Cascade Swirl

By Descant

• December 30, 2012




Age: 20

Gender: Female

Species: Pegasus

Appearance: She was born with a wing defect that highly hindered her flight. She was never able to fly with the other pegasi, and has only recently gained the power of flight. Even now that she can fly, she rarely does, preferring to stay on the ground, or in the water, where she uses her wings as rudders, or as paddles, or as a penguin would to steer her underwater flight.<br /><br />She has a long, sleek navy blue mane, streaked with cyan, that resembles a tumbling waterfall, or the wavy pattern you see on the floor of a pool. It always shimmers and shines as if it were wet, even when its not. Her mane never tangles, somehow. <br /><br />She has a streamlined appearance, and is always kept fit. She's rather small-framed, even for a pegasus.<br /><br />Again, her coat is sleek, and is the pale gold of sand sparkling on the bottom of the clear lakebed.

Cutie Mark: A bluish swirl resembling a whirlpool, or else a current and a countercurrent swirling endlessly around each other.

Personality: Bubbly and fun-loving, incredibly innocent and almost naive. She's a little too trusting sometimes.<br /><br />Loves anything and everything to do with the water, and is rarely seen away from it.<br /><br />Very sensitive about her wings. Her entire demeanor changes if she thinks somepony even noticed how they are different, even though they don't look horribly ugly and disfigured. Possibly as a result of how she was teased about them in school, and how she couldn't fly with them.<br /><br />She is a lousy flier, and usually uses her wings like flippers instead, rather like a penguin would. When she's in the water, she's at home.<br /><br />She's rather impatient and quick-paced. It's not often she can sit still. She even talks fast.<br /><br />She moves very gracefully, as if she was always underwater.<br /><br />She loves adventure, and water sports. A lot of the time, she'll float on the surface of the water, her legs curled up beneath her, using her wings as paddles, not unlike an IRL kayaker. <br /><br />She doesn't handle stress or confrontations well, and if she starts to feel overwhelmed, she will flip, and either attempt to get away from the situation, crying, or become suddenly aggressive and disagreeable.<br /><br />This, paired with her strong desire for conformity, typically causes Cascade to get very upset about anything concerning her wings. Sometimes it gets to the point that she hides them completely and pretends to be an earth pony.<br /><br />She can hold her breath for an unusually long time.<br /><br />Afraid of heights, unusually for a pegasus.<br /><br />She lives in a giant sand castle in a peaceful lake estuary. The sand is packed so densely it is almost like stone.

Backstory: Cascade was born in the flying city of Las Pegasus, and her mother disappeared immediately after her birth. She was born with a horrible birth defect. Her feathers were laid out wrong, strangely laid out, her wings' muscular structure strange. She would never be able to fly like all the other foals, the doctors said. Her father, a prideful fellow among Las Pegasus' elite, refused to accept that his daughter was unsafe in a flying city when she could not fly herself, but were always careful to keep her safe.<br /><br />Then came the fateful day... The other children were teasing the young filly, for not being able to fly as they all could. In a desperate attempt to prove herself, Cascade launched herself over the side of the cloud, trying to prove that she was like the other children. She had never left the cloud before, and would not have lived to tell this tale if a pegasus by the name of North Arrow, about her age, hadn't been flying under the city at that very moment, and hadn't been there to catch her.<br /><br />When she collided with North, and he caught her, her wings had been splayed at a funny angle, and she heard a crack when she landed in his arms. He flew her back up to the city, and finally convinced her father to relocate to the mainland. <br /><br />The small, two-member family moved to Ponyville, and Cascade's wings were required to be bound in bandages to her sides for the first several weeks she was there. Once they were taken off, she began to explore the countryside around Ponyville. In doing so, she clumsily fell into a lake while following a duck curiously, and found something that her wings were not useless for - swimming. At that moment, she found her cutie mark. The duck, now named Quackers, has remained by her side since.<br /><br />Nowadays, Cascade works in the river systems around Ponyville and much of Equestria, tending to the aquatic life and keeping the rivers clean. As a side project, she's been attempting to construct herself a home on the lake she found her cutie mark in; a home made entirely of sand and clay from the bottom of lakes and rivers she herself helps clean.