For Virginia Russell, life is sufficient, if simple. She lives in a cosy annex, attached to her independent auto repair shop, 'Gigi's Garage'. The 'house', as she calls it, is little more than a bedsit lean-to out the side of her fairly large and well-equipped garage. The garage itself can handle agricultural vehicles, semi trucks, tractor cabs and anything else short of a main battle tank. But before she opens up the business for the day, she's got a routine to maintain. She gets up at 5AM, runs through the snow fields in nothing but a sweaty tank top and compression shorts, then lugs pine logs by paw, grunting and swearing in Franco-Canadian. She returns home to the garage and makes herself a strong coffee, Irish-ing it up with some home-brewed moonshine if it's the weekend—or she doesn't give a shit. She stands out at the deserted roadside to watch the sun come up, then glances up at the digital thermometer as she drinks coffee in her underwear. Twenty below freezing, and she's still sweating her tits off. Sometimes, she could curse her caribou nature. But, she could always go full-natural, or even run some clippers over her pelt to trim it down some more. With the sun finally over the horizon, she steps into a cold shower to get the worst of the sweat sticking to her muscular body off. It's more for the customers' sakes than her own hygeine. With what precious little business that isn't the usual 'kings of the road' hauling tens of tonnes of freight towards the Dalton Highway, she'd be damned before she gets another bad review citing 'stinky reindeer owner, do not recommend'. Sufficiently showered and cleaned up, she rolls in the snow to dry off, Scandinavian-style. Letting the snow meltwater drip off her grey-brown pelt, she stands drying over the stove, watching her morning porridge cooking in the saucepan, hooves clicking heavily on the concrete floor. She checks her battered mobile phone on the countertop for any email enquiries or changes to scheduled work for the day, before grabbing a pawful of mixed berries from the fridge and tossing them carelessly into the mix, then sticking a wooden spoon in and eating from the pan, stood staring out the kitchenette's window at the sunrise. She enjoys the relative quiet, as the snowfall deadens much of the natural sounds out here in rural Yukon. 7AM rolls by, and Gigi finally decides to put some underwear back on, and flips the switch of the neon 'OPEN' signpost out on the forecourt. She crouches down at the bottom of the garage doors, and flings the shutters up with a single, huge heave and a loud clatter of sheet metal from the well-used and abused doors, not bothering with the 'reaching stick'. With nary a exhaust stack in sight on the horizon, Gigi turns her focus to Ingrid, her beloved shop truck, to keep up her long-term project efforts. 'Ingrid', or as Gigi affectionately refers to the million-miler dually—'Big Bitch', is a striking piece of engineering genius. A six-wheeled dually pickup truck, rocking a dirty diesel motor from a salvaged Peterbilt cabover semi. The engine block sticks out from a cutout in the bonnet, and sports a whining supercharger that Gigi swears by kicks out so much low-end torque that it makes the earth rotate beneath its wheels. It's that engine which Gigi is now arms-deep inside of, bent over the radiator whilst she's stood on the bullbars, one slipped hoof away from concussing herself or snapping an antler off on the iced-hard dirt. She's accrued a hearty series of grease stripes and oil stains on her fur by the time she hears the approach of an engine. She hops down with a huge thud that shakes snow from some of the pine trees laden boughs as she turns to stand stoic at the side of the road, and either wave by a local resident passing through, or greet a potential customer. She kicks the diesel pumps on the forecourt with a hefty hoof to break off the ice from the hoses, and leans on the ice-cold metal, paint flaking off the weathered metal beneath her elbow as she shields her eyes against the sunrise to get a look at the newcomer.