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An MLP OC that was inspired by my first trip to Arches National Park in Utah.

Name: Mona Catherine Chrome
Cutie Mark: Sunset with crossing paintbrushes
Special Talent: Landscape Artist
Personality:
-Generally has a cheery attitude. This is due to being raised by parents who always encouraged her to be somebody that ponys could look up to and that being nice makes everyone's lives better. Most of the time her cheery attitude is genuine, other times though it is nothing more than a mask to hide whats going on within her.
-Originally very shy, feeling that she could be comfortable being by herself. Life in college helped a little to open her up and make her more personable towards others. She still prefers small talk in conversation and she sometimes needs to be in the company of her friends in order to feel comfortable with talking more freely.
-Caring to almost everyone around her, she will do whatever it takes to make sure they are happy, whether they need a helping hoof or sometimes just need somebody whose willing to listen to their problems.
Began having a personal conflict within herself once she graduated college and moved away. She always desired an independent life and to see new sights but now that she has it, she now feels burdened with having too much freedom, which she can only describe as a feeling of "now what?"-ness. She believes though that as an adult, she is perfectly capable of handling these feelings herself and that they'll probably pass with time.
-Has a tendency to bottle up really negative emotions, feeling that she would be a burden to others or make them feel bad if she were to lay her problems and emotions bare. That and she feels that she should always be reliable and somebody to look up to, and showing too much negativity certainly isn't going to help with that. She'll however talk things out to only the closest of friends.
Has always been very curious ever since she was a little filly and she always had a fascination with the natural world and it's many wonders. Being confined to an industrial city most of her life only fueled the flames of desire to see more of the world, how it all worked, and whatever it had to offer.

Bio: Born and raised in a large industrial city, Mona always dreamed of one day leaving her smoggy and dirty neighborhood for a much cleaner and more peaceful home. One day while browsing a new bookstore when she was a little filly, Mona came across a book featuring artists and photographers that specialized in capturing the wild and untamed beauty that was the desert. The spectacular images of towering mesas, endless blue skies, and breathtaking sunsets inspired her to create similar art and one day, go out and explore the enchanted land of heat and beauty. For years, she practiced her art skills, painting and drawing landscape after landscape, further perfecting her craft at a university for the arts. However despite the small amounts of local fame and praise she received, it still didn't get her closer to her dream of visiting the desert. But one day her luck would change when she heard rumors of an old ghost town being renovated and refurbished further south of Appleloosa, in a part of the southern desert that still remained unexplored. The price of housing was very low due to the town being in such an old state, but feeling that the opportunity might never come again, she packed up her things, bid goodbye to her parents and set off towards her new life in the town of Smokestack; named after the nearby tall thin mesa of the same name.

When Mona arrived, she was filled with an emotion that she could never describe, a mixture of excitement, nervousness, and sheer awe. To her, being in the desert was like being on completely different world. Quickly settling down in her new home (a little old observatory located at the top of Smokestack Mesa), Mona began capturing all the beauty the desert had to offer on canvas and paper.

However despite all her ventures around town there was still one place around the area she still didn't visit, a place told only in rumors and gossip called the "Desert of Dreams". Nobody ever went there due to townsfolk equating it to being a sandier and rockier version of the infamous Everfree Forest. During the day, ponys swore they could see strange towering monstrosities slowly traversing across the dunes while at night mysterious glowing lights forming various patterns would fly and zig-zag their way through the sky. In general, nobody dared to go there, afraid of what would be waiting for them should they step across the threshold.

This didn't stop Mona, she being the curious sort, decided to journey into the strange desert herself, thinking that the rumors were most likely just naturally occurring phenomena. What she would discover there would change her life forever, both for better and for worse…

Fitting theme song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IEHgT_T71s
Drawings InkBleederWolf

Upvotes at import: 41 | Stars at import: 24
Posted previously at: 2015-07-12T20:02:35