Zephyr

By Early Sunsets

• January 8, 2019




Age: 24

Gender: Male

Species: Unicorn

Appearance: <p> See image. </p>

Cutie Mark: <p>      Zephyr's cutie mark, a treble clef, signifies his passion for music, specifically repairing instruments and performing on them. Satou introduced music to his life, and he will never forget how drastically she changed his life. Every time he looks at his cutie mark, he is reminded of the close bond he had with Satou. </p>

Personality: <p dir="ltr"> While male, he doesn’t show many masculine personality traits, and is androgynous even in appearance. He is very mellow and reserved, and while he has a great deal of confidence, he does not have much courage, and has pretty severe anxiety. He is comfortable in average, everyday situations and can handle them with ease, but when situations stray too far from the norm or are particularly serious, he can easily panic and lose track of himself if someone, like Sun Fire, isn’t there to bring him back to reality. While he is quieter than most ponies, he is good at expressing his emotions and passions. </p> <p dir="ltr"> Zephyr is a unicorn who possesses strong, though specific, magic. He has an innate ability for telekinesis, specifically moving many objects with precision. As well as this, he has become reasonably proficient at heat magic, being able to manipulate the temperature of objects or the air. The combination of these two magics allows Zephyr to create and use complex instruments relatively easily. He is talented at playing musical instruments, and while he greatly enjoys performing with his sister, his true passion lies with creating and selling new instruments and repairing existing ones. </p> <p dir="ltr"> Zephyr's nickname (Karou) was given to him by Satou. Zephyr and Sun Fire only use their nicknames with each other, their family, and their close friends. </p> <p dir="ltr">   </p>

Backstory: <p> (The backstory for Zephyr, Sun Fire, and Borea could contain sensitive content for some people, such as death of a family member, borderline domestic abuse, depression, and attempted suicide) </p> <p> Zephyr lives in his home in Ponyville that he shares with his twin sister (Sun Fire, a pegasus). The majority of the first floor is dedicated to Zephyr's instrument repair and supply shop, with the rest being Sun Fire's recording studio. The second floor is their living space. Their backstory, while full of pain and suffering, made them into the wonderful ponies they are today. </p> <p> Zephyr grew up in a small town just outside of Seaward Shoals with Sun Fire, his older brother (Borea, an earth pony), his mother (Midnight Glimmer, a pegasus), and Midnight's closest childhood friend from a foreign nation (Satou). Zephyr's father (Magna, a unicorn), who was a crew member on one of the ships in Seaward Shoals, died in an accident when Zephyr was only three. The ship Magna was on ran aground on rocks while ferrying cargo, and nearly half the crew was lost to sea. After this tragedy, Satou moved in with Midnight to help her raise her three foals. When Midnight was at work, Satou would keep them entertained, raise them, give them nicknames from her home country, and teach them about music. While Zephyr and Sun Fire loved these music lessons, Borea didn't care much for them, preferring to learn about the seas. He already had his cutie mark by this time, a swordfish. Midnight had to work hard to support four ponies, so she was rarely home. As soon as the foals were asleep, Satou went out to help earn as much money as she could as a night guard. </p> <p> Zephyr and Sun Fire quickly discovered their deep passion for music. When they finally got their cutie marks, Zephyr's was a treble clef and Sun Fire's was a microphone. Zephyr's magical ability had begun to grow by this point, and his telekinetic magic was exceptionally strong for his age. </p> <p> Satou's earnings as a night guard were meager. She put nearly all of her time and money towards Zephyr and his siblings, leaving nothing left for herself. This lead to Satou's physical decline, to the point where she collapsed after years of exhaustion, and never got back up. At this point, Zephyr and Sun Fire were eleven, and Borea was fifteen. Midnight was distraught when this happened, and her resulting poor performance at her job caused her wages to decrease. Midnight had to work longer hours because of this, which resulted in increasing amounts of stress and only contributed to her worsening depression. She became more bitter and angry over time, and took much of her pain out on young Borea. In time, he became fed up with the abuse, and left home at the age of sixteen. This, combined with the pleas from Zephyr and Sun Fire, was enough to make Midnight realize what kind of pony she had turned into. </p> <p> Zephyr and Sun Fire were able to help Midnight reform herself over the course of several years. By the time Midnight was almost back to her old self, they were struggling to make ends meet, and they were almost to the point of bankruptcy. To keep their mother from hitting rock bottom, Zephyr and Sun Fire decided it was time to move on. They said their goodbyes to Midnight (decidedly not crying) and moved to Hooflyn in Manehattan at the age of fifteen. Zephyr was able to become an apprentice at an instrument repair shop, while Sun Fire's incredible singing voice attracted the attention of Songbird Serenade. While Zephyr and Sun Fire shared an apartment, Sun Fire's work kept her away from home most of the time. Zephyr picked up the basics in no time, his strong telekinetic magic helping greatly. Zephyr quickly became the go-to instrument technician in Manehattan. This led to Zephyr's teacher becoming angry that he had basically been replaced by his apprentice, and he cast Zephyr out. Without his own shop or supplies, Zephyr was unable to continue working. After this blow to his career, he spent almost two weeks in a near-constant anxiety attack worrying about what would happen while Sun Fire was away on tour with Songbird Serenade. When Sun Fire returned to find Zephyr in his mental state, she took two days off work to help him get back on his hooves. She listened to what happened, and helped him find a way to keep going. With the reassurance of Sun Fire, he began to focus more on his abilities as a musician. </p> <p> After a while, he was able to perform at events all around Manehattan, working his way up to become known in the music community again. He became one of the top musicians in Manehattan and attracted the attention of many big names. After performing in a restaurant one day, he was talking to the owner of the restaurant (Lemon Squeeze, an earth pony) as he was packing up to leave. Lemon listened to the story of Zephyr's past, and felt sorry for him. Zephyr began to perform regularly at Lemon's restaurant, earning a stable living and becoming good friends with Lemon. After a while, Lemon got the idea to help Zephyr get his own repair shop. Lemon taught him how to run a business, and at the age of eighteen, Zephyr opened his instrument repair and supply shop. He still performed at Lemon's restaurant on weekend evenings, but focused mainly on instrument repair. </p> <p> After a couple years of running his shop, Zephyr began to experiment with creating his own instruments. He bought a book on heat magic, and was proficient enough after a year to use his magic to create his own line of instruments. He even began innovating with existing instruments and creating prototypes of new ideas. Zephyr's new instruments became popular with the musicians in Manehattan, to the point where Zephyr couldn't keep up with the orders. Zephyr hired his own apprentice (Bass Clef, a unicorn) to help with the orders, and engrained his quality control principles into her. When she was skilled enough to create instruments to Zephyr's standards, he put a temporary bottleneck on new orders and repairs while he came up with a way to streamline his instrument production. After months of experiments and continuous failure, he came up with a system of jigs and mandrels that allowed a unicorn to make almost three times as many instruments while keeping them more consistent and improving overall quality slightly. He became well established in Manehattan and was living comfortably, but his near-constant separation from his sister had reached its breaking point. </p> <p> While Bass was able to keep Zephyr company, Sun Fire was not lucky enough to have comfort. Zephyr's separation from his sister, which increased the more successful each of them became, drove Sun Fire into a corner. Her career, while wildly successful, was extremely stressful. This stress was amplified by the fact that she rarely saw Zephyr more than a few times a month. Zephyr noticed her distress whenever she was home and tried to help her, but the emotional pain became more than she could handle. During a particularly long and stressful tour lasting two months, Sun Fire's stress had reached its limit, and she attempted to kill herself in a dressing room after a concert in Canterlot. Luckily one of Songbird Serenade's managers found her quickly, and she was rushed to a hospital in time to save her life. Zephyr was immediately informed, and he closed the music shop temporarily while he and Bass traveled to Canterlot. </p> <p> Even with Bass comforting him, Zephyr was having an anxiety attack the whole way to the hospital. Upon his arrival, the nurse at the front desk informed him Sun Fire was stable and he could go to her room. Bass, relieved to hear Sun Fire was safe, said goodbye to Zephyr and went back to Manehattan. After Sun Fire woke up in the hospital, Zephyr was already there by her bedside. There was a lot of hugging (again, he was decidedly not crying) involved, though Zephyr could tell Sun Fire was still in a lot of emotional pain. He listened to her story of the past two months and everything that had caused her pain, and they had a long discussion about what to do next. Zephyr stayed in a hotel near the hospital while Sun Fire recovered, visiting her every day. After plenty of time to think and discuss, Zephyr and Sun Fire decided to quit their current jobs and move to a small town. </p> <p> When Sun Fire was well enough to leave the hospital, Zephyr went with her to thank Songbird Serenade for everything and leave her group. Afterwards, They went to Manehattan to pack up and say goodbye to their friends. Zephyr said goodbye to Lemon, and promised to visit on occasion. He then went to Bass's house and told her he was entrusting the shop to her. She would continue to repair and manufacture instruments as an extension of the new shop he was going to open in Ponyville. Zephyr and Sun Fire stopped by Seaward Shores on their way to Ponyville to visit Midnight and pay their respects to Magna and Satou. Midnight had become the loving and kind pony Zephyr and Sun Fire remembered from their early childhood, and their reunion was very emotional (okay, maybe just a little bit of crying was involved). After staying for a week and telling Midnight all about their journey over the past nine years, they visited Magna's grave and Satou's grave before leaving for Ponyville at the age of twenty-four to happily live together. </p> <p> Zephyr now crafts and repairs instruments for the ponies in Ponyville. He also makes new instruments most ponies can play, and is currently developing complex instruments that only talented unicorns can play using their magic. He sells these instruments all over Equestria, with Manehattan still being his largest area of fame. To this day, Zephyr and Sun Fire have not heard from Borea since he ran away. </p> <p>   </p>