The Sun Shines

by Convalescence

Episode 1: Frights and Nightmare Nights

Author's Note:

As the description mentioned, this story was originally a roleplaying game campaign. This first episode was based on the one of the same name from the Roleplaying is Magic (Season 3 Edition) rule-book.

Miss Cheerilee hadn't really expected any of the colts and fillies in her afternoon class to listen to a word she said today. It's not that her students were inattentive for their age, but as the earth pony mare's eyes roam over the blank stares of her class, most have their glazed eyes directed at the windows, through which shows the clear autumn day that school was cruelly keeping them away from. But even more than that, it was the date that kept them from paying attention.

Relenting for the special occasion, Cheerilee sighs and stops pacing in front of the chalkboard. "Alright my little ponies. I get it, we only have fifteen minutes left and you're all excited for tonight. If you all agree to work hard to make up the time on Monday, you can leave now and start getting ready for later."

It barely takes a second after the words "leave now" come from her mouth, before foals are standing from their desks and swarming the wooden cubbies where their light jackets and scarves are being kept. Some thank her in passing, and most immediately start chatting with their friends as they stream out the door. Many of the conversations share the same topic, with tonight being one that all of the colts and fillies, and most of the adults if they're being honest, have been looking forward to. Because tonight, Ponyville celebrates Nightmare Night!

Among the foal swarm is a dark chocolate colt with a black muzzle excitedly grabbing his things and stuffing them into his saddlebag before bundling up in his jacket. He had to hurry home so he could finish his costume!

Making their way through the crowd squeezing out the door, two familiar foals catch up with Kopis just outside the door. The bulky, turquoise, earth pony colt plods along, smaller ponies making way, meanwhile a smaller unicorn filly with a goldenrod coat and rose mane nudges him to move faster. When they get close enough, the latter greets him. "Kopis! Did we ever decide whose house we're going to meet up at tonight?"

The colt looks upward as he thinks. “Um… no, I don’t think we did. I’ve got to finish up some stuff on my costume though, so I’ve got to go home for a while anyway. Doesn’t matter too much to me where we meet up.” He smirks. “But you know my mom. She’s going to want to stay right behind us the whole way. Guess that means Kris will be coming with me too.”

"That's fine by me," Peat drawls.

"My parents will be busy, so I hoped she would take us anyway," Sonata adds. Having his sister come along is far better than not getting to go at all. "We'll come to your house around seven then?"

Kopis smiles and nods. “Okay, sure, sounds good to me. I’ll let mom know you’re coming.” He couldn’t wait to get started!

Sonata’s tail whips back and forth and she grins as she answers, “Alright, we’ll see you later, Kopis.” He’s clearly not alone in being excited for what’s pretty arguably the best holiday of the year.

“Eyup, just have chores to do, and then I’ll be there too,” the farm pony adds. With that, the foals part way for their respective homes to get ready. Around town, Kopis can see ponies are doing the same, setting up last-minute decorations, and making sure all the activities in the town’s center are ready.

Seeing the town gearing up for the celebration hypes him up more as he trots along. By the time he’s home, he’s grinning from ear to ear and imagining how cool he’ll look in his costume and what kinds of candy he’ll get. That particular feeling is amplified by the scents of something baking as he opens the door, scoots inside and dumps his saddlebag in the first chair he comes across.

Following his nose toward the kitchen, he finds his mom and sister standing at the table and slaving over what was probably producing the irresistible sweet smells. “Hi mom, hi Kris.”

The two ponies look over to give him a smile. “Hello sweetie, didst thou have a good day at school?”

He nods. “Yep, Miss Cherilee let us out a little early so we could get ready for tonight. What are you making?”

“Some brownies,” Falcata answers, standing aside enough that he can see before she resumes frosting them with Kris’s help.

“Oh, cool. Wait, are we giving them away?”

“Nope, these are for us,” Kris replies, scooping some more frosting onto a knife.

He heads over to get a closer look and takes a good whiff. Awesome! Even if he didn’t get much good stuff tonight he had homemade brownies to come back to. As he watches his sister frost them, something pops into his head. “Hey… how’d you get home before me?”

The older filly pokes her tongue out at him. “We got out early too.”

Falcata steps back and holds a hoof to her chin as she checks the time. “A good thing too, methinks. I believe I have everything I need to finish your costumes, but it will take a little while. Kris, go ahead and finish here while I help thy brother with his.”

Hah, he got to go first! His costume was going to be great! He grins again as he trots after her, only barely catching the light hearted eye roll Kris gives him at his goofy expression. Hey, she wouldn’t be rolling her eyes when she saw how cool he looked!

---

With autumn in full swing, and the end of the year drawing closer, the sun has already set by seven o’ clock. As soon as the clock strikes the hour, a series of raid, excited knocks sounds on the front door.

“Coming!” a voice calls from inside, followed by hoofsteps and ultimately by the door opening wide to reveal a brown unicorn mare in what appears to be a rhinoceros costume.

On the other side of the door, stands a unicorn filly already dressed up in her costume. Sonata’s head is surrounded by large, toothed, petals, and greenish tendrils hang from them, while part of the tatzelwurm costumes trails behind her. She chirps out a melodious, “Hello, miss Falcata.”

“Hello, sweetie.” Falcata replies, stepping out to get a closer look at her costume. “My, what an excellent costume. Everypony will be impressed tonight.” She pokes a hoof toward the door, ushering Sonata inside.

“Thank you,” she says, walking inside and setting down the pumpkin-shaped basket she’d been carrying in her magic. “I like yours too. You’re a rhinoceros, right?”

Falcata heads back in and closes the door. “Yes, that is correct. Nothing quite so interesting as the creature thou art.” She wasn’t quite positive it was a tatzelwurm, so she doesn’t name it.

“Oh, hey Sonata!” Kopis says as he trots into the room, garbed in black that covers everything but his hooves and eyes. A sword sheath that Sonata probably recognizes as belonging to Falcata is slipped through a belt around his midsection. “What do you think about my costume?”

While Sonata likewise isn't entirely sure what he is, the reaction is nonetheless an eager, "Cool!" She walks up and around him in a circle, looking at his costume.

“Thanks! Mom wouldn’t let me use her sword too, and I couldn’t find anything like ninja stars… but I think it turned out pretty cool anyway.”

Falcata chuckles and adjusts a bit of the cloth along his back. “No, I do not think anypony should be walking about with anything like that tonight.”

He tugs at a sleeve to get it back into line and looks over Sonata’s costume. “Oh, but yours is cool too. What kind of monster are you?”

“I’m a tatzelwurm,” she exclaims, turning in a small circle of her own to show him all of it. “They’re big plant monsters that live far away.”

“Oh, cool. Looks way more intense than any kind of plant I’ve ever seen,” he says with a little giggle.

Falcata takes a step away and turns to head into another room. “I must go help Kris get finished dressing. Sonata, if thou wouldst like one, there are some brownies in the kitchen.”

“Yay, thanks.” Sonata doesn’t need much more than the word brownies to start moving that way.

It takes another ten minutes, and Sonata progressively hiding her impatience more, before a polite knock sounds at the door.

Falcata again comes trotting through, this time with her daughter trailing after her in a flashy Power Pony costume. The mare opens the door to greet their newest guest.

Standing outside is a pony that can be identified easily by shape as Peat, under his costume. A white sheet drapes over him, and though the sleeves for his forelegs, neatly cut eyeholes, and few strips trailing off him put the ghost outfit a few steps above being a normal bedsheet, it's clear that's what it was. That doesn't seem to bother the colt one bit, as he gives a polite, "Evening, ma'am," and waits for Falcata to invite him inside.

Falcata stands aside and waves for him to come in. “Good evening Peat. That is a fine costume thou hast.” Once they’re back inside, she says, “We are about ready to go if thou art. Wouldst thou like a brownie before we go?”

"That's mighty kind, thank you." Peat moves to the kitchen to accept the offer, where Sonata glares and informs him that he's late. She doesn't have the heart to give him too hard a time though, and soon enough, he's done and the colts and fillies and their chaperone can leave to start partaking in the festivities.

And so Falcata takes the children in a circuit around the town, watching as they knock on doors, and receive candy from friendly ponies. The mares and stallions of Ponyville are practically all participating, with lights on at most of the houses Kopis and his friends can see. The candy itself is the good stuff too, no fruit or little pieces of paper about the Princesses this year!

Eventually, they all feel like they’ve gotten enough as their bags grow heavier… or at least as much as they’re liable to get. In any case, they have enough to make the offering to Nightmare Moon later, and still have a nice haul left over. The crowd of ponies walking down the roads have mostly migrated to the town square by now, where the games and contests are arranged.

Kopis pops a little piece of candy in his mouth as he skips after his mom. “Mmm, this is great. I wonder what kinds of games and stuff they’ll have this year?”

His question answers itself as the group reaches the square, where ponies mill about, all in costume, and play the various games. A familiar orange earth pony, currently dressed up as a pumpkin, presides over them, watching ponies as they try their hooves at the Spider Toss, catapulting pumpkins, or bobbing for apples. As usual, Applejack gives out a bit of candy to the winners. The square is full of music, being played by a band up on a stage off to one side, and signs posted around let ponies know that there will be a Dance Contest starting soon.

Kopis’s eyes float over the various activities going on. He’s not so sure about that dance contest, but the spider toss and bobbing for apples looked fun! “Let’s do the spider toss first,” he says to everypony.

“That sounds fun,” Sonata agrees, while Peat nods and walks over that way. They find a table with weighted cloth spiders, set up a few yards away from a spiderweb marked with numbers, higher the closer they get the the center.

Falcata stands off to the side to watch the foals as they try their hooves at the game. Kopis grabs one of the spiders, pokes his tongue out slightly as he analyzes his target, then chucks the spider toward the center of the spider web. The spider flies through the air, inanimate legs flailing wildly, and hits the center directly!

The game is set up for young ponies of course, but that doesn’t detract from his achievement when his two friends both proceed to miss. Peat flings the poor spider straight over the web entirely, and Sonata’s travels in a sad arc from her hoof and drops to the ground a few feet short. Kris waits last before she gives the foal’s game a try, landing a hit on the web not too far from where Kopis hit.

The colt grins at his achievement but tries not to rub it in. “Heh, best two out of three, or do you all want to do something else?”

“Eeyup, best two out of three.” Peat is sure he can get it if he keeps trying.

Sonata doesn’t seem interested in trying the spider game again, but she has another idea to share. “We should enter the dance contest! It even says they’re doing it in teams of three.”

Kopis would much rather throw spiders than try dancing, but… if she wanted to do it maybe he could give it a try. “Um, okay… if you want to. Peat and I can do this real quick, then we can try that.”

The unicorn filly scampers off to sign them up, knowing there’s some time yet before it starts. Meanwhile, Peat picks up another spider and tosses it, missing again, but by a smaller margin. Kopis’ second toss goes as poorly, and the score stays at one-nothing. In the third round of their impromptu contest, Peat does manage to make a bullseye, rearing up in a small celebration. ...But then Kopis manages to score a second time, winning overall. “Look like you win,” Peats says, offering a hoof to show there’re no hard feelings.

“Thanks, but you didn’t do too bad either.” He looks nervously over toward the dance area. “Now, this dance thing is probably going to be pretty bad, huh?”

The other colt gives him a knowing look, that lets Kopis just picture the grimace under his costume. “Eeyup.” That’s what they get, for having their mutual friend be a filly.

Kris gives them a sly grin. “Aww, come on, it’ll be fun.” She heads off to find somewhere to watch the dance from. There was no way she was going to miss this train wreck.

Falcata gives Kopis a little pat on the back. “Kris is right. I bet that ye will have a lot of fun if ye give it a try.”

He chuckles nervously. “Heh, right.” Reluctantly, he follows Kris toward the dance area.

Likely too worried at the prospect of dancing up on stage in front of everypony, Kopis fails to notice a suspiciously low, dark, raincloud move overhead. On top of it, an equine figure’s dark carapace shines in the moonlight as she rears up and slams her hooves down onto the cloud, and a loud thunderclap sounds!

The colt hugs the ground and lets out a little yelp before looking around and finally up. “What the heck!?”

One of Ponyville’s notorious pranksters drops on the cloud and clutches her stomach, laughing hard to enough to have problems breathing. When Rainbow Dash finally gets control over herself, she pokes her head out from over the cloud to look down at him. “Sorry, but that’s the best reaction I’ve got all night!” she still struggles to keep a straight face, saying that.

Kopis catches his breath and eases back to his hooves. He shoots her a displeased look and says, “Hey, you’re not supposed to really scare ponies.”

“What? That’s what Nightmare Night’s all about, kid.” As the cyan pegasus says this, she and Kopis see a few fillies which the latter recognizes as his classmates gallop past, looking terrified. “Huh. Guess somepony already got them.”

Meanwhile, Peat tries to regain his own composure, and Sonata trots back from the registration table, having missed the two colts totally get scared.

Kopis flicks his tail and grumbles something. “Yeah, okay. Well, I’ll get you next time.” As much as he hated to admit it, at least the dance thing would give him an excuse to move along. He glances at Sonata and asks, “Uh, we ready to go do the thing? The dance thing?”

Still grinning, Rainbow Dash floats off on her cloud, looking for more unsuspecting little ponies. Sonata for her part, nods. “Yes, almost. It starts in a few minutes and the three of us are going last. The competition is tough though,” she warns.

He chuckles nervously. “Uh-huh. I don’t think it matters too much how good the rest are…”

“That’s the spirit, we’ll win anyway,” she manages to misunderstand, leading the other two over to the backstage area. As they arrive, the first group is just going on. A few colts from the morning class, Snips and Snails, if Kopis recalls right along with another one. Their motions are kinda clumsy, but they don’t embarrass themselves. Some polite stomping applause sounds as they make their way off-stage. When the second group takes its place on-stage, Kopis knows exactly what she meant about the competition.

Leading that group is Arabesque, a snow-white filly with a green mane and a reputation as a talented ballerina for her age. She’s surely in for a cutie-mark in dancing, and the performance reflects that. It’ll be hard to beat, but there’s hope yet. Sonata turns to Kopis as they finish to the sound of greater applause. “Looks like it’s time…”

He swallows and nods. “Yeah, guess so. Okay…” Might as well give it his best shot, right? He catches sight of his mom flashing him a big grin, but can’t quite make out what words of encouragement she said. Kris meanwhile just has a devilish smile.

The three little ponies take the stage, lights swiveling to put them, quite literally, in the spotlight. Fortunately for the other two, their performer friend is used to this, and takes the lead. Her enthusiasm and understanding of rhythm makes up somewhat for not knowing how to do this specifically, and Kopis and Peat do a good job backing her up, all things considered. When their hastily-planned routine ends, they actually get more applause than the first group managed. In the end, the second receives the medals for winning, but all-in-all, nopony really did poorly.

Eh, could have been worse. Kopis smiles sheepishly at the applause and quickly scoots off the stage to rejoin his family and friends.

Falcata gives all three foals a smile of her own and a pat on the back. “Well done, ye three. Perhaps ye all have a talent for this too.”

Kris nods begrudgingly at Kopis. “Yeah, looks like you don’t have four left hooves after all.” He sticks his tongue out at her in retaliation. Hah, he’d like to see her do better!

While she would have preferred playing her piano, Sonata is proud at the praise. “Thank you, miss Falcata,” she beams.

Meanwhile, Kris spots some of her classmates headed in the direction that a sign indicated was the town’s haunted house. “Oh, hey, I want to go check out the haunted house now.”

“Alright then,” Falcata says as she analyzes the sign. To her dismay, it seems that this particular attraction was intended for older audiences. While she thinks that Kopis is probably old enough, she wasn’t going to take those liberties with his friends. “Oh dear, perhaps that is not something we should all go to see.”

Certainly not, since what sort of mischief is there to get into on Nightmare Night? Around the square ponies are still dancing, chatting, and playing games. Applejack still hoofs out candy to the winners, and Pinkie Pie, dressed as a chicken again, is just coming back to gather up another group of children to take through the spooky Everfree Forest, to make their candy offering to Nightmare Moon. Nearby, Kopis spots the fillies he saw before the dance competition, huddled together and talking nervously.

Wow, something must have really spooked them. He wanders their way, hoping to find out what happened. “Hey, did Rainbow Dash get you too?”

His friends trail along, waiting for the answer. The three shaking fillies look up and answer in turn. “Rainbow Dash? No, it was much worse! A monster!”

“It was a ghost!” the second corrects frightfully.

“The ghost of a monster!”

“Whoa, what? The ghost of a monster?” Kopis gives his friends confused looks before turning back to the fillies. “What kind of monster? Where?”

“You’re both wrong, it was totally a chimera!” the third continues the squabbling.

Now they were getting his attention, but he’s got to be a bit skeptical. “Hey, wait, you saw a chimera, medusa or manticore on the trail and got away?”

“Yes!” the first says indignantly. “We ran away and it didn’t chase us. It probably didn’t want to come into town.”

Uh huh. Kopis cocks his head and looks back toward the way they came. “Probably just one of Rainbow Dash’s friends trying to scare ponies.” He turns to his friends. “Hey, she scared us earlier, maybe we should get her and her friends back. What do you say we check out this ‘manticore’?”

Sonata didn't see this happen, but can't doubt it. It's pretty much Rainbow Dash's MO on Nightmare Night. She smiles mischievously at the chance to be on the other side of somepony getting scared. "I like the sound of that."

"Sure," Peat says in a tone that isn't.

Picking up on Peat’s lack of confidence, Kopis says, “Okay, so, Pinkie’s probably leading another group soon. Why don’t we tag along, and break off after we get out a little ways? Then we can sneak up on whoever’s trying to do the scaring.”

“We can try… I’m not so good at going unnoticed,” Peats admits realistically.

Hmm, he had a bit of a point there. “Okay then, stay behind me then. My black clothes will make it harder to see us,” Kopis says, realizing how much of a stretch that was but not really caring.

“...Alright,” he agrees, knowing even better that wasn’t going to help. But after all, what’s the worst Miss Pinkie Pie will do? And after all, this way they can tell Kopis’ ma that they were technically with an adult. “We should get our candy from miss Applejack before we leave at least.”

“Oh, yeah, good catch. Don’t want to forget that!” He motions for them all to head that way. “C’mon, let’s get it and go meet up with Pinkie.”

Applejack hoofs the candy over easily, not being a stickler about needing to see them win, since there’s plenty of candy for everypony. After that, the three trot over to the edge of the square, where a pink pony parading as poultry waits with a crowd of colts and fillies. This particular pony is Ponyville’s premier party planner, Pinkie Pie, and she knows all her friends by name! Which is pretty impressive, when she considers the whole town her friend. With an enthusiastic wave, she shouts over, “Hi, Kopis, Sonata, and Peat! You’re just in time!” Taking a conductor’s cap from nowhere, she puts it on her head, over the rooster comb, and yells exaggeratedly, “Allllll aboard! Next stop, The Everfree Forest!”

Kopis hurries over, making sure his friends are with him as he assumes a position among the crowd that would give them some distance from Pinkie. “Okay, here we go.” For a few minutes along the trail he keeps his cover and hangs near the back of the crowd with Sonata and Peat. When they’re deep enough into the woods the suspects the others have stopped paying attention to what’s behind them, he signals for his two friends to break off from the group with him. Peat goes first, used to moving slowly, and manages to get over into the bushes. Sonata follows right behind Kopis, after he takes a last look up at where Pinkie Pie is walking, but as soon as he turns around, a pink mane and blue eyes fill his field of vision.

...which almost makes the little colt jump out of his ninja costume! “Gah!” he yelps, scooting back a bit at the very sudden very pink pony.

“I know you’re trying to get into character, Kopis, but you can’t go wandering off like that. There are all sorts of spooky things in the woods tonight,” the earth pony mare giggles, despite the dramatic way she said it.

He grumbles a little and kicks a little pebble at his hoof. “Yeah… I know.” He accepts that he’ll have to follow her for a little while yet, but he starts planning another escape immediately.

Sonata follows after him, contrite about her escape attempt. ...Not that she won’t go along with the next one.

Kopis doesn't get very far in planning his next escape attempt. The group walks along for a couple of minutes, Pinkie Pie talking incessantly to the foals closer to the front, when bushes off the side of the path start to rustle. Quickly, Kopis and Sonata realize it's the wrong side of the road to be their friend. He snaps his attention over to the new disturbance, ready to spot anypony trying to sneak up on and scare him. Not this time!

Suddenly, a terrible monster jumps out of the bushes, surrounded in a strange, green smoke. The beast has the body of a lion, with a scorpion’s tail, much like a manticore. Unlike a manticore, however, the lion’s mane is made up of a writhing mass of snakes. Additionally, two other heads, a goat and a dragon head, spring out from either side of the lion’s head. As it emerges, all three heads give off a fearsome roar!

Pinkie Pie jumps into the air, screaming and making chicken noises, while the foals around her flee in abject terror back towards town, running in a small stampede around Kopis and Sonata!

Kopis absolutely wants to run with them, but his little hooves just refuse to go anywhere. He screams and cowers backward, away from this horrible and very real monster!

Behind him, Peat backs up against a tree, yelling and shaking in fear. Sonata is the only one of the three still standing, even if she looks absolutely horrified as well at the ferocious, spectral, beast. The filly nudges at Kopis with her muzzle. "Come on, get up!"

He doesn’t need to be told twice! Kopis jumps up and immediately turns to his friends, looking Peat in the eyes especially. “Run!” he yells, getting ready to do just that himself.

More than motivated to get the lead out of his hooves for once, Peat makes a break for it, looking back to make sure the others are behind him.

Undeterred, and with two little ponies still in its reach, the monstrous hybrid bounds towards them, opening its many maws and letting forth another terrible roar. Kopis manages to stand firm this time, but he’s not stupid and has no plans to stick around!

The teal earth pony colt got far enough away to put some distance between him and the creature, but he stops when he sees his friends haven’t gotten so far. Sonata especially wasn’t so lucky…

The approaching monster was too much, and Sonata simply begins muttering and crying, falling down where she was instead of running. Even spirited ponies have their limits.

“Come on!” Kopis yelps, darting over to toss her onto his back before taking off again with Peat.

Galloping alongside them, Peat speaks to Sonata in between breaths. “You’re gonna be fine... it can’t catch us.”

As he says, the monster’s loping strides are slow compared to the small ponies it’s after… until it flaps its enormous, leathery wings and takes to the air, extending its clawed arms and serpentine appendages, as it snarls and starts closing the distance.

Kopis squeals and gallops for all he’s worth, trying not to get ahead of Peat but definitely ahead of the monster! His athleticism pays off! The colts legs carry him out of the monsters reach, even with it flapping its wings, the distance grows for a few seconds, until the creature suddenly disintegrates into green smoke!

At first he doesn’t want to look back, even at the abrupt silence, but eventually his curiosity gets the better of him. He slows to a stop along the path and starts looking around, worried it was just sneaking up on them from another direction.

With a little control of herself, Sonata slips off Kopis, bumping his shoulder to say thanks. The goldenrod unicorn filly turns her tatzelwurm-esque head around. “Where did it go? It can’t simply vanish!”

Peat looks behind them and again and shrugs, a worried look on his face. “I reckon it might be some sort of magic?” The poor earth pony doesn’t know about that sort of thing.

“Wh… magic? But…” The extreme fear that had welled up inside him begins to be replaced with equal amounts of frustration and anger. Somepony had scared him again, and tricked him this time on top! “Somepony pranked us…”

“You think so?” Sonata asks. “I dunno, there are lots of weird things in the forest…” She backs away from the nearest trees, too tall to see the tops of, where the canopy becomes an inky black that blocks out the stars and moon. She’s suddenly very aware that the three are alone here in the Everfree.

“We’re gonna find out, one way or another.” Peat sounds determined to do that, but offers no suggestions about how, waiting for the third pony.

Kopis flicks his tail several times. “Yeah, well, if somepony did prank us, you can bet they’ll be here soon. They always like to laugh in your face about it.” Besides, the forest might be weird, but it didn’t just conjure monster illusions conveniently on Nightmare Night. “C’mon, let’s keep going. I’m sure they’ll be waiting near the statue.”

“Okay,” Sonata nods, following close to her friends. Peat plods along with them, looking around as he does for any prankster ponies showing themselves.

After ten minutes give or take, the forest thins and the three come to a familiar clearing. Here, the stars above do shine, vast and bright, far above. The full moon casts down pale light, which lands on an imposing stone statue, towering over the colts and filly even without its stone base. A mare with wings and a horn, face carved in a permanent, fanged snarl, Nightmare Moon could haunt the dreams of ponies even a thousand years after her banishment. From around the statue, a smaller striped figure steps. Zecora is wearing the long dress she keeps for this occasion, with her mane worn down as it has been in previous years, on this one night. “Greetings, my little...ponies… three?” She falters, expecting a much larger crowd. “Where are the others, and where is Pinkie?”

Kopis looks around a little and drags his hoof through the dirt. “Um, we got separated. She and the other foals got scared and ran back to town.”

Zecora gives him a curious look. “What is it that had them all so frightened, that they would not come and of Nightmare Moon’s story, be enlightened?”

He glances at Peat and Sonata, deciding to go with the idea that it was magic. “Uh, well… there was a… uh… chimera back in the woods. Except once we all ran away it poofed away. We think it was magic, but we don’t know who made it.”

“It simply ‘poofed away’?” Zecora puts a hoof to her chin, then reaches it into a pouch at her side. “Wait a moment, and tell me if this is familiar, you would say.” She removes her hoof, holding it upright with a small pile of green powder, which she leans towards and blows into the air. The cloud grows in size, and resolves itself into a likeness of Nightmare Moon surrounded by the same green smoke, which then lunges at the foals and disappears.

Kopis sinks away from the illusion. “Yeah!”

“Then you were right to think it a magic fright. Simply a prank somepony played for Nightmare Night.”

“Ugh, I knew it!” Kopis snorts. “I bet those fillies back in town were in on it,” he says to his friends.

“They looked pretty scared to me, Kopis,” Sonata admits. If they were faking it, they should get their cutie-marks as actors.

The zebra mare cuts in, “If somepony is doing this, they’ve been at it all night. I’ve seen no foals come offer their candy tonight.” She cringes, and shakes her mane slightly at the poor options for vocabulary, but points a hoof at the tiny, sad, “pile” of candy in front of the statute, only a few pieces in all.

Okay, Sonata had a point. “Yeah… maybe so. Well, we’ve got our candy at least, so Nightmare Moon can have some now.” He moves over to the statue to deposit what he deems to be the minimum necessary to put off her wrath. Plus maybe an extra piece of chewing gum, just in case. He didn’t care much for gum anyway.

Like a good little colt and filly, his friends step forward and do the same, Zecora nodding in approval. Peat walks back over to Kopis and asks the question: “What now?”

“Head back to town I guess,” he says, not feeling extremely excited about walking through the forest with just Sonata and Peat. “Wish I knew who was scaring ponies…”

“Now hold on,” Peat holds up a hoof. “We don’t have to just give up.”

“Yeah, we can look for clues,” Sonata nods. “But we’d have to be fast. Your mom has to be almost done.”

His eyes widen a bit. “Yeah, we need to hurry. She’s gonna kill me if she finds out we came out here without her. So, um, what do we do? Go check around where the chimera was?”

Sonata looks like she likes that idea. “Uh-huh, maybe they left hoofprints… or something.”

Peat nods in agreement, set on finding out who’s been scaring ponies so badly. “I’m for it. And, you know… miss Falcata did say to stay with the adults, right? Well, miss Pinkie is an adult I reckon… technically… and we were with her.”

Kopis likes the way Peat thinks. “Yeah, there you go. Okay then, let’s go check it out.” He waves for them to follow him as he starts in that direction.

The three ponies say their goodbye to Zecora, who tells them with a better rhyme that she expects to see them back when she tells the tale of Nightmare Moon later. Of course, that’s provided they can find whoever’s been scaring them away. After a few minutes walk, they find themselves approximately where the monster stopped them.

“Looks like the spot. So, let’s take a look around,” Kopis says before following his own advice and scrutinizing the ground for any sign of hoof prints or other clues.

Kopis and friends quickly realize that the road has too many scuffs and hoofprints to be of any use, especially after the chaos earlier. But eventually they work their way into the surround bushes, after realizing that’s where somepony would have had to stand to not be seen. Kopis finds a few broken branches behind a bush large enough to hide a colt or filly his size, and looking even closer, he sees a wrapped piece of candy dropped on the ground. Another one nearby points to there being a trail of them.

“Hah, this way,” he points out triumphantly. Grown ups ate candy too, but only foals ate this much. It had to be another foal. Maybe those fillies were in on it after all… Time to find out! He starts following the trail of wrappers, hoping whoever it was had a truly titanic appetite for candy.

“Nice work,” Sonata pipes up, following him following the trail. Peat brings up the rear, trying not to run into any low-hanging branches with his costume covering some of his vision.

The trail of sweets goes on through the woods as they thin out again, into the smaller trees where the Everfree begins to bleed into being the Whitetail Woods. They find another sparse clearing, but this one is occupied by a rocky hill, containing the shadowy entrance to a cave. The path ends abruptly in front of Kopis with a drop-off into a small ravine. Small, that is, for a bigger pony. For these three, falling down into it might hurt, and it’d make getting back out kinda hard to do.

With revenge on his mind, Kopis isn’t scared of a little hole. He backs up a step, winds up and leaps over it in a single bound. “Hah!”

Seeing Kopis handle it, Peat doesn’t doubt he can too. The colt backs up a few more paces, then speeds into a gallop, jumping over with some room to spare as well.

Sonata seems unusually hesitant, clearly out of her element. She backs up even further, hoping it’ll help, then gallops and leaps. Her forelegs land on the other side, but the hind ones slip over, and she has to pull herself onto the ledge. The unicorn filly stands with help and dusts off her costume.

“Nice work. Now, let’s see who’s hiding in this cave.” Kopis again takes the lead and steps toward the cave, ready for anything. No more magical illusions were going to scare him tonight.

As Kopis and his friends approach the cave, they're startled by the sudden rush of bats fluttering out of the mouth of the cave. Peering in, the children see only darkness, even with the light of the full moon shining down into the maw of the earth before them.

“Um. Hey, uh, Sonata, can you make light with your magic?” Kopis asks, hesitant to go into pitch darkness.

“Yeah, definitely,” she replies confidently. Sonata takes a breath and closes her eyes, an aqua light beginning to glow on the tip of her horn. It expands, lighting the ground around them… but it stops at the mouth of the cave! The darkness swallows up the light from her horn, becoming no more clear to the three. “Hey, what gives?”

“If you don’t know, I sure don’t,” he says, equally surprised at the stubborn darkness. He sets a hoof inside tentatively, but doesn’t head inside yet.

Sonata nixes the light, not seeing a point in wasting any more energy on the tiring spell. She pokes a hoof into the entrance of the cave. “We know whoever’s been doing this does illusion magic.”

“Yeah… who in Ponyville knows how to do that? Um… Twilight Sparkle probably. I don’t think she’d do this though.” Kopis decides that since his hoof hasn’t been gobbled, he should take a quick look. He pokes his head through the veil.

The advanced darkness lessens… to normal darkness. Kopis still can only see the barest hint of light up ahead, and vague outlines of the cave walls, but he isn’t totally blind once his head moves past the cave’s mouth.

“C’mon, I can see a little in here. Maybe your spell will work inside?” He slips in completely, expecting Peat and Sonata to follow.

Peat walk in alongside him, and so does Sonata a second later sighing and focusing on relighting her horn. The spell comes easily, but her breathing is noticeably heavy, as if she’d just been running. She catches her breath quickly, and the blue light shines out in a small circle around the three, casting long shadows on the walls of the cave.

“Cool, good job. Now, let’s see who’s hiding in here…” He waves for them to follow as he has several times that day, and heads deeper inside. They do follow his lead, Peat more quiet as usual and Sonata trying to concentrate.

Up ahead, a few large rocks sit by the wall of the tunnel, and from near them a sound reaches the ponies ears. A dry, clacking sound, or a series of them every few seconds. Before they can think what it might be, they get their answer when a moving skeleton steps out and walks toward them, gaining speed. The bleached white bones begin to gain speed, moving threateningly towards the foals.

Kopis makes a little squeaking noise and backs up a hair, but he’s not gonna get fooled twice! “Stop with the tricks already!”

His belief that it’s an illusion is just enough for his friends to not run away at the sight, but they don’t want to get any closer either.

The bones are long past understanding speech, or life. The unnatural construct of bones breaks into a trot, opening its mouth in a silent scream, empty eye-sockets focuses directly on the earth pony colt in the lead. The other one stands his ground, but his legs shake obviously.

Kopis stands firm and prepares to even swing at the skeleton when it got close enough. “I said quit it!” Unfortunately, he’s not completely convinced it’s an illusion, so he hesitates and swings wide of the boney foe.

Taking the hint, Peat swings a hoof as well, and misses all the same. It provokes only the smallest reaction from the skeleton, which twists its head the side at the angle that a flesh and blood pony couldn’t manage… an exaggerated taunt, all the worse for relying on not having muscle and skin to do. Sonata backs away on the other side of Kopis, doing her best to keep the light on, no matter what happens.

The skeleton looms tall over the three, and leans over them, distending its jaw further than a living pony ever could.

Okay, it wasn’t disappearing like the chimera. Kopis cowers back and sinks into a huddled ball, looking away.

“Kopis!” Sonata reaches a hoof over from where she’s leaning against the wall, strain evident in her voice and the flickering of the light.

Growling at the monster scaring his friend, Peat takes his chance and rears up to hit it with both front hooves. Athletic as he is, he is just a small pony, and it’s not a very hard hit… but it doesn’t need to be, thankfully. Once touched, the skeleton dissolves into dust, which blows away in a non existent breeze.

It… it was an illusion after all. Kopis eases back up to his hooves and subconsciously hugs Sonata. “W-was that it?”

“Looks like,” Peat nods.

Sonata looks a little steadier on her hooves, the light from her horn no longer flickering dangerously, as she sees Kopis is fine. “The pony has to be close.”

“Why are they doing all of this? I don’t get it,” Kopis says, taking a shaky step away from Sonata. “It’s too much trouble just to scare us.”

Sonata has an idea, but she’d rather see it verified first. The filly nods towards the end of the tunnel, where the light is. “I think we’ll find out soon.”

Extra sure that they won’t be eaten by a real monster at this point, Kopis nods and inches that way. “Okay, stick close.”

He doesn’t have to say that twice! Sonata moves right by his side, letting them both have as much light as possible… which is totally her main motivation, and not being scared of more illusions…

The darkness gives way suddenly to the light of a small lantern perched upon a rock. Scattered around the cave are several bags of candy, much more than a single pony could eat. Two books, “Creatures of the Everfree Forest” and “Old Mares’ Tales: Scary Stories to Tell by the Light of the Moon” sit open by the lantern.

“Huh?” Kopis creeps closer to a bag of candy. “Nopony’s here? Who was making the illusions then? And still, why?” He pokes a hoof into the bag. “Stealing Nightmare Moon’s candy?”

"Why do you think?" an unfamiliar voice asks. From behind more rocks, a dark beige-colored unicorn colt steps forward. He has a jet-black, spiked, mane and no costume like everypony else. His uncovered flank bears the image of a ghost, and he walks up to the other side of the biggest pile, scooping up some of the goods and letting the pieces fall back down. "Have you seen all this candy?" Altogether, it would probably make a pile bigger than any of them.

Kopis squints at him for a second. “It’s a lot of trouble to go through when you can just get it like everypony else. Who are you anyway?”

He backs up a step or two and sits. "I'm Spooky Shivers... I'm in the morning class," he offers the explanation then sighs. "And it's a lot easier than walking all over town. And there's no way I'd get a haul like this that way. But I guess you guys are taking it back..."

Kopis nods. “Yeah, it’s not like you could even eat all of this candy yourself anyway. It’s supposed to be for Nightmare Moon.” He scratches the back of his head. “Or, some of it anyway. Maybe not all of it. And… well, I guess it is Nightmare Night and you did scare ponies to get it, so… maybe you earned a little of it.” He looks to Sonata and Peat to see if they agree.

Sonata fidgets, adjusting a part of her costume. "Uh... maybe a little? Those ponies should get their candy back though."

Appearing somewhat more impassive, Peat scratches his head. "I guess you have a point Kopis... it is what tonight's about. Kinda."

But Sonata had a good point too. Kopis taps his chin. “How about we take the candy back to town and let them decide what to do with it? If they want to share, they can, if not, they get their candy back.”

She smiles and looks happier with this plan. “That sounds fair.”

“Fine.” Spooky grudgingly goes long with it, not that he has much choice.

“Okay then, let’s get it all loaded up so we can head back,” Kopis says, starting to scoop the loose candy roughly back into the scattered bags. There was no way to begin guessing which bag held what candy, but it didn’t really matter too much. They’d all been to the same places to get it anyway, so they could divide it up when they got back.

Being the most used to doing chores involves carrying lots of heavy stuff, Peat takes a fair few bags to balance on his back. Sonata carries a few in her magic, as does Spooky, if reluctantly.

The four little ponies leave the cave and find their way back to the road easily enough. Nothing else accosts them as they make their way back to the town center, where a group of foals is gathered around Pinkie Pie and some of her friends. Other ponies still mill around the square, since the activities for Nightmare Night haven’t ended yet.

It isn’t long before a mare in a rhinoceros costume and a Power Pony come trotting by, at which point Falcata spots her missing foal and hurries over. “Kopis, I was beginning to wonder where thou hadst gotten off to.” She marvels at the gigantic load of candy and spots the new unicorn among them. “Who is this? And from whence did ye get so much candy?”

“Um, it’s kind of a long story, but it belongs to them,” he replies, pointing at the group of foals surrounding Pinkie Pie. “And this is Spooky Shivers,” he says, declining to implicate the colt in grand theft just yet.

The named colt gives a quick wave, still wondering where his plan went wrong.

Falcata smiles and gives a little wave back. “It belongeth to them? Then why do ye have it?”

“It’s a long story, like I said. Let’s go get it back to them and I’ll explain.” Kopis lets his mom and sister grab a bag or two of candy in their magic and leads the group over to the other group, feeling triumphant in that he’d helped rescue the candy. His mom was going to be really happy to learn that, he was sure!

The foals all begin speaking at once, seeing what's surely their candy being brought over. Fragments of questions are all Kopis hears until Pinkie Pie hops over a few of the colts and fillies, landing in front of him and getting low to the ground so she can be at eye-level. "I knew you three were going to find the candy! I felt a twitch in my beak, then my tummy rumbled and my left ear tingled!"

Kopis smiles, ignoring the weirdness since this was Pinkie Pie. “Yep, we found out what happened to all of it.” He looks over to Spooky and says, “Anything you’d like to say to everypony?”

The unicorn colt steps forward and keeps his eyes planted on the ground. After a moment, he speaks up. "I'm the one who made the monsters that were scaring everypony. Last week, I got my cutie-mark for it... and with Nightmare Night coming up, I thought I could use my talent to get a whole bunch of candy..." He trails off and adds a "Sorry," to the end. Some foals gasp, others have angry looks, though none voice the less-than-polite thoughts with the adult ponies standing around.

“We brought all of the candy back,” Kopis adds, patting a bag. “We, um, don’t know whose is whose, so um…”

The town's resident librarian, who'd been standing nearby, begins floating bags off of Kopis and his friends with a field of lavender magic. "Thank you for that. We'll see that all of this is distributed to its rightful owners." Even Twilight Sparkle realizes that letting the foals split the candy amongst themselves would be a bad idea.

“Okay,” he says, beaming. Yay, he saved the foals’ candy and didn’t have to figure out how to get it all separated. Yep, this was definitely a job for the grown ups. He looks over to see that his mom and sister have very confused and questioning looks on their faces.

“So, sweetie, how did this happen?” Falcata asks.

Uh oh. Yeah, this was the part he was afraid of. Well, like they discussed earlier, they were with Pinkie. “Um, well… we wanted to go see Nightmare Moon’s statue and leave our candy there, so… um, we went with Ms. Pinkie Pie and the others. That’s when we ran into Spooky and found out he was scaring every pony to get their candy.” He smiles sheepishly.

Falcata isn’t so sure she’s buying all of that, but she doesn’t have much else to go on. Finally, she relents and smiles back, giving the three foals a pat on the back each. “Ye should have waited for Kris and myself to go with ye, but I am proud of ye for finding their candy all the same. While I suppose ye all have left your candy already, Kris and I must do so too.” She checks the progress of Twilight redistributing the candy to evaluate if they should take their leave.

Twilight is busy using an abacus to calculate the precise amount of candy each foal should have been expected to get. Pinkie Pie's method is... less precise, but somehow not much less accurate. Very quickly, the small crowd all has their candy back, mostly owing to it largely being in separate bags and baskets anyway. "Off to see Nightmare Moon, round two!" the pink earth mare announces.

Falcata waves a hoof for the three foals in her charge to come with her. “Come along, let us go to see Nightmare Moon.” She smiles a little. “Perhaps I can even tell ye all a little about her that ye might not have heard before.”

“Okay.” Kopis grins and waits for his friends to join him before trotting after the mare.

With no spooky monsters to waylay the group, they all reach the moonlit clearing once again. Once again as well, Zecora makes her appearance, this time happy to see that she has a real audience. The zebra mare opens her mouth and speaks in her peculiar rhyming way, telling a story famiiar to all of the older ponies present.

"Gather round, children, and learn of a
tale
Of how even the mightiest sometimes
can fail.
Long ago, the princess of the moon,
Decided to play by her own tune.
Banished was she for one thousand
years
A millennium filled with her rage and
her tears.
When she returned from her banishment once centuries past
She found that the customs had
changed, and changed fast.
She’d become a figure of fear and derision
And so she decided to make a revision.
She took up some fangs, and illusions
and more,
To set about scaring ponies who stepped
out their door.
So beware, for fair Luna yet lurks in the
night
To fill you with fear on this dark Nightmare Night."

Kopis leans in to hear the rhyming zebra tell the same little tale he’d heard the last year, and probably the year before that, but it never stopped setting his imagination alight. And just like the year before, he feels his mother’s hoof wrap around him and pull him close. Looking up, he sees that she’s looking through the statue of Nightmare Moon, silent as she always was during this little ritual. He leans into her alongside Kris, knowing that his mom had experienced something with Nightmare Moon that he could probably never really understand and appreciate.

When Zecora finishes, Falcata and Kris deposit their offerings of candy to the statue. His mom looks on at the statue for a moment or two more before turning away. She lays her hoof on Kopis’s back once again and says to him, “I am very proud of thee, and Princess Luna would be too.”

He grins and smiles at his friends. “I couldn’t have done it without Sonata and Peat.”

His friends smile back, and as well for the praise from Falcata. Both give an enthusiastic "Alright!", as everypony streams away from the statue and back home, to enjoy the rest of their night.