It Doesn't Even Look Like a Castle!
The two redheaded carnival barkers looked absolutely flabbergasted as they slowly handed over a stuffed parakeet to Muffins, who was joyfully bouncing up and down as she received the fluffy prize. Behind her, Roseluck and Wallflower Blush bore astonished grins.
“That was amazing!” Roseluck exclaimed. “I thought games like these were always rigged! I can’t believe you got it in one throw!”
She could faintly hear the mustachioed barker mumble neither could we.
Muffins either didn’t notice or just ignored it. “It’s all in the wrist,” she replied with a grin as she hugged her major award.
The three stepped away from the stand as the grumbling continued, following the pathway that would take them back towards the center of the Equestria Land theme park. Roseluck and Muffins had visited once before, on that highly eventful opening day, but this was Wallflower’s first time at the park. It had been a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon, with the three managing to squeeze in most of the more notable rides, including the Neighagara Falls Barrel Flume, the Appleloosa Runaway Train and the Cloudsdale Cumulocoaster. The latter had left Wallflower feeling a bit dizzy, not being very used to such heights or speed, and they’d gotten snacks shortly afterwards to help her feel better.
Now it was getting late, with the sky already dark and the park lit up electrically. As they left the boardwalk games behind, Roseluck motioned around with her arm. “So… where to next?”
Muffins shrugged, nearly dropping her parakeet in the process before swiftly catching it in mid-air.
“Well…” Wallflower pondered. “We got most of the big ones, but we still haven’t been to the haunted house yet.”
She pointed, and Roseluck turned to see the facade of one of the park’s signature attractions, Nightmare Moon’s Haunted Castle, on the hill behind her. Said facade incorporated a house with flickering lighting on the inside, gnarled trees in the shape of crooked hands on each side and a giant crescent moon illuminating the scene. There was a haunting sound of laughter in the distance. It wasn’t much of a castle, but… they certainly had the Haunted element nailed down.
She turned back to Wallflower. “Th–th-that one?”
Wallflower seemed genuinely surprised by the expression of alarm on Roseluck’s face. “Is… is that a problem?”
“Well… You know the park is closing in less than an hour, right? You really want to end our day with the scary ride?” Roseluck paused for a moment. “You’re not trying to give yourself nightmares, are you?”
“What?” Wallflower asked, before cluing in to her friend’s concern. “No Rose, I’m fine, really. And come on, it’s Equestria Land. How scary can it really be?”
“Ummmm…” Roseluck stammered. “I’ve heard stories. Lyra and Bon-Bon went back when this place first opened, and they thought it was terrifying. They said they were clutching each other the entire time!”
Wallflower’s eyes narrowed, and her tone flattened. “Rose, you realize Lyra and Bon-Bon are never not clutching each other, right?”
“Still!” Roseluck sighed. “I don’t know… I’m just not that into scary rides! Are you?”
Wallflower shrugged. “Yeah? I mean if you don’t want to go, then I don’t want to make you upset…”
“No, if you want to go…” Roseluck fumbled, trying to find a way to change their destination without having to outright reject Wallflower’s request. Helplessly, she turned to Muffins. “What do you think?”
Muffins enthusiastically pumped her fist in the air.
“I guess that settles it…” Roseluck said, mentally admitting defeat.
“Hey, um, you don’t have to ride with us if you don’t–”
“It’s fine. Please. You’re… you’re probably right, I’m just being a fraidy cat. It’s probably nothing bad.” Roseluck turned and looked back up toward the ride. “How authentic can it be when they didn't even make it look like a castle, anyway?" She forced out a giggle. "No sense letting the line get any longer, right?”
And she began walking over towards the queue without another word, her friends close behind.
The line hadn’t really helped calm Roseluck’s nerves, with the outdoor queue taking them through a faux graveyard punctuated by the artificial noise of howling wolves and cracks of thunder. They’d been waiting for about twenty minutes, and the boarding area was now in sight.
Muffins was standing in front of her, still cradling the stuffed parakeet. Wallflower was on her right, texting. She noticed Roseluck out of the corner of her eye. “Oh, sorry, I wasn’t trying to ignore you or anything, I was just telling Sunset about our day. I bet she’d get a kick out of hearing about Muffins and the ring toss.”
Wallflower sent the text, then turned to face Roseluck. “So… are you sure you’re okay riding this? You seemed upset back there.”
“It’s fine, I’m just… I’ve just never really been a fan of scary things.”
Wallflower let out a soft snort. “I mean, that giant coaster seemed pretty scary to me…”
“No, that’s true, and that’s kinda why I’m doing this ride. It seems only fair after I got you to ride that. But that’s not the same type of scary, to me, y’know? I mean more like the ‘things jumping out at you’ or ‘maniac with a knife’ kind of scary. It just creeps me out too much.”
Wallflower nodded.
“But you… like horror, and stuff like that?”
Wallflower looked up, perplexed. “Has that really never come up before?” She stopped to think. “I guess not. But yeah, I watch a lot of scary movies.”
“How come?”
“Well…” Wallflower paused for a moment. “I never used to, because my parents aren’t really into it. I picked it up a few years ago, back when I was still feeling really alone and invisible. I just really wasn’t feeling much of anything, back then. My emotions were just kinda numbed. And when I would watch movies, I just wouldn’t get anything out of them, I barely even understood that I was watching anything.
“So I decided to watch something that I’d read online was really scary, called The Nightmare Night Babysitter Murders. And it was scary, and it gave me a real jolt. Which was amazing to me, because, well, it was a genuine feeling. Something that actually got me a little… excited. Invested. So I just started watching nothing but horror, night after night. And yeah, there were some duds in there, but even just the idea I could get an actual sensation… that really helped keep me going a bit.”
Rose tilted her head slightly. “That makes sense, in a way that makes me really sad I wasn’t there for you back then.”
“Hey…”
“I know, I know, it’s fine, I should stop apologizing. Sorry. Wait, crap, sorry. Anyway,” she declared as Wallflower rolled her eyes with a visible smirk. “But that was then. What about now?”
“Well… after the, um, Stone, and getting to know you and Muffins and other people, I did start to enjoy, uh, non-scary movies more than I had been. Other feelings finally started to register again. But I never lost my taste for horror. It’s still probably my favorite genre. I was actually gonna ask about seeing one later this week, but I guess now I know that’s not really your thing.”
Wallflower sighed, looking downward. “I wished I’d asked about some of that earlier. That really feels like something we should know about each other by now.”
Roseluck placed a hand on Wallflower’s shoulder, causing the other girl to look back up. “It’s fine, Wallflower, really. Friendship isn’t about giving each other dossiers about our own interests; those are just things we discover when they come up.”
The line started to move, and Muffins eagerly motioned for the two of them to follow. As they stepped forward, Roseluck shuddered at the sound of another wolf howl through a nearby speaker. Wallflower tapped her on the side.
“Hey, I’ll be sitting right next to you. It’ll be fine!”
Roseluck nodded softly. Now at the front of the line, Muffins turned around and, smiling, held out the parakeet toward her. Roseluck took it, and Muffins made a hugging motion. Grasping her meaning, Roseluck smiled. “Thanks.”
The attendant motioned the three of them indoors into a dark scene, not that different from the outside area they’d just left behind. There was a starry sky projected on the ceiling, with crickets and other noises of the night added for ambience. They walked up to the boarding area, where an empty black ride car pulled up in front of them on the track. The gate swung open automatically, and, hesitantly, Roseluck followed Muffins into the middle seat of the third row, safely ensconced between her on the right, Wallflower on the left and the people in the other three rows, two ahead and one behind.
She clutched the fluffy parakeet tightly as the ride car began to roll forward. Looking up, she saw there was now a moon projected on the wall in front of them, with the shape of a unicorn head scarring the side of it. She gulped, and Wallflower instinctively put a hand on her back.
“We got this. Together.”
Roseluck smiled at Wallflower’s encouragement, only for that smile to collapse as a dark voice boomed overhead. “So,” it boomed, “you ignorant foals thought that you could shun the night? That mere day was enough to satisfy yourselves, and that you could sleep through my wondrous creation? Well, no more! For I, Nightmare Moon, have returned to this world to end the day… forever!”
The ride car had now reached the end of the room, just underneath the moon, and Roseluck had just enough time to notice the unicorn image had disappeared before a set of hidden doors in front of them swung open, and the track took them into an area of pitch black.
“W-w-Wallflower? Muffins?”
Before either of her seatmates could respond, the car lurched forward, and a sudden light revealed a shadowy armored horse looming over them. The track dipped down, taking them underneath the giant animatronic as its mocking laughter boomed over them, chilling Roseluck.
Their speed was picking up as they returned to pure darkness, furthering the feeling of tension as any sense of control or direction was now history. As her eyes started to adjust to the darkness, soft lighting showed they were now rolling through a wooded setting. They heard growls, shakings in the underbrush, and the perpetual drone of crickets.
Suddenly, a projected image of a huge bearlike creature, seemingly made of pure starlight, appeared directly in front of them, eliciting screams from nearly the entire car – Roseluck definitely included, and even Wallflower made a noise – as it roared. The track swerved away from the creature, but the noises from behind them indicated it was in pursuit. Roseluck yelped when a jet of air blasted from her own seat onto her neck, as though the thing’s breath was upon her.
The car continued to speed up along the track, and soon the snarls of the beast had turned into distant, haunting moans. They turned left again, but stopped as the images of several ghostly pegasi, seemingly made of smoke, appeared before them.
“Won’t you join us?”
“We’ve been eagerly awaiting your arrival.”
“Nightmare Moon will be so pleased…”
Roseluck suddenly realized that the car was now rolling backwards, away from the pegasi. She squeezed the parakeet so hard it nearly burst as the world went black again, and she screamed as the track began to corkscrew downward, the car still moving in the wrong direction, leaving her completely disoriented. The whole car was making noise, some cheering, some yelling in terror.
Wallflower wasn’t making any noise at all. She just leaned over and wrapped her arms around her friend. Roseluck snapped out of her panic and looked at her in surprise.
“Wallflower?”
“Hey. I’ve got you. Remember?”
Suddenly, they were in front of another towering Nightmare Moon, whose voice filled the room. “You foals thought you could escape me? I am the night! You and your sun-loving faces will learn to appreciate the darkness!”
Roseluck turned away and looked over at Muffins, who had a big goofy grin on her face from the thrill of it all. She turned back to Wallflower, who wasn’t paying attention to the ride at all, and was just watching her, smiling softly in the dim lighting reflecting off the creature.
Cracks of thunder surrounded them as she looked back up at the giant animatronic. As big and booming as the monster was… suddenly, it didn’t seem so terrifying anymore.
And there was something odd about that voice...
“Rose, you’re okay,” Wallflower spoke, just loudly enough for her to hear over the noise of the ride. “It’s just a ride, you’re okay. I’m here.” Their eyes met, and Roseluck relaxed inside Wallflower’s grip.
The ride vehicle sped up as the track curved around the winged unicorn creature. Roseluck looked back in time to see the giant, fanged head following them as they passed, before the voice piped in again. “No. No! You can’t run forever! Nightmare Moon’s rule has only begun!”
They passed through another set of doors, and the car began to slow down as light re-entered their world. They climbed uphill toward the deboarding area, and Wallflower slowly withdrew her arms. After they came to a stop, the three of them disembarked and quickly headed to the exit.
After leaving the ride building, Roseluck and Muffins followed Wallflower to an empty bench on their immediate right. Once seated, Roseluck felt a tap on her left shoulder. She looked over to see Muffins make a prolonged shrugging motion with her arms, with a quizzical look on her face.
“Oh, what’d I think? Umm…” She looked over at Wallflower, only to find anticipation on her face as well. “Well, honestly, it was pretty scary.”
She could hear Wallflower sigh. “I’m sorry, Rose. I didn’t think it was gonna be that intense, I genuinely didn’t know about the backwards stuff or all the big monsters. I-I should have just gone on my own some other time.”
“Hey, hold on. I…” Roseluck hesitated briefly. “I wasn’t finished.”
Now it was Wallflower’s turn to look quizzical.
“What I mean is… it was scary, yeah, but it was supposed to be scary. But it didn’t feel terrible, or horrible, like I was afraid it would. And having the two of you there…” She paused, looking back and forth between her friends. “Seeing you having fun, and encouraging me, helped me remember that it’s just a ride. That everything was still under control. And I started to understand a little bit how you can enjoy being scared like that.”
Wallflower started to smile. “You did?”
“Yeah, I mean… it’s not that different from a roller coaster, really. You just have to learn to understand that everything is still under control.”
Suddenly, Wallflower was hugging her tightly from the right. “I’m really glad to hear that.”
“Thanks. I’m glad I could understand you a little better. Maybe… I could try going to that movie later this week?”
Wallflower laughed. “The Nightmare Night Babysitter Murderer Stabs Again (In a Slightly Different Continuity This Time)? That might be a bit much right out of the gate. But I can show you some more… training-wheels-type scary stuff, I guess.”
Roseluck laughed. “That sounds great.” Suddenly, there was a second hug from the left. “Thanks, Muffins.”
Her arms were pinned to her sides, so she couldn’t reciprocate, but was happy to just keep sitting while taking in the hug. After a short while, they withdrew, and Roseluck became conscious of the stuffed parakeet still on her lap.
“Besides,” Roseluck said as she motioned to the fluffy fake bird, “I did have this little friend to help out.” She picked it up and offered it toward Muffins, who politely pushed it away.
“Keep it.”
Muffins stood up and wandered off toward another carnival game stand a short distance down the opposite side of the pavement from them. Roseluck couldn’t quite make out what the game was, but she could see the prize Muffins must have had in mind – a large plushie Nightmare Moon. She and Wallflower looked at each other and laughed.
“Well, I guess we have a few minutes left before closing time,” Roseluck commented. “I’m sure she can win one more thing.”
“Probably,” Wallflower replied as she pulled out her phone. “Oh, wow. Speaking of, it looks like Sunset had a lot of thoughts about that ring toss game text. Like, a lot of thoughts. Thoughts that involve screaming emojis. And Twilight texted too...”
“That sounds intense.”
“Maybe Muffins just is that lucky.”
As they said that, they could see Muffins start jumping up and down excitedly once again as the barker slowly moved to retrieve a Nightmare Moon. The two seated friends giggled a bit before a certain thought returned to Roseluck's head.
“Hey… was it just me, or did that scary monster horse sound a lot like Vice-Principal Luna?”
