Howard cleared her throat, thinking about how to introduce herself to someone if they asked. Honestly, she would be fine getting a room at a hotel or something and just curling up at the end of the bed like her dog Segoni use to do when she was growing up back on the mountain in Idaho. Some nights she would listen to him call out to the wolves off in the distance, though her parents always yelled at him to make him stop.
What would you think of me now, boy? she wondered as she made progress down the fairly worn trail that lead towards the Crossing. Taking things slowly and being quite, she listened in on all the sounds of the forest around her. It was early morning, and there were bird chirping to each other in the trees and singing to each other. The smells her new nose picked up were of all manner of animals that had traveled this path before her… most likely the wide range was due to all the visitors that came this way. There were canines, felines, birds, deer, goats, and plenty of animals Howard had never caught the scent of before in her life.
Howard had been walking for nearly fifteen minutes down the trail when she heard a sound behind her. Glancing back the way she came, her ears flicked as a new sound appeared just in front of her and close. She growled and stepped back, taking an aggressive stance with her hands up and her claws prepared to strike. Her black lips slid back to reveal her shining new canines as she looked forward again to see whoever was trying to get the jump on her. Nothing about these actions seems strange of forced to her, it was merely instinct to defend herself.
Standing just in front of her was a half-man, half-raccoon hybrid. He had a medium brown color to most of his fur, a light colored belly, and dark brown to his ears, paws, tip of tail, and end of muzzle with a mask of near-black brown just behind his eyes. He smiled a warm greeting to her, standing only about four and a half foot tall with a blue apron wrapped over his shoulders and covering his body below his waist. It had a light blue picture of a simple leaf in the bottom right corner of the apron.
Howard flexed her claws a little, just to see if the man would squirm. He didn't. She let out a small growl, but still he just bowed before her. "Greetings new arrival. I had heard the doors would open this day and I had hoped meet you at their opening. Alas, I had to deal with an issue back at my shop concerning my two nephews–"
"Timmy and Tommy, right?" Howard asked, standing a bit more upright and frowning at the little man in front of her. As he continued to talk, she crossed her arms as she expected to know where this was going.
"Quite right, quite right! So, you have heard of us? Oh, we Nooks pride ourselves on being memorable hosts and landlords, but rarely are our names heard anywhere outside of the Crossing," he smiled, ringing his hands together almost nervously. He grinned wider, "I'm sure you've heard that I provide modern housing at reasonable rates," he nodded to her.
"Dude," she said in a serious tone. "There is no way that Nintendo is letting N.A.T.P. use one of their licensed characters in a resort that could easily turn 'AO Rated'," she said putting her hands her hips. "That's just so far-fetched that–"
"Geez, lady," the man said softly in a less stupidly cheerful tone as he stepped closer up to her, glancing over his shoulder. "I'm trying to play along with my sons. We've been here before as other animals, but they thought it would be cool to play as Nook as his nephews. They're having a blast–you should see them sell!–and I'm just playing along. I understand if you don't–"
Howard looked a bit shocked for a moment, her right hand going up to her lips. She whispered, "I'm real sorry. I've actually liked Animal Crossing. I can play along, I mean… I use to role-play all the time… I just thought–"
"No worries! no worries!" he grinned as he waved his arms in the air and went back to his happy tone from before. He hopped back from her and began again, "As I was saying, it is good to be heard of in such a positive light by a new resident. I offer both family homes and single-homes," he nodded to her, falling back into character. He stepped over to the side of Howard who couldn't help but smile at the absurdity of it all. Still, Howard had smiled wider and more often in his scant hour at this resort than he had in much of the last four months.
"A single bedroom will be all I need, Mr. Nook," she smiled down at him. "Also, I can break people's legs for you if they don't pay up," she grinned a toothy grin at him.
"You wolves, I swear! They very thought," he made a 'humf' sound and tiled his head up and too the side away from her. A moment later, the man playing as Tom Nook opened a single eye to her and winked, glad they could play along at this game for a while longer.
It had been another twenty minutes or so and Howard was beginning to wonder just how far away the Crossing actually was. She was still open to everything going on around her, but her and Tom had been quite for a time. Eventually, though, he broke the silence…
"Kid, it occurs to me I didn't as yer name," he says, looking up to her with a bit of a goofy grin as they walked.
"Sedona," Howard said, glancing down at him before looking back forward, her tail swishing back and forth as she moved.
"That's a pretty name," he nodded.
"It's for a city in Arizona my parents knew of. So named for its 'natural beauty and tranquil ambience'," she quoted them. Obviously she wasn't actually named that, but the story was true. Way back when he was young, his mom helped him pick out the name for a wolf character he was going to write about in a short story. He used the name a couple of times throughout the years, and this was just another occasion.
"Pretty name," he repeated as the continued their walk down the dirt trail heading for the lake she could see far off in the distance. "Might I ask… if its not too out of place, that is… is your–ahem–'additional assets', lets say… are those normal where you come from?"
Sedona tiled her head to look down at him, then realized that he was referring to her chest. She took a bit of a breath, her head raising up and her tail twitching as she hadn't thought to make an excuse for them. Improvising, she said: "No, sir. It's a condition I've got to deal with. I hear I'm not the only visitor with a strange quirk along these lines," she noted, putting her two hands over her middle pair of breasts lightly and then dropping them back to her sides as she walked.
"Heard of it. Never seen it," he said. "Ah, there's it is," he waved a free hand up towards an arched wooden sign that went between two of the trees just before the trail opened up wider up ahead. "'Crossing'," he smiled, reading the sign as the two of them headed up under it.
The small town of Crossing was not unlike a small fairytale village. As Tom and Sedona walked up the dirt path, it slowly became more lined with stones heading into the center of town. The center of town, though, was a small grass circle with a simple bulletin board situated in the middle of it. To one top corner it had two little solar-power sensors and an antenna which Sedona assumed the was the beginning and end of the wireless access to the little village.
Around the central grass area of town were four small paths that each led back to three houses each in a triangular formation for a total of twelve little homes. Two of each three were single room apartments while the thirds were larger two-story homes where a few people each could live within. They each had a little mailbox and colored roofs, and she couldn't help but think that Tom playing Mr. Nook wasn't entirely out of place so far.
To the south and west was the a fountain far down the path that had a large tree in the middle of it which granted shade to anyone below it. South and east lead off to a small shop which seemed to be a clothing store of some kind by the icon on the outside billboard. Just beyond it was the shore around the lake an a single long peer with boats upon it that people could go out into and fish.
Looking north, she saw a single large wooden cabin in the distance beyond the trees a few miles. Family Cabins, she thought to herself, noting that a small post-office looking building was just south of it on the road and had a compost heap situated near to it. Just east of the central grass was an Inn with a bar beneath it and a restaurant next to it. As it was, that was all the buildings that she could see. Being from Idaho, there were a few small towns she knew that were larger than this… but to this one's credit, all those other towns were speed-traps.
"Here we are," Tom stopped at a small, single-room log cabin. Sedona stepped up to it, and tilted her head upwards. All in all, it was about the size of her living room back home and she kind of sighed a bit, realizing how close she was going to be to everyone else that was living here.
Glancing to Tom as she reached for the door nob, he nodded to her. She turned it and stepped on inside, taking in what was in the room. To one side was a wooden walled space that housed pot with a hole in it and a simple steel-headed shower. A bathroom, of sorts, in one corner of the room. Just ahead of her was a large bed that seemed to be crossed with a dog-bed. It was circular and looked like an oversized papasan chair. It was big enough for two, to be sure, but there was no one she had plans of sharing it with.
Beside the bed was a single nightstand that had an alarm clock and radio combination device setting on top of it. There was a lamp in one corner, connected to the light switch at the door. Sedona discovered this when she reached to the side and flicked the switch, seeing the little LED indicator that Maggie had mentioned which listed the home as being at 99% energy so far. There was also a single rug across the floor made of some animal she couldn't make out… perhaps a bear?
"What do you think?" Nook asked as Sedona took a step back outside and shut the door behind her.
"Well…" she began…