Erythema

By aoEAF2FBvC0MIo2Q

• November 6, 2014




Age: 25

Gender: Female

Species: Non-Pony

Appearance: Note: I should get a different drawing of her where her expression better fits the current situation. Her look is more reflective of the past rather than the present.

Personality: Very shy, very quiet, easily frightened. She's usually with her twin brother SunBurn so she lets him do all the talking while she just observes. Even if she has to say something, she'll usually just make gestures if it's something simple, sometimes giving ponies the impression that she's mute.<br /><br />However, with fillies and colts, she is more likely to open up. Even in her soldier days, she really couldn't bear to harm foals, it would break her heart.

Backstory: Like SunBurn, she's a foreigner who ended up shipwrecked onto Equestrian shores and originated from a far away island where violence is the norm.<br /><br />Unlike SunBurn, she bore witness to something tragic that would define the person she has striven to become. She witnessed the killing of her mother at the hands of thugs but also witnessed her father killing the two thugs to save her. Unfortunately he was too late to save her mother. Before her father killed the last thug, he begged for his life where his father then scolded that thug, calling him out on his hypocrisy before butchering him in his fury. The impact of this tragedy is obvious to her, the lesson being "kill or be killed -- or worse yet, kill or allow those you hold dear to be killed." She knows that if her father hadn't done what he did, she too would have been buried alongside her mother.<br /><br />Not long after, her father took her and SunBurn to join a clan for protection; the Cactus Clan. There she made the decision to start martial arts training at the tender age of 14 to later receive weapons training to become a soldier but striving to be a female combatant was rough as it didn't sit well with the males. <br /><br />She trained under different masters but only one truly appreciated her devotion and her potential. With the help of her master and her father, she slowly but surely learned how to manage her way in this hostile environment be it by talking her way out of trouble or by engaging in duels to make it clear that she is to be respected.<br /><br />As she took part in skirmishes, actual combat experience honed her skills more than her training did and her personality became more cold and jaded in her attitude. She was quite merciless with her foes, remembering how her father lashed out at one of the bandits that almost killed her and how hypocritical it was for him to beg for his life. If you are prepared to kill, you must also be prepared to be killed. A short description of her mentality would be "no hesitation, no pity, no pride." She became feared by both foes and comrades alike and she used this reputation to protect her brother from the pecking order.<br /><br />Five years ago, the territorial wars developed into a stalemate which gave her clan the time to build a ship to find new lands to settle to. After getting shipwrecked on Equestrian shores and separated from the rest of the crew, her singular motivation was to find SunBurn. After her father died of illness, he is the only family she has left and she promised him that he would not die before she does.<br /><br />Now in Equestria, after making her way to town, she was very reluctant to make contact with other ponies, preferring to don a cloak to hide her appearance but during this time, she noticed some very peculiar things. For one, the royal guards seen around town are unarmed even though they weren't unicorns. What's more, the townsfolk, not even earth ponies, carried weapons. While she found this very strange, she refused to let her guard down. She would sleep either in the forest or in hidden places.<br /><br />Eventually she was found by a search party and was reunited with her brother. She later heard of the kindness from the locals in keeping SunBurn safe and that they may stay in Equestria without worry. Juxtaposing everything, she can no longer deny that Equestria is a very non-violent society and that this had existential implications for her. All that time she had been convinced that she had to be a merciless killer in order to protect those she holds dear but now, in a society with violence so low, what is even the point of all that now? This led to her having a mental breakdown when everything sank in. That cold, barbed steel exterior that developed had shattered, leaving behind the scared filly she always were deep inside.