Nightmare Night... It always feels like the crows wait all year for just this one night to really let out their held in caws. Why not? After all, this is the most frightful day of the year. The shadows in the corner of your eye look all the more closer, that creak in your front door holds that extra second more, and those eyes looking at you from behind seem all the more there. Spooky, ominous... But just as much fun as both of those combined. Children get free candy, and adults get a night away from their kids. A fun win-win situation, really on both parts. Even though the kids get some bad candy from time to time and parents have to deal with other children, it's still a fun night.
However, some ponies rest between the ages of "candy getters" and "candy givers". For these ponies, they're given a few choices: play tricks like egging houses, go to Nightmare Night costume parties, or maybe help with a haunted house. That's how it all works. But, for Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle, they take part in their own tradition. A tradition that they have started on this Nightmare Night. While the other ponies go around asking for treats or bobbing for apples, these three fillies lock themselves inside their clubhouse deep in the forest. No lights but the pale moon; no sound but the crowing crows; no ponies for nearly a mile except for themselves.
Spooky...
The spookiness doesn't end there though. Oh no. The true fear -the terror- starts behind those wooden walls. In fact, they start deep within the minds of these little Crusaders... and the horrors they have to share...
A single candle lit the interior of the Crusaders' clubhouse, casting black-blob shadows against the walls. One shadow sat straight, unwavering except for the small waver the light made the shadow do. Another quivered all on its own with no help of the fire, already trembling without control. The last however was not sitting at all, but instead pacing around the other two shadow's center. Apple Bloom was checking over the clubhouse while Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo got comfortable in front of their 'camp fire'.
"Got the marshmallows, some twigs..." Apple Bloom muttered off her list of supplies one by one, "Thinkin' we got 'nough... Y'all think?"
"Yup. I've got my pillow and everything. I'm ready for this," Sweetie Belle replied with a small determination about her.
"T-Totally..." Scootaloo choked out, clutching her own pillow tight against her trembling chest.
"Well alrighty!" Apple Bloom took a plopping sit on her own pillow in front of the small candle and looked at her friends, "Who wants ta' go first?"
The testing water question... Who did want to go first? They each looked to the other, waiting to see who would make the first brave move. To be honest, no one wanted to be the first. Whoever went first would be the one to set the standard. If it was a good scary story, they would all have to put their best hoof forward. If it was bad, then maybe this whole thing was a bad idea. There was no way of telling, and no one wanted to be the first to say start it up.
That was until Scootaloo, clutching to her pillow had a spark of an idea come to her. Her expression softened and her nerves unwound enough to let the pillow drop against the floor. "Hey... I've got a story..." she said in a low, ominous tone.
Both Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom pulled in towards Scootaloo, excited to hear this story she had. "Once..." Scootaloo started, "There was this prince and princess who lived far away. And -like- not just distance. But also in the heart, you know? Both their families were fighting against each other and splitting the two apart. But they kept meeting and loving each other; so their parents finally took both of them and sent them far across the world away from the other. Except, before they could, the prince and princess drank this potion that would make them fall in love with one another and nopony else. That way, no matter how far they were, they'd still be in love with only the other one..."
A pause... Apple Bloom looked at Scootaloo, expecting something else to the story along with Sweetie Belle. After a while of silence, Sweetie Belle curved a worried look to Scootaloo. "Aaaaand...?"
"And what?" Scootaloo shot back.
"Ya' said ya' had a 'scary story'..."
"I said I had 'a story'. I didn't say it was scary," when Scootaloo said that, the other two Crusaders fell back onto their pillows and groaned.
"How're we s'pposed ta' get our Cutie Marks in ghost stories when we don't got any ghost stories?" Apple Bloom whined against her pillow.
Scootaloo joined them on the floor, falling back onto her own pillow and looking up at the dim-lit ceiling. "Sorry, guys..."
"S'not your fault... maybe this was jus' a bad idea..."
A moment of defeated silence went over them for a moment, sinking against their lack of preparation in this quest for Cutie Marks. "...If it helps, the prince and princess died trying to get to the other," Scootaloo brought up.
"Nah. That ain't scary, that's jus' sad..."
The three sighed together and sank against their pillows all the more. As it stood, they were starting to regret not going trick or treating. They could've been out and about with the other ponies; getting dressed up and pretending to be monsters. In a split moment, Sweetie Belle shot her eyes wide and swung to sitting on her flank. "I've got it!" She screeched, shocking the other two Crusaders to fumble shocked on their pillows, "I just remembered a scary story Rarity told me! It's really scary... You ready?"
Scootaloo and Apple Bloom exchanged small, worried looks, but decided all the same to nod at Sweetie Belle to start her scary story...