ToE - Birch Blossom Applicatio

NAME
Birch Blossom

AGE
29

HEIGHT
5'10"

GENDER
Female.

RACE
Pony (Earth).

CUTIE MARK
A single birch branch, with a pale flower blossoming from the very tip.

JOB
Private Tutor.

MOTIVATION
Birch wants all of her students to reach their maximum potential. No matter what they want, and no matter what it takes. Once she's hired onto a job, she does not quit until she's satisfied that she's done with her student.

LIKES
Cool morning, any type of coffee, Spring, soft fabrics, pencil skirts, classical music, hats and headbands, watching the sun rise, peace and quiet, peach flavored things, naps, most reptiles, striped patterns, subtle colors, obedient students, mock-sparring with her family, traveling, ancient Equestrian culture.

DISLIKES
Loud, crowded places, being woken up, most sweets (peach filled ones excluded), being disobeyed, losing at anything, being reminded she's failed or lost at anything, getting her hair or fetlock curls tangled into things.

PERSONALITY
First and foremost, Birch presents herself as a professional -- she is calm and collected, all of the time, no matter what else is going on in the world around her. Her temper seems infinite, and there is always a half-curved smirk to her lips. She's incredibly polite to most strangers, though those who know her more personally tend to develop a habit of flinching every time she so much as motions in their direction -- beneath the calm and the smiles, Birch has a surprising tendency towards violence, using it almost in an affectionate substitute to physical affection with those she's close to, and tends towards being very sarcastic and scathing the better one gets to know her.
If she has a soft side, it's yet to be seen by anyone beyond her family members, and even then only on rare occasions.

HISTORY
Born and raised by two ponies hired into the royal guard, Birch and her two siblings (an older brother and a younger sister) lived a very structured, controlled, and militant lifestyle. It was expected the three of them would follow in the hoof prints of their family, entering into the guard and protecting the princesses and their castle. As a filly, Birch thought that this was an excellent thing to aspire towards, and happily settled into the more physical aspects of training with ease. She was a natural at combat, it would seem, though she had a dangerous competitive streak and a lack of moral code that made her parents worry if she wasn't a bad fit for a more noble use of her talents.

Luckily, though, she spared them the worries of having a future dishonorable discharge on their hands, as once she entered her final years of schooling, she abruptly changed her mind. She wanted to be a teacher. No, not just a teacher. She wanted to teach the students who wanted or needed something extra, to push them along the path of success. She hardly wanted to have the glory of being in the action, as her parents seemed to, but more so wanted to be the catalyst that would cause it. A bit uncertainly, she was released into the world to continue her education, and she only formally began tutoring at the age of twenty five.

For the past four years, she has had just as many students -- and by the end of the year she spent with them, two things were clear. One, they would always try their best at any challenge they were presented with because if they didn't, somehow Birch Blossom would know and come down upon them, and two, her methods, while effective, were terrifyingly Spartan to leave such an impression on her former students.

ADDITIONAL INFO
-- If Birch hits you, it's a sign of tolerance at the very least. If she refuses to touch you, or anything else you've touched, it might as well be a blatant statement of 'you're disgusting'.
-- She only accepts food or drink from places she knows, or if someone else has eaten it prior. She's a bit paranoid of everything due to her upbringing (be ever vigilant, you never know who you can really trust).
-- Her name comes from the practice of "birching", which was a form of corporal punishment.



The pony on her application wasn't drawn by me because I suck at all things quadruped. ;x; I can't remember who did the base right now, but I'll link to it when I get back to my desktop, eeek.