Prologue

Prologue

I never knew my father for the first 27 years of my life. I was raised by my mother in a dusty, shabby shack on the outskirts of the town of Ponyville. From time to time, I would ask my mother "Do I have a dad?"

She would stare at me, always hesitant, before then answering "Yes, but he's not here right now, Emerald."

That was always the answer I would receive. He's not here. Then where was he? What was he doing? Did he know about me? Would he be coming back? All of these questions were trapped inside my head, waiting to be answered. But I knew they never would be. My mother never liked to go into detail about my father. The closest I ever got to detail from my mother was just his name, Charming Thunder. I inherited my name from his, mine being Emerald Thunder. My mother's name was Flare Chaser. She was from a family of pegasi that started back in Manehatten.

In fact, she had a huge photo album that was about the width of my head. We sat down one freezing, winter day and looked through all of her old photos together. All the photos were aged depending on when they were taken. She pointed her hoof on a picture of an old couple in fancy attire.

"These two were your great grandparents." she spoke softly like she usually did. "I remember going to their apartment in Manehatten when I was just a filly. In fact, your great grandfather helped me get my cutie mark." We both looked at her cutie mark, a campfire, which represented her astonishing survival skills.

I just had to know."How did he help get your cutie mark?" I asked.

"Well," she started. "Your great grandfather was a young stallion during Equestria's first war. He volunteered himself to help fight the Griffons in the middle of the Saddle Arabian Desert. He was stationed as a Sniper since he was an excellent shot. One day, his squad leader was informed that a Griffon convoy was moving across the desert and fast. They needed somepony to camp on a rock ledge near where they expected the convoy to camp for the night and somehow cripple their progress. So he offered to do it. When they accepted his offer, they told him he was to immediately report to his camping site and wait there for a long period of time. He didn't refuse the offer. So, he went to his assigned spot and waited for at least a week. He lived of of the land, finding whatever was around and using it for survival. He used wild animal skin as a blanket for the desert's cold nights, used water he took from some growing cacti he found for bathing and drinking, and ate bugs, shrubs, and cacti that he cooked over a fire. Then, after a long hot day, the convoy finally arrived. And what do you know, they camped right were they expected them to. He took out his best hunting rifle and loaded one bullet into the chamber. Then, he took one of the potatoes that he found growing locally in the desert and stuck it to the end of his gun's barrel."

Since I was just a colt, I giggled at the thought of sticking a potato on a gun. "Why'd he do that?" I asked my mother.

"It was to silence the noise the rifle made so that it didn't attract any attention." she told me. Then she continued "He shot the one Griffon soldier that was on watch duty, reloaded, then the one that slept closest to their weapons. But he didn't stop there. He killed them all. Nothing was stopping him from doing his duty. Once they were all dead, he walked all the way back to his squad on our side of the desert, leaving the convoy to rot in the sun."

A look of concern had washed over my face back then. Had my great grandfather really been that hardened? "He was a legend amongst his squad and battalion." mother finished. "And he taught all that he learned to me when I was a little bit younger than you."

"Wow." I said in astonishment. My great grandfather was cooler than I thought.

After a bit more flipping of the pages, I saw a picture that caught my eye. My mother was in it, but with some stallion I had never seen before.

"Mom?" I questioned. "Who are you with in this picture?"

She took one look at the picture and her expression turned from nostalgic comfort to complete terror in a half of a second. She ripped the photo from the album and proceeded to toss it in the fire she had made to keep us warm.

She turned to me. "We are to never talk of that photo ever again. Understand?" She spoke strictly. I nodded my head quickly, hoping for her anger to pass. "Good. Now, get ready for bed. I need you to help me pull some weeds out of the kitchen floor tomorrow."

She walked out of the room and up the stairs without saying another word. I turned to the fire and quietly pulled what remained of the picture. It still showed the heads of my mother and the stallion she was with. He was gruff and his hair was green and rough looking. His eyes were hazel and looked like they were staring right at me. A sudden wave of deja vu hit me like a train after thoroughly examining the photograph. Although she never said who he was, I knew that stallion my mother was with in the photo. And he looked alot like me.