Who is your father?
It's a question I'm confronted with, and I never know what to say. My best friend asked me why this question is so hard, if the answer is so simple: Discord, Lord of Chaos. I tried explaining to her how that's not enough.
You see, what does "Discord, Lord of Chaos" say about my father? It sounds mischievous, unpredictable, crazy, and stuck up. He is all of those things, but he is also much more. My father is the most intelligent being you will ever meet in all of Equestria and beyond. My father has a heart the size of the moon, and an ego the size of a planet. He has wisdom from many years, humor that can bring tears to your eyes, and he is so fast both in words and thought that it gets hard to keep up. My father will lay down his life for his family, and fight for what he loves, which means a lot since he has the embodiment of disarray and distortion of reality itself in his quiver. He is ever-changing, constantly confusing, and absolutely mind boggling. He can take your breath away with his immense depth and then take that breath right back in with his insulting shallowness. He is incredibly blunt to the point it almost hurts sometimes. He is heartbreakingly gentle when he wants to be. "Discord, Lord of Chaos" doesn't even begin to describe my father.
My father is none other that Sire, the love and hate of my life. The one who has taught me everything I know, who has pushed me to be my best, and sometimes been my trial that helps me grow stronger.
And starting today, I am going to tell our story.
The term "Sire" originated just before I was born. One thought that had been troubling my father (out of many, I would assume) was the thought of becoming a Dad. He and Mom discussed for long periods of time the issue of being a dad. He had seen how dads were over his lifetime. How they were strict and rude and banished freedom and fun more often than not. How their children whispered in fright in the middle of their games "Dad's home!" and quickly scurried off, trying hard to be unseen. He had seen the dads who hit, or yelled, or destroyed dreams and fantasies. He had seen the lazy dads, and the too busy dads, and the stepdads and the dads who never saw their children even when they were looking right at them. My father saw all of these poor and embarrassing examples and decided the last thing he wanted his first child to be calling him was "Dad".
(Now for all those with nice dads, I truly don't mean any offence. I'm certain your dads are all great, but this was just the mindset of my father before he was a father. So pardon his blunt and ignorant thoughts, and follow along, please.)
So my parents decided to do a little research. They looked in books thousands of years old (with the help of a certain purple princess) and found a name, long forgotten, that used to mean the paternal parent of an equine. Another name for father. A unique, almost royal sounding name that was as far from 'dad' as my father could possibly get.
That name, of course, is Sire.
So since the day I was born, I have never had a dad, but instead a Mama and Sire. It's always been that way for me. The thought of ever calling Sire "dad" is so bizarre to me that I would never do it even if I was offered cheesecake. And if you know me, that's a lot, because there are few things I won't do for a good cheesecake.
