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Palamid 
(Goat)
“What's that, noises in the back? I'm sure it's nothing, just leave through the front door... quietly. T-thank you!”
Pal is a quiet young dinosaur rancher hailing from the desert canyon from the Southern continent. She is well-meaning and hopeful, but gets confused and nervous easily, often clamming up around people. Despite her shyness and being rather young, Pal is largely independent and resourceful, and moves to the city to look for her lost mentor/brother figure Korn - though not on her own, exactly. Pal travels with an entourage of dinosaurs from her hometown for protection and company, and some of them aren't really the size you can store in a cardboard box, so Pal ends up spending much of her time looking for jobs to pay for a warehouse, racks of meat and paper towels. Having huge beasts of burden gives her some broad job options. Unfortunately she is easily distracted and can't turn down anyone asking for help, so Pal still has a long way to go on her search for Korn.
She is spooked by shouting customers, angry employers, traffic, trains, trucks and boats, and tends to hide from the vantage point of her dinos' shoulders, where she feels safest (and looks somewhat intimidating). But while Pal gets jittery around many aspects of city life, she is completely confident handling any sort of animal, no matter how large and toothy. Her specialty at the ranch was in fact handling the larger carnivores, training them to guard the area and haul loads from one place to another. In this she has an immovably calm hand - when you're holding the leash to something that could bite your arms off in a second, it's important to keep your nerves. But this mindset doesn't work on cars and businessmen!
Pal is a satyr, essentially human with goat-like characteristics such as fluffy body fur, horns, and hoof-like callouses. Besides appearances, they have no major physiological, mental or magical differences when compared to unvaried humans - despite some superstitions.
- Pal's favorite dino and longtime companion is a green Allosaurus-looking creature named Aureol, whose egg she watched hatch when she was very little. He's serious and obedient, tries hard not to break things despite his size, and can carry a lot of mail for their courier work. He has never eaten a person, but nothing shuts down potential muggers or harassers like a giant lizard's open maw.
- Dinosaurs are like livestock animals in this world, often used for farm labor, transport or guarding property. Some types are even intended to be eaten. They don't necessarily have feathers or reflect real species... because they're mostly oversize Neopet petpets. They certainly act like her pets.
- These 'dinosaurs' that the South desert satyrs cultivate are not literally preserved or revived prehistoric creatures but rather some species that were developed to resemble them...
- Pal isn't much of a sprinter, but a good long-distance traveller and climber, she seems to have a lot of stamina and doesn't get sick easily.
- She is tall for her age and usually silent or mumbling; on some jobs (especially if she's riding on a dino's back) she's sometimes mistaken for an adult man.
- She can come across a little callous toward anyone looking for emotional support. Maybe because she’s only good at practical stuff, and not too talkative. And maybe she just isn’t fond of most people. In a life or death situation she’d probably save an animal over a person.
- Despite her affinity for animals, she has a pragmatic edge and isn't automatically emotional, except toward her childhood favorites. For example, she's more likely to praise the health of a creature than its cuteness (at least outwardly... maybe she just keeps enthusiasm under wraps.)
- In her hometown, she was trained like the rest of the family to hunt, trap and shoot, although these skills haven't been especially useful in her city life.
- When she is compelled to talk more she can sound anxious and rambly, often petering out before finishing a sentence.
- She eats quite a bit of fast food.
Traveller
Part of a tiny tour group that Pal leads through the canyon, a cool and dignified courier for the Central university network. Despite his mild manner, he made quite an impression on Pal... especially when he leapt into action to defend them from the 'phoenix' that attacks them on their journey.
Pal had never had much interaction with army men before, but for a non-flying combatant, he seemed awfully well-prepared for an aerial battle, which gave her confidence to step in and help in the fight.
He left his city contact details along with thanks after his departure; Pal means to track him down again one day and thank him back, but she's not sure what words she'd use... and she's got so much else to do...
Traveller
The other half of the ill-fated tour group Pal takes through the canyon. A grouchy art college student from the North interested in the region's historical caves and paintings, he was not as pleasant as Waifaiseeto, but somehow relatable. He seemed to take to Pal as they both enjoyed sitting in amicable silence.
Somehow, Pal finds it easy to forget that the guy was a griffin. He seemed reluctant to try flying or even unfold his wings. Unfortunately, he one time she saw him to do so was when he shakily flew up a cliff to see a figure who appeared to be standing at the edge... the figure turned out to also be a griffin of sorts, the explosive menace that engulfed him in a fireball, threw him to the ground, and attacked the rest of them. Last she saw of him, he was bundled off in an ambulance.
Apparently, he'd doing okay now. Pal keeps meaning to check on him too. There's so much she's putting off...
Local legend
Over the skies of the canyon, on hot days a screeching red shape is sometimes seen darting around, occasionally firing flaming wisps at the cliffs. It's no ancient being - in fact the 'crying phoenix' only started cropping up the last couple of years. Can you really call something that just appeared so recently a 'legend'? While more of a nuisance than a danger (it seems to avoid people) the satyrs mobilized some flying aid to keep the thing off the towns, a bit like flying sheepdogs.
Unfortunately, Pal and her tour group find that close up, the thing is not quite so innocuous nor as cowardly as rumored - but nor is it something so inhuman. When attacked, Pal calls on a real legend of the canyon, an enourmous semiferal pterosaur, to defend them, with the aid of one of her mysterious tourists.
While the altercation didn't exactly solve much, it did give Pal the courage to make an important decision - heading out to Central.
Friend
A reactionary classmate with with some unnerving incendiary hobbies, unfortunately Pal seems to have caught her attention despite not being all that good with school attendance. Luckily, Misaki seems to take kindly to Pal, and Pal knows how to play it safe around dangerous creatures. It's a little awkward that she's found herself reacting this way to a human kid, though - unless Misaki isn't...?
Friend
An animal lover classmate who's eager to meet and pet and give treats to her herd. He's not particularly careful, but the lizards like him well enough and nobody's been bitten or scratched yet. Maybe they like him because there really aren't too many people around who are happy to meet them.
He and Pal are similar save for one very important factor - K is very much a people person, and despite initial shyness, he isn't really afraid of any person no matter how big and loud and sarcastic they are. He treats them all the same and somehow it works out. At least, as much as Pal's seen... yup, he sure is a risk-taker.
Lodger
A big, mellow hospital worker who's sublet a room in Pal's rented warehouse. Sometimes he agrees to meet people when Pal is too nervous, or if an adult face is needed. Although he only seems interested in sleeping, eating, and watching movies, he's oddly effective in guarding the place whenever he's around.
Dinosaurs are very tame around him, for some reason.
Cousin
An old mentor and guardian of hers; a cousin around ten years senior. Korn an experienced handler-veterinarian who seemed capable wrangling even the fiercest of their herd, refined and strong yet patient enough that even nervous little Pal could take it easy around him, surprising her parents with the progress she made as a dino trainer, after a troublingly mousey disposition she'd shown all throughout childhood. Korn was never overbearing or even particularly tender, but in a way this gave Pal the room needed to grow. There was a sense that they were both misfits which bonded them, and although Korn was never one to complain, she also always suspected that he'd eventually leave the ranch - and sure enough he did. Reading his letters home, it was hard not to be happy for him, until the letters stopped.
Korn's curious disappearance in Central's capital was what made normally-reclusive Pal venture off the family ranch of her own will. Following in his footsteps so to speak. As she learns more about Korn's glamorous life in the city, she begins to wonder how well they really knew each other. Maybe if she had been a bit different, if she had helped change their dusty hometown to suit him, he wouldn't have left. Or she should have followed him sooner... As with all her human relationships, Pal's back and forth and fearful, always on the brink of just letting things go - but no matter how long it takes, she wants to see this story through.
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