Nightmare Night
Admiral Biscuit
Every year I told myself I wasn’t going to do much for Halloween. I was too old for it, I didn’t want to deal with Trick-Or-Treaters, I didn’t feel like buying a costume, nobody had invited me to any parties.
This year was different.
I don’t know if Cinder Glow really understood American holidays. She had a book that she occasionally consulted after I tried to explain something to her or she saw something on TV she didn’t understand, but for the most part she just observed and sometimes joined in on the fun.
Thus it was that I found myself at Spirit Halloween with a kirin riding shotgun.
Every time we went somewhere in the car, I thought about the first time she’d ridden in a car. She’d gotten tangled in the seat belt, then had obsessively started touching everything in the car to figure out what it did. I’d forgotten she could reach out with her magic until she’d tilted the sun visor down and flipped open the vanity mirror.
I’d told her ‘no’ when it came to the actual driving controls—the last thing I needed was her grabbing at the steering wheel to figure out how it worked. Everything else was fair game.
Once she was satisfied with the car, we’d set off, something I knew she’d understand from TV and watching other cars move by. I’d still expected her to freak out, but she hadn’t. She’d kept her head out the window and had used her magic to flip through radio stations until she’d found one playing eighties music that she liked.
🎃🎃🎃
I didn’t know how she’d react to Halloween costumes or the creepy stuff in the store. “Nothing in here is real,” I assured her as we got close to the entrance. “Nothing will hurt you, okay?”
She blinked at me and tilted her head, then looked back at the store.
They weren’t going to have any costumes that would fit a pony—or a kirin—but there might be some accessories she’d like.
This Spirit Halloween used to be a farm and home supply store in a town full of them. Before that it had been a Sam’s Club, where I’d been shopping a few times as a kid.
I had no idea how they could possibly fill the entire store with Halloween merch, or if there was the demand for that much. All the other Spirit Halloweens I’d seen before had been in much, much smaller storefronts.
As soon as I got in, I saw what they’d done. They’d just blocked off a normal-sized space around the entrance, and not done anything else with the tens of thousands of square feet of retail space they had at their disposal.
Was it weird that a Halloween store popped up annually in various dead stores, or was that appropriate? I wasn’t sure.
I also noticed that they put their expensive animatronics right towards the front of the store. Cinder had gotten the lead as she went into the store, and the scary undead clown with glowing eyes activated when she inadvertently stepped on its pressure pad.
She jerked back, her horn lit, and I saw a wisp of flame around her eyes and I was expecting things to go very badly very quickly. “No!” I moved between her and the display more on instinct than actual thought—if she was about to immolate it, getting into the path of her magic was the worst place to be.
Her horn flickered out and the flame guttered and disappeared in a wisp of smoke more imagined than seen. Now that the danger was past, I reached over and waved my hands in front of its face. It didn’t respond, of course; it was not that good an animatronic.
Once it had stopped, I pointed to the pressure pad on the floor and imitated its voice and movements, then tapped the pad with my foot so she’d get the idea. It came back to life; this time Cinder looked at it curiously and let it complete its routine. Once it had finished, she pointed to several others arranged around a makeshift castle/haunted house.
I nodded, and followed her over. She tapped on each pressure pad in turn and watched the animatronics go through their routine before they fell silent again.
I also made a mental note to not take her to a haunted house, not until we’d overcome our language barrier, anyway.
🎃🎃🎃
She wrinkled her nose at anything gorey, and was confused by some of the meme-y costumes. She got some of the pop-culture references; I knew she’d watched those shows. Unsurprisingly, she was more interested in the accessories, using her magic to lift some of them off the shelf and try them on. Several hats caught her fancy, along with a Phantom of the Opera half-mask.
That was a good look for her.
Cinder set the mask back down and picked up a pair of fishnet stockings, flipping the package over to see what was inside. It occurred to me that since they were being worn by a model, she might not understand what was actually in the package.
She pointed to the price tag, then made a credit card swiping motion with her hoof. I nodded, and she put them in a shopping basket.
🎃🎃🎃
I hadn’t bought a costume in years. Not surprisingly, a large quantity of the costumes for women were ‘sexy’; I opted for the non-sexy male firefighter outfit. They both came with an ax, at least.
She got a bat costume for a dog as her main component, and a few accessories that might be for her or might be to decorate our place. I picked up a few decorations, as well.
🎃🎃🎃
I hadn’t intended to get a pumpkin for carving, nor had I intended to get candy for kids—or a jack-o’-lantern plastic bucket to put it in—but since we were going to dress up for the holiday, I figured we might as well pass out candy, too. Unless we got invited to a party, then we’d do that instead and eat the candy ourselves at a later date.
Cinder sniffed at the pumpkin and poked it with a hoof. She didn’t have as much interest in the candy; they were all kinds she’d had before. The pumpkin was new and different.
🎃🎃🎃
I’d never carved a pumpkin before. I knew that you were supposed to cut the top off and empty out the insides, and I also knew that the seeds could be roasted, although I’d have to look up how that was done.
The two of us sat at the kitchen table as I set to work on the pumpkin. It was tougher than I thought, and I considered using my bread knife on it instead of the kitchen knife I’d picked.
Instead, I just watched my hands and sawed around the top, finally removing the stem and a decent-sized ring of . . . skull?
It wasn’t a face yet, so it was just pumpkin shell. Or skin.
I set it on the counter; it would have to go back on once the jack-o’-lantern was done. And did I still have any tea lights in my junk drawer? I should have bought more while I was out.
The pumpkin flesh was tougher than I’d expected. I’d never been in one and had imagined for no rational reason that it would be the same consistency as pumpkin pie, rather than raw squash. It was tough and fibrous, and I finally got a scoop out and was considering what to do with it as Cinder leaned in and sniffed the spoon, then tapped her hoof to her mouth.
I nodded, and she ate it off the spoon.
🎃🎃🎃
She couldn't eat all the pumpkin flesh. Three-quarters of it went into Tupperware to save for later, either if I wanted to try and make a pumpkin pie from scratch, or if she needed something seasonal to snack on.
As I started attempting to carve the face in it, I realized that I should have bought two pumpkins so both of us could make our own. Instead, I decided we should take turns. I’d drawn the face on it, and it was a simple matter of tracing lines.
🎃🎃🎃
Cinder could grip the knife in her hooves, and she very carefully followed my lines for the second eye-hole, then each of us did half the mouth. When we’d finished, we had a pumpkin which qualified as a jack-o’-lantern, and was scary in an artistic sense. It was kind of generic and if artistic terms were to be applied, it qualified as either ‘rustic’ or ‘primitive,’ but it was the first time either of us had tried arts and crafts with a gourd and I was honestly proud of how it had turned out.
Setting it on the porch was semi-risky; there was a chance it could get smashed. Still, that was where it belonged. I put the candle inside and made a match-strike gesture with my hands; Cinder obliged and set the candle alight, and the two of us watched it flicker and glow until by mutual consent we got bored of it and went to Starbucks to get pumpkin spice lattes.
🎃🎃🎃
It was hard to know how ponies felt generally about the various social rules and customs around clothes, since Cinder almost never wore them. That had led to a few amusing in hindsight misunderstandings at my expense.
She was clearly okay with me seeing her costume in progress; she wasn’t satisfied to wear it as it came out of the various plastic bags. The kitchen table was the best work surface for sewing, and I’d seen her at work a few times, measuring and cutting and sewing, to what end I didn’t know. She never tried anything on when I was around.
She also experimented with setting apples on fire, not using normal fire, but using her Nirik flames.
Cinder knew when Halloween was: I’d shown her on the calendar. I’d also told her that the candy wasn’t for snacking on, and she’d understood; the bags remained unopened.
🎃🎃🎃
Until Halloween itself, I hadn’t decided if the two of us should go trick-or-treating, or remain home and pass out candy. I was too old for it, but she’d never done it and it would be a lot of fun to go around the neighborhood and see what we’d get. I’d feel like a kid again, unless I didn’t get anything.
There was also still the slim possibility that we’d get invited to a Halloween party, although as I was setting up fake spiders and fake spiderwebs, I kind of hoped we wouldn’t.
Good start, I can already see a Kirin being curious of how life on Earth is different from Equestria and the endless possibilities of mischief they would get into.
11417460
While this fic doesn't get into it all that much, a large part of my catalogue is ponies on Earth figuring things out one way or another. There are plenty of misunderstandings and mischief, some of it intentional and much of it not.
11417467
The culture clash is the joy of stories like these. From a pony’s point of view we get to look at some of our weird idiosyncrasies.
This is one of the USA things that confuse/upset non USA visitors. Most countries, the sales tax is added into the price tag. In the USA, the price marked is NOT what you get charged at the register. Plus, different things are charged different rates so you can't always guess.
Plus, I'd bet that in Equestria you haggle over the price. In the USA, you mostly aren't allowed to.
*squeeeeeeee*
11417534
I'll be honest, that's one of the reasons I like writing and reading PoE or HiE so much--it's a great chance to take a look at technologies and society and behaviors and taboos through a different lens, even the smallest things that most of us would take for granted.
11417580
Yeah, and it's weird that some things have to be priced at their final sale price (like gasoline), while others are not. I could go to the local gas station, buy a gallon of fuel and pay the price on the pump, buy a bag of chips and pay the price on the bag, buy a hot sandwich and pay our six percent tax on that, and buy a pack of smokes or a beer and pay whatever the local tax on tobacco or alcohol is (I have no idea what it is, but I'm sure it's more than normal sales tax). There are probably other special taxes on items in the store that I don't know about, either.
That's probably circumstantial in Equestria, too, but more common. I'd imagine that a business like Barnyard Bargains charges a fixed price for goods, whereas buying from a sole proprietor at the market or at her farm is open to haggling. (I also personally think that the ponies mostly love haggling for products, and get insulted when someone doesn't.)
11417770
It is interesting to meet an Equestrian who is not a cunning linguist; in most stories the ponies speak our languages perfectly. It is nice to see an Equestrian not speaking our languages.
11418378
I was going to say the same thing! I mean, I understand that most writers here don't have a background in linguistics and that it could slow the plot down a bit. But still, it does a lot just to make the world building more realistic.
11418647
I certainly don't have a background in linguistics and my few attempts to learn a foreign language have been disasters. Which is to say it isn't an excuse; an author can do their research and make it work even if they don't invent a pony language and all its rules.
We know from Earth that there are lots of languages spoken, and of course the majority of us know at best one or two or maybe three (probably with limitations when it comes to second or third languages). And it's fair to assume that in the case of ponies, their first language would not be English--or whatever the local language is. So why would any first-contact, or close to first-contact fic assume that the ponies spoke English (or I guess the humans spoke Ponish, depending on circumstances)?
Even without being able to speak the same language, there are lots of ways to communicate, oftentimes worked out by experience. I work part-time with developmentally disabled adults, not all of whom can speak, and some of them have very good ways of making their intentions known. For example, one guy I work with sometimes will take off your coat and hang it up if he wants you to stay. Tapping and pointing to things is a way to communicate; pantomime is a way to communicate; it's maybe not as complex or nuanced as speaking can be, but it's effective for wants and needs.
You paint a wonderful image curious creature from another world exploring and experimenting with the technology we take for granted but she sees as alien.
It is so adorable.
11419351
Thank you!
Nothing cuter than a pony figuring out human tech.
It's not her I would be afraid for...
I'm not saying I told you, but I told you.
That might be for the best.
But one faithful day day you should visit Equestria with her, and then she has to keep you out of trouble.
I wonder who would have the harder job.
Well, you also used 🎃 to mark scene shifts, so it's fair.
11420210
And now think about a human figuring out pony "tech"!