Battle Scars

[aoEAF2FBvC0MIo2Q 3,673]

So I've got an OC who is no stranger to battle or war but this all happened overseas in some uncharted land. This OC, Erythema, now resides in Fillydelphia and she works as a firefighter. Because of her and her brother being given a second chance at life, both of them feel indebted to Equestria and wish to give back somehow. Though currently a firefighter, she thinks about expanding her skills set in emergency response and disaster relief, seeing if she could become a paramedic next.

 

So yeah, being that she's had plenty of sharp objects swung and flung her way as well as energy-based magic, those are going to leave a scar or two as nobody's untouchable. Her most obvious battle scar is her sliced left ear.

 

I've held back on giving her more battle scars like a few small cuts or burns on her body but it's too easy to overdo it. She doesn't talk about her past to anyone aside from professionals who it involves (like therapists and psychiatrists) or princess Luna (from visiting her nightmares) but the kind of war she's been in is more guerrilla warfare between factions rather than something full-scale like what was seen in the season 5 finale. Donkeys have excellent hearing which gave them an edge over other equines for stealth missions. It also makes it very difficult for other ponies to sneak up on them unless they used a silence spell like what Twilight did around Moondancer in the Caterlot library. Unless they have to defend their territory from being taken, fight-to-the-finish skirmishes were very rare even among the other clans and with the population low, no side wants to sustain heavy casualties as it could leave both sides vulnerable to the third clan.

 

Still, despite these inhibitions and their tactics, it cannot protect any side from entering into dangerous battles or encountering powerful foes. Erythema may have had a reputation but she still wasn't the best of the clan she's affiliated with and it must be clear that other clans had outstanding soldiers and tacticians of their own.

 

Those would be the reasons for her having battle scars -- how her past continues to be a part of her no matter how badly she wants it to be as distant a memory as the place she hailed from. All she wants now is to get on with her new life as a citizen of Equestria. While she may have more scars on her body, she can always wear clothes to hide them. This would make her eccentric.

 

Any thoughts?

[Illiad Easle 3,139]

@@Melanoma,

 

You definitely have put quite a bit of thought into the social side of clan based militaristic interactions. Commendable really as justification for the presence of some scars as well as the ability to not have many if any severe ones.

 

For me battle scars are meant as a way to tell readers about a rough past without directly telling them, they come up when they're important, but are less noticeable in situations where they aren't so relevant. For instance, I have two scarred OCs, Illiad Easle and Midnight Star. The first wears a full-ish body robe which easily covers the burn marks on his back though I will occasionally mention them through my writing style. The latter typically wears a cloak, though is unashamed of the scars, I've described them as potentially faint streaks of grey in the deep black of his coat, like comets marring an otherwise pure black sky. It adds a level of depth to the character as well as the implication of hardship without having to explicitly tell the reader about past troubles directly, though notable scars may deserve such attention.

 

Anyway I hope this helps in some way.