Celestia's sun hung at the peak of the horizon, ready to dip below the land at any given moment and plunge all into darkness and let the festivities of the night begin, yet it hung there tantalizingly, though there was those that were thankful for its hesitance to move for it gave them the time they needed to finish their duties for the oncoming event.
The warm orange glow cast long shadows all throughout the small town of Ponyville, a small gray blot moving through the patches of darkness as it's owner flew high in the sky towards their destination. The wind whistled as it passed along their wings, the sound somewhat reminiscent of the call of one of the many creatures said to roam Nightmare Night.
Touching down at her doorstep with a full bag gripped in her mouth, Derpy did a quick victory prance for managing to make it to the store and back without losing a single one of her cargo. Swiftly she opened the door and stepped in and closed the door behind her before letting the bag drop to the ground so she could call out into the house.
"Dinky, I'm home!"
"Mom?"
A small clatter is heard from the kitchen before a light purple unicorn filly comes bounding out with a small pumpkin held aloft in her magic following close behind. The second she saw her mother standing at the door with the bag at her hooves she ran over to her, stopping just short of slamming right into Derpy's forelegs. She stared up at her mother with a bright smile that could outshine even the low light that filtered through the windows of the house. It was more than enough to put a smile on the pegasus face.
"Did you get the glow sticks? Did you did you did you?!"
With a chuckle Derpy reached with a hoof into the bag deposited on the ground and pulled out a small packet of standard green glow in the dark sticks.
"Yay!"
Dinky began to skip in place, excitement getting the better of her before she spotted the little pumpkin floating beside her head and looked to realize something she had forgotten. Turning it around in her magic Derpy saw that she had managed to carve out a face in the short time she had left to shop, a simple but well done spooky face with angry eyes and a grinning smile with a single fang.
"Oh it looks great Dinky, it's super scary!"
Smiling proudly at the compliment Dinky began to nose her way through the bag.
"Did you get enough for both our pumpkins?"
"Yup, five packs should be more than enough!"
With that Derpy clutches the bag off the floor with her mouth, after putting the glow sticks she was holding back, and trotted back to the kitchen where Dinky had come from. Dinky follows close behind, little pumpkin still in tow.
Once inside Derpy lays the bag on a central table where a small pumpkin carving set was spread about randomly alongside some paper towels and a bit of pumpkin guts here and there, Dinky placing her creepy faced fruit down as well.
"Go ahead and start opening the packs and cracking the sticks while I grab my lantern, okay?"
"Okay!"
A quick smile towards Dinky as she began to rip the packets open and dump the contents of three glow sticks each out onto the table, Derpy walked over to their fridge and opened the freezer, carefully extracting a pre-carved pumpkin. Both her and Dinky had worked together on this larger one earlier that day, choosing to instead go for a more friendly, smiling face than something more frightening. Slow and as particular with her movements as Rarity is with a needle, Derpy moved the large pumpkin onto her back, using her wings to help keep it and her balanced. She was determined to make sure both pumpkins survived until at the least Nightmare Night was over with, having already lost the right to use proper candles in their jack-o-lanterns due to Derpy's visit to Sugar Cube Corner last week.
She was so focused on keeping her balance in-fact that she failed to notice the frost around her lantern begin to melt, the water starting to dribble down to the floor. She was almost to the table when a small bit of water had spilled just under where she was going to step, but it was big enough to make Derpy slip.
"WAH?!"
With a "SMACK" Derpy got a brief moment to examine the fine details of her kitchen table before her sudden weight tilted the table.
"Mom?! GAH!"
In a panic Dinky swept up as much as she could from the table before they hit the ground with her magic, enveloping the carving knife, her lantern, and as many of the now cracked glow sticks as she could. With a huge clatter the table fell over, poor Derpy's close up examination shifting quickly from the table to the tiled floor, a few missed glowsticks rolling around her. Miraculously Derpy's lantern was perfectly intact, nestled safely between her wings as she laid on the floor face down. There was a silence for a moment as Dinky set down everything held in her magic before going to help her mother.
"Mom? Are you okay?"
With a groan Derpy slowly began to get up, keeping her lantern securely on her back as she gingerly rubbed her snout.
"I think so, my nose just stings a little."
Dinky stood up on her hind legs and wrapped Derpy by the neck in a hug, which Derpy gladly returned. Looking behind her Derpy was only happier to see her lantern was unscathed.
"Well, that hurt, but at least nothing's broken. Let's set the table back up and get these lanterns ready, we still have some more things to do before tonight."
Nodding in agreement Dinky let go and dropped to four legs again as she began to gather up things off the ground. Derpy gingerly put her lantern to the ground and put the table back up, careful not to step on anything. In short order everything was back in place on the table, including both lanterns. With a happy nod Derpy went to take her seat.
"Alright, let's finally-"
Only to step on an overlooked glowstick, once again her hoof going out from under her. Derpy tried to regain her balance desperately, but only succeeded in flipping herself around before she fell.
"NOT AGAINNNNNNNN-!"
Again Dinky tried to frantically grab everything off the table, but the shock of her mother slipping twice in a row only to hit and flip the table both times caused her to only be able to retrieve the knife and their lanterns this time, allowing the glowsticks to fly and/or roll as they pleased. And it seemed that they all wanted to land directly into Derpy's agape mouth. Confused and somewhat dazed Derpy did not quite understand what was suddenly filling her mouth, and in her mind trying to catch up with being knocked around again connected the dots as followed.
She was in her kitchen, her and Dinky were doing something with pumpkins, pumpkin is food, food goes in your mouth, there for what was filling her mouth was pumpkin.
And so with that one-second thought process Derpy instinctively swallowed eleven glowsticks.
Both mother and daughter froze, completely stunned as the realization fully came over them of what had just happened. Practically dropping everything to the ground to quickly help her mother shakily get up.
"Oh my gosh Mom! Are you okay?!"
Standing up on slightly weak hooves Derpy held onto Dinky's hooves as she fished around her brain for an answer.
"Limes."
"What? Mom, do I need to call Nurse Redheart again?"
Somewhat more stable now Derpy gave her head a hearty shake before giving Dinky a weak smile.
"No Muffin, I'm fine."
Dinky's face was heavy with uncertainty.
"Are you sure? You did just swallow a bunch of glowsticks..."
Walking over to the displaced table and aging setting it right Derpy put on as best a reassuring face as she could.
"It's fine Dinky, I'm fine. I made sure they were non-toxic...or at least not deadly when consumed. I've accidentally eaten worse things remember?"
When met with silence Derpy turned around to see that Dinky was staring at her with bewilderment. Concerned by her daughter's reaction Derpy was about to ask what was wrong when she noticed that everything seemed slightly brighter and green.
"Mom...You're glowing."
"I'm glowing?"
"Glowing green specifically."
"Ummm..."
With an awkward silence proceeding it the two quickly ran to the bathroom to look in the mirror. Indeed, Derpy's eyes and mouth were softly glowing the same green as the glow sticks she had consumed. Her eyes natural golden hue were now neon green while whenever she opened her mouth a glow shone from within her, and if you looked closely you could even see more glowing coming from her ears as well. Experimentally they turned the lights off to only have the effect amplified, Derpy's entire body giving off a very slight green glow that stood blaringly out against the darkness.
Dinky's previous bewilderment had now morphed into cautious excitement.
"This is so cool! You're like a living glow stick, but like, are you sure you don't want to see the nurse or doctor? Cus I'm really sure ponies aren't supposed to be able to do that..."
"No...no, I'm fine, really. I'm sure it'll wear off soon..."
The sad tone wasn't missed by Dinky.
"What's wrong mom?"
Derpy turned her luminescent eyes downcast, frown more off-putting than normal due to the little amount of green light managing to squeeze through her lips.
"I was being so careful, I didn't want mess tonight up, but yet again I manage to do something to muck it all up..."
"Mom no!"
A hug and nuzzle were swiftly dispensed.
"It's okay, I know you didn't mean to, plus you have to realize just how awesome having a glow in the dark mom is!"
"Oh, thank you Dinky."
The two nuzzled for a quiet moment before an idea hit Dinky harder than her mom's face hit the ground, a wide grin nearly splitting her face.
"Hey mom, can you still do that thing where you fit into tiny places?"
Night had descended at long last and Nightmare Night had begun proper as a small group of trick or treaters were walking along merrily through the cool night, costumes adorned, bags and baskets heavy with candy, talking of the sights they had seen as they were approaching a new house to plunder more yummies from. This house didn't stand out much from any other home they had visited that night, a few fake cobwebs here, a few Nightmare Moon cut-outs there, and two jack-o-lanterns sitting on the porch, each aglow with green light.
But as they got closer they took note of a strange, low moaning. They weren't deterred as this was Nightmare Night and the spooky and scary were abound. It grew louder and louder as they got closer and close, the group realizing that it was coming from the larger of the two lanterns. The children slowed considerably even though they were only a short few steps from the door, the moans now clear and loud, radiating from the lantern. With the promise of candy keeping them strong they timidly approached the door, only for them all to jump back with a shriek as the moaning reached its peak and the lantern began to shake.
Most of the group had already fled, leaving only an extremely small brave couple left as the lantern shook more. At last with a burst of movement and green light the top of the lantern opened, a pegasus lighting up the night with her eerie aura, wings outstretched to their full length and hooves splayed wide!
"BOO!"
"AHHHHHHHHH!"
One filly toppled over herself trying to run away while another colt stood there frozen with fear. It was only a second later though that the two calmed down, seeing that it was just a trick as Derpy began to giggle, the door behind her opening to reveal Dinky holding a bowl of candy.
With smiles abound Dinky handed out the candy to those who had not ran, giggling as they ooo’d and aaa’d at Derpy’s “costume”. The two waved them good-bye and called out with a response in kind of-
"Happy Nightmare Night!"
-Before a high-hoof was shared at another successful scare, adding to their overall tally.
And then the next morning Derpy had to go to the hospital, not because of the glow sticks mind you, but rather from a candy overdose and having cramped herself into a pumpkin all night long.