Chapter Text
Beatrix LeBeau was born into a world revolutionized by the Far, Far Range.
Of course, the discovery of the first life sustaining planet aside from Earth was big news, but the technological revolution that followed in the first hundred years after its discovery was what was really extraordinary. The discoveries of blue metal and plortonium were just the beginning; they pioneered the faster, sleeker, safer spaceships that allowed interstellar travel to become commonplace. Everything expanded from that point on.
Beatrix wanted to be a rancher for as long as she could remember. Growing up in the country didn't leave her with many opportunities to experience the wonders of plortonomics first hand, aside from the nearly supernatural ability of tangle plort enhanced fertilizer, but textbooks and rare trips to the capital left her in awe of spaceships that could travel 1,000 light years in a singular julian year, skyscrapers that reached toward the heavens, completely transparent and taller than anything Bea had seen in her life, and holophones: a seemingly arbitrary improvement to personal electronics, but they were really cool nonetheless.
So, when an Extraterrestrial Activities Committee (ETAC) recruiter set up a stand in her high school in her senior year, Beatrix submitted her information and began the grueling process of becoming a certified extraterrestrial resource assembler; also known as a Rancher.
Her higher education was paid for by the ETAC and 7Zee Corporation with the only restriction being that she double major in physics and astronomy. In both her military and collegiate studies, she passed every physical, oral, and written exam with flying colors. She graduated from Zee University at twenty-one years old with bachelor’s degrees in physics and astronomy, and she returned to her life, waiting for the day she was called upon to fulfill her childhood dreams.
The longer she waited, though, the more she began to doubt that she would ever get the chance to do just that. When she couldn’t find a job despite her impressive double major, she decided to put her dreams of roughing it in the great beyond aside and focus on exploring the world beneath her feet. However, those dreams did not remain dormant for long.
Faster than Beatrix would have thought, a vacancy had opened on a ranch a thousand lightyears away, and she was appointed a mission that began an entirely new chapter in her life.
Beatrix found her mind was blank as she passed under the entrance to her ranch. Her entire body throbbed dully as she plopped on the stoop in front of the Ranch House and she set her vacpack aside hastily, giving her arms a much-needed break. Relief flooded her as she slumped over and laid her head against her scabbed knees. She closed her eyes and let loose a low groan of pain that was muffled against the cloth of her pants, wrapping her brown arms around her thighs and running her gloveless hands over her wounded calves.
A mix of white, newly opened bandages and old dirty ones covered an abundance of small cuts that were scattered along her arms and fingers, and first aid cream was sloppily smeared onto burns, courtesy of overexcited boom slimes, that stung her legs and lower back.
Her protesting stomach only allowed her a few moments to comfort her aching limbs. As she sat up, she looked around. A few harmless largos were out of their corrals and bounding around the ranch, but that was a problem for later. She knew that the clean up for her absence would be annoying and didn’t want to try to assess the damage just yet.
Her stomach gurgled again as she caught a stray pogofruit setting a few feet away, and she quickly grabbed her vacpack. A few seconds later, she was holding a perfectly ripe pogofruit, smelling delicious and peachy.
Her cracked and dirty fingernails dug into the pogofruit’s soft red skin, peeling the spotted rind away from the sweet flesh beneath. By now it was about a quarter after noon. The sun shone down bright and warmed the back of Beatrix’s head and shoulders. Her mind was blank with exhaustion and hunger as she dug into her fruit; juice ran through her fingers and down her arm, soaking the bandages, but she paid it no mind as she chewed tiredly. She smiled through her voracious eating. The sweet taste was so welcoming she could have cried out of happiness.
She had set out five days before to acquire a few slimes for Viktor, a mission thought to be completely reasonable in its simplicity: five rad slimes, two crystal slimes, and three honey slimes. It could've been completed within two hours at most, and the five hundred newbucks he was offering her seemed like a fair price for the inconvenience. However, a multitude of mistakes that could only be described as major fuck ups had occurred in the Moss Blanket, and her brief outing turned into a days-long struggle with tarrs and feral largos (not to mention well-meaning but destructive slimes).
In the end, she came out of it with a broken jetpack and no gloves. The jetpack had been broken by a particularly aggressive tarr slamming her against a cliff in the Moss Blanket, and the gloves had been absorbed by a feral hunter largo.
But she made it out alive. She was gloveless, tired, and hungry, but she was alive.
Gods, what she would give to just sleep .
A symphony of explosions and chicken clucks sounded out and pulled Beatrix out of her tired and ravenous trance. A list of chores, already burned into her brain from years of routine, started running through her mind, and she dejectedly pushed the thought of going to sleep away in favor of getting what needed doing done. She quickly finished her pogofruit, wiped the remaining juices on her shorts, and headed over to her corral containing radboom largos, vacpack and gear hoisted back around her torso.
Hours passed, and she slowly made her way around the ranch. Her five-day absence caused quite a stir amongst its inhabitants due to feeders running out days before her return and plort collectors filling to maximum capacity, leaving quite an excess of plorts littering the corrals. Damage control was tough to manage in her state, but eventually, she finished the toils of feeding and cleaning and collecting plorts for most of the corrals on the ranch.
She finally made her way around to the Grotto. By then, she had fallen into a working trance, ignoring the heaviness of her eyelids and the discomfort in her every limb. She blocked everything out aside from the end objective: finish work and then sleep.
What eventually drew her attention away from her work was the small beep that signaled a new StarMail. It echoed from the coordinator handing off her hip off the cavernous purple walls of the grotto, coming and fading like the light of the phosphor largos surrounding her. Their lights were erratic as they bounced unhappily in their corrals, frowns plastered on their faces due to hunger and the plethora of uncollected plorts around them.
She was only momentarily surprised by the sound, but the pause in her work was enough to make the heaviness of her eyelids too much to bear. The soreness in her arms and legs had reached a peak and were now shaking slightly. She knew she had to stop soon, and a mix of curiosity and fatigue urged her to cease her duties as soon as the feeders were full. She soon began the short trek back to her house, leaving the excessive plorts to be a problem for tomorrow-Beatrix.
She dragged her hand along the rocky wall of the Grotto, the roughness dragging her down to earth as she walked. Smells of growing fruit and wet soil permeated the air as she emerged. The moon was high in the sky, casting an eerily beautiful white light onto everything in its path. Her shadow stretched out to the left along with the shadows of fruit trees and corrals, and she yawned, squeezing tears out of the corners of her eyes.
A faint lazy, sluggish sound reached her ears: the sound of goo waves pushing against the steep incline overlooking the Slime Sea to her left. It joined in with the sound of happily jiggling slimes, content in their recently restored corrals, and the crunch crunch of her sneakers on the rocky path that wound through the corrals and garden plots.
Her heavy legs finally approached her house. Now she was basically walking with her eyes closed, a headache slowly but surely building behind her eyes. She pinched the bridge of her nose, scrunching her eyes up and fighting off sleep just enough to get home and read this damned StarMail.
Her footfalls were heavy and thunked up the wooden steps, and, when she finally slumped against the door and turned the knob, she nearly fell through the doorway.
A familiar scene greeted her as she stumbled in. Her bed was exactly as she left it: sheets and blankets rumpled, pillows strewn about, and her trusted pink slime plushie atop it all. The long window along the back wall gave her a view of the moonlit ocean beyond. Her 7Zee issued computer seemed to glare into the dark room, and through her blurry, sleepy eyes Bea saw the StarMail icon blinking on her home screen. She didn't bother turning on the lights as she closed the door and took off her shoes. She hung up her vacpack on its designated hooks next to the entrance and walked to her desk.
Her bare feet were cold as she pattered across the concrete floor, and she really regretted not requesting slippers in her last supply drop. She felt the computer chair creak beneath her as she plopped down and shielded her eyes from the glare, struggling blindly for the brightness controls. Eventually, she managed to bring the unbearable brightness down to a soft glow, and she clicked on the flashing You've got mail! notification.
(no subject)
Mochi Miles
Hey, I know it's late over there, but it's been a while since you've shown your face and I've been wondering if you got eaten by a tarr. Nevertheless, I have some work you may be interested in, tarr snack or not. This is time sensitive, so shoot me a mail if you're ok.
Later, tater.
Mochi Miles
Bea ran a weary hand down her face. It came to rest on her cheek, and she leaned back in the chair.
She felt her lips form a faint smile. She found herself remembering Mochi’s original business proposition and how happy she had been to make a kind-of-sort-of-friend out there in the lonely, desolate expanse of the Far, Far Range. Mochi was brusque and impatient in nature, but Bea found herself drawn to the tenacious girl for her determination and personality. Even if she could be rough around the edges, Mochi had been a lovely business partner and friend (even though she had taken an inordinately long time to admit that she and Bea were indeed friends) to Beatrix ever since.
Bea had always hoped that they would get to spend some time together, but she knew better than to hope too hard. They were both working women carrying out a job that required nigh constant attention and accommodation. She found that the prospect of spending quality time with Mochi, time spent not as business partners but as friends, would be almost impossible, especially with how consumed Mochi became by her work when actual clients often came into the picture.
But regardless of the sadness that never getting to see Mochi wrought, talking to her when she could brought a lot of satisfaction to Bea. After all, her only companions weren’t exactly great conversationalists, and talking to Mochi always resulted in good conversation that nearly always brought laughter.
This email was no different. Even though she made it out to look like it was merely a business proposal, Mochi’s concern shone through to Bea. She was touched that Mochi had noticed how she had just dropped off the map for a few days, something she wasn’t wont to do.
She stared at her computer for a moment, a slightly goofy smile on her face, battling sleep before typing out a response:
Re: (no subject)
Beatrix LeBeau, Mochi Miles
Hey, Mochi. I'm fine. I've been a bit tied up the last few days, but it's nothing a good night’s sleep won't fix. And, no, I’m not a tarr snack quite yet. You haven’t lost your favorite worker bee (Lucky you ;-) )
I may not respond after this until morning, but I am interested in the job. I'll probably be making a stop over by your place tomorrow if you want to talk then.
Yours, Beatrix
She stared at the computer as she hit “send.” Suddenly, tomorrow didn’t seem like it was going to be such a hassle.
She shut the computer off and slowly stood up. Both her joints and the computer chair groaned in protest, and she raised her arms high above her head. The stretch cracked several of her vertebrae as she stood on the balls of her feet, and with a final groan, verbal this time, she trod quickly to her bed.
The amount of comfort she felt as she fell into bed was indescribable, so much so that any worries of getting her bed dirty were immediately cast aside. She rested with her face in her pillow for a moment, so relieved she could cry, letting the soreness ravage her body before she flipped around.
She pulled her legs up to her chest, dislodged the blankets from beneath her, and pulled them up to her chin. Suddenly, she was struck with momentary panic in her sleepy stupor. Her eyes were heavy as she reached blindly for her pink slime plushie; however, her fingers quickly snatched up the soft thing, and she held it close to her chest.
The lulling sounds of the sea dragged her off to the world of sleep for the first time in days. Wearing dirty and slightly singed clothes and grubby bandages, Beatrix LeBeau was home.