Malus Bicep Heart + Backstory (Moodity) 💪💜🐮 (Patreon)

Malus, or was found as a newborn calfling on the 22nd day of the 2nd harvest month in an basket under an apple tree. The local farmers were unused to seeing the Hooven Folk in this area, especially one so young and seemingly abandoned in this way. Fearing that he wouldn't survive the chilly night on his own, one of the women had decided to take him in. Having no children of her own, Evelyne did her best to make the newborn comfortable, and named him Malus. It would not be long however, before she would notice some strange occurrences surrounding the boy.

On the Malus's 22nd month, Evelyne, while watching the calfling play, would notice that he seemed to... sort of "jump" from one spot of the room to another, almost like he would blink from existence and then just suddenly appear slightly further away, instantly. She couldn't explain it, but had excused it as some sort hallucination resulting from tiredness.

By the time Malus was 11 however, she had long since accepted this "ability" as something quite normal for the boy and no longer questioned it.

Other abilities soon developed as well. Evelyne, as an apple farmer, fairly regularly brought Malus with her to do work on the property. It wasn't considered dangerous work, but accidents could happen; Falling from ladders. Cutting one's self while pruning. Developing a "thirst" or lightheadedness from spending too much time in the sun. Things like that. When Malus was with her however, things seemed different. Evelyne, being human could not avoid accidents happening, but though she'd have several "close calls" where things could have gone very badly, they just somehow... didn't.

On one afternoon, while trying to reach for fruit on the uppermost branches, the ladder had suddenly given way beneath her feet. She felt the breath leave her as she toppled towards the ground. A fall like this one could have easily maimed or even killed, but with an unexpected and gentle thud, Evelyne found herself on the ground in an instant, with no more than a few scratches on her palms from the branched she'd clawed at while trying to stop her fall. Malus was also at her side, concern all over his face and hugging her.

Strange occurrences like this happened more than enough times, and only when Malus was present, for her to assume that he was playing some part her safety.

Over the years, Malus had grown quite tall and handsome; broad shouldered and stocky from all of the farm work. The incidences still happened on occasion, however because they were so common place by this point, neither Malus, Evelyne, nor any of the surrounding neighbours questioned them.

Around his 22nd birthday however, there came to the front door of the property a strange woman. Unlike the locals farm workers, who wore faded earth-tone colours, from the years of sun-bleaching and working out in the fields, this woman, who looked to be in her late 20s, wore shin-length robes of midnight purple and indigo, trimmed with gold filigree. Her raven black hair and bright blue eyes probably stood out the most to Malus though. She introduced herself as Sophia, and while she initially couldn't hide her surprised at Malus's appearance and stature, she quickly hid this in favour of common politeness and greetings.

After she entered the dwelling, the three of them sat down at the dining table and Sophia began to explain why she was there. She began by introducing herself again, more formally this time, then explained that she was one of the senior students at the College at the Capital. she ended by insisted that Malus was to be escorted to the Capital to learn to harness his abilities. When questioned by Evelyne on how she'd known about them however, she explained that whenever Malus used his abilities, they sent out "compression ripples" through space,

"almost like dropping a pebble into a still pond" she clarified after Evelyne and Malus looked at each other with confusion. At the college, where she had come from, they could detect these "ripples" with instruments they had and locate the general epicentre. After arriving to the area, it only takes questioning some of the locals, to typically lead them to finding said individual.

When Evelyne seemed somewhat unconvinced, she further explained that it was important that Malus learn to control his abilities, because unfortunately, as the individual ages, those abilities can magnify, causing these ripples to become stronger and more... noticeable, even to other entities that would seek to halt them, typically by extinguishing them at the source.

"For you see, in their eyes, Malus is what is known as a Time Breaker."

***

Happy Thursday! Hope you've all been well!

I know I said that I wasn't gonna do any extensive lore on this guy, but then I figured that since I haven't done this kind of thing in a while, it'd probably be good practice. It also makes me curious, if based on what I'd written, and some of the context clues, if you guys can guess on what Malus's actual ability is (Last line kind of gives it away tbh 😂)

But yeah! This was a fun piece to work on! And even though the actual theme of this piece has basically nothing to do with this specific part of the lore, I still enjoyed working on both and it was a nice contrast 😂

Hope you guys enjoy the piece and bit of Backstory!

Thanks again and Enjoy!

(Timelapse is below)