Koopus

Sonic sat on the park bench, tapping one foot on the grass in front of him in a hyperactive, irritable kind of way. He was not used to having to wait; in the past he usually went wherever he wanted, whenever he wanted, which irritated a lot of people who couldn’t keep up and especially those who hadn’t expected a blue hedgehog to turn up uninvited. Sonic was waiting for his date to arrive. Shadow sat in front of the mirror, frowning at his reflection in a bad-tempered, critical kind of way. He wanted to look his best, but his sharp eye saw microscopic flaws everywhere. His nose was three sixteenths of an inch asymmetrical, pointing to the left. His spines would not stay perked the way he wanted them to, and his damn eyeliner was uneven. He was going on a date, and the black hedgehog was already a minute late. Shadow wasn’t panicking, no way, and he wasn’t self-conscious, he told himself. He was too cool for that. He was just dedicated to showing up that faker by being the

A Zootopia Short Story He’d begun shrinking that morning, going in and coming out of the shower at drastically different heights in the mirror. Nick Wilde had remained stubbornly disbelieving that it was happening for a long while, but just before the fox set out for work he had the revelational experience of his pants falling past his knees to the ground, and this was even though they had been belted to the last notch. Tangled between his ankles, the fabric tripped him up and made him faceplant on his foyer carpet. Lying there, he fished his phone out of his baggy trousers and dialed up his partner, Judy Hopps. “Carrots, I need you to tell Bogo that I’m calling in sick today,” Nick said when she answered. “Are you?” A shrewd response from the bunny cop. “More or less, let’s just say… Am I in a state to come in to work? No, no I’m not.” Nick was cagy, who would believe him if he was honest after all? “What’s wrong, Nick?” the bunny inquired. She knew something more was

“Hold still, you idiot! I’ve gotta get your face right...” The pint-sized fuzzball held up his stump of charcoal to measure, one eye closed and tongue between his teeth in concentration; his treebeast of a subject had been fidgeting in the harsh studio lights. They had ‘come into possession’ of an old cargo crate a short time ago; cracking its rusty shell open, Rocket had been expecting something mercantile, or at the very least resalable, but instead they’d found pads of yellowing vellum and cases of pens and pencils. There were tubes of paint, brushes, rolls of canvas, and even a compact, collapsible electric lamp for lighting. It was all utterly useless rubbish. But… they had it; they might as well use it. Rocket was used to using his hands; his little dexterous paws were adept at tinkering, tooling, and turning scrap into weaponry, but he’d never been one for draftsmanship. Still, he had an eye for detail and a creative mind; whether he liked it or not, he’d been ‘built’

groot and rocket, together again at last rocket, 5 years older and a hundred years wiser groot, a child that was lost in a war and returned in another rocket, a grieving father, disaffected, but doing good in spite of it all groot, a friend twice lost, three times found rocket, crass and closed off, angry at the world for putting him through the trauma of being made, for giving him the capacity to feel, and for breaking his heart again and again rocket, whose nightmares have only multiplied in the interim rocket, who is so smart and so clever, thought he knew what pain was, but what happened to him once he left the labs and was out from under the scalpel, hurt more than anything rocket, who knew joy so briefly in finding a family, still found a way to be a Guardian despite the sorrow groot, who is back now, who can see the age in his father's eyes that wasn't there a minute ago groot, whose adolescent scowl has turned into a smile, wide and apple-cheeked, is it for