NaZooverse - Book 1: The Risen Curtain

Chapter 12 - Magic Nonsense

I really don't believe in magic.

J.K. Growling

*****

Nick woke up just as he did nearly every morning. He yawned, snapping his tongue to get rid of the taste that built up on his mouth during the night. Getting up, he walked out of his bed to take care of the morning's business.

Nick didn't even bothered to look at the time, but he knew that the sun had not rose yet. Many didn't took Nick for the kind of mammal who would wake up early, but he was an early mammal. It was something that came from the years he spent on getting up early in the morning to work on his hustles. Also, now it was a requirement of him to wake up before the sun, so he would be able to keep up with his energetic and always-ready-for-work bunny partner.

After using the toilet and brushing his fangs, Nick took a long bath. The water was cold. Nick had a hot shower at home, but he had a strategy he developed to move on with the day. Nothing like a splash of nearly freezing water to shock you awake and leave you alert and ready to face everything.

Still, Nick yipped when he was drenched with the cold water, nearly letting out curses.

The tod washed what he had to wash and got out of that shower as fast as he could, being swift in reaching out for a blow dryer, using it to blow his thick coat of fur dry. It was one of the disadvantages of having a long coat of fur, but Nick was not one to complain about his own fur. He simply dried himself the best he could, paying particular care and attention to his tail, not only drying it out by preening it. After all, the tail was one of the matters of greatest pride for any fox worth their own fur.

Soon, Nick was getting out of the bathroom, and after a while more dressing his working clothes, he felt ready to work. That was one day when Nick felt like getting out of his home dressed in blues, as his way of telling others: "yes, this fox made it to the ZPD, got a problem?"

It was a way of Nick showing to the world that he was more than just a sly fox, and that he could do as good to society as any of them. That he could truly make a difference, and that he was able to do most anything he put his mind on, despite their bigoted opinions.

Nick started out his coffee machine as he reached for the remote to turn the TV on. It was good to be in well-inform of what was going on, even if it was very early in the morning. Luckily, there were news shows that were on at this time, ready to give the first news of the day to the mammals who woke up before the sun did.

Nick put the machine to work, and as he did, he kept his ears attentive to the news coming from the television.

"... And this is yet another scene of one of the protests that have been riddling the city of Zootopia in the past days." The voice of some reporter came from the television, "The sun didn't even rose yet, and we have yet another group of protesters reuniting in here, they all protesting about mages and their presence in the city of Zootopia."

Nick sighed as he heard that. Good thing he just made a strong coffee for himself, for it was obvious that it was going to be yet another of those days.

These protests were getting more frequent, with the last one having been just two days ago, making it the third one of the week. People were demanding that both the City Hall and the ZPD to do something about the "mages of Zootopia" before they hurt anyone. They have been around ever since a few days after that website went on air. They have been growing in frequency ever since, and they have even started to gather more protesters.

Some of them actually seemed to be insecure by the fact that there were mages out there, and they actually expected someone to do something about it. Still, to Nick, it seemed that most of them only wanted some kind of excuse to make mess and to scream at others. Maybe they didn't even cared about what was happening, but they saw it as a chance to do what they liked, some of them even used the protests as excuse to vandalize the city and even to rob.