//------------------------------// // The Wedding Planners // Story: Family Ties // by NightInk //------------------------------// Luna took way too long to open the door, frankly, since the only clothes she put on were my boxers and my shirt. I think she thought me standing in the hallway naked was pretty funny. In fact I know because she was laughing on the other side of the door for twenty seconds at least before opening it. And when she did open it, she was still laughing. “You know, you are really kind of a sick lady,” I commented. “Most women would let their fiancé in the door, not let them feebly try to cover themselves with a pillow as the pervy lady down the hall whips out a camera. At the very least, couldn’t the pretty lady from closer to the stairwell have had the camera?” Luna mocked impressed. “Really, Mrs. Fulcher had a camera? I’ll have to buy copies. She get anything good?” I sighed and put on a pair of boxers. “Sick. Now I’ll have nightmares about her with pictures of me.” I took Luna’s soft hands in mine. I gave them a gentle squeeze and held them together in my own. “So, where do we stand? Are we ok?” She smiled, kissed my chest gently, and nodded, pressing her face against me. “Yeah. We’re ok. I’m just beginning to stress out, and you clamming up wasn’t helping things. I just want this wedding to be planned.” I ran my hand down her back and led her to the table. “Well then, let’s work on this. You had the florist last week, save for patterns and arrangements. We’d have to go there to pick those out, so we’ll call and make an appointment. Not today because I really don’t want to put on pants. Then we’ll get to work on the place, ok? We’ll see about the chapel I went to as a kid, ok?” She nodded. “Ok, just give me a moment.” She took a moment in the bedroom and changed into a pony before stepping back and picking up the landline. “I’ll call the florist if you’ll call the church. Deal?” I nodded and pulled my own phone out. “Sounds good.” Soon we were both talking on the phone, I to my childhood priest and Luna to someone else. Father Ed remembered me, which surprised me, and Luna had built a rapport with the florist. I was mostly catching up, but Luna was doing actual work. At one point she looked over at me and raised her eyebrows like she was expecting an answer to whatever question she was about to ask. “Where is your calendar? I need to make sure dates and times don’t conflict.” I looked at her dully. “What’s a calendar?” When she rolled her eyes I rolled mine in reply. “How long have you known me, dear?” The Father laughed. “Going on 22 years now, but you don’t have to call me dear.” “Oh, no, no. Not you Father. I was talking to my fiancé.” I saw Luna snicker on her side of the table.” “Ah.” The voice on the other side of the line sounded very stern. “You aren’t living together, are you?” “No, no, of course we aren’t living together.” Luna’s eyebrows shot up. “Though, given we would certainly like to, I’d really like to make a date. Do you want us to come and meet with you at the church? It’d be nice to catch up in person too.” He laughed again. “It certainly would. How about the day after tomorrow at three?” “Ooh, no, that’s my naptime. How about four?” “When does your nap end?” “Three fifty one, give or take twenty seconds.” “And you can make it here in nine minutes and forty seconds?” “Give or take twenty seconds.” Luna smiled and the priest laughed. She nodded and the Father said, “I’ll pencil you in. Pencil, mind you.” “Haha, I understand Luna and I will be there.” “I look forward to it.” I hung up the phone and spun it on the table. Luna was in the process of confirming a new date with the florist since I had taken the time slot that she had been looking at. Thanking the other person, she put the phone down and sighed. “This is why you need a personal calendar.” “Aren’t those the big grids with the little numbers on them?” She blew a raspberry and pushed her own over to me. “Tomorrow we meet with the florist. Two in the afternoon.” I picked up the calendar and scribbled the appointment with Father Ed into it’s time. “Sweet. Sounds like fun. I’ll just have to push my nap a little later.” … The next day, we went to the florist, just like she planned. I was personally having a good time, but Luna didn’t seem to think we were there for fun. “Adam, put down the rose.” I was wearing a collared shirt and had tucked a short cut red rose into my top button. “What, it doesn’t look good?” She tilted her head and smiled. “It looks very dashing, but it isn’t yours. Put it back where you found it.” A grumpy looking man walked up and unceremoniously yanked the flower from my shirt and put it into his. I jabbed a finger at him over my shoulder. “Done. Though I’m surprised that it took him so long to notice it.” He straightened his clothes in a huff, then addressed me. “Sir, this is a place of business. If you cannot behave in a distinguished manner, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” Luna cut in front of me as I raised my hand and opened my mouth to speak, effectively cutting me off. “I am sorry about him. Are you the owner of the store, Mr. Gardner?” I scoffed. “Gardner. How apropos.” Luna glared at me for a second, then spun back around. “He’s my fiancé. We have an appointment to talk about flower arrangements for a wedding?” He quickly became much more pleasant at the sound of the word ‘wedding’. “Oh, yes, Miss Luna, please do step into my office.” He followed him into his office, where he proceeded to pull a large binder of full page photos off a shelf and open it in front of us. He flipped a page or two and pointed to an arrangement. “This is out most popular arrangement, ‘Young Love.’ It includes delivery and a full chapel decoration. It has several different colored roses and we offer several customization options that include-“ “It’s also your most expensive package,” I interrupted, adjusting the blue tulip in my pocket. “As you flipped those initial pages, the prices did nothing but increase, and this is the back of the book. It follows that since you’ve ordered everything else by value, the furthest from the cheapest is the most expensive. I’ve done some checking around, and I’ve seen packages just like this at much lower costs in shops all around town for much lower prices.” He leaned forward and snatched the flower away from me. He turned around and put it in a vase of water behind his desk before attempting to retort. “Yes, well, that may be so, but our flowers are much higher quality and we provide a much more caring service.” “Which is why you keep snatching things away from me even though I may intend to actually buy and you treated me as a child until Luna here said ‘wedding’?” Out of what was now surely almost habit, he reached across the table to take away the yellow petunia I was just placing into the button, but he caught himself and sat back in his chair. “Also,” I continued, “these plants are in need of some serious love. Watch.” I kissed the little yellow flower, which was drooping a little bit, and it began to regain its radiance as we watched. Luna just smiled a little, knowing what I was doing, but the grey haired old man was baffled. ‘I-i-it has to be a trick flower. There’s no way you could do that. It isn’t even in a source of nutrients!” I tapped my chest seriously. “Oh, it has a source of nutrients, sir.” I pushed just a little bit more magic into the tiny flower and its petals almost shimmered with life and color. “Now, I’m almost ready to go talk with my good friend Daisy instead of doing business here with you, so unless you have a better offer for us on you best package, I’m afraid our work here is done.” He quickly began to shake his head frantically. “Oh, no, no, no. you don’t mean that woman down the street, Daisy Melancampe, do you? Please, I need your business! I’ll offer you thirty percent off on the Young Love package! I’ll ring t up now if you like! Just give me the date and location of your wedding, and I can put it into our date books!” I tapped a finger on my chin. “Well, I do think we’ll check out a few other places first. Though with an offer like that, you’ll be a tough place to beat.” The man was visibly sweating. I was having a great deal of fun, but Luna eyed me like I might be going a little bit overboard. Luckily she didn’t say anything, and the owner didn’t notice her. He was much too busy frantically trying to get me to check out now. I thanked him, dropped the petunia into his pencil cup, and walked out, leaving him behind us, mopping his brow. As we stepped out of the shop, Luna looked sternly at me. “Why were you so mean to him?” I chuckled. “He doesn’t need our business, he wants it. Did you see what he was wearing? In a flower shop? He’s doing very well. But I frazzled him, and when we come back in two days, he’ll quite possibly offer us an even better deal. But we will check out his competitors.” Luna’s seriousness grew to concern. “What competitors?” I pulled a small wheel of paper out of my pocket. “The names of shops he keeps stars by in his Rolodex.” She groaned and rubbed her temples gently. “Are you going to be this bad at the church tomorrow?” “Oh, much worse. Father Ed knows me, so I have to step up my game.” … She wasn’t happy with me at the florist, but she loved me at the church. It helped that Father Ed did know me, so he knew several appropriate counters. For starters, when we walked into the small office, the good father quickly removed everything from his desk, including calendar, pencil cup, and Rolodex. I spread my arms like preparing for a hug and smiled. “Hey now, aren’t priests supposed to be trusting?!” He laughed and gave me a hug. “Exceptions are made when our guests are known for being sticky-fingered, mischievous pranksters.” He slapped me on the back and picked his rosary out of my hands. “You always liked to have fun. How have you been?” I held a hand out to Luna, who was a few steps behind me, and smiled as widely as I could. “Deliriously happy, Father. This woman has made my life the very definition of fun and exciting.” She smiled and blushed modestly. “Well, I wouldn’t say that. In fact, I spend a lot of time trying to keep him out of trouble. I’m Luna, and it’s very nice to meet you sir. I understand you knew Adam as a child?” The old man laughed. “Yeah, I was the one who baptized the little rascal. I knew he was trouble when he tried to take my stole as I poured the water on his head. And please, no need to be so formal. Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.” She smiled. “Thank you. Well, do you have any amusing stories you’d care to share?” “Oh, Lord, yes. Please, sit, and I’ll share.” He shared a few stories that had Luna nearly out of her chair laughing. I’m not at liberty to repeat much of it. For an old man, he hadn’t lost much of his memory. “And he really wanted to do that?!” Luna gasped. “I swear!” His eyes were tearing up and his breathing was heavy. “Oh, it was the craziest thing!” (It really wasn’t. I just wanted to understand how Noah got all the animals on the ark by doing it ourselves.) “But, onto more serious matters. Adam, what is the true story behind your arm?” I looked at it a little surprised. Sometimes I forget what it is or what it looks like to other people. “It’s a false arm. Car crash.” He smiled at me. “My nephew is a doctor. I know where the research into false arms is. They aren’t that sophisticated yet. What is it really?” I grimaced and Luna suddenly became quiet. We looked at each other and she shrugged, like it was my decision. I looked at the thin grey man. He had a slight smile on his face like he knew it wouldn’t be something he would like. “Man, I’m sorry. But you really won’t like this. It’s a magical arm.” I took a quick look behind me to make sure the door was closed, then moved my arm. Not moved normally, but let the whole thing float away. It hung suspended in the air in front of him. The slight smile on his face faded away a little until he looked fairly grim. “What is this, son? What is it really?” He clearly didn’t believe me. “You did well in science fairs as a boy, too. What is it?” I sighed. The floating arm turned and levitated the desk in front of the priest. It moved slowly, but it clearly levitated. His expression grew darker and darker. “There are people we can contact for an exorcism. They can be here in a day.” “It isn’t a possession, Father!” I said, forcefully. “It’s a pure and innocent magic, I can promise you. It’s the same basic way I came across these.” I took my sweater off and unfurled my wings. I cringed a bit as I worked out a kink in it. “God damn. Oops, sorry. They tend to cramp up when I have to hide them all day every day.” He nodded slowly. He looked at Luna seriously. “Did you know about this?” She smiled sheepishly and made me and my chair float. At the same time, she took off her own jacket and opened up her own wings. “I was with him when he… acquired them.” He frowned. “The way you just said ‘acquired’. It’s the same way Adam used to say it when he was caught with something that wasn’t his. What happened to him? And to you, for that matter. You I could believe, but I have difficulty believing Adam is an angel of some kind.” I smiled at his dark humor, but he didn’t. We told him what happened during our first encounter, the situation with Nightmare Moon, Death, the Crossroads, and our eventual victory. He was very quiet the whole time, though he laughed a little bit when we told him about Luna first encountering a human shower. And blowing it up. He grew especially dark and grim when I described death and its nuances. In fact, that was when he grew the most grim. When we finished talking, he stayed quiet. Very quiet. He stayed quiet for quite a while, but eventually he spoke. When he did, he sounded tired. Very tired. “The sad part here is that I believe you. I can actually believe a story this insane from you. You seem like the one person who can pull this off. But… I don’t know what to say.” I shrugged. “I don’t know what you could say. But you are right. It’s the truth. I’ll swear on my own grave.” He put his fingertips together and pursed his lips. “Yes, you did say that you buried your own body. Well, I’d truly enjoy seeing your other land, and it’d be nice to pay respects at your grave.” I squinted at him and tilted my head in confusion. “You really want to visit Equestria?” He nodded firmly. “Yes. As I said, it would be a unique experience.” I squinted a little bit more, but eventually shrugged. “I’ll take you to my gravesite. We’ll see how you feel after that. It can be a lot to take in all at once.”