Character Backstory - Bourbon Rose · 10:19am May 6th, 2015
The Origin of Bourbon Rose
Minor spoilers for Wasteland Bouquet, major spoilers for Bourbon Rose's past and future. Also some spoilers for Fallout Equestria.
Also a Dark warning. All good? Then read on!
Birth of a Wanderer
Bourbon Rose was the eldest daughter of a reasonably succesful rancher. The ranch, which she was heir to, provided brahmin to several caravan companies and had done quite well over the years.
Life was good, as you might expect, particuarly since they'd gotten an invite to show their prize brahmin bull at the Rainbow Falls exchange.
One of the less-experienced ranch-hands left the gate to the prize brahmin bull's pen open. Bourbon, not about to let her ticket to fame get away so easily, grabbed her duster and her gun and set out to track it down. A few days passed before she found the bull and managed to lead it back to the ranch.
There was nothing left but smouldering rubble, a few defiled corpses... and a single, nearly dead worker, who told Bourbon what had happened before dying. Psychotic raiders had attacked out of the night, roaving reavers that killed, tortured and violated every living thing on the ranch before running off again, howling and throwing burning bottles into the buildings.
With nothing but her gun and her duster, Bourbon left the remains of her life behind, set on tracking down the raiders and taking horrible, bloody revenge. It was weeks before she caught a break, finding a straggler in the remains of a building they hadn't quite destroyed, still doing their sick work on a dead mare. Bourbon was very thorough in interrogating him.
She didn't learn much. He was insane, hurling threats and curses, the remains of the mare proof that he was willing to do everything he said he would. Something inside Bourbon snapped, and when she left, it was with flames consuming the building, hiding what she'd done to the raider as revenge. It wasn't nearly enough, though; as Bourbon continued tracking the main group, she ran into other raiders, gangs, who saw a lone mare as an easy target. She realised she liked causing pain. She realised that the wasteland was all about suffering, either causing it or having it caused, and there was only one choice if she didn't want it herself.
Bourbon Rose tracked, and hunted, and killed tirelessly. Along the way, she wiped out a minotaur and his slaver band, bringing the attention of bounty hunters hired by the minotaur Midvalley.
But she never found the band of reavers she was looking for. Their trail went cold at the ashes of an old homestead, like they'd dropped off the face of Equestria, and her wandering became aimless, searching for any clue to where they might have gone. Goddesses help anyone who got between Bourbon Rose and her revenge.
Behind the scenes.
Bourbon Rose started as a bit of a joke, something that seems to happen a lot with my characters. I was talking about how to spice up an arc with my prereaders, and I jokingly suggested that a bounty hunter come after Whiskey Rose because she looked like the bountyhead he was after. We had a chuckle and put the idea to one side, with all my other scrap ideas.
Next thing you know, the group's looking for the Serenity and the idea doesn't seem so bad. I started brainstorming, and things fell into place quite quickly.
Bourbon Rose is the mirror of Whiskey Rose. She's what Rose could have been, if things went slightly different. Both of them are sociopaths to some degree, but where Rose had Lily to fall back on, Bourbon had nopony. Bourbon is slightly older than Rose, giving her an independence that Rose lacks and signifigantly more experience with the world. Bourbon is a sadist, Rose just likes fighting. Rose responds to stress by shutting down and being more of an introvert than usual (and getting drunk), Bourbon becomes more extroverted and aggressive, looking for a reason to hurt someone.
And yes, the ponies Bourbon is looking for, the ones who destroyed the ranch... are the same ones who destroyed Rose's homestead. The ones Rose killed. Hope she never finds out about that.
So, what does the future hold for Bourbon Rose? Well, most of that's in the A/N. The last time she was seen was facing down an alicorn. Nopony knows what happened to her after that, but we do.
Bourbon was taken and converted into an alicorn herself.
After the death of the Goddess? Well, I like to think there's an unhinged alicorn wandering the wasteland somewhere.
Well, time to finish this post. I hope this little slice of backstory wasn't too badly written, and I'll leave off by saying this:
New Wasteland Bouquet chapter, coming soon!
Interesting; thanks for the extra information.
Of course, her similarity and connection with Whiskey Rose seem like a bit much to be pure coincidence...
Extraordinary backstory and description as always, Cascade! It truly struck a chord, and I do hope dear Bourbon gets the rest she deserves after the fall of Unity.