Mist was almost a little angry at herself for being so taken aback by the fact that Isabelle was a walking, talking dog. The instant they had stepped into her home Mist found herself immediately charmed by the bright yellow and white furnishings. It seemed that Isabelle, despite having just moved in, had spared no expense in putting together a neat, tidy, beautiful home. Mist found herself almost immediately asking her questions, and before long the two of them were deep in discussion about her friend, the businessman Tom Nook, and how he had put together the home for her on such short notice.
Samus sat idly by with her tea, contributing nothing to the conversation. She looked almost uncomfortable. Mist wondered how it would be best to engage her in the conversation.
"Where do you live, Samus?" She asked. "What is your home like?"
Isabelle looked somewhat alarmed for a moment, as if expecting Samus to seem something nasty, but Samus said nothing. She raised her tea to her lips and seemed to be ignoring the question. Mist was about to begin worrying whether she had somehow deeply offended her when Samus spoke.
"I am a wanderer." She said. "I have no true home to speak of. I usually simply drift from job to job."
She went back to her tea, seemingly unwilling to elaborate. Mist found herself staring at her.
"No home?" She repeated. "Where do you go when you're not…?"
"I travel a lot." Samus explained. "I've never really settled down anywhere. "
"Well, where did you come from?" Mist asked. "Where did you grow up?"
Isabelle leaned forward. She looked somewhat apprehensive, and seemed to want to cut in, but she seemed unsure of what to do or say. Samus stared forlornly at her cup.
"If you don't want to talk about it, that's fine." Mist said. "But I wanted to ask-"
She stopped. Before she could finish her apology, a knock came at the door.
"Oh, who could it be?" Isabelle said, distressed, as she set aside her tea and got to her feet. She teetered over to the front door and peered through it.
"It's…. Fox!" She said, surprised, Samus gave a slight nod, but Mist was a little confused. She barely had time to wonder who Fox was before the door opened and in stepped three new guests. Samus turned to look at them, and Mist thought she saw herself smile a little bit.
Like Isabelle, these creatures seemed more animal than man. Thick, warm fur seemed to cover every inch of their bodies. And unlike Isabelle, they seemed to resemble Foxes rather than dogs. The one in the center, a tall, confident looking one with brown fur and piercing green eyes, was dressed in strange metallic boots that made light clunking sounds with each step. His companions, both blue in color, were a lot smaller than he was. One, she thought, was a child. He was looking around the room with a strong sense of disinterest on his face. The other, a delicate little creature, struck her as likely being female. Was this… a family?
"Come in, come in." Isabelle said. "We were just having tea…" She led the group into the sitting room, where Mist and Samus sat waiting. The creature nodded at them.
"Samus." He said.
"Hello, Fox." Samus said. "You got here early. Isabelle was just telling me that she thought that Falco would be last to arrive."
Fox scoffed. "That's just like him." He said. He held out his hand. "Ah, Samus. I'm not sure if you've met my family… this is my wife, Krystal. And our son, Marcus."
"How do you do?" Krystal asked. Her accent, Mist noted, was strangely exotic to her ear. "I've heard so much about you, Samus Aran."
"From your husband, I imagine?" Samus asked, giving Fox a look. "What have you been telling her?" Fox looked somewhat abashed.
"Well… nothing much." He said, awkwardly. "You see…" His eyes fixed on Mist. "And who is this?" He asked curiously.
"Oh!" Mist said. She got to her feet and bowed. "I'm Mist… a pleasure to meet you, Mister Fox. I'm Ike's sister."
Krystal giggled. "Mr. Fox?" She repeated. Fox looked a little bit embarrassed. Mist reeled apologetically.
"I'm sorry, did I offend you…?"
"No, no." Fox said quickly. "No, it's just… my last name is McCloud, for future reference. Fox McCloud." He considered her carefully. "Ike's sister?" He repeated. "I have heard a lot about you from him as well."
"Really?" Mist asked. "Nothing bad, I hope?"
Krystal giggled slightly again, but now she had place a firm hand on Marcus, who seemed to want to wander off.
"No, no." Fox said. "If anything I thought he cared about you an awful lot."
Mist felt her face heat up. "R-really…?"
"Where is Ike, anyway?" Fox asked Isabelle.
"Bonding with his Mercenary Company, I think." Isabelle answered. "He's been gone a long time… I think a lot of them believed he would never come back."
Mist could see a gleam of interest in Fox's eyes. "I'd love to meet his crew." Fox said. "Where are they?"
"Probably at their headquarters." Mist said. "Or my home… Ike has been spending a lot of time there, getting to know my children." She smiled at Marcus. "You know, Marcus… they're probably about your age. You could probably play with them for the day."
Marcus, who had not spoken at all so far, suddenly looked very interested. "You mean it?" He asked eagerly. "You're not pulling my leg?"
"Of course not." Mist said immediately.
Marcus looked up at his Mother expectantly. "May I go Mother?" He asked. "Please?"
"Of course you can." Krystal said. She turned to her husband. "But I would like to get our home set up before we start meeting other wedding guests…. There will be plenty of time for that once we are settled."
"Oh, Tom Nook will take care of that." Isabelle said, bursting with excitement. "Don't worry, Krystal… Tell you what, I'll set it up for you! It'll be ready for you once you get back to the campsite."
Krystal looked impressed, and pleased. "That sounds wonderful." She said. "Should we go?"
Mist nodded and gathered up her things. Samus moved to join her, and before long the five of them were at the door, Isabelle following close behind with a notepad, conversing quickly with Krystal about what color roof she would like, the kind of furniture she wanted, the amount of bedrooms, the amount of floors…
She was still following them, scribbling things down in her pad as a whizzing noise raced past her. She screamed, throwing up her paws in the air, as a thing that Mist had never seen before skid to a stop right next to her. It was a metallic, moving beast that breathed out smoke and rolled along on wheels.
"Diddy Kong!" Isabelle said, shocked. "What are you doing?"
A thing that Mist had not initially noticed turned around to grin at them. It was not a person, but a monkey. Dressed in a shirt and hat (And nothing else!) Mist found herself taken aback as it leapt off the metallic thing and did a handstand on its side.
"Hiya Isabelle." He said. "Just checking out the course."
"Course?" Isabelle repeated, baffled. 'What course?"
"The race track, of course." Diddy Kong said. "I thought you were a Mario Kart vet now, Isabelle… I wanted to set up a Diddy Kong Racing track here… Banjo seemed interested and I invited all of my friends to-"
"I don't believe we invited you here to race, Diddy Kong." Samus said, surprisingly coldly. Diddy Kong smiled up at her and did a flip.
"Hiya Samus." He said. "I wanted to do SOMETHING fun… for the kids to watch, you know…."
Marcus pulled her skirt and Mist turned to look down at him. "I'm more of a fan of F-Zero racing myself…" He confided in her. Mist tried her best to look interested.
"Oh… really?" She had no idea what F-Zero racing was.
"I don't think it's appropriate to race her." Isabelle said nervously. "I mean, we haven't got any permits, we haven't asked for permission, we haven't set up a track…" She paused. "And you wanted it to be a DIDDY KONG RACING course, not a Mario Kart one?"
"It's been too long since we've ran our own course." Diddy Kong said stubbornly. "Not since WizPig came to Timber's Island… and that was years and years ago."
Mist could hear another noise, similar to the one from the first metallic vehicle, coming closer to them. She turned to look as two more monkeys, riding along similar vehicles, came up to them. They both stopped and stepped out of their cars.
These, Mist could clearly see, were females. They had long, flowing blonde hair that ran to their waists.
"Diddy!" The shorter one in the Beret said. "We TOLD you not to go too fast… we don't know the area!"
Diddy laughed as he leapt off the side of the vehicle. "I wasn't going fast, you two were going slow!"
"Maybe this is why we can't get another Diddy Kong Racing Circuit going." The pig tailed one suggested. "Because we can't work together."
"Don't be ridiculous, Tiny." The Pink beret wearing one said, shaking her head. "We all know the real reason is because Rareware was acquired by Micro-"
"Please don't say the name." Krystal, Diddy, and Tiny said at once. Dixie flushed.
"Oh… right." She said. "Well, our glory days are behind us. Let's put it that way. I mean we still have our Island… and Diddy, you keep getting invited to Mario Kart."
"I love Mario Kart." Diddy said. "But Diddy Kong Racing… it's something special to me, you know?"
"More special than me?" The Pink one asked, fluttering her eyelashes. Diddy turned away from her, towards the group.
"Anyway." He said. "Don't let us keep you…. Isabelle, if you could get a treehouse made for us, that would be great."
"Oh… of course!" Isabelle said, appalled, as Diddy Kong climbed back into his monstrous thing and took off. The other two were quick to follow suit.
"Well." Isabelle said. "That was unexpected."
"A little bit rambunctious today, isn't he?" Samus asked. Isabelle sighed.
"Oh, he's just excited, I'm sure." She said. "He's been really fired up about Diddy Kong Racing for years now…." She wiggled a little as she walked. "And he wants me to join!"
"You?" Mist asked. "Why you?"
"Well, I race in the Mario Kart Circuit sometimes." Isabelle answered. "And…. We got to talking, and he invited me to his Island. I declined, obviously, because I'm busy with work, and I think he took it personally…"
"Hm." Samus said. "Is that the only reason, I wonder…?"
Krystal looked as if she wanted to say something, but then cast a look at Mist and seemed to lose her nerve. The conversation about Diddy Kong petered out as they made their way back to Mist's home.
Ike was not present, but her children were. Marcus, overjoyed, pulled himself away from his Mother and went to introduce himself. The children, delighted at meeting such an interesting new friend, took to each other immediately. The adults stood watching for a while (Fox, she noted, looked especially pleased) before deciding to move on.
"Okay you two!" Mist called. "Look after Marcus okay? We're going to HQ!"
"Okay!"
Fox, Samus, Krystal, and Mist turned and began to walk up the road.
"You have such sweet children." Krystal commented. Mist beamed at her.
"Thank you." She said. "Marcus seemed to like them too."
"He did." Krystal said. "I'm glad." They smiled at each other. Mist could not help but notice that she felt more of a connection with Krystal than she did with Samus. The thought upset her a little bit.
"We're here." Mist said finally, as they came to a stop right outside the building.
…
