species, wrong color phase. Finnick's new partner was a fox all right, but a silver, not a red.

He was also only a kid, a young fox of 13, perhaps 14 years of age. He was dressed in cargo-pants, held up with suspenders rather than a belt, a checked shirt with rolled-up sleeves and a denim vest, topped off with an oversized apple-cap; the neo-mewsies look that was becoming popular with so many of the kids back in Zootopia. The only thing missing was the obligatory red bandanna encircling his neck.

What really caught Nick's attention, however were the subtler cues. Whereas the Zebra and Serval who'd attempted to rob Finnick had been FAKE home-boys, this kid had 'street' practically written all over him with a marking pen. At the instant of his approach, one ear had swiveled backwards, and his nose had elevated slightly to sniff the air, a discreet move that only another fox could have detected.

"He knows there's someone here, but he's not letting on." Nick thought to himself.

Any further musings on his part were cut off by Finnick's growl of exasperation.

"Hey kid, you s'psed to be keepin' an EYE on things."

"Oops, sorry DF." The youngster responded awkwardly-much to Nick Wilde's surprise; he would have expected something smooth and snarky from a kid like this one.

"DF?" Judy asked, lifting an ear.

"Desert Fox." Finnick explained as the young fox set his guitar aside and turned around.

And now Nick saw where the bandanna had gone; the kid had been wearing it wrapped around his face like a blindfold. In a quick, neat move, he whipped it away and replaced it with a pair of red-mirrored Gargrowls sunglasses.

"He doesn't want me to see his eyes." Nick realized at once. He wasn't surprised, all foxes are wary in the presence of a police officer. He had done the same thing many a time, back in his street-hustling days.

"Only, how did the kid know I was a cop? Aggggh, grrr... riiiight."

He had forgotten to put his badge away, it was still there, clipped to his belt.

"Hey, you got 'em back!" the young fox said, pointing at the boxes Nick and Judy were holding. He didn't seem to have expected a successful outcome, (and why should he? Nick Wilde wouldn't have, when he was that age.)

"Yeah, can you just leave 'em on the table there?" Finnick said, speaking to Nick and Judy and then turning to speak to the kid. "Conor, this is my old buddy I told you 'bout, Nick Wilde...and the bunny there is his partner, Judy Hopps. Nick...Judy? This here's my new partner, Conor Lewis."

Nick immediately felt his ears go up. Given the standoffish response he'd gotten so far, Finnick was being surprisingly warm with his introductions.

But not nearly as convivial-or as unexpected-as the youngster's response; Conor's face seemed to light up like a storefront Christmas display.

"Whoa, you're the fox DF is always talking about? Cool!"

He leaped off his stool and bounded over0

"Gimme four, big guy!' he said, holding up a paw for high one. Nick returned the gesture but privately, he didn't know what to make of all this. To hear the kid talk, you'd have thought Finnick had been singing his praises to the heavens. Why the heck would he have done that, and then given his old partner the cold shoulder just now?

There was another thing as well; this Conor kid had some serious calluses on his paws. When Nick returned the four, it had felt like he was laying some skin on a belt sander. And while there was were no scars present that the red fox could see, he couldn't shake the feeling that this boy had been in some serious fights in his day; he was street all right, no question and no doubt about it.

Every fox has secrets, it comes with the species; no one knew that better than Nicholas Piberius Wilde. But this kid seemed to have more than the usual measure; that was one other thing the red fox's instincts were telling him.

And he wasn't so sure he wanted to know what those secrets were.

Conor meanwhile had moved on to Judy. From what Nick could see, she seemed quite taken with the boy, offering a fist bump which he immediately returned.

"So you're a musician?' she asked, nodding at the guitar stacked next to the stool where he'd been sitting.

"Ahhhh, I'm working on it." The young fox answered, fanning a pawlm. His accent was Zoo Yorkish with maybe a portion of something further to the northeast thrown in.

Judy smiled; so did Nick. The kid's modesty was an honest assessment of himself, not false humility, unusual for a kid his age

Then Finnick spoke up again, reminding the fox and bunny why they were here.

"Say Conor, these two are looking for a shirt ...ahh what was that size again, Judy?"

Once again, the fennec-fox was shutting Nick out. The two of them were going to have to talk but not with Judy and the kid still here.

"Size TXL," she said.

Conor Lewis frowned, a long fox-grimace that seemed to stretch all the way to his ears, and then his head moved slowly from side to side.

"Ahhhh, I'm gonna to look that up. I'm not down on size TXL; 'scuse me a sec."

He dropped to all fours and scooted inside the van.

"All the shirt sizes are in Japanese." Finnick explained, "We got most of the equivalent sizes nailed, but not all of 'em."

"Oh right," Judy nodded, and Nick Wilde understood. No, they wouldn't have, and Benjamin Clawhauser's size was an odd one to say the least.

Just then, Conor returned, toting a laptop underneath his arm.

Nick felt his ears go up again, and this time his head was also tilting to one side. The laptop computer the kid was carrying was no wafer thin student or business model. It was as thick as a concrete slab and was built out of...what the heck, was that carbon fiber?

"A mil-spec laptop; where the heck did he get THAT thing?" the red fox had to wonder. He was about to pose the question to Finnick, when the kid set the computer down on a table and opened it.

On the back of the screen was a sticker with the logo of a hedgehog-type animal with a sunburst for quills, and beside it the words 'Consolidated Echidna.' Beneath this sticker was a smaller one in neon green, reading simply 'Lot 457'.

Okay, now everything made sense; utility companies also used bombproof laptops. Nick had seen that for himself once; an ibex had crashed his car into a power pole in the Rainforest District, and he and Judy had been summoned to direct traffic. And power companies were constantly upgrading their computer systems and selling off the older stuff.

"Stop being so dang suspicious Wilde." The fox growled silently, giving himself a mental kick, "For crying out loud, he's your own kind!"

Just then, the young silver fox let out a yip. "Okay, got it. What color do you want?"

"Do you have any in red?" Judy asked.

"Yep, hold on." Conor said and disappeared inside the van again.

"Hustling little guy." Judy observed, and then immediately looked as if she wanted to face-pawlm herself. "Oops, I didn't mean hustling like...that is, I wasn't..."

"We know what you mean," Nick and Finnick both grinned. Just then Conor returned with the t-shirt, carrying it in a bundle over his head. (To a fox his size it was as big as a mainsail.)

"How much?" Judy asked, taking the shirt and wisely setting it on the table for the moment; it was king-size for a rabbit as well.

Finnick smiled and flipped a palm back and forth. "Ahhh, no charge this time." He said, and Nick had the distinct impression that if it had been he who'd asked the question, the charge would have been full price and then some.

"How about you guys, you want one too?" It was Conor asking, and Nick and Judy abruptly looked at each other. They'd been concentrating so hard on getting one of the shirts for Benjamin Clawhauser, they'd never stopped to think about picking one up for themselves.

In Judy Hopps' case, it was a no brainer.

"Oh yes, have you got one in blue, small-mammal small?"

"Plenty," said Conor and then looked at Nick, who couldn't help smiling; NOW the kid was hustling-hustling; if he didn't buy a shirt for himself after all that, he'd look like the world's biggest party pooper. (Not that it mattered; he wanted one anyway.)

"Black for me," he said, "Small mammal, medium."

"Coming right up."

When the young fox returned with the shirts-sorry, no freebies this time-Judy had another question for him.

"Conor, I just have to ask," she said, "When we got here you were playing the guitar blindfolded; how come?"

"Ah, that's just a trick Eric taught me." He answered, as if it were no big deal. "Eric Roy, I mean. He runs the Peace Rock Guitar Co-Operative, back in Zootopia. I work there on a part-time apprenticeship. Anyway, Eric thought playing strictly by feel and ear would help me get down on the twelve string; I gotta admit, it's helping, a lot." He nodded at the guitar, adding, "And I really want to get dialed in on the twelve; I love the sound."

"I see," Judy said, and then she asked, "Do you also play electric guitar?"

Nick couldn't help smiling; he knew where she was going with this.

"Sure do," the silver fox answered, pointing with two fingers at a guitar case, stashed halfway under one of the tables, (and secured to one of the legs with a cable-lock, Nick Wilde couldn't help noticing.)

Judy craned her neck and then nodded approvingly, "You know my sister Erin sings and plays bass guitar. Maybe the two of you could play together sometime."

Nick Wilde felt his ears go up and point at each other again. Ohhh-kay, so she wasn't taking quite the tack he'd anticipated.

"Careful Carrots," He told her silently. I've got a feeling Erin wouldn't like that idea." As a matter of fact-and he would never say this to Judy-when he'd first met his partner's younger sister, he'd gotten a very strong vibe that she didn't like foxes, period.

"So are you playing in the talent show, Conor?" his partner was asking, finally taking the conversation in the direction Nick had expected it to go. And now it was the younger fox's ears that turned into skewed steeples.

"Talent show?" he asked.

"Yes," Judy told him, "there's a talent show going on down at the main stage, tonight and tomorrow night."

The young silver fox seemed to come alive once again.

"Wow, coolness. Are the sign-ups still open, do you know?"

The bunny sucked at a corner of her mouth.

"Mmmm, prrrr-obably-but you better hurry up if you want to get in on it." She waved in the direction of the stage. "If there are any slots still open, they won't last long."

Conor said nothing to this, only looked at Finnick with a beseeching expression. The desert fox sighed and rolled a paw in the air, as if to say, 'all right, go ahead.'

"I'll be right back...promise." The young fox told him, holding up three fingers like a ranger scout.

And then he scooted under the table and sprinted off down the aisle-way.