This chapter is only serves an introduction to the main character. The proper storyline will come into place in the next chapter. It it will be my own take on part of Final Fantasy XIII's storyline. Just thought I'd say this in case this chapter doesn't make any sense to you

I don't know what made my father and I so close. Maybe it was because we were both the youngest of four brothers, our shared love of travelling, or maybe it was just because he was always there for me through all the good times and bad times. Whatever the reason was, I was inseparable from him and we did almost everything together.

When I was fourteen he passed away. One day I saw him coming home from work from my room. As I trotted downstairs to let him in I noticed that when he knocked on the door it seemed like he was panicking or excited about something. I always wished that it was the latter of the two. I opened the door and the last words I heard come from him were his cries to get help immediately before he collapsed in front of me. He died of an aneurysm.

Needless to say his death affected me greatly. I often believe that his death was the reason my life began fall apart. I couldn't bear to be around others, especially my family. I began to isolate myself from them and never bothered to talk them about what I was going through, and in general I just never really bothered talking to them about anything else. Whenever anypony would ask me a question I would usually just give them a short, barely audible reply, and whenever anypony spoke to me I paid little to no attention to them.

It wasn't long before I could barely hold a conversation with anyone and long moments of complete silence with others, broken only by short sentences, became common.

But if there was anypony who I did make any effort to communicate with it was the oldest of my brothers, Radiant Star. When I was nine he moved away from our home in Manehattan to Canterlot to study astronomy. I kept in touch with him as often as I could, sending him letters on an almost weekly basis . After Dad died he spent a lot of time with me, comforting me and trying to keep my mind of everything. He knew as much as anypony how close I was to him and tried really hard to get me to smile again. Still he had to return to Canterlot sometime, and over the course of the next few years the letters became less and less frequent.

It wasn't also my family life that was affected by this but also I my education. My mind began to focus on the good times I had with my father among other things, such as me going off into some fantasy land which I felt was better than the world I was living in. So my grades began to slip, and they weren't even the best to begin with. My father knew how important education was and always encouraged me to do well in school. With him gone any motivation I had to do good in school went with him as well.

Still despite all of this I got on with my life as though nothing happened. Months passed and it began to feel as is I had no father in my life to begin with. There were plenty of moments where I found myself laughing and smiling again, and I wasn't spending as much time isolated away from others. But I my life still wasn't perfect. I still remained quiet, slowly I began to care less and less about others, my grades continued with their downward spiral, and I lived with problems that no matter how big or small they were I would never talk about them because any advice I was given was utterly useless, or because others would usually think I was making a big deal over nothing. At times these problems would usually get to me and then I would be off to someplace where I could be on my own, the next day I would usually forget about it because I would recall something that my dad told when I was very young.

"I may not be with you forever but I want you to know this. No matter how sad and painful life may get you will always overcome it. You wanna know how I know. What you did today to earn that mark on your flank, shows that you will always be your own guiding light. In the darkest of times and places."

I live my life by those words.

The years began pass by very quickly. Before I knew it I was eighteen and my time in school had come to an end. To celebrate our newfound freedom a lot of my classmates decided to take a trip to Ponyville. The main reason being was because of a night club run by some unicorn called Vinyl Scratch was said to be the best in all of Equestria and we wanted to get a first hoof glimpse of it. The fact that some of Equestria's most famous musicians would also be performing in Ponyville for the week also proved to be a lure.

On the morning my friends and I were making our journey to Ponyville I sat in a fairly empty train carriage with them. I was sitting near the window with my head resting against it as I looked at a set of cards I held in my hoof. To pass the time on the long train journey my friend Tanora suggested playing his own version of the game twenty one. I couldn't remember for life of me how to play. Despite him explaining the rules and how easy it was to play, I only heard about half of it because to be honest I was half asleep. After all I did have to get up very early and I had gotten barely any sleep. From what I could remember it was something about whoever's cards added up to twenty one or close to it then they would have to do a dare.

Tanora sat across from me. He was a golden-brown unicorn with a spiky, dark orange mane. His cutie mark was that of a tangerine being squeezed into a glass. He got it after creating a drink from tangerines which he decided to name after himself. Sitting next to him was Overburner a tall, dark brown earth pony who had a black and white checkered flag for a cutie mark. Indicating his love of racing. He was the reason we were getting an early train. He wanted to be in Ponyville before the majority of our classmates, because that's the way he is, he liked being first.

My closest friend however was Thunder Clash. A white Pegasus with a bright red mane. His cutie mark was two dark grey clouds hitting off one another with a lightning bolt running through them. This indicated his special talent in dealing with storm clouds. We had known each other ever since we were little and were good friends for years. He became friends with Tanora and Overburner when we were about thirteen and then introduced me to them. I wasn't exactly the most social of ponies so it was hard making new friends on my own. Thunder however was the exact opposite of this and quite popular around school. He began spending more time with new friends than he did with me, but he still told me that I would always be his best friend, even if he doesn't seem like it.

As for myself, my name is Blue Flare. I am blue unicorn with a black mane. My cutie mark is a glowing ball of light, which shows my talent with light spells. But there are very few times where this actually comes in any use.

"Hey Blue lets see your cards." Tanora said in an annoyed tone.

I realised that I had been staring blankly at the other side of the carriage for the last couple of minutes and was completely oblivious to the game that was going on between my friends.

"Oh sorry." I said before revealing the cards in my hoof hoping that they didn't add up to twenty one. To my luck they didn't. Tanora and Thunder then smiled and turned to Overburner.

"Aah you have to do it." They both said in unison. Apparently the bet was that he had to crawl from our carriage to the top of the next while making moaning noises.

He got up from his seat, and as instructed he got down on the floor of the carriage and began crawling up to the top of the next while making a combination of moans that ranged from sensual to haunting. The three of us covered up our mouths and tried to suppress our laughter from the hilarious sight of him crawling up and down the two carriages coupled with the looks annoyance and confusion that came from whoever else was in the carriage with us.

We knew he had reached the top of the next carriage when we heard the sound of laughing. There were also three mares who we were friends with that had gotten the same train journey with us, Rosebud, Elegant Stride and Lavender Bloom. I only knew them for about three years and we had very little interaction apart from the occasional idle chat that we would have whenever we had the chance to. Still I enjoyed their presence whenever I was with them.

Overburner came back from his dare and Tanora returned the cards on the table to the deck and began shuffling it. Then, as he did before he dealt us the cards by taking the top card of the deck and handing it to each of us until we finally had five cards each. I almost felt tempted to ask him how the rules go but decided not to because he probably would get annoyed having to explain it to me again.

"What's the next dare ?" I asked.

"We'll decide the bet when we get to it." Tanora replied.

With that I looked at the cards in my hand. My eyes widened and I nearly jumped out of my seat when I realised that my cards added up to twenty.

"Oh great" I thought. Knowing the three of them they would usually give me something really bad to do. I often get the worst dares to do from them, mainly because it seemed to be funnier whenever I would do them. I couldn't blame them for it though, I would do the same if I was in their position and somepony else was is mine.

I sighed and revealed my cards to the other three hoping for the small chance that one of them might have twenty one so that I would safe. Just as I expected though my cards were the closest to twenty one. I looked over at Thunder Clash who had a mischievous grin on.

"Oh I have the perfect dare for you."

"Alright what is it."

"Go up to Lavender and ask her for a kiss."

I swear I turned fully red when heard him say that.

"You have to do it." Tanora said.

"Yeah yeah yeah." I said while getting up and making my way past Thunder. I was more annoyed by having to do this than anything else. I didn't like having to get up after making myself comfortable enough to the point where I was almost asleep. There was no point in me trying to get them to change the bet, it would probably end with them questioning my stallionhood among other things for the rest of the trip, something that I really didn't want to put up with.

I began walking up to the top of the next carriage where the three mares were. I noticed that some of the other ponies were giving me a black look, probably because they thought I was going to do something stupid like Overburner did a couple of seconds ago.

No matter how many times I denied it was pretty obvious that I really liked Lavender. Like Tanora and I she was a unicorn. She was a light shade of purple with a long, dark blonde mane. It wasn't long after we first met that I began to like develop feelings for her. I enjoyed seeing whenever we met at school and outside of school I would always try my best to strike up a conversation with her. That didn't seem to matter though, whenever we met at a party she would usually take my hoof and lead out to where everypony was dancing, despite the fact that whatever I was doing out there was the furthest thing from it. More like a series of silly looking movements that I defined as dancing. But I didn't seem to mind it, it was fun in a way, nopony else really seemed to think much of it, and whenever I was with her I didn't care how stupid I might have looked. All that mattered was being out there, staring into the eyes of the mare that I was falling for and getting lost in them. It was just me and her, and everything felt perfect.

When I had reached them they were after falling asleep. I breathed a sigh of relief. Although I still had to carry out the bet it was at least postponed. I looked at Lavender. She had her head resting against her hoof which was up against the window, she also had a small smile on her face. She looked peaceful and cute sleeping.

I wish she returned the same feelings I had for her. Despite always wanting to dance with me at parties, despite acting kind and sweet towards me whenever we met, I'm not good enough for her. She unknowingly hurt me on more than one occasion., and they each played out the same way. She led me to believe that she really did like me in the same way that I liked her. She even stated once that she would like to spend some time alone with just me. But an hour or two after we had finished dancing and returned to our respective friends, I saw her with some other colt, leading him by the hoof away from the party. I knew all too well what was happening.

Then she would end up becoming the most hated pony in my life. I hid the anger that I felt towards her and would usually leave the party ignoring anypony else. She made me feel weak, useless and insignificant. I doubt she really even cares about me. Heck most of the time when we were in school and we crossed paths she would just ignore me. I hated her and wanted nothing but bad things to happen to her, but at the same time I loved her and wanted to be with her despite this.

I should also mention that all of my so called friends ignore me and only take the time to talk to me whenever its convenient or if they have no other choice. I have only been to a small few parties with them because I never know about them until it is too late and the ones that I have been to were mostly just birthday parties that they probably felt obligated to invite. The same can be said for any other social events or get together. Heck they never even told me about the trip to Ponyville, I found out about it from my Mother who was talking to Thunder's mom and it came up in their conversation. The day after that Thunder asked me if I wanted to go with them, which probably means that he probably was guilt tripped by his mom into asking me. They probably couldn't even care less about me.

As time went by I too began to care less and less about them. I didn't know where my life was heading. I was now finished school and had no idea what I wanted to do in life. I was distancing myself further and further away from those close to me to the point that being on my own for the rest of my life didn't seem so bad. And I pretty much hated my only friends.

If my dad could see me now he would probably be ashamed. After all that's not life he would have wanted me to have.