Edited by BeecroftA

How did I get here? What If?

I stepped into another portal again didn't I? Well let's have fun with this. Who wants a story from me for this whole thing here?

*crickets chirping*

At least the crickets are on board…

*crickets stop chirping*

Oh, you guys are pawful…

Well… TOO BAD! I'm writing one.

Enjoy, fav, follow, review, and grab that strange snack (that's right, I'm still doing that, Cimar's story or not). Today I have some pasta drizzled in blueberry syrup and frosted with powdered sugar and chocolate chips.

Additional Note: I realized I never released this on my own account. So... for those who missed it... here is the first chapter of my part of the "What If Collaboration"

"Would you get in there?" a feminine voice grunted.

"I'm trying to get in," a male retorted.

"Just lift a leg and get in!" Judy demanded.

"We're not in any rush, so why are you?" Nick asked in kind.

"I'm just excited… Okay?" the doe nervously replied. The tod rolled his eyes with a smile, finally hopping in the P.I.X.A.R. machine. At first, he was just being annoying by being sloth-like, but now… he was darn near laughing at the inadvertently risqué mentions she was making.

"So who picks this time?" Nick inquired as his mate jumped in, trembling with excitement. Judy looked at him with a smug smirk, raising a clenched paw and putting it on her other open one.

"Usual game?" she asked, to which her fox nodded, his own smirk growing.

"You're on," came the red fox's confident answer. The two began their game of Rock, Paper, Scissors.

"Rock," Judy said.

"Paper," voiced Nick.

"Sci…" the grey rabbit began, being cut off by her fox putting the helmet over her head. Before she could remove it to tell off her fox, the lights and sounds began. "You cheater!" she seethed.

Nick apparently took the chance where she was focused on her own paw to slap the headset on her and select a random choice, not even properly looking himself as he donned the set.

"It's called a hus…" he began. Her furious furry fist of fury found his arm, with stunning accuracy considering she couldn't see him.

"Shut up."

The two laid back, smiling, as the world around them became foggy, though it wasn't the type that one usually saw during a humid morning.

The setting sun left a painted sky in its wake, almost making the clouds themselves look lit aflame. A rolling fog wisped its way through the trees and fields. It was like a blanket over the land…

And that was likely a good thing, at least in that moment.

Judith slammed her shutters closed as tight as they would go, willing the acrid and sour stench of the fog to stay out of her room. In any other circumstances, she might have liked the 'fog', but it was no fog like those misty mornings that left a cool dew on the grassy fields of her family's farm.

It was a fog of war. Cannons were blazing and gunfire occasionally popping off in the distance. Howls, screeches, and screams echoed through the air.

This particular battle had been raging for the better part of a week, though the war had been going on for nearly three years. The once great nation of Animalia, split down the middle as the southern regions seceded due to differing ideals, political sway, and the increasingly unbalanced prosperity happening in the North from an industrial revolution that threatened the economy of the South.

Her family's farm was in one of the regions that was on the border between the split nation. Even now, multiple soldiers, wounded from days past, were resting and healing in the large foyer area.

On this wondrous evening, the bunny was trying to drown out the sounds of battle by humming and keeping her paws busy with a most tedious task. Whilst frustrating, her younger siblings did need to have their clothing regularly patched and repaired, being as active and rambunctious as they were. Judith's eyes squinted, as the candle in the now darker room was no means to sew by.

Turning back to the window in a huff, the angry doe flung open the shutters once more, cursing internally that responsibility trumped her comfort at this juncture.

Why couldn't the mammals out there live in peace? Why couldn't they realize this was a war for the same things that history lessons always warned against? Why couldn't they all just get drunk and fall asleep for a night, leaving her in peace?

At the very least, they could find a much more remote region to duke it out, instead of…

There was a rustling of movement in the distance. A few bushes near the edge of the homestead were moving. Judith looked around, gauging the wind by observing the other plant life nearby. Nothing. There was almost no wind. Certainly nothing strong enough to shake some low- lying bushes into shivering like they were cold.

The grey doe sighed heavily, figuring this was another poor soul, crawling their way to the nearest homestead to receive treatment. She knew she should probably warn the others, but she wanted a distraction. This would suffice.

Silently padding out of her room and down the hall, Judith made her way quietly out of the house, making a short detour to swipe her father's gun from the mantle of his study. She had absolutely no idea if there was any danger from the mammal but better safe than sorry.

It was a strange thing, supposedly of its own kind, the gun looked like the pistols she'd seen some soldiers carry, though they called them 'revolvers'. Whatever the case, it was simple to use and easy to aim.

Taking off, out the door and into the fields at the fading light, Judith went towards the source of what she previously spotted. The bushes were still now, but she approached with caution. Holding the gun tightly in one paw, using the other to part the leaves and branches for a better view….

Nothing…

The rabbit's face contorted into a motley collection of emotions. Confusion, anger, and a tepid amount of relief. She sighed heavily, relaxing her arms and letting the gun point harmlessly at the ground.

A snapping twig perked the bunny doe's ears, her head whirling around to view its origin. Though her ears were sharp, her vision wasn't, affording her only a shady blur of a mammal darting away from the brush and towards one of her family's barns.

With as much of a growl as the bunny could muster, Judith pumped her legs as hard as she could, determined to catch up with the obvious intruder. The blur was becoming clearer in her vision, as her eyes adjusted as best they could. All she could make out was some rusty- looking fur and blue attire.

Noticing the intruder was almost at the open doors of the barn, Judith skidded to a stop and took aim.

'Crack!'

The gun went off and sent the arms bracing the grip up, the kickback far more powerful than she would have surmised. The sudden shock also threw off her sense of balance, the rabbit teetering backwards and landing heavily on her rump.

The grey doe had clenched her eyes shut at the pain of her landing, though not before seeing her inexperienced aim somehow hit her target, making the mammal in question trip and roll into the barn over the last few feet between the intruder and the open gate of the barn.

Judith also picked up a whining yip right after the shot rang out, making her feel a slight swell of pride in hitting her intended target.

She got up and brushed herself off, walking quickly, but still carefully, to the barn, gun again at the ready. While dark, her exceptional hearing helped to pinpoint the stifled grunts and whines of pain.

Judith looked down to see small drops of blood decorating the well trodden dirt floor if the barn. A lantern sat upon a table just inside the gate, to which the doe wasted no time lighting with nearby matches. She closed the little hatch after properly lighting the wick, holding the gun in one paw, lit lantern in the other.

Following the sounds of pain around behind a stack of hay bales, the grey bunny found her quarry.

A red fox, dressed in Northern blues and wheezing in pain, lie clutching his side before her. Blood seeped slowly from the wound he covered with a black and red furred paw.

"What are you doing here?" Judith asked sternly, setting the lantern down to hold the gun with both paws.

The fox looked at a loss for words for a moment, catching his breath from the injury to his side.

Finally, he breathed out, "I'm a messenger. I was cutting through your farm to avoid the battlefield."

"Coward?" she snipped at him.

"Priorities," he fired back. "I must… deliver a correspondence…" There was grunts of pain between his words.

"Name?" Judith demanded. The fox shook his head in the negative.

"Not telling," the tod vented in a pained hiss. The doe stepped slightly closer, her intention being to make the gun more menacing by being in his face. He sighed.

"Tell me… or I shoot you."

"What importance does my name have for you anyways, bunny?" the red fox sassed back at her, the pained whines still permeating his words.

"I… it just does!" Judith fired back.

"No matter," he remarked as evenly as his heavy breathing would allow, "you won't be shooting me either way."

"Oh, really?" the doe questioned with a slight smirk. "Because I'm a bunny? Or a female? You think I don't have the guts?"

The fox shifted and made a deadpan expression at her, pointing with a free paw at her gun.

"No, I'm well aware the you have the guts to shoot me, thus indicated by my wound, however…"

"Yes?" the doe smugly enticed him to continue.

"...you have to pull the hammer back on the gun," he finished.

Judith blinked and looked down at the gun. Sure enough, the hammer that hit the shell in the revolver wasn't pulled back. She heard a click and looked back at the fox in mortified realization.

"Now then…" the fox started, his own gun in paw and pointing it at the bunny doe, hammer pulled back, "please drop it and kick it aside."

Judith grumbled but did as told.

To her great surprise, the fox smiled and put away his gun, then holding out a paw.

"Now that we're on the same level of conversational exchange, with no ice breakers pointed at one another, my name is Nicholas Wilde."

Her eyes darted to the gun, still wary of the red fox, but choosing to internally groan and shake his paw.

"If you'll excuse me," Nicholas then said, attempting to get up, "I'm going to find my troops for medical attention." He then wheezed and fell back, the pain renewing itself upon trying to stand and knocking him back down. The grey bunny instantly felt a bit guilty at having caused the wound to the mammal, who still tried to retain a sense of civility and politeness in her presence. Most of the wounded soldiers she tended to, or even perfectly healthy ones that passed through, were quite foul of the mouth and just as much with the eyes.

"Just… hold on a second," the rabbit demanded, darting off go grab some supplies from the other side of the barn. Having tended to a few wounded in the barns, when the foyer would be full, it wasn't entirely out of place for her family to keep medical wrappings and few other needs nearby. The property was quite large after all.

Upon coming back, Judith saw the blood drops on the floor of the barn. With her arms full of medical supplies, she deigned to kick some dirt and stray straw over the blood, hiding it from whoever may come to investigate.

When she arrived back behind the hay bales, she frowned upon seeing the stubborn fox trying to stand once more. Padding forward, she pressed a paw to his shoulder.

"Down," Judith commanded him. The tod did not comply, at least not at furst. "Comply with me… and I'll tell you my name. Deal?" The grey doe half expected him to make a remark about why he should care about her name but, surprisingly, he laid back down and allowed the bunny to do her work.

Lifting the side of his jacket and undershirt, Judith put the lantern next to him, lighting up the wounded area. A small bullet hole bleed slowly at the outermost edges of his side, just above the hips. Pressing a paw to the area, looking for an exit wound, she made the tod whine in response.

"Oh, relax, Nicholas," the grey rabbit chided, grabbing a small, corked bottle from her medical kit. "It's just a through and through." She then pulled out a tongue depressor, wooden slat. "Open."

The tod complied, if not reluctantly, thinking the bunny had other ideas. Instead of examining his throat or tongue like doctors, she put the slat in sideways. Before he could comprehend everything, Judith's paws worked in a practiced flurry, having done this a few times with the wounded mammals and her own siblings if need be. She clamped his muzzle shut around the depressor slat, uncorked the bottle and doused a small bundle of gauze, then used her paw to press it around his wound and let the alcohol- soaked fabric burn into his side, effectively cleaning the entrance and exit.

Nicholas's eyes bugged out as Judith held his muzzle shut, a whimper tickling her ears and the sound of claws instinctively unsheathing reaching her as well. To his credit, the doe had to admit he was doing rather well, only digging his claws into the ground or kicking a leg sporadically. Other mammals she's administered attention to usually needed helping paws to hold them down when they would thrash and jerk around.

Not wanting the alcohol to do too much to him, considering it could cause some inflammation if left sitting too long, the grey bunny pulled the gauze away and grabbed another corked bottle, full of boiled water. She gently rinsed the recently sterilized wound and started wrapping a long roll of fresh gauze around his middle, leaving a cloth patch over the wound.

Barely a couple minutes later, she was finished and the fox collapsed in a heap on the bed of loose hay beneath him.

"Ugh… you are both a demon and an angel," Nicholas seethed in pain. "Thanks… even if it was your fault in the first place." Judith furrowed her brow and scowled at him.

"I'm not apologizing," the bunny doe deadpanned. "I thought you were a vagabond here to steal our stores or something, after throwing out the first idea that you were another injured soldier."

"What stores?" he bluntly asked. The rabbit gestured around her ambiguously.

"You have nightvision."

In response, Nicholas gazed around, his eyes adjusting to what Judith knew was there, but she couldn't currently see.

"Oh…" the tod breathed. Crates of freshly harvested produce was placed up in the upper level of the barn. "You sure love carrots, don't you?" Judith rolled her eyes.

"We farm plenty of other things, too," she rebuked him with a tinge of venom to her voice. Ready to list off everything they could and had farmed, Judith's ears perked as she suddenly doused the lantern light, but not before picking up the gun she cast aside unwillingly.

"What's wrong?" he inquired, a little panicked.

"Shh…" the doe hissed at him. Nicholas scowled but complied.

"Who's in there?" an authoritative voice called out. The tod noticed that the rabbit before him ever so slightly lowered her ears at the dominant call. She sighed and left the cover of the hay bales, the fox tensing in a bit of fear. He hadn't a clue whether the others in her family would have her same level of bedside manner… or much worse.

Approaching her father, Stuart Hopps, who was accompanied by two of her older brothers, Judith padded her way from the shadows.

"Hello, father," she evenly greeted him, to which his face scrunched up in confusion, sighing in relief and resignation.

"What are you doing out here?" the patriarch Hopps asked in frustration. "One of your sisters saw you coming in the barn with a gun, then heard it go off."

The grey doe froze, unsure how to explain this away. Her mind went into a frenzy, trying to come up with something, anything, that could deter her father and brothers from accidentally finding the wounded fox. Fox or not though, her father was a firm supporter in the South's cause, likely more than happy to dole out judgment on a soldier from the North.

"I… was… trying to scare a flock of birds…" the bunny began, her brain scrambling to piece something together and follow up with sensible reasoning. "I saw a bunch heading in here and didn't want them eating our produce, especially since someone didn't close the barn…"

It was by sheer luck that the most amazing thing happened, favoring the doe. Furst, her father softened his gaze on her, mulling over the idea in retrospect, then turning to one of her brothers accompanying him. The brother's body tensed, eyes darting around and averting as he suddenly looked very… very uncomfortable.

"Marvin… did you forget to close the barn… again?" Judith's father slowly, angrily seethed.

"I'm… sorry?" Marvin squeaked out in sudden fear. The patriarch sighed.

"Just… get it locked up," he chided his son. "Properly." The buck nodded frantically. Stuart then turned back to his daughter, gesturing at the gun. She instantly placed its hurriedly, but still softly, in his paws.

"I would chastise you for taking my gun and not letting anyone else know before paw… but I'm much too tired," remarked her father. "Please make a point to correct that thinking in the future."

"Yes, father," Judith replied in a low voice, turning her head in mock shame. She was just glad that everyone was leaving without a search, distracted by a most fortunate of circumstances.

The next worry she had, was how to slip away to check on the fox without being seen. Annoying or not, she now had an obligation to finish.

Later that night, Judith snuck away from the house, without a gun this time, and made her way back to the barn.

She thanked the stars above that this one had a side door with a latch, lifting it up and opening the door.

"Nicholas? You still here?" the doe called, ears perked to pinpoint where he was, in case he moved.

"Quite so," the tod evenly replied. "Same place, in case you can't see."

"I can't… can you light the lantern?" She heard him grunt in reply and heard some muttered curses as he tried to strike the rabbit sized matches. A smile broke out on her muzzle, her paw now holding back a giggle as something like, 'Bouncing Blueberries' left his maw as a curse.

Finally though, a flame sparked into existence, growing slowly brighter as the wick in the lantern became encompassed in the fire.

"Who would've known you could lie so well," came Nicholas's voice, his grin barely visible to the bunny in the flickering light of the lantern.

"I have my moments," the grey doe murmured.

"So," the tod began. "Do I get to know your name now?"

The rabbit was rather surprised. She didn't even think he cared. The thought made her a little happy, but she hid it beneath a faux sigh of indifference.

"I suppose… you were a good fox during that whole travesty," she vented slowly.

Nicholas waited patiently, watching with perked ears as the doe took a breath.

"Judith Hopps."

"Please to meet you, Judith," the red fox tod voiced politely, holding out a paw, to which she tentatively shook.

An awkward silence fell between the two, like some sort of muffled cotton barrier.

At least until Nicholas's stomach made an almighty gurgle to signify his extreme hunger. The tod's ears pinned back and the doe's lips turned upward in a wide grin.

Judith belted out a series of strangled laughs, trying her best to keep herself stifled, and failing utterly.

As soon as she snorted, time still as she froze in mortification, to which the fox started laughing in high yips and barks.

"Ugh… you seriously found that funny?" Judith half-heartedly chastised him with a deep blush permeating her cheeks and ears.

"Yes… yes I did."