I Think I Remember:
Username: medigel
Pony Name: Luminescence (Lumi)
Seasonal Alignment: Winter
"Fact One Rolled: They've had an unfortunate incident with a Mau.
"Fact Two Rolled: They had a job for a week where they swear they were grabbed by ghosts.
"Fact Three Rolled: They have a big family.
(color coded below for convenience)
About:
Personality
Lumi is dreary, but they didn't used to be. Don't let their long face fool you: you couldn't grow up in their family and not have a decent chance at becoming a happy and fairly well-adjusted pony. But for one reason or another, be it fate or coincidence, Luminescence is a magnet for trouble. They have another theory: they believe they are cursed. Why else would bad things continue to happen to them more than any other pony? Hell, you don't even know their story! How does that even happen to someone?? Surely you've heard some whisper of the "blue ghost of the Sleepless Cave"! Not knowing has to be yet another effect of their bad luck, to lure unsuspecting ponies into the idea that Lumi is perfectly normal if somewhat dour and safe to be around.
You fools! You poor, poor fools!
Lumi themself is...well, there's only so much terrible "coincidences" a pony can take before they just give in to despair, and they are well on their way down to the bleakest of headspaces and sipping black coffee while doing so. Sleep? Don't know her. This is fine. Some ponies have to have their luck balanced out, which just means others have to take on the surfeit. Better them than someone else, they suppose. Pragmatic, monotone, and slow to emote much else beyond gloom and doom, they keep to themselves as often as possible until their work forces them out.
They're terribly afraid of one day staying too close to someone and getting them hurt, so their love life has been non-existent. But then, there's always work to keep them busy, right? A loner they may be, but they are still the hardworker they grew up as. In their off time, they like to read about other disasters in morbid curiosity about the suffering of others, finding kinship in their pain. Lumi will even read it to their colonies like a parent would for a child. They don't tend to sleep well anyway and have constant eyebags for it, so might as well spend the time doing something useful.
Job
Lumi began as a mushroom farmer primarily, especially of the bioluminescent kind, and a succulent grower as a secondary, and had once taken over some of the family's tunnels within the Sleepless Cave to tend to them. It doubled as a safe home away from most other ponies as well...at least, until the inevitable cave-in happened.
Lumi continues to grow mushrooms wherever the circus goes in their own portable patch of cave soil, locating or creating dark spaces to let them grow. The mushrooms are very hardy and useful for potions and natural lighting, which they take advantage of if the product doesn't sell; the succuluents also serve as more hardy natural lighting and accent decoration. Non-luminescent mushrooms are also peddled by cart occasionally and taste...interesting at the very least. Whatever is available, Lumi has an eye for detail and is meticulous about their presentation, even arranging his fungi to appeal to one's sense of aesthetics for sale. It's the closest to vanity they get.
When not hawking goods, the Suli is a perfect and somber workhorse, able to keep up with even most Earth ponies as they strike tents and set stages up.
They have a big family.
Luminescence comes from the (once famed) Morel family, a bloodline of ponies that love to work the earth in various ways. Keeping to the old farming methods passed down by their ancestors, the Morels often coax their partner(s) into having many baskets so that there is always at least two other sets of hooves around to help with jobs. As such, Lumi has always known what felt like a thousand siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, and more besides. Much like the mushrooms they're famed for, the Morel family clusters tended to grow close to one another as they dug various tunnels in and around the Sleepless Cave. "Welcome to the Great Morel Colony," some would joke when they brought friends or new lovers.
With a big family came long-standing traditions. Luminescence grew up in a relatively conservative home for it, putting family first and the respect of elders and those who had gone before foremost. They had names to live up to, you know! Lumi was even named for one of the first Morel farmers to settle in the area and was technically Luminescence the IV, born (hopefully) to carry on the proud Morel name.
These were the times when Lumi was more carefree. And then...
They've had an unfortunate incident with a Mau.
Much like the Morels carried their history and passed it down to their children in clothes, work, stories, and love, so too did their precious pets. Laurel was legendary at the Morel farm among them: the mau was ancient by normal pet standards, but Lumi's father swore (as his grandfather had before him, and great-grandfather, and...) that the nature of their plants led to quality food which lengthened its life considerably. If you believed the family, Laurel had in fact been the first mau put on the farm and had seen generation after generation of Morels work the fields and forests! The mau was also considered a symbol of luck as it kept pests out of the farm (alongside its many offspring) and was even-tempered and wise, even speculated to understand pony's speech better than the average pet. All in all, it was a treasured part of the family, a living piece of history, and a testament to the benefits of their products.
But being old, Laurel required a specific diet of dry food, wet food, slices of meat, and specially prepared mushrooms to help its digestion. Everyone was required to know this particular recipe as chores were rotated among the siblings at the farm. On the day it was Lumi's turn to feed Laurel, they had been tired from the previous day's work and a longer night of staying up playing games with siblings. They didn't notice that they had grabbed the wrong kind of mushroom to dice into the meal - one poisonous to maus in even a small dosage, similar to the normal mushroom used but for a few shades of color.
That morning is still etched into their memory. Thirty minutes after eating its breakfast, Laurel began to convulse violently and screech unholy murder until blood bubbled up. The rest became a blur of panicked ponies, thrown accusations, and tears. Some wanted to blame Lumi for failing to be diligent in their job, while others argued that it was time for the mau to pass anyway.
The failure haunted the family as much as it haunted Lumi, however: as the symbol of their pride and joy had passed, so too had their long streak of good luck. Very little grew after Laurel's death. It was as if the wrath of the ancestors had been brought down on them for failing to keep tradition. An outsider would say it was harsh: it had been an accident, Lumi barely an adult at the time. But spirits care little and less for fairness when something fixed becomes changed suddenly and violently, should you ask the Suli about it.
Much less the spirit of an ancient mau.
They had a job for a week where they swear they were grabbed by ghosts.
With the family business failing and Lumi now an adult, they were forced to try other jobs to try and make ends meet. Any and all money they could spare was sent back home: a penance for his failure and proof that they were working harder than ever. But the more they reached out and applied for work, the more odd things would happen. Unexpected traffic making them late too many times to ignore, freak storms that would destroy their place of work, being let go simply because the company was downsizing...But the job that truly broke the camel morph's back was the time Lumi worked a week at The Equinox.
The Equinox was a homely hotel that boasted being haunted by the ghosts of villagers who had lived around the area before a civil war had nearly wiped them out. As a bellhop, Lumi needed to sell this spooky aspect to clients as they helped with luggage and showed them to their rooms. They didn't want to believe in such rumors...until the second night.
Any time they rolled over to sleep, they heard scratching at the door, familiar meows that slowly ramped up into angry hissing, and weight on his body like a mau trying to nestle on him. And with every night that followed, it grew worse. Fur would mysteriously find itself in the fresh laundry he brought to guests, food grew sour if he served it, and small objects would be launched off tables and desks to crash headlong into the pony or a nearby wall. And then the voices of the dead would join in: the sound of soldiers marching past their door, of children giggling and asking them to play, and worse still. Ghosts even grabbed at their legs at one point, dragging the pony through the halls and cursing them in various languages. Within a week, a battered and sunken-eyed Lumi quit the Equinox, to the delight of the hotel owner: now she could add another boast to the list of forcing employees to quit over being scared!
Eventually, Lumi returned to the old warrens in the Sleepless Cave - an apt name for the Suli as they had since lost the ability to sleep for long hours. Stripping themselves of their family name, they now work quietly in one of the tunnels left behind, harvesting unique mushrooms to sell and make ends meet for his family. How they managed to become part of the Nightday Circus is another story in and of itself....but for now, they refuse to make actual contact with family in fear of adding more bad luck. They do what they can for now to atone for their ultimate mistake - or at least what the old ghosts that follow them allow them to do. It's yet to occur to Lumi to seek forgiveness from their ancestors and the damn old mau, content for now to wallow in a misery of their own making.
Now would you mind not forgetting? Not that they'd blame you if you did...
"When it hurts to look back, and your scared to look ahead,
