Chapter 2: Samantha Wilde
"Thank you for flying Air Zootopia… Thank you for flying Air Zootopia… Thank you for flying Air Zootopia..." At the front of the plane, Nera stood, giving the standard salutation to each passenger as they disembarked. When she saw James approaching, she less-than-subtly brushed her bangs back behind her ear, gave him a coy smile and said, "Thank you for flying with us, Mr. Wilde. 'We' hope you'll consider us for all your future trips."
James could tell by the way she said it that 'we' really meant 'I', and with a broad grin, he winked and replied, "You'll certainly be my first consideration any time I fly." As he passed by, he leaned a little closer and whispered, "And thanks for the sex," his grin spreading as Nera suddenly got very shy and quickly addressed the next passenger.
Once he got out to the terminal, James waited a little while for Donnie to make it out from his further-back compartment. "What'd you do to the stewardess, Jim?" the squirrel asked right away. "And don't deny shit, way she's looking and that shit-eating grin you got, had to be you."
"You think I'd kiss and tell?" James replied, placing a paw over his heart and shaking his head. When the squirrel rolled his eyes, James decided to add, "I would like to declare that the mid-small lavatory is not a very easy place to move around in, though."
Grinning at the surprised stare he got from his friend, the fox turned on his heel and proceeded past security and down the escalator to baggage claim. On the way, he got his first glimpse in six years of the city he'd once called home. Though Zootopia International was in the Savannah Central uptown district, an area he'd never spent much time in growing up, he could tell that in his time away, very little had changed. Maybe the streets were freshly paved, the parking meters had been replaced, a couple things had been repainted, but for the most part it was exactly the same city he'd left when he'd enlisted.
Donnie, however, had never been to Zootopia. He'd grown up in Manytrees, a much smaller city way up north, with a population of about a hundred thousand, mostly squirrels. Donnie even claimed his third cousin was the mayor. That didn't seem like a big deal to James, but Donnie insisted that extended family was very important among squirrel culture.
So when the tree squirrel set eyes on the busy streets of Zootopia from the high walkway window, he was momentarily speechless. Though James and Donnie had spent many nights drinking together, and the fox almost always turned to tales of growing up in the big city, nothing could have truly prepared the squirrel for this. In his hometown, things had always been a little hectic. That was to be expected with thousands of squirrels all in one place. But it was nothing compared to this, to the multitude of mammals all different shapes, sizes, colors, all moving about in some staggeringly complex routine that seemed to come all too naturally to them. If it wasn't for his friend watching out for him, he'd have stepped onto the escalator completely unaware and tumbled all the way down. James' paw on the scruff of his neck was all that saved him that embarrassment.
"Do you… Actually get used to stuff like this?" Donnie asked as they rode the moving stairs down. "I mean… It's a lot to take in. How to you keep track of all of it?"
"Honestly? I don't." James chuckled, staring down into the crowd milling about the ground floor. "You can do pretty well around here if you learn to compartmentalize. Don't worry about everything, focus on the stuff that pertains to you. Let the other stuff fade into the background, just plan your route forward and follow it. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast, right? Keep calm, you don't have to rush about. Step back from the big picture, watch individuals, see what they do. Keep your eyes on one mammal at a time, you'll find they're actually going pretty slow. Practice that, you'll learn to work it all together before long. But most important, always consider where you're going first." He looked back at his friend, then nudged his head in the direction of the baggage claim carousel, and set off through the crowd.
This time, rather than trying to look at everything at once, Donnie simply focused on the red fox ahead of him. He traced James' route through the herd, only occasionally deviating from the path when another mammal crossed right behind where James had just been. He started to see what the fox meant; He wasn't moving very quickly, not even reaching an army marching pace, really, but that didn't stop him from covering ground through the mass of mammals quickly and efficiently. Before Donnie knew it, they were at the baggage claim, and James was quickly scanning back and forth in an effort to identify his bag. Donnie followed suit, and before too long he managed to spot his little green duffel squeezed between two larger suitcases.
It wasn't long before the duo stepped out onto the sidewalk, and taking the lead once more, James hailed a cab. An amiable looking tomcat in a smallish yellow car pulled up almost immediately, and James opened the door, letting Donnie get in before sliding in himself and closing the door. "Where to, boys?" the cabbie asked simply.
James didn't even take a moment to think about it. "812 Lowgrass Circle, in the Meadowlands." It was time for a family visit.
Samantha Wilde had been up most of the night, almost until dawn actually, determined to put in the finishing touches on her paper. It wasn't really that abnormal for a fox to be up at night, but for one used to rising in the morning to go to university classes, it was something best avoided whenever possible. The sad truth was that most nocturnal species had to adjust their natural sleep schedules to fit the norm for Zootopian society.
This paper had to be done, though, and it had to be done soon. She'd been very lucky to get into such a prestigious law school as the one she'd start attending next week in Mamphis, and the requirements had been made very clear to her. She, along with every other student in Professor Fisher's class, were expected to bring a full research paper on an old court case. They were allowed to do their research on any case, the bigger the better, but it couldn't be something that had made front-page news in any paper.
Therefore, it was definitely not a good day for her to be woken by a sharp knock on the door at… Holy shit, a quarter to three already? With a loud groan, the vixen turned over and pulled her thick comforter over her head, hoping whoever it was would just go away. She didn't care who it was, she didn't care what time it was, she was staying in bed.
Unfortunately, the knocker at the door didn't get that memo, because ten seconds later it came again. Samantha shook her head, praying that she was just imagining the interruption to her much-needed sleep and that through the power of denial she could realize she was actually still dreaming. No such luck, as after a brief pause, the knock came once more, this time accompanied by a voice.
"Come on Sam," the vaguely familiar call came, muffled by the walls and comforter over her head. "I know you're home, you've still got the same car and it's parked right here." Is that Nick? What's he doing here? But no… Something was off. There was something about the voice that didn't quite fit Nick.
With a low growl, she pushed up from the bed, pulled the thick blanket away and trudged out of her bedroom, across the living room to the door. She pulled the chain, flipped the deadbolt and turned the knob, and opened it just enough to peek out. When she saw the grinning vulpine face inches away, she murmured, "What the hell, Ji-"
She cut herself short when she realized exactly who it was standing there. With an ecstatic exclamation of, "Jimmy!" she threw the door open and rushed out to give her brother a tight hug. She'd been expecting it to be Nick, who typically stopped by roughly once a month. Instead, here was the sibling she hadn't seen in over half a decade, since he'd shipped out to basic training. "What are you doing here?"
"Mooching off my sister, obviously," James answered with a smirk, and stepped aside to indicate a rather skeptical-looking tree squirrel behind him. "This is Donnie, formerly First Lieutenant Treever, he'd like to crash here a few nights too, if that's alright."
"Yeah, sure, of course, but… Not really what I asked," Samantha murmured, stepping back so the two could come in through the door. She had a quaint little house, not much but nice for the neighborhood. Six-hundred square feet, two bedrooms, one bath, a living room and a small kitchen, more than enough for a fox. Mostly covered on her scholarship, the rest taken care of by her dad. In the yard it had a real estate sign with a little plaque on top that read 'In Escrow'. It'd be pretty unreasonable for her to keep the place when she planned to spend four years in Mamphis for law school, and this meant she got to go there with an extra $40,000 in the bank, more than enough to get a decent flat downtown.
"Yeah, I know. 'What am I doing here', right?" James went across the living room to the sofa and dropped down on it. "Hey, if I had any idea where Nick was staying, I'd be there. But I'm guessing wherever it is, it's a parked van with flame decals on it. He's still in it with Finnick, yeah?"
"Yeah," Samantha murmured, shaking her head. "Think they're renting a place in the Canals right now. Saw Finn's van there a few times in the last month. So… Why not mom and dad's? You know where they live."
"Yeah, I do. Of course I do. But, ah..." James paused, rubbing the back of his head. This was a conversation he'd been hoping to avoid. "I spent seventeen years being a burden to them, it wouldn't feel right showing up there and asking them to support me again."
"So instead you show up here," Samantha rolled her eyes. She looked to Donnie, who'd taken the chair in the corner and was just idly staring out the window. "Plus one," she added. The vixen looked down at her brother, showing some concern. "But come on, Jimmy, they're your parents. Our parents. You know as well as I do they never considered any of us a burden."
"Well, that's between me and them, I guess. A bridge to cross when I get there. But don't worry, I won't be long. Just a couple weeks in the city, I think, then I'm gonna see the world."
"Living your dream, huh?" Samantha murmured. She stepped back from the sofa and moved toward her bedroom. On the way, she stopped and looked down at an old picture on the table. Five foxes, two adult and three teenage kits. It was the last picture their whole family had taken together.
"Whatever," she called back over her shoulder, "Crash here a while, just don't mess anything up. And don't wake me again." With that, she stepped into her room and shut the door behind her.