Falcata (Glitterglen)

Falcata is a chocolate colored unicorn mare who was banished to Glitterglen early in her adult life for her crimes in Coupledye. Her loner attitude and severe depression after those events sapped most of the motivation in her life, and as a result she dedicated herself to serving in Glitterglen's fortress guard to give her purpose again.

She suffered several misfortunes during her time in Glitterglen, but after several years she finally found herself in the respected position of captain of the Ducal Guard and with a few friends. Her life was ultimately cut short by a forgotten beast from the caverns, which she faced alone in a desperate and failed attempt to protect the ponies she had come to know and love.

Life History
Falcata's adult life is marked by a series of tragedies that took her nearly to the breaking point on two occasions. Though her childhood was happy, it wasn't long after after she was grown and married that her life began a slow descent, interrupted by only sparsely by moments of true happiness.

Childhood
Falcata was born to the unicorn couple Espadon (her father) and Saber (her mother) in the city of Coupledye. She and her siblings Dirk (her brother) and Kukri (her sister) lived a happy, if simple, life in the city for many years. When she was still young, she helped her parents with their gardening business, which she had little taste for. This was amplified after she fell into a pool of one of the more affluent ponies in the city while she was helping her parents and nearly drowned. She had a persistent fear of water after that day, something she was only able to partially overcome by learning a spell to let her create a bubble of air around herself.

Adulthood
After growing up and being unable to find a true purpose in life, Falcata joined the Coupledye city guard, where she put her strength and endurance to good use. Coupledye had relatively little crime, especially of the violent sort, so she spent several years in the guard without much incident.

It was here that she met her future husband Estoc, also a city guard. After a year of dating, the two were wed and settled together with plans to start a small family of their own soon. Falcata became pregnant soon with their daughter Kris and gave birth to the little unicorn in due time. The family lived happily together for six months before tragedy struck.

One night while on late patrol, Estoc was murdered by the thief Slim Pickings. Falcata was overcome with grief at the loss of her dearly beloved husband, and took it upon herself to personally seek out the pony responsible and bring him to justice. She eventually located Slim Pickings and questioned him about the murder. When she found out he was responsible himself, she brutally killed him in public and was arrested.

While in prison, she was accosted by Slim Pickings' associates Lifty and Shifty, who threatened to kill Kris for what Falcata had done to their friend. Falcata was overcome with wrath at their audacity, and since she knew how to avoid the magical wards of the prison, she decides to frighten the two into leaving her child alone. In her anger, she instead kills them, and was charged anew with ponyslaughter.

After killing three ponies in as many days, she was no longer trusted by anypony in Coupledye aside from her family, and it was decided that instead of executing her, she would be banished to Glitterglen where she would serve a life sentence in exile. Consumed with guilt and grief, she decides to take her daughter with her as the only thing left in the world that gave her any reason to live.

Glitterglen
Hoo boy... I'll do this later.

Physical Description
Falcata is an average sized unicorn mare with a chocolate colored coat and a rainbow striped mane. She has never cared much for appearing stylish and so wears her mane in a simple straight manner, although she lets it grow to a length that is probably a bit beyond the norm for a militia pony.

She is naturally gifted physically, and as such has good muscular tone and a lean body. Given her work in the Glitterglen armed forces, she trains frequently, and this serves to keep her in good shape. However, this has also led to the creation of a number of scars across her body where bladed weapons pierced her armor or found purchase where there was none to protect her.

Her most prominent scar is on her belly, an eternal reminder to her of the sacrifice that her friend Friesden endured to save her life when she was dying of stomach necrosis.

Personality
In her youth, Falcata was friendly and frequently cheerful. After her husband was murdered she sank into a deep depression from which she never emerged completely. She became a loner and was always pessimistic afterward, and considered her life to be worth little. The events that transpired early in her stay in Glitterglen only served to make this worse, and she never forgave herself for being responsible for Thundersplinters' brush with death.

While she is frequently depressed and dejected, Falcata is extremely devoted to her work and is ferociously loyal to those she cares for. She poured her life into serving in the fortress guard, and frequently trained when off duty. Inside, Falcata is terrified of rejection and offending ponies, and goes out of her way to avoid this. As a result, she sometimes comes off as overly formal, and would rather risk that than appear indifferent about a pony's status.

To her friends, Falcata is dependable and devoted. She would help any of them in any way she could, even at great cost to herself. This also extends to ponies she is responsible for, and she nearly gave her life to perform her duties and protect Duchess Charity when they faced Couth Darkmane.

To her family, she is warm and very loving. She places her daughter before herself in all things, and would readily die to protect her if called to do so. With no other children or other immediate family in Glitterglen, she gave all of her love to Kris, and the two shared a deep bond. She similarly loved her husband Estoc very, very much, and the death of Slim Pickings should serve as a warning to anything that dares threaten her family. Falcata would use every resource at her disposal and ounce of strength in her body to destroy anything that might harm her daughter.

Skills
Falcata's most prominent skills revolve around her place in the Glitterglen military. In her time in Coupledye as a city guard, she learned to fight, and became a skilled combatant. However, she learned to fight with swords there, and after arriving in Glitterglen she found herself using handed down weapons from the militia, and was given a warhammer. Although she was an accomplished fighter, she never managed to master using the warhammer, and this may have cost her her life in the battle against the forgotten beast.

Outside of combat, Falcata has a bit of an artistic streak and spends time engraving history or artwork into the walls of the fortress. She had aspirations of learning other forms of artwork, but never had the time. Like her brother Dirk, she was also interested in the art of smithing, but Glitterglen had very little in the way of metal to work with, and none could ever be spared to anypony who wasn't already a skilled smith.

Magically, Falcata is very weak. Having little natural talent for magic, she never spent much time trying to hone what she had and knows very few spells. Telekinetically, she is strong enough to life a foal, but anything more is difficult and extremely tiring. The few spells she does know mostly revolve around her role in fighting, and her most practiced spell is the stunning spell she learned in the Coupledye guard. Although she trained with Khenal for some time to help improve her skill with her magic, her raw power never grew much, and remained below an average unicorn.