//------------------------------// // Chapter 7 // Story: The Nightmare Tree // by The Ancient Wyrm //------------------------------// The Nightmare Tree Chapter 7 Deep within Tauren catacombs, a murder had taken place. Featherweight, mouth agape in horror, was crouched, back to the dust that had previously been Pipsqueak. His eyes, along with the no longer jubilant CMC, were pasted to the laughing, victorious form of Moundshroud, who was balancing the still lit pumpkin bearing Pipsqueaks’ face. Featherweight thought he knew, but now he was oh so sure what that pumpkin really was. Enraged, Featherweight shot up and began to dash towards Moundshroud, disregarding the bones he now trampled. “No you don’t! I got to him first! He’s ours!” “Sorry,” Moundshroud admonished. “This was never a contest; its’ rent was past due, it’s simple and plain.” “That’s no fair!” Sweetie Belle squeaked. “Yeah!” Scootaloo agreed. “You promised that if we came with yah an’ solved the mysteries of Nightmare Night, that we could save Pip!” Applebloom fumed. “Foals, foals,” Moundshroud cooed. “It’s simple business; with his illness his rent came due and there was no payment for the fee.” Moundshrouds’ smile was stashed away as his voice took on a harder tone, “He’s mine now!” Featherweight and the CMC simply stood there in front of Moundshroud, gawking in disbelief at the caped unicorn. Slowly they turned to each other; their eyes asking that one simple question, which they now realized the answer. There was no way to help Pipsqueak anymore; it was over. With sagging faces and cold hearts, the four trick-or-treaters began the long walk to the catacomb staircase. A light began to glow began Featherweights’ eyes as he thought; he stopped and turned back to the unicorn. “No! Wait! I have an idea! Mr. Moundshroud I will make his payment for him!” Moundshroud, a little surprised, eyed Featherweight. “You? What could you possibly have to pay with? Bits? Currency? Coin of the Realm?” he throatily laughed, leaning towards Featherweight. “Well, no sir, but I do have something more valuable.” Featherweight hesitated. “What if…what if…” “What if what, colt?” Moundshroud demanded. Featherweight sucked in air, and spat out, “What if I gave you a year of my life?” The CMCs’ jaws dropped, and even Moundshroud was taken aback. He looked to Pipsqueaks’ pumpkin. “One precious year from the long burned out candle end of your life, eh?” he pondered. Then his eyes slung back to Featherweight, “Think before you decide, colt! You may not miss it now, but eighty years from now, or seventy, or maybe even fifty when I come to collect my fee you may come to regret it!” Moundshroud turned on his horseshoes, and levitated the pumpkin as he walked away from the four. “Is he worth it?” he queried, turning to look over his shoulder, “This friend of yours?” Now he faced them again, balancing the pumpkin on his left hoof. “More than you will ever know” Featherweight implored. Moundshroud sat upon his haunches, and began to tap his right hoof against his chin, mumbling to himself. “Take one of mine too!” another small voice yelled, causing Moundshrouds’ eyes to pop out, and his right hoof to clutch the pumpkin as if he feared it would fly away again. Sweetie Belle, eyes a little puffy, was determinedly standing next to Featherweight. “Take one of mine too!” Applebloom joined in. “Not without me!” Scootaloo grinned. Moundshroud looked to the four in confusion, and Featherweight was astounded. “Wait a moment! I can’t ask you all to give up a year!” Featherweight said. “We aren’t doing it for you,” Sweetie Belle informed, “we’re doing it for Pipsqueak!” “Right!” Applebloom piped up. “He’s our friend too!” “Besides,” Scootaloo sighed, “what would Pip say if we came all this way and only one of his friends did this?” Featherweight looked to each of the CMC, and smiled. Turning back to Moundshroud, he announced “Well, that’s our offer. So what do you say Mr. Moundshroud?” Moundshroud’s face was stoic for a while, and then a thin smile began to cut across his features. “Yes. Yes! I like it!” His horn glowed green for a moment, then a small candy pony skull bearing the name ‘Pipsqueak’ upon its’ forehead was brought out of his cape. “Here then, to seal the deal!” The skull was broken into four pieces by his magic. “The ‘Pi’ is for the skeleton, the ‘ps’ for the witch, the ‘qu’ for the mummy, and the ‘eak’ for the little monster! Swallow and chew, chew and swallow!” The four friends took their respective pieces of candy, and ate them. Down the long corridor, over the dried bones of cows and minotaurs, a faint light began to filter in. The dust pile at the end stirred, then began to reform the shape of a small blue pinto pony. The figure dashed on flaming sparks across the bones, and snatched the pumpkin from the outstretched hooves of Moundshroud. Up the stairs he flew, away into the night. “Wait Pip!” Applebloom called. “Come back!” Scootaloo cried. “Where did he go?” Featherweight asked a proud looking Moundshroud. “After all this?” Moundshroud smiled warm iron, “Only one place to go; Home!” “Did we do it Mr. Moundshroud?” Sweetie Belle asked. “Will he live?” “Come foals!” Moundshroud cried, cape billowing out. Then he gathered it about himself, “One last game of musical chairs!” Moundshroud spun about like atop; his horn and dress horseshoes cutting the air in grabs and snitches. The summoned whirlwind shook the dried mummies like and earthquake, back into their niches and cubbies. Four foals were sucked in, “Fall down!” was the cry, “Fall up!” was the echo! And up it went, up the stairs, shut the sepulcher door, and up into the predawn light. The foals fumbled through like a self-made storm. It was the end of their four thousand year adventure; through Neighjptian tombs, to Scoltish standing stones, to Prench quarry works, to Tauren burial mounds. They swooped homeward, once around the old bell tower, and twice around the Nightmare Tree, then a final time around old Moundshrouds’ estate, where dust sifted out windows, a possessed wind vein spun about, and the door knocker dumbly banged a greeting. The four foals were placed in a heap upon the doorstep, “And that is Nightmare Night, all wrapped into one, my little ponies!” Moundshroud crooned from an open veranda above. “Day and night, summer and winter, life and death! Four thousand years ago, one hundred years from now, or this year, wherever you go, the celebrations are all the same! I thank you for a most amusing and profitable evening; and after what you did for your friend, one I will never regret!” The foals looked to each other, but before they could ask any questions, the old bell tower began to chime away the hour; 6 am. “Did we do it Mr. Moundshroud?” Featherweight asked. “Go! Run! See for yourselves! The last grand trick-or-treat!” Moundshroud crowed from above, cackling heartily as the foals raced down the stairway. Scootaloo fetched her scooter, and the four were off again into the riverbed, and back towards Ponyville Hospital. The lights in the town were dimmed, ponies were sleeping in the previous night’s festivities, and the hospital was no different. Quickly the four friends ran about to the wards, hoping that they could find some hint of a living Pipsqueak somewhere. “Look over there!” Sweetie Belle pointed. In a hoof just above eye level was a slightly cracked window, with a jack-o-lantern sporting Pipsqueaks’ face upon it. They propped up to gaze into the hospital room, where the sleeping form of Pipsqueak could be seen. As the CMC and Featherweight pushed their smiling heads into the window, Pipsqueak began to stir. His bleary, tired eyes opened and he smiled at his four friends. “Hi guys, was wondering if you could make it” he whispered in an old, tired voice. “Turns out I had an infection in my lower intestine, and they had to put me under to cut it out. By the time Princess Luna found out, they thought I had died. Imagine that?” Eight eyes began to glow as the realization washed over them; here was proof that their sacrifice was not in vain. Pipsqueak was alive, and they knew why. “So yeah, thanks guys, but the doctors say I really need to rest, so see you tomorrow,” Pipsqueak yawned, and ruffled up his covers. A great weariness then gathered in the CMC and Featherweight’s eyes and hooves. And the mummy and the witch, and the beast and the skeleton, all ran home to their beds and families. Sweetie Belle crept into the Carousel Boutique, sneaking past Rarity as she slept in a frazzled heap upon the couch. Applebloom ran through the orchard, back into her searching sisters’ hooves. Scootaloo rode to her house, where her mother Hazel, and her father Pinion Blade, were worriedly talking upon the front porch, and threw herself between them. Featherweight simply tiptoed past his parents, back up the stairs to his room. Back in the Boutique, Sweetie Belle had undressed, and was now nuzzled up next to her sister under a quilt. Her eyes traced the sky outside, and her thoughts began to wander to the mansion just inside the Everfree. ‘Mr. Moundshroud, just who are you really?’ she thought to herself. Inside the old dark house, the well-dressed unicorn was climbing his stairs. Outside, the Nightmare Night tree was dark, with only five pumpkins lit. ‘Oh, I think you know my dear, I think you know.’ Sweetie Belles eyes closed, her mind off into dreamland, and a pumpkin with a witch’s face blinked out. In her room, shortly after being scolded a little before sent to her room, Scootaloo was gathering her blankets about her. ‘Mr. Moundshroud, will we meet again?’ Up the unicorn went, to darker realms in his house. ‘Yes little one, yes. When your time comes, I will be there to collect my fee.’ Outside, a pumpkin with the face of a beast snuffed out its light, while Scootaloo softly began to doze. In the second story of her house, Applebloom was preparing for sleep when she looked out her own window. ‘Mr. Moundshroud, we only gave four years for Pip, does that mean he will only live for four more years?’ Moundshroud, his hooves clacking against creaking steps sighed, “Kssssssssssk”. ‘I honestly don’t know little apple, I really don’t. What I can tell you is that you and your friends have given Pipsqueak a new lease on life, a chance to live at the cost of yours. It is a grand gift, one only the best of friends can make, and the offer of life is all any pony can really ask for.’ Outside, a pumpkin cut in the wrappings of a mummy winked out as Applebloom hopped into bed. In a house next to Time Turner’s clock store, a thin pony was staring to the old bell tower, and then to the Everfree. ‘Oh Mr. Moundshroud, will we ever stop truly being scared of death, the dark, and the night?’ Atop his flight of stairs, Moundshroud stopped, and turned to look into an old, tarnished silver mirror he kept up there. The reflection was blotched and runny, but he knew how old he looked already well enough. ‘Yes my colt, you will. When you reach the stars, yes, and live there forever. That is when all the old fears will go, and death himself will die.’ Outside, a pumpkin carved as a skeleton sneezed out its candle, while Featherweight ran to his bed. Old Moundshroud opened the door to his uppermost tower, where a single branch held out an old, black gnarled pumpkin that bore his face. He blew out the candle, causing it to flicker and flare. The wind blew out of the fresh cut eyes with a whispered song, as smoke rose from Moundshroud’s own eyes and mouth, as if his life and soul had been extinguished in his lungs. He fell back into the trapdoor of his house, to wait another year. A great wind blew down from the dawning sky, and a thousand pumpkins were seized into the sky; all except one pumpkin. Pipsqueak’s pumpkin. Pipsqueak’s spirit and soul, which had been sought, found, saved, and traded for all those Nightmare Nights ago.