Short (two pages) second chapter to the story "Meeting In Passing.

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/28829598/

Storywise, I'm in uncharted "waters" after this one so it's likely to go into "Slow Burn" territory.


Judy and Nick get to work on their new paths. Sharla is invited to come along by her friend.



Getting There
Bunny Burrow:


Once more, Sharla looked over the list she held. The black fleeced ewe was in awe of what was on the paper.

“Good grief! And I thought the curriculum for her criminology degree was ambitious!”

“Major: Astrophysics/Astronomy. Minor: Writing composition.” read the heading.

The listing wasn’t just for a semester nor a year of three semesters. They were strung out over five years.

“Judy definitely knows what she wants. A good switch from the criminology major she was originally working on,” she thought. “A lot of that can be applied to her new major and minor, leaving her to concentrate on the maths and sciences. And the writing stuff will help her in composing the research papers she’ll have to do.”

Nevertheless, it would be a grueling task, one that made the ewe quiver. She looked up to her friend who sat across the table set outside in front of Gideon’s bakery and café. The bunny doe wore her usual long sleeved flannel shirt and jeans attire. Nothing showed of the accident that had badly injured her several weeks before. Sharla shuddered at the memory of Judy’s parents bewilderment and despair as she kept slipping more and more towards death and no one could explain why or do anything to stop it. She was visiting them when the call came that they should come to the hospital right away.

“She’s…gone?” asked the grim faced Stu.

“No sir. She’s awake and talking,” the doctor said.

Sharla drove Bonnie and Stu there and accompanied them, at their insistence, to Judy’s room.

“Don’t hug her,” Judy’s doctor, Selene Bensen, told them. “She’s still recovering from the surgery and will be on the delicate side for another week or so.”

There she was, sitting up in bed and looked to them when they came in. When Sharla saw those bright purple eyes she knew her longtime friend was back. Several days later, Judy was discharged from the hospital with orders to avoid strenuous activity for the next three weeks. Judy adhered to those orders but only just. She walked a lot and attended one of the produce stands as much as she could. And in the evenings she was on the computer researching astronomy, astrophysics, and a number of other connected subjects. As she did, Judy built up her college course list, the one that Sharla now held in her hands.

“You’re sure you can handle all of this,” the ewe said.

“No, but I want to. I’ve got some lost time to make up for,” Judith said.

“Okay,” Sharla replied.


Her friend’s amethyst eyes gazed at her in a way the sheep could not read.

“Yes?” she queried.

“Sharla, we intend to go places that mammals only dream of today,” Judy said. “I’m inviting you to come with us.”

Pause.

“’Us’? Whose ‘us’?”


Zootopia Institute of Sciences and Technology:

The college councilor examined the list of courses that the student-to-be had chosen. Tt ran for five years. It was impressive and daunting.

"Seven years of aerospace engineering classes crammed into five," the councilor thought.

He'd seen others who were this ambitious, most had failed. Still, there was determination, a drive, radiating from the fox….

"Quite a curriculum, Mr. Wilde," said the fox squirrel. "What is your goal?"

"The goal is to go farther than anyone has before. To reach places that mammals have, today, only imagined," he said.

A few seconds of silence passed, then he added...

"And to inspire others to do the same, or more."

Another pause.

“And, should…when I meet her again, there is someone I want to bring with me,” he said.

The councilor thought on that, then stood and extended his paw hand to the fox. Nick took it with his own.

"Then I welcome you to our college," he said. "And may you succeed far beyond your wildest expectations."