I’ve been drawing these two a lot more than I thought I would, so I wanted to do a quick reference of them to make it easier in the future. Also featuring their cutie marks for the first time! :) I’ve previously drawn them early in their relationship, and had people refering to them as “boys” so I also felt I should clarify that they’re actually both in their mid- to late forties (North is 2-3 years older than Light) when the main parts of the stories in my nextgen-verse takes place. So roughly the same age as the mane six. Because of this, I decided to make them at that age is this ref -so it’s consistent with the timeframe the other references are placed in, and because it’s still easy to use this to draw them younger if I want to do more of that.
 
I didn’t use my usual reference template here, because their kid versions aren’t as relevant here as for my nextgen characters, and because I wanted them to be together on one sheet. I love drawing them interacting ^^ So I guess this is a mini couple reference, a bit less detailed than my usual ones.
 
 

 
Name: Lightning Strike (Light)  
Species/Gender: Pegasus/Male  
Mark/Talent: A lightning bolt appearing in front of a cloud and rain -supposed to appear as a tree when viewed upside down. His talent is weather control, specifically weather for agriculture.  
Personality: Bit of a jock. Cocky and social, but melts into a stammering mess whenever North flirts with him. Tries to be smooth and flirty back, but… North plays along to make him happy.  
Important relationships:  
silver bullet Northen Lights (Husband) -25 years on, he still gets just as flustered when North flashes that fanged grin, and just as giddy when he sees North after coming home from work. They are both extremely lovey-dovey with each other, and the cheesiest couple you can imagine.  
Bullet White Thundercloud Rainbowstorm (Older sister) -he loves her, but she’s a bit exhausting to be around. She’s very into appearing like the eccentric artist, so acts very… loud and a bit manic when she’s in public, and slightly less loud but still very energetic when alone. Still, he does love her a lot, just in smaller doses.
 
Trivia:  
silver bullet Loves to mountain climb. You’d think he’d just be able to fly up, but he claims that it’s not the same thing and doggedly walks/climb up the mountain without as much as flapping once.  
Bullet White Used to be a bit insecure about his appearence -pegasi really value bright colors in terms of finding others attractive -and he’s grey, grey, white, light blue and grey. So for a while, he actually didn’t believe North whenever he’d call Light any form of ‘beautiful’, ‘hot’, ‘gorgeous’… North likes to compliment him, and it took some years and deep conversations before Light realised that wasn’t just North trying to make him feel good.  
silver bullet May change is mark a slight bit, not completely happy with how it looks right now. In that case, not the idea of it, just the execution.  
Bullet White Used to be a member of the royal guard, but quit some years back. Now works part time for the Canterlot weather team, and part time as a volunteer fire fighter.
 
 

 
Name: Northen Skies (North)  
Species/Gender: Chiropterasus/Male  
Mark/Talent: The head of a stag, where the antlers are made from green aurora behind it. His talent is hunting -in his culture, venison is considered a delicacy (in my nextgenverse, deer are not sapient), and the aurora is a symbol of great fortune.  
Personality: Loves the simpler pleasures, like gardening and cooking. Quiet and serious-looking, when he’s not flirting outrageously. Loves to learn, and collects books and takes evening classes in a bunch of different things.  
Important relationships:  
Bullet; Green Lightning Strike (Husband) -North can best be described as smitten with Light. He would, and did, happily give up everything he knew in order to make sure he could stay with him. There’s nothing North loves more than when he can make Light blush and smile that dopey smile of his.  
Pastel Green Bullet Like, the rest of his giant family -He loves them, but stars, are they annoying. When he’s away he misses them, when he’s home he wants to leave. They’ve reached a happy medium where just a few of them at a time visits him in Equestria, and he only visits them a couple of times a year, along with writing a bunch of letters back and forth.
 
Trivia:  
Bullet; Green I’ve mentioned before that he’s just average at hunting, but I decided to retcon it. Originally his talent was going to be learning new things and retaining knowledge, but I decided I liked it a lot more if learning random stuff was just something he really enjoyed just because. So his hunting skills got an upgrade.  
Pastel Green Bullet Speaking of, it’s kinda rude to ask what a pony’s talent is, so Light didn’t actually ask North what the stag meant until they were engaged. At which point North panicked and said it just represented courage. See, Light tended to throw up whenever he saw North gutting and preparing any animals he’d caught. So North assumed that ponies just… didn’t hunt. At all. And he was fully prepared to give that part of himself up when he moved to Equestria, but he feared that Light would feel guilty. So he lied, and then felt bad for about a year before confessing. Light couldn’t decide if he was supposed to feel offended or apologetic. Instead he just caught a rabbit the next time they visited North’s home, prepared and served it, and then went away and threw up in private. Stars, North didn’t think he could love him more.  
Bullet; Green Currently works as game warden in one of Equestria’s wildlife preserves.
 
 

 
History:  
Light was born and raised in Canterlot. His dad passed before Light was old enough to remember him, so he lived with his mom and older sister until he reached majority. But it was just a couple of months after he’d reached adulthood when his mother also passed, much to his devastation. Unable to deal with it, he decided to leave and go as far away as he could from it all; jumping at the closest recruiter for the royal guard and requesting to be placed at one of the stations along Equestria’s border. He got his wish, and ended up at an extremely small and almost never used border control station to the small country of the Chiropterasi.
 
North was raised in a very traditional chiropterasus household; that is, most of his extended family lived in several houses clustered close together, smack dab in the middle of a huge forest. The family own and maintains a large portion of said forest, and most of their food/income comes from it -hunting and selling/eating various game, selling logging rights, foraging for berries/mushrooms etc. The nearest other family lived half a days flight away, the nearest town a full day. His family is huge, and he grew up playing with his cousins and sibling and almost never meeting any other kids until he started secondary school, having been homeschooled up to that point. After he graduated, he was more than ready to leave for somewhere else, preferably somewhere less crowded. He didn’t know what or how though, so he joined the military just for the structure of it. He was placed at a very small and quiet border control station to Equestria, which suited him just fine.
 
They met when they were stationed on opposite sides of the boarder -now, they’re supposed to be silent and watching, but there’s only so long you can do that when you’re the only one stationed there for the next week or so. So they started chatting with each other, which over the years became a close friendship, and later a tentative, semi-secret, romance.
 
 
Then Nightmare Moon returned. Chiropterasi are not overly fond of her, to say the least, as her looking bat-like caused an uproar and practical witch-hunt on Chiropterasi back when she first appeared. So when Luna was welcomed back without any form of punishment, the country was very displeased. Tensions were high, and for a while it looked like full out war was on the horizon. It took a year of diplomacy, political upheaval and Luna appearing before the leaders of the country, effectively surrendering herself herself as a show of goodwill, before things calmed down again. During this time, North and Light counldn’t really meet each other at all, and only communicated via letters. When the countries were back to a state of peace and relative cooperation, North resigned from the army, and they both rushed to have North apply for citizenship in Equestria, getting engaged along the way to make their case better. It took some months, but it was approved, much to their joy and relief.
 
Light asked to be transferred backto Canterlot, and they both moved there after getting married right next to the border stations they spent so long together at. Thunder was thrilled to have her younger brother back, and smothered him a bit while Light tried to not go back to the emotional state he was in when he left. North had a bit of a culture shock, and had to spend some time adjusting to the noise and different ponies and people staring at him becuase of his species. It was a rocky start, but they got though it together. Years and years later, they are still living in Canterlot, and are still very happily married.
 

 
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This isn’t the end, I have more planned for them (like a baby bat maybe…) -but not gonna write it out here, wanna do a proper story of it. This is just a bit of backstory so I can keep details consistent.