The world we live in, it seems like a peaceful place to be. That is to the untrained eye. To any normal pony, everything seems to be calm, relaxed, quiet, but behind the peace and quiet is a completely different world. This is the world of the Royal Equestrian Military. Everypony sees all of our princesses’ guards keeping watch over them, protecting them from any harm that may come, but not many ponies know about the rest of the royal military. The royal guards may be some of the most elite and well trained ponies of the ground fleet, but under the seas surrounding our beautiful Equestria lays an even more elite group. This group of specially trained ponies call themselves a part of the “Silent Service.” These ponies are the best of the best, the brightest, and most dedicated, most loyal and most well trained ponies that this country has to offer. My name is Valor, and I am proud to call myself a Royal Equestrian submarine sailor.
To get where I am today was not an easy task. Heck if you had asked me three years ago where I would be, I could have told you a million different things. Being a part of the military definitely wouldn’t have been on that list, let alone on a submarine. I wasn’t going anywhere in my life, basically living from day to day and paycheck to paycheck. I was brought up in the beautiful city of Manehattan, and I never travelled past the city limits. I tried going to school for magic under Princess Twilight Sparkle, but my motivation severely lacked and I ended up failing out my second year. It’s not that I’m bad at magic or anything; I was just lazy and didn’t really care about learning. I had all the skills I thought I’d ever need, and turning a seed into a full grown plant instantly never really seemed all that important back then.
After failing out of the academy, I ended up having to move back in with my parents. Not exactly the most ideal of situations, but at least it was a way to get myself on my feet again. I’d seen a few of my friends go off and enlist into the military, but that lifestyle didn’t appeal to me at all. I didn’t like having other ponies getting in my face and shouting orders at me, and I didn’t like others thinking that they were better than me for no reason. I ended up finding a stupid dead end job working at a small restaurant. The money wasn’t the best, but the ponies I worked with made up for it and kept me going from day to day. I made enough money that I could live comfortably and have some nice things, and help out my family at the same time.
Life seemed to be going good for myself until one fateful winter night. I was out with a few friends at a concert out in the city, when I got an urgent message from my dad. He told me that something had happened with my mom, and that they were on their way to the hospital. I didn’t get much information at all, but it was enough for me to get home as fast as I could. I later found out that my mom had suffered from a stroke caused from a severe blockage of her mana. In layman’s terms, something caused the path her magic used to become blocked, cutting off all ties to her magic, ultimately making her unable to do much for herself. Her stroke basically took away all of her basic functions. She couldn’t walk anymore, talk, use the restroom or really anything on her own. She needed somepony there at all times to help her out, so my dad and I took it upon ourselves to be there for her. She didn’t trust any nurses, or really anypony else besides us to be there for her.
Eventually things seemed to be looking up for our small family, until my dad slowly started to get weaker and weaker, but he didn’t want to go see a doctor. One day he collapsed while I was asleep. He couldn’t yell out for help, so my mom started running into things, knocking them over to make a lot of noise. When I finally came to and realized something wasn’t right, it was almost too late. I ran into our kitchen to find my mom freaking out, and my dad unconscious on the floor. Without hesitation, I called a doctor and within minutes three appeared at our front door. They took him away to the hospital almost as quickly as they had appeared, and soon after I grabbed my mom and followed them. They barely brought him back, but once they had him stabilized they allowed us in to see him. The doctor who first showed up at our house came in and grabbed me, bringing me into the hallway. From what I’ve learned, this is never a good sign. He explained that they had begun running tests, on him to see what had happened, and that they had found cancer in his body. It had been there for a while, and it had already started to spread throughout his body, and if they didn’t act soon there wouldn’t be much they could do for him.
A few days later they finally let me take him back home, and things changed yet again in our household. My dad could still do things for himself luckily, but he was too weak to be able to help out my mom anymore. I had to take over as the head of our small household, doing all of the daily tasks as well as take care of my parents. It was the least I could do for them, seeing as they had spent the last 19 years of their own lives doing it for me. I slowly watched my family deteriorate before my very eyes, and it wasn’t an easy thing to do at all. It made me look back at all the things I had done in my life, and it made me realize I never did anything big that would make them proud of me. I failed out of the academy, was working a dead end job with no real future ahead of me. I wanted to do something that would make them proud, so that they could have something to brag about in the afterlife.
All of my close friends knew about the situation at my house, including my friends in the Royal equestrian Navy. They especially knew that I wasn’t the biggest into going back to the academy and graduating like most normal ponies do, and they knew that I could use some discipline in my life. They all recommended that I talk to recruiters if I ever got the chance to. So one day I finally agreed to it. I figured what harm talking to them could do. It didn’t mean that I had to sign a contract and leave my family behind. I told my dad that I wanted to go talk to them the next day, and he didn’t particularly enjoy the idea of me joining the military, but after explaining myself to him he didn’t try to stop me.
The next day I went into the Manehattan recruiting office and started talking to the Navy representatives in the office. They ended up giving me a great deal of information, which I passed on to my dad. Then I spent the next few months balancing my life at home with working towards ultimately enlisting. I worked out with the other interested ponies in the office almost daily, until my dad’s condition worsened drastically almost overnight. He ended up becoming hospitalized again so the doctors could keep a close eye on his condition. I dedicated all of my time to being there with my parents, supporting them the best I could. I don’t even know how many nights I spent sleeping in an uncomfortable chair in their small hospital room just so I could be with them. The doctors had told me that my dad only had a few days left to live, and I wanted to be there with him as much as I possibly could.
We had many visitors come and go the next few days, family from all over the country coming to say their final goodbyes to him. My emotions were all over the place. One moment I’d be in the bathroom crying, and the next I'd be by my dad’s side laughing at happy memories. No matter how bad things were getting, his smile never seemed to leave his face. He was at peace with his fate, and he wanted to look as strong as he could for my mom. He ended up going well beyond what the doctors had said he would, but nopony can stay invincible forever, and late one night the sound of his heart monitor suddenly changed from the rhythmic beeping going with his heart to a steady pulse. The next few hours all blended together, becoming a blur of doctors and nurses trying to bring him back, but in the end there wasn’t anything they could do. He passed away peacefully in his sleep, and I finally couldn’t hold it back anymore.
I left the hospital shortly after they pronounced him dead. I had doctors and nurses all trying to comfort me, but I shrugged all of them off. I wandered the streets of the city aimlessly. I didn’t believe that any of this was actually happening to me. Everything around me just seemed like a dream, like none of it was real. I kept trying to will myself to wake up, but it wasn’t a dream. One of the only people I could rely on in my life was gone, and there was no way I could ever bring him back. I finally sat on a park bench and let it all out. The tears streamed down my face with no end in sight. I don’t know how long I just sat there, but when Celestia’s sun began to rise over the horizon I made my way back towards the hospital. I had made a promise to my dad that I would be there for my mom no matter what, and that’s exactly what I was going to do. I regained my composure the best I could and made my way back up to the room. It looked completely different when I got back. Everything in there was gone, except for my mom lying in her bed crying. I tried to comfort her as best I could, tried to stay strong for her, but there was only so much I could do for her.
Shortly after everything with my dad happened, they moved my mom to a special home for ponies who needed special care. I started going back to working out with the other Navy hopefuls in an attempt to keep my mind off of everything, but now my mom’s condition was worsening. After she had lost my dad, she seemed to become more distant. She stopped eating and drinking, leading to her getting weaker than she already was. Her nurses forced her to eat, but there wasn’t much they could really do to get her to. Before her stroke, she always said that if she lost my dad, she didn’t want to live without him. I never thought she was being serious when shed say that, but she was proving me wrong. She began losing weight rapidly, much like my dad did shortly before he passed, and I again abandoned my physical training to spend my time by her side. Weeks went by with me trying to get her to eat, but she always just gave me a look. A look that told me that she wanted to be with my dad, that she wanted to go to the other side and be with him. It killed me inside to see her slowly dying in front of my eyes, and again our family came by, much like with my dad. My mom wasn’t hooked up to nearly as much equipment as my dad was, and one morning she didn’t wake up. I got close to her and noticed she wasn’t breathing anymore and I ran to get the nurses as fast as I could, but by the time they got there, there was nothing they could do, and just like that I had lost the only other person I could ever rely on in life.
I was left alone in this world with nobody. I had no plans for the future, nobody I could lean on or even talk to about everything I was feeling. I had nothing, and it wasn’t a happy feeling at all. Shortly after my mom’s funeral, I finally made up my mind with the military. The next day I walked into the recruiter’s office in the city and I told them that I was ready to sign up. They had known about everything with my parents, and they knew that they were the only thing holding me back from joining. I had it in my mind that I needed to make my parents proud. I knew that they were up above looking down on me, watching everything that I was doing. I know that even at this very moment that they are looking down. I signed all of the enlistment papers over the next few days, got all of my medical screenings and tests done, and was ready to finally do something with my life. Something that I could be proud of, but more importantly that my family would be proud of. The next week I was on my way to the first chapter of my new beginning. I knew that it wasn’t going to be an easy undertaking, but these days what is?
