Sarissa

Sarissa Tubestrim is a female unicorn member of the Dawnpick Militia. She is a highly opinionated pony who has no problem telling others precisely what she thinks of them. This, combined with her conservative values and violent nature, has prevented her from forming any true friendships with the other ponies living in her community. Despite this, she is usually very loyal to authority figures and feels an extreme sense of patriotism to Dawnpick. She is disciplined about keeping to her duties as an axe-pony and believes in working hard to achieve her goals.

Before Dawnpick
As with many other members of Dawnpick, Sarissa was born elsewhere and only moved to Dawnpick later on in life. She was born and raised in the small farming town of Haybale to a pair of lower middle-class unicorns. Her father, Plowshare Tubestrim, worked as a hired hand on a farm elsewhere in the community. Her mother, Crochet Tubestrim, was a stay-at-home mom who made and sold clothes in her spare time. Crochet taught Sarissa the basics of becoming a clothier while she was still a young filly. This was quickly picked up by the young unicorn and it soon became her goal to acquire her cutie mark in the trade.

Early on, the household was a happy one for the most part. The main problems were usually rooted in Crochet's naturally depressive personality, which she tended to treat by drinking alcohol. Plowshare was not a fan of her drinking, but tolerated her habit in order to prevent conflict within their home. He usually only had issues with his wife when she chose to become drunk in front of Sarissa, whom he did not wish to have exposed to such behavior. Despite this, she would still enebriate herself if she felt particularly stressed.

One such night, this lead to an event that would eventually change life for all of them. While Plowshare was out, Crochet became intoxicated and began stumbling around outside of the home. A lone wolf in the area, attracted by the scent of food scraps from neighboring homes, caught sight of the vulnerable mare and attacked. Sarissa was alerted by the screams of her mother and soon became aware of the wolf that had her pinned. Quickly grabbing a large knife from the kitchen with her magic, the filly attacked the preoccupied wolf from behind and stabbed it multiple times in the back and sides in panicked fury. The animal died from its wounds and Sarissa managed to find a neighbor who had her mother taken in for medical attention. Although Crochet suffered many deep wounds, she was stabilized and ultimately survived the encounter.

It wasn't long afterwards that a shocked Sarissa discovered that she had developed her cutie mark; a tombstone. Understandably, she was quite upset about the idea that her special talent was killing. The unicorn was already the butt of jokes at her school due to her weight problems. To add to her frustrations, her new cutie mark and the story about her killing the wolf further alienated her from her schoolmates by adding the elements of mistrust and fear to her image. Due to this, Sarissa developed a short temper and became increasingly bitter towards her peers.

Eventually, the young filly's attitude towards the encounter with the wolf began to change. Before, she had been the victim of bullying and had a sense of powerlessness. The more she thought about the way that she was able to take the life of a dangerous animal, the more she began to embrace the sense of empowerment that it gave her. As her personality gradually changed, the new Sarissa came to enjoy the fear that she instilled in others. She stood up for herself more often, sometimes to the point of getting into fights with her former bullies. She was beginning to develop a taste for violence.

Back at home, her mother had delved more deeply into her alcholism in order to cope with both her physical and mental wounds. The wolf had managed to break the tip of Crochet's horn off. Although it didn't completely rid of her magic, it did weaken her powers and make them unreliable. It became much harder for her to sew and manipulate fabric the way she wanted to and her clothing business slowed greatly. This only put more stress on the female unicorn. Plowshare became increasingly frustrated by his wife's spiralling drinking addiction and eventually decided to put his hoof down; Crochet would have to stop it. Conflict over the issue elevated within the home until the two could no longer live together and decided to divorce. Crochet went to live with her sister whereas Plowshare was given custody of Sarissa.

The broken home only served to increase Sarissa's bitterness and non-sociability. Seeing how alcohol destroyed her former life, she came to hate the substance and eyed all who imbibed the drink with suspicion. She never forgave her mother for what she did to the family and refused to visit her. Nevertheless, she still loved her father greatly and considered him to be her only true friend.

Personality


Often wearing an expression of indifference or scowling, Sarissa is not an overly friendly pony. She tends to be suspicious of the intentions of strangers and often puts up walls to developing new friendships. A pony of many prejudices, she tends to have a distaste for or at least a lower opinion of species other than "regular" ponies (mostly earth ponies, unicorns and pegasi). This includes zebras, badger ponies, and Diomedians. Despite this, she usually tries to be courteous and polite towards those whom she has not learned anything negative about.

In contrast to the way she may treat her peers, her attitude towards pets, foals and authority figures is usually positive. Given that small animals tend to love their owners without conditions, Sarissa has long found them to be a substitute for true friends. One way to get her angry is to mistreat creatures that cannot defend themselves. In a similar way, she loves foals for their relative innocence and cute appearance. Although she desires children herself, she has given up on the idea that it will ever happen. This is especially true due to her heart having grown cold towards the idea of romantic love. Sarissa's father taught her to be respectful of authority figures and her military training has reinforced that ideal. She is exceedingly loyal to the baroness Virtue and is fully willing to die in order to protect her. This goes hand-in-hand with the great sense of patriotism that she has for Dawnpick.

In battle, Sarissa is merciless with her axe and has no qualms about killing those who would threaten her home. The sight of blood and spilled internal organs doesn't bother her in the least. She enjoys the adrenaline rush that combat brings her and often goes into a highly-focused state of bloodlust when she sees a vulnerable enemy. At times, this sense of fearlessness and impulsiveness can bring her to attack perceived threats when doing so would not be in her best interest. Being highly dedicated to her job, she is very faithful in keeping her equipment in good condition. So highly does she prize her weapon that she has given it a name (Elegy) and treats it with the care that one might treat a foal. She often commemorates her victories in battle by skinning and mounting the skulls of her fallen foes on the walls of her room. However, this is done only with enemies that she deems to be "sub-pony", such as dragons, forgotten beasts and even badger pony thieves.

Although she has developed a disdain for her mother, she still practices the clothier skills that Crochet has taught her. Other than fighting, sewing is the hobby that Sarissa enjoys most. In order to make extra money on the side, she produces sweaters, scarves, dolls and other such things that she can sell to the other residents of Dawnpick (or to caravans). She desires to improve her skills to the point where she can create fancy dresses for both herself and others.

RP History
The first scene Sarissa is involved in during actual role-playing dealt with the discovery of Jaxler's history as a thief by Virtue. The baroness requested Sarissa's assistance in retrieving the pegasus so that this accusation could be discussed with him. Until a decision can be made about his fate, Virtue asks Sarissa to escort him to the jail. This goes without incident.

Sarissa earned the nickname "Slayer" or "Dragon Slayer" after killing an invading dragon in single combat. She was unharmed in the fight and finished the creature by decapitating it with Elegy. The unicorn cleaned the skull and placed it on her wall with the rest of her collection. She also saved some of the bones so that they could be carved and incorporated in her intended gala dress in the future. Weeks later, Amor had a chat with Sarissa about the details of the fight. The two spent a bit over an hour talking and then went their separate ways.

One of the more infamous events in Dawnpick has Sarissa featured right at its core. After a Rainbow Pony diplomat was found dead in the dining hall, the other members of the caravan became enraged and threatened Virtue's life. Sarissa responded to the threat in accordance with her training and a fight broke out. Twelve Rainbow Ponies were killed in the fight with no deaths on Dawnpick's side (although Kat suffered an injured wing). The majority were slaughtered by Sarissa herself, which Falcata later scolded her for.

Later that same day, more Rainbow Ponies were found hiding out in the furniture warehouse. After one of them held Virtue at gunpoint, the copper unicorn's rage became uncontrollable and she attacked the pony. She was stopped from going through with the attack by Glaive and, in the confusion, Virtue accidentally shot Sarissa in the leg with the Rainbow Pony's exotic weapon. She was hospitalized but later recovered from the bullet wound.

Abilities and Skills
Trained in the militia to wield a battle ax, Sarissa is a highly-skilled soldier. Although her overall skill level in combat is below that of some other members of the Dawnpick Militia, it is still sufficient to allow her to attack and kill a dragon single-handedly as well as kill badger pony thieves and Rainbow Pony guards with relative impunity. She trains on a regular basis, often alone if no one else is available for sparring. The unicorn tends to focus more on physical assault and strength as opposed to specialized magical powers. In terms of raw potential, Sarissa has an overall average magical talent, especially strong telekinetic magic, but a less-than-average ability to learn new spells. This is likely due to her negligence of novel magic in preference to the raw, brute force that telekinesis can bring with it.

One exception to this strategy is a unique spell that she developed dubbed Vitalsight. It magically changes the sensitivity of her eyes to pick up the presence of living blood (all other materials become invisible in this vision mode). The power has several uses, including visualizing (and therefore allowing targeting of) areas of high bloodflow and therefore vital organs in an opponent. It can also be used to determine if an enemy is "playing dead" by revealing if their heart is beating or not. In theory, it has other applications as well. Since all other substances become invisible, Vitalsight could be used to locate otherwise hidden creatures. Internal bleeding and constricted blood vessels would also be diagnosable using it. So far, the technique has only been successful in seeing mammalian blood (due to its unique composition) and cannot see through sufficiently strong magical force fields. Vitalsight can "burn" through weak force fields and see what is inside if enough magic is used.

Sarissa has decently-developed talents in knitting, weaving and sewing. She can create satisfactory clothing items that will perform their function as needed, but are not particularly fancy nor of excellent constructive quality.

Possessions


As with all members of the Dawnpick Militia, Sarissa owns a complete set of armor. Being a unicorn, she can wield a shield with her magic whilst carrying a weapon with her jaws. The mare's weapon of choice is an axe that she has nicknamed "Elegy". Compared to other axes, Elegy has a distinctive chip in one of its blades which allows Sarissa to easily recognize it. She highly values Elegy and keeps it in a lockable case she had specially designed to house the axe when not in use.

Several skulls recovered from her fights can be seen mounted on the walls of her room as trophies. Most of them are from badger ponies, but there is also a forgotten beast and dragon skull among them. Although she keeps these items from some enemies, she does not prepare and mount skulls from species she considers as equal or nearly equal to "normal" ponies.

Self-created items can also be seen within her room, usually tucked away neatly where they belong. These include sweaters, bed sheets, scarves, tourniquets and other such similar items. Although Sarissa has not yet successfully created any dresses, she desires to one day gain the skill to do so. In particular, she invisions a gala dress crafted from carved dragon bones, polished bloodstone, leather, colored fabrics and silver leaf. Its design would be a metaphor for the battles that she has been involved in.