Tricks and Treats

by ambion

Rating: everyone
Tags: Fluttershy, Discord, Slice of Life, Princess Luna, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Length: 13393

Luna has decided that her having fun is Serious Business this Nightmare Night

Tonight, nopony can tell Us off for the nostalgic use of the royal plural. For it is Nightmare Night, the most wondrous night there is! We have prepared for it rigorously, and face the coming 'celebrations' and 'festivities' with readiness!

Anyone pointing out that this story is a month late is going straight to the moon, you hear? Straight to the moon!

Published 2013-11-29 22:20:01 UTC
Last updated 2013-11-29 22:20:01 UTC

The Flutter Rises

Tricks and Treats

The Flutter Rises

The Canterlot Castle had many wonders within its marbled halls. Among the greatest were Luna, Alicorn Princess of the Night and Discord, Lord Regent Spirit of Chaos. They were alone but for the company of one another and the table. At Luna’s most earnest request the servants of the castle had lined it end to end with various colourful and seasonally appropriate treats. The Princess held up a particular piece in her magic, scrutinizing every possible aspect that she could.

“This is what is called the ‘Gummy Worm’, if We are not mistaken?”

Discord chuckled to himself as he grasped up a deep pawful of the mixed worms. They wriggled as he ate them one by one, but this only added to his apparent pleasure. “Oh yes. Definitely prize specimens, too.” The latest one to be tossed past the snaggletooth of the Draconequus sprouted little candy wings and flapped wildly against Discord’s face. “Ha, got you!” He slurped it down, with a last squeaky little plea of ‘NOOooo’ that Luna found entirely distasteful. “Did you know they train gummy hawks to collect these?”

“And who would ‘they’ be?”

“Oh, some silly ponies or something out there somewhere. It really doesn’t matter. They have to get them at just the right time, gummy worms are only good to eat for the limited and feeble palate of ponies when they’re undergoing their glorious metamorphosis.”

Luna glanced suspiciously between her selected gummy worm, an innocent looking red one, and Discord. “We think you are, as is said, ‘making that up’.”

“My dear little princess, I’m hurt! Would I lie? To you?” He had the most innocent, betrayed expression one could conceive of. Innocent as ten wide-eyed kittens. Before she could give him more than a flat stare, the Draconequus bent double with laughter. A taloned claw went to his chest as Discord shook. “To think I managed a straight face at all!” His head rotated quite independently of his body, so that it hung there and stared expectantly as he giggled, chin over eyes.

Luna met his stare. Her deadpan expression gave way to a tiny smirk. She ate the red gummy worm in one gulp. Her dignified, defiant poise cracked, starting with a barely noticeable twinge at the corner of her eyes spreading outwards to a slightly downcast turn to the edge of her mouth. Her face took on the faintest suggestion of palour. A bead of sweat arduously rolled down Luna’s brow.

Discord sauntered over to her, Luna could feel the brush of air as his paw snatched something from her ear. It was the red gummy worm, which the Draconequus promptly popped into his mouth. He gave the Alicorn two pats on the head and swung about in place, affecting a gentlemanly manner, claws clasped behind his back, as he strode away.

Luna didn’t say anything, indeed she didn’t even move for a good few seconds. After this had passed she took a deep breath, opened her mouth to give voice to all manner of complaint and insult, paused, shook her head and sighed.

She decided rather to put the matter aside, with the private decision in her own mind to never eat gummy worms again, despite it having been rather quite good. At least it had been at first, before it had reached her ear through means best left unexamined. "We have gone to great lengths to assemble this ceremonial 'snack table’," she began with a sweep of her hoof. "It represents, if We have been informed correctly, the full assortment of traditional Nightmare Night confectionery, ghoulish or otherwise. A significant portion of this is given in offering to Nightmare Moon 'A.K.A.' Us." She emphasized the scare quotes. The pony slang that had emerged in this era was still quite new to Luna, and she was unsure of it at best, downright distrustful of it at worst.

Discord prodded at a caramel apple. It bit at his paw and growled before snuggling back down, deeper into the press of its sweet gooey kin. “For a celebration conjured up by little pony minds, it really is rather endearing, isn't’ it? Fright and fun, poking at the dark, being things that they’re not. Amateurish, sure, but there’s an underlying chaos to it all that the connoisseur could appreciate.” Discord sidled over, whispered conspiratorially in the gummy worm-vacated ear of Luna. “By connoisseur I mean me, of course. Not you, though I mean no offence my little princess.”

“Yes,” said Luna as she shooed the Lord Regent of Chaos back down to his end of the table. “Fun. Indeed, there has been fun, and will be again.” The Alicorn of the Night struck a valiant pose. Puffed out her chest. “We have the fondest and highest of expectations for the festivities this year, for despite the rocky beginnings on that most auspicious of nights-”

The chamber door was opened a crack. Both figures turned to look at the meek servant that poked through. Luna blinked. Had that triumphantly raised hoof of hers always been there? She put it down gingerly. “Are We monologuing again?”

“Had the makings of a full blown soliloquy there, I’m afraid.” There was soft sympathy and patient understanding in the servant’s brown eyes.

“Ahem, well, yes. We were caught in the moment. It will not happen again,” said Luna rather huffily.

“I mean, it was quite good,” said the servant hastily. The mare scrambled for a word. “Inspiring.” there was a pause as both mares waited, expecting the other to speak. “I hate to ask, but...well, I couldn’t help but notice your use of the traditional plural as well...” The mare stared resolutely at the space between her hooves.

“We are speaking as such, yes. You are correct to notice it. Do not be worried, your princess is still quite capable of saying ‘I’ this and ‘I’ that as ‘I’ must. This seeming relapse is but the indulgence of Our own nostalgia and whim, which could not be denied Us on this, Our most hallowed of nights.”

The servant blinked. “I thought the winter solstice was the most hallowed of nights. Being, um, astrological. Astronomical? Something.”

Luna blinked. “Well. There is that. Yes. But it is not Nightmare Night.”

“Oh. Of course. But, please, do try to keep the soliquing down. It does get somewhat...loud.”

“Rest assured, all is well.”

“Thank you, Princess.” On that note, the servant left. Discord sniggered, but Luna viciously ignored it.

“As We were saying-”

Discord made a sound like ‘pfft’. “Yes, yes. Candy sacrifices to a mad demigod that’s also you, catapulting cantaloupes-”

“Pumpkins.”

“...and other what-have-you little games. It’s all very droll, your so idea of so-called ‘fun’. Discord sat in one of the exquisitely crafted, high-backed chairs, the velvet lined ones that were very posh, accustomed as they were to the bottoms of royalty. A change in colour slowly spread across the chair as Discord touched it. He paid this happening no mind. “I wonder what the Elements will think of it. Maybe their tastes are more exquisite than yours? It wouldn’t be too hard, even for them.”

Luna watched the swirling patterns of oranges and yellows and pinks that seemed to rise up from impossible depths within the otherwise slim piece of furniture. They pushed out the resident royal blue. This was literally the case, for the original pigment seemed to be blowing right out of the fabric, forming a disgruntled blue mist that drifted up towards the ceiling. Possibly to sulk.

“We think otherwise,” Luna said, her eye still following the last traces of blue. “For it was none other than they that introduced Us to Nightmare Night, and the activities therein.” She helped herself to a poofy sugary thing, a ‘Marsh Melon’, as she believed they were known throughout the land, though what sort of melon would produce fruits such as these baffled her. “It was Twilight Sparkle that first showed us the potential to find celebration, not mockery, in that night. Her costume was a very exact copy of Star Swirls own attire.”

Discord cricked his neck which, for an entity peculiar as he, was not a sight for the faint of heart. “Star Swirl? Ugh, most boring unicorn ever. All that power and all he could ever talk about was ‘saving the world’ and ‘arcane mysteries’. Getting welcomed with a laser blast got old real quick when he decided to do it Every. Single. Time. Didn’t even go for witty repartee when we battled, can you believe it? No flair, that guy. None at all.”

The Marsh Melon, Luna decided, was an inferior treat, not worthy of her further attentions. Besides, the other Marsh Melons had started to arrange themselves into the building blocks of a tiny castle, which the neighbouring bowl of jelly beans seemed intent on conquering. They threw themselves rather pitifully against what was possibly the softest, sweetest fortification ever to have existed. “We were not aware you knew him.”

Discord shrugged. “Well, I say ‘battled’, but it was really more just a bit of a hobby of mine. You know how the centuries can get get so dull at times. I certainly added a bit of zest to his otherwise meagre and uninteresting existence.” The Regent Lord of Chaos sighed wistfully. “Ah, but you were saying?”

“Yes, We were...” Luna was having some trouble focusing on the conversation. The Marsh Melons were launching their counterattack now, a kind of rolling cavalry that spilled forth from the white gate. The vanguard knocked the jelly beans over and harmlessly rolled over them. “Most of the Bearers participated in some manner,” she managed to say.

Discord hunched up on the chair, resting his chin in his paws in an almost childish display of captivated interest. “Only most?”

Luna nodded as the little war transpired on the table. “The unicorn Rarity does not celebrate Nightmare Night, We are told. She finds the occasion ‘tacky’.” A few suggestive dreams about a certain obnoxious princeling could teach her the errors of such thinking, the Alicorn Princess of the Night mused privately. She set such inspirations aside for future consideration. “Nor did the pegasus Fluttershy for that matter, though I did have the pleasure of discoursing with her at length. She screamed with only mild terror at my presence,” Luna said proudly. "Truly, we would sooner forgive Fluttershy than Rarity. Perhaps in fearing the night, she respects it. Though no tiny blanket would deny the unfailing truth that nothing so paltry as 'matter' could stop the Night, let alone the smallest sliver of Our power. Fluttershy knows nothing of true darkness..."

Luna stopped talking when she caught Discord’s impish grin. She sat back down. “As We meant to say, that cowering is perhaps a recognition of Nightmare Night in its own right. We are content to respect her decisions in that regard.”

There was a pricking to Discord’s ears that did not go unnoticed. He nodded with thoughtful agreement. He muttered something, with what might have been the word ‘flair’, Luna was not sure. “We are giddy with anticipation for tomorrow night, when fear, havoc, and such sugary confections as these shall be unleashed in the spirit of celebration. Do you not perceive Our giddiness?”

“Oh? Yes, definitely, yes. Hmm. Well,” he said, the legs of his chair twinning together as it spun him around, setting the Regent Lord of Chaos neatly to his, erm, ‘feet’. “I think I shall call it a night, my smaller of two princesses.”

“It is night,” said Luna. “The night before Our most favourite of night, no less. To call it anything else...ah, that was ‘an expression’, surely? ‘Call it a night’,” she said, trying it for herself. “What does it mean?”

Discord was walking away, she hadn’t noticed him start to go, and he waved lazily over his shoulder as he went.

It was surprisingly quiet with Discord gone. Peaceful, even. Not for the Marsh Melons and jelly beans, Luna noted, for these had joined their forces together, and their joint expeditionary force was already caught in desperate battle with the rabid and territorial caramel apples. Luna watched the sad little things fight it out. She focused her magic and, after a shine of moonlight, the random energies that had quickened the candies were dispelled. “Well,” Luna said. “That is that.”

When she later did go to sleep, dawn just around the corner, she dreamed with rising anticipation, and dreamed for no one but herself.

Angel Bunny knew how to put a good set of claws to use. It was a lesser known fact that, cuddliness notwithstanding, bunnies packed a commendable set of claws under their tufty widdle paws. By convention, these were used for rather innocent things like traction, scratching itches or, with particularly bold bunnies, digging up the garden. Angel Bunny did not dig in the garden himself, though he did have bunnies to do this for him. Of all bunnies, only Angel had the peculiar habit of keeping his claws razor sharp.

It was easy, practiced habit not to prick himself with them when he crossed his forelegs over his chest and cocked his head toward the ceiling. He wasn’t about to admit to any sort of misjudgement or wrong-doing on his part. He may not have been able to precisely articulate the hazy motivations that led him toward this confrontation, but as a bunny that was his prerogative. Besides, at any moment, Fluttershy was going to come to see the wisdom of his decision, and admit that she chastised him in haste.

After all, whether she wore that bunny costume or not, Angel Bunny knew that Fluttershy wasn’t actually going to leave the cottage on Nightmare Night, a tendency in his wayward mare of which he generally disapproved. She had only gotten it as a token gesture toward the holiday, having claimed she would wear it for any foals, Pinkie Pies, or even non-candy-gathering visitors who happened to wander out this way, but the likelihood of her actually opening the door for them still remained suspect.

Even so, the fluffy white cottony body-suit had definitely been shredded. Fluttershy could fit her entire leg through some of the gashes. They ran perpendicular to the seams, where even Fluttershy’s expert stitching skill would be no aid to the fatally wounded outfit. And it had definitely been him that had done it, because the ferocity, savagery, and sheer masculine power that had been unleashed on the hapless suit could come from no other animal than he. Angel Bunny knew this with certainty.

Also, he remembered doing it. What niggled at the back of his little bunny brain was the question of why. It had just seemed to become a very good idea at the time.

“It’s completely ruined,” whimpered Fluttershy. “And I told all my friends how I was even getting myself a costume this year, and they were all so happy for me.” There was a sound that might have been her breath catching. “I don’t how I’m going to face them.”

What was done was done, Angel decided. He tried to put the question of why all this happened out of his mind, to prevent inconsequential things like “who’s at fault” from ruining the perfectly good apology he was entitled to receive.

And receive it he did. Fluttershy ran a hoof across the largest gash, then lifted her ankle to rub at her eye. “It’s not your fault. I know it wasn’t on purpose,” she said with a sigh, not lifting her gaze away from the costume.

She fought off the last of her sniffles, wiped at her drying eyes and sighed once more. “I’ll just have to go get another costume,” she said aloud to herself. “I hope the shop has some left, Nightmare Night is tonight...” She wasted only as much time as it took to fetch her little purse, check that it had bits in, quickly make sure all the animals were okay, and she was on her way.

Angel Bunny lost interest pretty quickly, and the preeminent thought in his disconcertingly unbunny mind was to find something to eat. He was, however, distracted by a peculiar face in the mirror, a face something like a goat’s. It winked at him and vanished. Angel shrugged and returned to his quest for food.

Barest Bones was a black stallion with equally black hair, and was the sort of shopkeeper that welcomed customers not from behind the till but at the door itself, and from there lead them on a merry tour about his costume and novelty shop, navigating the overflowing shelves and interesting things hanging from the ceiling easily. He was full of banter and clever conversation and in his own words was an ex-doctor, a claim that he was all too happy to have met with suspicion so that he could, with a flourish, produce the framed certificate declaring the truth of such from a shelf under the cashier.

It was, he’d explain to any and all, a tragic tale of Cutie Mark Misinterpretation, one that had taken the best part of a decade, a doctorate and one particularly memorable incident with a patient’s hospital gown to realize, though one had to measure what kind of tragedy left a pony with a highly respected degree. It did, incidentally, mean that his skeleton costumes were absolutely top notch both aesthetically and anatomically, they were the prides of his work, and Barest never wasted the opportunity to express this sentiment to his fullest extent. Actually selling one was but the cherry atop his newfound delight in life.

“Fluttershy!” he proclaimed as the mare slunk through his door. “Come on in, come in in!” She’d only met him once before, but his ability to keep a conversation going and her inability to break one off had made for a rather protracted visit the first time, when she had bought the Fluffy Bunny (Adult; Small: (1)) from him the week before. She blushed at his enthusiasm, for she rather suspected that he had, as her friends would call it, ‘a thing’ for her, but in any case the stallion made no qualms of showing affection.

“How can I help you? Everything alright? Looking for that little extra something for tonight?” The shop was stuffy, but only in that way her own home was stuffy: full, but everything in a place of its own, even if it could be a bit hectic to see the order in the chaos.

Fluttershy hid in her mane out of old habit. “Actually, um, the truth is...I need a new costume.” She felt terribly shy about the whole ordeal. Barest was the picture of well-meaning concern. “You see, um, Angel Bunny, um, disagreed with the last one.”

“I can give you a full refund if he’s not disagreed with it too...terminally?” There was a moment of communication by eyes, by which he understood that, yes, Angel had really done a number on it. A big number. “Oh no. What a shame. It was just your fit as well.” Barest stepped round the counter and sat heavily in the seat there, the first time Fluttershy had ever recalled seeing him sit. “I don’t know how to break this to you, but I’m sold out of costumes. Every thing in every size; they’ve been dropping off my shelves like autumn leaves. Since last year With Princess Luna herself coming to town, everypony is hyped more than ever for Nightmare Night. But,” he said, “it still wouldn’t hurt to take an extra good look around, just for you, eh?”

Fluttershy didn’t say anything, but she nodded and smiled hopefully. It was enough.

Barest was at his most natural when in motion, and slightly exaggerated, flamboyant motion at that. He flicked through shelves and racks, a quick litany of No’s rattling out under his breath. He doubled back over a beaten old chest full of what he typically considered the mish-mash bargain bin or, if he was in a giving mood; the freebies customers could help themselves to. There were only cheap, poorly made things in this bin though, one step above being junk, and a small step at that. Gags in a box that weren’t funny, whoopie cushions that had no whoop, that sort of thing. Something amidst the drab and the dreary caught his eye. “Wait, hello, what’s this? You might just be in luck.” He gave it a tug and realized that the shine wasn’t fake, that was real metal.

“It’s a, it’s a... You know I’m not sure what it is.” Barest held it out for her inspection. The metal was a mask of sorts, maybe, though unlike any mask Fluttershy had ever seen before. Straps fitted it to one’s head, but it covered only the nose and mouth, with an overlay of mesh and pipes that made it look sort of like a muzzle. A single piece of quite ordinary string attached it to a thick black vest. Real black, not a dark blue or gray at all, the shiny sort of black that caught any bit of light it could in its teeth and spat it back with a sneer. “Definitely not a Fluffy Bunny,” Barest said. It was about as unFluffy Bunny as could be. “A diamond dog costume, maybe? I don’t remember ever seeing it before. Let’s see if there’s something else...” but it was clear there wasn’t, though for her sake he searched anyway.

Barest held it up again, almost embarrassed this time. “I’m sorry, but I really do think this is all I’ve got in. I’m happy to give it to you for free, replace the one you lost, if you’ll have it?” He let the question dangle there.

Fluttershy didn’t want it, she wanted her Fluffy Bunny (Adult; Small: (1)) with the floppy ears back, but she couldn’t find the resolve to say no to Barest Bones either. “Um, yes. Yes I’ll take it, that is. If you’re sure it’s alright.”

“Very sure. I’m sorry it isn’t more your...you,” he said while gesturing with his hoof at the nebulous concept that was Fluttershy, the image of which scary metal muzzles and black vest-jackets did not really seem to fit, though, they were apparently in her size. Seeing her hold them, even in a brown paper bag as they were made for a strange sensation of jarring contrast.

“Um. Thank you,” she said, and ducked away into the sunlight.

Barest Bones smiled and waved her goodbye. His puzzlement with the unaccounted costume, certainly not one of his own making, only grew, but this issue was overblown by his concern for Fluttershy’s hopes of enjoying the holiday.

Fluttershy’s plan, or to be specific lack of plan, was to leave the costume on her bed, work up some good old indecisive anxiety and, as night drew closer, see where a healthy panic took her. This course of action was somewhat derailed when, upon entering her bedroom she found herself nose to nose with Discord, Lord Regent of Chaos, Draconequus Ascendant, and occasional loiterer. He was a Draconequus on the go, remember. Places to do, things to be, that sort of stuff.

Because he was rather tall and the room was rather not he was not only stooped, but cricked, contorted, kinked, obtuse and a bit acute as well, though this last one was debateable. Angles of Draconequus zig-zagged every which way, from the dresser to the window, doubling and tripling back over the bed, all which somehow culminated in an upright and roughly pony-height expression of pleasant surprise.

Fluttershy for her part didn’t panic. She never really did where Discord was concerned, though she recognized that it didn’t make much sense. What better instance to panic than when faced with the mix-and-match manifestation of all things distorted and distended? And yet for all that, as always she had, she felt only a certain amused calm when faced with Discord.

The Draconequus played at trying to look inconspicuous, even going so far as to glance about and whistle. “Oh!” he started as if he’d only just seen the mare, “Fluttershy! What a surprise, fancy seeing you here.”

“Hello, Discord.” She had the sneaking suspicion that while definitely chaotic, his visit wasn’t actually random.

“Oooh, what’s in the bag? Is it, let me guess...your costume for tonight?”

Fluttershy smiled. For all the bends and folds of Discord filling the space, none of it actually impeded her movement, and his serpentine body gracefully made way when she went to the side of her bed. “That’s a good guess.”

Discord shrugged, a gesture which, given his current circumstance was utterly indescribable. “Okay, call it an educated guess. It is, of course, your costume. I’m always right you know.”

Fluttershy actually laughed, albeit just a little. “Most of the time, yes you are.”

“Well, we do have to keep things interesting,” he said, dismissing her words with a wave. His face zoomed closer, gestured with his snaggletooth to the bag. “That does mean you’re doing Nightmare Night, doesn’t it?”

“I...I hadn’t decided. It’s not really what I wanted, but Mr. Bones was so cheerful...”

Discord huffed, his whole body wriggled and then, in a flash or white light became...a vase of petunias. It rattled with the sound of crockery as it rolled to a stand-still on her bedside table. The flowers shifted and moved, making a collage face between them. It tsk-tsk’d her. “I was worried you might need a bit of, shall we say, perspective, to get into the spirit of things?”

Fluttershy didn’t know what to say, and the vase of petunias didn’t press her for answers.

“Nightmare Night,” intoned the face in the flowers. “Funny to think, Fluttershy, but as vast as I am and as vast as you're not, and I mean that in the best possible way of course, you still have so much more experience of it than I do. Absurd, isn’t it?” The flowers grinned as they said. “It’s a fun night. My kind of fun, at least as much as can be without getting a good old friendship blasting.” The petals turned downwards and dimmed, the grin became solemn. “I don’t want you to miss out on a good thing, Fluttershy.”

Fluttershy glanced down. Dark and edgy and utterly ridiculous on her bed, the costume waited impassively. And yet, and yet...on her bed it was. “Ponies would see me,” she said, her voice going to little more than a whisper as her confidence fizzled out.

“Oh, let them see. Wasn't that the plan? Why did you rush off to get this costume if you didn't want to wear it? Admit it, deep down inside, some small part of you does want to stick its tongue out at the dark. That’s the wonder of Nightmare Night, isn’t it? You get to indulge. You get to be something you’re not, if just for a night. It’s a delightfully chaotic concept, if you ask me.”

She didn’t acknowledge that, but neither did she deny it. “It’s a very scary costume.”

A dozen flowers shot up from the vase and the face doubled in size for it. “Oh yes, quite good, isn’t it? Definetly made by a keen mind, someone magnificent if I do say so myself.”

“Did you make it?” The question was the barest of whispers. She wasn’t afraid, not exactly, but was exceedingly aware that this was something in which fear was still warranted.

The flowers beamed and Discord’s snaggletooth, quite real and not at all made up from the pantomime efforts of flowers, glinted from between the petals. "Oh and I did hope you wouldn't notice! You have me! Red pawed! Or in this case red petalled! Caught in the middle of yet another one of my delightfully colorful schemes. So it's true, I made you a little present and didn't put my name on it. It's not all about getting credit, you know. Besides,” Discord said with dripping delight in his words, “you helped.”

Fluttershy was aware of her breathing. Aware of the first inklings of nightfall fast coming. She could almost see all the ponies in Ponyville, waiting on baited breath for the sun to set. “I don’t understand...”

“I think you shouldn't be doing all this hemming and hawing. What would your friends say right now?” The petunias bristled and shook, and some branched off into the shape of a second head, this one made up of daffodils. Fluttershy paused for thought, she recognized this new face: Rainbow Dash. “Why are you worried about a silly costume?” it said. The petunia face nodded. “She’s right, you know. A third head, a little one made up of newly sprouted begonias took on the face of Twilight Sparkle, but only recited irrelevant facts and figures and was quickly subdued by the other two. For a fleeting moment Fluttershy felt a pang of concern for the flowers. It was getting terribly crowded in that little pot.

“Oh go on,” said Discord. “It’ll be fun!” The petunia and Dashodil faces nodded eagerly.

“Maybe you’re right,” she whispered. She picked up the scary looking muzzle piece “I...I think I will try it,” she said more firmly. “I can always come home and take it off if ponies don’t like it.”

“But what if you like it?” Discord said. “You never know. What better night to find out?”

Fluttershy nodded. Every year she gave out candy...got candy in a bowl near the door that she occasionally gave away if things weren’t too scary...but she’d never gone out and gotten some for herself.

There was only three straps to the metal mask. One that went straight up between her eyes, with the other two going off to the sides. The fit was snug, but didn’t pinch. There was a tang of metal she could taste on every breath she took and her breathing was audible, disorted, hollow. Unnatural sounding.

There was a flash and Discord was himself once more, albeit in roughly pony-sized miniature. He cackled with glee. “Oh, I’ve outdone myself this time. Go give ‘em a fright!”

“Calm down, Discord!” Fluttershy said in her shiny new metallic voice. She slid into the thick vest and did up the buckles. It tingled on her coat. “Now’s not the time for fear. That comes later.”

She grinned, or at least presumably grinned, the mask hid her features so that the only evidence was a certain tightening at the corners of her eyes. “Now do excuse me. There is a matter I should attend to.” Fluttershy hesitated. She added, “You can have some of the candy downstairs, but make sure to leave enough for everypony else, too.”

Discord watched her go. When the door shut behind her, he exploded into a fit of wiggles and giggles, then disappeared in a flash of white light.

Angel Bunny sighed. Late again. He’d have to stop going easy on his mare. Unpleasantness like the bunny costume incident could not be allowed to continue, and now she was late with his supper, too. That was two strikes. Were it not that she was having a conversation with Discord, he would have barged in there and given her a particularly earnest rendition of nasty stare #17: Feed me or else some small but valuable object of yours gets it. But Discord was in there, and being turned into a turnip with wings was not an experience he’d care to repeat. The wings hadn’t been matched, or even been facing the same way, which had made for a sad, spinning existence. Since then, he tended to avoid Discord, albeit grudgingly. There was nothing to be done except forage around where he could, and make a mental note to fidget unmercifully during brushing time.

He was hunting down a promising lead in the vicinity of one of the other pets’ feeding bowls when he developed a prickly sensation of being watched. His mare had been rubbing off on him, it seemed. An encroaching paranoia slithered into his mind and tickled the area in his brain that, in other, more typical bunnies, urged them to hop away and scurry into holes. It didn’t have him particularly bothered per se; there was just a general sense of unease, which he hastily dispelled by reminding himself that Nightmare Night was no different than every other night, the barely tolerated absurdities of ponies put aside. Besides, if dangerous creatures were going to hunt anypony down, they probably wouldn’t pick the one day of the year when they’d not only be expected but also run a fair risk of getting lost in the crowd.

Still, Angel turned around. Slowly.

Inches away from his twitching bunny nose was an angry black contraption made of metal tubes and faux leather that seemed to have sprung from some hideous shadowy corner of the world and affixed itself to his mare’s face.

Angel froze. She seemed to have become even more quiet than usual, which was quite a feat, because she was already by nature quiet as a breeze and only half as forceful. And yet here she was, leering at him wordlessly. Patiently. Her normally pinched brow was relaxed and regarding him with all the interest one might otherwise put to a crossword puzzle, dismantling it piece by piece. Casual, but focused.

“You should not have destroyed my fwuffy bunny costume. That was a mistake.”

Needless to say it was an unacceptable tone of voice. Hardly befitting any mare of his, or even any living creature at all, pony or otherwise. It echoed through the metallic tubes and carried a kind of subharmonic waveform typically reserved for predators.

Creepy voices and even creepier stares aside, his mare had unduly entered his personal space, and that would not do. He lifted his hind hoof and pointed it menacingly at an unsuspecting silver bowl filled with food pellets.

Fluttershy’s reaction was unfettered. Her steely eyes remained fixed on him dispassionately.

He swallowed hard, and mustered up nasty stare #6: I mean business.

“Very interesting, I had not expected you to resort so quickly to tantrum. If you kick that bowl, it would be quite distressing.”

Angel smirked. It was about time his mare remembered her manners.

“For you.”

Well, that was enough of that! Strike three! His hind leg came out with the kind of speed and force that had been granted by a million years of bunny evolution and honed through the preternatural capacity for aggression found solely in Angel. For all that, his kick whizzed through the air harmlessly.

Angel squirmed in the confines of Fluttershy’s now curiously strong grip. All his little limbs flailed about and he loosed an adorable bunny squeal. With his tantrum plans quickly forgotten, he shot Fluttershy a pleading stare, glassy eyed and sweet.

“Oh? You fight like a fuzzy wuvkins. All your fluffiness is on the surface, to confuse your foes,” she said. “Adorable, but mistaken.” She lifted into the air with Angel in tow, hovering through the cottage toward parts unknown. “Cuteness is a powerful agent to the uninitiated, but we are initiated. Aren’t we, Angel? And I am cuter than you!”

Angel’s head jerked left and right, trying to see behind him in the direction of Fluttershy’s travel. He was being brought toward the animal cages, that much was sure, being brought to his bed to be locked away all night in the dark.

"You believe you will be sent to bed without supper? No. You do not fear bed. You welcome it. Your punishment must be more severe. You must be corrected. Only when you have truly understood the depth of your misbehavior, then you will have my permission to eat supper."

Angel trembled and stared, wide eyed, at Fluttershy.

“Everyone, your attention please?” Dozens of pairs of eyes peeked out from every possible nook and cranny. Bird eyes, rodent eyes, and eyes from stranger things still. Even a pair of Draconequus eyes watched from the stairs. Satisfied she had their attention, she took the bunny to the front door. She held him up for all to see. Despite himself, his little bunny heart was as much a bunny’s heart as any other, and it picked up its beat with a panicked whirr “You all know this bunny, I take it? For long enough he has been...A naughty bunny. She hissed the words. “For long enough he has gotten the best treats and the lightest punishments. Not tonight. Tonight, we take back my cottage—My cottage. Angel Bunny, until you learn some manners you will have to stay...outside!”

Fluttershy opened the door to the dark of the night. The cool air spilled over them all. Angel struggled helplessly in her hooves. It was at this moment, seen by all, that Angel Bunny did something really stupid.

He swiped with his claws. Time slowed. The universe held its breath. Sharp though they were, polished though they were, the claws were no match for the metal of the mask. One and all, his meticulously honed claws broke. More than that, something in his resolve broke. Stunned and limp, he didn’t even resist or protest his mare’s sudden panicked, fitful check over each widdle toe.

She sighed with relief when she saw to her satisfaction that he wasn’t hurt. She put him gently to the doorstep. He hopped, in shock, to the nearest warren. Fluttershy watched him go, and everything else watched Fluttershy. She closed the door. She slid off the mask.

Fluttershy beamed and her wings flared. She squeaked with pride. “I was so assertive!”

Discord struggled for words, though ‘awe’ was a good start. He’d made her cruel, once. And a simple job that had been. He’d seen her display a certain reserved strength before too. But here, for a moment, he’d glimpsed a part of her that could command armies.

And would deserve to.

He grinned. “Let’s loose some nightmares, mm?”

“Oh, I’m sorry! I didn’t quite hear. What did you say?”

Discord blinked, then smiled. It was a toothy smile. “I said I’ll hold the fort. Go have fun. Go gallivanting. Flopping yellow gummy spilled from his equally yellow irises, crawling their way down into his mouth. A single red one popped out of his pupil, but this one he did not eat. He watched closely as it crawled down his talon. With a pop and a chuckle, it vanished entirely. Fluttershy’s hesitant protests were cut short with a lazy flick. Lifted in magic, she floated out the door, costume in tow.

“Trust me,” he said, “It’ll be fun.” A final wiggle of phalanges and the door shut. A fleeting impression of his face shaped itself from the wood. “Toodles,” it said with a wink, then faded back into normality.

Glancing back and forth, Fluttershy danced on antsy hooves. “Okay I can do this.” She slipped on the costume-jacket, which was nicely warm and the costume mask, which was less so. Her jittery motions stopped, and her breathing calmed. “I can do this.”

Something that was entirely Fluttershy, plus a bit of something that was a different kind of Fluttershy stalked off into the night.

For the last fifteen seconds, shadows trickled together and pooled with a viscous darkness. They formed a blackness that the light of jack-o-lanterns and will-o-the-wisp lights of the festivities could do nothing to illuminate. It started unnoticed, with shadows running under the hooves of ponies, running together like streams turning to rivers. Soon enough though everypony had spotted the intrusion in their town. Pointing hooves and urgent voices spread an air of alarm and panic.

Town square erupted in three things more or less sequentially. First came the explosion. More a bang than a blast, it burst forth from the unnatural pool with a heavy black smoke. Then the gathered ponies erupted in shouts. Bewilderment, shock and terror. Screams begot more screams. An unnatural wind cleared the smoke.

“Ponyville! We return once more! Tremble in love and/or terror at your discretions, provided that at least one of these sentiments is duly present and exhibited that We might relish in it!”

Sensing a bit of confusion amongst her audience, Luna quickly added, “The darkest night is come! The moon rises! Let the games begin!”

On those notes came the third eruption in town square: wild cheering and the thundering of hooves.

Costumed ponies clamoured all around her. The words of each were drowned out in the cheers of all.

Luna felt loved.

With a smidgen of magic every source of light for half a mile glowed with silvery moonlight. The crowds oo’d and aww’d and raced off in every which way.

“Ah, Twilight Sparkle, Our most favoured of Canterlot’s children. Tell Us, who is it that thee impersonates this year? Such a costume as this eludes Our recollection. We have, after all, missed a great much of history. There is still so much to make up for.” The Princess nodded in approval. “Black is, as is said, ‘a good look’ for you.”

The littlest motion set the unicorn’s bangles jingling. Pawing the ground with a hoof and smiling especially so. “Why thank you, Princess. You’re the first pony to ask. Same as last year... Not that that’s bad or anything!” she hastily corrected. “I mean, I feel like I could learn as much from you as you would from us.

“Ah! Yes,” Twilight said with a flourish of black robes and accompanying jangle. “Princess Luna meet Marrow, who hails from the fourth, um...monarchical century.” Twilight’s blush only deepened, and she was quick to move the topic along, with much jingling “You know, he was a very debated witch doctor, even in his own time. Records suggest he learned much of his art from zebras, which were even less well understood than...Of course! I should ask Zecora if she knows anything! I’ll see you later Princess!”

Civic propriety was subsumed in scholastic inspiration. Luna blinked. “Very...eager.” Then she smiled. The night was just beginning.

Between the ones and twos, the ghasts and gheists moving any-which-way, a group stood out.

Luna towered bodily over foals and adults alike. Her voice, similarly, towered over the ambient sounds of fright and delight. “The Game of Using One’s Mouth to Retrieve Candied Apples from a Tank Of What We Hope is Only Discoloured Water! A much loved favourite of Ours.”

Applejack smirked. “Close, Princess, I’ll give you that. We usually just call it bobbing for apples’, but that about sums it up too.”

Luna glanced over the mare. She seemed to have developed a rather serious case of vegetation. You could barely see orange for branches. “Have you been in a serious agricultural accident?”

“Hah, right, laugh it up.” Applejack struck a hunched down, about-to-pounce pose. Bits of her crackled and shed twigs. “I’m a timberwolf! Pretty neat, eh? Economic, too. Gotta do something with all those bits we prune anyhow. Care to have a gander at this here game?”

Luna had not been the first in line, if there was any such order that could have been called as such. Even so, ponies stepped aside readily, eager to see their Princess’ prowess.

She peered down into the murky depths. Bobbing apples mocked her skills. She would show them.

She would show them all.

“Ready yourself, fruit of the harvest! Luna comes for you now!” Luna bared her teeth and took the plunge. Green water rose up to meet her. She shut her eyes and all the world became tactile and immediate. Splashing. Wet. The promise of victory bounced off her cheek and slipped away. The bubbles of oaths sworn and vendettas promised filled the tank.

Luna rose for a mighty gulp of air.

“Er, Princess, I don’t think-”

Luna returned to the fray.

Oh yes, her foes were elusive. But she had prepared herself for this rite of passage. Indeed not a week prior she had, in discretion, rigged up a facsimile of this very trial in her private chambers.

They were nimble, oh yes. Apples bumped nose and rolled across her jaw. We will have you yet!, she mentally declared. As she fought them, even blind she came to learn them. This apple and that apple. These ones and those ones, tumbling around in the dark. She could envision them; quirks of shape and quirks of character. Water frothed all around her face but she paid this no heed.

A pony might be clever; nudge one to the sides and, with the wall as a brace sink their teeth into an apple. But for a Princess, only the stem would do!

Aha! The fibrous stub caught and clenched, Luna yanked. The nearest foals dived under adults to avoid the spray. They recoiled with shouts and gasps. Water splashed all down her royal front and ran down royal legs. It mattered not.

“Hwee whav wah! Whook wah Hwee whav!” Luna, Alicorn of Night, spat the apple into her hoof. “Victory is Ours!

Stunned ponies blinked. Luna’s heart missed a beat.

The ponies stomped and cheered.

Glorious.

Fluttershy wasn’t going to leave. Not until she was satisfied. She stared down the stallion. It was just a stare however. Not The Stare. Even so, she saw that his eye couldn’t help but be drawn down to the steel. A mask that looked like something pulled from a foundry of Tartarus had that effect. Squinting, eyes quivering, he added another portion of candy to her pillow-case.

“Aren’t you a little old to be doing this?”

Fluttershy slipped aside the mask to pop an orange sweet in her mouth. “If that’s the case, than aren’t I also a little old…” she slipped the mask back into place, “for you to be telling me what to do?”

The stallion huffed and shut the door in her face. Fluttershy didn’t flinch. The familiar urge to apologize (and she part of her felt certain she should), was met by the less familiar urge to kick the door down.

This was the third pony to be less than nice. The third pony she’d provoked? A part of her wondered.

She moved on quickly, and put the gnawing sensation of guilt out of her mind. The pillowcase was far from full and wanting.

The web was simply twined string dipped in glue, woven in on itself in pale impersonation of the true artistry and architecture of actual spiders’ web. For Luna however, it was very real. It was the target. As with the apple bobbing, this trial too she had readied herself for, often using bath sponges and the manes of the unwary for practice.

She had scored a great many points on Celestia alone.

The spider was no more real than the web to which she intended most wholeheartedly to deliver it. Red bauble eyes and legs sewn on, it was about as terrifying as the beanbag which made up its body.

Luna weighed it carefully in her hoof. Felt the ways its paltry weight was distributed. The sleeves that were its legs flopped. Luna furrowed her brow. It would wiggle.

Hitting the web was not in question. Hitting it dead centre was. Breathing slow, Luna readied herself mentally and physically for the trial.

She hefted the spider. It flew in a low arc, tumbling limp limbs going every which way.

With an audible splat! it struck dead centre, each cottony leg sticking straight out.

“Victory is Ours! The Night reigns supreme as regards the acquisition of points!”

It was mostly foals that stood excitedly around her, whooping, she presumed, with awe at the splendour of her prowess. They stood barely to her knees, yet surely they were deserving of sharing in her triumph...

Magic glowed from her horn. The spider’s red button eyes became less button and more eye. The spider blinked.

The spider rappelled to ground. Foals gasped and jumped back.

“Be not afraid!” Luna decreed. She hesitated. “Be not more afraid. See here, see how it readies itself upon Our hoof? Foals, listen! The spider will not harm you!”

But they were still backing away, still very much frightened of an arcane arachnid fully capable of wrapping itself about their heads. Red eyes glared with patience up at Luna. Remember where you are. Remember what this is, she could imagine it saying.

Luna understood. “The spider will not harm you if you placate him with skilful tosses!” Luna bellowed. “Indeed, who among you would dare the spider’s...spiderliness?”

Now there was a glint in those young eyes that Luna felt pleased to see. She held her creation up quickly and addressed it. “You understand the spirit of this occasion, We take it? Of course you do. You will do no actual harm. Do, however, chase for a short time such foals as miss. It will be a consolation of sorts.”

The nearest foals were coming back, as were others from farther out. Adults too. “Any adult that misses,” Luna whispered, “may have their face hugged in a most spidery fashion. Now go preside over this game. Other trials await Us this night.”

No sooner had she loosed the spider than it scurried in amongst the foals. There were screams but, and this was the important bit, there was laughter too.

She watched the group tussle amongst themselves over the privilege of being first to throw. “We should like to go see the remainder of our friends,” Luna said softly, leaving the children to their games.

The more candy that went into Fluttershy’s pillowcase, the more her resolve steeled itself to finish the job.

Bon Bon, whom everypony knew gave out plenty of the good stuff, had skimped.

“I gave you candy!”

Fluttershy would not deny that. A few measly tokens of sweetness. Hardly acceptable. She put her hoof to the mare’s shoulder, very gently. “And you think this gives you power over me?”

“What’s gotten into you, Fluttershy? Just go away!” Bon Bon flung the bowl of sweets and slammed the door. Colorful wrappers scattered about the doorstep. “And your costume stinks!” came the voice from the window.

Fluttershy ignored it. Even if she scrounged in the dirt for every piece, it would be little compensation for the missed years.

She stared thoughtfully at the candies scattered at her hooves.

Somewhere behind the mask, a plan took shape.

Luna tried knocking again.

Rarity’s voice echoed from some distance. “I’m sorry foals, but I’ve simply never played part in this little masquerade, and I am not about to begin now.”

Luna rolled her eyes. The alicorn melted into sparkling blue smoke and poured through the cracks. She reappeared with a pop! of air inside the Boutique. “Rarity, your Princess calls for you. A summons, if you will.”

The unicorn’s head peeked around a corner. A towel was wrapped about her head. Another towel was wrapped about her midsection, and she affected a look of dignified indignation. This is not easy to do when just out of the bath, but Rarity was a pro. Both at bathing and indignation.

“Luna! Why I never-” Rarity huffed and composed herself. “This is very uncalled for. I understand that some leeway is afforded a Princess, but even so! A knock is the very minimum of courtesy.”

Nopony could out-sullen Luna. She met Rarity’s stare with one equally grumpy. “You were being intractable, and the door was locked. We saw Ourself in.”

Rarity hid her face in her hoof. “Well...you’re in now. May I at least have the privacy of a moment to make myself presentable? I had not been expecting visitors.” The mare hissed each of these last syllables.

“Very well. We graciously allow you this.”

Rarity disappeared back around the corner, giving Luna a few moments to pause in her thoughts and study this place. It was charming if gaudy. That Carousel Boutique lacked grandeur was forgivable, but it also lacked humility and this was not.

It was, Luna decided, a shop giving itself airs of sophistication. It would be quite pleasing, she reckoned, if only its design had taken the rest of Ponyville into account. As it was, the difference within and without these walls was too strong a contrast for her. Too sophisticated for rural Ponyville, too colonial for Canterlot: Luna sympathised little with the plight.

Rarity was still putting the last curls back into her mane when she popped around the corner a second time, now bereft of moisture and towels. “Princess Luna. What a surprise.”

“We should not think it a surprise, not as such. Surely you know what night this is. An honour, perhaps you mean?”

Rarity glowered. “Yes, of course. Whatever was I thinking?”

Several pony-forms stood on their posts about the room. Most were bare, but the nearest had what was definitely black. A gown, perhaps, albeit one that had read far too many vampire novels. It might have been a costume. Perhaps. In any case, it was quite elegant in its design. Luna would not deny Rarity’s skill as a clothier. “What is it you are thinking when turning your back on Nightmare Night?”

“I hadn’t realized celebration was compulsory. I’d offer you tea, except that I hadn’t been expecting visitors. The locked door was a clue, see?”

Luna sniffed derisively. Of all the Element Bearers, Rarity was whom she knew least of all. Precisely because of this same reason. “You would not be so quick to cast aside the Summer Sun Celebration, We presume?”

Rarity stared. The clever little cogs of her mind turned, Luna could see them plainly. This mare might strive to be a socialite, but she already was more intelligent than a great many of them, Luna knew with disgruntled certainty.

As for the Summer Sun Celebration... Even thinking on it stirred up potent emotions, many of them unpleasant. There was the winter solstice to balance, and it was to this half Luna she was patron. A ‘holiday’ tucked away between Hearth’s Warming Eve and Winter Wrap-Up. Few ponies celebrated Her longest night beyond mere acknowledgement, and only astronomy treated the two halves as equal.

Rarity couldn’t help but scrunch up her face a little. She seemed to be considering the same. “I don’t deny it,” she began cautiously, “but it’s hardly the same.”

“Then illuminate Us.” She had meant it to be a command. Not a plea, but that was how it sounded. Even to her.

Rarity sighed. If she’d had feathers, they’d be smoothing back down. “The tea thing was out of line. I’m sorry.” Luna nodded stiffly. “Shall we sit down? I suppose this is what they mean by ‘hobnobbing.’ A rather crude sounding term, isn’t it?”

They took to the couches. At Luna’s perplexed, slightly worried look Rarity chuckled. “Not that crude, I promise. It just means to socialize with the upper crust.” Rarity let herself lounge against a plush pillow “And they don’t get much upper than you.”

“I could think of one,” Luna muttered darkly. Outside, the sounds of festivity washed together into an almost soothing backdrop of sound.

“Right. Well, yes. I think I’m seeing what this Nightmare Night business, particularly the part where I’m not actually part of it, is about. I promise, it’s nothing I’ve ever had against you.”

“That is small reassurance for Us. But...it is reassurance nonetheless. Thank you.”

“The simple truth of the matter is that I had a problem with this holiday long before-”

“You knew We even existed?”

Rarity glared. “I was going to say long before the Elements of Harmony came into my life. And that’s quite enough of the self-piteous melodrama, thank you very much!”

Luna recoiled physically. Her first reaction was one of outrage, but this never came to pass. Instead she spoke softly. “You are right. Our apologies. It is Our nature to...dwell. Do continue.”

They really were quite comfortable couches, Luna had to admit. She bedded down more casually than she would typically allow.

“It’s not much of a story, really. The long and short of it is quite simple. It was the year I’d gotten my cutie mark, you see, everything was wondrous and new. I worked myself to the bone making a great many costumes in the week leading up to Nightmare Night. I gave them all away, every last one.

There was a ghost of nostalgia there, a faint smile on Rarity she herself did not seem aware of. “Everyone loved them. I couldn’t make them fast enough.

“Then Nightmare Night arrived. I went as a Princess.” She laughed wistfully. “Princess Rarity. You can only imagine how many layers it had. I might have been ever so slightly overzealous in that design. But it was beautiful. Very, very beautiful.

“I went and joined in the fun. What foal doesn’t? Except of course this year I was wearing my pride and joy, my little masterpiece, and not an insubstantial number of others were wearing the fruits of my labour as well, remember.

“Luna, there were hooves. Hooves that trampled and pulled on the hemline. And mud, and splashes, and sticky bits of candy that could never come out no matter how hard I scrubbed...” Rarity sighed. “And that was just me, and I am always conscientious about respect towards clothing. The other costumes never stood a chance.

“The worst part was, the part that stung me most...It was that the ponies wearing my costumes, my spectacular creations...those ponies weren’t enjoying themselves any more than the ones with two-bit costumes thrown together with felt and staples. All the work, all that attention to detail...” Rarity made herself breath. “After that I...just sort of stopped, I suppose. Stopped doing Nightmare Night.”

Rarity smiled a thin smile. “This must all seem very shallow to you.”

Luna thought for a time in silence. “No. Not really.”

Rarity gestured the window. Though the curtains were drawn, the edges of light and the suggestions of sound still seeped through. “You should get back to them. It’s your night, after all.”

“Yes. It is,” Luna said, and stood. “We are sorry for the abruptness of Our intrusion.”

“I’m not. Not now, anyway. I quite enjoyed our little talk.”

Luna, Alicorn Princess of the Night, made for the door. Rarity quickly stepped beside her.

“Um, Princess, just before you go, there was one small thing...”

Luna sighed. That was a tone of voice she often got, and she had no patience for beating around this bush. “The dream you have is normal. The, shall We say suggestive? dream with Rainbow Dash is endemic. Everypony gets it at least once. We don’t know why.”

Rarity’s brow furrowed. “Even Rainbow Dash herself?”

“Especially Rainbow Dash herself,” Luna said severely.

Rarity’s hoof went to her chin, the classic poise of deep thought. “Huh...”

“And on that note, We will depart. Perhaps again, sometime? We fear We judged you too harshly, Rarity.” The unicorn, however, was still too caught up on prior thoughts to properly register this, and Luna saw herself out with the same smokey suddenness with which she had entered.

It wasn’t easy to determine in the dark, but by Fluttershy’s estimations the old statue of Nightmare Moon had the same size as the one of Celestia back in town. Perhaps, she mused, they had even come from the same artisan, long ago. Fitting then, that one should be left to the wilds, the other to daily see her happy subjects going about their lives.

A cold sadness pervaded the atmosphere. A lonely sadness, one that even the Forest was hesitant to encroach upon. Nightmare Moon stood alone in her little clearing. No wonder the fallen alicorn had been so angry. Anger was a heated emotion, and you did what you could to be warm. Anything to drive back that cold, lonely despair.

Better to be angry and fight than be sad and accept. The statue’s pose embodied that bitter defiance, even against that the weathering touch of the elements that had long since scored Nightmare Moon’s likeness.

Fluttershy paid homage in silence. She had not come here intending to and yet minutes passed in quiet reflection, one after another.

The air was heavy with moisture. The thick vest was warm, but it did little good for her hooves. Sentimentality and protracted stillness made them ache with chill. The metal mask was especially cold, though the mare made no show of this.

It was not hard to scrounge up the branches and vines she needed. Trees always provided if you knew how to look, and Fluttershy certainly did. She left her pillowcase with its meagre haul in the statue’s care. Neither would likely go very far, and she’d need both her hooves for some of the trickier weaves.

Slowly, steadily, the plan took form. Somewhere under the mask, Fluttershy smiled a very unFluttershy smile.

Luna addressed her followers.

“Children of the Night!” A score or so of young heads watched her in rapture. Luna loved the echoes of her words ringing across town. She was really getting, as they said, ‘the hang of this’, and was relishing every moment of her role in Nightmare Night. Plus she’d been saving that line all year, and it was everything she’d imagined and more.

She’d planned her little speech well in advance, testing it under her breath in privacy every chance she’d had. She knew it backwards and forwards. “Now my chosen hour is come. The time for offering is nigh! Come, let me see...” Smokey blackness passed over Luna. First to be seen through the haze was her smile. A smile that put sparkling fangs on display. “...Our tribute.”

Foals and approaching adults alike gasped. Luna’s heart leapt for joy. She’d refined the illusion, right down to getting the teeth right. Dozens of eyes were wide, all on her, each shining with her reflection. Reflections of her pointy white teeth.

The fake ones had never fit comfortably anyway.

Luna marched up and down the group, stopping only to lunge suddenly at unsuspecting victims, who’d scream then burst with giggles. “You fear following Us? Following Us into the Dark, to the Place of Ritual Offering? Of course you do. We can taste your fear!” She gnashed her teeth inches from one gawking filly. “But We would much rather be tasting your candy!”

‘Nightmare Moon’ dissolved into a smoke. Glistening like tar and and glinting like starlight, it flowed across the cold ground. At a brisk pace too, one that everypony was eager to keep up with. Some foals even raced ahead, making a game of it, and soon the pace was picking up.

Luna would have whooped for joy just then, had she but had a physical form with which to do so.

Buildings gave way to trees, and gleeful shouts gave way to huffs for air. Luna, still guised as her other self, reappeared with a flash and a bang.

“Your urgency does you credit,” the spectre hissed. “We may yet spare you for another year. Who among you dares test my patience first? Who among you dares step forward first?”

She winked at a particularly memorable colt. A wink not gone amiss either, for Pipsqueak gawked, quickly composed himself, then stepped forwards.

“I will!” he squeaked. Tiny chest puffed to maximum, he upended his back. Tradition didn’t dictate that he give all candy...well, okay yes it did, but only with a spooky voice and wink and a pointed effort to not look closely. Generations of foals had all learned how to bunch up their various bags in just such a way so that it could seem empty when it was anything but. The true artisans amongst them would even meticulously rearrange their bounty, deciding which would stay and which would be offered. But even those clever foals never pondered the knowing looks from their elders.

Tradition was tradition after all, but foals were foals and candy was candy.

Despite all this, Pipsqueak poured out the entirety of his not unimpressive haul. He upended the bag and shook the last stubborn few sweets out, flashing Luna a blushing grin caught between pride and embarrassment.

Soon all the foals and even some of the adults were adding to the tribute. Luna remembered to put away her joy and keep up the act of carefully measured malice. The bed of branches which someone had thoughtfully put down to keep off the damp were soon weighed down by the growing heap of colours.

‘Nightmare Moon’ watched the last lemon sorbet bounce down the pile and slide to rest. “This is all?” she said coldly, throwing a questioning glance to her followers. They nodded, eager and afraid.

The incarnation of nightmares and darkness plucked a chocolate lime from the horde. She popped it in her mouth, gazing unflinchingly at the keen foals. One sharp crunch split it open in her teeth. Several ponies flinched, and Luna meticulously rolled the treat across her tongue.

“Yes,” said the Princess of the Night after careful consideration. “This will do.”

“That is good!” shouted a voice unlike any other ever heard, “because that is all you will get!”

There was the sudden thrum in the air of cords under tension. In this case vines, ripped tight. The branches slammed shut like the maw of a flytrap. With the gasps of all the trap, spilling its helpless treats through the gaps, was dragged around the old statue.

Her ponies looked up at her. Was this something new? their faces asked. Or should they be afraid? Not Nightmare Night afraid, but the other kind of fear, the one without costumes and candies. The one that didn’t ever need a holiday.

Luna, poised as Nightmare Moon, felt the world ticking around her. Waiting on her next move. It was everything Luna could do to just blink. A dozen questions chased a dozen more in circles through her head. She’d done the trials commendably, had lead this offering party appropriately...what part of the holiday was this? Everything she knew drew blanks.

All this transpired in very little time. As much as it took to sneeze, or to stumble, or to shout. Luna decided on the only reaction she felt available to her.

She improvised.

‘Nightmare Moon’ grasped the candy-trap in her magic, freezing it dead in its tracks. The unseen thief might as well tried to drag statue itself, for what good it would do them.

“What treachery is this?!” The Princess roared. Luna remembered herself. Every dramatic shout and pose she’d stifled and restrained in Canterlot, here she let loose with a vengeance. A sweeping hoof swept across her gallant followers. “Who would dare to thieve of my denizens?”

Said ponies had stepped back, but only to make more room for the stage. Foals’ eyes glinted. ‘What happens here, right now, I’ll remember for the rest of my life, and tell my grandchildren too,’ it said. Luna bared her illusory teeth in the widest grin she could. All eyes were on her now. Let there be a show.

A flick of her dark horn brought the candy-trap tumbling forwards, but the unseen assailant was gone, the vines gone slack.

Time to set the stage, Luna decided. She focused her magic. Light faded. All light. The moon, the stars, everything. It was as if every leaf and bead of dew had picked that moment to suffuse the air with an inky blackness. The old statue fell away to shadow.

Luna glanced left. She glanced right. Nothing. Magical shadows whipped at the shelter behind the statue, to find only nothingness.

“Ah, you think the darkness is your ally. But you merely adopted it. I was born in the dark!”

This made pause for thought. Luna considered the statement. “I think you will find,” she said through a growing smile, “that you have got that quite backwards!”

The collective intake of breath behind her reached Luna’s ears a split second before the pillowcase did. It dropped over her head with a royal whinny of surprise and protest. Eyes that redefined ‘nightvision’ entirely still could not penetrate the simple cottony material. The gasping of ponies, the flurry of wings and the creaking of branches all added their noises to the cacophony within.

Confinement, even a confinement as simple as this, sparked off something within Luna’s tattered soul. The bellow of shock and rage was quite genuine. Illusory her form may be, the struggle and subsequent collisions were not. Piercing bolts of magic reamed the soft cushy prison. Luna heaved the pillowcase into the air, executing the ruined thing with a final flare of black incineration.

“There!” one pony stammered. The trembling hoof pointed away, deeper still into the Forest. “In the air!”

The ponies’ generosity proved the would-be thief’s downfall. Haemorrhaging candy, the heavy trap was making the pegasus who carried it fly at a nearly impossible tilt. It slowed them considerably, and Luna was decidedly not slow.

Her wings flared and blasted the onlookers with a gust of air. The black spectre sprung into the darkness.

The most prominent sensation was the feeling of lightness. That was what stuck in Luna’s mind as she tackled the pegasus from the air. Barely any weight at all. They slammed down with an ‘oof!’ and two black hooves pinning Fluttershy down by the wings.

Luna had to backtrack on that one. Fluttershy? Unbelievable, yet definite. There was the yellow, there was the pink, and there was...the metal? The heavy vest?

The sounds of hooves and voices were already approaching. Magic sizzled faintly, Luna returned to her true and blue form. “Fluttershy?” she asked in a hissed whisper, “what is the meaning of this? And what is that ridiculous costume supposed to be?”

Fluttershy groaned. Then she blinked, and looked down herself as if for the first time. “I’m...not sure,” she said dizzily. “A scary thing?”

The mare winced when Luna pulled the mask off her. An evil looking metal thing, all the more sophisticated than the usual costume efforts she usually saw. “Where did you get this?”

Blinking and squirming, Fluttershy looked away. Anywhere but those lambent alicorn eyes. “Oh, no, I couldn’t say. I don’t want to get him into any trouble. I’m sorry, I’m sure he meant well. This is my fault.”

A question. And a ‘he’, too. Great. The group was upon them. “Fluttershy,” Luna whispered urgently. “You are going to explain everything to Us.” The poor mare gulped. “We are not particularly angry.” It wasn’t untrue. That said, ‘not particularly angry’ by Luna standards could still mean quite a lot when measured against a regular pony. Particularly so if that regular pony happened to be Fluttershy, pinned to the ground underneath her Princess. “And We will be even less angry when things make more sense. Right this instant however, there is the pressing matter of how We are perceived by Our subjects. In a moment, Fluttershy, We are going to ask you what this is all about, and you are going to lie to Us, understood?”

Fluttershy was allowed to stand up. Luna helped the shaking mare to her hooves. “Lie to you?”

“Consider it a royal order, if you must.” The modern expression rung a bell. “Make something up. Now!” Luna shouted, suddenly all motion and gesture, a natural orator to the gathered crowd. “Thief! Brigand! Blackguard! We have bested you, and reclaimed the tribute that is by rights Ours! Explain yourself!”

The Alicorn’s hoof pressed the mask back to Fluttershy. The mare hesitated, then fumbled into it.

“Oh, um, yes, um, oh! Woe is me! Um...meddling Princess?” Fluttershy whimpered meekly. The glare she got was just shy of violent. Fluttershy tried to huddle up. She retreated into herself, but there was the mask, its grated steel. It wasn’t a thing, it was a state of mind. Ponies started to listen when she’d put on the mask.

A full chest, a high chin, a wider stance. The changes were subtle, but numerable, and transformed Fluttershy from, well, from Fluttershy into somepony entirely different. Fluttershy snorted with more disdain. She exuded it.

“I am Ponyville’s reckoning! I was to take the candy, and leave not one piece. Nightmare Moon would have turned on you all! Gobbled you up! Then I could have gone and done, um, really bad things!

Luna flashed a grin and flashed a transformation. The semicircle of their audience ooh’d and awe’d. “This thief is correct!” ‘Nightmare Moon’ flashed her teeth. “And this year I am ravenous. Count yourselves blessed to be spared another year. It might so easily have gone another way. Be warned, Ponyville. I like my candy. Now go, spread the good news of my mercy!”

The foals cheered. The adults too. Roses would have rained down atop Luna, had there been roses to throw. There was not, but there was the story to tell, with lots of rushing little voices whooping and racing towards down, their chaperones quick to scurry after.

“...bit where she jumped!”

“...was so cool when...”

“...and did you see when the candy...”

Mare and Princess, the two watched in growing silence as the night reclaimed its own. Luna, letting go of her illusion for the last time, thumped Fluttershy on the back hard enough to make the smaller mare wince and wheeze. “A good showing, Fluttershy.” The trap had split open and spilled its precious lot. The pillowcase was a few scraps of stricken, burnt fabric.

Luna pulled the fallen candy into a heap. “You may help Us carry Our tribute to your home,” she said happily. “There, We - and for that one I mean Us as in you as well - will feast to our sugar-laden content, and you will speak the truth of this matter.”

“Oh, um, right.” Fluttershy wriggled out of the mask. It was handy enough to shove candy into as an impromptu bag. “Of course. And sorry.” Fluttershy watched Luna struggle against the remainder of the bounty with growing distress. “Princess, couldn’t you, um, magic it all?”

Luna, even her long legs struggling to hold all the candy she’d grasped, paused in the attempt. “Strictly speaking, yes. But it lacks a certain satisfaction.” She paused for thought. She cast a spell, one making every stray piece accrete into a small planet of tastes and colours. It held together solidly enough to handled in her hooves with relative ease. “A happy compromise,” Luna declared.

Luna found herself in a bit of a conundrum. She hardly wanted to share her hard-won spoils with the Draconequus. He hardly needed for candy, but then, the same could be said of her, couldn’t it?

In the end it was better just to acquiesce and share, so that she could move onto the more interesting topic of what by Tartarus’ deepest pit was he doing here?

Besides. Fluttershy had given her a stern look when she’d tried not sharing.

There wasn’t much space. Fluttershy’s couch was by no means small, but neither was Luna. Discord had made himself comfortable at one third normal size, and was laid back against a bookcase. He lazily orchestrated candies into his mouth.

“A fun night for all, I’m sure?” he said.

Luna thought on this, but also contemplated the sour fizzing thing on her tongue. “Yes. It trounced Our expectations. As have you, Discord,” she said a little more sternly. She tossed the mask to him. “This is yours, We presume?”

Discord made no move to catch it. A blue light simply appeared, then an orange one. The mask flew into the one then out the other, coming the other way without any apparent qualms about having changed direction. It clattered to a rest at Fluttershy’s hoof.

“I made it, yes, and I’m definitely the only one with a mind to conceive of what it fully is, but that’s hardly a fitting reason to claim ownership, now is it? No, this little trick belongs to Fluttershy.”

Both Alicorn and Draconequus turned to face face her. “Well?” the Princess asked.

Fluttershy smiled. “I rather enjoyed myself. Oh, wait, no I should apologize, I’m sorry...”

“No need for that, my dear. You were splendid! A lot of gumption, trying to out-play Luna like that! No minions, no magic, just surprise and guile. Spectacular first effort!”

Luna chewed her way through something tacky and pink. “We take it you were watching than...” Luna cocked an eyebrow. “First effort?”

Discord smiled with the innocence of a hundred kittens. “A mere slip of the tongue, I assure you.”

Luna scowled. “That only means you have told Us something that you did not intend to tell Us. It means nothing against not enacting such an idea.”

Discord smiled with the innocence of thousand kittens, extra fluffy. “I haven’t the faintest notion what you’re talking about.”

“Of course not.” She let it go. Her thoughts returned to contemplation of the Watermelon Flavoured Ping Chewing Thingy. They really were quite nice. A fine exercise for the jaw as well.

“It was a bit strange,” Fluttershy confessed. “Was it magic or not?”

Discord shrugged. “When you have an understanding as profound and utterly unrivalled as mine, that statement hardly makes any sense at all.” He flicked something small and red to Luna. “Oh, you can have this back by the way. I’m done with it now.”

The red Gummy Worm stared with unblinking, desolate little eyes. “You recognize this?” Discord asked.

“With far too much familiarity,” Luna deadpanned. The sad little thing puffed into smoke, and left a sliver of shadow that lingered for several seconds.

“I sort of...borrowed an echo of your good old craziness. Actual Nightmare Moon, you understand. Not your pantomime efforts.” Stretchy arms pulled Fluttershy into a sudden, squeaking hug. “I knew you wouldn’t mind, Luna, seeing as it was the catalyst that helped put the right shape to the mask for dear Flutters here. Just a suggestion of a smidgen, mind you. Nothing she couldn’t handle.”

Luna indeed didn’t mind, if ‘not minding’ meant wanting to shoot him in the face with a moonbeam. Discord knew it, and knew that she knew that he knew it.

And he knew that she knew that bit too, and his self-satisfied smirk, and bewildered but content Fluttershy right in the line of fire...Luna sighed.

“That was very...thoughtful of you,” The Princess said through gritted teeth. She turned her attention to the smaller mare. Fluttershy was rather quite huggable, that much she could not help but agree upon. “We are indebted to you a pillowcase, if We recall.”

“Oh no, I wouldn’t worry about that if I were you. I mean, unless you really want to. You’ve both given me such a wonderful evening, and more candy than I possibly know what to do with.” Fluttershy pouted. “There is one thing you could do for me though, which I’d be really very appreciative of.”

Luna understood. The room shone with a pale cascade then, in the centre of the glow, the bunny appeared. He glanced at the strewn candy but didn’t try to touch it. He glanced at the Alicorn and didn’t even dare think about touching that again.

“If you didn’t want to be banished to the moon, you shouldn’t have jumped up at Princess Luna like that. Say you’re sorry. Say it!”

Luna baulked and checked, but no, the mask was lying innocently on the cushions. Even Discord seemed baffled, and the two exchanged quick glances.

Sufficed to say, Angel Bunny very promptly expressed his sorrows, and went to bed after being told the very first time.

“He really is quite sweet when he wants to be,” Fluttershy explained kindly. She bit down on something fluffy and white. “I do love the marshmallows. So soft.”

Marshmallows, Luna thought, stricken with the epiphany. Not Melons. Mallows. She then accepted the ones Fluttershy offered. They were tasty. It didn’t even have to be Nightmare Night for this to be true. It just made them better.

Author's Note

Let's pretend that the timing of this story is a poignant statement about how Christmas has overrun the adjacent holidays.

Much appreciation to Mercury Zero for his efforts, which involved creative input pretty much from before the first word writ to the last.