Derine (Den) Falosh

By Octavia's Bow

• August 28, 2012

Age: 19

Gender: Male

Species: Pegasus

Appearance: Den is a midnight blue, with a black-blue mane. His wings are lighter-tipped, and his eyes are a dark gren with speckled spots of yellow.

Cutie Mark: It's a pencil, with a hoof-print backdrop. It means he's good at groundwork, basically, he can folow orders, and he is intuitive in crisis situations, as well as perceptive on duty.<br />

Personality: Den is the type of pony who has a strong, mostly silent presence. He is respectful, and doesn't talk much about his past, looking more to the future. He is loyal and dependable, although he fights dirty. He prefers streetwork to paperwork.

Backstory: As told by Den~ <br /><br />He sat, and around his body his shaman clothing formed in blue, then solidified. His eyes glowed blue, and a blue fog surrounded them. In the fog, images play in sync with his voice.<br /><br />"When I was a young foal, around 6 (Human equivalent) my mom, coming home from groceries for my brothers and I, was assaulted in the streets. The criminal was caught, but due to some corruption, he got the minimum penalty." The images show them in a court room while the verdict was given, some voices can be heard, and a loud, "5 years minimum penalty," is heard with the gavel coming down. The bailiff took him away.<br /><br />"About a weak after that, a large stallion, 3rd grader came up to me. You have to remember, I was in kindergarten. This relatively large pegasus decided he would look tough in front of his friends." The images change to a school seen with a pegasus, and a few assorted ponies around a small, depressed looking little Den. "He decided that I would just sit there and take verbal abuse to my family." The memory picked up, "Hey, look, it's the loser who's mom died. I bet she was a druggie. No, wait, she was a whore. That's right, my dad saw her last week! He payed her in heroin." The little Den stood taller, almost defiant. In his eyes sparked cold anger, "My mother was a nurse. You should know, she tended your wing last week." "Ya, and she said she'd blow me too." The little Den didn't show signs that he was going to attack until his hoof had shot up. It hit into a slow motion phase, and it showed every ripple of the impact, then sped up as he hit the ground, unmoving. The ponies around him suddenly looked frightened. As he looked around, they backed away. His expression looked much as it did now, except with added pain. He checked the pegasus's pulse, mumbling, "He's alive," and dragged him to the nurses office. It then switched the principle office, where the principle was sighing, "I'm going to suspend you this time. I know how hard this is on your family. You're off for two weeks. Consider this your warning."<br /><br />Den resumed talking, "Some kids get suspended and come back heroes, but me? I came back to glares. The pegasus wasn't going to school there any more, but that didn't mean I didn't have a target on my back." Scenes flash in rapid succession as he grew up. With every new teacher, or new school, it seemed like he had double the fights. He didn't lose one of them, but he was always bloddied. "In about sixth grade, I had now friends, other than my younger brother. My older brother was doing drugs, and my sister was sick." It showed a pinkish filly in a bed coughing. Then it showed a tombstone, with the name Lily Falosh on the top. It zoomed out a little and showed another gravestone, this one reading 'Cobalt Falosh, "The same sickness my sister had, my father caught, leaving me in charge of my two brothers. My older brother became independent, and the last I heard of him was when he was asking me for money about 5 years later, but we're still in sixth grade." A wintery wind blew away the scene and set up another school one. Ponies tossed insults at his family, and it didn't seem to bother him. He had his head down, his eyes looked tired, and had fully become what they were now. The resemblance between the shaman and Foal Den were so similar that the only difference was height and build. Foal Den seemed to be small, but well built, Den now seemed to have grown into his body. Foal Den walked to his brothers school and waited silently for him. When his brother came out, a Earth Pony, same grade as Den, stepped out of the shadows, punching his brother. The Den portrayed by the memory's eyes widened, then narrowed. He snapped his wings out and blind-sided the Earth Pony. The pony's eyes widened, "D-D-D-Den!" "So you thought you could get to me through my family, huh?" "N-n-no, I can explaIN," his voice cracked as Den drug him up against the wall, "You tell your boys if they got a problem with me, it's to be dealt with through me," he drew back his hoof, and punched. At the moment of contact, the mist grew black, then faded into a memory.<br /><br />"The response of his gang was almost immediate. The very next day, I was surrounded." The sceen depicted an imperious looking unicorn, the earth pony from earlier, well beaten, and four other assorted ponies. The unicorn said, "We do what we want, when we want." He gestured, and the assorted ponies attacked at once. Den punched the first one, who went down, and was then tackled by the other three. In a flurry of combat, Den acquired a decent number of scratches, and a knife cut along the back of his head; they hadn't fought fair, but neither had he. In the end, he was left standing. He turned to face the unicorn, surrounded in a blue aura. On his face was warpaint, which seemed to offset the unicorn. "Wwa-what are you?" "I am a colt who has lost almost everything. I am the heir to an ancient lineage of shamans, spirit-wielders more than capable of handling a street fight. The unicorn tried to blast him with magic, but the mist hardened into a blue sheild around his body. The shot was absorbed. He walked up to the unicorn paralysed by fear, hooked his hoof against the back of his head, and slammed it into the ground. Putting his face up to his ear, he said, "You stay away from my brother. You stay away from my house. You stay away from me." He then walked away, limping a little.<br /><br />"The nurse patched me up, no questions. She knew that I was in and out of fights, most of them justafied, none of them honorable. That gang and I had several run-ins." Memories flashed, and he got to highschool. "In highschool, I had no luck with mares." The sceens showed him walking in the hallways. Ponies glared at him, and an amplified whisper came through, "Is that him? Is that Den?" "Ya, doesn't he look gross?" "Look at all of those scars." "How come he won't meet our eyes? He must be a coward." "All of that fighting, I bet he's too strong to even hug without hurting yourself." "I heard his breath turns your mind crazy with fear, that he preforms magic even though he's a pegasus." All of the ponies in the hallways started chanting freak. A buff looking pony stepped in. He looked like the standered jock, lited weights, etc. He was an earth pony. "Hey, Den! I bet your mother really was a whore. That's why your Dad and sister died, your dad contracted STD, and it spread when he practiced insecest." Den kept walking, and the earth pony became agitated, "Hey! I'm talkin' to you!" he cried. He touched his shoulder roughly, and then found himself back on the floor with Den's hoof to his throat. Den had flipped him, "Don't. Just... Don't." He walked on as the bully called after him freak. A scene flashed of Den beating him up ater school then vanished.<br /><br />"My job sucked; I worked helping move stuff for a lifting company. One day my boss found my work unsatisfactory." The mist turned and in faded a scene, "You need to work faster!" "Yes sir. I'll try, sir." Den turned to leave the office, and his manager said under his breath, "No wonder. Word on the street is his mother was a whore and his father a pansy. I bet it's in his blood to slack." Suddenly his manager was up against the wall with Den staring him in the eyes, "What did you say about my family?" "N-n-nothing!" "Where did you here those things!" "I d-d-don-" Den slammed him against the wall, "WHERE! WHERE ARE THE BUCKING LIERS?" "I-I-I heard it from a u-unicorn near the highschool." Den dropped him and the manager scrambled backwards afraid. Den dropped slowly to all fours, and narrowed his eyes, "None of those statements are true. My father worked in a factory, and my mother was a nurse," his words rang with truth and pain, but all that registered in his boss's mind was fear. As Den walked away, he called after him, "Your fired!" Den threw his hat on the ground, and the scene faded.<br />"It was the same unicorn. But he'd grown smarter; instead of four, he now had a good 16 working for him. The problem for him was that they couldn't attack together or coordinated enough." It showed a mob around Den, who was sitting in the center. His eyes glowed blue, and around the mob there became a circle of Dens'. Each looked like a shaman, each slightly different. The memory shifted to first person, "Circle of the Wild," Den murmurers. They all take out invisible drums, and the mob clutches their ears. While they were distracted, Den takes them out. The circle retracts into him, as the unicorn from earlier, now grown up, claps. Not wasting time on words, he tries to spell cast. Den punches the spells away from them and the spark. The unicorn opens his mouth to talk, but Den's hoof shoots up and a loud crunch is hurt. The unicorn is knocked out, but signs of his breathing can still be seen, so he is still alive. Den walks away.<br /><br />"My highschool career was much the same as the rest of my life." Scenes flash through varius rejections by mares, and various fights with colts. "I made sure my brother was safe," more fight sceenes ensue as his enemies targeted his brother, "And I made sure my brother could go to college for what ever he wanted." An older Den was proudly hugging his brother, who was holding a medical degree. His brother's graduation uniform became ruffled, and though all of the other ponies glared at the two, one with his hat goofily knocked to the side, the other with the struggles of his life displayed on his body, it seemed like a relatively high moment.