Berry Nut

By Something Interesting

• November 21, 2012




Age: 64

Gender: Male

Species: Unicorn

Appearance: A little less then average height. He has a dark blue skin, white mane, with yellow eyes.

Cutie Mark: Scroll on his flank with many strange symbols on it. The symbols look like some sort of different language. This is basically representative of his mind. How it processes information from reading things and looking at them from a different, but efficient perspective.

Personality: He has a way of speaking to people that seems to always make it appear as though there is some great problem in his life. Characterized by his deceivingly grumpy demeanor, but occasionally this gives way to his experience and wisdom. He hides as much of himself from other ponies, but those brighter ponies might catch glimpses of his inherent intelligence. He thinks most other ponies have it easier then he ever did. He despises young ponies who don't appear toughened by life. He's not afraid to hurt the feelings of another pony with the way he talks. In fact, there doesn't seem to be a lot that he is actually afraid of. He commonly jokes around with his old age by fooling with people, then berating them terribly at the cost of as much of their dignity as he can take. He enjoys making ponies wary of him. The more awkward stares, the better he feels about things. That means they'll probably leave him alone. So get off his lawn!

Backstory: Berry grew up in Ponyville with a relatively boring family. He went to school normally. Rarely did he skip days, because he was a fairly goody-four-hoof pony. There were school children that made fun of him because of his name. They called him “Very Nuts”, which he hated a lot. They would set him up for embarrassing situations every other week, and it became thought that this was his natural state. Disorganized, disorderly, and a bit of a clown. This too, Berry hated with a great unusual passion for one so young. When he was in school, he never spent his allowance on food, ever. He felt that anything he spent it on while so young, would be wasted. So he saved all of it, typically eating things that were safe to eat. Or conveniently stealing it when he knew he couldn't get caught. He obtained his cutie mark when one day he suddenly realized that his ability to memorize things was nearly flawless, and he could reconstruct objects based on how he thought they looked. He began going around town a few evenings out of the week, which his parents didn't mind. <br /><br /><br />He was an only child, and he drove them crazy with advanced scientific and historical questions. He began to memorize certain machines, examining them for a few moments before leaving away, and then reconstructing it. His cutie mark appeared, as scroll on his flank that had many strange symbols on it. This freaked out many ponies at his school, so they stopped picking on him. When he got out of school, making some of the best grades, he became bored and decided to go traveling. Which he quickly found out was not at all so glamorous as he had read in books. In one particular instance where he traveled up north through the mountains, he was snowed on and had no shelter. Nearly dying in that journey taught him that traveling was overrated. So he moved to Manehatten to start a business. He walked down the streets, going into various stores and memorizing any sort of nifty nicknack he saw.<br /><br />When he went into one store that sold expensive watches, he became fascinated with the idea of creating a store dedicated to watches and other odd inventions. He began immediately, having saved up a significant portion of money from allowance when he was younger, he bought a small shop space, and built everything himself. He had a very small flow of customers, and it became clear within minutes that this venture wasn't going to be profitable for him. So he scrapped everything within a couple of days, and sold what he could by haggling fiercely with those interested in buying even the smallest things. <br /><br /><br />He traveled the land over the years, starting businesses of many kinds. He made some money, stashed as much of it away as possible. One day he stumbled upon a possible treasure map when he was middle aged, in his 40s. He lived in a makeshift cave that used to belong to a bear until he tricked the bear into leaving it, then lead it on a goose chase in the rain until even the bear didn't know where he was anymore, then he trapped the bear in a genius rope trap that hung the bear up like a sack of drying clothes. The cave was his by rule of intellect, which was his personal law. If you're smart enough to do it, do it. If you're witty enough to take it, take it. Pony eat pony, dog eat dog, he knew that if he didn't live in that truth he'd die with the idea. <br /><br /><br />He had begun hiding his cutie mark since his early 20s, since some ponies didn't like the idea of him being smarter then them. But he knew he was. He played dice on the streets with some ponies that were not as fortunate to have a cave to live in... or more fortunate because they had homes usually. Just bored ponies who most of the time had an actual job. <br /><br /><br />He had considered getting a real job, but couldn't imagine a stupid pony telling him how to do something pointless. There wasn't a wage high enough in Equestria to make that worth the aggravation. So he sometimes came into the city to play dice.<br /><br />He won a map this way. He knew there was a chance it was fake, but he was getting up there in years, and had to try to make something of himself. He got the nerve one day, and followed the path according to the map. He lived off the land and his wits while gathering what he could. <br /><br />It led him a little past Ponyville, and into some jungle area. He found the tree, it was marked, but when he dug at the spot, he didn't find a chest. Instead, the ground caved in around him and he fell a great distance into an underground cave. He smashed his head, and hit some water. He should have died there, but the current was quick, the water a bit shallow, and this allowed him to be practically tossed to a bank, where he regained consciousness after several minutes. He dazedly dragged himself on land. Looking around, he saw a wealth of old items, antiques clearly. It was someone's old home, and he noted from the looks of things, it would now be his. There was no way out, and he didn't want to risk the river. So for years he stayed in the cave. He lived by eating mushrooms and algae. There were many a books in the cave, some written by the previous occupants, and others were classic works. He read them all, but after 5 years, he decided to risk the river. And used his magic to craft a rocky breathing apparatus with the help of the algae, the top would stick out of the water, and then extend when the river went more underground when he used his magic. <br /><br />Following the river, which he came close to drowning when the apparatus couldn't stretch anymore, led him to a marshy area. He clomped into Ponyville, and took a job at the library there. He gave up. He hated his job, hated other ponies for their success at such little effort, and grew to truly hate those who didn't work for what they had. He wasn't terribly angry, just tired of the chase. He stayed out of sight of other ponies as much as he could. Not volunteering much information, and tending to lean towards isolation. He had no real friends. Those he met in Manehatten never even came looking for him. For him, friendship is a lie.