Chapters The CMC and the great shut-in caper
It was a chilly autumn day. Right on schedule for October. The pegasi were always punctual with the seasons.
For Scootaloo, it was the touch of distant frost. The promise of colder and darker nights and the festivities within. Towering corn mazes, and hayrides along the edge of the Everfree Forest. Nights where the foals were allowed to stay up late, listening to ghost stories told by slightly cidered-up old folks. All culminating in trick-or-treating on Nightmare night. And after that, as the weather schedules grew colder, the distant promise of snowball fights and igloos and sled stunts.
Scootaloo chewed the long sprig of hay slowly, eyes never moving. All three of them contemplated the house.
“Do you think it’s a big ghost, or a small ghost?” the pegasus ventured.
The house. The old place on old Drywell road. A two-story building, surrounded by tall autumn-coated trees. Built in much the same manner as the rest of ponyville, with sturdy timber and the typical hay-thatched roof, but clearly uncared for for some time, with the roof sagging so as to lend it’s angles a menacing shape, and the timber warping ever so slightly as to offer it an air of menace, as if it were hanging slightly forward like a lurking beast. The garden around it was overgrown, grass ungrazed, with the shrubs gone wild, and the rosebush in the sideyard allowed to run free, thorny vines climbing and gripping the house like the tentacles of a hellish octopus.
“Zap Bagem’s radio show said that ghosts are invisible and can only be detected with special spells.” Sweetie Belle chimed in.
The house was, hypothetically, haunted. Drywell road had always been seen as a spooky spot, even when ponies lived there, but after the owners of the house had retired to Mareami, it had become a spot ponies avoided altogether, except for schoolfoals who had dared each other to climb down and back up out of the eponymous dry well. But there were always those who swore something lived there. That the windows of the house lit up at night, and that its boards creaked with hoofsteps.
“That feller just wants ponies to pay t’ see his museum fulla junk in Las Pegasus. There ain’t no such thing as ghosts.” Applebloom grimaced. “An if there is, they definitely don’t order apples.”
The idea of the house being haunted was poppycock to the few who made deliveries there. If it were abandoned or full of ghosts, then why did the mailponies always have things to leave in its mailbox? And why, Applebloom reasoned, did her older siblings always flip a coin to see who had to cart a heap of apples out to it?
“Well whatever it is, if we can uncover the truth, I bet we’d totally get our cutie marks!”
Applebloom approached the door, and with a lurch, tipped the packed saddlebags off her back. They thudded onto the doormat, and then, with a glance to her friends now hiding in the bushes, raised her hoof and rapped three times on the door. The knocks seemed to ring out much louder than intended, and Applebloom bit her lip as she dove across the way and into the bush, taking her place alongside her two friends.
All three of them glanced back and forth, but at the first sound of creaking wood from inside the house, stifled their breathing. The three grew still as the sound of approaching hooves could be heard, each one thumping down the stairs and causing the house to groan menacingly. Applebloom shivered a little. She knew the place couldn’t really be haunted… but it’s hard for ponies, especially foals, to banish the little wisp of primal worry that maybe, no matter how illogical a fear was, it was justified.
The door began to crack open. Sweetie Belle gasped. Applebloom bit her tongue. Scootaloo looked thrilled.
It was justified alright.
In the darkness beyond the doorframe, a pony-shaped figure was visible. But its boundaries were unclear. Where its hooves should have been was an indistinct and trailing curtain, and only the end of its pale muzzle was clear from within the folds of its ghostly form. The shifting folds of its shroudlike pallor seemed to suggest the size of a stallion, but it was impossible to tell.
The ghost leaned down and nosed at the abandoned saddlebag, before straightening up and looking around. Its hood seemed to linger on the bush where the girls were, and all three of them could feel each other trying to hunker down as small as possible. It leaned back down and grabbed the bag with its teeth, and began to pull it inside…
“What are we waiting for?! GETTIM!” Scootaloo cried and leapt out of the bush, wings furiously humming. The other two fillies followed her immediately, and all three of them let out a whoop as they sailed forward, eyes screwed shut and pulses pounding. The sight of the specter was enough to give chills, but not enough to hold back the rush of adrenaline they each felt as they launched themselves into the doorway.
The ghost reared up in surprise, shortly before all three of them impacted with it, knocking it over.
“P-please, a-are you from the ERS?! I p-paid this year’s due in full!” It wailed.
“What? No!” The three glanced at each other. This was… not quite what they were expecting. None of them knew what they were expecting, frankly, but a ghost who was worried about taxes wasn’t it.
“Agh! T-t-then… you must be from the library! I-I meant to bring them back! Please! T-tell miss Sparkle that I’ll never keep books this long again! I j-just couldn’t catch the mail carrier to have them taken in!” The blanket was now balled up, flailing limbs having sucked into a fetal position.
“We ain’t with Twilight neither!” Applebloom huffed. This was just silly now.[1]
“Ghost?” The earth-stallion underneath blinked hazily. One of his hooves emerged to adjust the pair of small round glasses that balanced on his snout. His coat was white, but not white with the radiance of a Rarity or canterlot-sheen of a Shining Armor. Rather a sickly pale white that felt reminiscent of a cobweb or an antique chess piece. His mane, a deep black-gray, was quite messy, and clung to his head in a manner much like the rosebush outside had clung to the house. Frankly, he looked more ghostly without the blanket draped over him.
“Uh, yeah! This place is supposed to be haunted! That’s why everypony stays away… or dares each other to come near.”
Adjusting himself and standing up, the stallion took great care to keep the blanket draped over himself, although now with his head fully exposed. “Aheh… w-well, I’m sorry to disappoint. My name is Shiver. Shiver Shakes. And There’s no ghost here. Just me. Because I live here. So… I guess there is kind of a ghost. Insofar as the world regards me.” He tried to laugh at that, but the resulting wheezing cough showed how fruitless that attempt was.
“I’m pretty surprised there’s actually someone living here…” Mused Sweetie Belle.
“Ah, y-your the apple-delivery filly? Thank you for making the trip… C-can I offer any of you three anything to d-drink? I’m afraid I don’t have much… but it’s people like your family and the nice mail-ponies that allow me to… s-stay indoors as much as I do, s-so… if I can repay the favor at all…” He took a few shaky steps and gestured to the dark doorway that split off from the entryway they were all in. He winced a little when he glanced through it however, realizing the living room he had just beckoned them into was in no state for hospitality. “Ah, s-sorry! J-just have a seat. I-I need to clean a little…”
The three fillies soon found themselves lined up on the dusty sofa, giving each other the sideeye as they watched Shiver plod back and forth across the living room, weaving between thick piles of books and hulking piles of furniture, all covered in drab white cloth, turned a dull gray due to the layer of dust. Hypothetically, he was trying to organize the piles of sheet-covered junk that filled the room, but instead he just seemed to be morosely gazing at it and nudging it awkwardly with his hooves. The space had clearly gone unused for quite some time, as every hooffall left a clear print on the floor. Scootaloo sneezed.
“‘Scuse you. So uh, mister Shakes…” Applebloom ventured. “Why do ya live here all alone? An’ why ain’t ah ever seen ya in town?”
“Ha, I-I suppose that’s a good question. Perfectly reasonable. What with it being so… unreasonable for me to do. No… normal pony would choose to stay indoors all day alone, s-s-spurning her majesty’s daylight, eating delivery… achieving nothing…” He sighed.
Sweetie Belle hopped off the couch as he talked, sending up a wave of dust. Scootaloo Sneezed again.
"Gesundheit. Anyway, I s-stay here because I have to. Ordering whatever I need through the mail. If I ever go into town i-it’s because I absolutely have no other choice but to burden ponies with my presence. Nobody should have to bother with me. I-I’m a living nightmare.”
“Aw, ya ain’t that ugly.” Applebloom and Scootaloo hopped down as well. “Say, mister Shakes, if’n ya want any help dustin in here, ah bet we could do it lickety split!”
Shivers didn’t quite know what to say. “I-I appreciate it girls, but I couldn’t ask you t-” He was cut off by a unified cheer of “Cutie Mark Crusaders: Dust-Busters!”
“First thing we need is some natural light! It’s way too dark in here!” Sweetie Belle’s horn glowed and the dust covered shutters on the room's window swung open, filling the room with the bright glow and fresh air of the outdoors and cutting into the musty atmosphere.
“Then we just need t’ wipe stuff down!” Applebloom’s mouth grabbed the corner of one of the room's many sheets and tugged it upward, reaching to use it to wipe off a stack of books. However, the sheet she had grabbed was in fact the corner of the equally pallid blanket draped over Shiver. The tug jerked him off his balance and into the melee with the three fillies.
“And then we just need to- to- to-” Scootaloo couldn’t finish her sentence. All the dust in the air was too much. She could feel a really strong one coming.
“ACHOO!”
The force of the sneeze sent Scootaloo flying backwards, and Shiver toppling over with a yelp. He and Applebloom tumbled over the coffee-table, knocking over the piles of books on it and landing in a startled heap in the light in front of Sweetie Belle.
Sweetie Belle’s eyes grew wide, and her mouth fell open as her brain tried to process what she saw. Eventually, she managed.
Sweetie Belle screamed.
The CMC and the great shut-in caper
“It ain’t possible!”
“YOU HAVEN’T GOT A CUTIE MARK!?” All three cried out in horror.
The three fillies stared in shock and horror as Shiver Shakes pulled himself upright. He looked utterly mortified. Without the blanket draped over him, they could see the full extent of his gangly frame, baggy eyes… and blank white flank.
“Y-y-yes… it’s t-true.” The stallion whimpered in a voice that sounded like it was on the edge of breaking.
“B-but … you’re a grown-up!” Sweetie Belle whined. The sight was just too awful for any of the three to bear.
“N-now you know why I don’t leave the house! W-why I like to keep myself in the bed covers…” He sounded close to melting down completely. “I-I’m sorry girls, I c-can’t imagine what you must think of me!” He wailed, collapsing to the floor and trying to hide underneath his forehooves.
The girls exchanged looks. Fear and uncertainty painted their features. One of them had to say something.
“This calls for a Cutie-Mark-Crusaders special emergency meeting! Right now!” Scootaloo stammered, stomping her hoof. The three all darted around the corner into the house's entryway.
There was a long and nervous period of silence. The three could all read each other's expressions perfectly. They all knew just how deep the well of anxiety around cutie marks could run, as Princess Luna could attest to, and all of their expressions betrayed the same thoughts.
Sweetie Belle spoke first. Although perhaps ‘spoke’ was the wrong word. Shrieked fit much better.
“HE’S GOTTA BE A GHOST! He died before he got his cutie mark, so he’s some kind of creepy spooky ghost pony who’s gonna haunt us and-”
Scootaloo cut her off in order to take her turn to freak out. “It’s not supposed to be possible for an adult to not have a cutie mark, is it!? Like, you’re supposed to find it before then!”
Applebloom, who had been doing her best to keep a cool head up until now, was now failing to do so. “He ain’t no ghost, but I didn’t know ponies could get big without findin their special talent! What if it happens t’ us!?”
Visions danced in their heads, brought on by the sheer concept of reaching adulthood without their cutie marks. Terrible futures, where the three of them were not only blank in the flank, but freaks and social outcasts.
The three mares shivered in the frigid night air. Around them, the assembled townfolk clutched a variety of implements. Burning torches, pitchforks, and harvest scythes were brandished in the air with menacing intent. Somewhere, a particularly enterprising pony with a sack on his head revved a chainsaw..
The large wooden stake they were all tied to gave them a good vantage point of town hall where, from the night's shadows, the mayor emerged, cackling wickedly.
“As you can all cuh-LEAR-ly see, these three freaks are fully grown up and junk, and still. Blank. Flanks!” The crowd booed and hissed. Madame Mayor adjusted her tiara and gripped the lectern, leaning forward with a malicious smile. “Anybody who’s that big of a LOSER needs to be burned!”
The crowd began chanting; “Burned, burned, burned!”, and the girls could feel the heat begin to rise from the pyre beneath them. The flame flickered hungrily as it got hotter and hotter, roiling tongues licking with scarring heat at the three mares dangling hooves.
“Girls, ah don’t think we can get outta this one!” Choked Applebloom.
The other two stopped and gave her a look of the sort that can typically only mean an actor has forgotten her line in the middle of a royal-command performance.
“We’re tied to a stake. Lahk, a big piece a’ wood. What in the hay kinda silly nightmare are you havin?”
Cardboard pitchforks thumped to the ground, and the angry mob murmured with annoyance. The air seemed to have let out of proceedings considerably, with even the fire having been reduced to paper streamers waving on a fan-made breeze.
Mayor Diamond Tiara huffed, slumping down onto her lectern. “This is the lamest nightmare I’ve ever been in.”
Back in the foyer of Shiver Shakes’ home, the Cutie Mark Crusaders bungled fantasy had managed to confuse them out of their freak-out.
“Uh, what were we screamin about?” Applebloom blinked in befuddlement.guess that’s pretty scary.”
There was a pause.
“Ya don’t think Diamond Tiara could really get elected mayor, do ya?”
“G-girls, I appreciate it, but p-please, I’m a lost cause.” The three turned to see Shiver, now back on his feet and covered in his blanket again. He inhaled deeply, clearly trying to recover from his brief paroxysm of despair. “The three of you are b-bright young fillies with l-lots of time to find where you belong in the world. I-I’m an embarrassment to ponykind. I couldn’t stand to w-watch the three of you waste time on me…”
He made his way to the stairs, blanket dragging along behind him. Undeterred, the girls followed him, fear and sadness now replaced with the most thrillingly dangerous desire a child can hold: the desire to be helpful.
“Mr Shakes…”
“Mr Shiver…” Sweetie Belle intoned with curiosity as she pushed open the door the stallion had vanished into. “Do you wanna weigh in on the Cutie Mark Crusaders special meeting about helping you?”
Shiver sighed, now slumped on his side in a very messy bed. “Sure. Why not. If you’re to follow me up here and gaze upon the wretchedness that is my sanctum, then who am I to stop you from facing whatever peril you like?”
Applebloom scrunched up her face in confusion as she poked her head in. “Why’s he talkin’ all fancy like? And what kinda getup is that lady wearin?”
Applebloom’s pointing hoof indicated one of the many posters that covered the bedroom’s walls, hanging right above a writing desk covered in candles, loose paper, and typewriter ink. The poster held an image of a rather lacivious looking mare with a lustered coat, long black mane, and a set of sharp fangs, cast in a wicked smile to match her rampant pose. Her long black dress trailed down her flank in a way that covered her up and was somehow naughtier for it.
Scootaloo’s head joined the others in the entryway. “That’s the Queen of the Nightmares, duh!” She snickered. “She reads spooky stories on the radio late at night! And that’s not all! Check out all the other ones!”
Ever since Princess Luna had helped the young pegasus face her fears, the filly had snapped in the opposite direction rather surprisingly, and she’d caught quite the appetite for chilling tales. As such, her eyes beamed as she took in the full stock of Shiver’s posters.
“This is totally awesome! Crypt Creep magazine, the Witching-hour radio show, Nightmare in Canterlot… woah, you’ve got ones from traveling shows too! Masked Minotaur takes Manehattan, Servants of Discord, The Invisible Mare…”
Shiver poked his head out from under the blanket, eyes belying a look of surprise. “I… y-yes. I-I’m surprised you know that many. I-I enjoy horror quite a bit… given my situation, I find I really enjoy being scared of something other than my own life.”
The three crusaders locked eyes.
Grins now wide, purpose was swelling.
“Come on, Mister Shiver, it’s time for you to go outside! For… what’s probably the first time in a while, huh?” The piled up hayburger bags and Sugarcube Corner takeaway boxes painted a rather grim picture of how long Shiver Shakes had gone without leaving the house.
“G-go outside?! B-but outside is full of other ponies! P-ponies who’d s-see me! And not just ponies! O-outside is full of terrible terrible things! Terrible horrifying unknowable monstrosities who’s nature defies all logic, sense, and sanity! Things that would drive even the most stalwart mind to the shrieking depths of-”
“Madness! Fruity gummy sour sugary swirly juicy taffy-tastic madness! It’s gonna taste so super great!” Pinkie Pie beamed.
“Mmmfghhg.”
“But getting the taffy right is just so hard, right? So that’s why I’ve had to make so many different kinds. Here, how does this one taste? Too much blue? Not enough blue? Ooh, more purple?”
“Glllbshplk.” Shiver couldn’t speak. The mass of taffy currently globbed together in his craw had cemented his jaw shut, and the additional taffies Pinkie was supplying weren’t making it at all better.[2] , and an endless variety of others. The air stank of burning sugar, and any place one could put a hoof down, one was certain to find a melted blob of taffy eager to make pilgrimage to the promised land of pristine carpet.
To call it wartime was more accurate than it may have seemed. For those in the business of sweets, Nightmare Night was the ultimate competition: every baker, sweetshop, and chocolatier stood with teeth bared, competing against each other to sell the most sumptuous Nightmare candy.
And so, sugar burned, and armories were stocked. Pinkie Pie’s mad chemistry would undoubtedly produce a winner of a product, but she needed testers and helpers.
But was it truly worse work than the tasting? Scootaloo was having a fantastic time on the job, wings buzzing and hooves pedaling under her stool as she rode a sugar high like a bicycle made of banana-flavored lightning.
“Less purple! More green!” Scootaloo called eagerly, thumping her hooves on the counter in front of her.
“More green! Gotcha!” Pinkie pounced back over to the taffy puller that sat on the counter, and set to work preparing the next slab of candy for yanking. Scootaloo turned to check on Shiver.
“Isn’t this the best? With all the prep stuff everyponies doing, there’s tons of potential for cutie marks! Have you got one for candy testing?” Shiver made a sound of muffled grief. On his other side, Applebloom poked her head around to make eye contact with Scootaloo.
“Nah, he’s still blank.”
Shiver sulked, clearly mortified at being in public to begin with, and especially at being dragged to the mad court of his polar opposite.
“It makes me start thinking all kinds of spooky stuff! Like, what if I had never found my cutie mark? Ooh, I bet I’d be totally crazy! Ooh double ooh! That gives me a totally terrific idea for my costume! You’re so totally great at being freaky, Shivvy! Want another gummy eel?”
The stallion groaned. What he really wanted right now was a pleasant industrial solvent (perhaps with a little paper umbrella) to free himself from the jellified mass. Then… well, he wanted to go home, but it sounded like the Crusaders had several other stops planned, and with the ferocity he had been dragged outside, he wasn’t quite eager to try fighting them again. He just hoped the next place they visited would be more soothing… and with less fruit flavoring.
The CMC and the great shut-in caper
Sweetie Belle was lost in thought.
The idea of reaching adulthood without a cutie mark. It really was horrifying. But now that she considered it deeper, it was reaching beyond the comical nightmare she and her fellow crusaders had shared back at Shiver’s house.
The cutie mark was many things. A fancy flank fixture, sure, but it represented a lot within society. It was a symbol of a ponies' harmony with themselves and the world around them. To achieve harmony of the self and not just know, but truly understand where it was in the world you wished to be and what was most fulfilling for you to do for yourself and others… It was a big deal.
To exist so long, to reach adulthood without the comfort of standing beside oneself for the journey… It was a scary thought. The cutie mark was a ponies way of comforting themselves and knowing they had a place within their own life and the lives of others. It was psychological bedrock, and she had to admit, that was likely part of why foals were so eager to get theirs.
It was scary to be young sometimes, if you thought about things too much. You didn’t tend to notice it, but every once in a while you’d get that scary little moment where you saw that adults could cry. That getting bigger didn’t necessarily mean getting smarter. That you were a little filly who didn’t actually know anything about herself.
The rush to get a cutie mark was, in a way, a rush to eagerly meet your best friend. To scramble as rapidly down the path as possible to hug the person who could understand you more than anyone else in the whole world.
To light a match and have a hoof to squeeze as you walked forward into the terrifying darkness where strong and dependable fathers had to stop and rest a knee injury you didn’t realize they had, and where friendly teachers, with pain behind their eyes, continually assured you they would talk to the mother of the schoolyard bully.
“Sweetie Belle!”
“Sweetie Belle!”
“Huh?” The diminutive unicorn snapped out of her reverie, eyes refocusing and staring owlishly at Applebloom.
The yellow filly huffed. “You’ve been spaced out n’ runnin that same brush up n’ down on that one spot fer 5 minutes! Yer gonna get the bristles all mussed up n’ broken!”
“Oh.” Sweetie Belle looked down at the wooden standee that lay on the barn floor. The image of Nightmare Moon, fangs bared and eyes amusingly walleyed stared back, as if chiding her for smearing the black paint around so repetitively on its hindquarters. “Sorry, I guess I was thinking about something else.”
“Aw it’s alright. It’s lookin real good, yknow, despite the smeared flank.” Applebloom beamed. “Once it’s all dry n’ done, Applejack’s got a spot picked out fer it in the maze already!”
The Apple family was such that the unwinding of the holidays took the form of new and refreshing work in place of the standard chores. The idea of true relaxation was anathema to the fiery spirit of the acres, and so as Nightmare Night approached, Applejack and her family typically spent their time gleefully hustling to design the layout for the corn maze, repaint and tune the wagon for Big Macintosh’s much-beloved hayrides, spiff up the many games that were operated by the family for the town-center festivities… and prepare the many fritters, donuts, and turnovers that were coincidentally available for purchase where all three of those activities just happened to let out.
Typically, the hustle was more a form of personal entertainment and community interaction, but recent years had been much more profitable than usual. Princess Luna had visited Ponyville’s festivities the year she had returned from her banishment, and the rumor-mill had happily spread the story from playground to playground across Equestria: Every town’s Nightmare Night had a drunken local schoolmarm in a nightmare moon costume, wandering through the streets with her equally drunken “Bat pony” soldiers, making booga-booga noises at the delighted and shrieking foals and accepting tips of candy and brandy, but Ponyville? The message was passed among Equestria’s young ones: Ponyville had the genuine article. [3]
So, the Ponyville Nightmare Night celebration had accrued a fine helping of out-of-towners, and grown accordingly in scope. The local businesses were all too happy for the visitors, and the tourism committee loved it, but a few of the locals could be heard mourning the loss of the small-town savoir-faire.
Sweetie Belle lifted the wooden cutout and looked it over one last time. Apparently Fluttershy had provided the basic drawing, but she had to say, she was quite pleased with how she had managed to paint it to life! Even if her mouth was a little shaky with such a large brush. She really needed to work on improving her magic.
Dragging it outside for Applejack’s final approval, she found she didn’t have to go far. The behatted pony was attending to a wheezing heap of pale fur hanging limply from the yoke of one of the carts.
The stallion wheezed limply, and his eyes lolled in their sockets. “The k-kind who would v-very much like to be dead, oh dark mistress of the harvest…”
“What in sam hill are ya’ll talkin bout?” Applejack turned to nudge her younger sister. “Applebloom, ah appreciate yall findin help on short notice, but ah think ah’ve broke the poor feller. Ya’ll might wanna take him someplace else. Frankly, he kinda gives me the creeps, what with the bare behind n’ all. That n’ ah think all the fresh air might be makin’ him sick.”
Applebloom sighed. “Nah, he’s just carryin a couple pounds of Pinkie Pie’s latest experiments in his tummy. Ah don’t know why ah thought he’d be any help. Sorry AJ.” She looked down sheepishly, but noted that Applejack had a startled expression.
“Pinkie’s experimentin’ again? Didn’t she learn anythin from that taffy monstrosity she was workin on last year that wired her jaw shut?”
“She’s worked on it before!?” Shiver yelped, eyes rolling like lawn bowls before coming to focus on Applejack with an effect like a dead fish. “That confection is an abomination! A despair from which there’s no waking respite! If she should ever complete that vile and villainous recipe, we will all be doomed!” As punctuation, his tongue flopped out of his mouth as he finally passed out.
“What in the hay made him get all fancy-like there? A minute ago he was barely talkin’ louder than Fluttershy on open mic night.” She shivered. “He’s right though. That stuff was spooky! The way it moved was unnatural.” She seemed to pause for a moment. "Maybe he's right in more ways than he knows... 'Dark mistress a' the harvest is a plumb fancy title, but ah kin kinda see a costume in mah head just hearin it... Ah wonder if there's tahm fer a last minute visit to Rarity t' have the ol' scarecrow suit gussied up."
“What, an’ just run off from work?” Applebloom cocked her head.
“Ain’t t’ be helped! “Applejack lied, muzzle scrunching in a smile. “You an’ yer friends are free. Go bug Twilight or somethin! Oh, an’ get that poor feller unharnessed ‘for he starts to attract flies.”
Applebloom huffed, looking at the limp stallion. If she didn’t know any better, she’d say Applejack was going out of her way to make time with Rarity. She couldn't help but notice, however, that this was the second time Shiver's morose existence had inspired somepony else. Perhaps there was something worth working on there.
The CMC and the great shut-in caper
The mood was low.
The crusaders trotted along meekly behind Shiver. The stallions head hung, and painted across his features was a disturbingly uncharacteristic hostile grimace.
“Well, uh… ah think there’s probably some other things we can try.” Applebloom intoned hopefully, breaking the long and awkward silence as the group walked away from the Golden Oaks library and along the winding road back to the old well and the haunted house beside it.
“Girls.”
The three fell silent, gazes casting down.
“I appreciate your willingness to help, but this is where I get off.” As they arrived back at the ghostly stallions home, he turned to offer a rather dead-eyed glare. “Thank you for trying, but after today, it is all too clear to me that the world outside my sanctum is not fit for my habitation.”
The air began to let out of him as the steel in his glare faded and the iron in his posture relaxed back to the hunched droop he had worn on their first meeting. “The fact of the matter is… some ponies are just too awful for others to tolerate the idea of them.”
"But we-"
"Girls, I am going to be very firm in this: leave me alone. I have had all of the outside world that I can hope to stomach, as well as all of the stomach that I can hope to have whirled. I understand that you think you can help me, but all the three of you menaces have given me is oodles of horrible material to work with in my writing. So good night, and good bye! I am cutting our geas short! I am unsubscribing from cutie-mark facts! I am cutting free my sails so that I may drift away into the dark ocean of solitude! Good day!"
The door shut with a final thud, and the Cutie Mark Crusaders were left sitting on the front walk.
Scootaloo snorted. “Geesh, what a grump. some honorary crusader he turned out to be. Now I’m definitely not giving him this.” The filly produced a rolled up-poster and shook it out.
The midnight mistress,The Queen of the Nightmares herself, broadcasting live from Ponyville! With special guest appearances from Cheese Sandwich, Valley Brown, and Princess Luna herself! A night of comedy and horror that will make it hard to sleep for quite some time!
“I snagged one of these off the poster wagon for him, but if he’s gonna be a jerk then I’m keeping it for myself!” Scootaloo moved to roll it back up, but had to spread it out on the ground in order to do so.
Applebloom gave her a look. “It weren’t him, it was us. We dragged him around doing stuff we wanted to do, and all we got him was a tummy-ache, exhaustion, and… whatever the hay that mess with Twilight was.”
Sweetie Belle sighed, leaning against the wall of the house. “It’s weird, I’d have thought there’d be something in all the Nightmare Night stuff that would speak to him, but he wasn’t into any of it.” As she leaned back, her ears twitched. “Do you girls hear that?”
Scootaloo tilted her head. “Hear what?” The three fell silent, and soon, the sound of a typewriter became audible on the wind, drifting down from the window on the upper floor.
That was the final piece. The gears in Applebloom's head began to turn, and the glance she exchanged with Sweetie Belle showed they were thinking the same thing. The two's muzzles split apart into grins.
"He writes scary stuff..."
Scootaloo glanced from one of them to the other, slowly picking up what they were putting down. "Oh, I get what you two are thinking! Do you think she'd really read it?"
Sweetie Belle bounced idly on her hooves. "You heard how he talked whenever he was freaking out! I bet he's a great writer! All we gotta do is get some of his work to her, and it's sure to make up for how mad he is at us!"
Applebloom pulled herself up to her full height and nodded. "Alright, we'll all meet here tomorrow 'round sundown!"
"Aw, but that's when Trick or Treating starts!" Sweetie Belle pouted.
"Buck up, crusader! This is about something bigger!" Scootaloo grinned, wings already buzzing in excitement.
The next day had come, and the Crusaders had spent the day finishing their costumes, helping with various family goings-on, and overall enjoying the energy of the lead-up to the festival.
But now, the sun was on it's slow march towards the horizon, and the three of them had gathered on Drywell road once again.
Exchanging glances and nods with the other two, Sweetie Belle pushed open the door to the house, it’s dark interior now haunted by the mechanical clattering of the typewriter upstairs. Slowly and silently, the three ascended the stairs and followed the noise to the end of the hall, where it was slipping out from under Shiver’s door.
“Mister shakes?” Applebloom knocked and poked the door open a crack with her muzzle, only to hear a groan of annoyance from the other side.
“Girls, I told you to leave me alone. I am hard at work, sealing fear and terror in paper where they cannot hurt anypony.” Shiver was eerily lit, bathed in flickering candlelight and hunched over a typewriter. The ink-spatter on his hooves and muzzle gave the impression that it was slightly malfunctioning, and in the light, made him look rather terrifying in conjunction with his wild mane. “I have more than enough material, so I don't need your help today."
"Yeah, that's kinda what we were hopin t' talk to ya about. See, we were talkin yesterday, an we came up with a cool surprise t' make it up to ya that we weren't no help with yer cutie mark."
The stallion ignored them, silently continuing to type, seemingly hoping they would go away if he kept quiet..
“All we need is t' borrow one of yer stories!” In an instant, she had hopped up and grabbed one of the piles of paper off the desk. Shiver’s eyes went so wide they almost burst his skull. “We’ll just drop this off with that Nightmare lady for ya while she’s in town tonight, and she can read it on her show!”
The reaction wasn’t entirely unexpected, which was why the three were off as fast as their legs could carry them, erupting out of the doorway to the house as a yowling Shiver nearly fell down the stairs in pursuit of them.
“STOP! YOU CAN’T! THIS ISN’T FUNNY!” He shrieked, blanket whipping around him as he stumbled out of the door after them, the evening air whipping it into a proper ghostly shroud. “GET BACK HERE, YOU MEDDLING KIDS!” The shriek grew into a roar on the wind, and the crusaders felt a chill run through them as they careened down Drywell road in the wagon hitched to the back of Scootaloo’s scooter. Applebloom hugged the manuscript tightly to her chest. It had no binding, so the two dozen or so pages were threatening to fly away in the whipping breeze.
The three headed for Ponyville proper as fast as the wheels could carry them. The sun slipped past the horizon as they went. Nightmare night had now officially begun, and they were starting it with an angry ghost on their tails.
The CMC and the great shut-in caper
Luna’s moon rose into the sky, cresting over the mountains and casting its light down onto the land. The sky was clear, specially tended by the weather team in preparation for the night's festival.
All through the town, decorations were now abundant. Lanterns hung from the eaves of the houses, a variety of gleefully ghoulish spiders, skeletons, and ghosts adorned the trees and archways, and in quite an impressive display, a huge jack-o-lantern had been erected on top of the spire of town hall, it’s gleaming smile towering above the whole town like the fanciful face of a corrupted moon. Banners of dark cloth hung between the buildings, and that stringy fake cobweb material was simply everywhere.
Carved vegetables lined the streets [4] , and even now, so soon after moonrise, the foals of ponyville were already hitting the cobbles to gleefully gather treats, pillowcases and pails at the ready. There were a great many costumes on display this year, both on the foals and on the many fully grown ponies trickling out to attend the public festivities in the town center, and the many functions revving up at the town’s public houses, and one or two private parties. Said costumes varied, with a fine mixture of traditional ghouls and ghosts, alongside more assorted disguises, and the requisite handful of popular culture ephemera [5] .
The Cutie Mark Crusaders, normally, would have been among the roving bands of children. Three more joyful costumed figures prancing through the streets with an ever-growing sugar high. However, the three were on a mission.
Scootaloo’s wings buzzed as she drove forward. This was the kind of thrill she liked best. Yanking the scooter from one side to another, narrowly dodging the ponies that now filled the streets, expertly jacknifing just right so that the wagon following her would move how she wanted it to. She could hear her two friends squealing in alarm on some of the more violent motions, but she knew the pair of them could handle it. It had been ages since Sweetie Belle last ralphed as a result of her driving, and she wasn’t really worried about it happening again. (Even if she was the one who would have to hose down the wagon).
It was kind of like one of those things Miss Cherilee had talked about in school. A metaphor. Despite all the ponies in her life that she did have, like her aunts and her friends and Rainbow Dash, Scootaloo couldn’t help but see herself as an outlier. A radical wheeled vehicle in a world of pedestrians. Those close to her along for the ride as she moved deftly in a way only she could.
She wasn’t sure where the howling stallion covered in the sheet fit into things. Maybe he was like… society or something. She was no good at this sort of thing. It was why she’d been barred from drawing any more of the Foal-free Press’ short lived “editorial cartoons”. [6]
But metaphor didn’t matter. Right now what mattered was simile. Smooth as ice. Quick as lightning. Straight as an arrow, towards her destination of…
Scootaloo’s concentration broke as she hummed herself forward. “Applebloom, where are we actually going?”
“To find miss Night Queen lady so we can give her one a’ Mister Shakes stories!”
“Well yeah, but uh… where is she actually broadcasting from?”
“Town center?" she sounded very uncertain. "That’s where all th’ main festival stuff is, and ah bet they need an audience fer a live show.” Scootaloo nodded at this and banked her scooter down main street, zipping towards the great jack o’ lantern bedecked shape of town-hall and doing her best to navigate the ever thickening crowd.
Sweetie Belle gasped, her grin lighting up like a hearth's warming tree. “No! Go the other way! Towards the library and the village green!”
Scootaloo cocked an eyebrow. “What? Why?”
“Cheese Sandwich! If he’s a special guest, then there’s no way there won't be a musical performance! And the village green has more predictable acoustics than town square! If they’re doing music on the radio then they’d want to set it up there!”
Applebloom gawped at the brightly smiling unicorn in the wagon with her. “How in the hay d’ you know that?!”
“Miss Torch Song from Rarity’s singing group has been doing radio stuff, and she told me about some of it when she was visiting last.” Sweetie Belle shrugged. “It’s just one of those things one knows when one has ins in the music biz .” Her attempt at a savvy and sophisticated affectation was rather clumsy, but, well, Rarity had taken time to grow into her own, hadn’t she?
The scooter skidded to a halt as they reached the village green, past Twilight’s library. They had been here only yesterday, but now the area was thoroughly transformed. Whoever had set up the stage had moved like a ninja, and the portable radio broadcast apparatus stretched up neatly, anchored to the library and a few other buildings with several lengths of rope.
It seemed the radio show was exciting enough that the primary festivities stretched all the way between it and town center. A greatly excited gaggle galloped to and fro across the green, and it seemed like there were more out-of-town merrymakers than even the last few years had brought in. The smell of hot apple donuts was a surprise to Applebloom. If Granny had thought it fit to move the sales operation out here, then surely everypony was here.
“Yknow, this kinda means we went in a big circle, when ya think about it. If we’d thought t’ come here immediately, it wouldn’ta been a long trip at all.”
“Yes. It was rather a short one for me! Return my manuscript!” The ghostly voice bellowed with such sudden arrival that the three fillies screamed in surprise. Several other screams accompanied, as the crowd stumbled to part and release the looming phantom of a sheet-clad Shiver. A pair of dark, looming holes worn in the fabric gave the blanket a terrible and ghastly gaze, and the gentle autumn breeze combined with his lurching movements gave him a truly spectral form.
The scooter couldn’t get them any further. They’d have to hoof it. The three leapt out, scampering away into the throng with the ghost writer in hot pursuit. “No! Girls! Return my Spectral Literary Adventure Book! Return the slaaaab!” He wailed as he muscled through the crowd after them.
The three made for the stage, Applebloom clutching the bound pack of paper in her mouth. Behind them, the crowd parted with frightened nonresistance for the advancing stallion, and as the three reached the stage, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle both moved to boost Applebloom up onto its edge. She scrabbled, hooves clattering against the wood as though she were trying to get out of the community pool without using the ladder. But just as she managed to pull herself up, she heard the sound of a taller adult easily following. And then…
She was caught. She felt the stallion’s mouth clamp down on her bow, yanking her back violently. Her mouth's hold gave way, and the pile of paper flew loose, exploding outward into a fluttering storm of typewriter-streaked bats that swooped and whirled out into the air and over the crowd.
Applebloom, flat on her back, stared upwards at the piercingly angry eyes of the once-nervous writer.
“Er… howdy mister Shakes. Uh… ah know you don’t think it’s a good idea, but ah got a real good feelin about this? So lahk, I dunno, maybe it could be-” It was at this point that Applebloom realized that high pitched squealing sound wasn’t any of the radio microphones on the stage, and was in fact coming from Shiver as he watched his manuscript rain down on the befuddled looking crowd.
“eeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!” He burst into a loud, ringing howl of pain, and threw the sheet back, clutching his head in a display of truly mad despair.
“You- you- meddling foal! Are you happy!? Is this what you wanted!? To strip all comfort and the very flesh itself from my bones!? To expose me to the world as part of some kind of sick game!?”
The throwing back of the sheet had caused his whole body to be exposed, and the crowd rippled with a horrified and shocked gasp. As he opened his mouth to continue frothing at Applebloom, the sound reached his ears, and he swiveled his head to cast his wild-eyed gaze on the crowd.
“OOOOh, yes! Scary, isn’t it!? Terrifying! Absolutely ghoulish! A pony with no cutie mark! A hideous blank specter! What could it mean!? Could he be some terrible ghost from the Everfree forest, held to the earth by a monstrous deed!? Could he be the result of some mad magician seeking to meddle with fundamental pony nature!? Could he be the pale white figure you see in the edge of the room when you turn out the light!? Goodness, what a hideous thing he is!”
Shiver looked outright furious now. His posture carried him first in the sunken slink of a twisted cat, and then to the towering wrathful iron-backed gaze he had demonstrated earlier.
“He could be anything! For after all, is this not Equestria!? The world of horror and madness where one cannot run or hide from evil! The world where you are dragged from your bed and made to witness the unspeakable! Great jellified masses who’s foul colors defy comprehension, called forth by insane cultists! Demonic mistresses who lash you in eternal labor under blistering dark suns to construct monuments to their gibbering ancient gods! Stuffy librarians who don’t understand that the final books in the Masque of Somnambula saga are about the inherent terror of existence, and that the crappy ending is the point of the whole story!
Yes my friends! I am blank! And let that image reveal to you the true horror of our existence in this world of shadows and insanity! For I am no monster! I am no creature! I am a normal pony just like you, and in that way, I am CURSED!”
There was a crash of thunder, and the crowd let out shrieks of fear. Shiver stood, panting, and surveying the audience. Within his mad glare seemed to be a sense of pride, as if unleashing the terror of the universe onto the unsuspecting populace had freed him from it’s shackles somehow.
He looked rather surprised when the applause began. Hooves beating the dirt, clattering against each other, and backed by a chorus of whoops, cheers, and laughter. His mouth hung open as he took in the response.
Applebloom smiled. Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle had arrived behind her, and were exchanging satisfied glances.
“Hey, uh, mister Shakes…” Applebloom sauntered up to the pale stallion, who was adjusting his glasses with a hoof. “Ah think you oughta take a look at yer rear.”
His eyes went wide. That had been no thunder! There wasn’t a cloud in the sky!
And on his pale flank lay an image of three stylized ghosts, swirling upwards out of the end of a microphone.
“Wh- but- I- that-” Shiver sputtered, staring at the newly arrived cutie mark. “I can’t believe it! This is- but- This is just dumb luck! How on Equus did you girls-”
“We are the Cutie Mark Crusaders.” Beamed Scootaloo, standing up pridefully.
“And you, Tall, pale, and handsome, are quite a writer.” The four turned at the new voice. Shiver looked like he was about to become a ghost for real. Leaning herself against one of the chairs on stage, with one of the many scattered manuscript pages pinned under her gaze, was…
“Q-queen of the Nightmares!” Shiver sputtered. “O-oh my sun, I can’t believe- that is- I…”
The silky midnight mare let out a laugh, baring the plastic fangs in her mouth. “I do tend to have that effect on them.” The crowd let out a wave of laughter. “But for real, I hope everypony with a page of this stuff helps put it back together. If the page I’ve got is anything to go on, these vampires really suck~! And I mean that in the best way!” Another laugh echoed, and she offered Shiver a wink.
"T-there... theress... no vam- vampir.... in th' storr-" he slurred, trying to make his mouth work.
“See, I told you this would end with kissing!”
The CMC and the great shut-in caper
The radio broadcast had gone live not long after. The Queen of the Night had thrilled with her typical mix of sardonic comedy and chilling delivery, the various special guests had read parts in several stories and done musical performances, and Princess Luna had capped the show off with an appearance, and a proper march through the town to ‘terrorize’ the foals. And when last they had seen Shiver Shakes, the midnight mistress had been talking him into accompanying her back to Applewood.
But for the Cutie Mark Crusaders, the night had only just started. After Shiver’s cutie mark had appeared, it had been a mad dash home for the three to slip into their costumes and set to trick-or-treating with ruthless efficiency to make up for lost time.
Now, much later in the night, after the larger town festivities had wrapped up, they happily sat to the side in the carousel boutique, organizing the heaps of candy they had collected, and watching Rarity and the rest of her friends (sans Fluttershy) drink and tell each other ghost stories.
Applebloom sat back on a small mound of banana taffy, her fake yellow head-fin drooping back and nearly falling off her head. “Well girls, ah reckon this has been a darn worthwhile Nightmare Night!” she mused contentedly, a lollipop sticking out of her muzzle.. “Ah’d say we even learned a lesson or two!”
Scootaloo looked up from where she was laid out, idling between popping chocolate buttons into her mouth, and fiddling with the red-glass gemstone hanging around her neck. “What, like how much taffy it’s possible to eat?”
“Well yeah, but ah mean a real lesson.”
The largest heap of candy rustled, and Sweetie Belle popped out, blue sea-pony tail poking up behind her. “Cheese Sandwich can list everything in the hardware store on a single breath?”
“No, ah mean lahk, the big lesson we learned today!”
The other two pondered vacantly, before Sweetie Belle put it together. “Oh! No matter how hopeless life may seem, we’re still capable of living and loving, no matter how late we may feel to the party, so there’s no sense in giving up so long as we still draw breath!”
“Ooooooh!” “Duh!” The other two grinned.
On the other side of the room, Pinkie Pie threw up.
The CMC and the great shut-in caper
[1] Twilight was rather infamous for her fastidious keeping of the library. Typically all was well, but if she was understimulated for a while… Well, more than one slow-reading pony had been rudely awakened at the exact crack of sunrise. (“The Princess has officially started the day at that point! Not rude!”)
[2] Pinkie wasn’t very good with the new candy moulds yet.
[3] Due to amusing circumstance, Princess Luna had the full stage the first year she returned. Cherilee, hoping to spend the night on a date, had asked Rarity to fill in for her, and the dressmaker had been all too pleased to accept. However, ‘Nightmare Rarity’ failed to show, as she had gotten far too wrapped up in repairing and bedazzling the well-worn Nightmare Moon costume, thus leaving the visiting princess to unknowingly take the job of frightening the foals.
[4] Vegetables plural. Equestria is not married to the pumpkin-based jack o’ lantern in the way others are. Certainly, they’re popular, but the origins of the tradition are a bit stronger. Wandering the streets of Ponyville on Nightmare night, one would be likely to see Jack o’ lanterns made of Pumpkins, but a great multitude also carved out of apples, turnips, potatoes, squash, and other-such vittles. Sugarcube corner, as always, had a joyous display of carved sugar-beets and sweet potatoes… which were guaranteed to go missing one by one over the course of the night as mischievous foals and peckish ponies filched little nibbles that slowly added up, and certain pink-coated fiends took less little ones.
[5] Daring Do was always popular, and she was joined this year by the pony in the hockey mask from that one horror panto that had done the traveling show circuit recently. There was also, as usual, a lot of Princess Twilight Sparkle costumes… but Ponyville was, reasonably, notably bereft of the years most popular group costume: Sexy elements of harmony.
[6]