Candy spilled out onto the table from three bulging bags, cascading down the pile in tiny avalanches and rivulets. The warm light of flames in the fireplace played in the wrappings, turning the night’s spoils to glittering gold, like a dragon’s treasured hoard. Scootaloo shook the last bag and threw it carelessly over the back of the armchair behind her. It landed, presumably, somewhere on the floor.
“This is so sweet!” The young pegasus, still wearing the leathery wings and plastic fangs of her bat pony costume, dug both hooves deep into the mountain of gilded wrappings.
“Well, it is candy.” Sweetie Belle, a ghostly white filly, plopped herself down into Granny Smith’s creaky old rocking chair and pulled the thick, woolen blanket over her hind legs to get comfortable.
Scootaloo rolled her eyes. “Duh! You know what I mean. Just look at this haul!” She unwrapped a pair of cherry-filled chocolates and stuffed them both in her mouth. She turned, face full of chocolate, as Apple Bloom returned from the kitchen. “I can’t believe Applejack let you stay here all on your own on Nightmare Night while they’re all away.”
“I told ‘em I’d be fine—” Apple Bloom set down three cups, a pitcher of hot cocoa, and a bag of marshmallows on the table, pushing aside some of the candy to make room. She dropped her pointy, black hat beside the chair and ran a hoof through her long, messy mane full of cobwebs. “—and that you two would be here with me too.”
“Wow, it’s like they don’t even know us.” Scootaloo sat down on the edge of the chair so that she could easily reach the table and its bounty of sweets.
Sweetie Belle accepted the cup of cocoa Apple Bloom poured for her. “Rarity would never let me be alone with you three for a whole night.”
Apple Bloom grinned as she poured a cup for Scootaloo and herself. “I said I’d get my cutie mark for not eatin’ myself sick with candy or burnin’ down the farm.”
Scootaloo took her cup and looked at Apple Bloom askance. “And that worked?”
“Not really. But I’m old enough now, even if I ain’t got my cutie mark yet, and Granny said it’s a good chance for me to prove that I can be on my own. Applejack would’ve said no, but she’s always listened to Granny.” Apple Bloom sat down in the last chair around the table by the fire. “I’m surprised your parents let you stay here.”
“Dad just says kids will be kids, and mom always trusted me to be on my own.” Sweetie Belle said into her cup. “It’s only Rarity who worries about me every minute.”
Scootaloo leaned back in her chair. “I forgot to mention that we’d be alone.”
They all sat around the fire, sipping their cocoa and listening to the wind in the apple trees outside for a few minutes. Sweetie Belle looked up from a sip of her cup and broke the silence as the first. “What should we do now?”
Apple Bloom and Scootaloo both looked thoughtful. After a while of ponderously tapping her chin, Scootaloo looked up suddenly. “Oh, did you meet Princess Luna’s bat guards earlier?”
Sweetie Belle shuddered and glanced at Scootaloo’s costume for a reminder. “They always seem to be watching you, no matter where you stand, and they never say anything.”
Apple Bloom nodded knowingly. “I’ve heard they don’t need to see you, because they can hear you whisper a mile away, and they can tell exactly where you are just by the beatin’ of your heart. That’s why they’re so good at bein’ guards.”
“Whoa!” Scootaloo’s eyes widened at this awesome fact. She looked over her shoulder at the window and the shadows of the room. “I heard this story once.” She looked back at her two friends, catching their attentive gazes. “But I have to warn you that this tale could really scare you!”
Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle looked at each other and grinned, inching closer to the edge of their chairs as they waited for their friend to begin the story.
Scootaloo leaned closer too, whispering across the table as the misty clouds of her hot drink shrouded her face. “This tale is very old. It’s been known since ancient times, back when the world was dark and full of danger, before the princesses ruled and before Equestria was named, but very few ponies now know it or dare to tell it …”