Nothing to fear

Chapter 17

By sunset the storm had ended but is was too late for any of the kits to go outside and get anymore playtime and after playing with Nick some of the younger ones had been herded off for bath time and bed, the older bunnies finished up chores and sent themselves to do homework or other teenager activites while Stu, Bonnie, Marigold, Judy and Nick settled into the living room that had an age requirement of seventeen to be in, the simple rule of giving the older rabbits a little breathing space. Nick had the tablet that his wife had gotten him on his lap and his urging Judy and Mari were sitting on the floor in front of their parents as they watched one of their favorite shows on the TV.

Every so offten Nick would look up before his pencil scrached the furiously on the paper then glance up again. After the second round of commercial brakes Bonnie looked up from where she was happily knitting and cocked her head to the side. "Whatever are you doing Nick?" she asked with curiosity burning in her hazel blue eyes.

Pausing to put a couple more lines down the fox wordlessly passed the tablet to Judy who then put into her mother's paws. Bonnie stared at it for a moment before making a small noise that sounded from deep in her throat and she looked up with a partial smile. On the paper were Stu and Bonnie with their two daughters. The amount of detail that the fox was able to capture with his pencil was astonishing.

"This is wonderful!" the older bunny exclaimed. She then reached over and swatted her husband. "Stu! Look at this! Isn't it wonderful?"

Being startled out of his half tired reserie, Stu took the drawing tablet and gazed at it with interest. "Well, i'll be..." he muttered before tilting his cap up to scratch the top of his head. "That's really something, Nick!" He squinted with one eye at his son-in-law. "Tell me, is there anything you can't do? Artist, Police Officer and you'd be a fair paw at farming, the kits love you... you are talented arn't you?"

"I certainly can't cook," the fox said with a laugh. "Not like Mrs. Hopps can. I'm one seriously stuffed fox!"

"Will you stop that!" Bonnie said in exasperation as she took the tablet back and continued to look at it. "You know our names and you can start using them right now!" she ordered. As the older bunny stared at the drawing a thought occured to her. "Can you do portraits too? Like painted ones"

"Sure," the fox said as the tablet made its way back to him. "It takes a little time depending on the kind of paint used, but I could do portraits."

The older bunny looked up with a hopeful expression. "I've always wanted a portrait of Stu and I, like one of those that was done years ago!"

Mari chuckled. "Mom's a bit of a 'Fieldton Abbey' fan. She loves that show! Have you seen it?" the yellow bunny asked her sister and the fox.

"Just bits and pieces here and there," Judy admitted. "We don't get a lot of time for TV shows and stuff." She looked at her husband, her amethyst eyes sparkling. "You know, that spot you painted looking out over the Canal District islands would make a great backdrop."

Nick nodded in agreement as he flipped to a fresh page and got the basic idea for the portrait in his eye before sketching rapidly. It only took a minute or two for him to get the references he'd use in the larger and then began adding to the images. He studied the cast of their faces, the way the light from the table lamp between them fell, details that in the final painting would be crucial. Then he smiled and looked even more intently at them. "Now, this is going to sound a little odd, but it will help when I go to put all of this down on canvas. I want you to think of the first time the two kissed...that moment where you realized that the both of you would be sharing your lives together," he told them softly.

Stu let a silly grin split his muzzle and Bonnie's eyes fluttered as her ears pinked up in a blush and she fanned herself lightly with her paw. "That was quite a night," the hazel eyed bunny said as her other paw automatically reached for her husband's. "It was our first Bunnyburrow Carrot Days Festival together. Oh, we danced so much that night!"