Crimson Warden

The best parts about being in costume is you get to become someone else, especially when being yourself sucks ass. This is why Scootaloo had spent so much time constructing her Harley Quinn outfit for this years Screamfest; a Nightmare Night event held in town every year at the nationally recognized fairgrounds in Manehattan.

This year instead of going as a patron, Scootaloo had been invited as a model for the photo booth available for people to get commemorative photos taken. This year there was her as Harley Quinn, her now ex-coltfriend Button Mash as the Joker, her now current, though this was still a hidden fact since her ex was there still and had a rather short temper, coltfriend Rod as a skeleton, as well as a couple other, unnoticeable models she’d met before.

Tonight however, there were a couple new ones: a rather large tan stallion with white eyes larger than Big Mac -Scoots figured the eyes were just coloured contacts- and a younger, smaller filly with charcoal black fur and a bright orange mane and tail pulled backwards like the captain of the Wonderbolts to distract from the fiery red eyes. They’d come dressed as Wardens complete with rather realistic looking badges and blood dripping down the stallion’s face, and had become quite popular with the rest of the characters.

A couple hours into the night Scootaloo finally decided to introduce herself to the male after the filly had left for a bathroom break.

        “Hey, Warden!” She called out to the pony. He stood up from where he sat in the middle of the crowd and turned towards the booth, probably thinking he was being summoned for a picture but she jumped in front of him before he got there, “Sorry, didn’t mean for you to think you were being called for a picture. I’m Scootaloo, though my friends call me Scoots. Just wanted to say that's a rather awesome costume you’ve got, and I was wondering how you made such a realistic looking badge.”

        “Nice to meet you Scootaloo. I’m Malachi. And thank you for the compliment, the outfit I just threw on. As for the badge, I found it in a costume shop. Your Harley Quinn costume is also rather impressive for what looks like a custom work.” The pony remarked slowly, as though he were carefully choosing his words. His voice was fairly bassy, with the tinge that suggested he’d been around and seen some things. Mature, that’s what she’d describe it as.

        “Thanks, I think. What about your contacts? Where’d you find them? I’ve got an idea for next years costume that those white eyes would work perfectly with.” Scoots remarked as she stared up at the male’s eyes, trying to see past them for a hint at the pony’s actual eye colour.

        “Contacts? You are mistaken: I’m genuinely, certifiably blind. My companion heard about the Warden with white eyes and an insatiable bloodlust and decided I was perfect to go as him. Turns out he and I wear almost the same thing when it comes to fur colour and mane.”

        “You're actually blind? Then how do you know what my costume looks like, smartass?” Scoots smirked up at the stallion, finding out she was still at least a full head shorter than the beast before her; and she was a full grown mare now, so that was saying something.

        “My companion described everypony's' costumes to me when we got here. Apparently yours is an ‘impressive recreation of the psychopath who follows the Joker everywhere.’ Which brought up her question later on, why don’t you and him get photos done together, I'm told you never do?”

        “That’s my ex-coltfriend actually; we didn’t end things on very good terms. Also the skeleton is secretly my current coltfriend, so I had some interesting choices to make. By the way, who’s your friend with the orange mane? She your younger sister?” Scootaloo asked out of an increasing curiosity and because she and her coltfriend had a bet as to whether she was his sister or marefriend since they’d seen her comfortably riding the stallion’s back or leading him by the hoof.

        “Well now that is a long story. She could be considered my sister of sorts, a kind of adopted sister, though nothing official. I happened to run into her a long time ago when she had no parents so I took her under my wing so to speak.” Malachi explained as he rubbed his chin with a large hoof.

        “You still haven’t told me her name yet you know.” Scootaloo reminded Malachi after watching him likely reminisce for a few minutes, snapping him from his memories.

        “I figured I’d let her introduce herself instead of doing it myself.” Malachi told her, seemingly glancing over Scootaloo’s shoulder. Scootaloo turned around and after searching through the crowd of Nightmare Night’s characters and other patrons of the festivities, she eventually found the head of the girl with bright orange hair as she approached, adjusting her clothing a little after her break.

The girl beelined directly for Malachi and hopped up onto the front of his shoulder, then with impressive agility, flipped herself up and over on Malachi’s back to get comfortable.

        “How is that not strenuous on him?” Scoots inquired with a curiously cocked eyebrow, resetting it after the display.

“It helps that his back is large enough for me, he’s strong enough to carry me, and his coat adds additional comfort.” the small filly explained. She had to be no larger than Scootaloo was in her adolescence, a few years after finding her cutie mark with her friends. The girl’s head came up to Scootaloo’s chest while Scootaloo came up to the stallion’s chest as well.

        “I suppose being so young has its benefits doesn’t it?” Scootaloo joked. “Malachi and I were just introducing ourselves and I was wondering your name.”

        “Its Ashe and I'm not as young as you think." Ashe replied then grinned. "Before I tell you how old I actually am, I want you to guess first.” the girl added. This threw Scootaloo for a bit of a loop however, as she wasn’t quite expecting this.

        After a minute of pondering, Scootaloo gave her guess, “I’m thinking, around eleven?” This however brought rapturous laughter from Ashe, as well as a noticeable smirk from Malachi, making Scootaloo slightly blush at her apparent wrong answer.

“Close but not really. Malachi, how old am I really?” She asked the stallion whose neck her cheek was presently lying upon.

After a minute of anticipation, Malachi answered short and simply, “Seven thousand, seventeen.” This brought up an eyebrow to both Ashe and Scootaloo, though for different reasons: Ashe because she was surprised Malachi had accurately counted the years they’d been together on top of her age and Scootaloo figured he was just joking.

Malachi “glanced” at Scootaloo, and corrected himself, “She’s seventeen and she’s still small enough to ride on my back.”

        “Well I suppose with your respective heights, that wouldn’t be to difficult to do. I’m almost sure I could probably ride comfortably on your back myself. I won’t since we’ve only just met, but you understand my point right?” Scootaloo scratched at the back of her neck with her wing as her eyes went towards their flanks, curious about what kind of cutie mark the both of them would have, however noticed that both of their outfits completely covered the marks’ location.

With nothing more to say or do to continue further interaction, Scootaloo returned to her post near to the booth to invite customers.

        The night went on more or less uneventfully from there, however Scootaloo had noticed that both her ex as well as current secret coltfriend were both giving Malachi the stink eye as it were; probably thinking she was flirting with him.

She had also noticed over the course of the night that Ashe would glance over in her direction, a certain look in her eyes that said “stay away, he’s mine.” Despite the voice in the back of her mind telling her not to do so, she approached the pair once more in an attempt to potentially gain some new, unbiased, friends.

        “A question for both of you,” Malachi turned at Scootaloo’s voice, swinging Ashe around to the point of almost throwing her off his back which forced her to climb her way back up into position. “I have some things I need to do tomorrow afternoon, and I was wondering if you’d like to hang out with me then; get to know each other better as it were?” Scootaloo was more than aware of the two pairs of eyes drilling into the base of her neck behind her. Ashe turned to look at Malachi, as though the two were having some sort of telepathic conversation, which for all Scootaloo knew they were considering how close the two seemed to be.

        “We will accept your invitation, where are you going to get everything done? We’ve got to get to a bank as well so if there's one where you’re going, we’d be glad to join you.” Malachi responded, Ashe seemed not to thrilled with the idea however.

        “Yeah I think there's a couple different bank branches there. Here’s the address to the mall i’m going to. Hopefully we can meet up there; do you have a phone number or other contactability I can use to find you with?” In response, though not quite the response Scoots had been expecting, Malachi reached into his pocket and pulled out a rounded, flat stone with a twelve digit phone number engraved into it. Running her wing tip over the engraving whilst looking at it, Scootaloo asked, “You guys aren’t local are you?”

        “What makes you say that?” Ashe asked curiously.

        “Well In this country, phone numbers are only ten digits long; three, three, then four. However yours is twelve. Where you guys from?” Scootaloo replied in question.

        “We were in Griffonstone for a few years up until last month, thus the 49 international code.”

        “You guys were in Griffonstone? That’s so awesome, i’ve wanted to get out of here and see what the rest of the world was like for some time now. What’s it like there? I’ve actually got a few friends from Griffonia.”

        “We’re really the worst people to ask that; Malachi being blind, and I can’t really hold my attention for very long.” Ashe began to tell her as her eyes were drawn away towards something off in the distance. Malachi shook his shoulder a bit, returning Ashe to the conversation. “Not to mention we kinda got used to everything having been there for so long, so we don't really know the tourist attractions anymore.”

It was at this point that the regular lights in the building went on, the black light being washed away and the music dying down a bit as security ushered people out of the building for the night’s end. Scootaloo looked back towards the booth, specifically towards her coltfriend and after receiving the scorn hidden in his eyes as he was packing up to leave, quickly wrote down her own local phone number on a random slip of paper procured from the booth’s desk and handed it to Ashe, who passed it down to Malachi to pocket. Nodding a thanks as well as good-bye, Malachi turned and trotted  off towards the doors.