=Familia 9=


>”Lulu, wake up.”
>You groan and pull your pillow over your head.
“Nuuuhhhh…”
>Your sister nudges you with her snow once again and makes her hair fall in your face. It always smelled like wildflowers no matter how often she insisted it didn’t.
>”Lulu we need you! Get up!”
>You seeth for a moment under the blankets, she never understoo-
>Father wouldn’t like you acting like that, so you rise up to a seated position with your eyes barely cracked open and mane all mussed up. Even through your dreariness, you can make out Discord and Celestia standing next to your bed.
“What. Time is it.”
>”Almost lunch.” Your brother says.
>Almost-
>You take a deep breath and calm yourself.
“Both of you are well aware that I do not awaken until after noon at the earliest. Please come back later.”
>In the recent years you’d found it impossible to go to sleep while the moon hung in the sky, only finding the doziness overtake you once the sun began to rise. Father had worked himself ragged for a day figuring out how to re-arrange your schedule and now you ate “breakfast” with your family and then went to bed.
>Your head is almost back on your pillow before Discord snaps his fingers and turns it into a flopping fish. You only need a second touching its slimy scales before you leap in surprise from the bed and flutter in the air shrieking.
“D-DISCORD!”
>”Awake now?” he says with a smirk.
“DO NOT TEST ME, CHIMERA! BROTHER OR NO YOU WILL FEEL MY WRATH AND I-!”
>”Lu’ would you settle down and listen to what Pinky here has to say!?”
>You glance over to your sister who is prancing back and forth like she needs to relieve herself and biting her tongue.
“Fine.”
>”WE’REGOINGTOGETDADDYASPECIALSOMEPONY!” she blurts out.
>You don’t say anything, but you hope your expression says it all.

>You land next to them, suddenly very awake as Discord snaps your fish back to a pillow.
“Pardon me, sister, but I believe I heard you say something incredibly foolish.”
>Celestia shakes her head and bites her lower lip. “You must have misheard, because we’re going to get daddy a special somepony!”
>You point with your hoof.
“No, see, that is the incredibly foolish thing I heard.”
>Celestia’s smile quickly turns to a pout. “Lulu!...Always so cynical!”
“Is all this because you have been making goo goo eyes at Prince Aspen lately?”
>Discord smirks and glances down at Celestia. “You know I’d been wondering the same thing…”
>Your sister’s coat turns from alabaster to red and she scrapes her hoof on the ground. “B-both of you shut up!”
>You and Discord hold your forelimbs to your mouths and laugh.
>Celestia composes herself and takes a step towards you. “Lulu, I am serious! How many years have we lived here with daddy?”
>You recount the time in your head, the seemingly endless parade of days under his supervision.
“…Many.”
>”And in all that time have you known daddy to even ONCE have met someone special?”
>You start to get what she was putting down.
“I have not…”

>”Us neither…” Celestia said, looking downtrodden with Discord, though he’d try and hide it.
>”Like in his stories, love is one of the most important things in the whole universe! If daddy can’t or won’t find it on his own, we’ll just have to help him!”
“How utterly egotistical.”
>”Oh you know what she means. I remember pops’ stories too. If love weren’t so important, that Loaf of Meat guy wouldn’t do anything for it.”
>”Except that one thing.” Celestia corrected.
>”Yeah, except that.”
>You rub your snout. You knew they weren’t going to let you sleep until you helped them, and your rest had already been broken…
“You had a plan, I presume?”
>Celestia nods enthusiastically. “You remember those small tribes of little ponies daddy sometimes takes us to observe??”
>You nod.
>”Aaaaand do you remember the one from the unicorn tribe who wears the hood?”
>You think for a minute. “Sssssomething the Clever?”
>Celestia locks her sparkling eyes with yours and her smile just gets wider.

>Father let the three of you out to play under the guise you were going to play with Aspen and his friends. Little did he know that you had made a detour to a rocky valley just outside of the area the tribe of horned little ponies had settled in.
>It was odd to you that they only had one or the other, horns or wings, but you didn’t give it thought right now.
>Instead you were just bopping your hooves on the ground you lay on and watching the dirt cloud up in the air.
“Tia, this is dull as a post.”
>”Quiet Lulu, they’ll hear us!”
>You push yourself to your hooves and annoyedly blow your mane from your face.
“Who is going to hear us. THE EMPTY VALLEY?!”
>This time both Discord and Celestia turn and shush you.
“UHG.”
>You roll over onto your back and look at the sky. It was daytime, you could be sleeping now.
“You two haven’t even told me your plan.”
>Discord and Celestia both look each other in the eye and grin wildly.
>”Well, Discord thought of it.” Celestia says.
>”See, we invited the old man and Clover to this spot.” He says.
>”But we pretended we were the other one in the letter!”
>”And so when they get here…”
>”They’ll find THAT!” Celestia says, pointing to the valley floor past the rock you hid behind.
>You take a peek.
“…They’ll find some sandwiches, still water, and a blanket?”
>”It’s called a picnic, Luna, and they’ll find it and fall in love!” Celestia says.
>You cock an eyebrow and look up at her.
>You didn’t understand, she was supposed to be smart.

“Tia neither of those two things are remotely related.”
>Celestia scoffs. “Don’t ask me! It was Discord’s idea!”
>You turn your head to your brother.
“Well?”
>”Well what?” he answers.
“Where did you come up with this idea?”
>”I read it in a trashy romance novel once. Or, I will. In a thousand years. It’s too complicated for you, Lulu.”
>Oh.
>Great.
>Celestia gasps and points to the picnic. “They’re here!”
>Despite your protests, you still climb to your hooves and peer over the rock. From one side of the valley you see father walk past the rocks with his old weathered walking stick in hand, while from the other side approached a small off-green pony with a rich emerald mane shrouded in a dusty old cloak.
>Celestia shushes the both of you three times each. “Shush shush shush! We need this to go off flawlessly!”
“Okay! Settle down…”
>Father and Clover were too far away for you to hear what they were saying to one another, but it was easy enough to watch them.
>Celestia sighs wistfully. “This is the part where she falls into his arms and they declare their undying love for one another…”
“…I believe this is the part where they look this way, sister.”
>”Give them a moment, Lulu. All will be well.”
“Sister I think they see us.”
>”See us watching their love unfold!”
“Celestia, they’re walking over here now.”
>Father looked confused, Clover just looked annoyed.
>”Discord, what did the book say we should do now?”
>Celestia turns around after she doesn’t get an answer. “Discord?”
>You glance over where Discord was standing and see the tiny speck of him on the horizon hightailing it out of there.
“OH THAT ROTTEN-“

>”It’s not that we’re mad at you per say, girls…” father began, glancing awkwardly at Clover the Clever. “But…matters of the heart are usually best left to the people involved.”
>”Especially important that they KNOW one another first.” Clover says.
>Celestia sits next to you, both of you turning your faces to the ground, and sighs.
>You guess apologizing will have to fall to you, like always.
“We are very sorry for what we did, Miss Clover. We were…mislead.”
>Celestia turns to look at you. “But Luna! Discord said that in the book he reads-“
>”Celestia, what is the one thing I keep telling you about Discord?” father says.
>Sister sighs and closes her eyes again in shame. “That Discord lies…”
>”Mhm…”
>Father holds Discord up by his tail, retrieved by a magical spell quickly performed by Clover after you’d told him that your brother had run away. The Draconequus nods. “He’s right you know, about everything.”
>Discord sits still for a moment.
>”Except that.”
>”…And that.”
>”And that.”
>”And tha-“ 
>Father clamps Discords mouth shut quickly. “Do not do that.”

>Discord gives a thumbs up.
>Clover the Clever gets closer to you and Celestia and seems to be inspecting you.
>”I’m dreadfully sorry about this, Ms. Clover. I try to teach my children to be respectful, but we’re all unused to neighbors.”
>”There was no harm done…” the hooded pony says as she looks the two of you over.
“…What?”
>”May we help you, Miss Clover?” Celestia says.
>She backs off, but continues to watch you. “Horns -and- wings…curious.” With that she trots back around you and past father, casting a glance back. “Good day to you and your…interesting brood, Anonymous.”
>”And you, Mrs. Clover.” He responds.
>Once she’s out of sight, father looks down at you with his textbook disappointed face. “Come along, you three. Let’s get you home and think of an appropriate consequence.”
“I would like it noted that I thought this was a horrible idea from the start.”
>Father was liable to go easy on you if you made things clear to him!
>”Yeah well I want it noted that you’re a butt.” Discord says.
>Father was less likely to go easy on you after you tried to thwack Discord with a stick for being so cowardly.