Deuterium

By ~Chaotic Eddie~

• August 31, 2014




Age: 20

Gender: Male

Species: Unicorn

Cutie Mark: Deuterium's cutie mark depicts the world - this symbolises his flair for language.

Personality: Friendly, idiosyncratic and random are all words that have been used at some point to describe Deuterium. While he can on occasion be somewhat shy, he's no stranger to making friends, but in spite of this he is also rather prone to mood swings - one day he can be Pinkie-level hyper, hugging everyone in sight, and another day he can be more depressed than an unhappy donkey - he himself attributes this to the fact that he has a diagnosis of Aspergers' Syndrome, which has affected his life greatly, and in more ways than just his emotions.<br /><br />When he is focused on one particular task, Deuterium is very hard to distract. He very often ends up reading in Canterlot's (or Ponyville's) library until closing time - sometimes even forgetting to eat.

Backstory: The first years of Deuterium’s life were spent in the country of Coltain, far away from Equestria. Born to one Unicorn parent and one Pegasus parent only shortly before his sister Tritium Jr., Deuterium was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome at age one, and spent his early childhood as a bit of a troublemaker – he was always trying to get in on the new fads at school, and on occasion this landed him in trouble. This was somewhat of a trait he’d inherited from his father, Cloud Dancer, who was much more laid-back and outgoing than his wife, Tritium Senior. <br /><br /><br />It wasn’t long, however, before something happened that sent his life in a whole new direction. One morning, Deuterium and his sister were playing when their mother entered.<br /><br />“Good news, children!”<br /><br />It wasn't very often that their mother gave them news that was explicitly described as "good" news... As such, the pair listened intently.<br /><br />It turned out that their father had landed himself a job in Equestria - As such, the family would have to move there. The idea of living in a totally different country confused and frightened Deuterium at first - Living in a rather undisturbed area of Coltain meant that he hadn't had much exposure to other cultures and languages - his school didn't even teach foreign languages. As such, he was frightened from when he first set hoof on the boat to when he finally arrived, and the butterflies in his stomach remained right up until his first day of school in Ponyville…<br /><br /><br />After being introduced by the teacher, Deuterium chose the seat which he thought looked most removed from everypony else, which resulted in him not speaking to anypony, besides his sister, until break time, when a few of the “class nerds” decided to approach him: Technology enthusiast Short Wave, voracious reader and writer Skip, and physics afficionado Nuclear ‘Nuke’ Fusion. He also met another close friend as he walked back from school every day – A Pegasus by the name of Moxie, who he became firm friends with. Though he did notice one thing – He was the only pony in his class who hadn’t yet earned his Cutie Mark. For a while, this made him a little depressed – that is, until a few weeks into his time at school.<br /><br /><br />A few days after Deuterium started school, he found himself learning things he’d never learned in Coltain - Proper literature, some Technology, and his favourite – MFL. Deuterium found learning how to say things in other languages more interesting than anything he’d ever done before, and he seemed to do really well in his lessons, something that earned him a bit of a reputation amongst his friend circle.<br /><br />“Did you HEAR Deut in MFL today! He was on a ROLL!” Wave gave Deut a slap on the back in congratulation. <br /><br />“He must be some kind of linguistic genius!” Nuke replied. “I swear, I couldn’t have said HALF of that stuff!” <br /><br />“Yeah, I bet he’s gonna ACE the Germane test tomorrow!” Skip added, giving Deut another slap on the back.<br /><br />Deut hadn’t quite caught what was going on at the end of the lesson, and had had no idea that there even was a test – so Skip’s comment came as somewhat of a shock to him. While he took it mostly in his stride at school, as soon as he got home he flew into a panic. He’d spent that whole night panic-studying, hoping not to let down his friends…<br /><br /><br />The date of the test eventually came, and Deuterium was still panicking. The line outside the MFL room grew shorter and shorter, and he just hoped that he’d have a little more time before…<br /><br />“Deuterium?”<br /><br />He gulped. Now was the moment he’d been dreading…<br /><br />He entered the room, where the teacher was sitting at her desk with a script in one hoof. She offered Deuterium a seat, before asking him if he was ready, to which he felt socially obliged to reply “yes” to, in spite of the fact that he was not ready at all…<br /><br />“Also, was ist deine Name?”<br /><br />“Deuterium…”<br /><br />“Und wie alt bist du?”<br /><br />“Ich bin… neun Jahre alt…”<br /><br />“Was ist dein Lieblingsfach?”<br /><br />“Das ist… Wie sagt man MFL?”<br /><br /><br /><br />The questions carried on a bit like this... And as they continued, Deuterium felt something strange happen… The more he spoke in Germane, the more he felt comfortable with it, the more he was able to form the words and let them flow naturally, as if he knew it all…<br /><br />“Kannst du deine Familie beschreiben?”<br /><br />“Ja! Ich wohne mit mein Vater, meine Mutter und meine Schwester in einem kleinen Haus in Ponyville, aber zuvor haben wir in Colttanien gewohnt…” Words flew to him like flies to honey, the phrases almost sailing from his mouth. “Wir sind vor ein Paar Wochen in Equestria umgezogen, und zuerst hat es mir Angst gemacht, aber als ich meine Freunde getroffen habe, ist es alle weggangen – Jetzt finde ich es fantastisch hier in Equestria, und ich will immer hier bleiben!” he was so caught up in it, he almost didn’t notice the tingling sensation around his lower body…<br /><br /><br />At first he was confused as to why everypony gasped and went silent when he left the room… Until, Skip walked over and whispered to him “Look at your flank, buddy…” Deuterium did this, and was met with a shock.<br /><br />This hadn’t been chance. It hadn’t been luck. It hadn’t even been just an emotional high… Right there on his flank was an image of the planet. Symbolising his achievement… Symbolising what he was, what he had always been destined to become. His look of shock and awe slowly became a smile as the whole corridor erupted in applause and cheering. The one pony without a cutie mark had finally found his flame.<br /><br /><br />After this event, however, Deuterium quickly fell into unpopularity, only really talking to Skip, Nuke, Wave and Moxie for most of his time there, and it remained that way until he left school. He graduated with high grades in Germane, French, Equestrian Language and Literature, and quickly began searching for universities - initially he considered applying to the higher education sector of Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, but thought better of it when he realised that they didn't offer his choice of course, modern foreign languages. So he applied to many other universities across Equestria, including Canterlot Royal, Canterlot City, Manehattan and Fillydelphia. While he did receive invites for all of these, the university he ended up going to was the prestigious Star Swirl Higher Education Centre, near to Ponyville. He didn't exactly know how or why, but he'd been accepted onto their Joint Qualification in Modern Foreign Languages course - A high-ranking and highly sought-after course which (supposedly) only the best of the best got into. The Joint Course was so named because only three days of the week would be spent in the HEX, as ponies called it. The other two days would be spent in Canterlot City University - and if he had continued to live with his parents the wake-up times required to get there would have been unreasonably early. Thus, he decided to move out, eventually deciding on a small but modern bungalow in Little Waypoint, a very small town right in the midpoint between Ponyville and Canterlot. The train journey was still long, and the wake-up times were still early - 5:00 AM every morning just to get the train into whichever city he was going to - But he didn't mind much. He saw the Joint Qualification as a good opportunity, and one that he was glad to have been able to get a place on it, in fact he was surprised that he'd even got a place at all.<br /><br /><br />Unfortunately, the move to university also saw his social life revert to its previous state - He and all his friends from high school seemed to just drift apart, and the result was that he was left friendless once again... At least, for the first few weeks or so. One day while in Canterlot Library he met an Earth pony name of Tarascha Terastari, and after a short while the two became firm friends. Deuterium also got to know the librarian Moonlight Scroll through his friendship with Tarascha.