Bluestruck Flare

By Scribblegroove

• December 10, 2014




Age: Young adult. In human years around 25

Gender: Female

Species: Unicorn

Appearance: Bluestruck Flare has a misty-blue coated color, and her mane is hay-blonde. Her hair braided into one large tail always curls down to her shoulders behind her neck. Her eyes are a much brighter blue in comparison to the rest of her coat, and are so vibrant with color that they seem to shine.

Cutie Mark: Her cutie mark resembles a unicorn horn with gears surrounding it. It depicts her talent with the machinated, automated and technological branches of magic, and her ability to use magic concretely and efficiently.

Personality: Flare is a slightly introverted pony. Though she likes being around friends and family, she finds it hard to meet new people and be socially outgoing. She prefers to stick to those she already knows and trust, for instance her twin brother. Even though she is not very socially experienced, she can emphasize with others very well, and is a very caring personality. Her slight anxiety will not discourage her from trying to cheer others up if she thinks they need it.<br /><br />Flare is also very intelligent and ambitious in her studies. She can concentrate for extended amounts of time and has a great deal of determination and willpower. Laziness is impossible in her world. A problem she has very often is that she isn't very organised. If she can focus on one thing she can do it very efficiently, but once things pile up she starts to lose confidence. She gives up rather quickly once there's too much things to do because she doesn't know where to start. Luckily she can rely on someone else to shape order in the chaos.

Backstory: Bluestruck Flare was born in ponyville, at almost precisely the same time as Bluestruck Gale, his twin brother. Her father, a unicorn called Stardust, had married her mother, a Pegasus named Seraphim Sapphire in Canterlot, the city the two of them called home. At the time Seraphim was already pregnant, and during their honeymoon they got Gale and Flare as two unusual little gifts. Though it had of course caused a lot of stress to the couple they couldn't be happier.<br /><br />Even though Flare's parents had adventurous spirits and a passion for travelling, having children forced them to settle down. Both Flare and Gale lived their early years in Canterlot. There they went to preschool together and lived relatively happily. Her brother displayed a lot of talent with technical practices, but she was more interested in magic, and seemed be quite fascinated with it too. Even though at her age she couldn’t get much further than the basics, she loved stringing together several spells in a row, requiring a lot of focus and timing from her.<br /><br />But a terrible event occurred. Stardust, who was a prodigious mage and astronomer, was offered his dream job, but it would require him to work far more for his research, and perhaps even move to the crystal empire for a few years. He had to choose between his family and his dream career. Sadly, he chose to abandon his family, leaving Seraphim to care for two children on her own. They divorced in waves of fighting and silent hatred. It did not do good for their children. It scarred them a little.<br /><br />Through Stardust’s influence in the Canterlot society, Seraphim slowly became an outcast to those who she previously called her friends. The neighbourhood they had lived him started to despise her, and a lot of awful gossip and outright lies forced her to move to a different place. Back to where Gale and Flare were born. Ponyville. There they continued to grow up, and lived peacefully again, though sad about what had happened.<br /><br />In ponyville, Flare’s skills proceeded to develop themselves. She started specialising slightly in enchantment spells, giving mundane objects special properties. A light that shone brighter than usual, a piece of wood that wouldn’t break but bend, or even a fire that burned for days. She also showed interest in research spells, trying to understand the features of certain materials, and measure them through magic. Finally, automation was one of her favourite things. She learned how to levitate several things by instead of manually making them float, casting a spell that would set out a path for them. That way, she wouldn’t have to pay attention to them, but merely let the magic tap out of her energy reserves. These automation spells became much more useful in the future when she started applying them in different ways…<br /><br />As Flare and Gale finished their Schooling in ponyville, the both of them started to take interest in each other’s talents. Gale tried to understand how exactly unicorn magic worked, and what great things Flare could do with it. At the same time, Flare often watched Gale as he tried to tinker with small bits to make contraptions, or when he explained the things he had learned from endlessly questioning ponies at the rainbow factory or the machinists at the ponyville station. One night, the both of them snuck into a stationary train that wouldn’t depart until next morning, taking the opportunity to get a close look at one of the most advanced pieces of machinery that they could imagine.<br /><br />To Flare’s dismay, Gale started to tinker around with the engine of a train that would still have to be used next day! Annoyed by but also fearing for her brother’s negligence, she mentioned that he wouldn’t be able to put everything back again. However, Gale seemed to precisely remember every step he had taken backwards again, displaying a technical insight that not many ponies had. But in the end the engine still seemed not to work. Immediately she saw Gale lose confidence, but she wouldn’t let him call quits. Together they cleaned the entirety of the engine, and checked all bits to make sure that the things that were supposed to move would move, and the things that were supposed to stay put actually stayed put. What they didn’t know themselves was that they hadn’t put it together exactly as it had been in the first place. No, with their own technical insight and collaboration of magic and machinery, they had dramatically improved the trains’ engine power!<br /><br />They returned home very early in the morning where a very concerned mother had just woken up to see that her two foals weren’t in bed, nor in the rest of the house. She exclaimed her anger and disappointment in them sneaking away that night, and also asked them why they were covered in smears of coal, grease and filth. Looking at each other in surprise, they hadn’t noticed the black smudges all over their own bodies in the darkness of the night. Frustrated, their mother told them to wash it off in the river. Tired as they were, since they hadn’t slept all night, they simply did as their mother said.<br /><br />With the sun rising in the horizon, they could now clearly see. After bathing in the stream of the river for a while, they emerged, and both shrieked in amazement, pointing out to each other that a mark had appeared on their flanks, proceeding to both look at their own. That night their talent had revealed itself to them, and they hadn’t even noticed up until now. When they returned home and explained to their mother what happened, she was proud but at the same time concerned. Two young ponies taking apart an advanced piece of machinery like that… She quickly ran to the station to inform the machinist, with her progeny in her wake, where they were just in time to see the train riding off at incredible speed, flawlessly disappearing in the horizon.<br /><br />Flare was now a teen, and she decided to spend her time wisely. Knowing that she had quite a lot of talent for magic, she wanted to make use of it and study it like her father had, back in Canterlot. It took quite a long time and a lot of well-prepared speeches to convince her mother, but she eventually gave in. Promising her brother that she would write often, and demanding that he’d do the same, she departed. In the academy, the first few days were amazing. In all the classes she tried to memorize as much as she could, and she practiced multiple hours every day. Even though the fact that she had multiple subjects, some of which she didn’t find very interesting, she still got fairly good marks for them, and she excelled in the subjects she was fascinated with. But in not a very long time she started to feel the overall negative attitude all the other ponies at the academy had towards her. It wasn’t bullying just yet, but, far too late, she came too the conclusion that she should’ve made some friends at the start of the year. A little bit desperate, she searched out others within the school to do projects with so they could maybe become friends, but most of them declined, and the ones that accepted did so because they were using her. Eventually the rumour broke out that she was the daughter of Stardust and Seraphim, and all the gossip about her mother that she used to be plagued by immediately turned to her. Extremely saddened by her predicament, she decided to just shrug it off and focus more on her school work. But the negativity stayed, and she was terribly unhappy.<br /><br />Outside of her knowledge, her mentor, who had guided her through the school subjects and material, had sent her mother a letter about her situation, even though she had explicitly tried to hide it from everyone. She was surprised when she opened the door of her dorm to her brother, who had decided to come visit her straight away. Right there she let loose the emotional stress that had built up inside her. They both expressed how much they had missed each other. How Gale had struggled without her. How he’d been envious. How Flare had missed home and companionship and how she had relentlessly studied to numb her feelings. She cried, he cried. They were together again.<br /><br />Gale had decided to move in with Flare. At first Flare had said it wasn’t necessary, but Gale was obstinate in his decision. Of course, Flare was actually terribly happy with having him around again. As he spent some of his time working at an engine manufacturer, Flare continued her studies with much more confidence. Her brother came along with her to a few parties and gatherings as well, and with his social skills she even got a few friends on the academy, but most of all she didn’t have enemies anymore.<br /><br />Finally, both Flare and Gale had finished their training and were more than proficient enough to do things for themselves and make a living. Flare had graduated from the academy with excellent marks. Her mentor had suggested that she’d work in the research branch of the magic industry, but she had a better idea. Teaming up with her brother, they started researching new ways to construct all sorts of enchanted pieces of technology, receiving funding from the Canterlot academy as well as a few technological manufacturers<br />