[Nimaine]

Username:

Nimaine

Equidius name:

Jackoleen

Gender:

mare

Age:

3 years old

Size:

12 hands

Rank:

defender

Personality:

Jackoleen is known for her attention to detail and devotion to rules. She enjoys nothing more than trouncing the enemy and keeping her herd's territory safe. She loves routines and traditions. Traditions provide her with binding ties, and since her temper is quick and her manners rough, this is often the closest she can get to friendship. Routines are as comfortable to her as they are to everyone else, and they give her confidence and pride. Of course, her routines include things like sparring training, patrols, and combat practice.

She does not suffer fools gladly while on duty, but off-duty she has been known to deliberately seek out the stupidest equidius in the herd to eat her daily fungus with, just so she can laugh at him (or her) quietly. Jackoleen tends to forget to think about others, and can come off as cold. She has difficulty imagining herself in positions she is unlikely to find herself- for example, her attitude to hurt, injured, and diseased equidius is 'they're whining.' Only when she herself has got a cold or cut her leg is she sympathetic, and while this lasts for a little while, as soon as she recovers her health, she starts back to her old ways.

Jackoleen loves her har-won job as defender, but there are times when she feels lonely. She's not gullible, and is in fact more than a little suspicious, but if you can worm your way past her defenses, she will love you as much as she loves herself. While disdainful of breeding mares to her battle buddies, she has always believed that if the right stallion came along, she would trade her current job for that of a breeding mare. That said, she tends to hold grudges and does not take betrayal- or anything she views as a betrayal- well.

Story or history:

Jackoleen had hit the rocky floor with a soft thump. Now that the membrane seperating her from the cave was torn away, she was breathed the dusty, musty underground air with large nostrils, sucking in any oxygen available. Her head spun from her recent ordeal and all seemed unstable and unreliable. Then a soft, firm tongue scraped up her long nose. Again, and again, the licking slowly allowing her senses to focus. The tongue and its rhythmic movements scraping away the disorientation from her mind. She opened large, sightless eyes out of ancestral habit, but focused her sensors towards the source of the licking. A large head was just above hers, and a soft whinny, vaguely familar, said, "Mmmhhmm, welcome to the world, my little one."

Her ears strained forward to hear her mother's voice, and the licking resumed- this time down her tiny baby back. Jackoleen became aware of the rest of herself with each stroke of the tongue, and in doing so discovered that she was powerfully hungry. She could smell food- it wasn't far- just up, and over, there. She pointed her head towards it, but got no closer than she was before. Ancient machinary of her ancestors churned in her mind- she needed to get up. She needed to walk, to stand, to run from predators. And she needed to get up and walk to that milk. Defiantly, she pushed against gravity, rising to her knees, then to her hooves- then falling to the ground again, in a heap.

She didn't need her mother's whisper in her ear: "Try again, my darling," but it did help. Stubbornly, determinedly, Jackoleen got up slowly, planted one front hoof on the ground- and sent her extra antenna after it, to see that it stayed there this time. Other front hoof- and she was halfway there. Her mother's tongue was pushing her now- pushing her up. Jackoleen rose triumphantly to four feet. She took one step- and then fell. She fell three more times before she reached her goal. Drinking greedily, her little tail wiggling with delight, she could hear her mother say, "You're a quick one, Jackie." Years of living in relative safety underground meant most foals took longer to stand. Jackie had only taken as long as a pre-disaster foal. "Perhaps it's those extra sensors you've got on your shoulders. They help you keep track of your front legs better."

That wasn't her only change. Her father came to see her, three days later. She had been frisking about her mother, when a stranger entered. She stopped, and came up to him, both curious and fearless. He sniffed her. "Hmm, a filly, I see." There was nothing offensive in the words themselves, but his tone made Jacki bristle.

"She has some extra antennae," her mother said placatingly, "and she found her feet very fast."

Her father wasn't interested in this information. He was inspecting her horns, while Jackoleen stood still and silent. The sense of indignity was growing in her, but she didn't act upon it... yet. "Her horns don't point down. That's a bad trait."

"It is not! It's a good luck sign!" Jackoleen spluttered in her little, high-pitched whinny. She couldn't stand to hear such lies from her stranger, not when her mother had told her the truth.

Her father put his large head very close to her little one, and she gulped. "It's. a. bad. trait." he told her firmly, before turning tail and leaving without a goodbye.

"It's a secret good luck sign," her mother told her a little later, nibbling at the roots of Jackoleen's mane. "You must let the other horses find it out for themselves. Show, but don't tell." Her mother held back a sigh. A timid Equidius, she had watched with unhappiness as her other older children accepted the places at the bottom of the herd without too much resistance. She might not care what became of herself, but she only wanted the best for her children. So this time, she had chosen a strong and confident stallion, and given her little daughter only praise and encouragement.

About a week later, when they rejoined the herd, Jackoleen got to meet all the other little fillies and colts. Most of the fillies were shy, but all of the colts wanted to play-fight. She trounced them all, being quick on her feet and quick to take advantage of any weakness shown. But when one of them went running back to his mother, to hide behind her, the other breeding mare came up to Jackoleen's mother, and started insulting her. "Can't you raise one foal correctly? Your newest daughter is terrorizing the rest of the foals, and my little dear says she bit him- hard enough to bleed!" The other mare reared onto her hind legs, in order to get some good kicks in with her front feet, while her mother tried to duck and run. Jackoleen did the opposite. "I'll teach you not to teach her any manners- Aieeee!" That last scream was not due to Jackoleen's blunt teeth which bit the thick neck uselessly, but rather due to the sharp points of Jacki's unusual horns- they had been plunged into the other mare's chest. And unlike her bite, this was attack was deep enough to draw blood.

Spitting out fur, Jacki cried to the retreating mare, "That's a lie! I didn't bite him that hard, and my mother is the best!" Somethign dark dripped off the tips of her horns, but she didn't notice this until much later. It was when she was trying to reach them with her tongue to clean them that her father found her.

"I heard what you did to that breeding mare." She ignored him. Her mother had already told her, very gently, that it was not appropriate to go around attacking mothers, even if they were unspeakably rude liars. "And you're right. Those horns are a good luck charm. For you. As soon as you're weaned, I'm taking you to be trained as a defender."

"Of course I'm right," Jackoleen gave a horsey smirk by wrinkling up her nose. Then she paused and thought about the rest of what he had said. "Really?" This was exciting, she had heard about the defenders, and it seemed to her to be a brave and worthy enterprise.

"You needn't sound so happy. We'll have to teach you the importance of discipline, my girl, and I want that done as soon as possible." But despite this warning, Jackoleen remained very happy to hear this. Her mother was happy too, she felt that this was where her vibrant daughter could do the best.

[Verdana]

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