The Fairytale

“This can’t be right! There’s got to be some mistake!” Shining Armor remarked in outrage. He, Jet, Aurora and Cadance were sitting at the booth at a local restaurant after both Jet and Shining Armor had received their assignments in the mail. Shining Armor had received the most prestigious assignment possible: apprentice to the Captain of the Canterlot Guard, Phalanx. Despite the fact that he had graduated at the top of his group, Shining hadn’t thought he would have been given such a position, especially when Phalanx had plenty of capable stallions under his command with far more experience than he ever had. But that wasn’t the problem here, the problem was Jet. Despite how hard he’d tried to improve himself, despite being one of only five to graduate after all three years, he was being sent to Fort Clover and into the Frontier Battalion.

It was the worse assignment any soldier could ever receive; if you ended up there you either failed out of the academy or were recruited out of your hometown. It did not pay very well, but that was only because only about 1 out of every 3 ponies who arrived there would ever survive their first year of service. Some liked to blame Captain Sunburst for the problems and while he certainly did not make a positive difference, he was not the root cause. The frontier was a dangerous place, full of monsters and criminals of all shapes and ferocities. The ponies who were assigned here were lacking the necessary skills to properly deal with those threats. After all, these were the rejects, the skilled leaders and soldiers were always picked up by either the Canterlot Guard or by Stalliongrad. Sunburst had tried to remedy that problem in the only way he could: through sheer size of numbers. He threw dozens upon dozens of ponies upon whatever problem he was facing and waited for it to be fixed. Although it resulted in a huge body count, it did manage to deal with a lot of the creatures that prowled the barren wasteland he was in charge of monitoring.

“I can’t believe this, I can’t believe they would do this to you,” Shining Armor remarked, slamming his hooves against the table. “You deserve better than this!”

Jet didn’t answer; his mind was far too preoccupied at the moment for him to pay attention to what Shining Armor said. He just sat there, staring down at Aurora’s hoof that he gently stroked. For three years, he had worked hard to avoid this death sentence, even when he didn’t have Aurora he still refused to let himself fall to such low levels. After all the stories he had been told, he had made it his goal to get through all three years and get a position as far away from Fort Clover as possible. Now, with one letter, everything he had worked at had been for nothing, all these years had been a complete waste.

“Jet?” Aurora asked, gently leaning towards him and tried to comfort him, but deep down, she was just as scared as he was. There was no way around it, this was a death sentence.

“Look, let’s go down to the military offices and straighten this out,” Shining Armor suggested. “I’m sure they can tell us what is going on and how we can fix it.”

“No,” Jet remarked and looked up at them. “Look, if I go there and beg for some kind of re-assignment, how do you suppose that would make me look? I, just, just give me some time to think about it, ok?”

Shining glanced towards Cadance and she just lowered her gaze to the ground. “Alright, but please, Jet, think seriously about it.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Days went by and Jet spent most of it alone, thinking to himself. He didn’t have a lot of time as they wanted him shipped to Fort Clover as soon as possible. Apparently the rail line leading to the fort had been under attack in the past few months and only recently had a break been achieved so supplies were being shipped down as fast as possible. Ultimately Jet decided not to try and argue his case; he didn’t know just what the reason were, but whatever it was it wasn’t likely he could successfully get his assignment changed. It wasn’t something that happened often, mainly due to the massive headache such a reassignment would cause. Already the military was a complex bureaucracy, mostly due to it having very little else to do in, what, over 300 years? No one talked about it, but everypony knew that the military was far more bloated than it needed to be, but that wasn’t entirely its fault. Even without a war occurring, you still got ponies with military skills growing up who had little use in the civilian sector.

Aurora was amazingly calm about the decision; Shining Armor was far more shocked than she had been. But deep down, she probably knew that Jet wouldn’t decide to go. In some ways, this was an opportunity to prove his capabilities. A normal, cushy job in Canterlot would have just left Jet as another face among the crowd. This, however, was the kind of assignment that could put you on the fast track to a career. With such a low survival rate, those who survived in the frontier were often highly desired to lead military units in other areas of Equestria; after all if they could survive the monsters beyond Equestria’s borders, what challenge could some petty thief be? Jet did have the added prestige of being one of the very, very few graduate of the military academy to station in Fort Clover, something that could would give him a bit of authority there.

The complicating factor in all this was Captain Sunburst, the stallion who was responsible for overseeing Fort Clover’s operations. Unlike Captain Phalanx or Captain Blizzard, Sunburst was completely apathetic about the situations outside of his little world. He cared not about how many ponies were dying under his command or what kind of living conditions they had to endure; so long as the beasts were dealt with he didn’t concern himself with the minor details. This was considered the major contributing factor of Fort Clover’s staggering death rates; Sunburst cared not for actual strategic planning and instead just threw large amounts of soldiers at the problems. Under any other circumstances this would have led to him being discharged, but because no other pony was willing to take over for him, he was allowed to remain in command.

Jet was actually not that concerned about it either, amazingly enough. Truth was, he had decided he wasn’t going to worry about what ‘might’ happen and instead made sure to spend as much time as he could with Aurora before he left. He had already arranged for most of his pay to be sent straight to her, he wouldn’t need any lavish amounts out in Fort Clover, since you’d be hard-pressed to find anything to buy down there anyways. Both Shining Armor and Cadance had promised to keep an eye on her for him to make sure she was properly taken care of. While at this point he didn’t think there would be any problems, Jet could never be too diligent about watching out for her father. Although he hadn’t reared his head for months now, Aurora still got nervous when the two of them were out in public.

By the night before his departure, Jet Stream had tightened up all his loose ends, except for one very important thing. The young colt stood in silence as he gaze out at the horizon, letting his mind calm itself from the flurry of activity he’d been a part of since he found out about the assignment. Shining Armor had wanted to get together for a farewell party, but tonight Jet wanted to just be alone with Aurora. This would probably be the last time he saw her in a good long while and he wanted to make the most of the time.

“Figures you’d bring me back here, such a fitting location,” Aurora remarked once she spotted Jet and began to approach him. “Sometimes it still feels like that first night.”

Jet turned and faced Aurora, revealing that he was dressed in his ceremonial uniform.

“You’re quite dressed up, you weren’t kidding when you said this would be a special occasion,” she remarked and gently nuzzled his neck.

“Aurora, I asked you to meet me here for a very specific reason, there is something very important I must talk to you about,” Jet told her, his voice calm and confident. He turned his head towards the horizon and stared at it. “Aurora, the day I met you is probably the most significant day I have ever lived or may ever experience. You’ve been nothing but loving and understanding towards me and I have done my absolute best to treat you the same way. We’ve certainly gone through things that would tear other ponies apart, but not us. Not even the petty actions of your father have been able to separate us permanently.” He paused and then turned to look back at Aurora in her eyes. “Every day I am with you is a day fully of joy and happiness and I want to experience that for the rest of my life.” Jet paused again, stepping up to Aurora and kneeled down in front of her, he muzzle just barely clearing the ground. “My dear Aurora, will you be my wife?”

Aurora’s heart just skipped a beat as Jet bowed and proposed to her and she couldn’t help but begin to cry. “Jet, yes… yes I will be your wife,” she said before Jet scooped her up and hugged her as she cried into his shoulder. But unlike so many other times before, this time she cried from pure joy. “I love you so much Jet,” she said, now holding tightly to her stallion.

“I thought long and hard if I should, but there’s never been any doubt in my mind who I belonged with. And I promise you, right here, that I will come back to you, I will survive and when I return we will be wed together, forever.” Jet gently let her go and pulled out a small box from his front pocket. “I bought these with my savings, so that no matter what, there will be always something to remind you of my promise.” He gently pulled out a small golden right attached to a chain and put it around Aurora’s neck. Aurora followed suit and gently placed one around Jet’s neck before the two entered into a deep kiss. From this point on they belonged to each other and nopony could change that fact.