Animal Crossing: Crippling Debt (KalTammy x Lord DreamCrusher)

[KalTammy]

"I would welcome your company Isabelle, I am ready to go now if you are?" Violet slipped out of her chair and stood, stretching for a moment before turning towards the door. "I have the perfect spot in mind for this!" Excitement quickly returning to the mayor now she was back on task. Outside of her exploitable naivete, she really did have a dedication that made her perfect for the job Tom had for her.

---

The next couple of months Violet fell into a comfortable rhythm, and found herself feeling a little silly for her initial outburst at Tom. A few days dedicated to fishing let her keep on top of her debts and work on money for other things. She even got comfortable enough to start working on her house, at least getting more furniture for it so it didn't feel like an empty box with a bed and a toilet. It still was a little spartan, but a wardrobe for clothes, a chair and table, it was slowly coming together.

The campsite was placed by the river on the opposite side of town from Violet's house, away from the current buildup and where visitors can enjoy themselves. At this point she was noticing that things might start feeling crowded so in the second month she would expend some funds and materials to have Nook construct a pair of bridges, one on each river that flanked the main town area. More room for future homes and other improvements, also saved her from needing to wade across when she wanted to harvest things from that side of the island.

Her improvements remained focused on the town square, again having to work off some money to get a fountain put in to be a centerpiece. That came after the garden that surrounded and went behind the town hall, really just a nice cultivated patch of flowers and grass with benches to relax in. But this all was costly and towards the end of the third month, Violet was feeling the pinch. Tom had raised her rates for this month, and though with the bonus nine thousand shouldn't be an issue, it still ate into her busy schedule. She needed an extra day of fishing to get her last couple of thousand, her plan as usual to pay a little, she had time left, another day.... only to wake up and find a monsoon hitting the island, drenching the land and blowing across it all. The structures were sturdy, so there was no worry about damage, but nobody was going outside.

So with a sigh, Violet had to whether the storm in her very boring home, and bite her lip in worry. The next morning she was due to meet with Tom and pay rent, and she was going to be a thousand or so bells short. "He'll understand... right?" She fretted to herself.

 

[Lord DreamCrusher]

With time and improvements came new villagers. Drawn from a combination of word of mouth and some slight marketing on Tom Nook's part, Violet had managed to draw in three more people, making the total number of residents 5 and earning her her first bonus; shaving one thousand bells off of her monthly payments. That reduction was very noticeable at first, making her five thousand payment down to four thousand, but as she continued to chip away at her debt and reached the next milestone things started to slip a little bit as Tom raised her monthly price to ten thousand bells, nine thousand with her little reduction. That was still only about five days or so of hard work a month, a far cry from city life, but the increments were getting steadily more difficult all the same.


First was Reneigh, a friendly and fit horse girl who favored loose and colorful dresses and was very often taking selfies or streaming from her phone as a social media influencer. She and Cherry instantly hit it off and Beau, for as lazy as he was, remained fairly pleased and friendly with his new neighbor. The next resident to be drawn in was a bit of a departure from Violet's expertise, a deer named Diana who was rather uptight and haughty. Not quite to the same degree as Ankha, she actually moved in after all without a laundry list of requirements, but Diana seemed the type to constantly be judging others by somewhat unknown standards while also valuing knowledge and education. She... didn't so easily get along with the other villagers but oddly enough was quite friendly with Longclaw and, oddly enough, Tom himself. Lastly was Julian, a bright blue unicorn that was incredibly flamboyant and an open flirt with just about everyone he came across. Julian was perhaps a bit sure of himself, a bit narcissistic, but there was an odd charm that his presence brought to the island as he was quite spontaneous with his energy; quick to break into song or dance and otherwise just as likely to make one smile as to shake their heads in annoyance. Didn't hurt that he had an androgynous attractiveness that most everyone seemed to agree upon.

Of course with more residents came more time spent socializing and managing concerns, let alone the budding friendships Violet was no doubt trying to build. While busy wasn't exactly the right word, the island was feeling much more healthy in terms of population. While there was plenty of space left to build and expand into, it also felt a lot less empty. Beau and Reneigh spent a lot of time outdoors, walking around and exploring for their own various reasons, while Julian's obsession with fashion meant he was hanging around the Able Sister's shop quite a bit... and otherwise generally near the town square. Diana kept to herself a bit more but wasn't a homebody either and would happily gossip with any interested parties she passed by, though most of the residents still tried to avoid her condescending nature. This all contributed to eating up some of Violet's time and, with the inclement weather, proved to cause her first mistake in what would eventually become a more common occurrence; regardless of how hard she tried.

Inside Tom's office she found herself delivering her payment to the fat tanuki sitting contently behind his desk, or at least her partial payment this time. The money-minded man didn't need much effort to realize the bag of bells was too light as he took it and a slight narrowing of his features told her of his knowledge; not that she was necessarily trying to hide the situation from him but certainly hadn't been able to explain just yet. "This doesn't feel like nine thousand bells, Violet." He said almost like a father preparing to scold his daughter. "I would hope you aren't trying to fool me after everything I've done for you, yes yes."

 

[KalTammy]

Violet froze, her mouth half open to inform Tom of the shortage when he instantly called her out on it. 'How can he tell that quickly?' Feeling like she'd been caught with her hand in the cookie jar, her mind raced for excuses. She could blame the monsoon, but no there were plenty of earlier days in the month. She could point out the improvements of the town, but perhaps she had been overreaching in getting all that done early. Maybe all the time she'd been spending with the villagers, from getting to know everyone, to answering the new resident's questions, to getting a little too into flirting with Julian a couple of times. But no, it felt wrong to put the blame on everyone else.

Wilting a little, the young mayor nodded. "Things didn't quite pan out right, there is only eight thousand bells there." Which had been what she was going to say before he spoke, but not so guilty and defensive. "I'll make it up for you next month of course! Just ended up falling a little behind this month." She attempted to summon back her more chipper attitude and hoped to win Tom over by force of positive attitude.