My Little OC - Golden Folly

Golden Folly - Origins

Almost three centuries ago, when Princess Celestia still occasionally engaged in romantic affairs with mortal ponies, one of her most persistent suitors was a unicorn wizard named Golden Star. He was a handsome and charming pony, and likely the most powerful mage of his generation - in his prime, his talents even approached those of Twilight Sparkle! - but he was also vain, selfish and incredibly arrogant. It is no wonder that the Princess, politely but very firmly, turned him down.

Unused to rejection, Golden Star convinced himself that the only reason the Princess could not accept the advances of such a perfect stallion was because she was immortal and imperishable, and he was not. The solution was obvious: he must become immortal and imperishable himself, so he could be the perfect, eternal consort and lover for the Princess of the Sun! (Remember when I said he was incredibly arrogant?)

He removed himself from the court (much to Celestia's secret relief) and started focusing his considerable talents and fortune on building himself a perfect new body. It took him over a decade, and cost him every bit he had in the world, but in the end, Golden Star had created the finest golem ever wrought by the horn and hooves of a pony: Golden Glory.

With the Summer Sun Celebration approaching, Golden Star returned to Canterlot with Golden Glory, and prepared for the complex and blasphemous ritual by which he would tear his soul from his mortal body and bind it eternally into the crystalline spell matrixes of the golem body. In his hubris, he timed his apotheosis so that the first thing he would see in his new, perfect body would be his beloved Princess, raising the sun on the morning of the longest day.

Nopony knows exactly what happened when he cast the final component spell of his ritual, as the energies involved thwarted magical forensics, but the results are well known. There was a searing flash of magic that reduced the arrogant unicorn to atomic dust, and brought down his tower (much to the distress of his creditors), leaving only one thing intact in the burning ruins: a golden golem unicorn glowing with power.

The golem was taken to the laboratories of the University of Canterlot to be studied. However, it turned out that Golden Star's failure, spectacular as it was, was not quite complete. In the instant of his own destruction, the mage managed to pour all of his magical power into the golem, and somehow ignite a spark of life in it.

After a thorough investigation and lengthy questioning of the newborn mechanical unicorn, it was determined that he shared neither the soul nor the memories of Golden Star. Now named Golden Folly, he was raised at the university, eventually becoming a scholar in his own right.

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Appearance and Physique

Built by Golden Star as an idealized version of himself, Folly appears as a classically handsome, somewhat larger than usual unicorn stallion with a skin of burnished gold, a smooth golden horn, and a mane and a tail sculpted from fine gold in stylized curls. His face has a limited set of expressions, and defaults to a serene, slightly smug smile that was Golden Star's most common expression. His eyes are of blue crystal, and his cutie mark is an eight-pointed star (the same as Golden Star's) but styled to resemble Celestia's sunburst.

Beneath his "skin" of gold, Folly is built around a copper skeleton wound with coils of silver wire and embedded with slivers of meteoric iron and even rarer alloys. Nestled in and around this framework are numerous spell matrixes made of rune-engraved gemstones, as well as more exotic and specialized arcane components.

He does not need to eat or drink in the normal sense, but requires fuel for the alchemical furnace in his belly. It was designed using the digestive system of a dragon as a model, and although Folly can use almost anything as fuel, gemstones that have soaked up sunlight are ideal.

Folly's body is strong and tireless, but his mind requires rest. He can put himself to "sleep" at will, and awakens after a set time; this can range from a fifteen-minute cat-nap to days or weeks of inactivity. His memory is in theory perfect, although he can consciously forget things, but it takes time to sift through the voluminous contents of his mind. Any feats of memory beyond those of a well-trained unicorn require him to enter in a trancelike recall state, which can last from few seconds to several hours, depending on how distant and little used the memory in question is.

He is built as a fully functional stallion; Golden Star would never have accepted anything less, even if his goal had been merely immortality instead of winning Princess Celestia's love. Despite identifying as a male, Folly is essentially asexual and has only Platonic interest in mares.

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Personality and Place in Equestria

Folly, as he prefers to be called, is almost nothing like his creator. Intelligent but humble, he chose his name as a reminder of Golden Star's foolishness, and prefers to stay out of the limelight. He does not resent his unique existence, nor particularly desire to be a mortal pony. Folly dislikes gawkers, but is more patient with genuine students of arcane matters. He likes children, in part because they tend to take him in stride as a big, shiny, talking toy.

He works as subcurator of the Royal Museum of Natural Philosophy and Arcane Sciences at the University of Canterlot. His primary task is keeping track of University's enormous collection of samples, manuscripts, artifacts and natural oddities, and correlating it with new publications and acquisitions. Almost as a hobby, he sometimes assists magical scholars with dangerous experiments; Folly is not invulnerable, but he is much sturdier than any mortal pony, and is immune to things like toxic gases, virulent diseases, poisonous plants or carnivorous parasprites.

In the eyes of Equestrian law, Folly is persona non equis, a classification reserved to sapient non-ungulates such as griffons, dragons, minotaurs and other similar creatures. In practice, this is of no consequence, and he has Equestrian citizenship. However, his body was confiscated by the Throne after Golden Star's disastrous death, and remains Princess Celestia's personal property, although on a permanent loan to a certain Mr. Golden Folly, a tenured employee of the University of Canterlot.

This convoluted piece of legal fiction serves to ensure that the costs of Folly's maintenance and occasional repairs are paid from the Royal Treasury, and discourages any ambitious would-be golem-crafters from trying to kidnap and dismantle him. Even beings who don't give a damn about Equestrian law will think twice before trying to steal a magical artifact belonging to the Regent of the Sun!

Speaking of the Princess, Folly admires her greatly, while she is friendly and sympathetic towards him. To say they are friends would be to exaggerate things; they are more like old, amicable acquaintances, both relatively untouched by the flow of time and the constant change around them.

Golden Folly and Twilight Sparkle have met only briefly, when Twilight was just beginning her studies under the Princess. The young unicorn is of course aware of him, but (like most ponies who don't have frequent contact with him) assumes he is little more than a clever filing and archiving mechanism in the shape of a pony. Folly has followed Twilight's career with great interest, and suspects that Celestia is saving him for an object lesson of the dangers of great magical power and the hubris it can engender, if Twilight Sparkle ever needs one.