Lucid (Lu, Lucy) Soul
Nocturnal House
20 | Female | Unicorn (Batpony Heritage)
Biography
Lucid has a light grey coat and messy light blueish-purple mane. Her eyes are heterochromatic with the left eye being dark purple and the right eye a light orange color. She has tufted ears and small, but noticeable fangs, both traits being inherited from her father. Uniform-wise she usually wears the whole set, meaning uniform, cloak, scarf, etc. Except on warmer days of course. She also usually wears a necklace with a small crystal around her neck.
Lucid was born in Canterlot to a relatively wealthy and well respected family with a long line of unicorn ancestry. She has an older sister by the name of Lily Quartz. While being mainly a unicorn like her mother Graceful Gem, Lucid also obtained some traits from her bat pony father, Watchful Eye. Lucid’s father wasn’t born in Canterlot and used to live in Mooneye Peak, a small settlement of bat ponies close to Hollow Shades. He only moved to Canterlot for a position as a night guard in the castle where he eventually met Lucid’s mother. Graceful Gem had spent her whole life in the capital of Equestria as her family owned a jewelry store there. Her family had been running that store for generations and was able to gain a small fortune as well as quite some recognition in the more influential social circles of Canterlot. Ever since the store’s opening day, they would craft their products themselves, using magic to create some truly unique workpieces.
Lucid and her sister were taught in magic early on by their mother and got to attend various additional classes on the matter at the school they were attending in Canterlot. It was a school exclusive to young unicorns, so they taught a few magic related classes in addition to normal school subjects. Most were just about the basics of spellcasting, but there were also optional ones on more specific subjects. Lucid ended up taking classes on basic transfiguration and illusions until she graduated.
Lucid would eventually find the most enjoyment in both the playful and practical sides of magic later on. Charms to make her life easier and spells to create playful illusions would become what fascinated the young mare most. Aside from spell practice, Lucid greatly enjoyed drawing and started to learn a little bit about sword combat from her father. They would train together for fun with wooden swords, whenever he wasn’t working at the castle. Her mother wasn’t really pleased that her husband would have their young daughter wield a sword for fun, even if it was just a wooden sword.
Graceful Gem mainly focused on teaching her daughters the basic techniques of transfiguration. Everything else was secondary. This was to ensure that they could take her place someday and manage the family’s business. While Lucid enjoyed learning magic from her mother, she soon found out that designing necklaces, bracelets and all those things with it wasn’t really her thing. Her sister had lots of fun with it, but little Lucid didn’t think of it as her calling. There had to be more she could do with her magic than that. Whenever she was supposed to help her mother or do her exercises, Lucid would get very unfocused, not really concentrating on her work and delivering rather mixed performances. Time passed and it slowly became more and more obvious that Lucid didn’t bear much interest in her mother’s craft. Eventually Grace would focus on Lily’s training, since she showed much more interest in the matter anyways.
Without having to bother with her mother’s lessons, Lucid suddenly had much more free time. She decided to spend this time on trying to learn more about creating magical illusions, than her mother had taught her over the previous years. She also started visiting her aunt Mandragora Brew more and more over time. Lucid would visit her quite often for advice, both in magic and personal matters, with her aunt always having an open ear to her niece. Her aunt had traveled throughout Equestria to research plants and herbs over the previous years. She had eventually returned home to spend some time with her family in Canterlot again and opened a store for herbs and self made medicine there.
Lucid didn’t have that many close friends throughout her childhood. While some would say this was due to her being a somewhat shy foal, the entire reason lies somewhere else. Lucid had gathered a little bit of a reputation for being reckless, meddling and a bit too adventurous for her own good. Most foals in Lucid’s environment came from the wealthier families in Canterlot and their parents deemed her as a bad influence on their children. She still did have one great friend at the time, a unicorn by the name of Radiant Ruby. They would go on many small, but nonetheless fun adventures together. Still, Ruby had a considerably strict mother with a great goal in mind. She was determined to ensure a great future for her child, which meant that Ruby had to spend a lot of time studying.
Those little adventures with the reckless half-breed only seemed to be a distraction from that. This eventually led to Ruby‘s mother not allowing her child to play with Lucid anymore. At first just not as much as they used to and later on almost not at all. Ruby’s family soon moved away, without Ruby telling Lucid about it. It happened sudden and unfortunately caused Lucid to lose all contact with her former best friend. She was left asking herself why Ruby wouldn’t at least tell her about this. To this day she can’t really wrap her head around it.
After this Lucid would spend most of her time either alone or with her family.
Lucid got her cutie mark, while they were visiting her grandparents at her father’s old home village. A special festival was being held there around the time and her father wanted to finally spend some time with his elderly parents again. Lucid, curious as she was, snuck out to explore the nearby forest, despite her grandmother’s many warnings about the dangerous creatures lurking there. After a long afternoon of exploration she came across a young bat pony. The timid foal apparently got herself lost in the deep forest while searching for some pretty flowers to give to her mother. Lucid decided to take her back home. It was already getting dark anyways. However, this was easier said than done.
The forest was large and the way home longer than expected. The two of them eventually found themselves wandering through the darkness, with only the light of the full moon to guide them. In the end they got lost on their way. The younger bat pony was pretty scared and feared that they might never find the way home. Lucid realized that continuing to blindly walk through the forest would only make things worse and get them even more lost. Instead she decided that it would be best to cheer up the other filly right now. With that goal in mind Lucid concentrated herself more than she had ever done before. In a strong feat of magic, the young unicorn managed to create a illusion to distract the scared pony, causing multiple small glowing fireflies in many different colors to appear. Like little stars, they brightened the forest and gracefully danced across the area around them. Not only did it cheer up the small bat pony, it also earned Lucid her cutie mark and luckily caught the attention of a search party that had already been looking for them.
Years passed by and Lucid grew older. Unlike her sister, who was preparing to take on the family’s business one day, Lucid didn’t really have any plans for the future after graduating from her private school, let alone a single clue about what she was supposed to do with her talent. Her mother started to worry about her daughter, thinking that she didn’t take her life and future as serious as she should. They would get into arguments about this more and more frequently. Graceful Gem would usually try to change her daughters mind, whenever she was experimenting with her magic, not realizing that in doing so she would prevent her from doing what she enjoyed most. In her eyes Lucid was just fooling around with her abilities, instead of putting them to good use or further developing them.
Niether of the two would really attempt to understand the other’s point of view in this. This arguing between mother and daughter would continue over the years, but eventually Witch Brew and Lily decided to put an end to it. Not wanting the whole situation to escalate even further and possibly tear the family apart, they tried to come up with a good solution that would satisfy both sides of the conflict. After weeks filled with even more arguments between Lucid and her mother, they finally found the perfect way to hopefully settle this dispute.
At the age of 18 Lucid would apply at SSSfGU with the hope that she might be admitted as a student. Her sister and aunt had suggested this to her. Lucid was certain that she needed a change to find the right direction for herself and the school seemed like the best place to go to. The professors probably could teach her more than she might be able to learn at home and help her to reach her full potential. She already thought about which classes she should attend, coming to the conclusion that Transfiguration would be a good point to start with. Maybe then she could finally transform larger objects without turning herself green from ear to hoof. Astronomy and Runes also seemed pretty promising, as well as Care for Magical Creatures. Her mother also seemed pleased with the decision and they didn’t get into any bigger fights with each other since then. She even seemed to be a bit proud of her daughter’s decision. Things were finally starting to get back to normal for the family, except for Lucid. Being accepted at the school would bring changes with it, but the young mare was determined to embrace those changes and face whatever the future would hold for her.
Her first semester at the school would pass by fast, in fact faster than Lucid would’ve wanted it too. It had it’s ups and downs of course, but in the end Lucid came out okay, with lots of stories to tell and new spells to show off of course. Though, happy memories and excitement over new spells wouldn’t be the only things that stuck with her after this semester. After a couple of rather strange and unsettling occurrences scattered throughout her first year at the school, Lucid was left feeling a little confused and uncertain about things. Eventually she ended up putting most of those thoughts about the bizarre things she happened to witness aside for the time being. Though they didn’t stop lingering around in the back of her mind.
The second semester is quickly approaching now and Lucid is as excited as ever to see her friends again and return to her studies, of course.
Additional Information
-Lucid is usually accompanied by her trusty pet, Sparks. Sparks is a proud wyvern-bat (a bat with draconic features). Lucid found him in a batch of apples in a fruit stand on the Canterlot marketplace. She decided to take him home with her before the stand's owner got mad about the oversized bat-thing eating away at his apples.
Sparks is just about as curious as Lucid herself and likes to wander off whenever he pleases, making it hard to keep an eye on him. He doesn’t take kindly to not getting enough attention from his scatty owner and is quick to show his dissatisfaction. Despite his unpredictable nature, Sparks has still proved himself to be a reliable and comforting companion to Lucid. He would protect his owner at the first sign of danger, even if all he can really do to protect her just involves biting the attacker and angrily screeching at them in the process. He also occasionally builds himself a makeshift nest in Lucid’s mane.
Abilities
Basic Magic- They can use basic levitation spells on small objects as most unicorns can.
Lunar Magic- As a little side effect of her bat pony ancestry, Lucid’s magical capabilities are tied to the moon phases. Her magic draws it’s strength from the celestial body. If the moon is getting fuller, her magic strengthens and slowly grows to it’s full potential and her spells get more precise. As soon as the moons shape is getting thinner however, her magic will weaken again. In the rare case of a lunar eclipse, Lucid will loose her magic completely for the duration of the eclipse.
After her first year at SSSfGU she received a special ring from Professor Calmly Curious, her teacher for charms. The ring is supposed to keep her magical fluctuations under control.
Illusion and Transfiguration- Lucid is able to create simple illusions, change the properties and appearance of certain objects or transform them. Her abilities in transfiguration are limited to smaller objects, while the limits of her illusions are solely dependent on her concentration and imagination. Complex illusions take more time, focus and energy to be performed. They also generally don’t last as long, should Lucid be successful in creating one.
Drawing- Lucid loves to spend her time painting and drawing pictures. It’s the easiest way for her to relax and put her mind at ease under stress. Sometimes she uses her magic to create illusions that make the pictures come to life for a short amount of time. There isn’t that much other practicality to this spell. She just finds it charming as well as incredibly calming.
Combat- Lucid has basic skills in sword combat from the time when she used to train with her father. However her abilities are more on the level of a amateur. She would never be able to stand a chance against a fully trained sword fighter, but can at least defend herself fine enough.
Character belongs to: Pancake #6101
