Advanced Placement.
Daddy-hood was a full time job and it started at the crack of dawn. You were fine with it, you’d sleep when you were dead. Whenever that would be.
Before the sun was up, you climb out of bed and head to your bathroom. It had taken you a while to learn how to make your own toothpaste, but it’d be worth it. Plaque was not going to worm its fingers into the home of your children, no matter how much cake Celestia tried to fit in her mouth at once.
You lock eyes with yourself in the mirror and think about what you had to do today. It was Tuesday, that meant that it was school day. The lack of any formal professionals meant that all the kids had to be homeschooled, much to at least one of their chagrin.
Most lesson plans you thought up before they woke up and tried to do your best with. You weren’t exactly the most learned man back on Earth. Hopefully a solution that offered more insight would appear.
Once you were clean you headed out into the kitchen to start breakfast and soon enough the kids join you at the table. Well, two of them.
Celestia and Luna come trotting out of the hallway just as you put breakfast on the table. You take a scant moment to smile and note how big they were getting in their years here, Celestia almost came up to your chest now.
Wait, only them?
“Girls, where’s your brother?”
”Probably sleeping in…” Luna says, taking her seat at the table.
”I’ll get him, daddy!” Celestia exclaims, heading to the door. She opens it a crack and peaks her head in. “Discord? Papa says it’s time for br-“
You hear a snap and the door gets shut in her scrunching face.
”We could have told you that would happen.” Luna says.
Celestia takes her seat and you go bang on the boys door, he was always like this in the morning.
“Discord! Eyes up! It’s breakfast time!”
You get a pathetic groan in response. “Sixty more minutes!” he cries.
“Now! Discord!”
”This is torture! You’re torturing me!”
“If I was torturing you, I would have made no pancakes for you!”
You hear the sounds of someone rocketing out of bed and then a snap of fingers. You turn around and find Discord sitting at the table with a bib around his neck and knife and fork in his hands.
”That was all you had to say.”
Little snot.
For slamming the door in his sister’s face, Discord was the first lesson of the day.
”UUUUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHGGGGGGGG.” he groaned.
He didn’t like lessons.
“Sit down, young man.”
Discord puts his hands on his hips. ”I resent that! I’m not a man.”
“It’s a turn of phrase now SIT.”
You reach out and push Discord’s rear onto the couch, he grumbles and pouts. “I’ll turn your phrases you…” he trails off into mumbling.
“WHAT was that?”
”Nothing!” he screams with both hands up as you sternly look at him. “Relaaaaaax pops, you’ll give yourself an ulcer if you keep that up!”
You can imagine what he said, but part of working with him was playing his game.
“Have you been practicing?”
”You know I have.” Discord says while blowing on his eagle claw.
“Snapping a door shut isn’t the same as learning to control your powers.”
Discord rolls his eyes. “There you go using that word again…”
“Mm?”
Discord makes yappy gums with his hands and rotates his head around with a screw sounds. “Control control control control! That’s BORING! Where is the fun in everything being controlled?!” Discord points to the oven. “I bet the oven would be MUCH happier cooking when it wanted to instead of when you tell it to!”
He leans over the back of the couch and holds his fist up. “AM I RIGHT, OVEN!?” The oven releases a small cloud of smoke from itself. ”See!? He’s with me!”
You simply look at him unamused. “You haven’t been practicing, have you.”
”Have so.”
“Discord.”
His eyes drift to the side. “I have! Hey! What new thing are you gonna teach me?”
“Discord.”
”I bet it’s math.”
“DISCORD.”
”WHAT?”
You take a breath. “If you didn’t practice and can’t control your magic, it’s okay to tell me.”
Discord visibly twitches near the eye. “There’s that word again.”
The boy snaps his fingers and you look up just in time to see the bucket of water fall on your head. ”And don’t say it like I can’t do stuff!”
After setting up a quick lunch, you come out of the bathroom with a towel over your head and already find Luna sitting on the floor.
“…Sweety? Did you let yourself in?”
”We heard commotion…” she says, looking back behind her. “Why does Discord sit in the corner?”
“He knows what he did.”
”THIS IS CRUEL AND UNUSUAL! I WILL HAVE YOU IN COURT!” he cries, facing the corner and pouting on a stool.
You ignore him and sit on the chair Luna sits at the foot of, grabbing the tome used to teach her. With the girls, it was all about magic spells…which you knew nothing about. Luckily, you had devised a way to get in touch with your partner and she penned something for you.
“Now…where did we leave off, Lulu?”
Luna nods matter-of-factly, instantly sure of her studies. “Upon the origins of Arcana and its place in the metaphysical ordering of the cosmos.”
You nod, pretending you know more than you do.
“Of course…”
You flip a page to a diagram and show her, reading what it says. “The power of Arcana you and your sister tap into is a result of the natural ordering of the universe and as such, is one of the most prominent magical energies in our world. It is the antithesis of destructive magic, entropy and disorder.”
”Did someone call me! My ears are burning!”
“STAY IN THE CORNER, DISCORD!”
You look back down to Luna. “Because of the nature of Arcana and of the planet, it’s closely associated with-“
Luna dismissively waves her hoof. “Yes, yes, the natural Drudic magics of the Elk and Deer, we know. Get to the part on the dreamscape and shadowlands!”
You blink twice. “Did you read ahead?”
”Thou were teaching us too slowly!” Luna catches herself yelling and flattens her ears. ”Uh…we are sorry, daddy…”
You bend down and pet her head. “Don’t be, sweety. I’m proud of you! Proud that I have such a clever little filly for a little girl.”
Luna giggles and Discord piques up. ”If she’s so clever then why were you able to get the bucket off your head before I was gone?”
Luna fidgets and turns to her brother. “If thou had made the bucket the appropriate size, he would not have!”
“What.”
Luna’s eyes bug and she looks back at you again. ”Uh…hehe…”
Celestia sits on your lap and Luna sits on another stool in the corner next to her brother. While the evening sun comes in through the windows. ”This is poopy.” She says.
”Got that right.” Discord answers.
“Quiet over there, you two! Time out means quiet!”
They both pout.
“Now… You flip the book to another bookmark. “Celestia, I can only guess you read ahead too, where are you at now?”
Celestia looks at the contents of the book like a well cooked meal. ”Mmm? Oh, I didn’t do that.”
“Excuse me?”
Celestia turns her big pink eyes up at you. “I haven’t read ahead a page, daddy.”
You look at her, finding that a bit hard to believe.
“Luna? Tell me the truth and I’ll give you dessert.”
Luna’s shoulders pop up nearly an inch and she looks back at you. “No papa! She’s telling the truth!”
”How come I don’t get an offer?!” Discord wines.
“You’d try to lie anyway is why.”
Discord blows a raspberry at your correct guess.
Celestia smiles up at you.
“Okay then…well…” you turn the page again. “Due to the role in ordering the world Arcana has, it often forms a tight relationship with the ordered events of our world and thus the easiest avenue to travel if you’re looking to affect them.”
Celestia nods an understanding nod. “I see…and the leyline paths crisscrossing the planet spread the Arcananic influence and offer more avenues.”
Okay that sounded too smart.
You flip through the book pages, but find no reference to what Celestia said. “…Huh?”
Celestia giggles. “It’s easy, daddy.”
”Know-it-all…” you hear Luna pout.
This was getting too strange.
You set Celestia down and look at her. “You just know things and your sister read ahead three chapters. Are you two little geniuses keeping something from me?”
The sisters exchange a “We-share-a-room-and-whisper-a-lot” glance and then look back at you.
“…Some insights came to us. B-but we were going to wait until you covered that chapter to show you!”
You sigh and stand up, signaling for Luna to come over as well. “Girls, you know I want you to try and be honest with me whenever you can. If you have something you want to show me about your studies, don’t ever be afraid to.”
The sisters glance again at each other and nod. ”Thou may want to sit down.”
”And don’t be afraid! We know we can do this…”
You can’t really relax when they tell you that, but you sit down for their sake. Celestia and Luna close their eyes and point their horns at the window, their horns glow with magic and for a second you think you see the sun beyond the window twitch.
You blink and look again, surely that was a trick of your eye.
The sun stops its decent across the horizon and seems to waver, before dropping down much MUCH faster than you’d seen it before. In barely a moment it crawls behind the hill in front of your house and ushers in the blackness of night. Meanwhile the room fills with silver light from the window in the kitchen as the moon rises at the same speed as the sun.
“Oh my god, girls…”
You look down at the two of them adjusting the heavenly bodies with their magic at such a tender age agape, suddenly feeling very small. The two finish their magic and release it together, having successfully heralded the night and looking up at you.
”Well?”
”What do you think?”
Before you can talk, you hear munching next to you. Discord floats next to your ear with a bag of popcorn. “I think it was neat! Imagine how funny it’d be if you made them switch super fast!”
You want to answer your girls, want to show them how amazed and proud you are, but all that comes out is “Discord, who said you could get off your stool?”
Later that night, later that early night, you put the kids to bed and stand out back by the oak tree over the hill and close your eyes. You concentrate on your heartbeat, centering yourself and blocking out all other distractions save the sound of the wind in your ears.
When satisfied, you speak aloud.
“Can you hear me?”
Nothing comes at first, but a gust of wind from the hills brings “Loud and clear” in the familiar, but seldom heard voice of your partner. ”This must be important, you never try and hear from me like this.” The wind says.
“You’re darn right it’s important!” You used to swear more, then you had kids.
“The girls surprised me today! They lowered the sun, Red! They reached out with their little magics and pop!” You clap your hands. “Pulled the sun right from the sky and sent it on its merry way!”
The wind is silent for several moments. ”Yes…I thought they might by now.” It says, finally.
You sigh and lean against the tree “You could have warned me…”
You feel a soft breeze brush against your cheek almost apologetically. ”Anonymous, you know I can’t. I left those children here because a proper upbringing, a NORMAL upbringing is more important than anything else for their futures.”
You don’t say anything.
”Would you honestly not treat them any differently if you knew what they were capable of?” you hear.
“I might be more resistant to letting them have temper tantrums.”
The wind wavers in a chuckle.
“I just don’t know, Red…If I’m supposed to be this form of stability to them, why do I feel so powerless if I think about controlling an outburst?”
The wind blows against your back. “Parents aren’t kings. You can’t force a child, or any living thing for that matter, to bend to your will by words alone. Sooner or later, they have to make the choice to listen. You need to find a way to make them want to listen to you if you long for the peace of mind you’re after.”
“Remind me again why you’re not the one raising these three if you have so many answers?”
”Because I already have the best man for the job on it.” She says.
You sigh again and notice the height of the moon in the sky.
“Right…goodnight, partner.”
”Sleep tight, Anon…” you hear before the wind becomes just wind.
You turn and head back to the house to climb into bed, trying to put your concerns to rest along with yourself.
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Good. Enough said.
Jokes aside it was good chapter
"SAY IN THE CORNER, DISCORD"
Do you mean stay?
Found a mistake
“SAY IN THE CORNER, DISCORD!”
*Stay
8231944
8232586
Sunnuvabitch
Ah, the timeout corner. Good memories.
Discord must have gotten vary well acquainted with that wall. Here's hoping he doesn't get gothy in his even MORE rebellious teenage years.
... I just started something, didn't I?
Don't try to mould Discord into order. >.>
I feel he didn't treat Discord as one should treat a being of chaos
9164877
That's what enabling is. When a child is misbehaving, you can't enable them, otherwise you just get the same behavior.
Is Anon Immortal? Supposedly Celestia, Discord, and Luna are all over a thousand years old. Does that mean he is ageless or just has an extended life?
9172628
Extremely old and extremely slow aging, yes. Comes with the territory. I didn't mention it because the story would be a nonstarter if he didn't have it.