Name: Cambia Amore
Race: Meme (Earth Pony)
Sex: You're paying for the Hotel room. (Female)
Age: 41
Occupation: Freelance Archeologist.
Appearance: Hailing from the Frozen North and far from the balmy sanctity of the Crystal Empire, the mare and her forebears are a stout folk - With broad frames that are bundled in thick and cosy fur, this unfortunately leaves her standing square with most stallions and dwarfing nearly all southern mares. Without much to work with, the heavy-set mare struggles to retain some of the feminine grace that her ancestry would deny her, occasionally making an effort to battle the thick, velvet layer of fur back to make a show of her betraying curves, though this is rare. Preferring to accept the insulating layer and bear the slings and arrows of her then more masculine appearance. The Snowmare's coat is a warm, leathery tan and her mane is a coveted, silky gold cascade that falls down far past her shoulders; yet Rapunzel's locks are poorly kept by the distracted mare, her illustrious mane and tail commonly bound in off-white ribbons, bunching it up out of her way. Cambia polishes up nicely, but the diamond in the rough rarely bothers to get out of the rough for long. There's only one part of her looks she can't ruin, a pair of brilliant emeralds that were plucked from the earth for big, fascinated eyes. Those deep green portals are perhaps her greatest enemy in her fight for the perfect 'Workaholic' look, and are held back only by weary lids and dark bags beneath them. Her figure is oft' further hidden, as her work in the cold extremes of Equestria keeps her bundled further, dark brown leathers and soft woolen wraps that armour the mare against the cold. Snowblind goggles and heavy saddlebags. Cambia makes little effort to utilise her looks as a weapon.
Cutie Mark (If applicable): A single, Greco-roman pillar with a wax-sealed scroll lain over it.
Personality: Cambia is a weathered woman. A long life of failure, adversity and hard work has worn what began a wide-eyed and fascinated filly into an obsessive, heartless machine. Cambia has one love in this world, her work. Those studies have consumed her life: What began as a passion became a comfort zone, her research and exploration was her escape from the hardships of life, while it was just as much the cause, and one terrible year too many broke her down into bite-sized pieces for this freedom to devour. She does not love, she barely socialises. She is selfish, driven and ferociously temperamental. What would seem to be a resilient pillar in the storm will just as soon bring its weight down upon you for a perceived slight as it would shrug off the expulsion from the most esteemed intellectual society in Equestria without so much as a pout. A danger to herself, and the people around her - an obsessive researcher on the fringes of Equestrian historical thinking.
Background: Cambia was born in a small town in the Frozen North called Glittering Ice, sitting on the edge of a glacier rolling down from Mt. Everhoof. It was a small hick town, mining made them their Bits and the folks lived happy lives away from the world. Cambia would've stayed here, become a Housewife and lived quietly in that cold little village. If only she had not gone out one day. If only she had not crept into a meltwater cave, if only she hadn't found something lodged in the ice: then maybe her life could've went so much better. Instead she did exactly that, wandering far from home, the little filly discovered an eroding cavern, and despite all her instincts, explored that glittering blue opening. Cambia found something in that icy cavern: A skull, a morbid find and one that would change her life. With her prize on her back the mare snuck home, stowing away her discovery before she immediately visited the library. She completed school the following year, and had read every book in that small town at least twice over. The first signs of trouble brewed on the dawn of that new year, driven only by the lust for knowledge: Cambia left a farewell letter to her parents and stowed aboard a merchant carriage one early morning. She would never come back to Glittering Ice.
She reached Canterlot with her savings and that strange skull nearly a month later. She parted with the skull as a bargain for a scholarship, and soon Cambia was being tutored amongst the leading scholars of Equestria. She promptly became a talented historian and archaeologist. In love with her career, the mare cavorted across Equestria on expensive research ventures throughout her school life and her later career, and life would've been perfect, yet again. Had it not been for that skull. Cambia returned to it, after her scholarship was completed and she was a guilded member of the Historical society of Canterlot. Paying a great sum to exhume it from the dusty cupboard it had been relegated to (Deemed simply a knick-knack by the Historians.) Cambia was convinced otherwise. The interest in the knick-knack grew, all while she steadily built a sizeable wealth cavorting with the high and mighty of Canterlot's elite, helped by rarely spending, only once portioning off a chunk to finance help when Glittering Ice was buried in an avalanche. (Though she still neglected to ever visit her parents.)
The mare began to shun the society she had been steadily rising within, none would support the evolving theory she had developed regarding this mysterious skull. It was a crackpot theory, yet Cambia was convinced of it. Unhindered the mare began to sink more and more money into her personal project. Defying the society to go on expeditions to research her ideas, refused aid and material, she took to nothing short of grave-robbing in dangerous explorations amongst untamed wilds. Finally, she amassed enough evidence to argue for and win funding of a proper expedition to a ruin in the Frozen North. Cambia rounded up the best, and departed for the cold snows beyond Mt. Everhoof. This expedition would be the point of no return for the mare: She let her guard down in this moment of Triumph and the mare indulged in a whirlwind romance with one of the hired Mercenaries accompanying the wagon train to the ruin.
The dig was disastrous, few if any artefacts would be recovered, the campsite was beset by blizzard and treacherous ice; while much of their equipment was lost in a frozen sinkhole that collapsed into the ruins. It came to a head on the third day of the expedition: Cambia, and all who went on the expedition refuse to talk about what happened, but it earned her expulsion from the Historical Societies of Canterlot and the expedition fell to ruin. Her company faltering, her work scuppered and her mind wracked with failure, Cambia sought her tent that cold evening to collapse into the safe arms of her new lover. Yet the mare returned to an empty camp. The mercenaries (Including her lover) had abandoned the dig site in the midst of the disaster, without so much as a letter.
The rest of the expedition abandoned the dig the following day, leaving Cambia and what little equipment and rations remained behind. The broken mare refusing to give up on all she had left, so they had left her to die.
Cambia returned to Equestria nearly a month after being abandoned in the Frozen North. Her reputation was in ruins, she had been expelled from the Historical society and her heart was broken. Returning to Ponykind the mare secluded herself away for nearly a year and it was not until the anniversary of the failed expedition that Cambia emerged once more with a self-published book about her theories. Few copies were allowed to distribute, but ever since, Cambia has consumed herself with her work supported only by her outstanding estate and a small cult of followers. Nothing will stop her, short of paying the final price a person can for their works.
