Synovia

By Taialin

• May 21, 2016
No Not Cast Young Adult

Synovia doesn't look spectacularly different from other zebras, though in the land of ponyfolk, she is quite unique. She's a slightly tall zebra for her age, in that her withers stand about a hoof above the conventional pony mare. Her hooves are the relatively spindly struts that hold up her form, and her neck is similarly slim. Her frame is not unlike that of a model, and the rest of her looks do little to dissuade from that image.

 

Her coat is a soft grey with darker grey stripes superimposed (though you'd be forgiven for assuming the opposite). Those stripes are the ribbons that wrap her legs and barrel, pattern her rump, and line her face. The stripes thin somewhat on the legs, fading to nonexistence at the pastern. Her fetlocks are unshorn, partially obscuring her dark hooves.

 

Her tail is long and wavy, cascading over itself as a torrential waterfall does over a sharp ridge. Her mane is similar: long, wavy, and voluminous. She may or may not tie it back to prevent it from obscuring her vision. Both are striped dark and light as her coat is. Depending on where she is at the time, they may be dyed blue (to better blend in with chromatic ponyfolk) or remain the striped grey that her zebra ancestry willed them to be.

 

Synovia is otherwise unexceptional except for the midnight blue stole that she wears around her shoulders. It was made by her mother and is the only belonging she has of her family left. Imprinted with a damask-like pattern, she is never seen without it.
 

Female Zebra A stylized ampersand, symbolizing linkage. https://buffy.mlpforums.com/ee037be8eb03ea921266d3843ab6bf3b.jpg

Perhaps the most iconic part of Synovia's personality is her penchant to speak in similes, metaphors, and other analogies. It is a facultative part of her personality, and she can speak concisely when she has to, but it is most natural for her to make her point with images not necessarily directly related to the conversation proper. Even if those images are cryptic ones. Much as a good piece of art conjures up more images and ideas, so too does a conversation. And sometimes, it's just most evocative and effective to make conversation with the images themselves.

 

She's rather neutral in mood most of the time, neither grouchy nor exuberant. She takes the middle road in most daily interactions, being pleasant enough to everyone she meets, but not easily emotionally moved in any direction. To that same end, her facial expressions are tightly controlled. If a frown appears on her face and persists, it means that the Cerberus has been pricked enough, and he wants revenge. That revenge doesn't come physically or in any way overtly, but her words do grow sharper and her analogies darker. On the other hoof, while smiles and pleasantry come easily and frequently, they are nothing more than convincing façades that she's become quite adept at putting on as a consequence of her bartender line of work. She's not typically cheery, but she can appear that way. Genuine smiles are rare.

 

Synovia's looks are something that she gets frequent compliments on, but they're not actually something she works unduly hard to maintain. Given that she often finds herself on the road, she doesn't take the time to style her mane or tail or otherwise change her looks. The way she wakes up is the way that she goes about her day is the way she sleeps at night. Nor does she mind much if dust covers her body or her mane gets frizzy on occasion. The flower blooms at the dawn of every day; it doesn't matter if someone kicked it at noon.

 

It's her way of speaking combined with her looks that leads to an overall disposition of unreachability. Many are intimidated by her, even in her relatively mundane job as a bartender. It's not uncommon for the savvy businesspony to turn nervous in front of her and start tripping on their words. But there are the few who gain the courage to ask her for something more than a drink, whether it be a night out, a walk on the shoreline, or an invitation to visit. Sometimes they have romantic intentions, sometimes not. Sometimes they are quite obvious in what they really want, sometimes not.

 

It doesn't matter. She rejects them all.

 

The reasons that she does are deep-set and not ones she likes to elaborate on, but concisely put, it is because she is exceptionally slow to trust anyone other than herself. Even with the companions that she meets with rather often, she views them with relative distrust, conversing with them little different from a stranger. It's this facet that makes her an ideal bartender but a poor friend: always amiable, never familiar. It's a strange relationship where the closer one gets, the colder they feel.

 

It's not necessarily an idiosyncrasy of choice or even desire, but more of habit and instinct. Synovia genuinely would like another with which she could confide in without reserve, vent her angers to, and cry with when grieving. But that would require putting her trust in them, vainly hoping it would be kept safe in perpetuity. The mouse knows emerging from the safety of his den and going for the cheese would kill him, even if that cheese was a mere three feet away. Only in her moments of lapse does she become more candid, and even then, only for a moment. It all culminates to her adopting a rather existentialist philosophy on life: a single mare trying to make sense of an senseless world with nothing more than her wits, words, and will. Whatever that may mean and wherever that may bring her.
 

Likes: Anything reminding her of her early past, anyone disturbing her stole, overly persistent ponies with probing questions they ought not to ask about

 


—Chapter 1: Trust—


Synovia was born in a small plains farming tribe in a land far estranged from Equestria in both distance and culture. She never knew her father or her mother, both having passed away shortly after their birth. Her sister, Cassia, made up her only immediate family. Though born a year apart, Synovia and her sister were always doing the same things at the same time, whether playing, eating, or even sleeping. Given how frequently they appeared together, the quickest way other members of the tribe could tell them apart was by the color of the stoles their mother weaved for them at birth: Synovia blue, Cassia red.

 


Synovia was quite different as a foal. She held youthful exuberance, innocent eagerness, and boundless energy that was only matched by her sister. Even without her parents, the rest of the tribe looked after the sisters like their own daughters. They were often described as the same zebra split into two halves, and this description stayed even as they earned their cutie marks. As a heavy drought threatened to push the entire tribe to hunger, Synovia and Cassia both discovered that digging irrigation channels from a nearby river obviated the need to wait for rainfall to water crops. They earned their cutie marks at the same time, both symbolizing linkage: Synovia an ampersand, Cassia a looped chain.

 

Just as she extended her heart to every member of the tribe at the time, Synovia was fast to extend that spirit to visitors as well. They weren't common to her tribe, but they did come occasionally. One such visitor was a tall and admittedly good-looking stallion zebra adorned with various types of jewelry. She remembered his name at one point but refuses to acknowledge it in her memories now.
 
 
 


—Chapter 2: Fool Me Once—


Synovia and Cassia met him on a channel-digging trip outside of the tribe. He introduced himself as a traveling surveyor: a stallion who visited various tribes to see if they should be added to trade routes. He was a friendly sort, telling them stories of his travels and even giving the sisters sweets from his home. The sisters were all too eager to bring him back to the tribe and convince him theirs was a good one, where they showed him all the most exciting places: the river from which they borrowed water, the fields which never seemed to go fallow, and of course the creeks that held the gold ideal for trading. The stallion thanked the sisters for showing him around and promised to return.

 


And return he did. With an organized militia intent on conquest and establishment of a new zebra empire.

 

The takeover of their lands was swift and nearly without resistance; a tribe of a few dozen stood no chance against a militia of hundreds. They soon took the creeks, the river, and the fields for their own. Synovia and Cassia were shocked that their new friend had done this to them. The rest of the tribe had plenty of time to educate the two on their folly, however, as they were all swiftly imprisoned by the militia.

 

The empire had already overtaken numerous tribes, and as such, there were a number of captured indigenous beings which it needed to manage. It was needless to kill or banish them, but they couldn't be trusted, either. Thus, the empire decided to put the indigenous to work, foals and all, in menial laboring jobs and other unpopular positions. As such, they would need to be transported to wherever in the empire they would be most useful, dependent on their cutie mark, and closely watched until they could be trusted in their new roles.

 

And so it was that one day, Cassia was taken away for metal mining duties while Synovia was taken to a small city to serve as a transcriber. Two sisters, inseparable from birth, ripped apart for the first time, isolated to parts unknown to the other. The screams that issued from the sisters at that moment were deafening and horrible, and the sadness and anger Synovia felt nearly drove her mad. Synovia has nightmares about that moment to this day.
 
 
 


—Chapter 3: Fool Me Twice—


Synovia was nearly dysfunctional in her new job, mad with grief and angry beyond reason. She didn't have long to wallow in her despair, however, as a second invasion, this one by liberating forces, destroyed the city and freed everyone under the empire's rule. Newly liberated and filled with hope, Synovia was quick to beg the invading forces to search for her sister in whatever mining settlements the empire had established or taken over. She loosed all her desperate pleas to a zebra mare of the invading force, a former mother turned military strategist. She listened to Synovia's tearful pleas and promised to search for Cassia at once.

 


Just as Synovia's trust was already betrayed once, it was betrayed again as the liberating army's next target became the nearest metropolitan area.

 

It was a prime strategic target, having connections to several other areas and being the center of empire power itself, but it was one where Cassia couldn't possibly be found. Now betrayed twice, Synovia forsook any further "help" and sought to find her sister herself. But the plains were large, and she was just one zebra. Despite the numerous mining settlements she surveyed and the many beings she consulted, she never found hint nor hide of her sister. Even as the liberating force finished their mission and returned the zebra plains to the numerous peaceful tribes that once held it, Synovia met with no success.

 

Synovia searched for years for the only family she ever knew, but every passing month made it less likely that she would find her. She couldn't even find confirmation whether Cassia was dead or alive. Stricken with grief but realizing that her life would go no further if she continued to pursue her fruitless quest, Synovia sealed her past in a small box in her heart and decided to leave the zebra plains, a land where she knew of only sadness and betrayal, taking with her the only relic of her past she had fond memories of: her stole. She would quest for a new purpose, and it was a quest she would make alone.
 
 
 


—Chapter 4: Never Again—


Her travels led her to many lands with many beings, getting her in touch with deer, griffins, and buffalo, among other societies. She worked many an odd job along the way, from menial farmhand to dancer to model, learning a great hoof-ful of proficiencies along the way. Everything that she's done to date, however, hasn't been able to fill the void that appeared when she left the zebra plains; she was always eventually left feeling unsatisfied and unfulfilled. And whenever that feeling came and she concluded she would not find a life where she was, she picked up her belongings and left, searching for another future. Wandering from one place to the next, leaving a chain of memories behind.

 


Her most recent travels have led her to Equestria, the land of ponies, specifically Canterlot. There, she works as a bartender in the suburbs of the city, filling the bar with ponies who wanted to see the new exotic zebra. She has stayed there for a few months, finding the community and the locale pleasant, but she is still willing to move anywhere she might chase a new purpose in life. Or, if fortune would favor her greatly, find hints as to the whereabouts of her sister.

 

Given her tumultuous existence, Synovia has questioned the true meaning of her cutie mark several times. She's thought of a few explanations, including her ability to link communities to the resources they need, bind two disparate concepts together through metaphor, and joining her various experiences into a compound life story, among others. None satisfy her. In her mind, the moment she can answer this question is also the moment she will have found her purpose. Then, and only then, will her quest be complete.
 
 
 


—Epilogue: Synovia's True Purpose—




All of Synovia's cutie mark explanations are, in fact, correct; they are all related to linkage (though only one was what originally earned her her cutie mark). What keeps her searching for a "purpose" and keeps her from finding closure on the subject is the one thing that she swore she would never do again: put her trust in another. She once knew how to do this in her youth, but she has since forsaken it, deeming it dangerous and futile. Despite the risks, it is a critical skill to building long-term relationships, finding true friends, fostering bonds romantic and platonic, and obtaining the emotional support she desires. In other words, linkage.

 


The need to rediscover this skill is the quest that Synovia doesn't know that she's on. She could find this in a number of ways, whether it be talking with a patient tutor willing to work through Synovia's personal issues, a being she is sexually attracted to but can't emotionally reconcile with, or a quest where making friends is compulsory for success. What would not teach her is finding her sister again. Though she would find immense happiness in it, just reforming bonds with Cassia would not teach Synovia how to form new ones.

 

Synovia's travels have led her to explore various locales with different cultures and different beings. Needing a way to communicate with all of them, she became a polyglot of sorts, learning several languages to conversational fluency. She also adopted several accents from her travels, which she uses either to accommodate a foreign language or to feel more at home in whatever location she happens to be in. She can change it on a whim, but at current, that accent happens to be Canterlotian.

 

As a consequence of her early days of wandering, she learned self-defense, pressure point locations, and disabling maneuvers. She is not anti-social, and she does not prefer to use her acquired techniques (or even reveal she has them), but it leads her to take aggressive stances or lash out swiftly when startled.

 

Synovia's unique manner of speaking is a result of her upbringing; her entire tribe tended to speak in metaphors, including her sister. It's a facet of speaking she finds she's unwilling to drop without reason.

 

Cutie Mark Reference.

 

Many thanks to Crecious for drawing Synovia's profile.