CW | Loner | Miraphy | old

[ADVENTURER]
Miraphy loves to go on adventures to search places she heard from in legends or just to solve mysterys. She not rarely gets in dangerous situations in which she usually decides to flee instead of fighting. If there, however, isn't any other option than fighting she proves herself to be quick and intelligent which makes up for her physical weakness. Though she is against violence and, in a fight, always tries to harm her opponent the least possible.

[CURIOUS]
She is always curious about new things and eager to learn. She always asks others about stories and legends which she could keep in mind and dream about later. On the Island of Olde she often wanders around the city to find new districts of it or some hidden passages, while she tries to avoid the Olde herd in the process.

[NATURE LOVER]
Miraphy loves the silence of nature like green forests, silent lakes and the fog in the morning. She spends most of her time away from herds in the protective custody of forests while daydreaming about far away places she would never be able to reach.

[INQUISITIVE]
Learning new things and stories is one of her greatest passions. Miraphy loves to hear stories about past days or share theories with how life could have been before the humans became extinct. When she finds someone who can teach her something, she prooves herself an eager and good learner who wants to be as good as she can be.

[ERUDITE]
Through the love to learn new things Miraphy pocesses a great knowledge of the world around her. She can, for example, identify a few constellations in the night sky and knows, through the position of some stars and the rising and setting of the sun, where the cardinal points are and therefore where she is going. Despite of that, she doesn't see herself in the position of someone who could teach others and rather prefers to be a student herself.

[CLEVER]
When it comes to finding the best way out of a tough situation Miraphy is the one to go to. Due to her habit of analyzing everything around her in detail she can quickly see clarity in most situations and quickly finds solutions. When outrunning a predator she knows where to run to get rid of the chasing beast, and when standing before a mystery she counts everthing together that she knows to find the best theory possible. Anyway, due to her lack of social knowledge, she doesn't prove herself clever at all when it comes to relationsships. She is usually unsure and reckless around others and holds on to the few things she knows about how to treat them.

[COLLECTOR]
Mira loves to collect stuff she finds around the city, or sometimes even other parts of the island, in a building at the edge of the city. She sees the beauty in little things like wind chimes, crystals, mirrows or other trinkets. She doesn't live in the building in which she collects all the things though, she prefers to wander around and always stay someplace else on the island. Sometimes she spends whole days wandering around places to find trinkets that catch her eye, though she only rarely finds anything.

[SHY]
However, Miraphy is quite shy when it comes to talking with other horses. She often just talks to herself or speaks with animals and the nature around her. When she talks to other horses she often acts quite shy and unsure since she normally insults others without intending to do so.

[STUBBORN]
When Miraphy got something into her head she usually does everything to achieve it. She then fixates on her Plan A and has a hard time to accept a Plan B.

[SOCIALLY AWKWARD]
Her shyness also causes social awkwardness. Miraphy is self-conscious and wasn't that much around others in her life, which gives her next to no experience of how to treat others. She often is alone and stays to herself, being happy to be with the nature, her treatues and silently observing the herds of Chevalin. Though if there is a chance for a friendly conversation she normally doesn't let the opportunity slip and proves herself to be a reckless talker. She usually says what she thinks and often lets words slip her tongue that weren't meant to be spoken in the first place.

[PESSIMIST]
Miraphy always anticipates the worst of each situation. She lives in the constant fear that everything she plans will fatally fail and that all situations she is in will end up in being some sort of huge danger.

[ASKANT]
When meeting strangers she instantly is skeptical of them. Her life as a loner taught her to distrust everyone she doesn't know. Her pessimism only makes this trait worse because she usually anticipates worse case scenarios. It is very hard to win Miraphy's trust.

[WEAK]
When she gets into a situation in which she has to fight, she rather chooses to use a good strategy and her speed to get away as unharmed as possible. She is strictly against violence and has no experience in actual fighting since she always runs away when she gets the opportunity. Her physical weakness makes it hard for her to get out of dangerous situations.
The most time of her life, her parents, especially her father, were there to protect her from harm. But now, where she is on her own, she is certain that she won't always have the luck on her side. She slowly looses faith in her own beliefs and so now considers slight fighting as a possebility.

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Story:

told by Miraphy

[Childhood]

I was born on the East Island in early spring. It was still very cold from the winter I yet did not know. The first thing I saw from the world were many shining colors in the sky. Oranges and pinks, blues and purples, yellows and reds. A beautiful sunrise that was. The second thing that caught my eye was the bright mare I laid beside to, who, of course, was my mother. It were her sweet words that brought be from the darkness into this world full of colors. The first feeling I learned to feel was awe. The next thing was hunger. It was a feeling I wanted to be rid of though and the only way to achieve this was to find my feet. It was hard to stand up. I fell down into the soft grass many times. A stallion, who I later got to know as my father, kept trying to help by stabilizing me with his head. At the time I finally managed to stand the sun had already risen and most of the colors in the sky were, to my huge disappointment, gone. After I drank for the first time of my life I already had a new task before me: wandering. I was barely able to take a step at this early time, but eventually I found out that walking wasn't as hard as I thought. It took me a lot of falls and tripping to learn that though.

Wandering. It quickly became a big part of my life. My parents and I wandered EVERYWHERE. The island we were on seemed like the whole world to me. It was huge and everything on the island seemed to be huge as well. The meadows were huge, the forests were huge, the mountains were very huge and there even was that one very huge tree which my parents called "the great pine". I was scared of the tree though because I always imagined what would happen if such a huge tree would fall over like I always did when tripping. I did not like the thought of it landing on top of me. I would be flatter than a leaf!

I spent the first five years of my life on this island, falling in love with the scenery and every detail. Every day there was something new to learn and new places to explore. What I yet did not understand was why my parents were so nervous all the time. We rarely met cougars and if we did, my father always managed to fight them off. He was very strong and I felt that the worry was not about the cougars. I would not attack my parents, so why were their looks so anxious. One day I found out why.

It had been an early morning and we were on the shore of the island. A place we only rarely went so I was very excited. I woke up my parents as soon as my eyes were open though because I found something I had never seen before: ways in the sea! It looked like little beaches that lead to something that looked like a mountain in the distance. My mother had explained to me that it was another island. Unimaginable! A whole new island to run on and to explore!? That was the best thing ever! Before I could go on and on, about all the possibilities and what I planned to do on this new island, I spotted some other horses. Horses! Never in my life did I meet other horses than my parents and so I wanted to dash to the group and greet them. My father stopped me though and looked panicked while my mother already ran ahead to the way in the water. Something in my father's reaction and expression told me that these horses were bad. But not just bad mannered. He looked like he would be facing a cougar! So these horses were some sort of cougars!? That was more than just scary. I cursed myself for wanting to greet them and galloped after my mother. My father came shortly after me. I did not remember ever running so fast in my life and I found it sad to not see much of the surroundings because of that. I would have loved to take a break and swim a little before continuing to run. I had learned to swim after all. My father had taught me and it was very much fun. The running between the waters though did not feel like fun at all though. I was scared. Very scared.

When we reached to beach of the new island, we noticed that the cougar-horses did not follow us anymore. Somewhere on the little beach in the sea, they must have stopped and turned around. Maybe they were afraid of the water! The thought had made me laugh to which my father said, "This is no laughing matter Miraphy." in a strict voice. I was silenced by that. But I understood what he meant. We all had been scared very much but those horses and laughing about it was not really the expected reaction. My anxiousness disappeared though when I took in my surroundings. It was so different from the East Island. It seemed to be warmer here and even the air smelled a little different. I could not wait to explore everything, but at first, I had to catch my breath. Only now did I realize how long I have been running. The run was already high in the sky and I felt like I could fall asleep from exhaustion right at the spot. I understood that we had to walk on though. Finding a safe place for sleeping was top priority.

This island was amazing! Even better than the one, I wandered on before. There were horses here who weren't like cougars and for the first time in my life I met horses my age. My parents and their parents allowed me to play with them, but that soon proved to be harder than I thought. The others knew things I had never heard of. Sure, I had played games with my parents too, but that had been different. It was very awkward whenever I had to admit that I did not know something. They always looked at me as if I would not know what the sun and the moon were. It was very embarrassing. From this point on, I did my best to learn as much as I could to keep up with the others. Whenever I mentioned unicorns though they laughed at me and called me an Olde-filly. Whatever that meant. What was wrong with the unicorns? My father had told me that they once lived on these islands but disappeared. I loved to hear stories of them. It fascinated me to hear about creatures who processed magical powers like the witch Ba'Yagu did. Whenever I mentioned Ba'Yagu though no one laughed and just liked to listen to what I had to say. How strange these other horses were. Or was I the strange one? Maybe my parents did not raise me right? But I felt right and I loved my parents, so how could there be something wrong?

Their not-belief in the unicorns frustrated me. It was as if they told me there weren't any pegasi! My mother told me about pegasi quite often. She said they were horses with wings who lived even before the unicorns and that they could fly like birds in the sky! It surprised me that whenever I tried to tell anyone about these bird-horses my stories were met with utter confusing. Had really no horse ever heard of a pegasus before? Apparently the stories about unicorns were far more spread. And I did know for sure that the unicorns existed once! I hoped they would come back so that I could see them for real! It would be so amazing!

Time went on though and the years passed by on this warm island. The winters were mild and the summers were nearly unbearably hot. Not rarely, there were also fires in summer. I had never seen any on the East Island and quickly learned to fear them here. They looked pretty but it was told that they would bring a painful death. I did not want to witness something like that.

More and more I came to like the idea of travelling to the only island I have never been to in my whole life: The Island of Olde. My parents had taught me - quite late - about it and they said that there were horses that believed in the unicorns. Wonderful! My next goal therefore was to get to the third island and meet those horses. They probably had many stories to share, just as I did. Whenever I mentioned the Olde Herd to the other horses though they began to laugh just like when I mentioned the unicorns. They told me that these horses were crazy. Not just crazy, but insane! Insane? That didn't sound like someone I wanted to meet. The descriptions didn't remind me of the cougar-horses though, who I now know had been stallions from the Bachelor herd who had tried to capture us for their own selfish reasons. I had asked a lot about the Bachelors after that and came to know horrific stories. I was then even gladder to have been able to escape them back then on the landbridge.

Eventually it came the day where my parents and I said our good-byes to the Exile Herd. Apart from the fact that they were atheists, they had been very nice and I really came to like them. They taught me a lot, like reading the stars a bit and how to put out a fire. Also, I got the chance to interact and play with horses my age and also learned how to behave as a non-loner. But this was what I was, a Loner. Together with my beloved parents! It was great to not be tied to a herd so we could travel freely wherever we want. Now our next goal was the Olde Island. We had to wait a few days on the beach before the landbridges finally showed up. My parents told me that this time I maybe had to swim and that I should spare my power while doing so. And I did. I swam for my dear life and it was very hard to keep it up. Very troubling was that there was no ground in reach to take a rest. We all were very exhausted when we reached the Olde shores at night. Even more exhausted than we were when we had reached the Southern Isle over two years ago.

A new life awaited us here. My mother had told me many stories of the city and how she had once been there. The stories from the pegasi did she have from there when she had found books with pictures of them and statues of them and even jewelry shaped like them. Jewelry. I rarely saw it on horses. Some members of the Exile Herd did have it and it looked very pretty. One day I wanted to find jewelry in the city and wear it too. Or I would ask Ba'Yagu if she could give me one. As before, I was so excited that I completely forgot how exhausted I was. The first thing I did after taking a few steps on the beach was falling into the sand.

The big excitement to meet the new horses who believed in unicorns was met by a disappointment though. Exchanging a few words with them and listening to their stories went very well and the tales they had to tell amazed me. But when I started to talk about pegasi and said that they were there before the unicorns I got to know the insanity the Exiles had told me about. It was as if I would have told them that everything they knew was a lie and they taunted me for believing such things. It was even worse than the Exiles when they had told me that there weren't any unicorns.

The youngsters of Olde chased me away and even physically hurt me when doing so. This experience taught me to be afraid of them. It seemed as if the only sane horses in Chevalin were the Exiles. But I did not want to give up yet. I always silently approached the herd, while trying to hide, and watched what they did. It fascinated me to see how much different they were from the exiles. Several times a day they prayed to the unicorns and all of them acted with a certain grace. Well, most of them did. There were some exceptions. It was needless to say that I was caught more than once and feared them more and more with every time I was chased away. In their eyes my believes were blasphemy, even though I believed in the unicorns! Why blasphemy then? Because I liked to also believe in pegasi? Because I did not pray? Because I loved to cross the landbridges? It was beyond my understanding how they could react so harsh to my actions. I never did anything to them after all!

My father offered me many times to teach me how to fight, so that I could protect myself the next time from harm. But I objected his offer. I did not want to do them harm, it would only make things worse. I had learned what I wanted to learn, most of it though, and so I could leave them alone.

Together with my parents, I then started to explore the city. It was huge, very huge. The buildings were taller than mountains and you could walk into them like into caves. It was amazing. Inside of the buildings were all kinds of stuff I had never seen before. Always there was something new to find and it never got boring. These buildings were like treasure-caves. Just that a fire-breathing dragon did not guard them.

But the city was dangerous. Many cougars roamed around it and so my parents and I did not go there very often. But this made the times we actually spend in between the buildings even more special to me. The pine forest grew to be my friend though with its many animals and plants. It reminded me of my first home, the East Island. I really wanted to go back there, also when I did not want to meet the Bachelor Herd and its members under any circumstances. My parents and I had managed to avoid them for over five years though, so what did tell us that we could not do that again?

[Adolescence]

My childhood was filled with fantasy stories, travelling and playing. A happy time I like to think back on and regret to not enjoy as much as I should have. When I became thirteen years old, I already travelled around all three islands a lot. Three times, I was on the East Island, three times on the Southern Isle and only this one time on Olde. From all the islands, the Southern Isle was something I came most near to calling home. I knew that a Loner did not really have a home. We travel around as we please and find our home on the spot earth we stand on. But on this warm island I did not get chased away for telling stories and I did not have to live in the fear of getting fillynapped by brutal bachelor stallions who would rape me. No, the Southern Isle was a very nice island to live on. For over two years, I lived here now with my parents and we thought about trying to get to Olde again. Our last visit there wasn't that pleasant, but we heard that the herd had a new king and maybe things had changed there because of it.

Little did I know at this time that my parents and I would never make the journey together and no other journeys in the future either.

We were just about to go to the shore to wait for the landbridges to form and I was excited as always. I loved walking over the landbridges, it was such a nice view! The sea could not scare me as long as I could swim and so I had nothing to fear. Happily, I trotted through an area I had walked through many times. But not once in a few months though.

At first, I heard a cry of a raven and then the beat of wings. I raised my head to see a lunar raven. No, several of them. A whole swarm! And they were coming right towards me! Quickly I dived under a tree that had fallen over a cavity. I fit in there and quickly called my parents to hide too. But it was too late.

With horror, I saw how the lunar ravens encircled my parents and attacked them. With all the white birds around, I could just barely make out what were birds and what were my parents. Frozen I lay in my cavity, not being able to look away or to jump in to help. Eventually the birds flew away. A few of them died in the attack when they were pestles under my parents' hooves. The bloody white bodies lay on the ground. I could not care less about them though. Slowly and shivering I climbed out of my hiding spot. I did not dare to say even a single word and just looked with horrified eyes what the birds had done to my parents.

Both of them had deep, bloody wounds where the peckers of the birds had dug in and their manes were a mess. Single strands had been ripped out. But what frightened me the most was the sight of my mother. The lunar ravens had picked out her eyes. Where the gentle blue orbs once had been where now blooding holes. My father still had both of his eyes, but one of it had taken a shade of blue, which meant that it was blind.

I took a step back. My heartbeat and breathing was rapid and I started to cry. This was my fault. I set of the lunar ravens! IT WAS MY FAULT! My father said something to me, but I was so frightened that I couldn't make out the words. This was a nightmare. I took a few more shivering steps back before I broke down and blackness faded over me.

When I awoke again it was night. A cold wind was blowing and my mother could be heard sobbing. I make out the voice of my father who tried to comfort her, but just did not find the right words to do so. Slowly I rose and pondered if I should walk over and say something. It was my fault, I should at least say that I am sorry. No. This was too cruel to just be forgiven with a simple apology. No matter what I said, they would hate me. With scaring off the lunar ravens, I had ruined both of my parents' lives. I did not deserve to be near them. My presence here was nothing but a bother. I was nothing but a bother. Silently I walked away in the direction of the beach, where on Olde a new life would await me. A life in which I hopefully would be able to forget what had happened.

Still shaking and crying I arrived on the Olde Island. Snow slowly fell to the ground and a cold wind was blowing. It fit to my mood, I felt horrible. I started to walk into the forest without even a sight back. My wet coat would freeze at these temperatures and with this wind. The chances were high that I would die just here in the cold. But I did not care. It was more than I deserved. Hours over hours, I walked blindly through the forest. No story and no star reading helped me now. I was at an end. I was ready to give up just like this. But I did not. With every passing hour, the will to survive got stronger until it was my most desperate cry. I wanted to live, I wanted to make up for everything I did wrong. I wanted to continue living for them! To live the life that was now forever gone for them. At least I should be happy. That was what all parents wanted, right? That their child was happy. They often had told me so themselves that they wanted me to be happy.

I regretted all the times I had been rude to them. All the times that I disappointed them. And especially all the times I had taken for granted that they were there. I cursed myself at the latter. I should never take anything for granted. It could be gone in the next second and every happy situation would end eventually.

The cold bit in my now stiff limbs and I shivered violently. The trees did not catch any wind, which lead it smack me with its cold fists. Shelter. I needed to find shelter.

The next morning I woke up in a building in the city. After a while, I had been too frozen and tired to further think about what I did and so I had to think for a while to find out how I got here. But it did not matter. I was alive, the wind was outside, I was out of its reach and I was save. I had to warm myself up. My winter coat did not help at all in this situation and so I shook myself to settle in for the day. It was the first day of my new life. I was alone, it was cold, I did have shelter. What I now needed was warmth.

With a lot of struggling, I survived this winter. I was more than happy when spring finally came with the warming sun, the melting snow and the flowers on the meadows. I was now fourteen years old and independent. That was not bad for a Loner. With every day in which I did not have to fight against the cold of winter I felt more alive and became more active. Finally, I was able to succeed my dream of treasure hunting in the buildings. Finding jewelry that was fit for horses was hard though. Humans must have had very tiny heads and necks, because no necklace I found fit me.

In summer, I finally was able to succeed my dream. Ba'Yagu came on the Olde Island. After hearing so many stories about the witch, I was very excited to finally be able to meet her. I had packed up my prettiest treasures in a bag I had found in spring and went to her. I traded everything for a necklace made of the gems from the Exile Herd. The gems from my home island. It reminded me of the happy times with my parents and my foolhood.

I was very happy to have this treasure. More than just happy. It was the most precious of all my treasures. Only rarely I wore it though, out of fear to accidently loose it in a building or while being chased by a cougar. I became very good in outrunning them recently. Their moves were predictable for me and I was fast. I had outrun the bachelor-cougars after all once!

It took some time, but eventually I settled in, in this new life. The building that had rescued my life in winter became my home and personal treasure cave. All the beautiful treasures I found in the city were brought here. I loved to look at the wind chimes, dream catchers, dolls and books for hours and imagining what purpose they once did have. I invented stories to each trinket, to some even several. Talking to the animals, who of course could not understand me, and to my surroundings made me feel less lonely. That is how I came around. Sometimes I even met other loners on my travels through the labyrinth of buildings. I rarely talked to them though. The long time of insularity had made me shy and insecure. When talking I did not always watch my words and quickly hurt others. It was not funny, so I refrained from even trying. Loneliness needed to be my new friend, or otherwise I would drown in it.

From time to time, I think about my parents now. Wondering what they are doing these days, if they are even still alive. Then I think back at the happy times we had together, how I must make them proud and happy, by living a happy life, and smile. It is a smile of sadness, homesickness and the joy my new life brings to me.

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Role Play Sample:
Miraphy was roaming through an old building, searching after something that seemed precious enough for her to take home. Beautiful treasures like gemstones, old dolls, mirrows or wind chimes usually caught her attention, but this time she found nothing but the boring old, rotten furniture, over which numerous plants had grown. She sighed disappointed, so there was nothing interesting here after all. Suddenly she heard a voice from outside, sounding overjoyed about something. Curiousity struck the young mare and so she left the building through the huge hole in the wall in which she also had entered. It took her a bit of searching, but then she found the source of the echos. A white stallion who excitedly watched himself in a broken mirrow. Miraphy remembered that mirrow, she had accidently stepped on it earlier and deeply regreted breaking it this way. It would have been the perfect treasure to carry home otherwise. The mare kept her distance from the stallion, just standing there and watching his odd behaviour with confused eyes. Then her curiousity overwhelmed her. "What are you so overjoyed about?", she asked but stayed where she was, about 15 yards away.

*from a roleplay with corruptpudding and her character Alabaster

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Other art of her:

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Miraphy & art © me (Lilafly 2013-2014)