Part 1 – Crow
Penny’s first day on the job was huge for her. She worked insanely hard to get there. Blood sweat and tears were put into acquiring her dream job. And she couldn’t get there fast enough. As a consequence, she became the youngest person to ever join the Lagopagos Rangers (22 years old). Two years ago, Crow had broken the record and was the youngest at 23.
Penny knew about him and his reputation. She was excited to be working under him.
Crow knew how much work it took to become a ranger. He did it himself, of course. It was no small accomplishment to make it as 23, let alone 22. You had to graduate from four years of college, followed by 4 years at the Lagopagos Ranger Academy. Crow had a special exception and was allowed to do both at the same time. So.. how could she have made it her so early? Crow assumed nepotism, or something funky with her documentation. He didn’t believe the ramblings and rumors of the other rangers about the impressive new cadet. She is cute, though.
crow clears her, and tells she’ll be on probation for a bit while he gets to see how she fits into the team. he hands her her new badge and a field bag.
penny is clearly excited, overly so. she’s worked extremely hard for this and she’s finally officially a ranger. crow is a bit offput by the excitement but its no big deal.
he shoos her off and tells her to go meet the other rangers.
Part 2 – Jane
shes back to her to her usual serious self and takes the order. she leaves his office and starts to walk around, searching for the other rangers.
she has some internal dialogue, describing her feelings about the encounter with crow, a respected and well known ranger. the previous youngest. she looks up to him, but he’s not what she imagined. she wrongly attributes his coldness to his passion for the job. she also admits (internally) that she’s disappointed he didn’t shower her with praise.
mid thought she bumps into jane.
jane is small, and was busy yelling back to another ranger, saying that the new recruit should be here any minute.
penny greets Jane extremely formally.
jane calms down, and shows her kind hospitality. she offers her own introduction and tells her that she’s heard about penny. every outpost basically has heard rumors of her. good things. penny feigns ignorance.
penny’s thoughts imply she’s not surprised.
Part 3: Misha
jane and penny make it to the break room, where a very large boisterous man is found laughing. he’s reading a book on psychology, apparently having found something funny.
jane, clearly used to him, raises her voice over his laughter to get his attention.
the man looks over, smiles wide and stands up. he warmly and loudly greets the new recruit, calling her Ms. Umbra, messing up her name.
penny corrects him but they move on
jane introduces penny to the man, and the man to penny. his name is misha.
misha overs a hand excitedly, penny mirrors and they shake hands.
misha is impressed with her grip, saying that the rumors about her might be true after all.
penny: “you think so? just from a handshake?”
jane laughs, misha says you can learn a lot about someone from small things. jane says that misha hopes to some day become a therapist.
misha pats janes head, then barrages penny with questions.
penny tries to answer but misha is too excited.
jane calms them both down and takes over. she says there will be plenty of time for questions over time, but right now penny needs the rest of the tour.
Backstory Time: Penny – Part 1
Penumbra was always an observant and focused child. She enjoyed playing, learning, socializing, exploring, and most of all, animals. She had a natural curiosity for how things worked and always asked a lot of questions.
When she noticed that her family was small compared to other hare families, she’d ask why she was an only child. Her parents never gave her a satisfactory answer. She was just told that that’s just how it is, and some families are big while others are small.
The older she got, the more her parents pushed her to achieve. Her father would tell her how much he loves her for her accomplishments. Her mother would tell her how awful she would feel if her only daughter were to fail. Penny always rose to meet their expectations, doing her best to make them proud. She went to every lesson for every activity, got perfect grades, and pushed away friends. Her parents would talk about her endlessly when people were around, but she felt like they never spent any time with her when they were home.
In her free time, she would watch the bugs in the grass, the birds in the sky, any animal she could spot and scribble into a notepad. At night, she would stare at the moon and make up what kind of animals could live there. Some day, she wanted to visit it.