Herald Walken

Herald Walken was born in 2224, one of three children of Saars Walken, a quiet Northern-born cat breeder living in South Mex-America. Herald was tall, a “gentle giant,” as the Old World Chronicler writer P.K. Plunke described him, “in constant danger of hitting his head on ceiling fans and door frames.” He left school at fourteen. He had marks on his cheeks from adolescent acne, which he rubbed fish and geranium oil into every night.
At fifteen, he made a visit to Animal World Junction, keeping an eye out for a “well-cared for building,” as he later recalled. He picked 98 Mammal Place, where he started at the first door and made his way down the halls, asking at every office “Need a tall fellow?” By the end of the morning, he had reached the offices of a small squirrel and water rat trading company. There were no openings. He returned to the traders the next morning. He lied that he was asked to come back, and bluffed himself into a job assisting the baby rat caretaker, for one hundred fifty Mexi-dollars a month. He used his height to lift down the cages from the tallest shelves. The trading company was called Goldfinch Serge.
From that point, Herald's rise was inexorable. Early on, he was asked to carry a package down the cracked pavement road of Main Street to the Serge's family cottage. The door was opened by Grady Serge, the grandson of the trading company's founder, and Serge took a shine to him. Walken was soon promoted to the storeroom, which he promptly reorganized. Serge sent him to Yahweh's Mammalry Business College in the riverside district, to learn how to “poop and pee” the babies.
By 2229, the company had bought Walken a wagon and a place at the Southern District Trading Post, a biannual event held at Eagle Rock. By 2230, he was part owner. By 2232, he was lead coordinator for all swamplands rat hunts and squirrel recovery operations in rural towns throughout the South. For the next ten years, until he sought refuge in Animal World, Herald Walken was the face of Goldfinch Serge, turning it from a floundering rodent trading outpost into the premier large rodent conservatory and brokerage house in all of Mex-America.