//------------------------------//
// 2 
// Story: The CMC and the great shut-in caper 
// by PennyDreadful 
//------------------------------//

“It ain’t possible!”
“It can’t be true!”
“There’s just no way!”

“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. 
Somehow, all of them were now swaddled in the boughs of the same fanciful nightmare: 




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.
“I can’t believe we never got our cutie marks! Ever!” Wept Sweetie Belle.
“This fire is totally gonna overcook this steak!” Bawled Scootaloo.

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?”
“Wait, we’re not being cooked on a grill with hayburgers? I thought she just got the line wrong.” Sweetie Belle seemed confused.
“No! Don’t tell me neither a’ you knows what bein’ burned at the stake means!”

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.”
Assistant mayor Silver Spoon pushed up her glasses. “I could see about getting us scheduled for Snips and Snails’ next tandem-anxiety dream about being naked in the middle of the grand galloping gala.”
Diamond Tiara’s face screwed up in confusion. “Wha- how stupid are they? What kind of pony worries about being naked? Why are we only in the nightmares of morons?!”




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.
“Shiver Shakes, grown stallion, no cutie mark, fear about our futures?” Sweetie Belle offered.
“Oh, yeah. Ah guess that’s pretty scary.”

There was a pause.

“Ya don’t think Diamond Tiara could really get elected mayor, do ya?”
There was a light shudder through the trio, but Scootaloo stomped her hoof.
“We gotta help him!”
“Beg yer pardon?”
“Mister Shakes! If he hasn’t got a cutie mark, that makes him qualified to join the Cutie Mark Crusaders!”
“I think he might be a little old.” Giggled Sweetie Belle.
“That just means he needs our full attention! We’ve got all the time in Equestria to find ours, but he’s wayyyy older! He’s a higher priority! He needs to get his to prove we can get ours!”

“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…”
“Call him Shiver! I read a book at the library that says hostage situations resolve better if you use their first name casually!” Sweetie Belle interjected.
“What?” Scootaloo couldn’t even begin to understand where that came from. “This isn’t a hostage situation!”
“Sure it is! He’s holding himself hostage! He’s a prisoner of the heart, like in the stuff Rarity writes and hides under her bed. And if we’re lucky, he’ll end up doing a bunch of kissing!”
The other two fillies stared, owl-eyed. Sweetie Belle didn’t miss a beat and trotted right past them.

“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.
“If he’s gotta get his cutie mark…”
“An’ he likes scary stuff…”
“Then now's the perfect time! Tomorrow's Nightmare Night!"

Grins now wide, purpose was swelling.
“And maybe we could get something spooky too!”
“Ooh, or for eating candy apples!”
Applebloom snorted. “There’s no Cutie Mark fer that. My sore tummy last year proved it.”

“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.
Sugarcube Corner's kitchen was a complete warzone. Every surface that could hold baking trays and mixing bowls was crammed full of twice what was reasonable. Every baking implement overflowed with candy. Swirly rainbow lollipops, candy corn, chocolate frogs, gummy animals of every shape from worms to snakes to sea serpents[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. 
While Pinkie Pie rampaged in her mad attempts to gummify and taffify new forms of arcane toothrot, the kitchens ovens gently baked everything from candied radishes to honey-oat buns. Down the street, Bon-bon’s store was a madhouse as well, buzzing with all its seasonal hired help in order to produce an endless cornucopia of chocolates; enough to meet demand for everyone who could want to hand the treats out come the night of the festival.

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. 
Sweetie Belle and Applebloom were helping with the latter, each doing their stumbling best to clean up as fast as the kitchen could dirty itself, moving cooled candies into bags just in time for bubbling hot new ones to take their place on the cooling trays. It was grueling, sweating work.

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.
Next to her however, the trials of adulthood were playing out their dark theatrics, as Shiver Shakes could barely keep down any more candy. The pink party planner had provided piles and piles of experimental candies that needed testing, wanting feedback on each and every alteration to the recipe of the sticky wiggling substance, and the stallion’s weak constitution had clearly been overloaded to send him into sugar shock. Scootaloo could hear him retching slightly… but she felt too good to care.

“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.”
Pinkie Pie crammed her head into view as well. “It’s totally crazy, you know? I know everypony who lives in town, but I totally had no idea that Shiver was around! If I weren’t so busy, I’d love to throw a ‘welcome to Ponyville but I guess you were already here but welcome again’ party! He’s so super cool and creepy! It makes my spine all tingly looking at him!”

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.