Luna! It's Just A Costume!
Hallow's Eve, or Nightmare Night as it is referred to in present day Equestria, used to have a whole other meaning entirely. Originally, ponies wore masks and costumes with supernatural stylings to keep evil spirits from noticing that they were of the living. As the holiday developed, fillies and colts of all ages took part in collecting candy to their sweet tooth's delight and scarfing them down within a moment they entered their homes. Now it's about keeping a single evil spirit at bay, but that's not what this lovely tale is about. This story is actually covering a certain filly's first Hallow's Eve with her elder sibling. Let's start the story shall we?
-T'was a dark but not-so-stormy night-
Luna attached the last of the support for her wings. She was going as a breezy for her first Hallow's Eve. Once she completed the complicated procedure, she hopped in front of her bedroom mirror. Everything was perfect. Her breezy wings were stitched onto her regular wings perfectly. Well, not exactly, she had to use tape because she wasn't allowed to use anything sharp anymore because of her last accident. Her antennae, which consisted of two pipe cleaners, one for each of her ears, were secured by a piece of string for each of the antennae. She struck a pose and wiggled her ears and wings to make sure that they were, in fact, as secure as she thought they were. They bobbled around, but nothing too serious.
She approached her door to have it slammed in her face. She stumbled back and gripped her muzzle.
"Ow! Hey, what's the big idea?!" She cried.
Celestia, her older sibling, was in the doorway with a grin planted across her face. Most likely due to the anticipation built up for "the pillaging of the candy" as she'd taken to calling it and the funny face Luna made when she kissed the door. Celestia was dressed as a dark royal guard this particular night.
"Er, what are you supposed to be?" Luna asked, rubbing her nose.
"I'm Nightmare Moon!" She declared in her deepest voice, posing like a valiant knight.
"Who's that?" Luna asked with a twinge of curiosity.
"Oh! Just somepony I made up! Cool, huh!" She said, admiring herself with a series of twirls.
Luna rolled her eyes and stood up. "Well I'm a breezy!" She declared, trying to mimic Celestia.
Celestia let out a soft giggle at her attempt. "I think your costume is a little too girly for that."
Luna chuckled. "So are we going now?!" Luna asked, her anxiety welling up inside her. It was sort of a bitter-sweet anxiety at that.
"Yeah! Mom and Pa are even letting us go alone!" Celestia squealed.
Luna rushed over to her bed, grabbed her bag, and sprinted back to Celestia. "Then let us go!"
With that, the duo made their way out of the castle. The night wasn't so dark, and it wasn't stormy like you would expect on "horrifying" nights like this one, but the scenery definitely set the night up for three things: Tons of Fun, No bedtime, and Abundant amounts of free sugar-filled bags of candy! They were going to bring a torch, but the full moon splashed it's natural light across the land, dimly illuminating the natural and pony-made pathways they were taking.
As they traversed further into Canterlot, decorations and foals dressed in costumes became increasingly more general. Luna and Celestia started at the first house they saw, which had fake spiders on their equally as fake spider webs. Flashing orange lights was the main attraction to the decor, as they were made more prominent over all else. As they approached, they noticed that a single bowl sat in a chair in front of the door full of candy with a cardboard sign that said "Please take one".
Celestia smirked and reached for a piece of candy, but to her surprise, a necrotic hoof grabbed her hoof, causing her to scream and whip her hoof back in fear. A loud cackling emerged form underneath the chair.
"Show thyself heathen!" She cried.
A small colt emerged, his right hoof painted to look like a bad case of "zombie". He gave out another cackle before slipping under the chair.
Celestia simply rolled her eyes and tossed Luna a chocolate bar. "Come on Luna, let's go to some other houses."
Luna looked at the piece of candy. It was her very first piece of Hallow's Eve candy she had ever earned, and it was only the beginning. She nodded and followed Celestia to the next house which had similar decorations, minus the prankster of a colt, of course. The night progressed like this continuously. Well decorated houses, pranksters, and candy. One household actually gave them whole bags of candy for being 'the next heirs', whatever that meant.
Finally they've reached the last house they were covering for the night. This one immediately set off an internal alarm in Luna. It was decorated like the others, sure. But this one had a limp pony lazily sitting on a old wooden chair. It didn't move, and it was covered head to hoof in what seemed like farming gear. The straw hat it was wearing was tilted downward over their eyes. It was hard to tell, but she believed it was indeed just a decoration. Of course, this didn't concern her the slightest bit, except for one teensy-weensy problem. The supposed candy bowl rested upon the scarecrow of a pony's lap.
Luna shot a concerned look to Celestia, who had the same concern in her eyes. "So uh, are you going to go up there?" Luna asked.
Celestia shook her head no frantically. She always had a fear for scarecrows, so it was understandable.
Luna swallowed her fear and crept slowly up to the porch. She became more and more unnerved by the fact that it wasn't moving as she made a slow but steady stride towards it.
She reached the steps, only four meters away from the scarecrow, and looked back at her sister. Her sister was watching her intently with fear-struck eyes. She turned back around and trotted up the stairs slowly, counting them out loud to keep her cool.
"One," She said, placing her hoof nervously on the first step.
"T-two,"
"Three,"
"F-f-four," She looked up to count ahead, only two more steps left.
"Five,"
"S-si..." She stopped mid-step to look at her sister. It was both comforting and anticlimactic that she was still standing there. She expected her to run off by now, but she still stood strong. This gave the little dark-violet filly courage.
"Six." She reached the top of the steps. She was only a meter away from it now.
She edged her way towards the scarecrow, closing the distance between scared filly and it. She swallowed her fear, metaphorically of course, and dove her hoof into the bowl. To her surprise, nothing was in it. She was both shocked and irate, but these feelings were quickly replaced by fear when she felt an oppressive gaze hit her.
She turned back to notice her sister crouched behind the fence in a failed attempt to hide. She knew this only meant one thing, she swallowed another gulp full of metaphorical fear and spun around to meet a pair of glowing red eyes. These belonged to none other than the scarecrow. This was too much for her to take, with one quick motion, she spun around, bucked the scarecrow, and sprinting off in a different direction, screaming.
She hopped the gate, running past her sister, who was still hiding, and ran down the road that led to the castle.
She could have sworn on her mother that she heard a familiar noise from the scarecrow when she bucked it.
Upon arriving, she found both her sister and a familiar draconequus at the gates.
The draconequus, as soon as he noticed her, broke out in an uncontrollable laughter, while Celestia just watched him, both bemused and disgusted.
"What are you doing here Discord?" She asked.
"Oh nothing, just scaring some breezies!" He chimed.
Two and two connected in her mind and she growled. "Are you telling me, that you were the scarecrow?!" She asked, her voice peaking new heights.
"Maaaaybe!" Discord teased.
She shook her head. "I'll deal with you in a minute, I just want to know something." She said, looking at Celestia.
Celestia's ears perked up. "Yeah?"
"How did you get here bef-"
Celestia answered faster than Luna could ask. "Panic-teleported both me and Discord."
"Ah." She said. "So, wanna kill him?" She asked her.
Celestia smirked, and nodded. "Sounds like a plan."
Their gaze fell on Discord.
"Eheheh.... gotta go!" He cried nervously, flying off in the opposite direction.
"Oh, you better fly!" Celestia cried, chasing him.
Luna sat back and watched as they both ran around in circles. The white mare in dark armor, and the draconequus.
She took a bite out of one of her many chocolate bars and smiled.
