Penny watched the starling ruffle its feathers on her windowsill. It looked like an irritable ball of feathers with a beak. She could relate. She was sprawled over over her couch, chin resting on the back as she watched the bird. She'd been here for half an hour, just wallowing in the fact that she had been told, once again, that she was just too "Midwestern" for a role. 'Dammit', she thought,'What the hell does that mean? Lots of actresses are blonde!' Sighing, she threw herself back on the couch and stared at the ceiling. "What it really means is, they think I look like a farm girl. No matter what I wear, or what my make-up looks like, or how I do my hair. Gawd." A fluttering sound caught her attention, and she glanced up as the starling landed on the back of the couch. She scowled at it, wondering why today, of all days, it was visible. The annoying thing had been popping in and out of her life since she was twelve, and just like the day it had shimmered into being before her very eyes, just seeing it made her stomach clench. It was that day, she knew what she was. They'd covered it, briefly, in Health Class in 7th Grade. She was a Guide, and if she couldn't hide it from everyone, her life was already over.
Luckily for Penny, she was part of the popular crowd, and this was the same year they started experimenting with drinking. There is not a lot to do in tiny American towns, and so most kids at some point experiment with alcohol, drugs and sex. The alcohol depressed the empathy and mild psychic abilities that began to develop, and twelve year old Penny began to carry a flask. Not hard to get, she just swiped one of her grandmother's old ones. Penny was not the prettiest or most popular girl in school, but she was definitely part of that group. There were a few rough patches where the wrong boy would pay more attention to her than the Queen Bee and Penny was shown her place, but overall, with a little alcohol, some pot, and lots of masculine attention, Penny skated through, without anyone the wiser. It helped that as far as she knew, there had never been a Sentinel or Guide from her town. Well, not in her lifetime, or her parent's. So unless she turned herself in, she was good. She was a naturally friendly, sunny person, and was not giving her life any thought at all, until that pregnancy scare Senior Year. That was her wake-up call. She could see her whole life stretching out in front of her. A kid with Rick, a year or two of that, a break-up, more loser guys, maybe more kids, a trailer and never, ever leaving this town. And that was it for her. After graduation, she pissed her parents off by telling them she was leaving, and then she did. Straight to California to be an Actress.
Penny didn't know much about Spirit Animals, as she had avoided all the information about Guides that she could. She just wanted to cover it up and forget it. However, in those times when that starling was there, she felt like it was showing her who she really was. Unremarkable, plain, ordinary, forgettable. She hadn't even been the prettiest girl in Hicksville, no wonder she was so often passed over here. As for acting talent, well, she liked to think that she could use all those other people's emotions that she couldn't always keep out to at least fake it until she got better at it. It had worked like a charm in the High School plays she did. She'd gotten in the local paper. So far, though, it didn't seem to be working here, and her life was slipping away in polyester uniforms just like she had always been afraid it would. The only thing different was the locale. Well, and the company. Certainly, she'd never met anyone like the guys, or Bernadette or Amy, in Nebraska.
"Go away!", she snapped at the starling that was looking at her through beady black eyes, head tilted. Gawd, that bird was always bad news.