Hungry. Starving. Hungry. Starving. Hungry! Starving! Hungry! STARVING! HUNGRY!
HUNGRY! STARVING!
Noises. Town. Beings! Food!
Hungry!
Multitude. Outnumbered. Danger. Change. Hide.
Hungry!
Patient. Quiet. Seek. Stalk.
HUNGRY!
Patient. Patient. Seek…look…
Foals.
HUNGRY!
Tasty, tasty foals…
---
“Nightmare night! Such a fright! Give us something good to bite!” Dinky Doo, Snails, and Twist all called out in front of the latest house they had stopped at, just as the Sun was finally going down beyond the horizon and making it now truly Nightmare Night. The pony inside the house, standing in the open door, gave a slight laugh at the three’s eagerness, and didn’t hesitate to pass out candy to each of them. He didn’t have time to chat, though, as the next group of foals was already pushing forward and calling out the Nightmare Night greeting.
Dinky – dressed as an eowolf, complete with a faux-furry pelt over her withers, false paws around her hooves, and a set of fake sharp teeth – didn’t mind moving out of the way, though, as it meant the four of them could head on out for the next home on their trek. “This is the best Nightmare Night ever!” She said as she trotted, shaking her saddlebags a little. “I don’t think I’ve ever gotten so much candy!”
“Everypony’th being really generoth,” Twist agreed, then let out a long sigh at her own words even as she adjusted the huge brim of the hat on her evil witch costume, which included a long but frayed at the end cape, and a broom with a twisted handle. “Generous,” she repeated, making sure to pronounce the s correctly. “Why can’t I loose my lisp? Just for tonight! It’th – it’s – my one Nightmare Night wish.”
Snails just barely avoided tripping over the cloth wraps around him as he moved them from around his mouth so he could speak; the mummy costume, in Dinky’s opinion, seemed like it was more trouble than it was worth, though she had kept that to herself. “I don’t think ponies get wishes on Nightmare Night,” Snails said. “Unless you wish to not be eaten by the Nightmare. Most ponies get that wish.” He waited several long moments before smiling and looking between the two fillies. “Most…” he repeated, though the menace was somewhat undercut by the huge grin he wore at his own cleverness.
Dinky and Twist both laughed anyway – it was a clever line. Dinky paused a moment in her trot to raise her paw-clad front hooves and roar a little at a pair of passing younger foals and their adult chaperone, though not too loud and only once they’d already seen her. The foals all squealed and laughed at the same time, then hurried along with their chaperone. Dinky took a moment to revel a tiny bit in the fact that she didn’t have a chaperone this year. She was old enough, her mother Ditzy Doo had decided, as long as she kept with her friends.
She wished Pipsqueak could have joined her, though. Once her mother had given her permission to wander the town without an escort, she’d tried to find as many other foals who had had the same permission from their parents as she could in order to make it a real foals-only Nightmare Night…but although plenty of foals had permission, a sizable number of them were going to Diamond Tiara’s Nightmare Night party instead of trick-or-treating. But Pipsqueak, although he wasn’t going to the party, was also a little younger than Dinky and hadn’t had permission from his mother and father to wander around the town. His family had only moved here from Trottingham a few months ago, after all.
Dinky’s reverie was broken when Twist bumped her own flank lightly against Dinky’s to get her attention. “C’mon, we’re nearly done with thith – this section of Ponyville! If we hurry we can get to the farmth!”
The unicorn filly perked up at that – causing her pelt of faux-fur to slip over her eyes a moment – and grinned. “We might be the first out there!” She said, leaning close to Twist and Snails. Ponyville proper was surrounded by a ring of farmsteads, and everypony knew that the farmers always had the best candy to give out. “All the good candy will still be ours!”
The three let out a little cheer and turned around – and swiftly found themselves face-to-face with a monster lurking in the shadows between the light of two of Ponyville’s street lamps. Dinky let out a shriek of fright at the sight, a jet-black pony with bright red, featureless eyes, huge bat-like wings, and a mouth full of sharp teeth. Dinky, Snails, and Twist fell back as the pony hissed at them with a sound that was almost un-equine. Even when they fell back, the pony advanced another step and hissed again.
Dinky managed to not turn around and scamper home, but only because the pony, whoever it was, began coughing and stumbled a little, ruining its terrifying appearance. The unicorn filly’s eyes narrowed, and she stepped forward, horn glowing an angry lavender under her faux-fur pelt. “That wasn’t nice!” She exclaimed. “Nightmare Night’s supposed to be scary, but you’re not supposed to be that scary!”
“Yeah!” Twist exclaimed. “That’th way too much!”
“Give us a little warning!” Snails added last. His own horn was glowing a green-yellow, though its full brightness was muted somewhat by the mummy’s wraps around it.
The pony – Dinky didn’t recognize her, she had a really good costume – did the last thing that Dinky would have expected: she shrank back at the three foals’ angry outburst. After a moment, she bolted away, diving between a pair of Ponyville houses. The three watched her go. “Well…serves her right!” Dinky said, quelling her horn’s glow and doing her best to ignore the adrenaline pumping through her veins now. “Some ponies…”
“I don’t think the Nightmare herthelf would be that thcary…” Twist noted, as the three foals continued on their way – a little more bunched up than before, each noticed, but didn’t do anything about. Twist didn’t notice she had let her lisp come back, either. “What if we had been little foalth?”
Dinky nodded. It was totally different from when she had roared at foals herself – she hadn’t gone all-out and she’d made sure that the foals had seen her coming. A little shock was fine, but you didn’t want to be so scary that you might ruin somepony’s night…
“Hey! Dinky!”
Dinky ears flickered at the voice – she’d know that Trottinghamish accent anywhere. Turning in its direction, her eyes widened at the sight of an earth pony foal, wearing a black turban with a red feather and black-hued bangles around his fetlocks, as well as other bits of black ‘jewelry’ around his waist, his neck, and in his tail, while his normally pinto coat was colored bright red thanks to some dye. “Pipsqueak?” She asked.
Pipsqueak trotted up happily to Dinky’s little herd. “Yup!” he answered, and spun in place. “What d’ya think of my costume? I’m done up like an efreeti. When me mum and da’ an’ me were sailing the world we stopped in Maghrib and heard all sorts of stories about them. They’re like the jinn in Naqah, but – ”
“Where are your parents?” Snails asked. “I thought you said they wouldn’t let you go without them…”
Pipsqueak smirked. “I managed to convince them to let me go anyways,” he said. “They said as long as I stick with you lot I’ll be fine.” He indicated his back, which held half-full saddlebags that somewhat ruined the efreeti look, though no foal was so into their costume that they’d forgo their loot bags. “I’ve been looking for you all night!”
Twist frowned a little and looked like she was going to say something, but Dinky stepped in first. “This is great!” She exclaimed, moving up to Pipsqueak and giving him a friendly nuzzle…though for a moment she forgot how long a ‘friendly’ nuzzle was supposed to be for some reason. When she realized how long it was going on, she stepped back, blushing a little at her faux pas, and pushed the conversation forward. “We were just about to head out to the farms. Probably nopony’s been to them yet, so I bet we can get all the best candybars!”
Pipsqueak didn’t seem to have minded Dinky’s over-long nuzzle. “Great! Let’s get going!” he said, turning around and setting out, though once the rest of the herd got moving he fell back a little so that he could be between Snails and Dinky, with Twist to Snail’s right. “I heard Tootsie Flute say that Sweet Apple Acres has the best candy apples. Can we go there first?”
“Then we can go to Carrot Top’s,” Snails noted, glancing up a little, biting his tongue as he thought about the layout of Ponyville and the farms that surrounded it. “Then Green Grape…we’re gonna be going up and down a lot of roads.”
“Cut through the fields.”
Pipsqueak brightened. “Good idea, Twist!” The colt said. “If we cut through the farms, then we don’t have to worry about roads.”
Twist leaned forward a little so she could look at Pipsqueak, on the other side of Snails. “I didn’t thay – ugh, say, that,” she said.
“Oh. Thought it was you…” Pipsqueak shrugged. “Still a good idea, though.”
Dinky found herself agreeing, though she couldn’t help but wonder at least a little about what her mother would think about her not only going out to the farmhouses far beyond the edge of Ponyville proper, but also going off the roads and out into the fields. Not that it would matter much…Ponyville was a perfectly safe town. Sure, there was the Everfree Forest and all its scary monsters right there at the edge of some of the farms, but it wasn’t like the foals were planning on going into the Everfree, or even near it. Dinky definitely wouldn’t go into the Everfree in broad daylight, nevermind at night on Nightmare Night. So it wasn’t a problem…right?
Dinky was a bit too wrapped up in her thoughts to notice the small foal, a filly dressed like a kelpie, come barreling down the road, and she didn’t react fast enough to avoid the foal trying to run between her and Pipsqueak and instead getting stuck. Dinky and Pipsqueak both let out annoyed shouts, trying to step away from the filly, but her own flailing at trying to get through caused her to get stuck for a few moments. Dinky almost would have thought that the filly was purposefully trying to stick to them before the foal started coughing a little and fell to the ground. Before anypony else could do anything, though, the foal was back up, and dashed off and out of sight.
Dinky and her herd watched the foal galloping – with the kelpie costume Dinky couldn’t tell who it was – before Dinky let out an annoyed whicker. If anything, the streets of Ponyville were even more crowded than they had been just an hour ago, when the sun was still up. “Also we need to get out to the farms so that we stop getting interrupted like that!” She said. “First the mean bat-pony and now this…”
Pipsqueak nodded. “Right! Let’s get going…
---
HUNGRY!
Better. Little better. Joy. Happiness. Fun. Helps.
HUNGRY!
Not enough. Need love. Love!
HUNGRY!
THERE.
Foals. Love. Small. Helps…can almost…think…
HUNGRY!
Patient…patient…stalk. Follow. Carefully…
BUT I’M SO HUNGRY!
---
Pipsqueak had been right, it had totally been worth it to go to Sweet Apple Acres first – and they had been first, no other foals having stopped by yet. The candy apples couldn’t be added to their saddlebags, of course, lest they drip all over their candy and make a sticky mess, but none of the four minded eating as they walked, the horns of Snails and Dinky lit up to provide light.
“Hey, look!” Snails said, holding out his candy apple. He’d taken some gummi worms from his bag and stuck them on. “I’ve got worms in mine!”
“Blegh!” Twist exclaimed, though she laughed as well. She was having a difficult time balancing both her witch’s broom and candy apple in just one hoof, but she needed the other front hoof for walking. Dinky had offered to use telekinesis to help Twist hold hers – her magical abilities were further along than Snails’ – but Twist had insisted on doing it herself.
Unfortunately, a pair of small tragedies struck at around the same time. First, they finished their candy apples, which was bad because they had been delicious and they hadn’t wanted to finish them off as quickly as they had. But second, when they reached the home of Carrot Top, sitting at the edge of her Golden Harvests Farm, they found the windows dark – no sign of anypony at home. The foals tried anyway, but after knocking on the door several times, there was no sign of anypony coming to greet them.
“Must be out,” Dinky reasoned, as the five stepped away from the house and started trotting back for the road. “Okay! So Sweet Apple Acres and Golden Harvests are the only farms on this road. So now…the plan is to go through there, right?” she pointed straight ahead as they reached the edge of the road. Across a white split-rail fence lay the vineyard of Green Grape – Dinky didn’t know if he had a name for his farm – where they could quickly cut through and get to Green Grape’s house itself, a trot that would only take five or six minutes. Going all the way back down the road to Ponyville proper and then going up the next road to Green Grape’s front door would probably take them three times as long.
Still, the five foals found themselves pausing at the fence, rather than climbing through. In the dark of Nightmare Night, with only Dinky and Snails’ horns and the light of the moon to allow them to see, the vineyard looked…maybe a little scary. The trellises – many of them over six feet tall – loomed large, and though they were in neat, orderly rows, the limit of how far down those rows the foals could see was just a little intimidating.
Dinky looked to her left, at Snails and Twist, and then to her right, at Pipsqueak and Twist, all four of whom were looking down the rows of trellises with trepidation. “O-okay,” she said, turning back to the fence and putting a foot on one of its beams. “We can do…” she paused a moment. Wait, had she seen…? Dinky looked to her left with wide eyes at Snails and Twist, then right again, at Pipsqueak and…and just Pipsqueak. There was a big rock next to Pipsqueak, though. That must have been what she’d seen, not a second Twist from nowhere…right?
The other three foals were looking at her. “What’th wrong?” Twist asked, then stomped a hoof in annoyance. “What’s. Go away, lisp!”
The other three foals all giggled a little at that, Snails rubbing a friendly hoof on Twists’ withers to let her know that they didn’t mean anything hurtful about it. The tension drained from the foals, and Green Grape’s vineyard looked a little less scary. “Okay,” Dinky said, hopping through the fence and brightening her horn’s lavender glow, deciding to forget about the mysterious second Twist she’d seen. “Let’s get going! Me and Snails will shine as bright as we can.”
The foals set out, advancing two-by-two through the trellises, Dinky and Pipsqueak in front and Snails and Twist behind. Between the two unicorns, their horns’ glow was bright like they were carrying a lantern or torch, but the night all around them was oppressively dark and seemed to press against their light…Dinky glanced up and saw that clouds were moving in, slowly covering the Moon and Stars and blocking their light. She suppressed a shiver and instead looked to Pipsqueak. “S-so…” she said, hoping her nervousness wasn’t too apparent. “What did you do for Nightmare Night when you were sailing with your parents?”
Pipsqueak glanced up at Dinky, grinning a little nervously. “Actually…this is sorta’ my first Nightmare Night,” he said. “We didn’t have it on the ship…and I don’t really remember what it was like before me da’ became a trader. Me mum would get me candy, but I wouldn’t really dress up or anything.”
“But what if the Nightmare had come to your ship?” Snails asked. “You’re supposed to be in disguise so she thinks you’re a monster too and leaves you alone.”
“I don’t think she’s real,” Pipsqueak responded. “Just an old mare’s tale.”
“She is too real,” Twist countered with a whicker. “I heard a few years ago there were a bunch of foalth – foals – in Canterlot who saw the Nightmare.”
“I heard she ate two of them,” Snails continued. “And that she kidnapped a foal to carry her loot, turned him into a vampire! Nopony’s seen him since…” He let out a dark and sinister chuckle.
Dinky had heard the same thing, but she’d been successfully ignoring it until now. Surely their parents wouldn’t let them go out on Nightmare Night if the Nightmare might actually find and eat them, right? She also tried to ignore that Snails was really good at spooky laughs. Dinky also realized she had stepped closer to Pipsqueak, so that her coat occasionally brushed his as they trotted. She decided not to correct that, though. “Well,” she said, “there’s four of us, and we’re all dressed up, and we have candy! So if the Nightmare shows up, we’ll be – ”
There was a loud snap from somewhere to their left, like an entire trellis breaking in half. The four foals all let out whinnies of fright, bunching up quickly at the sound, Dinky and Snails instinctively cutting their horn-light. While it certainly would make them harder to find in the dark, it also made the situation inestimably more unnerving.
None of the foals dared to breathe as they stayed close to one another, ears straining. After several very long moments, Dinky had little choice but to exhale, followed by the others, but that was the only sound that any of them heard. Slowly, tentatively, Snails lit up his horn again. Dinky followed suit, though none of them moved a muscle and continued looking in the direction of the sound they’d heard.
“O-okay,” Twist whispered. She was holding onto Snails, who had his own forelegs around her even as he pressed his body close to Dinky “M…m-maybe we th-thould jutht go to Green Grape’th…then g-go back to P-Ponyville.”
A very small part of Dinky wanted to say that no, she a big enough filly that spooky sounds in the night shouldn’t put her off of free candy. But the rest of her had her hooves wrapped around Pipsqueak’s body and was emphatically in agreement. She could feel that the smaller colt was somehow almost wrapped around her, pressed tightly against her side while she also felt his head against the point of her shoulder. “R-right,” she said, glancing down at Pipsqueak. “We can go back and see if we can still go to Diamond Tiara’s…”
Dinky lost whatever she was going to say, staring with wide eyes. Snails and Twist looked over at Dinky’s pause, and both let out gasps of shock. All three backed away quickly.
Pipsqueak let out a slight cry at being suddenly left behind by the other ponies, and looked to each of his friends. “Wh-what’s wrong?” he asked.
His words were echoed by the other Pipsqueak, identical in every way, who stood next to him.