Week 1 Story: Cast Out

Little Penny-Nichole sat alone one afternoon, crying quietly to herself on a large rock still warm from the summer sun. It was her favorite place to go whenever she was sad but on this particular day she felt she would never leave the rock again. Her small elbows and knees were scraped up and bloody from the beating she had received, once again, from her three elder brothers. Penny-Nichole never liked her brothers. They were dumb brutes who only like to flaunt their strength to anything that dared exist too close to them. If anything thrived too much or was too lively near them for too long, they smothered it into desolation. After their parents died, the brothers had become even meaner to her. They beat her nearly every day if they could, but this day they had gone too far. The thought of her brothers caused little Penny-Nichole to weep louder. She clutched her tiny arms close to her chest and threw her cries into her bleeding knees.

"Why is a child as small as you crying louder than a wounded jackal?" A crackly deep voice broke through Penny-Nichole's wails and thoughts. She sprang from her rock, fearing it was her brothers returned to inflict more damage. She looked frantically around to locate the source of the voice. A pointy stick that she usually used to draw doodles in the dirt quickly became her trusty sword.

"Honestly, I thought you were obnoxious, brother, but this takes the cake!" This voice was higher, more like a woman's voice. It reminded Penny-Nichole of her mother's soothing voice that had always caressed her to sleep. Two people tromped out of the woods that lined the backside of Penny-Nichole's rock.

"Who-who are you? Did my brothers send you to me? I'm not going back!" Penny-Nichole sniffled and trembled as she slowly backed away from the two. She tightly clutched the pointy stick and held it at the two strangers. As Penny-Nichole looked between the two, she slowly felt at ease. The two strangers looked oddly familiar.

"Gregor, she's just a child." The woman spoke softly to the man and then turned and spoke to Penny-Nichole. "My name is Sarah Strike and this is my brother, Gregor Strike. We won't hurt you, young one. But, if you don't mind my asking, why are your brothers after you?" Sarah and Gregor sat on the warm rock.

Penny-Nichole hesitated for only a moment before dropping her stick sword.

"Did you say... Strike? As in the famous Strike Bounty Hunters who fight all over the galaxy?" Penny-Nichole's voice was a squeal of excitement now. She sprang over to the siblings and sat at the foot of the rock in front of them.

"Actually, I was reading one of your stories when it all happened. My brothers always like to take my things, you see, and your stories are my favorites. They tried to take my most favorite story, the one where you two helped save the tiger cubs of the cat clan Leonum from the evil wolf tribe. They told me the stories were fake and stupid... It made me angry so I told them that they were stupid dumb-dumbs. I told them the stories were real! They just had to be! But they stole it anyway and beat me up worse because I talked back to them. I ran away and came here where I always go to be sad. I don't want to go back, ever. They will just beat me up again." Penny-Nichole started to cry more, though she was clearly trying to hold her tears back in front of her childhood heroes.

"Well, what will you do now?" Gregor asked in a kind voice, patting the girl's small head.

"I don't know. I just know I can't go back to them. Ma and Dad are both dead now too, so they can't protect me from my mean brothers anymore. I'll probably just run away and try to live on my own in the forest."

Gregor nodded his head and then turned to Sarah. The two spoke to each other in a tongue that Penny-Nichole couldn't understand.

"Alright," Sarah finally said. She stood from the rock and went to kneel by Penny-Nichole, "Seeing as we are the reason you've been cast out, or at least refuse to go home and your parents aren't around anymore to protect you, why don't you come with us? You can be our apprentice!We could use a new pair of hands around the ship." Sarah smiled down to the little girl sweetly.

Penny-Nichole's eyes brightened and she leapt into Sarah's arms, embracing her in a hug. The three shared a happy moment before heading back to the Strikes' spaceship. Many adventures awaited the three. The three would now become intertwined in the lives of creatures the Strikes and Penny-Nichole themselves do not even realize exist.

Image by Mimzy

Author's note:
This story is based off of the Indian Fable The Fox and the Crabs by Ramaswami Raju. The original story tells of a fox who is sitting and crying from shunned from his kin because he didn't want to go and kill the crabs. He thought they were pretty creatures but the others still wanted to kill them. The crabs asked the fox what he would do since he couldn't go back to his family and when the fox didn't know they decided that since they were the cause for the fox to be shunned, they would employ the fox as their protector. Although, at the end of the story the fox ends up tricking the crabs and leads them into an ambush but I chose to leave that part out because I forgot to read it at first and because it very much doesn't fit with my story at all. I used my characters from when I took Myth & Folklore and recreated the fable so the girl, Penny-Nichole, is like the fox, the Strikes are like the crabs and the brothers are the fox's kin that cast him out. This story was really simple to recreate so it gave me a lot of freedom to create my new character, who will be used in many more stories in the future! While Penny-Nichole's backstory is kind of sad, she will have a much brighter future with the Strikes! Though, they will get into all sorts of trouble, but what fun would it be if they didn't?

Bibliography: "The Fox and the Crabs" from Indian Fables by Ramaswami Raju.