White Belt

By Steel Accord

• October 31, 2017

Age: 25

Gender: Male

Species: Earth Pony

Appearance: <p> White Belt is a somewhat short stallion but what he lacks in height, he makes up for in build. He is a prime example of earth pony solidity in his body structure. Once he plants himself, stallions twice his size can't move him. Despite the name, he's not actually white in color. He's more a kind of earthy red-purple in coat, his mane meanwhile is blue-green. He typically wears a yellow safety vest, a holdover from his regular job as a dumpster bucker. (Filly slang for trashpony.) </p>

Cutie Mark: <p> A spear pointing up with shooting stars entwining it. </p>

Personality: <p> White Belt is a pony who loves adventure, but of a very specific kind. He loves fighting. Which isn't to say he's violent, far from it. He tries to be a peacekeeper when it looks like there could be an argument between ponies. He can't stand it when ponies he knows and loves yell or get angry with one another. This isn't paradoxical though. White Belt loves to spar with other opponents (which he often looses.) To him those, these aren't really "fights" in the sense that he's trying to hurt somepony. It's mutual self-improvement. As before though, he loves adventures. Particularly, he loves hunting for lost scrolls or hidden masters that live alone. He's always out looking for mystical lore. Not coincidentally, he loves the Daring Do books. He'll sometimes quote some old master to his friends in a situation he thinks is relevant. Which can occasionally get a groan from them. On that note, White Belt tends to be more passive when with others. He's not a type-A sort of personality and has trouble finding his voice sometimes. He's not embarrassed or nervous, he just has to actually think hard in order to summon the kinds of words that seem to come naturally to his friends. Hence why he sometimes quotes others rather than relying on his own speech. This does occasionally mean though that, even though a lot of what he says seems unimportant or silly, sometimes he will drop something profound or very convincing. In another seeming paradox to his primary pastime, he's not very competitive. He's not easily baited into a challenge or prizes his ego or reputation to such a point that he wagers them over contests. He'd rather do something participatory and constructive with friends than a game of winners and loosers. Ex: Scavenger hunts, building houses of cards, watching the dragon migration. </p>

Backstory: <p> White Belt got his cutie-mark when he befriended an older dragon named Hash in Fillydelphia's Dragontown. Hash saw White Belt pull a kick when playing buckball that he thought only dragons knew how to do and when White Belt not only knew how the kick was done, but what style it was from and who invented it, his cutie-mark appeared. Despite their age difference, and Hash's more cynical personality, the two of them bonded over their mutual love of scraping. Hash and him both worked as trash management for the city when White Belt got old enough to work. White Belt was a dumpster bucker, picking up the trash and Hash was a dumpster fire, disposing of it. They worked well together, and the rest of the trash management made a similar model of a pony and dragon team. White Belt's hobby didn't sit well with some ponies though. They thought he was violent and that fighting of any kind was wrong. White Belt tried to explain that what he and Hash did wasn't bad and that he didn't want to hurt anypony but he never could find the right words to say how. This wasn't helped by his cutie-mark being a weapon. Anypony could just point to it and that's all the proof they needed to who White Belt was on the inside. This didn't bother White Belt too much because he did have friends who liked him and knew who he really was but that he could never defend himself from others with just words kept coming up again and again. When the two of them have off time White Belt and Hash can be found in boxing rings or arenas, cheering or competing themselves. They've even gone so far as to travel to the Crystal Empire to watch a jousting tourney. </p> <p> White Belt though, wasn't satisfied. Sure, he liked the spectacle and the technique but he wanted something . . . more out of his life. So he took a page from a Daring Do book . . . Literally. He tore out the last couple of pages and glued them together to make a crude map. And set out for the Smokey Mountain range. According to the book, <em>Daring Do and the scrolls of the Iron Hoof,</em> there were a group of ponies who would meet at the top to scrap all the time. Not only did they not consider each other enemies, that was their favorite thing to do together as friends. So much so that, over time, they built a special place for them to scrap and invited more ponies to join them and learn from them. Maybe such a place existed! No though, ponies would tell him. They said it was completely made up in a storybook, that even if it was real it's long gone by now, worst of all that even if it was real and was still there, that it would be wrong to try and find it because fighting isn't right. Particular among these voices was Matilda Maurice, a self-righteous cow and head of the Comittee Of War Admonishing ResiDentS. Who had never ceased her efforts to close any establishment or event that White Belt and Hash practiced at. When White Belt got to the foot of the Smokey Mountains, Matilda was waiting for him. White Belt was polite even as she was morally condescending to him and merely asked her to step out of the way. She agreed, being unable to stop him, but gave up her facade and mocked the back of his head as he ascended. </p> <p> By the time White Belt was mercifully spared Matilda's rhetoric, the real challenge of the climb started to make itself apparent. Between heavy snow and blistering cold, White Belt's name was starting to fit him more and more. When he was just about to become a snowpony, he was found. He came to by the light of a fire in a small hut, an old sherpa pony was making mushroom soup. </p> <p> "You making a fool climb, Pilgrim." Said the elder pony. White Belt was grateful for the help but determined to continue. The sherpa-pony, who introduced himself as Brokeback, pointed out that White Belt was barely past the base of the mountain when he found him. To go even further would make him a frozen fool. White Belt couldn't give up though and Brokeback said that he wasn't asking him to, just that he needed to learn how to survive and climb the mountain to reach the peak. White Belt followed Brokeback's instruction in foraging, camp making, and climbing, all the while his frustrations grew because he didn't feel like he was getting closer to his goal. Everyday it was the same deal, coming back to the same hut. White Belt had it, he was going to go out and give Brokeback a piece of his mind, as he was stomping outside of the hut though, he saw Brokeback standing at the edge of the mountain, before he fell off. White Belt rushed over, shouting Brokeback's name before Brokeback himself came zooming up out of the mist below, wings spread. White Belt was in awe, he asked why, if he was a pegasus, that Brokeback would spend so much time learning to climb mountains. Brokeback didn't answer, he only asked White Belt for a scrap. Still confused, White Belt obliged. Mid-scrap, White Belt's movements became familiar, all of what he had been taught, mushroom foraging, camp making, and climbing, translated to new moves. "What we do, comes in many forms, Pilgrim. You gotta look passed the obvious, to see the big picture." Brokeback cleared the mist around them and through the cleared skies, White Belt could see many huts far below them. All of the huts just looked similar enough that White Belt hadn't noticed that each lesson WAS carrying him closer to the top. Brokeback took wing and said that White Belt had come a long way and what he sought was only a bit farther. The pegasus dove down back to the base of the mountain, leaving White Belt to harry the last leg of the journey alone. </p> <p> When he finally did make it to the top, White Belt was ecstatic . . . until he found nothing at the peak. No big temple, no ancient tools, not even any ruins. White Belt couldn't be more crestfallen. He had come all of this way for nothing. That was until he noticed that the ground that he was now resting his head on in defeat had some unusual grooves in it. Almost like hoof marks. Then there were dips in the peaks surface, anvils had been dropped on them . . . or like they had been stomped on a thousand times over. White Belt, he had found it! This was the place were those ponies had come so long ago and taught others. Just as Brokeback taught, it wasn't obvious. Another pony would look at those grooves and just assumed them to be natural or nothing at all. Not White Belt though, he recognized the scrapes and indents leftover from the same stances performed over and over again in practice. He practiced in that same place for what felt like days on end, achieving a sense of purpose he never thought he'd ever have as his cutie-mark glowed with an inner brightness. During this time though, he noticed a kind of glint like something shiny reflecting off of the light, when he tried to look at it, it disapeared. Only when he was in the proper stance at just the right angle, could he see it again, then he continued with the ancient form and saw another, and another. He marked where each of these were on his map. The masters had planted those there for a reason, and he was going to find it! </p>