This Story follows the adventures of a Unicorn Stallion named Cleansing Flame. He’s 17 and slightly taller than other ponies his age. His fur and horn are crimson and his fur has white wisps swirling upwards. He has yellow eyes, and his mane is relatively short with 4 long stripes of equal width, blue and black alternating. His tail has the same coloration and is also short. His cutie mark has the 4 elements in it. Fire is at the top and earth, water and air form a triangular base.
Flame was born and raised in Fillydelphia. From a young age he was singled out by bullies for reasons he thought were stupid. Just because he was a unicorn shouldn’t make him a target. However it did make him quite good at fighting. After his magic began to manifest, he began experimenting with magic. Though Flame never tried to be a traditional Unicorn, he did have to learn the basics. Barriers, telekinesis, sure Flame could do them but he always like to try add his own flair to things. It was at age 10 when Flame was experimenting with magic suddenly his barrier ignited! Completely shocked he fumbled the spell. Curious he tried more barriers, only to see that they had the elements imbued in them! He could use all 4 but he seemed to be especially gifted with fire.
It was then that his Cutie mark appeared. Word of Flame’s talent with fire spread to the master smithy Iron Tail, an earth pony. Iron Tail, or Iron as he liked to be called, sought out and offered Flame an Apprenticeship. Which flame accepted with glee. For the next three years, Flame worked to learn the trade, go to school, and tried to avoid the idiotic colts. But the colts would always find him. To counter act the dumb colts Flame learned to harness his magic to strengthen his body and he got really good at imbuing fire into his spells.
However at the end of the third year, disaster struck Flame. Flame and his Parents were taking the train to Detrot to visit grandparents when the train skipped a rail, this caused the train to skid out of control and completely derail. If Flame’s parents hadn’t combined their magic to form an extraordinarily strong barrier around Flame he would have died. The last time Flame saw his parents they were mangled by the train wreck. Flame was wrought with survivors’ guilt. Why was he one of 5 survivors? Why did his Parents have to die? Couple all this with a newfound fear of trains and Flame was quite a mess for a while, especially on the train ride back to Fillydephia.
Flame’s routine did nothing to ease his pain. Even the injuries the bullies inflicted didn’t seem to hurt. The only activity that brought any sort of life back to Flame was when he practiced magic. But even then his expression was sad, it wasn’t enough that his magic was stronger now, why couldn’t it have been stronger then? Why couldn’t he save his parents?
Almost a year past, Flame finally began to snap out of his daze. He was close to manic depression. Ultimately it was Master Iron who snapped him out of it. On that day, the bullies were especially mad at Flame for not reacting, so they brought a lot more colts than usual. Once the pummeling started it was endless. After some time, Master Iron saw the beating and stepped in swinging red hot mallet. After taking down a few of the larger colts, the rest ran for it. But by then the damage was done and Flame was out cold.
After healing up and hearing what happened, Flame seemed to perk up. A bunch of his parent’s friends and Master Iron genuinely cared about Flame. He was just too upset to notice. It took a few months but Flame eventually returned to normal. The next four years went by relatively uneventfully. He finished school and became Iron’s apprentice full time. The punk colts still acted up but they were smart enough to only use words now. During this time his skill as a smith grew massively. He could make almost anything out of iron and was becoming proficient at steel working as well. Too top it off his skill with magic was growing. He could now imbue any element he wanted into any spell he knew and even found some new ways to enhance his body.
Then the incident with Tirek happened. No one was prepared for him. He tore through Fillydelphia, draining the magic from absolutely everypony. Flame didn’t know where Tirek went next; all he knew was that he was glad Tirek was gone. After that Flame lost track of time, so he had no idea how long it was when suddenly his magic was back! He couldn’t believe it! He learned later through the Fillydephia Gazette that Princess Twilight has defeated Tirek. Flame had never been so grateful towards a pony he had never met.
In the aftermath of Tirek’s defeat, Flame became restless. He wasn’t content with simply living anymore. He wanted to explore Equestria, grow as a pony, and find his place. Unfortunately, just traveling around Equestria isn’t a simple matter. So when Flame wasn’t working he studied the various parts of Equestria to at least get some knowledge of the geography of each area and bought a portable map. All this took about 3 months, which is where we find Flame now, outside of Fillydelphia as he writes in his journal that he’s kept since he was a young colt.