Faline
Faline is a deer and a VIP Tour Guide at Deersneyland, the young doe who meets the pack at the gate on Nick's birthday and stays with them for the whole day. It is her first VIP assignment. She makes her first appearance in We Can Fix Pawbert in the W-Series.
Background
Faline is a cast member in a Deersneyland blazer, antlerless, bright-eyed, with a name tag in the park's friendly font and a white tail that flicks with every change of direction. She has rehearsed her welcome since the morning and still means it. The park's whole workforce is deer, and she is one of them; the mammal who runs the corporation is not.
Personality
Her composure is Deersneyland-perfect and it is also work. When a boat full of city heroes stalls under her care she works the radio through a stall that runs most of an hour, keeps her posture, and lets nothing show except the tremor in her hooves and one breath she has to control on purpose, a decision to hold that only one mammal in her group notices. She treats the first failed photograph as a scheduling problem and promises the next one after every miss. Given a chance to be nervous in front of her CEO she stares at the pavement, and given the door to leave through she turns back for a wave that nobody rehearsed.
Series History
W-Series
In "Deersneyland II" she is notified before the pack even reaches the front of the line, and arrives at the gate at speed with four gold lanyards and a HAPPY BIRTHDAY NICK! button for a party whose fox never booked any of it. She leads the pack through the day on priority queues, keeps the lunch reservation a secret, and rallies for a new photograph after each miss. When the It's a Small World boat stops mid-channel she is on the maintenance walkway with a radio and a tail vibrating at the pitch of professional panic, and after fifty-three minutes she walks the pack out apologizing. Pawbert is the one who sees her nearly crack afterward; he drops back beside her, says her name, and tells her she handled it well and that someone noticed, and she thanks him as Mr. Pawthorne with her chin dipped. At the exit, when Bob Tiger appears, she straightens into a posture no training covered, and Nick commends her to him by name for running a stranded boat like a trained negotiator. The CEO notes it and tells her to walk with him. She turns back at the corridor door for an unrehearsed wave, and the night closes behind her.
Key Relationships
Pawbert Pawthorne
Pawbert is the only mammal who sees her about to come apart after the stalled ride, and he tells her so without making it public. He learned to see through composure by living behind it for years. She thanks him by his married name, and the tremor stops.
Nick Wilde
The birthday guest whose boat broke on her watch says her name out loud to the head of the corporation and asks for the guide version of a medal. Wherever the evening takes her afterward, it started there.
Bob Tiger
Her CEO walks into her group on the day her ride broke down, hears a fox commend her, and takes her with him when he leaves. What comes of it is not on the page.
Trivia
- Faline takes her name from Bambi's mate in Bambi (1942).