Tracy meant to get off the Everwake that weekend. It wasn't just the smartest choice anymore, now he'd promised Rose. She was right about the dangers, and even more she didn't know. What would happen if he ran out while driving? Or worse, what if he kept using it until his lease ended, and had to sleep the next few months of work away?
But Sunday was Halloween—Nightmare Night to the ponies. He couldn't possibly spend the holiday asleep! He couldn't use Saturday to recover either, not when that was one of the last big days of the flower season.
"It's all greenhouse from here on," Rose said, pouring over the ledger screen. "After Nightmare Night, we only open for breakfast and a few days before Hearth’s Warming. All these bits mean we don't have to take loans to survive until spring. Or sell the store, or the house, or..."
Tracy wrapped one wing around her shoulder, pulling her away from the screen. "You don't have to justify it. I'm just impressed you can make it work at all."
She nuzzled up against his neck in one of her usual affectionate gestures. "After this weekend, there won't be as much for me to do. While my parents were still alive, we used to use the winter season to travel far from here, bringing in exotic flowers to grow for next year. But there's not enough here for anything that exciting."
She turned, grinning up at him. "Could we ride in that carriage of yours some more? That was so... fast."
Anything that would get her to come back to Earth was a win in his book. Too bad he didn't have any family to take her to meet anymore. I wonder what my sister would've said about all this.
Evie would probably be happy that he was with someone. Was two months enough time to convince Rose to stay on his side when the lease expired?
No, because she still has a family here. Unless there are other Worldgates we don't know about, it wouldn't be right. I have nothing to lose, she does. But however much the guilt gnawed at him, Tracy thought about it more than once. He had his dream job. If he could somehow walk away from all this with his dream girl as well, he'd be the one sending Discord a card.
It was amazing how much Equestria and Earth had in common with their holidays, even if their origins couldn't be any further apart. But Nightmare Night came, and he could barely even tell the difference. If anything, Ponyville took the holiday more seriously than Earth did, and almost everyone he saw was in costume.
Even Rose, who'd been so taken with her viewing of Nightmare Before Christmas that she decided to make a costume in the style of one of the characters. Or maybe it was just that using body-paint to draw stitching and discolor parts of her coat was easier than making something.
But just because he couldn't remember the name of the character didn't mean that Rose didn't take her costume seriously. So seriously, in fact, that he felt another fresh wave of guilt. "You can't really be planning to go without a costume!" Rose said, emerging from the bathroom a few hours before nightfall and poking her head into his bedroom.
Now that he didn't use it for sleep anymore, Tracy had transformed the space into more of an office, with room to store his clothes. More and more of those had migrated into Rose's room, but not all of that was his fault.
"It's more of a kid thing on Earth..." he began. That excuse worked until he turned, and stared right into the face of all her hard work. He'd helped with some of that paint, but only the parts she couldn't reach. Rose had done most of it herself, and even sewed the patchwork dress. "You know nobody is going to recognize that costume."
Rose nodded eagerly. "It's not just a goat thing on our side. Here everypony does it. There are games all up and down main street, you can see them already setting up outside. Once they're all asleep, then ponies break out the cider. You won't let me dance alone, will you? Nightmare Night is a bat's most important holiday."
Six months ago he would've sent her away with a little sarcasm and an unfriendly reminder that he only looked like a bat. But he was a different person now—a better one. Besides, he needed little cajoling to go anywhere with her.
He snapped the laptop lid closed, then turned. "I haven't dressed up in a long time. If I knew it mattered that much, I would've prepared a costume too. Are you sure I can't, like... just go as a bat? There aren't that many of us in Ponyville, that's exotic. Or maybe I could just throw on some clothes at random and say I'm someone from another world. Does that count as a costume?"
Her pout of indignation was all the answer he needed on that score. But she didn't look upset for long. "I figured this might happen," she said, pacing slowly around him, expression deadly serious. "You said you had the same holiday, but that didn't mean you would celebrate it the same way. You're from another world."
He nodded. "That's... clever. Are you saying you planned for this?"
She smiled slyly, then continued as though she hadn't heard him. "There's the boring options of course. You could just go as a night guard, but that's really boring. It also risks Princess Luna picking Ponyville this year. She's done it before, so don't put it past her."
"I don't know what that would mean. But she was good to my friends, so I wouldn't want to disrespect her." Also I'm low-key terrified she might actually be able to do the things you people tell stories about.
"The other end of the insane spectrum is going to Discord or poison joke for a costume."
"Wait—" He got up, walking slowly over to the window and squinting outside. As the season wore on, more and more of their nights overlapped. Curious how that change seemed to happen at the same pace in both worlds. "Discord—our landlord, the demon? He sells costumes?"
She shrugged. "Costumes is one word for it. Don't get me wrong, you'd get something great, his work never disappoints. But it doesn't always wear off the next day. Still, if you want something really convincing—and you don't mind whatever he turns you into. At least you'll make an impression."
Tracy spread both wings, taking a single step back. "He already turned me into this, and I'm still getting used to it. Besides, I'm not sure breaking my leg was enough getting even from him. Let's... let's not do that."
She didn't seem disappointed with his reaction, despite the denial. "I'm sure doing that would make for a Nightmare Night you never forgot. But you're already living in two worlds at once, that's so much more than most ponies could manage. Since it might be the only Nightmare Night you ever get, we have to make it count."
There was no missing the pain when she said it. But what was he supposed to tell her, that he changed his mind and was ready to abandon his whole world? He wasn't Shane.
"I appreciate that," he said. Close to the lamest possible response he could give. But it was honest, and that mattered just as much. "You can just go out and say it, Rose. You have a costume for me. What is it?"
She giggled, then took his hoof and dragged him across the hall. There was no danger of their contact devolving into anything unchaste this time, not with all that body paint. He could be patient until she asked for help washing it off.
"You know I've spent a long time with bats," she said. "Not quite so far as going to Echo, of course. By sacred tradition only thestrals and their formally married mates are allowed. But it was still enough to learn your history. Or... their history, that you've inherited? I don't know, is this awkward?"
She stopped in front of her closet. It wasn't mostly empty like his—somehow, she managed to fill it with hangers and clothes, despite spending almost all her days naked. There were some mysteries men were simply not meant to solve.
"Yes," he said. "But the last time I met real bats, they tried to bring me to that... Echo Caverns. I'm sure they'd want me learning more about... What do you have in mind, exactly?"
She began removing things from the closet, settling them onto the bed one at a time. As usual with pony outfits, nothing he saw here would do much for his modesty, even all taken together. But the last week had helped him give up on that taboo more than months of awkward glances and requests from townsponies about what formal function he planned to attend.
"I have no idea what I'm looking at," he said, when she'd finally finished. Like the robes of a medieval monk had been slashed into pieces and accentuated by seemingly purposeless toolbelts. "Who was this pony, exactly?"
"Star Drift," Rose declared. "Legend says he led the ancient thestrals to Equestria from a far country." Without prompting or permission, she picked up the lowest layer of the costume and tossed it over his back. "Drift the navigator. Drift the dreamwalker."
Tracy held still while she worked, though the urge to squirm free grew stronger every second he stood there and with every belt she tightened. "I can see why you're a fan. Where did these thestrals come from, exactly?"
She grinned wider. "That's the mystery. Ponies think it must be somewhere in the south. But every bat I've ever known insists they're from much further away. Their world was dying, just like the home of ponies before Equestria. Only instead of freezing, theirs was burning. But I have my theories, thanks to you. Isn't it obvious? They must've come from where you did! Or... at least somewhere a lot like it. It's the only answer that makes sense."
He didn't have the heart to start poking holes in it. He might look like a bat right now, but what did that prove? If he thought species in Equestria could be traced to a chain of ancestry, his friends had ruined that theory. They were all from the same town, descendants of the same original settlers. Yet they all looked different. Janet wasn't even a pony!
"I don't know enough to decide for myself," he said, the most diplomatic response he could manage. "But you could be right. If I ever see thestrals again, I could ask them."
Rose was just about done with the costume. With each piece in place, it did a better job making him look like an explorer. The almost-boots behind him did resemble the way pants sometimes transformed through the Worldgate. But it was probably nothing.
Rose slipped something off her shelf, settling it onto the bed in front of him. "Or you could do a little reading. But don't tell the princess I still have this, because technically it's a library book. From the, uh... from Golden Oaks."
She looked away, voice becoming solemn and distant. But before he could ask more, she dragged him over to the mirror, and posed behind him. "Now that is a costume. Not couples', but I don't think you would've looked good as a skeleton anyway. Maybe next Nightmare Night."
He didn't argue the point. "I'll join you downstairs in a minute," he said, gesturing for her to go on without him. "Just got to take care of something for work really quick."
A lie, sort of. There was no one even at work right now, and he wouldn't be getting new assignments until he came in tomorrow. But Rose didn't question.
As soon as her hoofsteps had faded down the stairs, he lifted aside the photo concealing his box of little vials. He uncorked the Everwake with his teeth, then downed it in a single gulp.
He felt no more disorientation anymore, no brief burning in his throat. Tracy straightened, tossed the empty vial into the bin, then went down to enjoy the party.