Clod Hopper

By Widdershins

• November 21, 2016

Age: Young adult, 25

Gender: Male

Species: Pegasus

Appearance: <p> Species: Pegasus Mule<br /><br /> Clod Hopper has a muddy, dark-brown coat with lighter patches of gray-white mostly on his underbelly. His mane & tail are of coarse black hair; his tail cut short but his mane worn a bit longer and tends to hang in strands that seem almost braid-like.<br /><br /> He does also have some rather deep, watery, dark brown amber eyes set underneath the usual long, floppy donkey ears.<br /><br /> Clod has the same height and build of your typical workhorse earth pony stallion. With his donkey heritage he also has noticeably larger hooves. He's rather well built & muscular from a lifetime of working on the family stump farm. (and yes, there is a booming business in farming Stumptrees, why do you ask?)<br /><br /> He does also have a small pair of wings that he prefers to keep hidden under saddlebags or a back blanket whenever he has to be around other ponies. </p>

Cutie Mark: <p> An equilateral triangle with rounded angles, a jagged crack coming down from its upper, inner edge.<br /> It shows his talent at working with the earth, and well...hopping on clods. </p>

Personality: <p> Clod Hopper is a shy, often cowardly, but genuine, earnest stallion. He can be quite trusting & protective of those he does trust, but doesn't quickly warm up to others. He can be rather dim-witted & rather oblivious of his surroundings or most new concepts. It happens often that he wanders in front of other ponies or interrupts something important because he just simply isn't used to having to interact with anything other then his father or their family farm.<br /><br /> He gets quite nervous around other ponies, especially pegasai. He considers showing your wings to be indecent and a bit frightening.<br /><br /> Like most earth ponies, Clod is quite stubbornly traditional & bluntly honest in most things.<br /><br /> Hopper was raised to never trust his wings and to this day gets afraid if he's ever more then a foot off the ground. </p>

Backstory: <p> A long while ago, before any of Twilight's story got started, a country donkey once fell deeply in love with a pretty young gray pegasus mare. They had married and moved out to a small farm out on the outskirts of the small ponytown of Nowhere, halfway between Canterlot & the Unicorn mountain range. For awhile they lived a happy life together and had a colt of their own, which in a burst of mirth, they decided to name after a combination of their own names. The child of Cloud Hopper & Buster Clod was soon aptly named Clod Hopper!<br /><br /> Not long enough after though, disaster struck their happy family. Only a few years into young Clod's life, him still barely out of diapers, his mother who was working as a weather controller disappeared in one hectic night of the team attempting to control a rogue tornado that had strayed far off its appointed path. Search teams were sent out to no avail to find her, and it was reported back to Buster that his wife was missing & presumed dead.<br /><br /> The news weighed heavy on the poor donkey. He had always preferred being ground-bound, as much as he loved seeing his wife enjoy her flights of beauty he had always held a secret worry about her never coming back down again. Now his fears stood proven, having taken his angel back to the skies he had always felt she had come from. His worry grew into caution, and from there he quickly turned to bitterness & depression. (Which seems to be something donkeys are prone to)<br /><br /> Clod was raised under a near constant hail of warnings and concerns. Any attempt he made to stretch his wings was quickly shouted down as a dangerous fool thing to do. It quickly became apparent to even a dim colt like Hopper that Buster considered wings a death sentence & a responsibility far too heavy for any back to carry.<br /><br /> Clod Senior does have to admit nowadays that he may have been too rough on the colt, that he may have overestimated how sensitive he would have taken it. He never meant for the big foal to become afraid of what he was. But his heart still hurts every time he looks at the picture he still keeps of his wife & her loving, gentle, golden eyes. </p>