All's Fair in Love and War

by SeaBreeze173

Prologue

My name is Fire Agate.

I come from a long line of guards and soldiers. Every stallion on my father’s side was apart of the Equestrian Military, from Navy to Royal Guard.

I’m not the first mare to be born in that long line of guards and soldiers, but I am the first who went against her father’s wishes and put on the uniform. In his day, it was unusual and looked down upon for a mare to join the military.

My father, Sterling Silver, joined the military when he was just out of school at the age of eighteen. He went into the Equestrian Army, where he served dutifully and honorably for thirty years, serving as Colonel for ten of those years.

Sterling met and married my mother when he was three years in the military. To this day I don’t know how my mother, the small and meek Sunflower Field, tamed the beast that was my father. But she did. Oh how Sterling loved my mother. Their love was one that would last throughout the ages.

I was the third of four fillies and one colt. My mother always wanted a lot of foals, as she came from a large family with ten foals. Sadly, that dream wasn’t to be. After me, Mother lost three foals. She had a miscarriage with two and premature birth with another. It was a very sad time in our family in those five years. Mother and Sterling were so happy when with her last pregnancy, twins were born; a filly, my sister Topaz and my first brother, Garnet.

As I said, all of the stallions in my family were destined to become guards or soldiers and as such my father wanted nothing more than to have a son to continue that legacy.

My father was so happy to have a son. However, we found out early on that Garnet would not become the guard my father wished. He was a sickly little colt and was always smaller than other foals his age. But my father still loved him more than life. He loved my sisters as well. Me? Well I was just the ugly ducking that nopony wanted.

A few weeks before their third birthday, Topaz and Garnet became terribly sick with a horrible disease. The sickness left was less rough on Topaz, as she was stronger than Garnet, though we would later find out that she was stunted in growth.

But it was too much for Garnet’s little body. He never recovered.

Losing my brother changed Sterling in a way I can’t put into words. Already having loss three other foals was enough to put a toll on my parents, but Garnet’s death pushed my father too far. He became quick to anger and slow to forgive. The day my brother died, my father died too. It would just many more years before his body would follow.

My older sisters, Gypsy Rose and Penelope, as well as my younger sister, Topaz, were much different from I. I always felt that I was an outsider among my prim and proper sisters.

While my sisters were prissy, dainty little flowers, especially little Topaz, whom my father doted on, I was a rough and tumble tomcolt who wasn’t afraid to get dirty with the boys. More than once did I come home school with black eyes and busted lips from the many fights I would get in. I earned my cutie mark during one of those fights. My mother wasn’t sure if she should be happy or apprehensive that my special talent was fighting and strategy. “Well, at least I’ll never have to worry about you when you start dating. I’ll be more worried about your dates” she said when I showed her the mark adorning my flank.

Though my father and I had many disagreements as I grew up, our fights became more common during my teenage years. I could never do the right thing in his eyes. I loved my father, but I don’t think he loved me, at least not like he loved my mother, my sisters and Garnet. I was just too different.

I was but fifteen when I came to the decision that I would continue my father’s legacy in joining the military. I thought that he would be proud that one of his daughters wished to go into service. I thought that I could finally find favor in my father’s eyes. I thought that maybe if I took interest in something that he loved, he would finally love me. I couldn’t have been further from the truth. He refused to have a daughter who wore a uniform.

“The military is the work of a stallion” he said. I begged with him to let me enroll when I came of age. I told him that it was my destiny, as my cutie mark of a flaming sword clearly stated. Still he refused.

“As long as breath fills my lungs you will not become a guard.”

I enrolled the day after he died six years later.

I couldn’t make my father proud of me while he was alive. But I was determined to show him that I could do the right thing.

My name is Fire Agate. I am the first mare to become a royal guard in a long line of guard stallions. This is my story.