//------------------------------// // 4 // Story: The CMC and the great shut-in caper // by PennyDreadful //------------------------------// The mood was low. The crusaders trotted along meekly behind Shiver. The stallions head hung, and painted across his features was a disturbingly uncharacteristic hostile grimace. “Well, uh… ah think there’s probably some other things we can try.” Applebloom intoned hopefully, breaking the long and awkward silence as the group walked away from the Golden Oaks library and along the winding road back to the old well and the haunted house beside it. “Yeah!” Scootaloo smiled. “Just because you didn't end up with a cutie mark in any of the stuff we tried doesn’t mean you’ll never find it!” “Mhm! We do way more stuff, and we’re still looking for-” “Girls.” The three fell silent, gazes casting down.  “I appreciate your willingness to help, but this is where I get off.” As they arrived back at the ghostly stallions home, he turned to offer a rather dead-eyed glare. “Thank you for trying, but after today, it is all too clear to me that the world outside my sanctum is not fit for my habitation.” The air began to let out of him as the steel in his glare faded and the iron in his posture relaxed back to the hunched droop he had worn on their first meeting. “The fact of the matter is… some ponies are just too awful for others to tolerate the idea of them.” "But we-" "Girls, I am going to be very firm in this: leave me alone. I have had all of the outside world that I can hope to stomach, as well as all of the stomach that I can hope to have whirled. I understand that you think you can help me, but all the three of you menaces have given me is oodles of horrible material to work with in my writing. So good night, and good bye! I am cutting our geas short! I am unsubscribing from cutie-mark facts! I am cutting free my sails so that I may drift away into the dark ocean of solitude! Good day!" The door shut with a final thud, and the Cutie Mark Crusaders were left sitting on the front walk. Scootaloo snorted. “Geesh, what a grump. some honorary crusader he turned out to be. Now I’m definitely not giving him this.” The filly produced a rolled up-poster and shook it out. The midnight mistress,The Queen of the Nightmares herself, broadcasting live from Ponyville! With special guest appearances from Cheese Sandwich, Valley Brown, and Princess Luna herself! A night of comedy and horror that will make it hard to sleep for quite some time! “I snagged one of these off the poster wagon for him, but if he’s gonna be a jerk then I’m keeping it for myself!” Scootaloo moved to roll it back up, but had to spread it out on the ground in order to do so. Applebloom gave her a look. “It weren’t him, it was us. We dragged him around doing stuff we wanted to do, and all we got him was a tummy-ache, exhaustion, and… whatever the hay that mess with Twilight was.”  Sweetie Belle sighed, leaning against the wall of the house. “It’s weird, I’d have thought there’d be something in all the Nightmare Night stuff that would speak to him, but he wasn’t into any of it.” As she leaned back, her ears twitched. “Do you girls hear that?”  Scootaloo tilted her head. “Hear what?” The three fell silent, and soon, the sound of a typewriter became audible on the wind, drifting down from the window on the upper floor. That was the final piece. The gears in Applebloom's head began to turn, and the glance she exchanged with Sweetie Belle showed they were thinking the same thing. The two's muzzles split apart into grins. "He writes scary stuff..." "An' his scary stuff gets people excited n' inspires em, so it's gotta be good..." "And the nightmare lady will be in town..." "Reading spooky stuff on the radio fer everybody t' hear! So if we wanna help him in a way that actually involves sumthin he's good at, then..." Scootaloo glanced from one of them to the other, slowly picking up what they were putting down. "Oh, I get what you two are thinking! Do you think she'd really read it?" Sweetie Belle bounced idly on her hooves. "You heard how he talked whenever he was freaking out! I bet he's a great writer! All we gotta do is get some of his work to her, and it's sure to make up for how mad he is at us!" Applebloom pulled herself up to her full height and nodded. "Alright, we'll all meet here tomorrow 'round sundown!" "Aw, but that's when Trick or Treating starts!" Sweetie Belle pouted. "Buck up, crusader! This is about something bigger!" Scootaloo grinned, wings already buzzing in excitement. The next day had come, and the Crusaders had spent the day finishing their costumes, helping with various family goings-on, and overall enjoying the energy of the lead-up to the festival. But now, the sun was on it's slow march towards the horizon, and the three of them had gathered on Drywell road once again. Exchanging glances and nods with the other two, Sweetie Belle pushed open the door to the house, it’s dark interior now haunted by the mechanical clattering of the typewriter upstairs. Slowly and silently, the three ascended the stairs and followed the noise to the end of the hall, where it was slipping out from under Shiver’s door. “Mister shakes?” Applebloom knocked and poked the door open a crack with her muzzle, only to hear a groan of annoyance from the other side. “Girls, I told you to leave me alone. I am hard at work, sealing fear and terror in paper where they cannot hurt anypony.” Shiver was eerily lit, bathed in flickering candlelight and hunched over a typewriter. The ink-spatter on his hooves and muzzle gave the impression that it was slightly malfunctioning, and in the light, made him look rather terrifying in conjunction with his wild mane. “I have more than enough material, so I don't need your help today." "Yeah, that's kinda what we were hopin t' talk to ya about. See, we were talkin yesterday, an we came up with a cool surprise t' make it up to ya that we weren't no help with yer cutie mark." The stallion ignored them, silently continuing to type, seemingly hoping they would go away if he kept quiet.. “All we need is t' borrow one of yer stories!” In an instant, she had hopped up and grabbed one of the piles of paper off the desk. Shiver’s eyes went so wide they almost burst his skull. “We’ll just drop this off with that Nightmare lady for ya while she’s in town tonight, and she can read it on her show!” The reaction wasn’t entirely unexpected, which was why the three were off as fast as their legs could carry them, erupting out of the doorway to the house as a yowling Shiver nearly fell down the stairs in pursuit of them. “STOP! YOU CAN’T! THIS ISN’T FUNNY!” He shrieked, blanket whipping around him as he stumbled out of the door after them, the evening air whipping it into a proper ghostly shroud. “GET BACK HERE, YOU MEDDLING KIDS!” The shriek grew into a roar on the wind, and the crusaders felt a chill run through them as they careened down Drywell road in the wagon hitched to the back of Scootaloo’s scooter. Applebloom hugged the manuscript tightly to her chest. It had no binding, so the two dozen or so pages were threatening to fly away in the whipping breeze. The three headed for Ponyville proper as fast as the wheels could carry them. The sun slipped past the horizon as they went. Nightmare night had now officially begun, and they were starting it with an angry ghost on their tails.