Midnight Bloo

by Impossible Numbers

Rating: everyone
Tags: Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Other, Princess Luna, Drama
Length: 14774

What happens to the candy on Nightmare Night? And why's Bloo so depressed about it?

Once everypony has gone to enjoy the rest of the night, the great mystery of Nightmare Night remains: what really happens to all that delicious candy when nopony else is around? Does Nightmare Moon gobble it up, or is there something even more sinister (and entertaining) at work?

Bloo knows. Bloo's mother knows too. And the problem is that once everypony else has had their fun, the other side of Nightmare Night has barely any leftovers of fun worth talking about.

Perhaps this year will be different. There's a special guest at this year's Nightmare Night: THE special guest. And in the gathering darkness, maybe Bloo will see the light more clearly than ever before...

Published 2022-09-18 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2022-09-18 00:00:00 UTC

The Full Moon Monsterfest

What happened to all the candy on Nightmare Night?

To a foal, this is an existential question of the highest order, and the traditional answer is awe-inspiring, well-thought-out, and completely wrong.

The first answer that every grown-up gives – the one that is at least technically right, because everypony sees it happen and hallucinations are too lazy to put in that much effort – is this: foals go around in costume to collect the candy from every house they can find, then they put it next to a familiar dark landmark and leave it alone.

The response that every foal gives to that is this: so what happens afterwards?

And the second answer that every grown-up gives – the wrong one – is this: Nightmare Moon eats it.

At this point, most foals are satisfied, if upset that they aren’t the ones doing the eating. It did make sense. They left the candy for Nightmare Moon before dawn, and it was gone when they woke up. A creature of darkness swooping out of the sky to gobble up offerings was therefore a perfectly logical explanation.

But occasionally, you got the one foal who wouldn’t stop asking questions, long after all the grown-ups have seriously considered sending them up to their room to think about what they’ve done, or at least to think properly before doing what they’re otherwise still doing hours later.

They would ask, and go on asking: how do you know?

How does anyone know?

After all, or so the cheeky ones point out, no one’s allowed to stay and watch.

Bloo the unicorn filly knew. There were lots of things she didn’t know – such as who was the unexpected special guest at this year’s Nightmare Night celebration – but she knew what happened to the candy.

She also knew that her mother wouldn’t let her go out in costume to collect any. Her mother didn’t let her do a lot of things she actually wouldn’t have minded doing, such as playing games (“idle hooves are the Nightmare’s playthings”), wearing fancy clothes (“vanity is the sin of sins”), or smiling wide enough to start laughing (“laughter weakens the lungs and inflames the voice box”).

So she stood a little way out from Ponyville, round the back of their shack – the realtor had called it a bijou cottage, her mother had called it an excellent domicile, and Bloo had privately called it a cheap pile of wood – wearing no costumes and watching over the wheelbarrow.

But Bloo was a cheerful soul, and she started whistling.

“None of that folly, my dear,” enunciated her mother, emerging from the backdoor in a shawl and white robe that, an hour ago, had briefly been yellow and grey with honest grubbiness. “Whistling tempts you to music halls and further extravagance.”

“Yes, Mother,” recited Bloo, who was already thinking up another folly she could test out. “Can I push the wheelbarrow now?”

“You may.” Her mother nodded, her unicorn horn waving like a stoic conductor’s baton.

Bloo didn’t mind this part. There wasn’t much that Bloo minded, once she’d practised not-minding it for long enough. She spent a good chunk of her time looking for fun things her mother wouldn’t mind either, and half of her wondered if her mother secretly enjoyed the challenge.

Squeaking slightly, Bloo and the wheelbarrow made their way up to the Everfree Forest.

In a clearing that wasn’t there the night before and wouldn’t be there the next night, a statue reared up and pointed accusingly at a random patch of turf.

What a magnificent statue it was. Whoever had carved it – or whatever had carved it, assuming it was carved – had paid special attention to the undulations of the mane, the wave and crest of the neck, the swell of the haunches, the rivers of legs, and the overflowing lakes of hatred glaring out from the face, drowning in wrath and leaking terror into the world. So lifelike were the alicorn queen’s details that some said it was the original body of Nightmare Moon herself, petrified by an unusually brave cockatrice but unable to trap the dark spirit within.

Ponies only ever found it on Nightmare Night. Any other time of the year, wanderers and visitors mysteriously failed to find the trail that had been obvious that one night. They tended not to stay for long regardless, not when the wolves were howling. In the Everfree Forest, two interchangeable terms were “lost ponies” and “lunch”.

A pile of candy lay at the statue’s feet, not looking terribly guilty for something being pointed at and accused by a nightmare beast with fangs.

Bloo’s shovel scooped some of it up.

“Watch the soil, my dear,” enunciated her mother, who in fairness was also shovelling candy onto the wheelbarrow. “We wouldn’t want to miss one.”

“Yes, Mother,” recited Bloo.

Can I go next year, Mother? Oh please, Mother, may I wear one of the nicer costumes at least? Mother, if I give somepony else my candy, can I go out and have fun for once? Bloo got very chatty inside her own head.

She spotted a stray liquorice stick and – since she had a streak of cruelty – added it to the wheelbarrow.

“Well-met, this moonlight,” intoned her mother dutifully. It was her version of commenting on the pegasus weather.

And do you have to talk like that, Mother? You’re not an ancient dark priestess, Mother, you’re a Canterlot runaway. Mother, all that “mistress of the night” stuff was hundreds of years ago!

“It’s a nice statue, Mother,” said Bloo, because she’d always wanted to learn how to do this mysterious thing called “chatting”.

“Don’t compliment the dark art, my dear,” said her mother in gentle yet firm tones. “It’s bad luck.”

Don’t do this, don’t do that, it’s bad luck, it’s temptation, it’s sin… Bloo knew the drill. She just wished there were more openings for things she could do that would be good luck and not at all a temptation to sin, whatever that meant.

She dumped another shovelful of candy onto the pile, then stopped. A single candy cane tumbled off, bounced off the metal edge, somersaulted through the stars, and then landed on a patch of soil a few feet away. Bloo’s eyes watched it hungrily.

Nerves made her glance around, but her mother was scanning the ground over there for any loose confections. Totally oblivious.

Slowly, cautiously, constantly checking her mother’s back for any sign of turning, Bloo levitated the candy cane and brought it closer, closer, closer still to her own opening lips –

Her mother’s ear twitched. “I hope that is not the sound of succumbing to temptation, my dear.”

How did she know? But Bloo knew a lost cause when she’d been yanked back into one. She sighed and put the candy cane on the pile.

When her mother turned around, she didn’t look upset: just matter-of-fact. “That candy is not for you. Now help me wheel it home, there’s a good girl.”

With a face of lead, Bloo slumped over the handlebars and wheeled the barrow back, grunting at each step. In her entire life, she’d never once tasted a single piece of candy. But despite being home-schooled, she still picked things up from the other foals, and she wanted to know what all the fuss was about.

On the way back, Bloo and her mother heard music and laughter. Bloo looked up.

Of course: after the trick-and-treating, there was a party tonight at Pinkie’s place. Apple Bloom and Odd Job had mentioned it at school. A Nightmare Night Delight. Sugar Cube Corner was hosting the ghosts and ruling the ghouls this late in the night! With chocolate and cakes and confections galore! Pin the tail and spin the bottle and get your gifts, and more!

Drooling, Bloo started drifting towards it…

“Bloo,” said her mother warningly.

Ah. Right. The wheelbarrow was still there. Bloo concentrated on pushing it straight, grunting every now and then in case her mother might come over all sympathetically-minded and take over.

They had a Duty.

Bloo’s eyes followed the lights of Sugar Cube Corner till they were out of sight. Bloo’s ears heard the laughter long after they’d walked out of earshot.

Under her breath, Bloo moaned.

As soon as they returned to the bijou cottage/excellent domicile/cheap pile of wood, Bloo left the wheelbarrow in the backyard and leapt into action. She hadn’t actually been doing this all that long – Ponyville had been her home for only a couple of years – but a desire to please her mother had long since made her a fast learner.

In truth, it wasn’t all that different from the Canterlot feasts of old. Rush around, make sure the food was taken care of, look after the guests, try not to commit a faux pas.

Except in those days, Bloo had simply followed the servants around the mansion, paid attention, and not minded the rebukes when she tried to join in on the “servant stuff”. Turned out doing it herself was much more fun.

Bloo piled the logs into the fireplace, fetched a box of matches, and soon had a working fire. Then as her mother staggered in with bags of candy, she herself vanished upstairs.

“Don’t gallop so fast, my dear!” called her mother in as prim and proper a tone as possible. “You’ll hurt yourself!”

“Yes, Mother!”

She burst into her room, the door rebounding: some maternal lessons hadn’t stuck entirely.

No one was in there. Just pure darkness till she turned on the oil lamp. The grim glow illuminated nothing more than a simple bed, a simple chest for the simple toys that poverty allowed – such as broken dolls, hand-me-down cloths, and any board games the neighbours didn’t want anymore – and simple hessian curtains over a simple bed that’d look pretty fashionable in a prison cell.

In the flickering gloom, Bloo turned towards the closet.

Then she knocked five times.

“Hello? Squeaker? You there?” Pausing, she listened out for any sounds, then rapped the door again. “Squeaker? It’s Nightmare Night. We could use your help.”

Slowly, ominously, creaking all the way, the closet door swung open. Something groaned from within.

Out of the blackness, a spiky spider leg shifted. One clawed foot gripped the carpet.

Bloo backed away politely.

And eight glowing, mad, yellow-and-red, stripe-pulsing eyes opened. Fangs clicked together, mumbling darkly. The hulking, hairy presence raised itself on legs as thin and bent as snapped wires. A head extended itself on a black coil of neck. Two giant green eyebrows floated and flicked like irritable feelers.

The mouth opened wider, wider, wider still…

The yawn stopped. “I wath jutht getting up,” lisped Squeaker.

Bloo tilted her head sympathetically. “All-dayer, was it?”

“And not a bad one, thank you for athking.” Squeaker instantly hunkered down, stretching each leg in turn. Once he was low-slung like this, he barely came up to Bloo’s eye level; most of his size was pure leg.

“Mother and I would like your help, if that’s OK with you?”

Squeaker smacked his lips. “Nightmare Night, d’you thay?”

“Yes, Squeaker.”

“Nithe. I get firtht lick, yeth?”

“Yes, Squeaker. Mother insists.”

Yawning again, Squeaker politely covered his mouth with three sets of claws. “Lead on, Mithth Bloo. By the way, there were thpiderth in the clothet latht night.”

“Any good?”

Squeaker smacked his lips around those few fangs he couldn’t retract. “Bit thtringy. To tell you the truth, I think I’m going off creepy-crawlieth. Not a patch on a good ol’ candy brew, if you athk me.”

As soon as they were downstairs, they slid – or, in Squeaker’s case, scuttled – into place. Bloo and he laid the long table, Bloo’s quick-fire levitation spells matching Squeaker’s multi-legged marathon.

Meanwhile, Bloo’s mother poured sack after sack of carried candy into the cauldron, pausing only to stoke the fire and stir the resultant brew. Duly, she fished out wrappers and levitated them into a spare sack for discreet disposal later.

“Squeaker!” she called after a few minutes.

“Yeth, Mithth Libertee!” he called back, scuttling towards her with all the charm of an obedient labrador, if a labrador could be found that had eight legs, a lisp, and a tendency to twitch worryingly along its joints.

She spooned some of the multicoloured muck and offered a ladleful of it to him while making sure it stayed over the cauldron (spillage was a serious crime in a household that hoarded all the food it could get). Squeaker’s legs brought him up to her level. He sipped, lips smacking.

“Hmmm,” he said. “Can I have another one, to be thure?”

“Squeaker, dear,” said Bloo’s mother with a sigh.

“Thorry, Mithth Libertee. Yeth, it’th ready, and you’ve made it mighty delithiouth to boot.”

“Excellent. Thank you.” She turned to Bloo, who’d been waiting for this moment, and gave her a no-nonsense nod.

“Yes!”

“Less of the exuberance, please, dear. It will be indecent in front of our guests.”

“Yes… Mother.”

So, less indecently exuberantly, Bloo picked up the rusty old drumstick in the corner and walked over to the rusty old gong next to it. It had a crescent moon painted on.

Bloo wasn’t entirely sure where her mother had found it. Neither had she felt brave enough to ask, in case that turned out to be an “impropriety” (another one of her mother’s favourite words).

Squeaker hadn’t been keen to talk about the gong either. He had whispered to her once – when she’d insisted – that it might have turned up alongside the statue one year and been passed around a few secretive ponies in Ponyville, though he’d been cagey when she started talking about the statue instead and had promptly scuttled back to his closet out of sheer nerves.

For her part, Bloo suspected her mother had tracked it down and dug it up with her bare hooves. She hoped her mother had, anyway. A buried, long-forgotten treasure sounded much more exciting than yet another hand-me-down.

She struck the gong.

Once, twice, three times.

And though it barely made a passable bbbwwwwwwwwwuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrmmmmmmm in the dining room, further afield it made an altogether deeper, nastier sound.

RRMMRRMMRRMM… RRMMRRMMRRMM…

Waves of ethereal command swept out from the gong in rigidly perfect rings, expanding and scything through dimensions ponies did not know wot of, or whatever they were called.

RRMMRRMMRRMM… RRMMRRMMRRMM…

The waves cut through the guest bedroom, where shadows and eyestalks emerged. From under the bed, from behind the wardrobe, from under piles and piles of long-forgotten junk, small things stirred.

RRMMRRMMRRMM… RRMMRRMMRRMM…

The waves cut through the attic, where wings and legs jerked awake. The waves cut through the roof, where perching things and skulking things squawked and chittered excitedly.

RRMMRRMMRRMM… RRMMRRMMRRMM…

The waves cut through the garden, where someone had thoughtfully dug a convenient hole. Hulking shapes knuckled out of it. From behind plant pots and long grass and gaps in the fence, hands and claws and tentacles reached up.

RRMMRRMMRRMM… RRMMRRMMRRMM…

The waves cut beyond the cottage to slice through Ponyville, unheard by the other ponies. Even pets didn’t do more than flick an ear before rolling over in their sleep. But the other creatures heard it.

Closet doors opened, nervously. Dark doorways shifted, uncertainly. Eyes under beds burned brightly, then flickered and blinked. Things with heads and things with too many heads and things with no heads at all heard the Summons. Felt it light a candle deep inside.

They answered.

Most pushed windows open and poured through the gap. Some snuck through keyholes or under doors. A few slipped through holes in rooftops or crept up chimneys. One enterprising creature flushed itself down a toilet.

All of them avoided the lights.

The streams became tributaries became rivers, all converging on one booming, summoning cottage.

They were the Monsters-Under-The-Bed.

Not monster monsters. Those lived in the Everfree Forest, and they paid no more attention to the waves of the gong than the pets and other animals did. Mere monsters were just magical animals themselves, still tangled up in the tight web of ecology, even if it was a web that spat sparks and occasionally turned into an orange.

But the Monsters-Under-The-Bed were… well, they were the Monsters under the bed. Or in the closet, or in the attic, or hiding in the shadows making weird faces at foals. They’d once had no higher purpose than to make it exceptionally hard for a child to get any sleep. To give the little ones nightmares.

That had been a long time ago. These days, in a brighter, happier Equestria, they just hung around.

Even now, traipsing towards the cottage, they moved listlessly. The Monsters-Under-The-Bed had never liked the light to begin with, and the modern world invaded the night with lamps, streetlights, and lanterns. Most had to zigzag along the route. The ones who passed by Sugar Cube Corner retreated from the ear-splitting laughter and whimpered along sideroads instead.

Theirs was a world burning away, bit by bit. They didn’t growl or roar or flex their talons or sidle up to anything menacingly. Not anymore. Each one of them had nothing but the same dull, vacant stare of a bum heading for the soup kitchen.

Yet their eyes lit up when they saw the cottage. For one night, for one precious night, they had something to look forward to. And best of all, they didn’t have to fish it out of the garbage first.

Deep in Sugar Cube Corner, someone else heard the Summons.

A drink was put down. A generous laugh settled into silence. A smile cut itself off. A cloak rose from its hook by the door and, billowing, enveloped its master.

On the way out, that master was accosted by Pinkie Pie, whose chicken costume now had streamers, cake frosting, and candy wrappers mixed in with the feathers. Quite a few ponies danced past, deafened by the music.

“Aw, you’re not leaving already, are you?” Pinkie squawked. “B’GACK! The fun’s just getting started!”

And in a level, royal voice, the guest responded: “We are afraid that the Duty calls Us. We must away, ere break of day. Therefore, We shall have to settle for one slice of fun to go.”

Bloo’s mother stood guard by the cauldron, watching the guests invade the cottage and infest the table. Or, as she’d put it, accepted her invitations and settled down for a delightful soiree among friends.

Squeaker stood guard by her, resembling nothing but a hunchbacked servant whose hunch had got the better of him. He nodded to a few familiar faces/antennae/mangled body parts, but otherwise remained professional.

Bloo capered by the door, keeping up a constant chatter.

“Hey, everyabomination! Welcome, welcome, please leave all coats and exoskeletons by the door, thank you! Gordy, hey buddy! The antlers are looking fabulous this evening! Muncher, hideous as ever! Cool! Largoroth, love the new snaggletooth: did you grow it yourself?”

One of the Monsters flapped a tentacle modestly.

From the cauldron, Bloo’s mother coughed. “Bloo?” she hissed out of the corner of her mouth. “Attend, if you please?”

“Coming, Mother! Ajfndzjohnjofn, you sly dog! Haven’t seen you in a long time! Still oozing a year later, I see! That’s a record! Please, please, take any seat you like! And remember, everyabomination: spoons are NOT part of the meal! We’re not made of cutlery, eh? Eh?”

“Bloo!”

“Sorry, be right back.” Bloo’s teeth gripped each other bracingly as she scurried over, then she remembered herself and walked over demurely, when she remembered what the word “demurely” meant. “Sorry, Mother.”

Her mother’s face sagged with saddened worry. “What are you doing?”

“I was trying to make them feel welcome, Mother.” Pinkie Pie does it, and it works. She’d never say that last part out loud, for fear of watching her mother wrestle with an unwelcome memory.

“A… commendable effort, but please try not to be so… so… familiar, will you?”

“Yes, Mother. Sorry, Mother.”

Beside them both, Squeaker’s face would have won a game of poker if anyone had dared let him play it.

Once the Monsters had sat/perched/sagged down wherever they were comfortable, Bloo’s mother levitated a spoon and gently rapped a glass she’d placed on the table beforehand specifically so she could gently rap it. The murmur and squawk of the Monsters died down.

“Thank you,” she said, but she caught the pleading look in a few compound/stalk eyes and hastily cut the speech she’d planned. “It gives us great –” she winced “– pleasure to welcome you to this year’s Full Moon Monsterfest. We hope you will –” she winced again “– enjoy tonight’s offering.”

That got a few appreciative gurgles and table-bangings. Most were just happy to smell the food.

“Please do not scuff the table,” added Bloo’s mother sharply.

The table-bangings stopped. One Monster had to be elbowed by his neighbour, and it gave an apologetic burble in reply.

A brief struggle held her face in place: she hadn’t been out of Canterlot for long, and the ancient desire to impress fought against the much stronger desire not to tempt fate. She glanced at her daughter, who at least now stood to attention proudly, and a piece of her soul gave in.

Bloo’s mother lit up her magic. Just this once.

And a stream of candy brew arced out of the cauldron, rose over the mismatched medley of heads, curled round at the end, and created the outline of a long, invisible tongue. From its edges, trickles rained down as neatly as strings on a harp, each one placed directly above a bowl. As one, the bowls filled up.

Several of the Monsters cheered, though that might have been simply because there was now food in front of them.

“As the common saying goes: Dig in!”

When the desperate chomping and gulping started, she added, “But politely!”

Monsters grinned, looking very sheepish for things that looked like they ate sheep for a living. A few wiped their mouths, suckers, and/or trunks. Spoons rose. Gentle sips and respectable bites took over.

Bloo’s mother allowed them a little murmur of talk, though she glared sharply if any modest chuckles turned into belly laughs. Then she turned to her daughter, who was levitating the ladle.

“Ahem,” she said.

Bloo closed her mouth instantly; the mouthful had been so close, so near, yet so far. “Sorry, Mother. Just wanted to taste-test it. In case it was too hot.”

“Be a dear and help Squeaker, will you? We must not keep our guests waiting.”

“Yes, Mother.”

To her credit, Bloo’s mother was no slouch in the catering department. As the cauldron emptied, she and her assistants went out the back to fetch more sacks of candy. Occasionally, she’d send Squeaker with the wheelbarrow to scout the town for more, on the basis that she could at least trust him to stay away from parties and not “taste-test” anything. As the guests slobbered and gulped, she and her assistants kept an eye out for missing bowls and spoons; any that couldn’t be recovered by sharp words and meaningful prods were replaced from the cupboards. As some Monsters finished faster than others, she and her assistants swooped in to ladle more candy brew into their bowls. As the first of the guests stepped away from the table to make room for stragglers and newcomers, she and her assistants offered seats, welcome, and free bowls.

It was a well-oiled machine, and it would have gone perfectly if Bloo hadn’t lapsed again.

“So anyway, a pegasus, a unicorn, and an earth pony walk into a –” she began saying.

“Bloo!”

Bloo winced; the Monster she’d been talking to hastily pretended to be fascinated by his bowl. “Yes, Mother?”

“I sincerely hope you are not joculating at the table.”

“Just telling a joke, Mother. I heard it from… somepony, Mother.” Pinkie Pie. The word didn’t need to be said to leave an echo in the air.

Bloo’s mother frowned. “Master Ajfndzjohnjofn does not wish to be disturbed while he eats, dear.”

Ajfndzjohnjofn raised a clawed hand and cowered slightly. “Act’ly, Missus Libertee, I quite like d’one abou’ der monkey and der trombone –”

Monsters up and down the table dropped their spoons. Several spluttered. Gulping, Ajfndzjohnjofn suddenly looked panicky.

Bloo’s mother took a deep breath that only showed how swellingly angry she was. “Miss Libertee, if you don’t mind!”

“Yeah, yeah, dat’s wot I fort I said,” rumbled Ajfndzjohnjofn, still cowering. “Did I say sumfin else?”

“I am not and never will be Missus Libertee!”

“Sorry, Missu– Sorry, Miss Libertee. Slip o’ der tongue, dere.”

He drained his bowl so fast he choked. Bloo’s mother – Miss Libertee – refilled it, though not nearly as generously as she had before. He took the hint and kept quiet after that.

She, on the other hoof, glowered at Bloo. “Please do not let me catch you joculating again, young lady. Familiarity breeds disrespect. Do I make myself clear?”

A quiet voice, somewhere around her daughter’s knees: “Yes, Mother.”

“Good. Now go help Squeaker. I think I hear the wheelbarrow returning. And no frivolity, please.”

“Yes, Mother.”

The polite silence twanged with straining muscles. Even Monsters don’t like to watch embarrassing family moments.

Miss Libertee’s Starlit Sanctuary for Monsters, Nightmares, Abominations, and Cabbages.

That was what the sign said, standing some way out from the cottage. Libertee – Bloo’s mother – had put it there herself, going so far as to give Bloo the hammer and planks, and then stand back and watch the whole thing very thoroughly in case any useful criticism turned out to be vital.

Oh, and the cabbages weren’t alive or anything like that. They were just the usual catering.

Then again, a Monster’s stomach could make do as a pretty good sanctuary. For one thing, no one would dare come looking for a cabbage there.

As Bloo and Squeaker wheeled the barrow round the back, though, someone watched them from afar.

A shadow fell across the sign. Clouds swirled overhead where before there had been clear night, rumbling hungrily. Lightning flashed, a lick of the lips.

Then – cloak billowing – the hooded snout of the stranger turned towards the cottage.

Bloo dragged the sack in and then immediately went back to serving Monsters without so much as a “hello”.

Libertee pretended not to see the whole thing as she stirred her brew. Occasionally, she broke ranks and glanced at her daughter. Cocked an ear as if listening to the absence of young chatter. Opened her own mouth. Closed it again. Hummed at her own impulses as though that would surely quash them. Turned back to the cauldron. Dutiful.

At one point, she finally broke ranks and called, “Bloo, dear?”

Dead-eyed, Bloo shuffled to her side, but one ear rose and looked up expectantly.

As if giving her a rare treat, Libertee handed her a bowl full of brew and whispered gently, “Give this to Squeaker, will you? He’s earned it for all his hard work.”

“Oh. Right. Yes, Mother.”

Libertee beamed as her daughter offered the bowl to Squeaker. That should cheer her up. After all, helping others was a tremendous source of joy and fulfilment, wasn’t it?

No smile bloomed on Bloo’s face, though, and after a while it faded from Libertee’s as well. She went back to stirring.

Still, she wasn’t completely foolish: she’d seen the brief flash of glee on her daughter’s face when she’d been called over. But a tribute to the Monsters and a treat to the foals were two different things, and Libertee had to guard that border. Especially since it fenced off the slippery slope from careless hooves. Things had to be careful. Things had to be right.

Libertee glanced again. Saw her daughter’s downcast eyes, threatening to leak what little lightness her heart had left. To be stuck forever in a pit.

But she also imagined Bloo in a hospital ward, lying swollen and trapped in her own body, wheezing and sleeping next to a machine that went beep… beep…

No, it had to be this way, not that one. Libertee stirred faster and faster, lips tight.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” muttered Bloo under her breath.

Head in the bowl and dribbling candy brew, Squeaker looked up. “Thorry, Mithth Bloo?”

“Not you, sorry. I mean, why can’t I have some? I’ve earned it, haven’t I? I’ve worked hard, haven’t I?”

“I’m thure your mother apprethiateth it.”

“The other foals don’t have to do stuff like that. They told me their families do the chores. They just have to do homework and that’s it.”

Squeaker’s face wasn’t built for expressing emotion, but he did tilt his head to show willing. Then he offered her the bowl.

“Want thome?” he lisped. “I don’t mind. Thinthe it’th mine, I can give it to a friend if I want. That’th how ownerthip workth. Thtandth to reathon.”

“No, I don’t think so.” Yet Bloo’s eyes reached out for the bowl. “Mother will just tell me off.”

“Thee meanth well.”

Bloo scowled at him. His head on its bendy neck backed off, even though there wasn’t much he could do with his eyebrows as far as looking sheepish went. He had too much arachnid in him to look even remotely like a sheep. Specially not when his fangs still dribbled.

Then she scowled at the candy brew dripping back into his bowl. She wanted to gobble up candy and run around and laugh and play on the grass like the other foals, who all had proper cottages to go back to and families who showed easy affection without worrying about any “laziness” infection.

And over there was her dishevelled mother, wearing her increasingly greasy robe from the heat and sticky fumes, and who was happier the cheaper her house looked, and who held her head higher the grubbier she looked. For a horrible moment, Bloo imagined herself at her mother’s age, standing over the same fuming cauldron, wearing the same stained robe.

Fuming herself, she went back to work.

Squeaker wolfed down his bowl and scuttled back to Miss Libertee’s side to help again. He didn’t think about the family much. Best not to. So long as he had his closet and the spiders, he was quite happy to serve. It sure beat waiting to scare a foal he had no interest in scaring.

“Necktht round, Mithth Libertee?”

“Thank you for your due diligence, Squeaker. You truly are a miracle.”

Proper ladylike too, he thought, and even his brain had overlarge fangs in it. That’th quality mannerth, that ith. I mutht have died and gone to heaven.

The front door went ding-dong.

“I’ll get it!” he cried out, not wanting his hosts to put themselves to any trouble. Monsters-Under-The-Bed often struggled to find a purpose, and so long as he had one and it involved closets, he was more than pleased to milk it for all it was worth. Milk of kindness, that is.

Odd though, he thought as he released the latch. What kind of monthter utheth the front door? Well, if it’th a pony, I’ll need an eckthcuthe. The old “I’m a midget playing drethth-up” eckthcuthe it thall be!

“A horrible night to you, thith fine Nightmare –” he began graciously, and then he saw who it was and nearly swallowed one of his tongues.

Lightning flashed.

“An odd greeting indeed. May We come in, fellow Nightmare?”

Bloo magically poured the floating brew into the bowl before she noticed Squeaker had scurried back into the dining room. He stood like an awkward guard of hunchbacked honour.

“Er, Squeaker?” she said. “Who is it?”

“Er…” said Squeaker, as though there was something heavy on his biggest tongue.

The Monster which Bloo had been serving looked up curiously, then did his neighbour, then did Monster after Monster. The chatter died down. Then Bloo realized a shadow had been standing beside Squeaker the whole time. Every single gaze focused on it.

Nearly every gaze. Bloo checked: at the cauldron, Libertee sipped, smacked her lips, sighed, looked up, froze wide-eyed, and dropped the ladle with a sad little splash.

Bloo looked back. Now every single gaze was focused on the shadow.

Which raised its head, throwing aside its hood, revealing the horn. Stars twinkled in its mane. A crown darkened its scalp. Around its neck, as though waiting for the opportune moment, a crescent-shaped broach shone brightly.

As one, the Monsters shot to their feet, or claws, or at least stopped stooping so much.

“Pray, be seated,” intoned the figure. Bloo nearly panicked as the voice echoed through her skull, morphing horribly into, “Prey, be seated.”

As one, the Monsters sat back down. Some moved so fast their posteriors caught fire. Others splashed themselves by accident.

Oh my gosh! Bloo felt the faint creeping over her sudden shock. It’s Her!

“Er…” said Squeaker, who’d had the horrible duty of answering the door, “Her Highnethth, Mithtrethth of the Night… Mare of the Moon… um…”

“Princess Luna,” the figure intoned, bowing her head. “At thy service.”

The Monsters were frozen like lambs before a wolf.

Bloo herself struggled silently. The other foals had talked about the legend of Nightmare Moon. Cannibal queens roaming the countryside at night tended to stick in the memory. Of course, her mother had dismissed it as idle superstition, but the superstition had just entered her house, and it didn’t look like it tolerated idleness of any kind.

To her credit, Libertee unfroze first. Even her cringing smile didn’t detract from the sheer nerve required.

“Aha,” she breathed. “Welcome, Your, Your, Your Highness.” She dropped a textbook curtsey, or what a curtsey would be like if someone shook the page whilst reading it. “P-please, please, take the, uh, the uh, the… uh…”

Bloo saw the problem at once and hastily, gently, urgently, politely ushered a couple of Monsters out of the chair at the head of the table. Before now, it had been a case of “sit wherever there’s room”.

Princess Luna waved a hoof – it had a sparkling shoe on the end. “Come now, let us not stand on ceremony…”

“Oh, no trouble at all, no trouble at all, Your Highness,” whittered Libertee in the fluty cheer of someone frightened for their own neck. “You, you, you are a g-guest, a-a-after all.”

“Thank you.” At least Luna knew when to bow to a host.

Bloo pulled the chair out for her, then stood even more awkwardly by her side than Squeaker, who lost his nerve and scuttled over to the cauldron. Presumably, this was so he could hide behind it.

Although the chair was little more than a cheap wooden stool, Princess Luna’s mere presence turned it into a throne. She did not merely sit down on it; she seated herself with the casual, balletic, powerful ease of a lioness after a good hunt. When her cloak vanished into bats, the revealed wings suggested an eagle that preferred to soar after dark.

Yet she seemed to be smiling. Amused with dignity, maybe, but her mouth definitely curved the right way up.

“What a welcome return,” she spoke. “How many moons have passed since last We partook in the Hallowed Holy Eve?”

It was amazing how many random places the Monsters could cast their gazes without anyone casting them towards Luna. Bloo and Libertee exchanged a puzzled silence between them.

“Um.” Bloo raised a hoof nervously. “Miss Luna?”

Luna nodded. “Speak, dear child.”

“Sorry. What’s Hallowed Holy Eve?”

Surprisingly, Luna seemed saddened by the question. “Why, this feast, if We are not much mistaken. Has the tradition not survived the centuries? Is this not the holy day of darkness?”

“Only we call it the Full Moon Monsterfest now.” Bloo looked at Luna’s puzzlement and added, “Sorry.”

“Yet here at the darkest hour, the Priestess of the Waxing Moon –” Luna indicated with a hoof the grubby white robe of Libertee, who now looked like she was seriously regretting her taste in fashion “– serves the Creatures of the Night, in order to placate and appease the dark powers of my realm. Surely, thou must know this?”

Bloo looked at her mother helplessly, who returned the favour and said, “We learned from a book, Your Highness.”

“Naturally. Speak you not of the Tome of Tenebrious, that most occult and obscure opus concerning the customs and ceremonies of the otherworld?”

“Er…” Wincing, Libertee glanced at Bloo. “Please bring me the book, won’t you, dear?”

Only too happy to put as much distance between a cannibal queen and herself, Bloo rushed upstairs and into her mother’s room. There was hardly anything in it, not even a bed – her mother prided herself on her ability to sleep using nothing but a layer of hay on the floor – but there was a small bookshelf that was a few inches away from becoming a box. Bloo snatched up the book and scurried back downstairs in case anything interesting had happened while she was away.

To her relief, her mother was still there and completely uneaten, though she looked like she wanted to disappear very fast. She was explaining something to Luna.

“– well, we did discover it, of course, in the local library. No one had taken it out for years, so when we learned the tradition had died out some time ago, well, it seemed only proper to revive it. And, of course, once we found Squeaker in the closet – I believe he was ill at the time – and the robe in some disarray, it seemed only right to… Oh, thank you, dear.”

Libertee took the book in a half-trance and offered it to Luna, who levitated it. She inspected the cover coolly for a little longer than was comfortable.

“I see,” was all she said.

“My apologies, Your Highness,” said Libertee in a voice seconds away from pleading not to be gobbled up, and she curtseyed again.

Handing the book back, Luna sighed. “Ah yes, times change. We are the Forgotten Ones.”

Her gaze took in the petrified fear of the Monsters-Under-The-Bed. For a moment, she seemed on the verge of losing her temper.

“Pray, continue eating,” commanded Luna.

The Monsters ate as ravenously as they could. If she’d commanded them to eat themselves to death, they’d have done it if it meant getting out of there faster.

“My Loyal Servants. If only –” Roughly, Luna coughed and waved a wing. Beyond the window, the sky lightened as the clouds withdrew. “Apologies. We find Our – ugh, I find my old habits do not die easily.”

“The, uh, book,” said Libertee, standing to attention beside the chair, “didn’t mention a guest of honor, I’m afraid. Um, Your Highness.”

“It appears to be a more recent edition.” Luna took and flicked through the book again. “Well, that explains why I do not see the Priestess of the Waning Moon as well. There should have been a black robe as well as a white one?”

“We never found it, Your Highness.”

“Quite. I daresay darkness became an unpopular color after certain… events. For we were terrible…” A light began to blaze in each eye. “…we were fear…” Her horn shimmered too. “…we were the ones beyond love, so we chose to make them fear us…”

Perhaps Bloo’s fears were clouding her eyes; around them, the Monsters darkened. Grew. Spikes slid silently out of nowhere. Teeth sharpened. Hunched figures became hulking walls of doom. The voice of the queen became the chant of her realm.

“…we came from the nightmares… we invaded the world… we tormented from cradle to grave, we made sure of their fear, we dared them to forget us, we ruled the night…”

Even Squeaker – corrupted – crawled with a thousand spiders for his skin. Bloo rushed to hide behind her mother, who tried to shield her with her legs.

Then the Nightmares faded, becoming just… Monsters-Under-The-Bed. The Thing That Was Squeaker was just… Squeaker again, blinking in confusion. The Queen of the Night dimmed her own lights, returning to just… Luna.

Once more, she looked glum. “Of course, that is ancient history now. My poor, abandoned subjects. May I sample the dish of the night?”

Libertee blinked out of her horrified trance. “I beg your pardon?”

“I wish to partake in the feast, whatever be its name in these modern times.”

“Yes, of-of course!” Barely a few seconds passed before Libertee returned with a full bowl. “Erm, pray take this, um…”

Luna waved her down. “No need to stand on ceremony. My punctuality is unbecoming of a princess. Pray, let us engage in… the small of the talk.”

Bloo scratched her own scalp. “You mean small talk, Your Highness?”

“Yes. An odd phrase, is it not? It puts me in mind of whispers and modest speech, not banal trivia.”

Tense as stretched rope, Bloo and Libertee watched Luna take a sip. The smack of the lips could’ve been a royal blessing or a death sentence.

Perhaps Luna noticed, because she opened one lazy eye, twitched the corner of her lip, and gave an almighty belch.

Libertee’s mouth fell open.

After the shock, several Monsters started a belching contest up and down the table. One got the wrong idea and farted.

“The stomach sends its regards,” spoke Luna, winking at Bloo. She turned to Libertee. “An excellent brew. Much better than the tribute to which I was formerly accustomed.”

Blushing, Libertee curtseyed out of sheer nerves. Bloo had to fight back a laugh; if anyone else had tried belching like that, they’d had gotten an earful before the echoes died away.

“Of course, in those olden days,” continued Luna, raising another spoonful, “I was truly known as a Night Mare.”

No sound but her gentle sip and the flapping of two unicorns’ lips trying to work this one out under their breaths.

“That,” explained Luna grimly, “was a pun, or play on words. I was never very skilled at them, myself. A lost art: I suppose my ’art wasn’t really in it.”

She looked at them expectantly. They returned the look.

“That was also a pun, or play on words,” she added helpfully.

Whereas Libertee shrugged helplessly.

“Sorry,” said Bloo. “I don’t get it.”

“Neither do I,” admitted Luna with a sigh. “I sense my source for humorous wordplay was not entirely reliable.”

The room darkened, especially around Libertee’s face. “Source?” she asked, apparently out of innocence.

Surprised, Luna blinked at her. “Why, the young voice of Ponyville, Madam Pinkie Pie. Know you not such a popular figure – as I understand her to be – among the Ponyvillian crowd?”

“Never met her,” lied Libertee coldly.

Bloo wasn’t surprised. Her mother had always been opposed to “forwardness”, and Pinkie was so forward she constantly got ahead of herself. Still, Bloo always wondered what her Ponyvillian life would have been like if they hadn’t been greeted like that. To her mother, it had come as shocking proof that overindulgence skulked around in strange disguises.

However, for all that she hadn’t been around long, Luna was clearly wise enough to notice the ancient chilliness in the air. She gave Libertee a puzzled look.

“I have said something wrong?” she asked.

“No, Your Highness,” said Libertee, levitating another bowlful of candy brew even though Luna hadn’t finished hers yet. “You must forgive us. We are relative strangers to Ponyville as well.”

“But we met Pinkie –” Bloo began, then she got a sharp warning glare from her mother. Something started to burn in Bloo’s chest. Even by her everyday standards, her mother was acting more… more her than usual.

“My forebears,” continued Libertee stiffly, stirring the bowl, “came from the House of Savoy Cabbage. An ancient and proud lineage.”

And an obscure one, if Luna’s inspection of the ceiling was any proof. Then she said, “I fear I have not heard of this House before. It is not native to Equestria?”

“No! Although my hus… although Bloo has Canterlot ancestry in her blood, my side of the family came from further afield. Before we came to Canterlot, we were royalty in Frankoponi!”

Confused, Luna took in the dishevelled mane, the grubby white robe, the general poverty of the wood leaning around them, and finally at the defiant haughtiness of Libertee.

“I see royal practices have changed,” she said politely, “since last We were here.”

Bloo sparked and fumed in silence. Her mother hardly ever trotted out the story of her royal blood, but it always wrong-footed her – Bloo – every time. One moment, Libertee seemed proud of her noble ancestors, then next moment, she seemed too embarrassed to mention them.

The House of Savoy Cabbage hadn’t actually reigned all that long – only a couple of centuries – before running off and hiding among the gentry of Canterlot. There had been a few decent eggs in the batch, but most had been more interested in buying Fabergé eggs than in making sure their country didn’t get scrambled.

Perhaps boasting about royal ancestry these days didn’t impress much when they’d ultimately gone into exile out of selfish stubbornness. As far as Bloo understood it – she’d read up on the country when her mother wasn’t looking – the small Kingdom of Frankoponi had apparently gotten fed up with their monarchs’ constant feasts and celebrations and livery and excessive collections of designer coaches.

The ultimatum had been: either tone down the extravagance or be replaced by a House that would. But as far as the House of Savoy Cabbage were concerned, there was a good party going on in Equestria and they were going to gate-crash it. If it meant leaving the crown behind, well, it was that kind of party.

None of this was obvious from Libertee’s current look, which suggested a rag merchant who’d thrown a dress together out of dirty dishcloths and rope. Certainly, Bloo had never seen royalty whenever she’d looked in a mirror. Royalty – like mead, Morris dancing, and fifteen minutes of fame – had been and gone a long time ago. Though not that long ago: just long enough that Luna would have been too busy being banished to meet anyone.

“And what of you, child?”

Luna’s crowning eyebrows beseeched Bloo, who replied, “I just –”

Then stopped. Her silent fume became billows of smoke. Why did she always have to put fences around herself?

“She assists me,” said Libertee, stepping forward.

Without turning around, Luna raised a hoof to stop her. That was all the signal Bloo needed to continue, and she leaped upon it like a blaze to an opening door.

Giving her mother’s outraged gape a defiant look, Bloo said in a rush, “I like to make ponies happy when I can. And Monsters,” she added, nodding to the silently chewing faces watching her. “It’s a special talent. I know a couple of spells.”

“Indeed?”

“Only –” Bloo’s defiance tightened her face “– I haven’t done any magic like that in a long time.”

“There are more fulfilling ways to –” Once again, a raised hoof silenced Libertee.

Luna regarded Bloo with interest, even admiration. She might have been admiring the flames of passion that Bloo felt tearing up her own veins. If it got any worse, she’d have to move out of her own skin.

Then Luna said, “May I enjoy a demonstration?”

That caught Bloo off-guard, but not for long. Suddenly, defiance was harder to pull off when she had to put on a show out of nowhere.

“Er…” she said.

“It is entirely at your discretion, of course.”

Which sealed the deal as far as Bloo was concerned. At once, she sized up the rows and ranks of Monsters, most of whom glanced nervously back or took an immediate and suspicious interest in their food.

“Squeaker?” she called out.

From the other side of the room, Squeaker’s muttering conversation with a stilt-legged camel-like beast rapidly got out of the way of his scuttling limbs.

“Yeth, Mithth Bloo?” he lisped, eyeing Luna as though approaching an idle panther.

“Er… you don’t mind if I… show off a spell, do you?”

“One of the old oneth?”

“Only I’ll need a volunteer.”

“Not thure I can find one of thothe on thort notithe, Mithth Bloo, tho I guethth I’ll have to fill in. If that’th OK with you?”

Bloo glared at her mother’s helpless silent plea and ignored the subtle headshake. “Yes. Princess Luna, I’m going to do the cheer-me-up charm!”

No one reacted.

“If that’s OK with you?” Bloo added, for Squeaker’s benefit.

“Wouldn’t be here if it wathn’t,” lisped Squeaker cheerfully.

“All right. Here goes nothing.”

Bloo hadn’t tried the spell in a long time. Her mother had said it was bad luck to make ponies feel any emotion unnaturally. It’d invite bad influences, she’d said. That wasn’t so scary when an influence as bad as Luna was already sitting there sipping candy. It was like worrying about wet feet in a tidal wave.

For almost a minute, she concentrated on Squeaker.

Most of that meant smoothing out the creases in her mind and warming up her brain with confused, frantic thoughts. How did it go? How did it go…? Ah, now it was coming back to her. Like caramel oozing over a biscuit base, the spell turned her dryness into something rich and layered and exciting again.

A little was left for Squeaker himself. Monster or not, he had simple ambitions and an uncomplicated mind. The first few tendrils of magic from her horn danced over his calm face and came back with nothing worse than a slight tension every time he glanced at Luna.

Well, it was something to work with.

Bloo focused on the tension, sensing it weep and bleed. Her spell cupped beneath it, capturing the essence before it could splatter over anything else. She raised it, gripping the tension from underneath, and squeezed and squashed and stretched and tightened her hold over it. Soon, she had it wrapped and quarantined.

Not enough.

She dreaded the next part: for the spell to work, it wasn’t enough to force happiness onto Squeaker. His mind would reject it as alien. Instead, she fished around briefly inside his heart, looking for a happy memory. Something he could give to himself.

Fortunately, he had plenty: mostly recent ones. Squeaker’s first day with the family would do nicely. Libertee, in a moment of trying to be nice even to those with too many eyes, had ended up inviting him to dinner. He’d been so pleased to learn he didn’t have to move out that he’d even volunteered his services washing up the plates. And somehow Libertee’s slight but noticeable apprehension around him had turned into a joke that made her relax after that. No one remembered who’d told the joke or what it was, but Squeaker’s sense of drifting through a dull world had faded away.

And… Bloo opened her eyes.

Behind the fangs, Squeaker’s smile looked vacant. She hated that. It always seemed like she’d taken something from him. It had definitely spooked her mother into forbidding further spells.

But then a bit of focus jolted his legs and neck to life, and he licked his eyes with his tongues. “Thankth. I’d forgotten that one.”

“You don’t mind?” said Bloo.

Squeaker gave her a blank look, or as blank a look as a long-fanged, multi-eyed, big-eyebrowed spider-beast could manage. “Er… no? Why would I?”

Hooves clopped together at a slow tempo: Luna applauded in a dignified manner, as though congratulating a well-structured political summit.

“What commendable skill,” she announced. “Such a talent is a gift; not one to be wasted.”

To Bloo’s surprise, and certainly Luna’s, Libertee coughed loudly and drew herself up. “Aha,” she said, without any trace of mirth or merriment, “unless you wish to spend the rest of your life constantly watching yourself for flaws. The body’s humors must not be disturbed by outside forces.”

“We know not what thou meanst,” said Luna, impatience crystallizing in the air. “Although We knew this spell by the classical name De Calice Benevolentiae, yet its providential nature as the heart and art of physic cannot be denied.”

“Forgive me!” snapped Libertee; she’d locked Bloo’s head in an iron staring contest. “But we have found more fulfilling ways of helping those less fortunate than ourselves. Haven’t we, dear?”

Bloo and a thousand Bloos before her recoiled, yet the new flame of old ransacked her head in outrage. Thoughts were driven out like squatters. She hadn’t done a spell like that in years, she hadn’t come face-to-face with someone as bold and commanding as Luna before, and now she felt like a forgotten foal coming back to the present, her mother was not going to take this away from her!

“You have,” she muttered.

Her mother looked as though she’d been slapped. “I am willing,” she declared with wounded dignity, “to overlook that outburst, Bloo. I have been teaching you the joys and delights of simple work, but I see it has been difficult for you all the same, and despite my better nature, I am willing to put up with a certain amount of… laxness.”

“What, you mean I’ll get to play with my friends sometime in the next hundred years?”

Even Bloo had no idea where that had come from. For a moment. The instant she said it, though, it suddenly was the only thing that made sense to her.

“It is good,” said Libertee through gritted teeth, “to control yourself, Bloo. Discipline is how we rise above ourselves. There are many dangers for innocent children – you have no idea what the merest slip can do –”

“So I’m just supposed to be happy serving slop in a stupid old house all my life!?” Bloo’s mouth had run across the burning bridge, and now the worst had happened, she saw no point in going anywhere but forward. “No friends, no fun, no games, no anything. I’m just supposed to be your slave, am I?”

“Bloo you’re being ridiculous stop it!” Libertee closed her eyes and took a long, calming breath. Her smile wobbled. “There’s a quiet joy in making the most of poverty. Here, you’ll be safe. You’ll be careful. And you’ll find the true happiness in the little things, which is much, much deeper than any parties and buffoonery can be. Your very soul –”

Bloo stamped her hoof. The words were trying to stop the fire burning. Suddenly, she wanted nothing more than to burn and burn until she burned out or exploded.

“Why do I have to do what you want to do!? I don’t see the other foals living like you do!”

“But they’re different, and they’re at risk of succumbing to –”

“Well, the grown-ups do it too, and I don’t see anything bad happen to them! They’re happy all the time, Mother! They could be happier than us! And they don’t have to throw away everything fun to do it! Pinkie Pie –”

“Do not speak that name in my house!”

Bloo didn’t just stamp her hoof again; she stamped forward, all thought of restraint evaporating. “PINKIE PIE! PINKIE PIE! PINKIE PIE!”

“You’re being childish!”

“Or what? Is my aura gonna shrivel up? You just don’t like her because she proves you’re wrong!”

“She’s a gluttonous… overbearing… uncontrolled… insincere…” Words struggled up Libertee’s throat. “…dangerous fool! You will learn nothing worthwhile from the likes of her!”

“She’s not dangerous! She does everything I want to do, and she’s not dangerous! She’s not! She’s not! She’s NOT DANGEROUS!” Bloo felt as though she couldn’t be shocked anymore, and still she felt a fresh wave of shock as tears pushed their way through her eyes.

“She’s just like your father!” Libertee’s face, already blazing hot, seemed on the verge of cracking like terracotta. “He was a good-for-nothing layabout! Well, now we’re finally rid of him, and you are not dragging his evil back into our lives, or so help me I will – I will, so help me! I will – I! Will! Take! Steps!”

“Fine! Ground me! Like I’d notice the difference!”

Both mother and daughter faced each other down, each an inch from the other’s nose, neither backing down.

“It is my duty to keep you safe!” yelled Libertee.

“Then why do you keep doing it with so many dumb rules!?” squealed Bloo. “What’s so bad about having candy and having fun!? It’s insane!”

“You want to aspire to be nothing more than a feckless animal!? You think that’s what you really want deep down!?”

“Well, I don’t want to be you! Not in a million years!”

“YOU ARE NOT GOING OUT THE SAME WAY AS YOUR FATHER!”

That was how the dam burst. One second, Libertee was incandescent. The next, she’d gone out.

She fell to her knees, breaking the stare. Her shoulders fought not to quake, but not as hard as her lips fought to stay shut. Then the sobs started. It was as if she was being hit in the stomach, each strike harder than she could bear. Hastily, she wiped her eyes, even now refusing to break ranks.

Bloo’s rage dwindled and died. She stood there, confused, hot without a flame, left utterly in the dark.

“You’re not,” gasped Libertee between suppressed sobs. “I’m not – I’m not going – through that – not again –” Ashamed, she covered her face.

And a memory came to Bloo in the dark. A memory of a hospital bed, and the beeping of the monitor, and the rolls of sickly flesh on the pillow that she’d glanced at once and then refused to look at again. At the time, she’d thought her father had been pulling one of his nastier pranks. She hadn’t understood why her mother had been so loud – it wasn’t like her at all – or why her mother had later frogmarched her out of Canterlot and out of the old palatial home, or why her mother had – for a long time afterwards – insisted on being alone at random times.

Bloo felt nothing. It hardly seemed like a memory, even now. More like a bad dream.

While the argument raged, the Monsters-Under-The-Bed backed away from it. A few carried bowls with them and slurped, but none of them wanted to get anywhere near the bombing words. They were creatures of metaphor: a fight like an inferno was no joke to them, especially the ones who melted slightly if they strayed too close.

Squeaker hung around at the front of the crowd, shuffling his many feet and wishing he could hang around at the back. He’d never seen either of his hosts argue like this before. Come to think of it, he’d never seen them argue at all. Bloo had gotten by on a lifetime of “Yes, Mother” and that had been that.

He felt a presence next to him and looked up at Luna. No one had seen her move. She could flow like a shadow whenever she wanted.

“Er…” he said. Apart from the rage blazing over there, he wasn’t too happy about having a dark presence so close to him either.

Luna said nothing. She watched the argument… No, she studied it. Her face held no further emotion than was needed to weigh up what it was seeing, but it was cut with hard-edged calculation.

“Thouldn’t we do thomething?” asked Squeaker, in the tones of someone hoping the answer was “no”.

The shouting grew louder. Panic among the Monsters scattered the smaller ones; many bolted for holes, windows, gaps under doors –

“Nightmares, attend to me!” bellowed Princess Luna.

Yanked back on invisible leashes, the Monsters… once before the Nightmares… clustered behind her. The motley crew might’ve looked more impressive if they hadn’t been shaking and biting their own nails/claws/tentacles in terror.

Then out of nowhere, Luna added, “So We can see…”

Squeaker’s nerves tried to attract his attention as he squinted at Libertee and Bloo. “Thee what, Your Highnethth?”

Instantly, he regretted it; Luna’s glower speared him. Her eyes were almost pure darkness. No gaze could escape those black holes.

“We have need of your eyes, fellow Nightmare.” Luna’s horn pointed at the table before her. “Formation!”

The Voice. Their Mistress’s Voice.

Squeaker’s legs obeyed before his brain knew what was happening. Ah, he realized – somewhere inside his knotted terror – jutht like the old dayth.

It came back to him. It came back to them all. The assembled army straightened up.

Young Equestria had faced many enemies, some keen to make sure it never grew old. Princess Luna had not believed, as her sister had, that evil could be burned out of the shadows. Some breeds of evil hid in places no light could find. So she’d sent the darkness after them.

She’d always had a tie to the world of dreams. The order of the soul was her sister’s domain; the chaos of the mind had been hers. From that domain, she’d recruited Nightmares. She’d sent eyes to scout, flocks to follow, hellhounds to track, and phantoms to haunt. She’d used their insights to weigh her prey, she’d used their knowledge to peer into hearts, she’d learned the secrets from the smarter ones. Then she’d sent her soldiers.

None of them had been popular, but then their enemies hadn’t won any contests either. Besides, when it came to vanquishing foes, the Princess of the Night was ruthlessly efficient. Princess Luna and her Nightmare Army.

Eventually, because being unpopular for a long time can take its toll, she too had become just another enemy. Nightmares who’d fought to protect children now became the worst things they’d ever faced, because those self-same Nightmares could see into their hearts. After all, that was where they’d come from.

As soon as Luna was banished to the moon, however, the Nightmares lost everything. Mind. Body. Soul. Strangers in reality.

Some fled to the world of dreams, becoming nothing more than transient memories again. Others clung to life, but suddenly had nothing to do with it. Their purpose had gone. They didn’t live anymore; they existed. They didn’t even have old age to look forward to. They had instinct enough to flee into the cracks and crevices, perhaps scuttle from bolthole to bolthole during the night, and that was all.

Squeaker shivered on the table where he stood.

He’d known one Monster who’d shared the closet with him, counting the days and nights as if something – anything – would happen if they hit a big enough number. Then one day, she ventured out into the sunshine and never came back. For years, he’d had nothing but a horrible growing fear that he’d inevitably go mad and do the same thing.

Behind him, Luna whispered an incantation, then spoke aloud: “We shall have need of your eyes, Squeaker.”

“Um… OK?”

Once she finished her incantation, the world… changed.

Luna’s eyes glowed. Squeaker had just enough time to glance back and see where the light was coming from before the shack vanished around him. Endless night, endless space, endless time, and hardly any stars.

Just him, the Nightmares, Luna, and – yes, when he checked, there were Libertee and Bloo. They’d stopped arguing. Now they were slumped over.

His eight eyes caught fire.

Yellow and red stripes stopped rushing across his eyes, held steady, then rushed in the opposite direction. Yellow faded to blue; red faded to green. The colours of harsh sunsets became those of bright skies and summer grass. Happy, joyful colours. Colours he didn’t trust.

His long green eyebrows, hitherto waving overhead, now curled over as antennae. He’d been one of Luna’s youngest weapons, when she’d needed to know how to counter her sister’s light powers. Nightmares could be flexible.

He saw.

Then he properly and completely saw.

From Bloo’s heart grew a loud, roaring fire. Flames whipped and lashed out at the air around it, flailing about for fuel.

It was nothing to her mother’s, however: there, an intense blue purged her from the inside-out. Shapes flickered within the wall of rushing roars. Wings. Beaks. Darker patches for eyes.

“Nightmareth?” said Squeaker. He bit his lip; his voice had never echoed like that before.

Even though she was right behind him, Squeaker felt Luna shake her head. In fact, if he wasn’t losing his mind, he swore he’d seen her do it through the back of his own head.

“Daylights,” intoned Luna.

“What?”

“They are Daylights. Nightmares lurk in darkest fear. Daylights rise from burning stress.”

Several of the Nightmares howled and cowered. Mainly the older ones: Squeaker spotted Ajfndzjohnjofn, and he saw how much greater and darker the ancient terror was in his true form. Even such an impressive beast as he, however, had covered his face and screamed into his claws.

“What’th wrong with them?” As he spoke, Squeaker noticed his own fangs growing longer, slurring his speech more.

“They remember the war against Our sister,” explained Luna dispassionately, managing to make several echoes sound collectively bored. “Hast thou ever heard the phrase, ‘To scare the Daylights out of somepony?’”

“Yeth.”

Luna’s grin was worse than any scowl. “That was us.”

Squeaker watched the flaming birds – and now other, sharper beasts rose from the flames – struggle and flap and screech in apparent agony. Libertee and Bloo were frozen statues.

Now it made sense to him. They’d never feared each other – not especially – but fear usually lurked in the dark, where a pony had time to contemplate and stew. This was stress: everyday stress, ordinary stress, stress in broad daylight where you didn’t notice you were living through it because it was your life, burning away in anger and shame and barely controlled panic until one day, the pile of fuel was too great to save.

He stared down the flames of the Daylights. His own dark essence trembled.

Snarling, he charged.

“HALT!”

All eight legs skidded. That had been no simple order. The Voice had Commanded Him.

“But we can’t let –” he began.

“Return!”

Grudgingly, slowing his own limbs down, Squeaker walked backwards and held his position.

“What are you going to do, Your Highnethth?” he asked, trying to sound respectful whilst barely keeping a collar on his urge to charge.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing!?”

Luna’s eyes stopped glowing; she sat down calmly. “This is not our domain.”

“But it’ll conthume them!”

A smile landed butterfly-soft on Luna’s lips. “Perhaps. Perhaps not.”

Without her incantation, Squeaker’s eyes slowly faded back to their usual yellow and red. In desperation, he squinted at the increasingly invisible flames of both Bloo and Libertee. Something seemed to be happening.

“Thou hast found thy ancient spirit, fellow Nightmare,” intoned Luna. “Squeaker,” she corrected herself. “Yet there is a time and an occasion to restrain it.”

A battle did indeed rage inside his chest, but Squeaker’s essence wearily shrank back. He’d spent too many centuries doing nothing.

He sighed and sat down like his Mistress, delayed because he had to coordinate so many more legs than her.

“Yeth, Your Highnethth.” But he never once took his eyes off the two gathering figures.

Around Luna, the other Nightmares sat and watched, all transfixed. Ajfndzjohnjofn gave a cheer first, before the others had cottoned on.

Said Luna in her quietest voice, “I have faith.”

Bloo sat still. A dull filly on a bare floor in a cold room of her cheap house with a mother pouring tears into her own hooves.

Deep within, the rebellious fire she’d wanted for so long died down. The trouble with flames of passion was that they left so many ashes. All she felt were the grains of grit and powder dirtying her insides.

She’d never seen her mother cry before. She’d never seen her mother as anything other than the master of the house. She only remembered her mother’s intense anger at her father, and that had been a life ago.

She didn’t understand what was going on. All she knew was that her mother was crying, and that she absolutely shouldn’t.

For more minutes than she could count, Bloo concentrated on her mother.

The power came easily. Every cell in her body wanted to do it. Magic rolled as smooth and colourful as the candy brew her mother had sent flying over their heads, something very un-Libertee that Libertee had nevertheless done. So much energy oozed out of Bloo that she briefly panicked and cried out for her mother to pull her free. She indulged in power. Ran hot with it. Felt it fold itself over and over.

Was it too much? At a thought, she sent some of the magic back down. The flooding weight became a gentle lapping wave around her.

She cast the cheer-me-up charm.

Bloo focused on her mother’s mind. Fears and pains darted like spooked fish, anger swelled out of the depths and sent her tumbling, apprehension floated by – too scared to move, too confused to fight against the current. Guesses about the waxing future met desperate attempts to claw back the waning past. Tendrils of young magic found themselves snapped up and swirled around in complex patterns of spiralling, darting, zigzagging, looping thoughts.

To Bloo’s shock, she found a child in there.

A child’s mind, lost and wandering. Sometimes it’d grow and merge with the rest of her mother’s mind, but then it suddenly cried out and drew back into itself as though stung. Bloo heard the clatter of platters and smelled delicious things – sugars of the nose, salts and spices, textures to run a tongue ragged, flavour… overwhelming, salivating flavour. She didn’t dare close her mouth, in case she accidentally swallowed the sumptuous food, destroyed all trace of it…

NO!

The thought was not hers. It yanked her out of childhood. Someone’s childhood.

But Bloo’s spell was made of sterner stuff. She clung on, searching for the place where the sobbing came from. She looked for one spot, one simple spot, and slowly it dawned on her that there might not be one.

Her mother’s mind grew hotter and hotter. Bloo felt it as a slight prickle at first, but then she couldn’t keep still comfortably. The water around her prodded her skin all over and all the time. Furious, she closed in on it… and the heat faded. Cool, calm chill settled down. She could swim again.

Not enough. This was never going to be enough. Her mother’s mind was too big and too complex. It was like trying to plug an ocean.

Bloo gasped.

Then she swore she heard her name: Bloo…

Bloo, dear…

Bloo…

Ignore it. A memory. She needed a happy memory. Something safe to help her mother smile again.

Bloo!

Not the first one she found: that was her mother telling her to clean the house. The memory was technically happy, but it was full of the wrong kind of happy. Full of self-satisfied pride. Bloo swam on.

Not the second one she found either: that was her mother deliberately not eating a cake she’d bought just to test herself by not eating cake. There’d been a twinge of pain in that one, and Bloo didn’t trust it.

Not the third, fourth, or fifth ones either: Bloo found her mother admiring the run-down bedroom of her new house right as a ceiling plank fell out, avoiding the neighbours for a lonely walk in Whitetail Woods, tilling the earth in her pathetic but enthusiastic attempt to grow her own wheat crop. Those were the younger ones. The more recent ones.

The older ones were… strange.

They should have come from another pony. It was Libertee who remembered the banquet shared with rich ponies. It was Libertee who’d talked and laughed and drank and puffed sticks of hay endlessly in massive drawing rooms full of paintings. It was Libertee who wore dresses like a one-mare costume drama complete with powdered wig, who showed her clothes off to her flabby husband in his nest of pillows and cushions, who winced a little but laughed with him as he harshly told jokes that Bloo didn’t understand the words to.

Bloo ignored them. They looked like what bright colours would look if they’d been tainted over time.

She couldn’t find a single old memory that was untainted. The happy ones always had some spark of pain or uncertainty or worse. Even the recent ones in the cheap wooden house felt strained.

Yet as she watched, she realized she was being watched.

A memory weaved itself in front of her. It felt… nice. Perfect. Wonderful. Untainted.

Pure.

Bloo saw herself over and over. An infinity mirror of the here and now, watching its own memory form.

She reached out and touched it. She let the magic feed it. She watched it grow. Reflections of reflections of reflections watched back, surrounded by that gentle, moonlit glow of contemplation.

The perfect memory was the one of right now. Not a moment that would last. A moment that would last just long enough.

Made of infinite radiant mirrors, her mother’s world turned pure white. With cheer.

And… Bloo opened her eyes.

Bloo blinked a few times, and the reflections became a memory somewhere at the back of her head.

The lovely feeling faded. She looked up, dreading the vacant smile. Instead…

Her mother had never smiled so beautifully before. It wasn’t a dark smile, like a haunted midnight; it was a smile of peace and quiet, tucked away in a corner of the world. Stars glittered down her cheeks.

Her mother wiped her own cheeks, sighed, and kissed her daughter on the nose. The touch pressed softer than the fuzz of a landing moth. It flew away too soon.

Then her mother jolted back to life, stood up shakily, and once more became Libertee.

Around them, relieved sighs and hearty applause broke out. The Monsters-Under-The-Bed murmured and burbled their approval. Squeaker scuttled over and stood next to them as though awaiting further instructions; his expression, as ever, was hard to read.

Princess Luna coughed. Everyone fell silent. Bloo and Libertee stood to attention, blushing.

The Princess of the Night nodded to the window, where the sky was lightening.

Nightmare Night was almost over.

“Well, that went well, didn’t it?” said Squeaker.

“Do you think Princess Luna will be back next year?” whispered Bloo, whilst the Monsters filed past towards the door.

“I guethth tho. I could do without the drama, though, no offenthe to Her Highnethth.”

“Why? That wasn’t her fault, was it?” Bloo watched as her mother at the door graciously passed compliments and other good manners to each departing guest.

Squeaker shifted uncomfortably as though his feet were on splinters, and then leaned over to whisper in her ear. “Don’t tell a thoul I thaid thith, but Luna’th bad luck. All thortth of uneckthpected thingth happen when thee’th around.”

“Do they, fellow Nightmare?”

Squeaker yelped halfway down from his jump. Bloo couldn’t help laughing at how quickly he’d launched himself into the air to begin with. Doubly so when they both caught sight of Luna’s smile.

“At ease, Squeaker,” she said in normal tones.

“Yeth, Your Highnethth,” mumbled Squeaker, going red. “I’d managed jutht that a moment ago, Your Highnethth.”

“Good. To be at ease in a ceaseless world is no mean feat. Cherish it.”

“Yeth, Your Highnethth.”

Luna turned to Bloo, who felt the urge to back away but held herself firm. Even with a smile on her lips and the light of day on the horizon, Luna managed to loom in a shadow of her own making.

“Bad luck, good luck,” she said, distracted by the dawn. “It depends on how you look.”

“I’m sorry, Your Highness?” said Bloo. Beside her, Squeaker took an undetected hint and bustled off to clear the table.

“Tell me, child: do you fear me?”

They met eye-to-eye. Bloo thought it best not to lie to those eyes. You couldn’t hide anything in the dark from the dark.

“A little bit,” she admitted.

“So you should. Your fear tells you something about the danger I possess. Listen to your fear, child, but do not be its slave. Fear is an excellent servant, but a foolish master.”

“Bloo,” said Bloo.

“I beg your pardon?”

“My name is Bloo, Your Highness. Not ‘child’. Bloo.”

But she had gone too far. The coldness in those eyes told her she had –

Then Luna laughed. It was not a loud, hearty laugh, like summer. It was a sharp, imperious laugh, like winter. It was still a laugh.

“Yet you do not flee,” continued Luna as though pointing out an interesting bird in the bushes. “You stand before the Princess of the Night and feel true fear, yet you do not flee.”

Bloo frowned. “I don’t understand… erm… Your Highness? Do you want me to be scared of you, or don’t you?”

“Yes.”

And Bloo sensed that was all the answer she was going to get. Perhaps it’d make sense later, when she was older. Her mother always liked to tell her that whenever she didn’t understand something.

“A good moon always has two sides, ch– Bloo. Watch one side, but do not forget to watch the other, or you will soon believe it does not exist.”

“Er… thank you, Your Highness?” Bloo curtseyed, wishing she could reply in some way to what she’d just heard.

Luna bowed her head and moved on, leaving Bloo to help Squeaker put the dishes away.

At the backdoor, Libertee curtseyed and waved off the flapping Monster before turning to Ajfndzjohnjofn. Now she looked at him anew, she noticed the greying tips of his tentacles and the slight stoop in his back. She’d never really noticed before that some of them were learning old age.

“Wot an hexcellent brew, Miss Lib’tee,” he rumbled through a toothy grin. “Loved it.”

“Thank you, Ajfndzjohnjofn,” she said, curtseying again. She never got tired of curtseying to others; each one was a poke in the eye to her older self.

“Oh, if yer int’rested: me ol’ mate Bjonjlfeml recommended addin’ a noice blood sacrifice. To enhance the flavor, see?”

“Uh… huh…” Libertee’s smile wavered, and she looked at her own outstretched forelimb.

“But, you know, it’s great enough withou’ it.” Ajfndzjohnjofn laughed and lumbered a few steps, then added, “Giss a call if’n you need any ’elp round the place. It’un be tricky on your own sometimes.”

“How very generous of you. Thank you.” Libertee’s smile came back in full force, and once more she curtseyed him off.

When she turned around, she saw as far as the undulating mane of stars and then hastily burned and looked away. That patch of grass could use a trim, she forced herself to think.

“I disagree,” said Luna as though resuming a prior chat. “Blood sacrifices tend to thin the brew too much. I’d recommend powdered bone. It better preserves the texture.”

Libertee’s already-weak laugh died when Luna didn’t join in.

A laugh from inside the house turned her round; Bloo was pantomiming some funny walk by the table, to appreciative chuckles from Squeaker. The sight made Libertee’s already-enflamed cheeks burn more sharply.

Libertee couldn’t help asking: “She won’t turn out like her father, will she?”

“Do you wish her to do so?”

Libertee shook her head, which failed her and turned back to examining the patch of grass. She wasn’t sure if she was being advised or told off.

“Do you know how to do so?” continued Luna.

“I… I thought I did.”

“I understand there are lots of ways to not turn out like her father,” said Luna drily. “It is unwise to create danger where none exists.”

Libertee clenched her jaw. “I’m sorry you had to see that, Your Highness.”

“I was quite impressed.”

They heard another laugh from the table; Libertee really didn’t dare look up this time. “Yes, she was very good, wasn’t she?”

“I was talking about yourself.”

Shocked, Libertee looked up into a relaxed, almost blank face. If Luna was mocking her, she did a thorough job of hiding any trace of it.

“That was quite a feat of self-control,” Luna explained.

“Well, I’ve been teaching myself how to enjoy it –”

“That’s what I meant,” said Luna sadly.

Libertee had no idea how to take that. Instead, she looked back at her daughter’s funny walk antics and constant chatter with Squeaker, who helped her stack a large number of bowls in one go and put out the fire under the cauldron. The sight calmed her.

“She’s different from me,” said Libertee. “I see that now.”

“But she can help you be you. More you than you were before.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m going to be lax about raising her, though,” Libertee added sternly. “Too much freedom is careless and encourages temptations.”

Luna’s cold gaze cooled those particular flames, though not as harshly as Libertee had expected them to.

Then Luna relaxed. “No, I quite agree. Too much freedom would be a nightmare. Might I recommend the freedom to dream, however? It would go well with the discipline to act.”

Libertee gave no reply because she had no idea what had just been said to her. Instead, she watched the first peek of the sun at the edge of her hilly horizon. Now if ever was the time to ask…

“When I was… talking to Bloo,” she said, at least having the grace to smile in embarrassment, “I thought I saw… flames?”

Luna’s silence suggested she go on.

“I’ve been having these… nightmares, only… only while I was awake. Every time I looked at Bloo –”

“Those would be daymares,” said Luna.

“Those exist?”

“Yes, daydreams were always my sister’s field of expertise. A lot easier to control than the dreams of the night, and much more amenable to our vanity than the chaotic depths of the nightmares. She calls the darker ones Daylights, however.”

“Why?”

Luna smirked. “Because ‘Nightmare’ rolls off the tongue better than ‘Daymare’. I also swore I’d scream and scream unless she stopped copying me.” To Libertee’s puzzled eyebrow, she added, “I was quite young at the time.”

“And a sensitive child?”

“I believe the modern term is ‘a spoiled brat’.” Chuckling under her breath, Luna added, “I soon learned, however. Self-control does have its benefits.”

Now Luna squinted against the brightening sky, and Libertee wondered if the princess had trouble seeing during the day that she didn’t have during the night.

“You would’ve made a fine Priestess of the Waxing Moon.”

“Oh. Thank you, Your Highness.”

“And that would’ve been a good Hallowed Holy Eve. Of course, I shall have to adjust to calling it Nightmare Night from now on. Less of a mouthful than Full Moon Monsterfest, but perhaps we can raise awareness of the older traditions again.” Luna breathed in and breathed out again, as though savouring the lingering scents of candy brew. “On the old calendar, that would make this day Hallowed Holy Day, but my instincts tell me dear Celestia has long since let that tradition slide by now.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard of it,” said Libertee apologetically.

“Dear me, whatever would my sister do without me?” But there was a twinkle in Luna’s eye when she said that, and a twinkle in the eye of a mare with stars throughout her mane was not easy to miss.

“Will you be coming back next year?” said Libertee suddenly. “It would give the occasion a more official ring to it, I trust.”

“If you can find a fitting Priestess of the Waning Moon as well, I’d be delighted to make an appearance.”

“Don’t worry.” Libertee looked back into the house. “I’ve got the perfect candidate in mind. And I’m sure she will have some interesting ideas for me.”

“Really? Well, one is never too old to learn.”

“We shall endeavor to invite more guests,” said Libertee, smiling now. “But not too many,” she added compulsively. “Close friends, helping hooves, that kind of thing.”

“Might I recommend Twilight Sparkle of the Golden Oak Library?” said Luna, smiling back. “She has a good head on her shoulders and an understanding heart.”

Libertee shrugged. She’d been so shut-in for months; she wasn’t very good at keeping up with the latest news. Gossiping had been a sin.

“She hails from Canterlot, just like you,” Luna explained.

“How… nice?”

“But do not let her get carried away with lectures. She tends to be self-indulgent.”

“Well,” said Libertee brightly, “I’m sure I could do something about that!”

From the bright blue sky, a chariot of spikes descended. Bat-winged pegasi landed on the grass, then stood firmly to attention, fangs bared. Libertee felt she should’ve been terrified, but she had to admit the chariot had… style.

Luna climbed in and sat down calmly, waiting for a flock of bats to home in on her and reform the hooded cloak. A flash around her neck hailed the return of the crescent-shaped broach. As the first half of the sun blazed over the rooftops, a cloud swept overhead, boiling, bubbling, rumbling, and roaring. Bat-wings flapped, Luna’s eyes glowed, the world briefly became a dark abyss, and the lightning struck the chariot till it flared brilliant blue. Then, after a blink, everything vanished.

Libertee tried not to be too impressed. It was extremely hard work, though.

Bloo sent Squeaker back up to his closet. He didn’t mind: the rays of the sun crept through the windows, and he kept eyeing up the beams of light and skirting round them. For the meantime, she set to work mopping up the spills on the floor. To her satisfaction, it actually wasn’t that bad. She even made a game out of it.

Halfway through racking up combo points for most spills swept up in a second, Bloo looked up and saw her mother step back indoors. Libertee looked a mess: greasy robes and uncontrolled mane were one thing, but the puffy eyes and reddened cheeks didn’t help.

As usual, Bloo refrained from saying anything. Only this time, she very much agreed with the self-control part. Making a crack about her mother seemed… wrong.

“Well, that was nice, wasn’t it?” said her mother nervously.

“Yes, Mother.”

Libertee winced. “I believe we can make do with ‘Mom’ from now on.”

“Yes…” Bloo had to stop and think. “…Mom?”

That cheered up her mother, but only briefly. Bloo had a feeling this wasn’t all going to go away, not after one night. It was an ongoing thing. To her surprise, the thought cheered her up; it was like being told she’d get to play a game as many times as she’d like.

“Mom?”

“Yes?” Libertee went over to pick up the cauldron, clearly planning to tip the remains into the back garden’s compost heap and then scrub the rest.

“Can I go to… one party next week?” Bloo didn’t trust her mother to let her go full throttle yet.

“We shall have to see.”

Well, that wasn’t an outright “no”, or even a lecture on the joys of self-control. Things were looking up already.

Her mother suddenly stopped and added, “You don’t have to clean up, Bloo, if you don’t want to.”

“But I do want to, M– Mom.”

Her mother’s face was… hard to read. Sad? Scared? Confused? It was too faint to be sure.

Then Libertee disappeared through the backdoor. When she came back a moment later, she walked straight to Bloo, who was caught by surprise and held the broom between them defensively.

What her mother offered her was a… piece of candy.

“Wow, thanks!” said Bloo, once she realized what was going on. She shredded the wrapper in her haste.

“Not too quickly now,” said her mother, barely scolding. “Overzealous eating is bad for the digestive humors.”

Yes, that sounded like her mother all right. Bloo gave her a warm smile, which was duly returned.

Just one bite, and she’d taste candy for the first time –

The moment it touched her tongue, horrible bursts of sheer sweetness stampeded through her mouth. Bloo gagged, choked, dropped it, and coughed until the flavour stopped trying to kill her tastebuds.

“Yes, I know,” said Libertee with a weary sigh. “It is something of an acquired taste, isn’t it?”