Unicorn Asterism/Asteria [FINAL (finally)]

[flutterscotch]

Roleplay Type: World of Equestria

Name: Asterism, but goes by Asteria in her current line of work. Sure it's Clark Kenting, but ponies are a trusting bunch. And her boss is kind of a goof and wouldn't notice anyway.

Sex: Female

Age: Mare

Species: Unicorn

Eye Color: the pale green of the glass product known as Jadeite. In bright sunlight it's barely discernible from her sclera.

Coat Color: a dusky muted purple, blue, the color of the sky a a half hour after the sun goes down. Beautiful during the day in full sunlight, but not very noticible in shadows and during the night.

Mane/Tail/Markings Color & Style: Her mane naturally is very short, just a few inches of a poofy little bouffant that usually has a bow in it when she's being herself. But she has a vast array of mane and tail extensions to quickly disguise herself. Her favorite look is long, slightly curly but not fussy, and periwinkle. This is what she wears in her current job.

Physique:well toned and androgynous, but she has prefected ways of making herself stand so that she can appear flabbier than she is, and ususally does because it gives her an advantage. She can usually pass as alternately a half-grown colt, an old mare, a teenager filly if she needs to. And she has.

Cutie Mark: a sprinkling of stylized periwinkle and white stars that appear to glow, but only because of the contrast of color against her coat. It is only loosely related to her special talent of being able to manipulate particles in the air around her, but it was her desire to see the stars up close that caused her to realize it.

Origin/Residence: Manehattan, currently lives in a "hideout" on Mt. Firefoal, if you want to call "a room in a cave with an interior draped all over in fancy scarves and fairy lights (her boss'...not hers) that most locals already know about and visit for games of checkers and tropical juice cocktails" a hideout.

Occupation: Real: Spy for REIN, very minor, mostly recon and intelligence. Current (undercover, but not appointed. Even a spy's gotta eat.) occupation: astronavigator and, well, ship holder-together for Green Flash's vessel the Rocinante.

Motivation: She has the very simple motivation of wanting to be a wild and free, and and now to see every possible constellation in the world on her journey. It's the execution of her deepest desire that's been complicated until recently.

A natural actress, who had no interest in persuing a career on the stage, Asterism somehow came into the spy business by virtue of her looks and her lithe athletic ability...and to impress a stallion. So far it's afforded her the ability to travel.

Likes: feeling the wind on her face, the stars in the sky, meeting new and interesting pony folk, living the simple life, travelling, she is particularly amused by Green Flash, her brother, Chase, who she has always looked up to even though he has a much more boring job than her. The freedom that comes with her limited assignments, the phosphorescent ocean swaying, the northern lights, a smattering of stars across a darkened sky, charting comets on her portable globe, desk jobs, having to be tied down, being indoors. And Tales. Asteria just LOVES pirate and fairy tales. What, did you think I was talking about our own MyLittlePonyTales? As if I'd make a board canon connection without asking first!

Dislikes: feeling obligated to stay in one place all the time, the tedium of treasure hunting aboard the Rocinante when the Captain is looking for something obscure and weird, the fact that sometimes in her line of work and duty to Equestria that she has to leave identities and friends behind.

Character Summary: (WIP)

The early days:

Asterism grew up living amongst the busy streets and cultured ponies of Manehattan. The very much youngest child in the family, she was born when her brother

Chase

had already gotten his cutie mark. Upon her arrival in the family, in an attempt to make her old brother more receptive to the end of his only child status, they allowed Chase to pick out her name. He, of course, named her after an obscure typographical symbol (⁂) (his first choice, Interrobang (‽), was soundly nixed by both parents) She spent most of her foalhood being spoiled and pampered by her older parents who thought they couldn't have any more foals, much less a little filly to dress up all cutesy, much to the chagrin of her older brother who was just at that stage in life where he was starting to rebel. However, foal Asterism just absolutely ADORED her older brother, even though he was not always as nice as he perhaps shoud have been to his baby sister. The little unicorn would spend hours trying to get into his room, to try to get him to hang out with her, to emulate him; even so far as trying to print on his press, which ended in inky disaster. Her hero-worship of her older brother came at the detriment of Asterism really making any solid childhood friends, and sort of crippled her social abilities. Not enough that she wasn't able to relate to anypony else, but since she didn't always know what to say, and spent a lot of time avoiding doing things like going to her classmate's parties, or school dances, she was considered a kind of odd duck as a filly.

As Chase grew up and became a teenage colt, beginning his life as an undercover grafitti artist, Asterism would usually secretly follow him through the streets of Manehattan, always having a convenient excuse as to why the barely-a-filly was out on her own when the streetlights were on (the generally accepted curfew for little squirts like her at the time). Through the streets like a petite beribboned shadow she'd sneak, ducking behind corners, through alleys, behind trash barrels, blending in with the gloomy dusk that accompanied the shadows of things bathed in the orange tinged lights of the city. Of course she was always careful not to stay out too long, and to cover her tracks by making her bed look like there was still a filly in it, going so far as to carefully snip and collect small sections of her mane that would peek out of the covers to complete the illusion that she was still in bed.

Chase's parkour skills navigating through the city improved as he got older and more comfortable using his finely tuned unicorn telekinesis, as did those of his ever-following sister, who had to learn to compensate for her brother's magical telekinetic boost with sheer athletic ability until her skill with magic could even partially catch up to his. Indeed for most of their childhood he never realized that she pretty craftily followed him through his routine many an evening until one day he caught her in the act.

Expanding the Sky

Chase had had the feeling that he was being followed one evening and was shocked to discover his little sister, who he considered practically a baby (even though she was really a school-aged filly, but alas still a blank flank, and definitely a late bloomer), skulking in the shadows on top of, of all things, a water tower, obviously quite easily keeping pace with him and he navigated the rooftops of the city. It gave them a common ground, and him a begrudging respect for a pony all her life he'd considered a bit of a nuisance in the way older brothers will. Now that her secret was out in the open, Chase began to help her sneak out and show her all the really neat places he discovered all over the city when he was just a tiny bit older than her. Along the way he would help her work on her fine motor skills using the aetherial energy all unicorns seem to be able to tap into to move things. Asterism's first, and for the longest time only, mastery of that skill was on a kind of micro-level where she could move around dust, even making lose-knit temporary structures out of dust and water vapor that just kind of made her outline a little blurrier in the shadows, or could provide kind of a screen to make her appear bigger than she was if she was backlit. She was fairly satisfied with trying to perfect this kind of camouflage skill, and practiced every chance she got making little dust curtains or thin veils of vapor that shimmered like rainbows when the light hit them. These structures only lasted a few minutes, and required her absolute concentration, but could mean the difference between getting caught trespassing or getting away Scot-free.

One particularly wonderful evening they climbed atop a tower of a temporarily vacated building on the outskirts of the city, above the fog and somewhat away from the light pollution from the street lanterns of Manehattan that Asterism was used to. For the first time ever she was able to see a faint swath of stars, with hundreds of pinpoints of lights of a brighter intensity filling the night sky. She wasn't sure if she imagining it, or if the stars had slightly different hues. She just knew she wanted to see them more closely. First she tried feebly to move any of the ambient dust and water vapor as far away from her as she could in her filly-ish naïveté, which accomplished next to nothing, then she tried to see if making kind of tubes of dust to maybe block out light would work, but nothing helped, After several weeks of trying, and one long night is staring out her bedroom window during a rainstorm, she realized that water in a higher concentration than vapor seemed to have a magnifying effect, so the determined filly set herself to work trying to basically lift small quantities of water with her unicorn telekinesis. It was hard work keeping it together by gently magically nudging all sides at once to keep it together, but eventually she was able to make a tiny rudimentary kind of telescope that provided enough magnification to let her see the stars a little more clearly. The very first thing she did purely for her own enjoyment and not as an act of emulating her brother gained her her starry cutie mark. And yes, sometimes she augments it with tiny little clusters of water vapor to give it a little extra sparkle when she wants to look pretty.

Making Her Own Way

Eventually, Chase reached Stallionhood and set off to Stalliongrad to find his fortune, leaving his little sister back in Manehattan to make friends her own age. As a teenager she began to blossom into quite a good-looking mare. Never one you could call a great beauty, but handsome and striking definitely came to most ponies' minds when they saw her. She began to come out of her shell and her peers came to know her as a cunning, fun-loving, but somewhat introverted, gal with an independent streak a mile long.

Older colts began to pay attention to her and ask her out, but they always seemed to pedestrian and boring for her. Her ultimate test whether the little romance would play out was whether they could keep up with her in a flirty game of hide and seek on the rooftops of Manehattan, as well as keep up with her clever banter. Alas for them, she was too quick for them to keep up, and all that that implies.

The restless filly kept everyone, her peers, her teachers and her parents on their toes with her cut-up antics, alternating with bouts of silently staring into the abyss of the sky, and equally intense bouts of furiously reading about far off places in the library. Every moment she had a passionate obsession of a place she wanted to visit, hooves that wanted to hit the open road, and she was almost old enough to make those dreams come true!

One day a handsome dark stallion pegasus basically slightly crashed into her during one of her merry romping across the rooftop with a mall classmate that passed as a "date" (the verdict is still out on whether it was an accident, or he had seen her around and took his chance). Slightly startled, she instantly and instinctively bounded away and camouflaged herself, not knowing if he was friend of foe. Rushing to find out if she was OK, he introduced himself as Shadowplay and asked her name in a beguiling manner. She balked, awestruck by this attractive and brash stallion, couldn't even stammer out her name. Teasingly, and knowing that the filly was only just a little bit younger than he, told her that she was lovely, and the combination of her coloring and cutie mark reminded her of a star sapphire, so that no matter what her name was, to him, she was Asteria.With a saucy promise "See you 'round", he took off. Asterism's actual date forgotten, she stared after him, silently cursing herself for freezing up like that.

Fortunately, they crossed paths many many times on the rooftops and dark alleys of Manehattan after that, until she finally got the guts to ask him out. He resisted for a while, for reasons she couldn't figure out, but she was young and persistent. Finally, without giving away any of the details on his mission, he told her that his time in Manehattan was limited due to the nature of his job, and that he was an Intelligence Agent for REIN, posing as a young university student, and that eventually his job here would end and he would probably never see her again. That knowledge in-hand, she still pursued a relationship with him, and even joined the training academy for REIN operatives at his urging. Her athletic ability, acting skills and ability to manipulate her appearance, along with just her natural quick wit, quickly brought her the top ranks of the academy. Their relationship continued throughout her time at the academy, and despite what her head knew about Shadowplay leaving, her heart still felt like they would be together forever. The restless pony even thought of settling down!

Sadly, the romance ended with Shadowplay's mission. Asterism was crushed, as all folk who lose their first love are, but those are the breaks. He had always been 100% honest with her in that regard, but she still took it very hard. After graduating, she received an assignment as job as an operative on the frontier of Appleoosa, working with a team of other ponies who posed as waitstaff at a saloon, to report on the goings-on of bandits there, throwing her all into it and acquiring skills and costumes that made her ideal for undercover work. She had very little time or patience for socialization, romance, friends or any of that, and even less patience for looking at the stars. It was a rather unhappy time for the young mare, but a chance encounter with a enthusiastic unicorn filly who sold her a sunstone and a spyglass that she had made at a roadside stand sparked her to turn her attention to the stars once more and pot her on the path to the recovery following her heartbreak.

On Board the Rocinante.

Knowing she was stagnating and just wallowing in self-pity, Asterism decided it was time for a change. Now a full-grown adult mare with some job experience behind her proverbial belt, she wanted adventure and excitement, and to forget her troubles! She wanted to see far-off coasts and volcanoes and vast starscapes, so after a slew of unfulfilling minor assignments, she applied for a transfer to the Gallopagos islands. Her ongoing mission was to covertly infiltrate several pirate smuggling rings that had been using the islands as either headquarters, or resting spaces. Weaving long pale periwinkle mohair into her real hair to alter her appearance, and fully taking on the name "Asteria" that Shadowplay had teasingly called her, she set off to join a band of pirates..

When she arrived on the main island she was struck by the boundless eccentricities of behavior of one captain, Green Flash, who was looking to crew up. Amused by his personality, and knowing nopony would ever take her seriously as a member of the crew of this goofy pony's ship and it might serve as the perfect cover, she put her best slightly ditzy personality forward and signed up as First Mate.

The

Rocinante

turned out to be a godsend for her. It not only kept her in contact with several bands of pirates who really were nasty customers and should be reported to REIN, but Green Flash's mission of seeing as much of the sea as he could provided her with the sense of absolute freedom she'd always wanted, making her forget her heartache and thawing her out again. She was even happier when she discovered that despite all bravado, Green Flash wasn't culpable in the wrongdoings and more than anything was all talk when it came to piracy. At the very most he could be considered a roguish scoundrel with a penchant for too flashy clothes. Apparently he makes enough bits off light transport between the islands (the Rocinante is one of the smallest "airships" in the sky, and with all the nooks and crannies in the island chain, this is a boon), and trips when he makes fruit-juice cocktails that going after booty that isn't legendary treasure seems pointless.

Her only regret is, now that she and Green Flash are quite good friends and she loves him quite a bit (not in love with him, mind you, she regards him as family and after Shadowplay is very wary of handsome too-friendly stallions even though he was honest to her up front.), she can't tell him who she really is lest she blow her mission. Because he can NOT keep his mouth shut. She plans on telling him first thing (and heartily apologizing for lying to him) as soon as she retires from REIN now that she has found a job that makes her happy. and can only hope his kind heart will forgive her.

Powers and Range

Like her brother Chase, Asteria is a unicorn of very little magical spell work, but very powerful in her ability to telekinetically

(MODS, are we still calling this telekinesis, or has it been reclassified as something aetheric? Basically same "lifting with magic coming out of her horn" skills we have seen Rarity have, but "special talent" class.)

move things. She can either focus on one large thing, or millions of tiny things (nuts, bolts, droplets, dust particles), but her absolute total matter limit is only about twice her weight. She can lift the one heavier thing further, several yards away, and longer, up to 15 minutes without rest, than she can the more particulate matter which can barely extend past the range of her hooves. She practices every day to improve these limits. She is also able to stabilize the ship when it is flying through the air under the gas bag, and keep it from totally falling apart, even though it is larger than these limits, technically, because it's held aloft by its envelope and all she's doing is gently exerting magical pressure on the boards so that it doesn't fall apart.

How her family sees her/how she looks au naturale. | How she looks as the first mate of the Rocinante.

Additional Notes and Comments that are not exactly part of her character summary

Asteria and

Nova

are basically two sides of the same coin. Asteria is essentially an adult Nova brought up in a different locale, and the fact that the little pink unicorn reminded her SO much of herself was what prompted her to purchase the items she did, which snapped her out of her funk (retail therapy for the win!). This doesn't prove anything, but if the Rocinante ever makes it back to that area, the crew may just have a little stowaway.

The dynamic is similar to Kiki and Ursula in Kiki's Delivery Service.

[MyLittlePonyTales]

How is this Application coming along?

[flutterscotch]

Don't even think about locking my application, Talesypants.

I had a computer (or two) die over the weekend. It's getting there.

[MyLittlePonyTales]

[flutterscotch]

Don't even think about it Tales... I see you asking about apps that haven't been touched. I am trying to get the second part of her app properly worded and it requires some research about polarized light that I wasn't expecting it, so hooves off

[MyLittlePonyTales]

And here I was coming to comment since it had been a week.

[flutterscotch]

[MyLittlePonyTales]

Oh herro Butterscotch Flutterscotch.

[flutterscotch]

*shakes fist*

I will get her finished this weekend.

[MyLittlePonyTales]

Any progress on this Application?

[flutterscotch]

Yeah, but not much. Was at bronycon.

[MyLittlePonyTales]

[flutterscotch]

[flutterscotch]

I love you Tales, and I am still working on this. But see if you can spot the change I made.

[flutterscotch]

Dear Tales, I appreciate that you have let me finish without bothering me about this application.

[Mojo]

Flutterscotch, now that this app is Final, I'll evaluate it for you.

This is AMAZING work, excellent details, brilliantly written!

Recommending it to Senior staff to move it along in the process!

Nicely done!

[flutterscotch]

Flutterscotch, now that this app is Final, I'll evaluate it for you.

This is AMAZING work, excellent details, brilliantly written!

Recommending it to Senior staff to move it along in the process!

Nicely done!

Thank you sir, I did take long enough, didn't I?

[Armony]