The Fire Triangle, A Zootopia Fanfiction -- Part One

The Fire Triangle, A Zootopia Fanfiction -- Part One: Fuel - 2

Disclaimer: Zootopia stories, characters, settings, and properties belong to the Walt Disney Co. This story is written under Fair Use Copyright laws.

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The Fire Triangle—A Zootopia Fanfiction

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Part One:

Fuel

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Chapter 1 – With This Ring
(Continued...pt.2)

Passing through the curtain, Ahmed paused for a moment, glancing backwards through the beads at the fox and bunny. Scratching at an ear with his hind, he considered how best to approach his brother. This was going to call for a delicate presentation, and depending on Ismael's mood of the moment, even that might not be enough to garner his approval.

He turned and continued on his way.

The rear section of Rafaj Brothers Fine Jewelers, where most of the work was done, had about as much in common with showroom as an adobe hut has with a sultan's palace. Oh the back was fitted with state-of-the-art LED lighting and a top-drawer air cooling and filtration system, but that was where the hi-tech ended; everything else in here was textbook retro-kitsch. The chairs and other furnishings all looked like leftovers from a low-budget remake of Catsablanca—while the employees themselves resembled like extras from the film. Kaftans, thobes and skullcaps abounded and the air seemed tinged at every moment with the smoked-flower aroma of incense. When one of the large-mammal employees got up and moved about, the floorboards invariably creaked in protest.

None of this mattered to Ahmed; his customers never saw this part of the store, only the creations that came out of it. Here was where all the stones were sorted and all the settings fashioned.

On the near side of the room were the worktables reserved for larger mammals while the opposite wall held two tiers of work spaces; a lower level for small-to-midsize species, and above this, a row of tiny tables on a shelf, the denizen of the rodent employees. To avoid any trampling issues, the room was bisected by a low partition.

It was a casual atmosphere to say the least; every employee was allowed to keep his or her worktable any way they saw fit, (provided it did not interfere with their job.) This ranged from a table crammed with enough papers to make a bureaucrat faint, (belonging to a gerbil,) to the almost antiseptically sterile work-space at the far end of the room—the private domain of Ahmed's younger brother, Ismael.

While physically the pair of jackals could almost have been twins, in mode of dress the only clothing item they shared was the deep-red fez perched atop each of their heads. Other than that, while Ahmed's clothes were western, sharp, and neatly pressed, Ismael's kaftan looked regularly slept in and seldom washed. Even worse was his 'lucky' embroidered vest; worn to work every day for the past twenty years, and looking twice its age. Sometimes Ahmed had to wonder; did his brother keep such a spotless work area as a way of compensating for his own, slovenly appearance?

At the moment Ismael was peering intently through a magnifying ring-light, scrutinizing a diamond held beneath it in a pair of tweezers.

Ahmed studied the younger jackal for a moment, considering once more the best way to put it to him. There was another reason why Ismael al-Rafaj was almost never seen out front. Not to put too fine a point on it, he had all the tact of a khamsin. More than once his elder brother had needed to talk one of their employees out of quitting because of him...and he hadn't always been successful.