Nightmare Night,
What a fright!
Give me something good to bite.
But if you don't,
By morning light,
Then this will be your last good night...
A pale moon hung low in the skies over Ponyville, draped in an eerie fog that seemed to seep down out of the heavens like the claws of some gargantuan beast searching for a few scrumptious ponies to snack upon. The streets of the town were heavy with this midnight mist, buffeted around only by the cold, moaning sigh of the autumn wind that blew across the land.
And all this lit by the haunting, waning glow of a few jack-o-lanterns lurking in the dark.
What else would one expect from Nightmare Night?
Well… the night before Nightmare Night.
But while the town sat in the expectant gloom of its most precious and beloved holiday, just on the outskirts there stood a singular tree-house where this story truly begins.
For you see, twas the night before Nightmare Night, and somewhere in that tree, slept the dastardly Cozy Glow, and her warden Princess Anarchy. The two were in Anarchy’s mother’s old room, having moved in there for the duration of Cozy’s parole. Ann’s usual abode was the Realm of Chaos, and Ann’s father Discord thought bringing Cozy Glow into that dimension of madness, insanity, and cotton candy, given their own past history together, might be “super awk-weird”.
There was a whole story about this. Go read that. Stop being lazy.
Ann was tucked deeply into a rather normal bed, and despite this being the least normal thing she could possibly imagine, the little Ponequus was soundly asleep. Sometimes having a bed made out of fluffy things and not literal clouds, ocean spray, and metaphysical objects (such as the sense of irony, the platonic ideal of the word ‘papaya’, or the laughter of sugar-rushing pixies) could be quite nice indeed.
Cozy Glow, meanwhile, slept a little less soundly in her own bed, a tiny little pink mattress set into the corner of the room. She grumbled, and grunted, and groaned in her sleep.
And, on occasion, chuckled wickedly.
“Thank you Tirek,” she sleepfully said. “My dearest and bestest friend… Bring me another prisoner… I wanna torture Yona next…”
The moon was, as always, perfectly aesthetically framed in the nearby window, shining its silvery light into the room. And as Cozy dreamt her darkened dreams, the shaft of moonlight began to creep along the floor in an unusual manner.
A manner as though somepony were moving it.
“Heh, Professor Shy,” Cozy muttered. “Won’t you look better without those wings? Chrysalis? My shears. Your Empress commands it…”
The moonbeam neatly bent around Anarchy’s own bed, seemingly dipped past and around a few haphazardly discarded costumes lying on the floor, and made a beeline for Cozy Glow.
As it fell across her face, the oddly cherubic little despot frowned.
“Wait… you’re not Flutter…”
She squirmed.
“Tirek? Chrysalis? Where… where are you?”
Sweat broke out over Cozy’s brow, and she bunched her covers up around her forehooves.
“No, you… get back!”
Cozy turned over in her sleep in almost a vain attempt to turn away from the blazing moonlight still falling down upon her.
“I… I said I was sorry…” she whimpered. “Please, anypony… help… help me…
“Grampa…”
The mewling cries went on for only another moment. As Cozy’s distress peaked, a strange sound began to echo in the House of Shy. The ticking of an old clock somewhere in the rooms below. This, despite the fact that there were no clocks in the house after Ann’s little siblings had turned the old grandfather clock into a moody teenager clock and it moved out in a huff the week before.
But tick the nonexistent clock did.
At least, until it finally struck Midnight.
And before there could be even the first singular chime of that strange, possibly imaginary bell… Anarchy broke loose.
With a single, mighty leap, the Princess of Chaos was up and out of her bed, firing into the air like a launching rocket.
She drew in one breath, and shouted…
“IT’S NIGHTMARE NIIIIIIIIGHT!!!!!”
Instantly, spinning alarm lights of orange, black, and green dropped from the ceiling and whirred to life. The shriek of mareiachi music cut the air as the nearby closets burst, and a troop of sombrero-wearing skeleton ponies stormed into the house. Bats and owls and candy-corn spewing jack-o-lanterns leapt out from their hiding places, adding to the madness as the shadows themselves came to life and started to dance upon the floor.
Ann spun about in the air, and let out another cheer as cotton candy spider webs draped themselves down from the sky and a pair of tiny Nightmare Moons started doing the hopak across the floor in time with the music.
“IT’S NIGHTMARE NIIIIIIIIGHT!!!!!” she screamed again.
Cozy Glow, amidst all the sudden screaming and shrieking and shaking…
Was nowhere to be seen.
The Princess of Chaos blinked, then gave a sharp whistle by placing the tips of her bat-like wings into her mouth and blowing. The skeletons scattered, and the jack-o-lanterns jack-o-left the way they’d come in. The music and lights shut off with a heavy, mechanical thud, and the shadows, bats, and other spooky things slunk off for parts unknown, taking their banners and confetti with them.
And yet, even with two tiny Nightmare Moons helping her, Ann couldn’t seem to see Cozy anywhere. Even her bed was empty, missing both occupant and blanket.
This was overall alarming to Ann. She was Cozy’s parole officer and best friend, for one thing. And for the other, Cozy had been magically bound to not be able to move more than a few yards away from her, so a complete lack of Cozy Glow was indeed cause for concern.
“Uh… Cozy?” Ann asked the darkness of her room.
Nopony answered. Though, oddly, Ann could hear a distinct rattling sound coming from above her.
She looked up, and instead of one of the mareiachi skeletons still hanging around, it was Cozy Glow. Hanging, as it were. In that she had somehow leapt straight out of bed and embedded her hooves into the wooden ceiling of the tree-house.
It looked like a very tight grip, considering the little cracks spreading out from her hooves.
A death grip, in fact.
Anarchy frowned, and drifted up towards the ceiling.
“Cozy?” she asked as she came up alongside her ward. Cozy’s eyes were slammed shut, and it looked like she was gritting her teeth. “You okay?”
The pink pegasus said nothing. Her teeth stopped grinding up against each other, and she slowly opened her eyes.
And then, as her gaze met Ann’s, she screamed.
Ann flew back at the sound, while Cozy Glow dropped through the air, landing solidly on Ann’s bed, rebounding off their springs onto the floor with a little oof as the wind was knocked out of her.
The Princess blinked a few times in rapid succession. Cozy didn’t seem to rise from her crash landing, but she also didn’t continue screaming.
“I’ll take that as a ‘no’, then?” she offered, if lamely. Ann flew down quickly to Cozy’s side, and carefully lifted some of Cozy’s blue bangs out of her eyes with the tip of a wing.
Cozy didn’t open her eyes again, but she did give a little snort with her nose.
“I hate you,” she groaned.
Ann blushed. “Sorry, I might’ve gotten a little excited there.”
“A little…” Cozy seethed. Without opening her eyes, she slowly got up on her hooves, and turned back towards her bed. “What time is it?”
At this, Ann’s eyes flashed. “It’s twelve-oh-one!”
Cozy, one hoof halfway to picking up her fallen blanket, paused.
She drew in a long, slow breath.
“Why?” she asked, wearily aware of the answer.
“Why?” Ann repeated. She threw her forelegs out, and a few mareiachi skeletons peeked back into the room waiting for their que.
Perhaps thinking better of that… Ann put her legs down, and coughed. “Uh, I mean… why not? It’s the bestest, most wonderful holiday ever! Officially!”
The disappointed skeletons nodded, and left for the final time.
Cozy didn’t turn around. She slowly breathed out through her nose, and sighed.
“It’s just past midnight… on the morning of Nightmare Night.”
“Yeah!” Ann cheered, and tapped her hooves excitedly against the floor. “The bestest holiday of them all…!”
“The… Morning…” Cozy emphasized her words by slapping her pillow once, propping it back into shape, “… of Nightmare… Night.”
Ann frowned.
“Y-yeah, didn’t you…”
Her eyes widened, and her pupils shrank.
“Oooooh…”
Cozy wrapped her blanket up around her shoulders, and crawled back into bed.
“Eyup,” she said, before rolling over a few times until she’d become a tiny cocoon. “There you go.”
Ann covered her face with her wings, and her ears flattened back down. Sadly, she said, “Oh, Cozy… I’m so sorry! I was just excited, and didn’t think about...”
“Yeah, whatever,” said Cozy, hunkering down in her bedding. “Not a big deal. Just go back to sleep.”
Ann’s ears perked up. She dropped her wings, and stared at the trying-to-sleep Cozy.
“Uh… really?” she asked.
“Really.”
Ann bit her lip.
“You’re not just saying that?”
Cozy said nothing.
“Cozy?” Ann prodded. “Cozy, is everything okay?”
Again, Cozy said nothing. A soft sigh, and the sound of gentle snoring was all that came from the little filly.
The Princess frowned… but knew it was probably pointless (if not slightly suicidal) to keep Cozy awake any longer with questions.
“Well,” she whispered as she wrapped her tail up in the rafters and tried to sleep upside down, “I guess we can talk about it in the… uh, the real morning…”
Silence returned to the house. Mostly. Ann’s eventual soft snores were all that could be heard for the next several hours.
At least, so long as one didn’t listen too closely to Cozy Glow, who didn’t get a wink of sleep the rest of the night.
“Eyes…” she muttered to herself, and tried in vain to shake the image of those yellow and crimson eyes from her mind. Those haunting, baleful eyes, which stalked her through dreams and reality both.
“Those eyes…”
Fluttershy's Favorite Holiday... wait a minute...
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Fluttershy's Favorite Holiday... wait a minute...
By morning light, everything seemed to return to normal, or as normal as anything got when Anarchy was involved. The Princess of Chaos awoke with a yawn and a stretch, and immediately headed down for what she hoped would be a delicious Nightmare Night… er, Morning breakfast.
Cozy didn’t get much of a choice in the matter, due to the spell Princess Twilight had cast on her. Her cocoon-blanket form popped out-of-being where she still lay asleep, and back into being a few steps behind Ann, thumping down onto the top step of the tree-house’s stairs.
“Ow,” she said, without emotion.
As Ann reached the halfway point of the stairs, Cozy flashed away again, only to drop back down onto the step Ann had just passed.
“Ow,” Cozy said, again. She sighed, and poked her bleary-eyed face out from her blankets. “Why do we do this every morning?”
Ann paused, ears perking up. She turned around, and she gave a chagrined smile.
“Oops,” she chuckled, embarrassed at her forgetfulness. “Sorry. Here, lemme help…”
Ann’s long, pink-and-black tail wrapped around Cozy Glow’s body like a snake coiling around its prey. Then ignoring the ominous way that might be interpreted, she returned to a merry trot down the stairs.
“We’re gonna have so much fun tonight!” Ann cheered. “It’s my first Nightmare Night…”
Cozy groaned. “So you said.”
“… and your first in, like, a bajillion years!” said Ann, not really listening.
“Eugh,” Cozy groaned again, and gave a roll of her eyes. “Kid, I never liked this stupid holiday, even when I was a stupid little foal.”
She frowned. “Also, I’m not that old!”
Ann flicked her tail as she reached the bottom of the stairs, sending Cozy flying out from her grasp – and Cozy’s blanket – whereupon she arced straight down into one of the empty seats at the breakfast table.
“Then, it’s your first one too!” Ann laughed. “This is even better than I thought!”
Cozy shook her head, and groaned once more, for good measure. Luckily, her flank cushioned her fall, as did a hoof-stitched pillow decorated with little amateur-made bunnies, bears, and beavers. She supposed that these were of Professor Shy’s make, and dutifully planned to have them burned with the rest of the house one day.
“I don’t get the love for this holiday,” Cozy sighed, and shot her warden a pouting glare as the Ponequus poured herself into the next seat over. “I mean, it’s just playing dress-up, eating candy, and celebrating a villain who sucked at being evil. What’s the point of that?”
A plate of hot, steaming goodness landed directly in front of Cozy’s face at that moment, and her glare instantly melted away. The wafting scent of berries, cream, and syrup atop a stack of Prench toast had her mouth watering before the plate had even a second to settle.
The smell was intoxicating. Aromatic deliciousness!
And it only slightly distracted Cozy from the fact that there was a mountain of darkness hovering behind her.
“Hmph,” Grogar, the Father of Monsters, the Grandfather of Anarchy, the Dark Lord of Tambelon, the Harrower of Horrors, and the Nec-ram-ancer Supreme, hmph’d darkly.
“What’s your problem?” Cozy asked, though her eyes were locked onto her breakfast like they were still made of stone.
Grogar grumbled, and slid a second plate of perfect breakfast goodness down before Anarchy, who splattered her face into the delight with wild abandon.
“I find myself somewhat agreeing with you, tiny pink horror,” he said in a deep, rumbling baritone. “This Nightmare Night the ponies celebrate does not live up to its name, even in the slightest.
“I am ashamed,” he added, stepping back towards the kitchen stove. Cozy could see the ancient, vile ram was wearing a red cooking apron.
It said, ‘Fear Me. I am the Cook.’
“Bwuh?” Ann picked her syrup-and-cream smothered face up out of her breakfast and gave her grampa a wild-eyed stare. “Ashamed?”
Grogar nodded once, and set another eggy slice of bread into his skillet. “Yes, ashamed! Twas I who invented it, after all.”
Cozy froze, one forkful of Prench toast in her mouth already. Despite her desire to chew and chew and chew and chew and salivate over the surprisingly (some might say, wickedly) good food… she spat the morsel out.
“What!?” she choked out. “You!?”
“Yes,” he replied, the toast curling at the edges from the sheer villainy of his words. Word.
“That’s a load of garbage!” Cozy laughed, and shot the old ram another glare. “Everypony knows it—”
“Everycreature…”
“SHUT UP, ANN.”
Cozy paused… and allowed her forehead vein to subside before she continued.
“Ahem… Every PONY knows that Nightmare Night is about Nightmare Moon, Princess Luna’s weird evil alter ego thingie, and the one time she tried to take over Equestria.”
Grogar’s scowl was as eternal as the stone. As unmoving and inevitable as continental drift. As burning and all-consuming as a supernova.
But, for just a moment, even that slipped. Just a bit.
“Pardon?” he asked.
“Oh, yeah!” Ann perked up in wonder. She quickly licked all the smooshed-up cream and syrup off her face, and gave a happy little smack of her lips. “Miss Silverspoon talked about it in class the other day!”
Grogar blinked.
“Really?” he asked.
“Yup,” Cozy answered. “Luna got jealous of Celestia’s popularity and tried to off her.”
Grogar blinked. His jaw shifted, slightly.
“They do not speak in hushed tones of the time I raised an army of demons upon Bard Mountain, stole the Heart of Czernobarn, and smote the pony city of Marelantis?” he asked.
Ann and Cozy shook their heads in unison.
Grogar frowned.
“That was my best work,” he huffed. “That, and the Gallopoli disaster. Are you sure nopony remembers?”
Cozy swallowed another helping of Prench toast. “Dude, come on. You’re old news in the evil department. Though, I’d take a storytime for anything that involves demons…”
“Aw, I’m sorry Grampa,” Ann said, softly, and began to pat her grandfather’s back sympathetically. “Maybe you can rain doom, gloom, and… uh… more doom? Later! And get a new holiday named after you!”
“Reach for the stars, geezer!” Cozy cheered, and tossed back another buttery, creamy bit of toast.
The old ram glowered some more, and snorted through his nose with the deepest of irritation. One of the cast-iron skillets was too close, and proceeded to melt away into slag.
“Nightmare Night…” he growled bitterly.
The three didn’t have long to wait at the table, for within moments an odd, tearing sound filled the air. The space over by Fluttershy’s broom closet began to glow, and twist in on itself.
And a moment later, the rest of the family arrived.
Fluttershy immediately began unraveling the long, wooly green scarf from her neck as they appeared.
“I don’t know why I wear the scarf when we teleport,” she muttered to herself.
“Hi Mom!”
“Good morning, sweetie!” Fluttershy replied to Ann’s cheer.
“Salutations, all!” Discord waved merrily at his firstborn and her charge. “Did we miss anything yet?”
Frenzy and Mayhem zipped around their father instantly, and started a race for their own seats. The pink colt with blue eyes and a misty white mane (not to mention the wings and crystalline horn jutting from his noggin) flew under the table first, before materializing through it.
He took the opportunity to snatch a forkful of toast from Cozy.
“HEY!” she snarled, only to have one lock of her own mane suddenly disgorge the form of May, a long-limbed, brown filly with blue and pink butterfly wings. She popped out of Cozy’s mane, and snapped up her glass of orange juice without breaking stride.
Cozy took a swing at the second one, but found herself pulled back down by a pink tail wrapped around her hindleg.
“No fighting babies!” Ann scowled at Cozy as she spoke her command. “If I had a nickel for every time I had to warn somecreature not to do that…”
Her scowl disappeared as she stared off into the middle distance.
“Huh… how weird is it that that’s happened more than once?”
She shrugged, and ignored the way Cozy Glow had gone completely rigid in her seat.
Frenzy, naturally, did notice, which was why he stole another bit of toast while she was trapped in a frozen state of terror. Grogar, hardly caring despite noticing, tossed a few perfectly prepared Prench toast slices into the air with his magic, and let them all come down onto the plates set about Fluttershy’s table.
Food having been put out, the feasting re-commenced. Discord ruffled Ann’s mane gently as he drifted past her, and Fluttershy got immediately to work cutting up Frenzy and May’s slices of toast. They really didn’t need her to do that for them anymore, having been born at just the right age to handle chewing on their own… but one did not argue with one’s mother. Especially when that mother was Fluttershy.
Grogar eventually joined the family (plus Cozy, who’d finally snapped out of her funk) in their eating. He had a single bit of toast-shaped charcoal on his plate, and a mug of pitch-black coffee beside it.
Frenzy frowned at this, and tried to form his thoughts. Into words. “W-wha dosh gwmpa no et?”
“Very good, Frenzy!” Fluttershy beamed down at her little colt. “They grow up so fast. Talking at one week!”
Discord just shrugged, and started cutting into his knife with the salt shaker.
“All of our kids are talented, go-getters, my dear,” he said. “Why, May can already burp the alphabet!”
He paused, and frowned.
“That’s actually a little gross…”
“I don’t really need to eat, little one,” Grogar said, baleful glare on his grandcolt now. “I am fed by the screams of foals in their nightmares, in fact.”
May, not to be outdone by her loser brother, mustered up a bit of courage herself.
“Den… how can oo cook nice?”
Grogar glanced at May… and then glared in Discord’s direction.
“Your children appear to be broken…”
“Hey! Lisps are cool!” Discord protested, and slammed his fist down on the tabletop. “Just because Ann tossed hers doesn’t make that untrue!”
The Dark Lord shook his head with rue, and turned back towards May. “In answer to your question… I am Grogar.”
Frenzy and May glanced at one another curiously, but neither quite knew how to ask their next question.
Happily, Cozy did.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
Grogar said, again, “I am Grogar.”
Cozy sipped at her juice. “And?”
Discord sighed, and rolled his eyes. “Dad, knock it off? Just for a bit?”
“Very well,” Grogar said, a dark smile touching his lips. After a quick bite of charcoal, he shrugged in Cozy’s general direction. “I have been a bachelor for several thousand years. Even when I ruled Tambelon as a Dark God from On High, I always preferred to cook for myself.”
“That’s it?” Cozy asked. “But you don’t need to eat, so…?”
Again, Grogar shrugged. “For the artistry. For Mastery. Why attempt to destroy all magic and enslave Ponykind? Why bother to conquer Equestria?”
“Pfft!” Cozy scoffed. “Easy! Because it’s there!”
Grogar nodded, approvingly. “Indeed, Vile Pink Thing. Indeed. Perhaps you and I are not so different…?”
Another helping of Prench toast appeared on Cozy’s plate, and the two former villains shared a quiet moment of understanding.
Ann sighed, and rubbed at her temples with her hooves. “I don’t think you two being friends was exactly what I had planned…”
Then, brightening up instantly, she turned back towards her mother. “Change of subject! Mom! Since it’s… well, you know… I figured that, before me and Cheese and Cozy go trick-or-treating, I can Chaos-up a vault to hide in. What color you want it? Polka dots? I think polka dots.”
Fluttershy blinked, and tilted her head in question.
“Vault? Hide? Why would I hide?” she asked. Then, with a bright beaming smile, she added, “Nightmare Night is my favorite holiday!”
There was a disturbingly loud thump and a crash as Ann’s jaw hit the tabletop, cut clean through the hard wood, struck the floor and continued carrying on into the basement, where it hit a small mountain of yarn Fluttershy had been storing down there.
Frenzy and May giggled incessantly.
So did Discord, naturally. Fluttershy herself was mostly just confused.
“DAD!” Ann cried as her anatomy righted itself.
Discord grumbled back, “What? Why is it always me?”
The Princess of Chaos popped out of Discord’s left ear, and swept around to his right. She shoved her head in there, and shouted again, “DAAAAAAAD!”
“What is it?!” he whined, pulling his daughter out of his head, and settling her quickly down onto the ground. “I’m not a mind-reader, you know?”
“Aren’t you?” Cozy snarked.
“Only when it would be funny,” Discord chided. Then, he looked down to Ann’s worried face, and sighed. “What’s wrong now, my little weighted-dice?”
Ann folded her forelegs, and scowled. “Dad, whatever you did as a prank? Stop it. Fix Mom, now!”
Fluttershy frowned, and looked to her husband. “Discord?”
The Spirit of Chaos frowned back. He stuck out his tongue, and started furrowing his brow in thought.
“Prank…” he hummed to himself, “… prank, prank, prank… which one is she talking ab—”
A lightbulb suddenly burst into existence above his head. Discord met Ann’s mistrusting eyes with a mirthful smirk.
“Ah, the march of characterization,” he laughed. Then, with one claw he picked Ann up, and placed her on his lap. “Kiddo, have I got a story for you.”
Ann’s face shifted instantly. Her eyes widened, and filled with stars, and her face split into a smile that could beat a jack-o-lantern at its own game.
“Gasp!” she gasped. “Are you gonna tell us the story about how you met Mom???”
Frenzy and May each leaned forward in their seats, the babes eager for such a storytime. Even Cozy quirked an eyebrow, and seemed interested in that story.
Grogar simply chewed his ‘toast’, and glared.
“Ah…” Discord sputtered a moment, rapidly shrinking eyes locking on Fluttershy’s own panicked one. “W-w-well no… not that one…”
Cozy grinned. “How about the one time you and I worked together? You know? With the stone thing afterward?”
A whoopie cushion dropped out of the sky and landed on her head, but Cozy knew she’d won that one.
Fluttershy shook her head, slowly, and got up out of her seat. She made her way over to Anarchy and Discord, and started patting her daughter’s head with one of her wings.
“It’s okay, Ann,” she said, and gave a soft smile. “I know I come across as… nervous, a lot of the time. But there are things I’ve gotten used to, over the years.”
“But I saw!” Ann pouted. “I saw you being scared of Nightmare Night! When I made Cozy watch the show…!”
Discord’s paw pressed down on Ann’s head, giving her a good and vigorous mane-ruffle. It was so vigorous, in fact, that Ann herself hardly noticed the way Cozy Glow blanched and looked away from the table for a moment.
“And that was years ago!” Discord laughed. “Nowadays, well…”
“Discord?” Fluttershy said.
Discord smiled, and leaned over towards her. With hearts in his eyes, he asked, “Yeeeees?”
A mischievous smirk crossed Fluttershy’s face for a moment.
“Maybe…” she said slowly, teasingly, “… we should get it out of the way now?”
Discord’s eyes widened.
“Now? Like, right now?”
Fluttershy nodded. “Right here, right now.”
Ann glanced at her mother. Then her father. Then her mother again. She even looked to her siblings, who could only drool and shrug at their own confusion.
But no questions were needed, now. Discord and Fluttershy stood up, and walked around the table closer to the central living room. With a quick wave of his claws, Discord ordered the furniture to take-five, as it were, for everything not nailed down quickly got out their hats, coats, and reading material, and shuffled out of the room ahead of them.
Ann, May, and Frenzy dashed after their parents, leaving Cozy and Grogar alone to finish their meal.
Discord snapped his talon, and a record player appeared. Said player pulled out a violin, and took a quick bow before it began to play.
Fluttershy stood up on her hindlegs, to the amusement of her children (who were now piled up atop one another, enraptured by whatever was about to happen). Her wobbly stance steadied as she got her wings to help with her balance.
“Shall we?” she asked, that same mischievous smirk returning as she held one hoof out.
The record player began to play a slow, romantic samba.
“Always, my Love,” said Discord, who slipped a black sombrero onto his head, and took Fluttershy’s hoof without hesitation.
And then, something amazing happened.
Frenzy and May, being only a few days old yet, had no experience with such things. But Ann knew. She had learned much at her father’s claw, and had seen many things beyond the fourth wall. She could see into different realities, alternate timelines, and unreal universes.
But she’d never seen Fluttershy lead.
She began the dance by marching forward with long, difficult-for-pony-legs strides. Discord followed, eyes closed as he seemed to soak in the feeling. And as they reached one end of the room, they spun.
Fluttershy dipped her partner low to the ground – which was quite awkward when your partner was twice as tall as you were at the most conservative estimates – before bringing him back up with a flourish, and another spin.
Ann blinked. She blinked twice. She briefly popped her eyes out and checked them for smudges, and then replaced them just as quickly.
The temp increased, and Fluttershy picked up her pace. Another spin. Another dip.
A single rose hurled itself in between her and Discord…
… and she snapped it up in her mouth.
Rose gritted in her teeth, Fluttershy’s eyes became steel. She dipped a now laughing Discord, and as she brought him back up, she snatched his hat with one hoof—
Ann blinked again.
For just a moment, it almost…
No. No, it couldn’t.
Fluttershy, for just a brief, infinitesimal moment in time, had three forelegs.
She placed the hat on her head, and gave Discord a final spin and pull!
They were stretched as far apart as possible now, only one foreleg and one claw connecting the two as they reached this final, climactic step.
And then, Fluttershy said, in time with the music:
“Cha cha cha!”
Ann, Frenzy, and May were all blown completely over.
And not just because the living room self-destructed at that precise moment. A wave of blue light tore through the house, knocking all three siblings over and over and over themselves, back into the kitchen.
There was a moment of sheer, unbridled terror… before there wasn’t.
Just before Ann and her siblings crashed into the kitchen table, a set of giant pillows, all elegantly stitched together with fluffy animal motifs, popped into being, catching them all.
“GAH!” Cozy Glow cried out, and dove for cover as the magic fired off. She hid beneath the table, despite the danger swiftly passing, all while Grogar continued to chew his food, only mildly annoyed at the universe in general.
Ann was, despite how comfy her pillow turned out to be, up in a second. Panic filled her eyes, and she quickly looked about to see just what the heck that was about.
Frenzy and May… just continued to giggle and laugh.
“Mom!” Ann cried out. “DAD!”
Fluttershy’s voice, calm and serene as always, responded. “Inside voice, please.”
That made Ann pause. What made her gasp, however, came next.
Fluttershy did indeed walk into the kitchen. But she was somehow… more Fluttershy than usual, to Ann’s senses, even if Ann couldn’t pin her feelings on why that was. Perhaps it was the way her mother’s mane was fuller than normal? Perhaps it was how it seemingly drifted in an ethereal wind?
Or, perhaps it was the fact that her butterfly maneclip was now a real butterfly, joined by a small cloud of laughing, joy-filled brethren and songbirds.
Yeah, that was probably it.
“What.” Ann didn’t ask a question.
Both Frenzy and May cooed, and gave excited squeals as their mother walked-drifted into the room, accompanied by a soft, hazy light.
“I don’t understand,” Ann said with a frown. “You… what happened?”
“Isn’t it obvious, kiddo?” Discord asked as he walked back into the room…
“DAD!?” The cry went up from all three children of Chaos, their nearly-identical eyes and eyebrows practically blowing up as they took sight of their father.
He was…
Well.
He was certainly different. He was walking on four hooves now, for one thing. No longer a draconequus, Discord looked every bit like a kirin, in fact. He had a brown coat covered in grey scales, and his black mane and beard had grown to a lion-like state around his head and chest.
Of course, the crystal-blue horn of a twisted shape seemed familiar, as did the eyes, eyebrows, and single snaggly tooth, but that didn’t lessen the oddity of seeing him that way.
Cozy, faced stuffed with the last of her toast, chuckled.
“Even when you’re being normal, you’re still such a freak, ain’t ya?”
“I’ll ignore that because I can’t use my magic to take disproportionate retribution until tomorrow,” Discord said in a smooth, dispassionate tone. “So, I’ll have to settle for the tried and true ‘No u’ for now…”
“Ha!”
Grogar grumbled in response, “Your childishness continues even without your powers. How disappointing.”
Ann’s ears perked. “No… no powers?”
She turned back to her parents, and frowned. “What’s Grampa talking about?”
Her parents, however, were more concerned with one another, at the moment. Fluttershy in particular began to blush furiously as her husband flashed that wicked smile of his.
“Oh my!” she tittered, and covered her face. Then, she said, more sympathetically, “I’m so sorry, Discord. I know you were hoping for changeling this year…”
“Never worry about it, my dear,” he laughed easily, and started inspecting his hooves and other accoutrements. “It’s unpredictable by design! If I could just choose what I go as, where’d the fun be for me?”
Fluttershy smiled and nodded, happy enough to…
Her eyes opened wide as she finally noticed Ann staring at her.
“Oh, right…” she blushed again. “Um, I did say I’d explain?”
As Ann nodded, Mayhem took that moment to buzz her little wings, and float up to her mother’s face. The little filly locked eyes with her mother, and then glanced about her still-glowing aura full of butterflies.
Fluttershy cooed at her baby, and asked, “Oh? Did you need something May…?”
And with that, May snapped up one of the butterflies in her mouth.
Everypony froze, eyes locked on what just happened. Then, every eye drew towards Fluttershy, whom they all suspected would be in something of a fit over such a thing.
Instead, she tittered again.
“Did you like it?” she asked.
May’s eyes widened as she chewed, and a mile-wide smile crossed her face.
“Chockolad!” she cried, and tried to gobble up another one before a light blue aura pulled her back towards her seat on the floor.
“Just one, May,” Fluttershy said, one hoof aglow as she used it to direct her child through the air. “I don’t want you ruining your appetite before trick-or-treats.”
“Mom!” Ann cried out, almost excitedly now. “You… you have magic!”
Fluttershy smiled at her children, and nodded. “That’s right. Your father and I have this tradition every year. We… switch, in a way.”
“Svid?” Frenzy asked, his own horn glowing blue as he dragged one of the butterfly-treat creatures towards his gaping maw.
“Consider it yet another one of your mother’s brilliant ideas!” Discord laughed, and sat down amidst the three foals. He nuzzled them with his newfound beard, and said, “She thought being like a pony once a year might make me a little more—”
“Bearable?” Grogar interrupted. Cozy chuckled.
“Hmph,” Discord hmph’d. “I was going to say, she thought it would help me make friends more easily.”
Cozy smirked, and asked, “How’s that working out for you?”
She laughed again, even as the rest of the table (sans Grogar) shot her dirty looks over the jab, but only for a moment. Her laugh became a little more strained, a few seconds in. And then, Cozy Glow paled.
Her pupils shrank into pinpricks as she saw something. Something just over Ann’s head.
“Um…” Cozy squeaked, and shrank down into her seat. “I’m sorry. I’ll be good.”
Ann turned around, but all she could see was Fluttershy, smiling as beatifically as she always did.
Perhaps a bit too beatifically. And a bit too intensely in Cozy’s direction.
“Mom?”
Fluttershy shook her head, and looked to her daughter.
“I’m sorry, Ann,” she said with a shrug. “I was letting Cozy Glow know what might happen if she kept insulting my family. You weren’t meant to see that.”
Ann stared at her mother, then back at Cozy. She flicked her ears about in thought, before turning back, and asking, “What might happen?”
Fluttershy shrugged, and tried to hide a little grimace. “Oh, you know. Terrible things. Things that might get… red-tagged, for instance…”
It was then that Fluttershy and Discord knew it had been a good idea not to keep any dogs around the house. The high-pitched whine that started emanating from Ann would have driven them away instantly. In fact, Discord would later swear he could hear Winona over at Sweet Apple Acres cry out as the sound began.
“Red…” Ann mouthed the word, her voice no longer in the audible range. “… tags…?”
Cozy and Grogar flattened their ears against the sound, while Frenzy and May, still snacking on butterflies, just shrugged at their big sister’s weirdness.
Finally, the sound stopped.
Ann’s eyes were as wide as saucers.
And there were stars inside them.
“Can you see the Fourth Wall…?” she whispered with all the adoration and innocence she could muster.
Fluttershy could actually hear her daughter’s hope straining in the background.
“Yes, I can,” Fluttershy finally admitted. “Just for tonight, though. However long tonight lasts.”
She tittered. “Might be a few months, if the author is having trouble with the next…”
“Don’t jinx it!!!”
Fluttershy giggled at Ann’s outburst.
“Oh, don’t worry about it,” she said, soothingly… though not towards Ann herself. “I’m sure he’s doing the best he can right now. It’s a rough time of year to find time, after all.”
Ann sat down, and tapped at her chin with one hoof. She stuck her tongue out of her mouth, and frowned in concentration. Discord, Frenzy, and May watched her with renewed interest, waiting to see just what she was thinking.
“So…” Ann said, at last. She looked up at her mother with hopeful eyes, and said, “You’re not afraid of Nightmare Night?”
“Nope,” Fluttershy said with a shake of her head.
“Character growth?” Ann asked, one eyebrow raised.
Fluttershy shrugged. “Well, I am currently omniscient. I’m probably the scariest thing out there tonight…”
Cozy whispered to herself, “Can confirm…”
“… and if nothing else,” Fluttershy continued, not even noticing Cozy’s words, “this year, I get to see all three of my foals having fun! How could I let myself be shut inside while my family’s out there, having fun?”
“Well, that’s…” Ann couldn’t quite finish her thought. She mulled it over a few more seconds, literally chewing on it with her mouth as she re-thought it again.
Then, she sighed.
“I guess it’s just… that’s a lot of character growth to go through off-screen, you know?” She said, kicking at the floor. “It feels like I missed something important.”
Fluttershy nodded slowly, and gave Ann another sympathetic smile.
“I know it feels like that now,” she said, “but trust me, I’m the same Fluttershy I’ve always—”
Discord leaned in from the side, and opened his mouth.
“Boo.”
He said it without an ounce of emotion. He didn’t smile, nor make a face. He just said it.
Which was all the more surprising, given how everypony was now staring up at the ceiling, where Fluttershy had embedded her hooves as she jumped.
She blinked a few times, and looked about with a fearful expression.
“See?” Discord said, smiling. “Same Fluttershy. The full breadth and depth of the magic of Chaos just helps blunt the worst of it…”
The whole table gasped as one as Fluttershy popped back down in a flash of blue.
“DISCORD!”
“What?”
She puffed her cheeks up, and bit down on the bubble of peeved-off energy Ann could see behind her eyes.
But, after a moment, Fluttershy let it out in a long sigh.
“Oh… fine. Is everypony done with breakfast?”
As soon as everypony (minus Cozy, who was still as a statue) nodded, Fluttershy stamped her hoof with all the power and ferocity of a daffodil alighting on a baby’s nose. The infinitesimally small sound did the trick, however.
With a flash of blue light, the entire kitchen was cleaned like a whistle. Every plate was back in its place on the rack, and every cup was put away.
Except for Grogar’s, naturally, which glowed with his own unnatural purple energies.
“We better get started then!” Fluttershy cheered, causing a rainbow to bloom in between her outstretched hooves. “There’s pumpkins to carve, and costumes to plan!”
And with that, she, Discord, and Mayhem vanished in a flash of light.
Ann looked to Frenzy, and Frenzy looked back, equally as confused.
Then, Fluttershy teleported back.
“Sorry,” she said with a chagrined look. “I’m… I don’t get to practice… Give me a second…”
And with that, she managed to teleport everyone, Cozy and Grogar included, out of the house.
Author's Note
If you're feeling bummed that Spooky Month is over, just use this story to hold onto the spirit of the season... even if it drags into the new year, ha ha! 
