Simi Ref Sheet UPDATE

Image updated! I hope the dumb ref doesn't look dumb. The phoenix's lower half does look odd at first, but that's because her legs are stretching forward to behind the view of the wing.

Name: Simi (see-mee)

Species: Unicorn.... in her old forest, her kind was known as the “Shifters”.

Gender: Female

Alliance: Good

Age: When she first came to Deep Forest, Simi was 8 years old. She is now 10.

A Shifter's bond to their forest is very strong, and if a unicorn wishes it, they may also bond their very life-force to that of their forest's to gain immortality, absorbing it back should they ever be forced to leave, and re-depositing that life force into their new home; repeated as necessary. Without this, a shifter unicorn's lifespan is about 700 years. Simi has bonded to Deep Forest, but has yet to bond her actual life-force to it as well. Her immortality remains undecided for now.



Mature Adult at Age: 10


Human Age Equivalency: 21


Appearance:

Head Close Up- [link]
Skull Anatomy- [link]
Phoenix Form- [link]
Body Reference- you're here

Simi’s shape may slightly resemble that of a horse, but for the most part her build is smaller and more delicate. Her coat is the color of a cloudless afternoon sky, with a patch of darker blue-violet on her back. Her mane and tail hold various shades of light blues and turquoises, and the visible colors differ depending on the angle that you see her. Her hooves are a simple gray-silver, her spiraled horn seeming to have been carved from ice. Simi’s eyes are dark indigo so deep that it could be mistaken for black at a distance. Her coat glows in moonlight.

As a Phoenix, Simi has the appearance of a large, graceful swan, only she wears dark blue talons in place of webbed feet. All her feathers are a shade of icy blue, and her tail is long and wavy. The back of her head is decorated with longer feathers, like that of a cockatoo.

In her unicorn form, Simi stands at about 6 feet 4 inches from head to toe. As a phoenix, no taller than 4 feet. </sup>

Two Years Later: To be frank, not much has changed about her. Her legs are still long, but a little less gangly than before. She still has the ability to morph into a Phoenix, but now some of her feathers have grown brighter highlights within her blue shades. Simi’s heights in both forms have not changed.


Personality:

Simi is a gentle, soft-spoken soul with a shyly considerate and thoughtful nature. She's quite timid around new faces, especially when a large crowd is involved, but a kind word or a friendly joke could do wonders to bring her out of her shell. She usually prefers to hang back in the crowd; not out of antisocial hang-ups, but out of a low self esteem. Simi just believes that anything that comes out of her mouth will sound stupid, and as a result, her integration into main conversations will be quite slow.

However, while meeting new people can be an incredibly daunting challenge for her, Simi would disregard her timidity if someone she didn't know needed immediate help (be that protection or a simple favor). She is a good Samaritan in all senses of the word, and would step in between an attacker and their victim, no matter how fierce they may be.

Around her well-known friends, Simi is much more relaxed. Her ears are often pricked forward, willing to listen to their problems and give her support, and in the right mood she could even be playful. Simi’s favorite games are tag, racing, and anything to do with flying, though this particular game can only be done in the winter for reasons that will be said later on.

Her loyalty to her friends is incredibly strong. The unicorn cannot bear to see anyone close to her heart in pain or suffering, and Simi will give her all to defend them, regardless of her own injuries or disadvantages. However, if on her own facing an intimidating being, Simi would turn tail and run out of there as fast as she could. In company, she's selfless. Alone, she's a coward.

Because of her traumatic past, Simi isn’t very friendly with human-like creatures. You will immediately have to prove to her that the other character isn’t human before she makes assumptions.

Two Years Later: As an adult who has lived two years in Deep Forest, Simi isn’t as timid or easily frightened as she used to be. With the knowledge that the forest accepts no actual humans, she isn’t as wary of humanoid creatures. She is still shy around new faces, but makes more of an effort to be friendly.

The general inhabitants of Deep Forest have also clearly rubbed off on her when it comes to her demeanor and the way she interacts with others. Once striving to be formal and polite with her tone of voice, Simi's conduct has grown more loose over her two years here. She's more direct and less "regal," although she does slip back into old habits when the company around her calls for that sort of manners.

If there's one thing that hasn't changed, however, it's Simi's low confidence. She can be quite self-conscious, and half the time she's not very sure of herself or her actions. When under a lot of stress, she still tends to stammer.


Abilities:

(I) Simi’s horn works well in a self defense situation (see the bold in #II of Disadvantages; her horn can penetrate armor and mild spells), but it can also mend the scratches of broken diamonds, jewels, and other precious stones, as well as make thin layers of ice around non-living objects. Though this ability has little value to her, she would gladly do it for a friend. The tip of her horn can grow plantlife and heal minor wounds, as well as heal poisoned wounds and purify poisoned water. Like most other unicorns, her touch can cause flowers to bloom beneath her feet.

(II) Simi's unicorn inheritance enables her to communicate with sentient creatures who don't know how to speak with words.

(III) Simi's most prized gift is the ability to shape shift into a phoenix, whose talons and beak sharp enough to give even the thickest hide a good scratch. When under enough anxiety or adrenaline, her feathers can sprout a coat of icy-blue holy fire.

(IV) Simi can run for up to 40 miles an hour, and fly up to a speed of 120 miles an hour.

(V) In either form, if desperately out of options, she will tap into others' minds, making them hallucinate and see their deepest fear. However, this is rarely, rarely used. Simi is a traditional fighter and prefers either horn or beak & talons to such an energy draining tactic. I will ask people's permission before I make their characters hallucinate.

Two Years Later: Now that she is an adult, her fire can actually harm those whom she feels threatened by. However, any close friend of Simi's could touch the fire and pull their hand away unscathed. Though she cannot bring the fire at will, she can now at least suppress it when her emotions get too strong. Her newly gained muscle allows her to now run at 60 miles an hour in her unicorn form, and fly at 180 hours in phoenix form.


Disadvantages:


(I) When she uses her horn for battle, too much blood cannot cover it or else it will weaken her and she will lose focus, which is why most of the injuries she will give are quick, but painful slashes of the skin. This is also why her horn cannot heal severe wounds- too much blood, too difficult of a task. She cannot grow plant-life in a barren place (such as the Wastelands). While she can purify poison, she cannot heal illnesses.

(II) As a phoenix she can bite into an enemy as deeply as she can without being affected by blood-contact, but her strength as a phoenix, along with the ability to change into one without difficulty, depends on the season. In winter she is at her strongest. In summer, it’s incredibly painful for her to transform and it could actually prove near-fatal for her to stay in the form for very long at all. The holy fire on her feathers is virtually harmless, and can be quite the trouble-maker. Simi cannot summon it by will, for it only appears if she's in great distress, and she cannot suppress the fire or will it to disappear if she wanted it to. Though her horn can scratch through armor and mild spells (with permission), her beak and talons as a phoenix are unable to penetrate through anything stronger than leather or hide protection, and spells are out of the question.

(III) While Simi's speeds are impressive, it stands to reason that the faster one goes, the quicker one tires. Her casual speed is 30 miles an hour on land, 50 miles an hour in the air.

(IV) As for her ability to show enemies their own fear, a strong telepath can stop her from doing so, even harm her.

(V) Another characteristic of Simi serves as more of a disadvantage than an advantage. This isn’t out of her own will, but if anyone close to her heart is going through incredible emotional, mental, or physical pain, she will feel it as well and just as strongly. If that person happens to die, Simi will faint from the sudden severing of that bond, remaining unconscious for as short as a few minutes or as long as an hour, regardless of how painful or painless the death was. You could, in a way, say the same for her bond to Deep Forest. If, for some reason, a unicorn has not broken his or her bond with a forest before it was destroyed (whether they'd stored their life force or not), they will die along with it immediately. However, it is hard for a unicorn to abandon their home, as their kind are much happier and healthier when bonded to a forest.

Two Years Later: The new harmful effects of her holy phoenix fire can be stopped by stronger spells, and neutralized with water.


Family:

Alayla- Mother. Green Unicorn with a darker spot of green on her back and dark violet eyes. her mane is made of shades of cyan and white.

Rintan- Father. White Unicorn with dark blue mane and sharp blue eyes. Simi saw him only very rarely and as a result, knows little to nothing of her father.

Sibeta- Older Sister. White unicorn with blue mane and icy blue eyes (talked about more in Simi's History)


History:

Simi’s life had started out innocently enough. She and her sister, Sibeta, were raised by their mother, Alayla, in a woods far less enchanting than Deep Forest. It was ordinary, but beautiful, nonetheless, and full of enough life for Simi and her family. As a foal she was taught that every life in the forest, from all the animals to the little green sprouts in the earth, were her responsibility. It was Simi's duty to watch over them and care for them.... this was her forest, and she was its guardian as were all the Shifter Unicorns that lived in these woods. Simi soon learned that her second-shape was that of an ice-phoenix, and that she could only become a phoenix when the weather was cold enough for snow. Like herself, all the other unicorns in this forest had the ability to shape-shift into some different creature or another, and they all had their own strongest seasons. Simi’s mother, for example, could become a green furred fox, a skill that could only be shown in the Spring.

In her early foalhood, Simi was very close to her older sister, Sibeta. When Simi was born, Sibeta was only four years old (the equivalent to a two-year old horse filly), not yet ready to leave to find of a place of her own in the forest. Her second shape was a wolf, her strongest season Autumn. The two sisters were close to each other for their three years together, but after Sibeta came of age and decided to leave the little glade where she and their mother lived, Simi and Sibeta's relationship grew somewhat strained (a Shifter is allowed to leave the 'nest' after they turn 7 years old, which is when Sibeta left, but they don't reach absolute maturity until 10 years old). They would occasionally see each other in the forest and talk afterward, so they retained a good friendship, but they weren't exactly as close as before.

Every now and then, in their early childhood, Simi and her family would cross paths with Rintan, the stallion unicorn who was Alayla's mate and Simi and Sibeta's father. Neither of the two foals were well acquainted with him. Rintan would take some interest in Simi and Sibeta, but not enough for them to develop any relationship with him. All the two sisters knew was that Rintan was their sire. They didn't even know his second shape or his strongest season. However, Rintan and Alayla would often talk together when they were alone with each other.

As she grew and matured, Simi eventually became attached to the little animals that scurried around her legs and in the treetops, and even found friends among them and her own kind, as well as still being good buddies with Sibeta. Her early years were indeed treasured....

And then the humans found them.

At first they had come to hunt the animals that the unicorns so lovingly guarded, and the unicorns, appalled and angered, revealed themselves to frighten the humans away. However, this did more harm than good. The humans, though terrified of these animals, found their unnaturally beautiful coats and horns intriguing...... too intriguing.

And so began the slaughter of Simi’s people. The hunting dogs that had originally been trained to attack foxes and rodents were now also ordered to swarm around a lone unicorn and take him down brutally. Arrows whizzed past the leaves, striking the unprepared horned creature trying to escape. Fires were lit to drive the forest's keepers out of their hidden glades. Men themselves tried to rope a unicorn and take it back for breeding more tame young, but as a unicorn is too wild and graceful to be domesticated this couldn’t be done. The humans also eventually learned to distinguish a unicorn in disguise by looking at their coats- A blue fox was certainly not the same as a red one.

All around her, Simi’s world collapsed in a puddle of mingled blood and fallen grace. Some unicorns were frightened enough to break their bond with the forest and leave for a safer land. Some grew into many, and eventually that included Simi’s mother. Alayla desperately tried to convince Simi and Sibeta to come with her, but the two sisters refused. Simi was too bonded to this forest, this home of hers that had originally treated her so well, she refused to give it up forever. And Sibeta wasn't willing to leave her sister to a falling forest. Alayla and Simi both argued sides that were heard and shared by many of the other unicorns... but eventually Alayla was forced to realize that Simi, too, had come of age. She was eight years old, and ready to make decisions for her own life. Eventually Alayla left Simi and Sibeta behind, leaving them to their fate.

However, as the remaining unicorns were forced to realize, the forest was a lost cause. It was when only a mere few unicorns were left surviving and most of the animals had fled the woods that they finally left on their own terms. Simi and Sibeta were separated in a terrible incident with fire, and the spreading flames forced them far apart. Desperate to escape a burning death, Simi herself had shifted into her fastest shape as a phoenix, and sped away from her old home as quickly as she could.

That night, Simi felt a piercing pain in her heart that forced her to collapse under the safety of some far-away bushes. When she came to the next morning, the terrible ache was still felt in her chest, and though she had received no injuries, Simi knew exactly what that awful feeling was. When friends or family that a Shifter was particularly close to has died, they feel a jolt of pain through their chest and lose consciousness for some hours. Simi's mother must have died last night. The raw grief tore at her, and only encouraged the young unicorn to get as far away from this cruel place as possible. She once again shifted into an ice-phoenix, and this time, she didn't stop for anything. The only thing that dulled the sharpness of Simi's emotional pain was the knowledge that although she didn't know where Sibeta was, that her sister was at least alive... somewhere.

Up to this day, Simi still takes comfort knowing that Sibeta is alive and well, wherever she is, and does hope to see her again someday.

After many, many days and nights of off-and-on traveling, Simi came across a new forest..... Deep Forest.

Join Unicorn's Visions and partake in the epic adventures of Deep Forest! [link] It's a great forum for all levels of roleplay and has been around for years, so it's very well established.

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