Two Background Ponies Revisit Season Five

Scare Master

It was Nightmare Night in Ponyville. Decorations of bats and evil Nightmare Moons were up everywhere, games and festivities were planned throughout the town square, everypony was in costumes either just for fun or to go out and look for treats door-to-door...

But through it all, two ponies made time for their favorite festivity.

Sam and Carl were currently seated on a park bench done up with a fake zombie pony and eating away a box of pumpkin spice cookies. For this year, Sam had elected for male vampire fruit bat. Carl, on his part, was dressed in a rather basic burlap cape, a white t-shirt, and some blue sweatpants. After a short while, Sam glanced over to him, scanning over his outfit for a moment. As for Carl, he looked around town blinking.

"...Did they, like, put in a bunch of green fog machines since last year?"

"...I know I've asked you this before, but-"

"I told you. I'm Neighruto. From the manga."

The blue stallion blinked. "You look literally nothing like him."

"I had to improvise my costume with whatever looked approximate! We don't all have wives to make our costumes for us, dude!"

Sam frowned at that insinuation.

"Besides, you're saying my costume is confusing and you let the rainbow-haired one get a pass."

"...Rainbow Dash. You need, like, flash cards or something, man. And she's an astronaut."

"...What's an astronaut?"

The blue stallion paused, caught by that. "They...ride into space on rocketships."

"...What the hell is a rocketship?"

Sam went silent afterward, grimacing and looking away.

"Besides, at least I didn't do what you did and dress in the trendiest costume I could find like a third of the town. Vampire fruit bats? Seriously? After the shy one turned into one and went on a reign of terror more ponies want to be like that? Well hell..." He cupped a hoof to his mouth and shouted. "Why aren't you all dressed like Tirek?!"

"Dude, shut up!" Sam snapped as several ponies looked to him. "Don't make a scene!"

Carl sighed and slumped down. "...Where is she, anyway? I thought I saw her running around the haunted maze earlier."

"Oh, she quit, went home, and got back under her bed until tomorrow."

"Ah..." Carl began to nod, then blinked and shook his head. "Wait now, what? She's still scared of Nightmare Night? Look, I know there's some crap out there, but...chocolate-covered peanut butter pumpkins, man... Only time of the year..."

"Oh, it's not that she's scared, Carl. It's that she doesn't like seeing other ponies scared. So she's back to abstaining from the entire holiday."

The green stallion gave Sam a dull look. The blue stallion reached for another cookie, but on noticing that Carl had "that look" in his eye, he sighed and simply leaned back and crossed his arms.

"...Carl, before you begin, you should know that's actually a good thing. Not everyone has to like the same things. Not everyone has to have the same preferences. Not everyone has to be part of this or that 'fandom'. Even if they're really, really good at it it's ok to never do it...unless, you know, it's something like curing cancer or being a genius at atomic science and you decide to just be a grocery clerk because then you're pretty much wasting your potential..."

"What 'scares ponies' about pinning the horn on Nightmare Moon, Sam?"

The green stallion went silent.

"What 'scares ponies' about bobbing for apples, Sam?"

He swallowed a bit.

"What 'scares ponies' about wearing a more complicated costume, Sam? What 'scares ponies' about not putting birds out to alert you when kids looking for candy are coming by, closing and shuttering all your windows, and hiding under a bed until morning, Sam?" He snapped his head around to the end of town and shouted. "And what 'scares ponies' about being too damn cheap to stock any candy, you-"

Sam lashed out and smacked him upside the head. "I said cut that out, dude! You can't force people to do things they don't like! It's as simple as that!"

"Oh, come on, Sam! This isn't about that! It's about justifying your anxieties! About 'hating something for the right reasons'! She's still the exact same as before only now she has a 'good excuse'! More like one she had to make up... So I guess that tells us we should turn all of our irrational hates into rational ones? That if you have a phobia for something, you should try it out once so you can think up a legitimate reason for your phobia and then resume having it using that as an excuse?"

"Look, she tried it out and she didn't like it! Respect her decision and let it go!"

Carl merely crossed his hooves and muttered something along the lines of "I hated having to sacrifice ten percent of my candy to Nightmare Moon as a filly but I still had to do it".

After a time, Sam exhaled and began to get up. "Well...I gotta get going. Dawn and I are a couple at this year's 'Monster Fest'."

Carl sighed and did the same. "Yeah...I got to pass out candy at my place too. Nice hanging out with you for a bit, though."

"Happy Nightmare Night, Carl."

"Happy Nightmare Night, Sam."

Sam turned around to grab a few of the cookies to go...only to have Carl reach over, snatch up the entire box, and then take it with him. The blue stallion frowned.

"Hey! We both paid for that and I only got five of them!"

"Oh, sorry Sam...but you need to watch your weight. It's far better if I just take them home and eat them all. I wouldn't be a good friend if I didn't."

Sam was aghast. "What the...?! You just want to have them all to yourself!"

Carl smirked as he turned and kept walking. "If the shy one can do it, so can I..."

Back in the Castle of Friendship, Spike was sighing as he picked one piece of candy from his haul out after another, compared it on a 'flow chart' Twilight had whipped up for caloric content, and then set it aside...desperately trying to find one low enough to where he could eat one more before stashing the rest for the following days. It was late at this point and most ponies were in bed, but when it came to sweets he was willing to "stay the course" even though he'd normally be out of it by now.

Suddenly, the doors behind him flew open with a loud bang. Spike whirled around, seeing a half-undressed, sweating, fearful Twilight Sparkle staring back at him.

"T-Twilight? I thought you'd be asleep by now..."

"I couldn't sleep! I figured it out! Spike...Hairy was the bear, Angel was the thing running around behind us, the spider made the trap webs, the birds were the ghosts, and Fluttershy was Flutterbat at the end..."

"Well...yeah. So what's the-"

Twilight grabbed Spike with a terrified look. "Then whose skeleton was that in that hole?!"

Spike's pupils shrunk as he forgot about candy.

...Did they ever find out whose skeleton that was, Carl?

Sure did. The last remains of Apple Jelly. Back in 841 on her wedding day she was playing hide-and-seek and accidentally locked herself up in a trunk in the attic. In 861, on her daughter's wedding day, she tried to hide in the same trunk and found her remains. There were hoofnail marks in the lid from her trying to claw her way out.

That's...rather horrific. But...why was she in that hole?

She was part of the act. Every Nightmare Night they drag out her bones, reattach them, and make them look like somepony in the Apple Family to scare the fillies.

...

...What?

Dude! Sick!

Well, they're cheaper and more realistic than fake skeletons. And you know Granny Smith grew up in the pioneer days and is thrifty as all get out...

Now I wonder what they bake in the pies on a 'lean' year...