Erroar

By Widdershins

• November 17, 2016

Age: Early twenties?

Gender: Male

Species: Non-Pony

Appearance: Species: Reverse Hippogriff <br /><br /> Your usual hippogriff has the head & front talons of (usually) some sort of predatory bird, some short fur of a lion on their body, and the hindquarters of a pony. Error had the bad luck to have his genetics run a bit screwy and got the sequence out of order. <br /> Erroar has the head & mane of a male lion, the chest & front limbs of a pony & the rear of what appears to be a very large, white chicken. <br /> <br /> Erroar stands a good head taller then most stallions but looks a good deal bigger due to his overgrown mane. Due to living in the Everfree & not taking much care of himself his mane has grown to the point that whenever he cowards backwards and ducks his head (a motion he frequently finds himself in) he all but disappears into it leaving just his catlike snout sticking out.<br /><br /> Another sign of his haywire genetics is that on close inspection, you can clearly see a line where his coats change. Once at his neck where the lion fur gives way to horsehair and again at just below his waist where the feathers start up. The latter giving the impression that he might just be wearing the bottom half of a very convincing chicken suit.<br /><br /> Of his lion part: He has rather expressive, large eyes, though he rarely makes direct eye contact with them. He also has some small, adorable cat ears but they are usually engulfed by his mane and because of that are also pretty hard for him to hear out of.<br /> Of his horse part: has a rather short & wiry hair as opposed to his shaggier & quicker growing lion fur. His front hooves are rather strong looking and with his ruddy roan coat that's just a few tints darker then his facial hair, it gives him the look of a workhorse.<br /> Of his chik- "bird" part: Erroar's feather coat comes on rather suddenly & in a oddly neat line giving the impression that it might even be some sort of a magical rash of some sort with how much it clashes with the rest of his body. His feathers are rather short & easily plucked and don't seem like they could ever come off any species of bird capable of flight. His back legs end in knobbly, yellowed talons reminiscent of barnyard fowl as does his short little feathered tail that sticks straight up from his rear at a ninety degree angle.

Cutie Mark: He may very well have one, but for as much as he knows about it it would have to be buried under all his flank feathers. You would have to either pluck him clean or just scare him enough times to where he molts all his feathers off.

Personality: In spite of his size & lifetime of living in the Everfree forest among much more terrifying creatures, Erroar is incredibly timid. He's been teased & told through his life that the outside world is filled with ponies that only want to betray or manipulate him and he fully expects every pony he meets, even small fillies, to just haul off and beat him to within an inch of his life.<br /><br /> Erroar has a touch of agoraphobia. Having lived in dense forest for so much of his life, he isn't comfortable without having a wall, thick tree or corner by his side. If he's ever walking in a street or in a wide room he'll unconsciously wander closer to a wall or something he can cower into. <br /><br /> Erroar also isn't very used to socializing. If he's ever forced into a conversation he'll tend to trail off into progressively higher squeaks until he's either stopped or he reaches a pitch so high that only dogs can still hear him. Though this isn't to be said that his voice is effeminate or quiet. His voice tends to vary often almost like his voice has yet to crack with puberty. Generally he does seem to have the kind of low, rumbly voice one would expect from a male lion & one can hear a sort of purr to his voice under the cracks & squeals. Though unlike most felines, Erroar purrs from an ever-present need to whimper or whine about his doubts to whatever and every situation he's in. Erroar isn't happy unless he's got a pile of leaves to bury most of his body in, though this tends to leave his chicken butt sticking out in full view.<br /><br /> When I say Erroar was teased as a cub, I don't mean like he was relentlessly bullied. As he's not too far off from the various Manticores that roam the Everfree, not too many things cared to know him well enough to notice his cowardly nature. It takes a very special kind of vindictive personality to take advantage of Erroar's clearly self-deluded image of his size in comparison to the rest of the world. There was this one bunny that used to live out in the forest with him that used to mock & berate him relentlessly. Erroar hasn't seen him for the past few years so either one of the less patient predators of the forest got tired of the rabbit, or somepony just carried him off.<br />

Backstory: Hippogriffs are rare, but not unheard of in Equestria. While most species in this loving land aren't directly discriminated against, some common phrases will be picked up or there will be just an unwritten rule of some species relations being just a bit too "unnatural." Gryphons aren't known for their friendliness & tend to keep to their own kind and really only bother with ponies if it involves business. Maybe its shared natural instincts of earlier times in their evolutionary lines when griffons were just mindless predators and ponies were just dumb prey waiting to be picked off, but hippogriffs are somehow unconsciously seen by most of society as a weird blending between predator & prey. Sure, they still happen as romance can be blinded to such lines as to what is or isn't acceptable or physically possible. But Erroar's father was not one of those that listened to their hearts.<br /><br /> In a small town on the opposite side of the Everfree Forest a visiting gryphon struck up a relationship with a mare in the area and after a couple of months the mare had become pregnant & couldn't have been happier with the symbol of their budding relationship. The father however, had started worrying, but nonetheless agreed to stay with her. <br /> After the baby was born, the doctors made a point of reassuring the parents that despite its appearance it seemed to be a perfectly healthy male foal, even if its species was up to question. The mother, even passing friendly strangers, reassured the father that Equestria was an open & friendly country, that no one would judge the child or greet it with anything other then open hooves. The father however, was in a state of shock. He couldn't look past what he saw as a glaring mistake & the claw he played in bucking the natural laws. Maybe from a poor decision made in momentary lapse in character or from doubts of a sudden midlife crises, not more then a few nights after his birth, Erroar's father just flew out of his life, never to be seen or heard from again.<br /><br /> Having been abandoned by the man she thought loved her, Erroar's mother's personality took a turn for the worse. She moved to the outskirts of town and closer to the forest & away from the ponies she knew in town. Doubt having crept into her heart about the intentions of others, she no longer believed that others would welcome her progeny any more than how her lover had stayed true to her. She took to letting the child play in the forest, then later keeping him in there. As the years past she grew more paranoid as to how she could have spawned a child so different, what she did to run off the only man she had been with and she began feeding her child lies. Well, what was truth to her anyhow. <br /> His mother had been the only pony Erroar had ever known; she kept telling him of how you can't tell the true intentions of some ponies, of how life can turn on you in an instant, of all the wars, attacks, diseases, accidents and all the negative things in life that can happen at any moment. Erroar, having grown wary of the world outside the line of trees agreed to stay outside in the forest, where it was safe, where you knew where you stood with cragadiles & timberwolves. When Erroar's mother passed, he only retreated further into the forest.<br /><br /> And there he stayed.<br /><br /> Well, until some Crusaders came into the forest looking for their cutie marks in Creature Wrangling!