OC Spotlight: Sylvia Cloudshadow

Sylvia Cloudshadow

Type: Pegasus

Cutie Mark

Theme Song:

Crystal Clear’s beloved firstborn daughter by Chester Elegante. She looks like a near-total clone of her Aunt Shard, the only visible difference being her eye color, and she is just a sweet little angel virtually incapable of hating.

She was born a year after her parents split ways for different colleges, a result of their "last night's goodbye". Not quite a shock, Crystal was delighted when she found out she was having a foal by Chester, and since "even the most shadowed cloud has a silver lining," she named the filly Sylvia Cloudshadow, for she was the silver lining to her parent's seperation. While Crystal was still in school, Sylvia was left in the care of her loving grandmother, Dyane Clear.

Shortly after the Summer Sun Celebration, she went on a camping trip with her Uncle Murky Depths, and her two best friends Sweet Melody, and Buck Tart. Two monster attacks (including an Ursa Major) and a scary ghost story from Murky later, she was scared so badly by the experience she stayed in her room for a week. To this day she is still deathly afraid of Ursas.
A few weeks after the camping trip, Sylvia came out of her room and finally met Connie Sky. Connie showed her and Crystal a photo of a dangerous criminal who was on the loose, and Sylvia skipped away merrily looking for Melody, who wanted to talk with her the day before but had to go home. By the time she remembered Melody went to school at that time, Sylvia having graduated already due to skipping 2 grades because she loved being in the library’s quiet at lunch, she had already made it all the way to a cafe where her dad was having a quiet lunch. The very criminal Connie warned her about, Twisted Scoundrel, spied Sylvia walking along and abducted her, for his gang to hold for ransom and/or take advantage of her. Her mother Crystal showed up with Murky Depths in time to save her, unfortunately for the crooks, and she managed to escape, blocking the memories out and eventually fully forgetting them as time passed.

She was so happy when Crystal and Chester reunited on her 14th birthday, that she began calling him “Daddy” at the most inopportune times, like in front of her gun-toting grandfather almost immediately after he gave Chester the “treat my little girl right” speech. Nobody ever bothered correcting her on the error, and it eventually stopped being an error when Chester and Crystal got married, an event that occurred twice, because the one in Las Pegasus didn’t legally count because the Elvis Ponsly they drunkenly got to marry them for the price of a hayburger wasn’t licensed, but a drunk hobo dressed as Elvis as an elaborate money-begging attempt.
Sylvia’s cutie mark, a safety helmet, is representative of her special talent being safety. She earned her mark by managing, with help from her younger brother Quincy, to get both of their unconscious parents out of the house during a gas leak and dragging them all the way to a hospital before it was too late. She went to sleep that night holding Crystal in the hospital bed, and her cutie mark appeared during her sleep. The cuteceñera party held the next day ended with Sylvia’s friends promoting her to a sensei-type role, and not removing her from the group as she was slightly worried would happen.

Being Crystal’s daughter, Sylvia also has a strange psychic ability like her mother. Sylvia’s power is that anypony she is concerned for, as well as Sylvia herself, are completely impossible to hurt while the ability is active. Sylvia can turn it on and off at will, though she is also under the same time-based restrictions as her mother: 30 second limit per activation, no more than 5 in an hour, and the 6th use induces migraines. The signal that she’s using it is more obvious than Crystal’s, as both herself and the target pony/ponies being surrounded by sparkly stars, not unlike the invinciblilty power-up from her favorite video games, the original Needlemouse games on Neighga Genesis.

Her mother’s daughter in every way, she is just as capable of any physical stunts as Crystal due to having the same overall physique and athletic ability. Sylvia can perform a boom, radiating grey and silver clouds, although her dramatically lower age than Crystal’s results in doing so making Sylvia incredibly tired once she lands... sometimes sleeping for upwards of 3 days. As a result, she has chosen not to use this skill again until she’s 27, the age when Crystal did her first Shardboom.

Due to her nature as a completely positive-minded soul, Sylvia is incapable of hating or holding grudges against anyone, no matter how badly they act towards her or her friends. Her mother affectionately claims this is because her heart is so full of love, she simply doesn’t have any room to let even the tiniest bit of negative emotions in.