> The Nightmare Tree
>  by The Ancient Wyrm
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Chapter 1
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Nightmare Night Tree

It was a small town by a small lake, down a small river, south of the Canterlot estate.  There was not so much wilderness you could not see the town, but by the same token, there was not so much town that one couldn’t smell nor see the wilderness around.  And the town was a hustle and bustle with the joyous cries of young colts and fillies as they prepared costumes, and parents decorated the houses in preparation for the most celebrated and beloved of all holidays.  Better than Hearts and Hooves day, and yes, even better than Hearths Warming Eve; Nightmare Night.  
Just outside the newly bedecked town square, the overly decorated Carousel Boutique was bearing witness to the occult transformation of the local nightingale.  A pristine white filly with two toned lavender mane was now draped in a midnight robe trimmed and belted by amethyst.  Pointed shadow was crowned upon her head, with the skyline brim propped just behind her little horn.  Sweetie Belle paused looked from left to right of the reflective doppelgangers before her, whilst a bedraggled ghost of Rarity nervously gazed from behind.  
“Well, Sweetie Belle, how is the dress?”  Rarity nervously inquired.
Sweetie Belle turned herself amongst the three mirrors, brow furrowed and eyes peering at every possible angle she reflected back.  The moment dragged with the subtlety of a held breathe, until Sweetie Belle turned upon Rarity and fell into a tight hug of sisterly love.  “Absolutely amazing, Rarity!  This is the bestest costume you have made yet!”  Sweetie Belle squeaked through her jack-o-lantern grin.  “Why, it’s even better than the vampire cloak from last year!”
Rarity sighed with relief at another satisfied customer, and in this case a special and important one.  “Thank you for being patient with me darling, I did try to sneak your order in earlier, but there were so many other orders before you that I couldn’t finish yours until today.  I’m more than happy that you are happy with it.”  The two sisters smiled to each other for a moment before Sweetie Belle pulled away and began for the door.
“Thanks again Rarity, see you later!”
“Don’t forget to be careful with the fabric dear, it may tear if you are rough with it!” Rarity exclaimed towards the now shut door and deaf Sweetie Belle.  She stiffened slightly before sighing, remembering when she went trick-or-treating years ago, and how much fun her sister would have tonight.
Within a two story house nestled between now orange and red apple trees, a little off yellow filly with fiery red mane was busy spinning a cloth wrapping about her, with the aid of an orange scarecrow and red mysterious stallion of course.  “Jest a liddle more ahn my right hoof, Applejack.  An’ maybe a liddle more ahn mah left shoulder, Big Mac.  Thar!  Parfect!’ the cocooned Applebloom enthused from her trappings.  “Oh, an’ sorry about taken all yer gauze fer mahself.”
“It’s alright sugarcube.”  Applejack smiled as she tied the last of the gauze about her sister.  “Ah jest hope tha nopony needs it ternight.”
“Eeyup” nodded Big Mac.
“Heheh” smiled Applebloom, “Ah can’t wait ‘ter show Zecora!  She gave me the whole idea an’ all.”
“Ahm sure she’ll love it, now off with yah, yer liddle whippersnapper! Don’t want to be late fer yer first trick-or-treat on yer own now do yah?” Applejack teased.
“Ah ponyfeathers!” shrieked Applebloom as she lunged for the porch.  Big Mac and Applejack just snickered for a good minute as the little shadow of their sister scuttled along the twilight sky towards Ponyville.
Off to the East side of Ponyville, far in a small, squat house with wilted lilac gardens, a beast was prowling through the halls.  It was hunched and horrid, with ragged pelt of tawny brown, charcoal mane, framing horns, and thick snarling lips engulfing lavender candlelight’s.  “Rahargh!  Ar ar Rar!” snarled the Scootaloo turned beast at the bathroom reflection.  “Yeah!  That’ll scare the gang!  I bet I could even scare Rainbow Dash like this!”
“Dear!” called a soft sing-song voice from downstairs, “Can you come down now?  I’d like to see you before you leave.”
“Coming mom” drawled the deflated monster.  Slowly the furred terror skulked down the stairs to the ultimate embarrassment any foal could endure; a doting mother.
“Aw there you are little Scoots!” the chestnut earth pony squealed, scooping the little monster up into her hooves for a great bear hug.  
“M-mom!” protested the now blushing beast, “Y-you’re gonna ruin my costume!”  Scootaloo squirmed free of the vice grip her mother held and helicoptered to the ground where she began to take toll of loses.  
“Sorry” murmured Hazel, “but you were adorable” as her lavender eyes slid sideways to the window, ears flattened in shame.  
“Mom!?!” shouted Scootaloo, blushing furiously at her, eyes then softening to little flickers of sparks when she noticed her saddened mother.  Slowly she worked up to Hazel’s side, and then began to nuzzle her leg, “I’m sorry, I just want this to be perfect, for my friends.”
Hazel smiled and turned to her child, “I know, and am sorry for doing that. I just want you to know how much I love you.”  She sighed, pulling Scootaloo in for a small hug.
“I know mom, I love you too.”  Scootaloo didn’t fight back this time, and returned the hug wholeheartedly.
“By the way, can I take a picture, for the scrap-book?” Hazel inquired.
“Sure mom, I can wait that long for you.”  Scootaloo smiled. 
Hazel produced a camera from behind her and took a couple quick shots of the hunched creature in front of her. “Oh, by the way, since Princess Luna is coming in to Ponyville again this year, your father will be in town as an undercover escort.  Be sure to say hi if you see him”
“He is?” Scootaloo burst into a jack-o-lantern grin at the news.  Hazel caught another picture of the jubilant bundle of a daughter as she began to flit in the air from joy.  “Dad hasn’t been home for weeks!  This is gonna be awesome!”  
Hazel giggled over her little filly, “Well, don’t be too loud, and be sure to listen to him since he is working close with the Night Guard tonight.  We don’t want him getting in trouble here at home.  Now shoo, your friends are waiting for the best part of the show.”
Scootaloo gasped at the time and flitted to the door, only to hesitate, and then scurried back to Hazel to wrap her in another hug. “Thanks mom” and with that she was out the door, on her scooter, and rocketing into the streets at full speed.
Not too distant from the center of town, just within sight of Town Hall, and next to Timeturner’s Tinkering, a gangly white Pegasus with auburn mane was scavenging through a crate in his attic.  “Where is that suit?  I know I put it up here last year!” Featherweight scowled into the shadows.  His face was lit up with a crooked smile when he noticed the article he had been questing for the whole time.  “There you are!”
Fished from the abyssal shadows of the crate, a black full body suit decorated with green, phosphorescing femurs, and ribs, and vertebrae limply sagged from the colt’s mouth.  Hurriedly, the colt frantically pulled himself into the old bones of yesteryear.  At that moment a great cacophony of bells, gongs, whistles, and little birds were let loose from wooden and copper cages to belt out the hour; 8:00.  “Oh no!” panicked Feathers, “The girls and Pipsqueak are gonna tan my hide if I’m late!”  In a flurry of legs and wings the Editor in Chief of The Foal Free Press whizzed down the stairs of the attic, through the hall, and out the front door barking “Gottagomeetupwithmyfriendsandtrickortreatseeyoulaterloveyabye” to two parent shaped blurs in the living room.  
“YEAH!!!” shouted an overly enthused, burly Pegasus reaper.
“SHH!” admonished his much smaller wife.  “You don’t need to yell like that Snowflake dear.”
“Sorry, just showing some fatherly support.” The brawny pegasus smiled.
Signs, games, and friends from all around passed in a frantic streak of rushing joy as Featherweight sped past them.  There went Berry Punch the monk, and Chowder the dragon, and Dinkie the astronaut followed by Ditsy the paper bag princess.  Apple bobbing, hay rides, and countless other celebrations of the dark holiday sped past in a blur as the ivory streak made for the predestined meeting ground, just outside of Sugarcube Corner.  As the door came into view, Featherweight could see that he was late.  The CMC was already there, waiting expectantly for the other two members of the group to catch up.
The gale force bolt fizzled to a winded stop before the three girls, “Took ya long enough, where’s Pip?” demanded the monster.
“N-n-n-n, *huff* not *puff* w-w-w-with me” panted the lung less skeleton.
“Huh?  Than whar is the liddle scamp?” inquired a wrapped up Applebloom, complete with bowtie.
“Do you think he’s back at his home still?” the twilight witch queried with upraised brows.
“You know, that sounds like the pinto bean. Betcha it’s some sort of trick, or his costume is so big it’ll take him forever to put it on!”  The monster groaned.  Then a wry smile slid across her inner face, “Hey, how about we go over and surprise him instead?”
“Great idea!” the since recovered skeleton cheered.  “We’ll surprise him instead this year!”  And with that the motley group began the trot towards Pipsqueaks little hovel.  
Pipsqueak was a new colt, having moved to Ponyville from Trottingham barely a year ago, and was little for his age.  Some say when he was born, that he was barely big enough to fit in your hoof.  Pipsqueak made up for it with sheer courage and stubbornness, charging headstrong into any situation when called.  This quality is what first attracted the CMC to him, and he was soon adopted into the group.  As far as the CMC were concerned, Pipsqueak was something of a little brother to them all, learning what he could with gusto and high spirits.
The CMC and Feathers rounded the last corner to see the small cottage Pipsqueak and his parents lived in, only to stop in shock and surprise.  
“Huh” went Feahters.
“Um” agreed Scootaloo.
“What’s going on here?” squeaked Sweetie Belle.
“What in tarnation?” exclaimed Applebloom.
“Where are the decorations?” inquired Feathers as he pushed his mask up.
“And the jack-o-lanterns?” demanded Scootaloo.
“And the lights along the porch?” Sweetie Belle intoned.
“An’ the corn husks Ah gave ‘em?” worried Applebloom.
As one the group began a mad dash around to the front of the house.  “Pipsqueak should have decorated already!” Feathers said more to himself than anypony else.  “He was so excited to see Princess Luna again and for his second Nightmare Night.  What could…” and the next sentence died in his mouth, hung at the back of his throat like a dried leaf to a twig.  
There, in front of the house a stretcher was being loaded into the back of an ambulance wagon, followed by Pip’s visibly worried parents.  The vehicle then sped off with great speed towards the hospital.
“Oh no, Pip…” gasped Applebloom.

> Chapter 2
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Nightmare Tree 
Chapter 2

As the dreaded, mournful wail of the ambulance siren sifted into the distant night, the remaining foals looked to each other with wet eyes and soggy frowns.  Sweetie Belle, worriedly turned her head away from the road, and her gaze alighted upon the front door.  “Hey girls, what’s that note on the door?”
Sweetie Belle began the short walk to the old cottage door, the rest of the CMC and Featherweight following suit.  Stuck in the door hinge, fluttering in the cool night breeze, was a paper note hastily scribbled in poor hoofmanship.  The four ponies gathered tightly around the note, sparing no space for even a shadow.
“Dear Feathers and CMC,” began Feathers.
“Sorry to ruin your Nightmare Night like this” continued Sweetie Belle.
“Off ter the hospital” Applebloom mumbled.
“Something about Colitis?” queried Scootaloo.
“Colitis?” Applebloom quizzically gazed along her friends.
“Um, I think you could die from that…” finished Sweetie Belle forlornly.
“Anyway, go ahead without me, I’ll catch up.  Ready set go?”  Feathers furrowed his brow in confusion.  “What does he mean by that?”
Applebloom searched her friend’s faces, “We can’t just leave ‘em alone on Nightmare Night. It’s his favorite night of the year.”
Scootaloo rubbed her chin in thought.  “She has a point, it would be a shame if nopony came to see him.”
“Ooh!  Ooh!” shot up Sweetie Belle, “We could go visit him in the hospital, I bet that would cheer him up!”
Feathers, who had been staring intently at the note until now, turned to face the CMC.  “Now there’s an idea!  How about we cut to Pony General using the shortcut through Everfree?”
“Wait, are we talkin’ about the dead river bed?”  Apllebloom raised her left eyebrow.
“Sure am!”  Feathers cried.  “Besides, you read the note,” Feathers coiled to the ground.  “Ready.  Set.  Gooo!” and with all the speed his legs could muster, Feathers began to the Everfree with the CMC close behind.  
They hopped fences, scrambled through gates, and swept across fields all in attempt to catch the white blur ahead of them.  Scootaloo, zipping along on her scooter was the first to reach Featherweight.  “So, do you think Pipsqueak will be surprised to see us?  He did say to start Nightmare Night without us.”  She smirked towards Featherweight.
Feathers grin lit up his face, “It’ll be worth it just to see the look on his face!  Imagine him, and what would be even better is if Princess Luna came by to see him!”
Scootaloo laughed shortly at the thought, and then revved her wings up to higher speeds.  “Watch on the left side, coming through!  Last one to the river bed is a donkeys’ aunt!”  She careened and sped up past Featherweight.
“Hey!  No fair! “Sweetie Belle pouted.
“Wait up!” hollered Applebloom.
Scootaloo, all full of the bravado near victory provides, hardly heard a one of them, and sailed effortlessly into the forest.  The brush became thicker and slowly the ground became more and more uneven.  Then, eyes wide I fear, Scootaloo began to break as she noticed how close she was to the riverbed.  Fortunately, Featherweight was close enough to grab the back of the scooter with his teeth and stop it.  Scootaloo sheepishly grinned back at Featherweight in thanks as the other two caught up.
“Whoo.” sighed Featherweight.  “Ah!  There’s the riverbed!” he exclaimed.
For the first time, the group laid eyes upon the old, dead riverbed of the Everfree.  Dank night stained the round stones, and creeped among the trees.  What had once been an easy and welcoming path by day was now a foreboding warning by night.  “Um,” the mummy gulped, “might we ‘ave any other paths tah choose?”
“I agree with her, this looks a little scary.” The witch lowered herself to the ground.
Featherweight rolled his eyes from the CMC to the riverbed, where a spectral white shape caught his eye.  “Hey!  Look down there in the riverbed!  It’s Pip!”  And sure enough, Pip was there, darting from tree to tree, shadow to shadow as if in a desperate attempt to not be seen by some force or being.
“W-wait” shivered Scootaloo, “I-I can see right through him!”
“Ahm sure it’s just the moonlight, all sorts of weird things happen in the night.” Applebloom comforted herself more than the others.
Featherweight turned upon the others.  “But don’t you see!  The important thing is he isn’t sick!”
“But what about the note?  And the ambulance?”  The witch began to rise slowly.
“Don’t you get it?” Featherweights glowing face turned to them.  “It was all a joke, a prank pulled on us like when Rainbow Dash uses the thunder cloud!  Quick!  After him before he disappears again!” and with that he was off, speeding down the bedside into the inky abyss.  Half a heartbeat later followed Scootaloo, then Applebloom.  Sweetie Belle hesitated for a moment, then swallowing her fear, trotted after them.
The riverbed was far worse than any had imagined.  The riverbed was full of all varieties of darkness that caught and clung to the foals as they passed through.  The riverbed, overseen by morose ravens, and lordly horned owls.   It was the birthplace of pale ghostly mushrooms and death caps.  The trees seemed to glower and stare at the foals as they ran through along the rough rocks, trying desperately to not fall into the sickly, dripping puddles of stagnant filth.  A gully long carved out from the banks had a single dripping pool that seemed to call “Come…Stay…Stay and never go…Run and hide…stay…stay…”
Featherweight lost sight of Pipsqueak early in, and had begun to blindly try his way through the riverbed.  Eventually he found an incline and made scrambled out through the only break in the trees he saw.  He was soon joined by a set of slightly dirtied, slightly bruised, and thoroughly frightened CMC.  
“Oh no!” squealed the witch.  “Rarity is going to be so upset when she sees this!”  Upon the hem of her twilight cloak a series of ragged rips had perched.
“An’ this was mah favorite bow!” the mummy mourned as her bright red bow sagged, frayed where a trees’ gnarled branch had decided to cling to it.
“You think that’s the least of our worries?  Look up there.” The monster pointed up the hill, to a black house presiding over the riverbed.
Oh yes, the house was ancient, and seemed to be cut not from timbers of wood, but from nightmare black marble.  The windows and doors were gummed shut with grime and gunk, yellowed ancient glass peered half-blind from the walls.  On the whole, the house mushroomed out from its base, with who knows how many superior and inferior attics, filled with dusted old relics and mysteries, that none but the most daring of pegasi could ever hope to reach.  Crowning the roof was a myriad of chimneys, crooked and steeped in the growing night; so many, in fact, that the whole roof seemed to be one vast cemetery, each flue signifying the grave of some old forgotten dragon or Alicorn of fire.
After what seemed ages of the young foals just fidgeting, Featherweight started the slow climb up to the house.  “Wait a minute!  Whar are ya goin?”  piped the mummy.
“Well, if Pipsqueak led us here, he may be inside” shrugged Featherweight.  “Besides, he may be trick-or-treating ahead of us.”
“Well that’s no fair!  Pip always gets the most candy!” Scootaloo fumed.  And with that the mummy and monster both raced to catch up with the skeleton.
“B-b-b-but that house looks haunted!  Like all the stories from that book we borrowed for the school play!” Sweetie belle, shock with terror, simply shrank to the ground.
“Uhg!” groaned the beast, which promptly turned around to get the witch.  “It doesn’t really matter, since we need to find Pip anyway.”  Setting down the scooter, Scootaloo returned to her petrified friend and began pushing the still Sweetie Belle forward.
The friends gathered at the base of a long, tall staircase that had obviously seen better years.  It easily flew some fifteen or twenty feet to the front porch, which sat scowling at the little band below.  Shakily, the skeleton picked up a hoof and set it on the first step, only to withdraw in shock as not only did that step, but the whole of staircase let out a creaking song.
Appleblooms’ eyebrows shot up in surprise, “Now THAT ain’t natural!”
“See!” squealed the witch, who was now cowering behind her front hooves, “I told you it was haunted!”
Featherweight shifted his weight, and then took on a determined look.  “It doesn’t matter, if Pip is in there, we need to go get him!”  
The CMC exchanged glances at Featherweights declaration, and then gathered themselves up into a ball, inhaled, and yelled “CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS RESCUERS, GO!!!!”  Featherweight only had enough time to bemoan the obvious ear damage that had just occurred before being swept up by the now charging trio.  The whole of the staircase moaned a dust filled dirge as the stampeding hooves marched up it.  Then, the four dropped upon the porch, still hugging each other as the mournful song slowly faded from memory.  
Chancing a glance at the door, Scootaloo gawked, “What kind of doorbell is that?”
Facing the four friends was a black door decorated with raised wood, outlined in the shape of a coffin, and resting in the center of that coffin was the head of an old donkey, bandage holding his jaw in place.
“Oh!  Rarity had a name for this!” Sweetie Belle intoned, “But I’ve forgotten it.  I know it has to do with Hearth’s Warming Eve” she puzzled.
“Ooh!  Ooh!  Ya mean tha one with the mean old ram who was business parners with the donkey!” Applebloom began to excitedly wave her front hooves in the air, “Then when the donkey died, he appeared as a doorknocker to the ram!”
“I remember that!” brightened Scootaloo, “But I can’t remember the name of the play.  Anyway, whose gonna knock?”
The ponies all stiffened at the revelation, for how will anypony answer if nopony knocks?  Eyes shifted from one pony to the next, each one not daring to move, until finally Featherweight puffed himself up.  He started for the door, then hovered in air until he reached the knob.  Taking both hooves under the long, sad nose of the knocker, he lifted it up.
At that instant, the doorknob gave out a long, deep groan that shook not only the house but the very bones of everypony gathered before it.  Dust blew from the gutters, as some infernal wind vein turned upon itself as if possessed.  Behind them the staircase gave one last sigh and splintered into fragments in a final exhalation of dust.  
“Aw, no!  Look at what you did Featherbrain!” bemoaned the beast.
“I told you it was haunted!” shrieked the witch.  
But before Featherweight could answer, the door slowly swung inward, inviting the four with a creak that oddly sounded like ‘Enteeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrr.’
Eight eyes stared at the now open entry, which only revealed more shadow and night.  A hoofful of moments went by before something, or somepony inside, indignantly sighed.  From outside a great dust devil was forming, grabbing leaves and debris into itself, before funneling headlong into the cavernous house.  The CMC only had enough time to grab each other before being picked up, flung into Featherweight, and unceremoniously dumped upon the floor inside.  The door slammed shut with a resounding ‘BANG’ that held all the finality of the grave.
Gathering themselves, four decorated faces sponged the room for anything.  Tall, black columns reached to the invisible ceiling, while a burgundy carpet led from the door up the inner staircase. Pale windows provided almost no real light, only a slight sifting of muggy rays illuminated the inner sanctum.  
As the ponies were beginning to worry about what it was that brought them in, a tall shadow stepped out from behind a column to the right.  A tall unicorn stallion, easily the size of Flim or Flam but all the more gangly was now standing in the center of the room.  His coat was a pale yellow, so pale in fact that little Appleblooms’ coat would have seemed to radiate sunshine.  Dark purple bags surrounded and sagged from his sunk, dark eyes.  His face was gaunt, and wrinkled much like a dried gourd, and no mane was upon his head.  He wore a black button down dress coat with tails over a button down white shirt, black dress horesshoes, and a black cape with red interior.  “Why have you come here? Why did you knock upon my door and not come in when invited?” the mysterious unicorn sneered with a dusty, reedy voice, and in an attitude that was much less than pleased.  He trotted forward with deliberation and purpose to lord over the four friends.  “Why have you disturbed me and my business, now speak!”
The gang began to stammer, squirm, and hide, but no matter how they tried, they could not look away from the unicorn.  Finally Featherweight gulped audibly, “Well sir, it’s, uh, Nightmare Night and we were just trick-or-treating” he finished shaking.
The unicorns’ horn glowed a pale, sickly green as a large bronze pocket watch with an intricate M scrawled upon it levitated out from his coat.  “Oh!  I really don’t have time for this!” he moaned, flitting open the watch to look at a clock that not only had five hands, but supported an hourglass within.
“B-b-but sir?  It’s Nightmare Night and…” shuffled Applebloom.
“Oh? Is that it?” the pocket watch was snuffed shut and secreted away.  “You’ve tricked me?” the unicorn sneered.  “What, then, would be a treat?  Eh?”
“Well, we think our friend came here, and were wondering if you may have seen him” Scootaloo rubbed the back of her head.  “If you could tell us anything, I suppose that would be a treat.”
“Yeah!  That’d be nice!” finished Applebloom.
The unicorn briefly donned a puzzled brow before moving towards the skeleton.  “Who are you?  Colt!”
“Me sir?  I’m Featherweight.”
“Know why you are wearing bones boy?” the unicorn leaned over him, with acid in his words.  “Bleah!  Didn’t think so” and he turned upon his hoof to the mummy.
“And you?” he snapped with a grimace.
“M-m-mah name’s Applebloom, sir” she cowered.
Light green light illuminated the unicorn’s horn, pulling a slightly loose wrapping from under her chin up, towards him.  “Why dressed in an ancient mummy’s’ rags?”  When Applebloom could only stutter for a minute, he let the bandage snap back in place, “Times up.  And what of you pegasus?” he swung towards the monster.
The beast stood firm, head thrown back in defiance.  “My name is Scootaloo!” she announced with pride and strength.
A green glow encased her mask and pulled it down over her smug face, disorienting her for a moment.  “Why a monsters face?  Hmm?” the unicorn drawled, leering into the now intimidated Sootaloos’ eyes.  When she could only balk, the unicorns’ cape snapped like wings behind him, turning now towards the wide eyed Sweetie Belle.  “And you?”
Sweetie Belle yelped as if she had been pinched, and shrank behind her hooves.  “M-m-m-my n-n-nam-m-m-me is Sweetie Belle, sir” she implored with large eye.
The unicorn, unabashed, leaned in over her, “Why are you dressed as a witch?”  He cocked his left eyebrow.  Leaning back he addressed the group, “No thoughts eh?” Sighing, he began to slowly step away.  “I’m wasting my breath!  All dressed up for Nightmare Night and none of you know why or when or even from where!  Pity…” he mumbled.
Scootaloo was the first to pick herself back up, “And just who are you to go around being so mean to us all!”
The unicorn stopped midstride, turning his head and flashed a small, sharp but polite smile. Turning again to trot back, his horn aglow, he replied, “Begging your pardon, where are my manners?”  He swooped in front of the group, bringing up a simple business card.  “Moundshroud is the name, Carapace Clavicle Moundshroud” he declared, levitating the card emblazoned with the added subscripted line of ‘Time Management’ in front of them.  “Is that not a fine name, foals?  Does it not ring?  Heh heh.” Moundshroud chuckled.  Then his smile was stashed away again, “But I have work to do, no treats here, only trick!” lightning flashed from the windows, “So if you will excuse me…”
In the brief flicker flash of lightning, Sweetie Belle had stumbled backwards; upsetting a dark vase decorated with peacock feathers she didn’t even know had been there.  And who should jump out from behind the vase but Pipsqueak, stopping Moundshroud mid-sentence.
“Pip!” yelped Sweetie Belle.
“Y-y-yer…Y-y-yer…Yer a ghost!” balked the now flabbergasted Applebloom.
And there Pipsqueak stood, shivering in the middle next to Sweetie Belle, eyes filled with terror at his predicament, franticly searching the room for something, then staring in cold horror at the figure of Moundshroud.  He was pale blue, and completely transparent, with slightly darker spots where the pinto coloration would have been had he been physically present.
“Wait!  Stop right there you!” Moundshroud ordered, making a move for little Pipsqueak.  “We have an appointment you and I!”
Pipsqueak darted to the left, then the right and upset another vase, revealing a hole in the wall.  Pipsqueak rudely stuffed himself in, pumping his timy legs until there was an audible ‘Pop!’ and was gone through the hole.  Moundshroud, now vehement, wheeled back on the CMC and Featherweight, “Drat!  Now see what you have done!”
Applebloom however didn’t take the time to be scolded however, planted her front hooves, and bucked down the door.  “Come on girls!  Pip needs us!” and as one the group charged out the door and onto the porch.
They scrambled madly about the porch, screaming “Pip!  Pip!” at the top of their lungs.  Then they turned about the corner, to find that the porch was a wraparound, and followed it to the back.  Featherweight and Applebloom were the first to reach the back and stopped dead in their tracks, causing Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo to collide with them.  
The four gawked at the sight in front of them.  Standing tall in the night was an ancient tree, grander and older than any they had seen before, with branched that hung in the sky, filling almost all of it up.  But that was not the strangest part, no, the tree held not leaves or acorns from its’ twigs, but pumpkins, hundreds upon hundreds of pumpkins.  
“Look at em!” gasped Applebloom, “Ah’ve never seen so many!”
“What is it?” Featherweight puzzled, “A pumpkin tree?”
“No,” careened the reed smoke voice of Moundshroud from an upper veranda, “a Nightmare tree.”
As the CMC and Featherweight looked closer, the tree began to come alive.  The pumpkins on the tree were not mere pumpkins; each one had a face sliced in it, each face was different, every nose was a weirder nose, every mouth smiled in some hideous new way.  A thousand grimaces, and twice times a thousand glares came from freshly cut eyes, each blink held within the remnant holiday spirit, of years gone by.  
More and more pumpkins lit up to join their brothers and sisters as jack-o-lanterns, puffing small clouds of candle and whicker smoke scented with the orange gourds.  Dried leaves scurried as mice across the ground as to join the wind in a fluting melody that lifted from the ground.
“It's big, it's broad...
It's broad, it's bright...
It fills the sky of Nightmare Night...
The strangest sight you've ever seen.
The Monster Tree on Nightmare Night.

The leaves have burned to gold and red
the grass is brown, the old year dead,
But hang the harvest high, Oh see!
The candle constellations on the Nightmare Tree!

The stars they turn, the candles burn
And the mouse-leaves scurry on the cold wind borne,
And a mob of smiles shine down on thee
From the gourds hung high on the Nightmare Tree.

The smile of the Witch, and the smile of the Cat,
The smile of the Beast, the smile of the Bat,
The smile of the Reaper taking his fee
All cut and glimmer on the Nightmare Tree...”
The four were so mesmerized by the shining candle lights in front of them, that none noticed a small, clear blue figure attach itself to the tree, and begin a frantic climb up.  Like a squirrel fearing for its’ life, Pipsqueak was scrambling up the trunk.  About halfway up Applebloom pointed, “Wait!  Pip!  What are ya doin?”
Moundshroud nearly fell from his perch in surprise, “Now stay out of there, colt!  That’s no place for you!”  Pipsqueak ignored the unicorn and kept climbing with a mission, knocking a couple jack-o-lanterns loose in the process.  Moundshrouds’ horn desperately glowed to catch the falling gourds.
“What is he after?” puzzled Featherweight.
Sweetie Belle, who had been tracing Pips’ course, pointed high into the tree.  “There!  He’s after that pumpkin!” 
“Oh my gosh!” Scootaloo gasped, “That Pumpkin looks just like Pip!”  And indeed, the jack-o-lantern hanging atop the tree looked exactly like little Pips’ head, with a raised spot for around his cut eye for the exact spot on his face.  As Pip reached the branch, the pumpkin began a low, trilling mumble. 
Pip grabbed the pumpkin, which was almost as large as him, and hung from the tree.  “Now, you’ve had your fun colt, but that belongs to me now.  Give it back!”  Pip stared in wide eyed horror, before the twig snapped and both pumpkin and Pip were sent hurtling to the ground.  Lightning flashed across the sky as Moundshroud stamped into the porch, “Inexcusable!  Inexcusable behavior!”
The four other friends catapulted over the porch rail in a dash to catch the falling Pip, only for him to land in a pile of orange leaves at the tree base.  Quickly, the frightened friends began to rip and tear through the leaves, trying desperately to dig their friend out.  Atop the veranda, Moundshroud cast a spell with his sickly green magic, summoning a mighty whirlwind to blow the leaves away.  As it passed, the four friends were left behind, but Pip was also gone.
“Where’s Pip!” hollered Featherweight.
“Pip melted!” screamed Sweetie Belle, staring at her hooves, wide eyed in terror.
“Help me!  Help meeeeee!” whispered the whirlwind, which was now moving off through the sky.
		
> Chapter 3
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Nightmare Tree 
Chapter 3

Somberly the whirlwind whistled into the distant night air, echoing the faint and desperate cries of a small, Trottingham colt.  Four frightened and confused young ponies stared after the trailing autumnal leaves which marked the way their beloved friend had gone, while pumpkin spiced smoke puffed down from the tree.  “Augh!” shrieked a voice weathered with age.  “Bother!  Bother! Bother I say!” bemoaned the pale unicorn, leaping down from the open veranda.  “Do you know what he has done?” he demanded from the foals, closing his cape about himself with a quick snap as he landed, “Now my entire night schedule has been thrown off!”
Scootaloo, a little more than angry, stepped forward.  “Where did you send Pipsqueak!” she exclaimed, eyes narrowed.
“I didn’t send him anywhere you little monster!” Moundshroud retorted.
Featherweight marched up to Moundshroud, “Well then Cara-Cala-Clava…erm”
“Cla-va-cle” Moundshroud enunciated.  “But you may call me Mr.Moundshroud.”
“Whatever yer name is, bring Pip back!” Applebloom ordered.
Moundshrouds’ dark eyes looked forlornly to the horizon, “Hrm, if only life were that simple”, he sighed.  “By now, Pip has escaped to the Nightmare Nights of years past; no telling where or when he may be now, or how long it will take for me to find him again.”
Sweetie Belle lit up again, “Find him?”
“We are coming to help!” Scootaloo finished, crossing her front legs.
“Impossible!  You ALL have helped quite enough, Thank You!” Moundshroud threw his nose up and away from the foals.
“It doesn’t matter what you think,” a cross Featherweight began, “we are going with you to find him, and that’s that.”
“Besides, tonight is Nightmare Night,” Sweetie Belle intoned, “and if last year or this year is proof of anything, it is proof that even the impossible can happen on Nightmare Night.”
Moundshrouds’ eyes popped open with surprise, which quickly soured to glowering hate.  Turning his baleful gaze upon the CMC and Featherweight, Moundshroud growled, “And just what do you know about Nightmare Night?  Four foalish foals blunder to my house, refuse to enter when invited, disrupt my precious work, and not a one of them knows why they are dressed as a mummy, witch, monster, or…”  
Moundshroud stopped in mid tirade, turned and began to tap his chin with a hoof.  “Now wait a minute, it is a long journey.”  Green light summoned and opened the pocket watch, “And it is hours before dawn, so I… we could indeed have time.”
“We could?” beamed Sweetie Belle.
“Yes,” Moundshroud smirked, turning to the foals, “if we fly fast enough, we may indeed be able to catch Pipsqueak, retrieve my pumpkin, and have a scavenger hunt as well.  That way, we will be able to find out who you are, what you are made of, and retrieve your friend at the same time.”  Moundshroud stood proudly over the foals, “Well?  Will you come with me if that is the case?”
The four trick-or-treaters exchanged half a glance before truning back to Moundshroud, “Yes!” they all exclaimed.
“Wonderful! I haven’t had this much fun in ages!” Moundshroud flashed his sharp smile while clopping his hooves together.  “Very well, to the Nightmare Nights of yester year we go!”  He rushed ahead to the crest of the hill, “Feast your eyes foals!  Out there are a thousand Nightmare Nights, ready to swallow us whole!”  
His eyes searched for a while before alighting on a small square not too far away.  A well-dressed hoof was stretched before him, “To that barn!  And on the sides of that barn are the making of an Autumnal kite!”  Applebloom and Sweetie Belle shared befuddled glances, while Scootaloo merely cocked an eyebrow at the now raving stallion.  “This way, skeleton!  This road, mummy!  This fence, witch!  This meadow, monster!” and with a brisk pace full of high kicks, Moundshroud began down the hill to a decrepit barn.  “Do you see?  Do you see?”
“Are we sure about this?  He seems a little loose in the head.” Sweetie Belle asked the group.
“Ya got a better idea fer savin’ Pip?” the mummy deadpanned.
The witch dipped her head and sighed, “No.” before following the group down.
The aged barn was worn and battered, with time stained siding and greyed roof.  Half the east face was missing, while a broken lantern hung from an arm over the entrance.  Covering every square inch of the remaining wood were the poster tapestries of a circus.  Tame monsters and trick ponies in frozen ink parade were standing at the ready all about the way.  Applebloom squinted her eyes at first before recoiling in surprise, “Wait just a minute, this here is the barn Rainbow Dash destroyed for me an’ mah sister last year!  An’ that barbed wire is from when the cows asked for a new fence!”
Featherweight walked to the first poster and read, “Trottingham World Famous Expo.”
“What’s a barn that was totaled doin’ here by your house wit posters from Trottingham plastered all over it?” Applebloom asked.
Moundshroud simply shrugged, “You tell me, I don’t remember building my house by a river, yet that’s how you came here.”  Turning to the barn, “Now, let’s build a kite.” And green light erupted from his horn, illuminating two loose rafters from the barn and crossing them.  They were then bound with coils of barbed wire which bit into the old oak before being set in the meadow.  “Time for you to help” Moundshrouds’ slit of a smile beckoned.
The foals looked to each other before Scootaloo and Featherweight trotted to the side of the barn.  The animals and beast, the cockatrices, the basilisks, the wyverns, and the hydras, seemed now to be pleading and begging for release, with restless eyes and coiled muscle held only by glue to their wooden prison.  Seizing the initiative, Featherweight bit down on the loose corner of a flyer bearing a manticore and ripped it loose from the barn.  The freed paper leaped into the air and promptly turned upon itself, ripping the image of the manticore into pieces, which fluttered over to Moundshroud.  “Good!  Good!  That’s the idea!  Rip and tear foals, there’s more kite to build!”
At this the four friends began to seize the animals from the weathered walls.  The unshackled painted creatures leapt into the air to be torn into fragments of claw, eye, and fang.  Scaly wings and fiery breath mingled and wormed into the air above Moundshrouds head, where the unicorn picked pieces deftly with his magic, and flattened them against the kites’ skeleton.  Green fire sizzled and sealed the tongues of scrap together until a tremendous kite, larger than any manticore or hydra in existence, had been formed.  
Moundshroud then summoned a rope from inside the doorway and secured it to the shrieking monstrosity.  He struggled, but eventually hauled the kite into the air, where it hung like a chimeric abomination that would have made Discord proud, howling to the four corners of the world its’ feral objections.  At first the kite hung there, then it dipped left, right, and finally dived down before Moundshroud grunting heaved it back into place.  
“The kites missing something” Scootaloo cocked her head.
Featherweight furrowed his brow in concentration before a candle ignited over his head.  “A tail!” he exclaimed running forward, “We need a tail!”  He climbed a still raised fence post and leapt out just as the kite sailed overhead.  As the corner was just about to escape his reach, the pegasus flitted his wings and latched on with his teeth.  The kite gave a great yowl and snarl all at once, while the sound of scrabbling hooves and claws sounded from the arms.
“Right colt!  Who else for the tail?” Moundshroud laughed.
“Oh! That is so gonna be me!” Scootaloo cheered.
“Not before me!” Sweetie Belle chimed.
The CMC gathered below the kite and began to jump in the air after Featherweight.  First came Sweetie Belle, who clung around Featherweight with her front hooves, then Scootaloo in the same manner.  Applebloom was having difficulties, until she unhitched a ream of her gauze and lassoed it onto Scootaloo.  The kite then began to climb into the sky, higher and higher as the wind caught it, trailing a tail of foals.
“That’s it!  Fly!  Fly!” a racing Moundshroud called up.  He then tied the rope about his chest and tucked his legs under himself.  His cloak billowed out and fanned behind him, almost like a pair of wings.
Kite and passengers rose above the trees, above the house, and finally passed over the town.  Down in the square, ponies were bobbing for apples, throwing spiders into nets, and passing from door to door for candy.  The dark and imposing shadow passed over the townsponies, casting many in its moon laden gloom, but not one pony noticed.  Pinkie Chicken Pot Pie was still leading the foals door to door, Rainbow Lightning Dash was following ponies with a cloud and new devil costume, Scare Applejack Crow was supervising the games, and Mayor Mime Mare was pantomiming the yearly speech.  Not one single pony batted an eye as the shade of a flying chimera passed overhead.  
Sweetie Belle looked down in wonder until a thought rose in her head.  “Um, girls, this is much higher than the zip line we set up behind the clubhouse.”
“Don’t you dare let go Sweetie Belle!  My wings can barely hold up my weight, what do you think will happen when we all fall down?!” Sootaloo glared.
“Ah’m more worried about Feathers’ teeth fallin out!” Applebloom wailed.
Featherweight for his part was regretting his decision to hold on with his buck teeth.  Sure, he could hold his own weight just fine, but now that the weight of three fillies had been added, his tortured dentures were screaming under the stress.  Sweat was pouring over his eyes when he noticed a blue figure desperately tumbling sidelong into the skyline.  He flailed his front legs in the direction, hoping beyond hope to catch the attention of somepony below him.
Applebloom was the first to notice and exclaimed “It’s Pip!  Over there!”
“Where is he going?” Scootaloo asked, puzzled.
“Not where, when!” Moundshroud called, “Four-thousand Nightmare Nights ago!  Pipsqueak, with my pumpkin, has gone ahead, or should I say past.  I can smell it!”  
The kite passed through the cloud banks.  Lunas’ moon began to blink.  Faster and faster it began to wax, to wane, and then to wax again, until a thousand times over it flickered, and in flickering changed the landscape below.  Green and rolling hills gave way to mounding dunes, rivers ran dry and then nonexistent, the clouds dried away, and the still warm air rose to greet them.  Just ahead, a sprawling clay and mud town was tucked between three great polished limestone pyramids, shining with the moons silver glow.
“Wait, that’s Neighjypt, all the way across the Southern Sea!” a disbelieving Sweetie Belle gasped.
“Not just that, what else do you notice?” Moundshroud smirked.
The foals searched the ground below until Applebloom spat out, “Why!  It’s all brand new!  Just like Zecora described it.  Ah guess we really did go back in time after all!”
At this the kite gave a great screech and, refusing to take the passengers any longer, shook violently until the tail was dismembered upon a nearby sand dune.  It immediately tore itself asunder overhead, and set to the winds chasing the lost eyes and fangs to the ends of the earth.  Moundshroud, with the delicacy of a vulture, landed only a half-step away.  After a quick dusting, the pale unicorn began to pace toward the village, foals in tow.  Featherweight had to pry a bit of poster that was struggling between his buck teeth before he could move.
The village was made from dried mud bricks, reinforced with thin timbers.  Houses were low and long.  Outside the fabric doors, food and drink was placed on reed mats, while all through the streets wafted the striped ghosts of zebras.  They danced in the oil and incense smoke, wailing and moaning as the living passed them by.  Empty eyes and dry tongues grabbed at the food left upon the porches, swallowing what they could.  Four foals stared in stark terror at the scene before them, clinging to Moundshroud in a tight ring.  Moundshroud, for his part, walked forward unabashed.
“A-a-are those real live ghost?” gaped Applebloom.
“They prefer to be called ‘spirits’” Moundshroud corrected.
“Are they trying to get into the houses?” Sweetie Belle peeked from under Moundshrouds’ cloak.
“Indeed.”
“And the food on the porches,” Featherweight queried, “it’s for them?”
“It would seem so.”
Applebloom broke from the group to get a better look.  “Why, it’s trick-or-treating!” she exclaimed brightly.  “Here in Neighjypt!”
“Four thousand years ago?” wondered Featherweight.
“Yes!  Yes!” chortled Moundshroud, “Imagine that!”
As the knot of ponies slowly walked through the dirt streets, Featherweight pointed and exclaimed, “Look!  Over there!  That spirit looks just like Pip!”
“Kssssssk” hissed Moundshroud, “Let’s sneak up on him.”
But Pipsqueak had noticed the group of ponies, and more importantly Moundshroud.  He dashed into the house with his jack-o-lantern.  As the CMC made it to the entryway, a zebra dressed in white with her mane braided to the left side pulled back the curtain.  She looked at the foals curiously, and then smiled as her eyes looked up into Moundshrouds and she smiled.  “Come in!  Come in!  Sit and eat with us, you are all welcome!” and she moved aside, still holding the curtain.
The four trick-or-treaters looked up to Moundshroud, who merely flashed a small, sharp but encouraging smile to them.  Cautiously, the foals entered the house, thanking their host before sitting on pillows before a table with two younger zebras and an old stallion that seemed to be asleep at the head of the table.  As the mare began to make her way to the table, servants filed in from another room bearing plates laden with hard bread, cheese, and some foods that simply were unidentifiable.  “So,” began Sweetie Belle, “what is going on out there with the gho-, er, I mean spirits?”
“Once a year, the dead of the past walk amongst us to visit and comfort the living” the mare answered with a warm smile.  “Unfortunately, some spirits may bring bad luck if they aren’t appeased, so we offer food and drink to them on the mats outside.”
“So that’s what it’s all about” wondered Scootaloo.  “But, why is everypony dressed in white?  Not to be blunt, but it looks like all of you are at a wedding.  Is it to make the dead happy?”
The zebra chuckled, “No no, here is very different from Roam; here the color white is a symbol of death, and black a symbol of life.  The floodwaters of the life giving river leaves black silt that grows crops, while the white sands are barren of all life.  It is the marked on the coats of all zebras that we are composed of both elements, and are mortal.”
“That makes sense; remember when Zecora was gettin ready for Nightmare Night and she wore that black robe?” Applebloom piped up.  “Originally she had a white one, but the Mayor and everypony else thought she was getting hitched, so she had to switch to black.  She was a little more than confused herself.”
“Right you are little apple” Moundshroud glinted his smile at her.  He took a shred of some barley cake, “Each culture has some custom and private symbolism that honors the dead, and it was no different with the zebras.”  As he nibbled politely upon the bread, his eyes slowly slid across the room.
“Anyway, if you were standing over the porch like that, then you must all be starving.   Please eat” the mare insisted, pushing a bowl of steaming something towards Sweetie Belle.
Sweetie Belle looked into the bowl and, smiling, pushed it to Applebloom, “Thanks, but that bread looks delicious, if you don’t mind?”
Applebloom took one sniff and backhoofed it to Featherweight, “Ah was just followin’ mah friends.  Ah’m not that hungry, ma’am.”
Featherweight, whistling hoofed it to Scootaloo.  Her eyes dilated at the pasty glob in front of her.  Forcing a smile, she picked up the bowl and began to hand it to the old stallion at the head of the table.  “No no, I’m sure you must be starving sir!  And it would be rude if we were to eat it all. Here, have so-“and if her eyes could get any bigger they probably would have.  
It took every bit of her strength not to drop the bowl and run out the door screaming.  The stallion was bound tight in aged gauze and linen, with his front hooves resting upon the table top.  His head was sagging to one side, and teeth were missing from his exposed and open mouth.  For the past minute or so she had been sitting down next to a mummified zebra and hadn’t noticed.  The other foals quickly took notice, and their eyes bugged out as well.  “Who is That?” squeaked Sweetie Belle.
“Our great grandfather!” the younger zebra mare replied.
“Please don’t make a fuss” the young stallion whispered, leaning over.
Applebloom, eyes glued to the real mummy, stammered, “H-h-he, uh, don’t look so well.”
The older mare laughed quite warmly at this, “Oh dear, our great-grandfather has been dead for sixty-seven years.  We take him out of his sarcophagus every year to eat with us.  Now please, eat before it gets cold.
“Uh…uh…uh” twitched the beast, eyes plastered at the closest dead thing she had ever come into contact with in her short life.  The bowl was still outstretched when the mummy gave a sigh and the head lurched to the left.  That was all it took for Scootaloo to lose her control.  Dropping the bowl on the table, Scootaloo screamed in fright and back peddled into a set of empty pots.  As she was falling in, a blue specter holding a pumpkin for dear - well usually one would say life but given the circumstances, afterlife - rolled out from one.
“Ah ha!” leapt Moundshroud from his seat.  However, the spirit was already running out the door by the time Moundshroud even got to his hooves.  “Well foals, it seems we won’t have time for dessert” Moundshroud flitted his smile while wiping his mouth with a handkerchief.
The other four didn’t need a second reminder, and quickly sped out of the house after Pip, hurriedly thanking their guests.  Featherweight was at the lead, chasing the blue Pipsqueak as fast as he could, but quickly losing sight of him.  “Quick, Mr. Moundshroud!” called Applebloom, “We’re losin’ Pip!”  However, Moundshroud was nowhere to be seen behind or in front.  
Just as she was about to call out again, Moundshrouds’ fluted laughter came from above.  Racing across the desert sky was the black beetle form of Moundshroud, cape folding upon itself till the red interior seemed the crimson feathered wings of a bird.  “Yes!  The time has come!  Hurry!  Race!  Your first trial awaits!  Haha!” and with that he disappeared over the closest pyramid.
The four foals were gaping at the disappearing scarab when Sweetie Belle intoned, “His horn wasn’t even glowing!  How can a unicorn fly or anything without their horn glowing?!”
The other three could only give wary glances to each other before rounding on the path to the pyramid.  They again stopped to gaze upon the structures before them; the pyramid glinted and shined with a silver glaze, while mighty granite monoliths of crowned zebras, each easily thirty feet tall, gazed towards the village.  Great bronze basins were lit at the guardians’ feet, lighting the way to the polished tombs within.  
“Sweet Celestia!” exclaimed Scootaloo, “They’re giants!”
The CMC and Featherweight made their way to the shrine in front of the moon bathed pyramid.  As they neared, a supporting column crowned with the head of three outward facing zebras moaned, sand fell from his lips.
“Pip didn’t go in there, did he?” Applebloom questioned.
“Yeeeeeesssssssssssss” sighed the pillar, sand falling like an hourglass.
“Ah, ponyfeathers” Applebloom shuddered, sitting down.
“What are we supposed to do here?” asked Sweetie Belle.  As if to answer her, a long linen trail stretched out from the shrine like the coiled tongue of a snake.
“What d’ya think that’s for?” questiond Scootaloo.
“Do you think Pip sent it?” Featherweight asked.
The four foals gathered around the outstretched linen, when it rose into the air, and snapped tight to Appleblooms’ neck!  With all the unceasing force of time, the linen tugged Applebloom towards the gloom of the tomb.  “Help!  It’s got me!” Applebloom wailed to her friends.  
The three foals ran after the red bowed mummy as quickly as possible, nearly catching up, only for the linen tongue to lurch little Applebloom down a side corridor.  The walls were decorated in the pictographic language of the zebras, illuminated by oil fires to either side of the hallway.  At first, the pictures were merely paint on the cool, smooth stone, but eventually they changed.  Soon, pieces and parts of the pictures were replaced with gems, and metals.  Continuously, a great golden sun was shown, aiding the zebras in some way or form, growing crops, sowing seeds, teaching math, or some other great benefit.  
Then suddenly, a great black beast with crescent white horns gored the sun, and all light was smote.  The foals passed through darkness for a time, as the beast gloated over its’ victim, only for the next image to show the sun alive again, though this time wrapped in a mummys’ linen.  Again the beast slew the sun, again the sun came back.  Eventually, the linen tongue holding Applebloom pulled upon her more urgently, quickening the pace.  
The images began to blur, the plates of gold began to move together in harmony.  Each day the sun was led across the sky, only for the night beast to kill it again and again.  It slit the suns throat, bashed the skull in, crushed the chest underhoof, but no matter how horridly the sun was slain, each day it arose triumphant upon the wings of burning golden eagles.  Night and day passed as such, and soon followed summer and winter, but always the sun was there, no matter how dark the night.  
The linen strip soon stopped in a chamber, where it immediately let loose of Appleblooms’ neck, to coil, like a cobra, at the hooves of an open sarcophagus.  A tall, lean mummy was laying in the propped up metal casket, with golden mask upon his face, painted eyes staring outward.  “You!”  a dusty voice, filled with terrible age demanded, “With the mummy wrappings and mummy face!”
“Wha!? Who me?” a now breathless Applebloom asked.
The stallion mummy uncrossed his front hooves and raised his right hoof, revealing the blue tattoo of a sun, “Day is killed by night.”  At the mention of night he raised his left, revealing the tattoo of the crescent moon.  “Summer is slain by winter.  The great benefactor, the sun is murdered by her sister the moon and darkness! This is the origin of seasons!” and with that he clopped both hooves together, producing a great intermingling of golden and blue light.
When the light died down, Applebloom lowered her hoof, “Is that what the ancient Neighjyptians thought of Nightmare Night?”
“You tell me!” the stallion mockingly demanded, slinging the golden face from his own.  The foals gasped in shock as none other than Carapace Clavicle Moundshroud stood before them.  “Why do you wear that costume?”
Applebloom, a little taken aback, stammered a little before answering, “Well, I was talkin’ to Zecora, who is a zebra friend of mine.  She was tellin’ me all about her homeland, and Ah thought this would be a neat costume.  Ah have ta admit, Ah’m not sure why Ah thought it would be a neat costume, but Ah have seen other ponies dressed as ones.”
Moundshroud sighed, “You are a mummy, young filly!  Because that is how the Neighjyptians dressed their dead for eternity!  Spun round in silken thread, they hoped to emerge like fresh butterflies in some far off, dear loving underworld” he loftily motioned to the ceiling, where fields of grain and balmy, lazy days were decorated in lush pictures.  Then he slammed both Sun and Moon to the floor, “Know your cocoon girl!  Touch the strange stuffs!”
Applebloom passed a hoof over her cheek in thought, the asked “So, every day, and every night was Nightmare Night to them; this whole thing with life and death?”
Moundshroud smiled and stepped forth from the sarcophagus, “Yes Applebloom, yes!  You’re a clever little apple, aren’t you?”
“Then, were there other ancient ponies who thought like that, too?”
“Yes, yes indeed there were” Moundshroud gestured with the sunny palm to the walls.  The pictographs began to shudder and shake, moving of their own accord, until the whole of the chamber was filled with a lush green haze.  Throughout the new forests and jungles ponies ran in herds, never stopping, always running.  From behind rocks, within lakes, and up trees came manticores, hydras, and wyverns.  Timberwolves herded ponies until the young or old fell behind, and were dragged into caves, behind boulders, or other deep and dark places to be eaten.  All this by day, was only worsened by night.  By night, the slaying only increased, ponies huddled together in weeping attempts to survive, only to be selected one by one for the dinner platter.
“Now you see the ancestral fear of night,” murmured Moundshroud, “the old fears of our ancestors, and the real fears of us today.  But hold, what happens when the quarry learns?”  And in a flash, a storm had settled over the forests, and lightning struck where timberwolves were chasing a herd.  The timberwolves leapt back with fright, and a set of stallions and mares took hold of burning sticks and branches, began to bash and flail the nearest timberwolf, who was now immolated.  Burning and screaming to the heavens, the wolf ran to the distance, followed by its’ pack, briar tails tucked between legs.  The ponies grunted and brought back their fire to the herd, throwing them upon piles of dried leaves and twigs.  Ponies gathered around, warming themselves and laughing at the frightened eyes of predators. 
“Ah’m sorry Mr. Moundshroud,” Applebloom began to apologize, “but what does this have to do with Nightmare Night?  All Ah saw was a tragedy!”
Moundshroud, taken aback, replied, “What does it have to do...Well blast my bones it has everything to do with Nightmare Night!  When all you do to survive is run and run, always running, you don’t have time to think.  All you do is try to not be killed, but the moment you stop,” at this the wall pictographs froze, “and the moment you can wait and think, that’s the moment you begin to wonder!  You stop and wonder; what happened to my friend eaten by the manticore last week?  What happened to my father who died last month?  Where will I go when I die?  Sure, I know about where the body went, but what of here?” and Moundshroud pointed to Appleblooms head.  “And what of here?” and now he pointed to her heart.  “Where does that go when I die?  Only now could ponies begin to wonder, and turn their musings over in their minds.”
“And all of this is because of fire!  Fire which lights the way!  A little sun in the cave, a little bit of light in the dark!  The great benefactor in miniature now aids the ponies in the darkest of hours.  Now the old ponies could think long and hard thoughts for themselves, like what was happening to the sun in winter, when the great white snows came across the lands.  Was the sun dying?  Could the sun die?  What would happen if the sun died?  These were the first thoughts of ancient ponies, and oh how that must have scared them!  The Neighjyptians asked it 4,000 years ago, and the ancient ponies of the ponylithic asked it before them.”  The pictographs faded away, leaving the fresh writing of the Neighjyptians behind.
“Ah think I get it now,” Applebloom mused.  “Nightmare Night started long before anypony could really talk!  Back with all the fears we had!”
“Yes, yes!” Moundshroud again clopped his hooves together, “You’re getting it now little apple!”  However, as he was finishing the praise, the soft sound of bells and hooves, harps and mourners could be heard from down the hall.
“What’s that?” asked the newly realized mummy.
“I believe that is Pipsqueaks’ funeral” Moundshroud noted with finality.  “It seems they are wrapping him up as a gift for eternity, now.”
“Ya don’t mean right now, do ya?” Applebloom panicked.
“Save him Applebloom!” Moundshroud pointed to a shaft with the moon.
Applebloom didn’t need to be told twice, and sent herself hurtling down the shaft, front first.  She slid down a good ways before sliding across a well-polished floor, head first into a small sarcophagus.  She stood up and shook her head to realign her eyes, resting a hoof on the metal casket.
“Applebloom?” a small, frightened voice called from within.  “Is that you?”
“Pipsqueak?”  Applebloom peered down to the face of the sarcophagus, and saw that the golden mask was indeed that of little Pipsqueaks!  Decorated with painted eyes, blue striped crown, and a baseball bat crossed with a little toy pirate sword under his chin.  Along the sides of the sarcophagus were the decorated images of Pipsqueaks’ life; Pipsqueak one year old, Pipsqueak climbing a tree, Pipsqueak at his first Nightmare Night, Pipsqueak tugging Princess Luna’s mane, and Pipsqueak meeting the CMC.
“Applebloom?  Is that you?” the little voice pleaded again.
“Yeah!” Applebloom said, leaning into the face of the sarcophagus, “It’s me Pip.  What happened to ya?”
Panting slightly the trottingham pony replied, “I think I’m dying!  I can see through me and everything!”
“Ya are not!” Applebloom lied more to herself than Pipsqueak.  “Ya can’t die!  Not here and not like this!  Remember all the plans we had!  Ya were gonna to show me how to climb trees like ya!  Really!  Ya can climb trees better than Fluttershy’s squirrels!  And I was gonna take ya to the next rodeo with mah sis!”  Applebloom began to cry.
“Climbing trees won’t be that hard for you to learn” the little sarcophagus admonished.  “You’re an Apple, you had to have fallen out of one right?”   A little smile began to blossom beneath Appleblooms’ watery eyes.
“Listen, Ah’m gonna get ya outta here, and then we’re goin’ home, got it?  Now just wait a sec.”  Applebloom put her shoulder to the lid, but no matter how she tried, or how hard she pushed, the lid would not budge.  All too soon, she heard the funeral procession make their way down the corridor.  Panicking, Applebloom hid herself in a niche, crossed her arms, squeezed her eyes shut, and played dead.  Ten zebras entered the room, two led the procession, wearing cheetah pelts and with shaven manes.  Four were strong stallions wearing white, and the other four were mourners playing harps in tune with the chants they kept.  The strong stallions shouldered the heavy sarcophagus upon themselves, and followed the priests up, keeping in perfect step.  Only when the music had just begun to fade away did Applebloom dare to open her eyes.  She stepped out into the corridor to see the tail end of the mourners turning the corner.  “Aw, now what do Ah do?” she bemoaned, ears flattened.
Up in the grand chamber, Moundshroud was listening for the funeral procession.  “Kssssssk” he hissed, “To the niches and cubbies with you, cross your arms, and play mummy!  Don’t move a muscle and shut your eyes!”  As the three foals did as they were told, Mounshroud leaned back into his own open sarcophagus.  The procession entered the room, and the priests stood to either side of Moundshroud. 
Just as the music was silenced, the still room was interrupted by the moans of the dead.  The zebras shot their heads to the doorway in surprise to see a little mummy, not taller than a young foal, with a torn red ribbon upon her head was waving her arms and moaning in a menacing manner.  
The zebras were in full panic, the stallions dropping the sarcophagus on the floor and knocking off the top, and mourners running out the moment Applebloom flailed within the room.  The priests were amazed, and would most likely have stayed had Moundshroud not rose from his own sarcophagus and demanded “Now now Pip!  That’s enough; you’ve had your fun!”  That was simply too much, and they too fled behind the whirling Applebloom.
Pipsqueak sat up in his sarcophagus, cradling his pumpkin.  “You and I have an appointment to keep” Moundshroud implored, then his voice turned hard as iron.  “You must keep it!”  
In Pipsqueaks’ lap, the pumpkin began to throb with light, and soft murmurs, like the tune of a distant song could be heard, “li… li…ve… li…ve…li…liiive..liivvee.”  With the last syllable, Pipsqueaks’ color returned, his coat becoming the pinto coloration of his life, as one hoof began to feel the warmth of his cheek.
“No!!!” declared Moundshroud, and all color drained from Pipsqueak, as the hoof that traced his cheek came down on the pumpkin, striking is sideways.  The jack-o-lantern began to spin, and was soon doing so under its own volition.  A gale was spun up in the little chamber, unraveling Moundshrouds’ coat and cape from the wrappings.  The pumpkin rocketed up, and Pipsqueak was pulled up with it, screaming through the ceiling.
“Quick guys!” ordered Applebloom.  “Up the air vents!”
“Yes! Yes!” Moundshroud crooned, flashing that sharp smile.  “Find him!  Catch him!”
When the friends emerged from the air vent, Pipsqueak had already caught his pumpkin, and was roiling across the sky.  Moundshroud emerged like a scarab from the tomb entrance, and was wheeling towards Pipsqueak when he saw the foals.  “Quick kids!  Four corners, one for each of you!” and with a toss of his head, unlatched the cape, which fell to the CMC and Featherweight.  “He can run,” crooned a still levitating Moundshroud, “But if we follow, we can go seek!  Haha!”  He dived straight for the spinning Pipsqueak as the four friends fumbled to tie the cloak around their hooves.  As Sweetie Belle finished her knot, the cape went spinning into the air behind Moundshroud, pin wheeling the ponies to their next destination.
	
> Chapter 4
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Nightmare Tree 
Chapter 4

Through the dark clouds a single figure tumbled.  Pale and almost transparent blue, the tiny figure of Pipsqueak clung with all the might his little legs could to a still lit pumpkin, his face carved into it.  Over, under, and sideways he corkscrewed through the black and blue ether, and what seemed to be a maw opened in the cloud banks, swallowing the lone colt whole.  Not far behind, a cape less, well-dressed, pale-yellow unicorn flew in behind him, and was then followed by the CMC and Featherweight pin wheeling, the missing cape’s four corners tied around their front hooves.
The dark cloud leered and lunged forward, swallowing the four airborne foals in a fiendish gulp.  A clap of lightning was seen and thunder felt as the four broke through again to another skyline, with Moundshroud now wearing the cape.  Moundshroud led the friends over the new landscape, which was sprawling hills, lakes, and clear rivers.  In the distance, a castle of rounded stones could be seen, lit with an inner light.  “Time to celebrate, foals!” Moundshroud glinted over his shoulder.  The gliding procession flitted over the castle wall, “Happy New Year!” Moundshroud crooned.  Down in the keep, a myriad multitude of stallions, mares, colts, fillies, rams, ewes, and lambs were dancing in rings about bon fires and feasting on fruits.  
“What do you mean New Year?” Scootaloo interjected.
“Yeah!  It’s Nightmare Night!” Featherweight intoned.
“Well yes, maybe in our time it’s Nightmare Night,” Moundshroud shrugged, “but in this time, it is the celebration of the true end of summer and the cold start of winter; Happy New Year!”
Featherweight fought with the wind to crane his gaze downward.  “Hey!  Down there in the crowd, is that Pipsqueak?”
Applebloom, more feeling than seeing pointed upwards with her free hoof.  “No!  He’s up thar!”
Corkscrew losing altitude, the blue tailed orange comet fell into a far off wheat field.  Moundshroud gathered his cape over his shoulder and pulled forth, smiling steel.  The four foal weights squeaked in surprise as the pale unicorn pulled them to the ground.  The wheat was tall, almost to Moundshrouds’ eyes.  Eight eyes peered about the stalks that obscured each other.  
“Where are we Mr. Moundshroud?” asked Applebloom.
Fssssssssiiiiing
“Hmm” he puzzled, “I should know where, but I can’t be certain when.”
Fssssssssiiiiing
“How can you know where but not when?” Scootaloo mused.
Fssssssssiiiiiing
Moundshrouds horn cleared away the wheat around them, revealing a rather exasperated scowl.  “Quite simply, I do not know when we are, as it could be one hundred-” 
Fssssssiiiiiiing 
“-or a thousand years before our time.  We travel through both space and time to find Pipsqueak, so anything could happen!”
Fsssssssiiiiing
“And what in Equestria is that infernal sound?” Moundshroud stomped.  He raised his bald head above the wheat, and blanched more so than he already was.  “Oh no!  Quick foals!  Hit the ground!”
Moundshroud flattened himself and the foals against the field with no small sense of urgency.  Moments after, a great bone blade sped over the prone figures, reaping great swaths of grain.  Sweetie Belle was just about to squeak in surprise when a long, trilling “Kssssssssssssssk!” came from Moundshrouds’ lips.  “Not a word or a peep foals!” he whispered, eyes searching upward.  “And keep your eyes shut, it’s about to get nasty.”
Fssssssssiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnng! And another ream of grain was reaped from the field.  Guttural sounds were heard, babblings of thick liquids, crags of scabs newly opened, and the slow crawl of vast weight.  However, the worst sound above it all was the muted cries and screams of ponies that were unseen.  The four foals lay prone, eyes shut tight as the sounds continued, only to feel the touch and crawl of small slimy things.  A coiled mass began to sift through Appleblooms’ wrappings, many legs were prodding through Featherweights’ mane, and armored backs rippled under Scootaloos’ belly.  
Poor Sweetie Belle felt the touch and searching of something long and skinny on her back.  Overhead, the scything talon continued its’ shrieking song, Fsssssiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnng, always near.  Each time the scythe came down, the sounds of small, wretched things were heard again.  Nearby, something large and wet pounded the ground, and took away some mass of unfortunate creatures.  Thousands of crickets sang a death dirge as they were hauled to some distance in the air.  “M-m-moundshroud, is that you?” Sweetie Belle asked.
“Kssssssssssssssssssk!” Moundshroud hissed in her left ear, “Quiet or he will find us!  I am here, no need to fear, but we must remain quiet!”  
Again, the great bubbling of thick, gooey liquid was heard, again the squelch of something chewing, and again the sound of mourning and agonizing voices filled the air around them.  The long, many legged creature stirred on Sweetie Belles’ back.  She stiffened.  The thing began to crawl, first along her sash, then winding up to her shoulder.  Sweetie Belle pulled her hoof over her mouth, silencing whatever cries she could.  Slowly, the legs made their way to her neck.   A few muffled cries escaped her mouth, but were shut tight by her second hoof coming down on her mouth.  The coil began to lean to her right ear, inching closer and closer, until finally it stopped.  Sweetie Belles’ heart was thumping loudly in her throat, all of this was far too much, and the gorging overhead, the scythe, and now this thing on her back she couldn’t see!  Now the thing poked its’ head into her ear, and then… 
“Help me!” it whispered.
Sweetie Belle shot up, abandoning all sense of self-preservation and screaming to the four corners of the earth!  A mass of centipedes fell from her, and the other foals shot up in surprise; Applebloom shook off leeches, Featherweight dumped spiders, and Scootaloo scraped off beetles.  Only after the four friends had finished their wild movements did they notice the lack of any sound, and looked up.
Looming overhead was a great grey shadow.  A fat, putrid gut made up the trunk.  Long, sinuous arms leapt from either side of the bulk, crowned by claws.  The longest claw resided on the pointer fingers, curved and wicked ancient bone.  Mercurial eyes leered from above a wide mouth, cragged with dried spittle and overflowing with the chewed remains of bugs, wheat, and small animals.  Wheat stalks wound like smoke through the air, trapped by the all-encompassing, vast wings.  They fell to the earth, only to touch the grain heads and twist and knot into small chickens, pigs, wolves, cats, and all manner of bugs.  The ground writhed and wriggled with all sort of animals, all no more than the size of a nose, scampering away from the awful terror before them.  
The behemoth leered through wheat dust, and began the long arch of his right arm.  Moundshroud leaped up from his hiding spot and shouted, “Fie foals!  Run!  Run for your lives!”  In an instant, the unicorn had put himself between the foals and the beast, pushing the trick-or-treaters with all his force away.  Quickly, the CMC and Featherweight cantered, and then ran in front of Moundshroud, screaming all the way.  The chase seemed to stretch for hours, as the behemoths’ arms scythed away at the motley group.  Each time the bone blade came down, Moundshroud would wail “Left!” or “Right!” and veer to dodge the blow, taking the foals with him.  Occasionally, a great tongue would pound the earth, and Moundshroud would order “Jump!” to get away.  Soon, the CMC and Featherweight were sobbing pleads to Celestia and Luna, hoping for the nightmare to end.  
Moundshroud ducked low into the field, scooping the four into his cloak and made an abrupt b-line to the right.  A great stone face was standing in a meadow, lone and silent, behind which Moundshroud fell in, squeezing the four foals to his chest.  Gasping to control his breathing, Moundshroud waited until the beast lumbered past, scything his field in search of them.  Only then did the quiet of night settle in, and he released the sniffling foals, sighing “I must admit, of all the times, I hated this one the most.”
“What… what was that thing?”  Applebloom shook.
“I never want to do that again!” Scootaloo blanched
“I… I heard that centipede in my ear!  It sounded like a pony!” Sweetie Belle sobbed.  
“What about those other things, and the screaming ponies?” Featherweight trembled.  “Were those ponies or something?”
Moundshroud raised a hoof to the foals, then continued behind hooded eyes, “I will tell you, but not right here.  There is a safer place up ahead, and I believe Pip has made his way there.”  Slowly, Moundshroud trotted up ahead, to a small hill capped by something.  
The four foals cantered behind Moundshroud, eyeing the strange stones that littered the way.  First one, then another, tall and proud stones of blue, all seemingly to be gathering to the hills’ crown.  Eventually, the foals and Moundshroud made their way to the hilltop, and into the shadow of monoliths.  There, the stones were easily five ponies tall, and two broad.  Each stood perpendicular to the ground, and another stone was perched upon the two, making a square.  These squares were then arranged into three concentric rings, each within the other, surrounding an altar that seemed to exude time itself.  
“Where are we?” a gaping Sweetie Belle asked, “When are we?”
“Ancient time’s dears,” Moundshroud sighed.  “These are the Standing Stones of Scoltsland, where older entities have been long forgotten, even to the alicorn sisters.”  Mounshrouds’ cape gathered about him as the moon was scared by the long spears of cloud above.  “You’ll need all your courage and bravery tonight foals” Moundshroud slinked to a monolith.  “It’s the Discordant Ages, and tonight is the longest, darkest night in all those chaotic times” Moundshroud faintly finished, dispersing into the monolith he had been leaning against.  
The four friends began to look about franticly for safety, but there was no cover to be found, even the great Standing Stones were too inconspicuous.  Then sounds began to come from the shadowed stones, faint scurries and hoofsteps.  Featherweight perked his ears at the sound, and realized the small, pitter patter of the hooves.  “Pipsqueak?  Is that you?”
A shadow leapt from one monolith to another.  “There he is!” cried Scootaloo.  The shadow of Pipsqueak didn’t stop there; instead it crept about the rings, making circles around his friends.  Eventually the four foals were back to back next to the altar.  “Um, Pip, that is you right?” asked a nervous Sweetie Belle.  
Pipsqueaks’ shadow didn’t stop; instead it began to run faster and faster through the monoliths.  “In these dark times,” Moundshrouds’ voice fluted in from both everywhere and nowhere, “it was believed that the spirits of those who had died the year before were turned into beasts.  Wild animals!”  At this Pipsqueaks’ shadow changed instantaneously.  “Wild boars, wolves, chickens, insects,” as each was named, troves and packs of the creature shadows assailed the blue stone, scrabbling along the time worn surface.  “Or worst of all, cats!” and a great yowl was heard from behind the friends.  “Black as bad luck, black as sin!”
The head of a black cat could now be seen, peeking around a stone leg.  “Pip? Is that you?” Sweetie Belle gasped.  
The cat leapt forward, bounding to the top of the altar, and then to the top of a ruined leg, yowling to the moon in panicked fright.  “Black as night!” Moundshroud finished.
“Whoah there, Pipsqueak!” Featherweight called.
“Hold on, I’ll get ya!” Scootaloo began to buzz her wings.
“No no!  I’ll get him!” Sweetie Belle offered.   “Besides, living with Opal should make me better at this anyway.”  Sweetie Belle scrambled up the altar, and then attempted to make her way up the ruin.  “Here Pipsqueak,” she cooed, “come here.”
Pipsqueak instead hissed loudly and jumped to the ground, where he sped off out the stone rings to the fields beyond.  “Oh Pipsqueak” Sweetie Belle whined.  
Nearby, where a sliver of moonlight reached the stone, shadow was beginning to fold and knot upon itself.  The concentric, intertwining shadows soon made the thin form of a unicorn, as if painted from an illuminated manuscript in black ink.  Moundshroud stepped out from the stone face, in full color, and sighed.  “It seems he got away again, but we must stay here for a moment longer foals.  Here with the great Standing Stones, which have stood sentinel from a time long before pony or sheep can remember.  I think now they will show us some of the passage of time.”  At this the stones began a carousel dance around the five figures, sliding in opposite directions of each other.  Between the passing legs, the foals could see the form of the ancient behemoth that lorded over the fields, growing closer with each slide.  
The Behemoth stopped, and turned its weight to a set of cloaked ponies and rams, the foremost had a scythe leaning against his horn.  “Oh great and powerful Cichul!” the ram cried.  “Lord of all Scoltsland and the dead!  Please release our dearly departed and accept this sacrifice instead, so that our friends and family might rest in peace!”  And one of the stallions threw a torch upon a great pile of breads, cookies, cakes, and other cereal grains.  As the sweet smoke wafted into the air, Cichul smiled, closing his wings and inhaling the incense into him.  All about the fields, all manner of small animals curled up and sighed their lives away, to spectrally rush about the fields.  “To the afterlife!  To the Otherworld!” the scythed ram intoned.  “Follow where the old year passes!” and he motioned to a set of stallions dressed in green robes, holding holly branches.  The two waved the branches in the air, and the ghosts sped between them, channeled into a stream that led out to the seas beyond.
Cichul was gorging upon the sacrificial smoke, and did not notice the appearance of a jigsaw figure behind him.  Nor did he notice the set of rams and stallions run away, cowering to the forests.  A mismatched horned head looked to the fleshy mountain before him and cleared his throat.  Cichul pivoted lazily to meet Discord in the eye.  “What are you doing in my domain, on my sacred night draconequis?” the behemoth sneered in a guttural, throaty voice.
“That’s it?  No ‘hello’ or ‘You fiend!’?  I had forgotten how grim you could be, good thing neither I nor Scoltsland will be seeing anymore of you soon enough.”
The leviathan chuckled heartily at that, “Dethrone me?  I am lord of this land, not you.  Go back to the mainland, leave me be.”
“You see, that’s the problem, you aren’t doing anything with the ponies aside from demanding tribute.  I just want a few new play things, and all you seem to do is gorge on cakes.”  Discord chided the fleshy pile, undaunted.
“And what would you do, oh lord of chaos, against death itself?”
Discord smiled and cracked his knuckles, “Just play a little ball!”  And with that the draconequis grabbed Cichuls’ wing and wound it about his palm.  Faster and faster he grabbed at the form of the leviathan, stuffing it into the small space between his claws until Cichul was little more than the size of a softball.  “Did you think yourself some great being of death?  No, you are merely a little shard of it, a savage brute to be honest” Discord mused, rounding Cichul between his claws.  “I am all of chaos and disharmony fool!” Discord smirked.  For a moment, he dribbled Cichul upon the ground.  Then he wound up his arm, “Make way for the big one!  This is going straight to Tartarus!” and with that he threw the ball of death into the horizon.  Discord leaned in; cupping his eagle claw to his ear until the sound of a large vault could be heard shutting.  Careening backwards, legs kicking in the air, the draconequis laughed with great mirth.
“Now then,” he smiled, “what to do about those ponies?”  His laugh began again as storm clouds came into view overhead, and great flames leapt to life about his figure.
“This went on for many years’ foals, but look over there, over the hills!” Moundshroud motioned to the left.  There was a familiar sight to them, the Everfree Forest.  And within, a great light was beginning to shine.  Twin figures flew into the sky, one pure and serene as the moon, another blazing and proud as the sun, with five stars skimming between them like a necklace.  The entities bore down on the lord of chaos and sealed him into an all too familiar stone statue. Then they and the statue retired back into the Everfree, which sank back into the distance. 
“And so the alicorn sisters put down one of the worst villains known to pony kind, and now it is safer for us to go out.”  Moundshroud began down the hillside with the four trick-or-treaters.  Slowly they made their way to the field, where Moundshroud began to enter.  Quickly, he noticed he was alone, and turned about to see the four foals cowering by the border.  “Come along, I assure you there is nothing to worry about in the fields any longer; Cichul is long banished to Tartarus, and Discord bound into stone.  Come in, come in.”
The four foals cautiously entered, remaining as close as possible to Moundshroud.  Eventually they began to hear the sounds of ponies at work, and came into a great opening within the field.  There the stallions, mares, rams and ewes were hard at work with sickles in mouth in the broom works.  It was an immense traffic jam of brooms for witches to perch upon.  It was as if all of Equestrias’ forests gave up their branches in one boom and fling.  Then, scouring Autumn fields, cut clean and throttled tight, such cereal grains as made good sweepers, thrashers, and beaters.
Silently, the group lurked behind the workers, to where the finished brooms were tented upon each other.  Sweetie Belle was the first to poke her head out this time, smiling at the brooms.  “Hey!  I know what this is!” she squeaked jubilantly, and then crawled forward to the nearest pile.  “This is a broom festival!  But they aren’t making ordinary booms!”
“Go ahead dear, take one” Moundshroud encouraged from behind, smiling his small sharp smile.
Sweetie Belle picked herself up, looked upon her costume and grinned to Moundshroud.  “These brooms are for witches, aren’t they!?”
“Yes yes dear, for witches, and for you!” Moundshroud again smiled.
Sweetie Belle bounced up and down in surprise for a good minute, then she reached out a hoof to the nearest broom.  The moment she touched it, the boom was enveloped in a faint orange glow, and leapt into the air.  “Oh my!” Sweetie Belle shouted, her smile still upon her face as the broom began to turn in the air.  Then her brow furrowed as the stick turned down towards her, and shooting between her legs lifted her up backwards into the air.  “Waaaaaaaaaaait!” she screamed into the air, dress and hat fluttering over her eyes, as her hooves clutched at the handle.  With one hoof, she turned her hat up and peered down to the ground below, regretting it immediately.  She jumped into the air and spun around, clutching the handle in a vice grip that threatened to snap the handle, and turning the flight path into a corkscrew.  Eyes shut tight, Sweetie Belle and broom swept down over her friends heads, squealing the entire way.  
“That’s it Sweetie Belle!” shouted and emphatic Scootaloo.
Applebloom pumped her hoof into the air, “Ride ‘em girl!  Ya got the bull by the horns!”
As Sweetie Belle began to cross Lunas’ moon, Moundshroud chuckled wryly.  “Anypony else care for a try?”  With a simple tap of his left hoof, three more brooms illuminated gold and bronze, and then shot underhoof of the three foals.  Moundshroud cackled as the skeleton, beast, and unraveling mummy were sent skyward, “Remember, foals, when attacked by a broom, the only thing to do is hold on tight!”  And with that he spread his cape and flew skyward after them.
In the air, the beast was laughing the entire time, driving her broom about with the deftness she handled her scooter.  The skeleton was trying just to stay on his, more concerned about his distraught friend ahead.  Bandages were coming loose as the mummy struggled to remain on her bucking broom.  Up ahead, a frightened witch was flying a slowing broomstick, mumbling frightened words to herself.  
“Open your eyes Sweetie Belle!” Scootaloo cheered, “This rocks!”
“No!” Sweetie Belle cried, “Just put me down on the ground!  I can walk on the ground just fine!”
“Now where is your spirit of adventure?” Moundshroud swooped in from under them all, surprising Sweetie Belle into opening her eyes.  “Witches have nothing to fear from their brooms.”
“Hey, Sweetie Belle!” Applebloom called from behind.  “Ah betcha it’s no different than when Scootaloo taught ya how to ride her scooter!”
“She has a point, just try it” Scootaloo stated in agreement.
Sweetie Belle looked from her friends to Moundshroud, then again to her shaking hooves.  “Riding a scooter, just like riding a scooter…” Sweetie Belle mumbled to herself.  With quivering lip, she leaned forward, then right, then left.  With each turn, she found that the broomstick stayed firmly under her, and would not let her fall.  “You’re right!” Sweetie Belle beamed, “This is like riding Scootaloos’ scooter!”  
She zipped back and forwards, over her friends and chasing Scootaloo for a while as Moundshroud laughed in his piped pitch.  Then, gathering his cloak about himself, Moundshroud crowed “How about a game of ‘follow the leader’?”  He sped off into the distance, followed by a witch and three friends.  Moundshroud led them over thatch roofs, through barns, under bridges, and even through a chicken coop!  A yellow mare and red stallion gaped at the five figures and tried franticly to gather their chickens back.  The motley group laughed heartily at the thrill of the ride, and soon found them alighting over a great forest none of the foals had ever seen.  
Deep within the dark shadows of the forest, ponies of all kinds were gathered about cauldrons, mixing brews, tracing runes in dirt, and gazing into crystals.  Sweetie Belle was so enthralled with the spectacle that she nearly hit a tree.  Turning to the right quickly, she ducked down onto the ground, having to trot in order to stay up.  Her friends landed in front of her, dismounting their brooms and trotted up to her.
“What was that fer?” Applebloom asked.
“Did you see Pip?”  Featherweight hoped.
“No!” Sweetie Belle smiled.  “I saw witches!  Real live witches!”
“Of course you did!” Moundshroud alighted before them.  “It can’t be Nightmare Night without witches.”
“So there really were witches?” asked Sweetie Belle.
“Well,” wavered Moundshroud, “yes and no.”
“Could they ride broomsticks?” she asked.
“Not really.”
“Betcha they could talk to the dead!” Applebloom piped up.
“Nope.”
“Make ponies sneeze and hack up fur balls!” Scootaloo leapt to her back legs, waving her front hooves menacingly.
“Um, afraid not.”
“Make ponies jump by sticking pins in dolls?” Featherweight questioned.
“Not to my knowledge.”
“Well what the hay could they do?” Sweetie Belle fumed.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?” the four friends repeated unanimously.
“Oh, plenty claimed they could,” Moundshroud admonished.  “But that was a means to protect their privacy.”  He began to walk towards the cabal, foals in tow with brooms over their shoulders.  “Anypony ever wonder what the word ‘witch’ really means?”
“Well, no,” Sweetie Belle admitted, “not until you just mentioned it.”
The cabal came within view, showing all the ponies practicing their art.  “Wits, knack, information.  In the old days, anypony with half a brain and the sense to use it had their ‘wits’ about them.  And anypony too smart for their own good had their ‘wits’ about them, and was therefore called…”
“A witch?” Sweetie Belle answered, unsure.
“Exactly dear!  And the really smart ones, the ones with the ‘wits’, called it dark magic!”
“So anypony that was smart could be called a witch?”
“Yes indeed dear!  Witches didn’t have any real power like the stories, though some dreamed they did.  No, tis sad but true.”  Moundshroud smiled his hard, small smile, teeth glinting in the moonlight.  “Now, up into the air, Pip is not here, and there may be one more piece to this puzzle yet.”  All five again rose into the air, over the cabal they went, but not before hearing a strange song that followed them.
“The Broomworks makes
The Broom that looms
On sky in gloom and rising of the moon
That broom which, groom to witch, flies high
On harvestings of stormwind grass 
With shriek and sigh to motion it
In ocean-seas of cloud, now soft, now loud…!”
Beneath, the broomwork was in full swing, binding brooms that shot up sparks and were mounted by mares and ewes alike.
“Did witches feel the night wind in their bed
And reel and dance with devils and the dead?
No!
But that is what they bragged and claimed and said!
Until whole continents, hellbent
Named ‘witches’ of the Innocent,
And did conspire
To burn old mares, foals, and fillies in a fire.”
Mobs ran and raved through streets, chasing figures down to be dragged to bonfires that raged and roared from St. Petershoof to Canterbury.
“Through all of Germane and Prance,
Ten thousand so-called evil witches
Hung to kick their final antic dance
No village but what shared a dread uproar
As each side named the other for a draconequis’ pig,
Old Discord’s sow, the Demon’s maddened boar.”
Witches rode wild pigs along rooftops, snorting fire and glinting sparks as the split hooves struck the tiles.
“All Equestria was a cloud of witches smoke.
Their judges often bound and burnt with them 
For what?  A joke!
Until; ‘all stallions are spoiled with guilt!
All sin, all lie!
So, what to do?
Why, everypony must die!”
In a flicker and flash the whole night landscape died.  Smoke chocked the sky and foals.  At every crossroad, and every town square, dark forms hung from ropes and in cages, many timed cloaked in a mantle of carrion ravens.  The foals hung from their brooms, gawking at the carnage before them.  Minutes passed in silence, for none could shake themselves from the grisly visage below.  Finally, Moundshroud broke the silence, “So, does anypony want to be a witch?”
“N-n-n-no, not me” Sweetie Belle shook.
Moundshroud turned to her mid-flight and frowned.  “No fun, eh?”
“No,” Sweetie Belle silently sobbed, “No fun at all.”
The troupe went on in silence for a while longer, before a puzzled Sweetie Belle found her voice again.  “Mr. Moundshroud?  I don’t understand, how this all could have happened.  With Princess Celestia and Princess Luna protecting us, how did all this happen?”
Moundshroud again turned in flight to face the foals.  “You must remember dear, that Princess Celestia and Princess Luna may be powerful alicorns, but they are still only two ponies.  Even with the power to raise the sun and moon, they could only do so much.  Also, the early ponies were not keen to trusting their new rulers so much, to be honest, most despised the two princesses early on.  Even the royal guard turned a blind eye to the witch fires until it was too late.  It’s unfortunate to say the least, so many ponies died because others couldn’t listen to the princesses when they said to ‘love and tolerate’.”
Sweetie Belle began to think, and turn this new information over in her head.  “Is that why we wear costumes like this on Nightmare Night?  Because witches remind us of the fears we had of ponies different from us, and remind us of what we fear we could do again if we don’t tolerate and understand others?”
“That is a deep and mature thought dear, a very mature thought indeed” Moundshroud acknowledged.  “I believe for some ponies that is indeed the case.  But quiet, up ahead is the last piece of the puzzle.”
Up ahead, a great turmoil was erupting in the Everfree.  It seemed as if a great and vile darkness was spreading to the sky, summoning storms into it.  In rose a midnight black alicorn, one that the CMC had seen once before, back on the Summer Sun Celebration.  Nightmare Moon was wheeling through the sky, shooting lightning at her sister Celestia.  Celestia dodged, hovered, and appeared to simply hover just within earshot of her sister.  Eventually, the attacks became more desperate, until finally, five stars joined Celestia from below, and a ray of light sealed the dark alicorn into the stain upon the moon.
“You see foals; the whole mess of reuniting Equestria fell upon those twos’ shoulders.  Even though the ancient ponies once distrusted the two, they did indeed come to appreciate them in time.  Celestia had the easiest job; she raised the sun, the great benefactor and grower of crops.  Luna, however, raised the moon, which brought the night, the shadow, and the predator.  Still, just as they did long ago in the Poinylithic, the ponies of old Equestria feared darkness and few if any came out then.  Luna was chastised as the harbinger of witches and vile enchantment, and was shunned more and more with each year.  Her sister hated the way the other ponies treated her, tried her best to show them how hard Luna worked, but none would listen.  Even you foals can’t tell me that you were unafraid of the night; how many of you slept with a night light in your early years?  Or wriggled closer to your parents when the night came, wishing for only the light of day?”
At this the foals began to think hard.  Yes, they had all done those things in younger years.  And were they not afraid of the riverbed in Everfree earlier that night?  Why, when they had played there so often in the day was it so scary at night?  And poor Luna, why she wasn’t so bad once you got to know her; sure she was loud when she arrived in Ponyville last year, but all she wanted was to be liked.
“Eventually, jealousy, greed, and wrath won out on tired Lunas’ mind, and Nightmare Moon took over.  There was no choice but for her to be sealed into the moon, but that is a story for another night.  Now however, you see that the name of the holiday doesn’t matter, it’s the spirit!  Once it was the Sacrament of Cichul, then it was Discords’ folly, then it was Nightmare Night.  One fear exchanged, rolled up, or combined with another, one fear to follow another fear.”
Just below the group, a blue figure streaked by with an orange gourd.  Pipsqueak was sailing past clutching both his jack-o-lantern, and a broom that was little more than an ash sweeper.  “Look!  It’s Pipsqueak!” cried Featherweight.
“Good!” Moundshroud unsheathed his smile, “Let’s play catch!”  And with that he was off like and arrow after the receding shade.  Moundshroud flew under Pipsqueak and then swept up in front of him, spreading his dark cape out in the wind.  “Now then Pipsqueak, the pumpkin doesn’t belong to you anymore!”  Moundshroud lunged forward, and grabbed the pumpkin, grappling with Pipsqueak for the prize.  He lifted up, to the right, and to the left, all the time with Pipsqueak holding tight to the pumpkin.  Eventually, one of Pipsqueaks hooves kicked against Moundshrouds, sending them tumbling in opposite directions.  Moundshroud went backwards, head over heels, while Pipsqueak now plummeted, screaming down to the ground below.
“Hold on Pip!” Sweetie Belle cried, diving after the falling colt.  Pipsqueak realized Sweetie Belle and reached for her, catching her outstretched hoof just as she was passing.
“That’s showing him!” cheered Scootaloo.
“You got him!” Featherweight cried.
“Heh, I honestly have to say, I never expected this out of you Sweetie Belle!” Pipsqueak smiled.
“Come on Pipsqueak, you need to hold tighter!” Sweetie Belle grunted.  Their hooves began to slip away from each other because, contrary to popular opinion, hooves are indeed not the best of grasping appendages.  “Hold tighter Pip!  I know I’m not as big an adventurer as Applebloom or Scootaloo, but I would miss you just as much if you left!  You were even nice enough to set up a karaoke party for my birthday with Pinkie Pie at Sugarcube Corner!  You helped us get Fluttershy up on stage to sing with me!  I want to do that again next year!  We need to do that again next year!”
“Come on now Sweetie Belle, you’re just embarrassing me now!” Pipsqueaks’ cheeks flushed a deeper blue.  “Besides, you’re selling yourself short; it takes a special filly to keep up with those two, and you are doing grand at it!”
Moundshroud flew next to Sweetie Belle, flitting his pocket watch out.  “Come on Pipsqueak, the fun and games are over!”
Pipsqueak released Sweetie Belles’ hoof, dropping.  “No they’re not!  Follow me if you can guys!”  And with another spin of the pumpkin, Pipsqueak was gone into the horizon.
“Ah, fer goodness sake!” Applebloom moaned.  
“Where do you think he’s going now?” Featherweight asked.
“I don’t know,” Sweetie Belle sighed as Moundshroud sped after the colt comet.  “But he sure seems to know, so we should probably follow him after Pip.”
“I don’t know, we always seem to get Pip, then Moundshroud comes along and Pip runs off again” Scootaloo noted.
“Still, Sweetie Belle is right; we have no chance of finding Pip all on our own, but maybe we can get him before Moundshroud does!” Featherweight retorted.  “Either way, we’re following you on this one, Sweetie Belle.”
Sweetie Belle opened her eyes in realization, then a smirk came across her face as she sped off after Moundshroud.  “Follow me then!”
> Chapter 5
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Nightmare Tree
Chapter 5

Four figures, a mummy, a skeleton, a monster, and a witch, sped upon broomsticks after a gangly unicorn flying upon the wind under his cape.  Nopony was sure when, but a thick set of low lying clouds and filthy fog set in, obscuring the little ponies’ views.  For a while, the four simply huddled together as close as they could fly, until Sweetie Belle was fed up, and flew upwards.  
The clouds were pierced through, and small trails of ephemeral smoke tailed the grass whiskers of the witch brooms.  Four foals leveled off the flight path, and settled to fly over the clouds in the direction Moundshroud had been taking them.  Eventually, the clouds began to thin, and slowly part and open up to the ground below.  Underneath the canopy blanket sprawled a city of stone, plaster, and wood.  Nestled between the two and three story buildings was a spider web of cobblestone streets, shadowed by overhanging shingled roofs that comfortably sat upon the houses.  
Sleeping ponies could be heard from the open windows as the foals descended to get a better look.  Eight eyes pried the inky darkness between chimneys for what felt like ages as the crawling city wound beneath them.  Sweetie Belle squinted into the shadows, trying desperately to find some shred of their guide.  “Look over there!” she shouted, pointing with a free hoof.  In the distance, a river cut the city in two, and a thin, flying unicorn was gliding to a small inlet littered with building supplies surrounding an unfinished project.
The four trick-or-treaters sped up to the cloaked unicorn, landing in front of the building just as Moundshrouds’ cloak flitted closed around him.  “Where’s Pip?” Sweetie Belle whispered to the shady unicorn.
“Where?” Moundshroud creaked, turning to face the foals and building.  He slowly cantered between them to look up on the structure.  “Why, hiding out of course.”
“Why is he hiding?” Scootaloo pondered.
“He’s protectin’ somethin’, ”Applebloom piped up.
Featherweight thought for a moment before cold realization sneaked into his brain.  “He’s protecting his pumpkin, but why?  What does it contain that is so important?  His soul?”
Moundshroud turned over his shoulder to flash a steel grin towards Featherweight.  “How observant of you skeleton, but to be precise, it’s my pumpkin now!”  Turning back to the building, Moundshroud began to lankily slink about, leering left and right.  “Come out, come out wherever you are!” he sang in wind fluted notes.  
Moundshroud continued the advance until his left hoof fell into the structures’ shadow.  Then, wide eyed he stopped, pocketing his smile and turning his gaze upwards.  Moonlight, from the old jealous and yet pure moon, was shining down from the ancient orb as an all too familiar black stain glowered upon them.  Moundshrouds’ cloak wrapped and clung about him as the unicorn sank backwards, repelled from the light and shadow.  
He grimaced at the building and moon, until he noticed a little brown filly standing next to him. He turned dark hawk eyes upon her, wreathed with his steel talon smirk.  “I have a riddle for you little monster!” he remarked, standing straight up next to her.
“Aw no,” Scootaloo cried.  “Can’t ya ask somepony else, I hate riddles!”
“No no, little monster” Moundshroud cooed, and walking closer to the shadow bade Scootaloo forward.  “Tell me little monster; what’s bigger than witches and devils?  What’s so big that it holds back the night and nightmares? What’s bigger than demons and ghosts?” Moundshroud finished, flourishing his cape as he stood tall.
“Huh?” a stupefied Scootaloo asked, slack jawed.  “Bigger?” she puzzled, rubbing the back of her head.  She tried to turn the words over in her head.  Technically, anything could be bigger than any of those physically, so what did Moundshroud really want?  Maybe it was something more thoughtful, but what?  She tried looking about; hoping that something might give a clue, but there was no way simple building equipment could hold something back like a demon!  She scrunched her face tightly, trying to think, and then opened her eyes again.  Yet again, all she could see was the base of some building in front of her.
She looked upon the foundation, noting the size, the breadth and width of the project.  Then she realized the height; why, when this was complete, it could probably cast a shadow all over the city!  Then she noticed the two stories of finished stone and masonry, and the answer came to her lips, “Oh!  Cathedrals?!”  She turned her smiling face to Moundshroud.
Moundshroud glinted a smile in return, “Well done little monster!  Yes, when an idea gets big enough, and strong enough, with followers enough, why! Then all the followers start to believe that the idea is capable of anything!  That could be something like divine protection, where a running colt could flee to and seek sanctuary!  Sanctuary!”  Moundshroud leaned back his head and let lose a raspy, wind strained call to the two unfinished towers above, “Sanctuary!”
Up above, a great brass bell began to ring, and in ringing, the dream ghost of the finished cathedral with two great towers materialized before them.  “But where’s Pipsqueak?” demanded Featherweight.
“Help!” a metallic voice cried from above in answer.  
“Pip? Is that you?” Scootaloo questioned.
Up in the wraith bell tower, a great bronze bell was ringing the hour, and instead of striker, the upside down form of Pipsqueak was seen, cracking his skull against the bell wall each time it rang.  “Help me!” clang, crack!  “Applebloom!” clang, crack!  “Sweetie Belle!” clang, crack!  “Scootaloo!” clang, crack!  “Feathers!” clang, crack!  “Hurry!” he shouted desperately.
Moundshroud himself blanched and shot up in surprise.  “Alright!  I have to admit!  I did not expect that!”
The four foals fell about themselves, trying to figure out how to get up to Pipsqueak as fast as possible.  “Wait!  We’ll fly up!” Sweetie Belle chirped.  She hopped upon her broom and with a jump ordered “Up!”  Moments later she met the stone cobbled again.  “Huh?” she squeaked, “Why didn’t that work?”
“Oh dear,” Moundshroud moaned, green light assessing the tied sticks.  “It seems they are all out of magic.  Zip!  Bam!  Poof! Gone!  Seems we’ll need another way to reach Pipsqueak” he mused.  Moundshroud scanned the area until he realized a stairway leading up.  “Oh!  I have an idea foals!  Why not build the cathedral tonight?  Climb the stairway and I’ll cast a spell on the stones to follow!”
“What?” Applebloom interjected.
“Are you crazy?” Scootaloo almost screamed.
“Technically, we are all a little mad somewhere” Moundshroud retorted.  “But I am being dead serious; simply run and the magic will take care of the rest.  Off with you!”
“Please!” Pipsqueaks’ voice cried down.  “Hurry!”
The four friends forgot the insanity that was Mr. Carapace Clavicle Moundshroud, and hurried to the closest stairway.  Moundshroud cackled to himself and clopped his hoofs to the stones before stepping forward slowly.  “Good!  Good!  It seems we are getting warmer!”  His eyes shot open as he realized the shadow was spread over him and backpedaled out with no small sense of urgency.
“I something Wrong, Mr. Moundshroud?” Scootaloo taunted.
“Yeah!” interjected Sweetie Belle.  “You flew half the night to catch Pipsqueak!”
“So why aren’t ya goin’ to get him?” Applebloom glared.
“Well foals,” Moundshroud lurked under his cloak.  “First off, it’s you, not me who must save him, and second…well…there are simply some places where I am not as welcome as others.”  Moundshrouds’ eyes flashed for a moment as a thought came to him, “Oh!  Maybe you could collect Pipsqueak for me!”
“Please!” a metallic ring came from above, “For the sake of Princess Celestia and Princess Luna hurry!”
Scootaloo gathered herself and hovered to the stairway.  “Come on guys!  Pip is counting on us!”  She led the parade to the top of the stairs, then halted just at the edge.  Stone ground against stone in the courtyard below, undulating in waves of anticipation.  “Um,” she wavered, “You coming Mr. Moundshroud?”
Moundshroud nervously laughed in his throat while a green light emanated from his horn and was echoed by the stones.  “Oh, you know I am always with you!  Now, um, carry on!”
Scootaloo peered down the stairway; it was a lot higher than she thought, and far more menacing with stone instead of trees to pad your fall!  “Leap!  Run!  They will follow!” crowed Moundshroud.  Scootaloo glanced back to her dubious friends as Moundshroud again encouraged, “Step lightly!”  Scootaloo chewed her lip a bit, then jumped off the edge!
She sat there in the air for a moment, and when gravity began to reclaim her, she hurriedly set her wings into overdrive.  This kept her floating for a moment before she began to fall, a scream starting from her throat and her friends’ throats.  Just as she began to lower the level of the last step in the staircase, a green-lined stone shot up from the ground to secure itself under her!  Legs turned jelly in fright, Scootaloo collapsed onto the stone in relief.  “Bravo!” Moundshroud applauded from below.
Scootaloo, after waiting a while to catch her breath, extended one more hoof over the edge, to have yet another stone secure itself under her.  She smiled and did it again, and again, gaining more confidence and speed as the stones were summoned under her.  The troupe began to run behind her, and it seemed that they ran on pure windy moonlight; only to have bricks and stones and timbers and mortar, shuffle like cards, deal themselves solid, and take form between their legs and hooves.  Moundshroud cackled madly, as the cathedral began to take on its final form, as great walls and doors flung into place.  A set of stone scholars and saints resided on the base level, while great flying buttresses flew out to stand like soldiers, holding up the roof.  Steeples, shingles, and stained glass partitioned themselves where the ponies couldn’t run, and twinkled and shone in the faint moonlight.
Moundshroud was retreating the whole time as the shadow began to grow, but still provided the stones necessary.  Just as the right bell tower was being finished, Moundshroud sneered towards the moon, “Oh!  Enough!”  Lighting his horn up brighter than ever before that night; Moundshroud closed his dark eyes and craned his neck back.  A fell wind blew his cloak about him, and lightning cracked in the distance.  Dark clouds began to swirl and tumble across the sky, as the shadows of darkness began to run rings around Moundshroud.  Quickly, the clouds blinded the alicorn-stained moon, closing her jealous eye upon Moundshroud.  Lightning cracked about as Moundshroud sized up his hoofwork, “Much better!  Much better!”  Unhindered, he began up the steps to the great cathedral doors.
The left bell tower was being finished as the four foals collapsed, trying to catch their breath.  After a few moments, Featherweight shakily rose, “Did anypony see Pip?”
“Nope, and he wasn’t in any of the bells!” Scootaloo groaned.  “Seriously!  I checked them all!”
Applebloom looked dejectedly over the wall to the still sleeping and dreaming city.  Her eyes began to concentrate upon a bridge spanning the river.  “Hey!  Doesn’t that over thar look familiar?”
Sweetie Belle looked to where Applebloom pointed, a possible answer coming to her mind.  She then walked to the walls edge and looked over, realization starting to light her features.  “We built Notre Atessa!  We’re in Pearis, Prance!”
“Ah, no!” moaned Applebloom.  “No more French!”
“Notre Atessa?” Scootaloo asked before making her way to the wall.  “No way this is Notre Atessa!” she dubiously eyed the empty perches and niches.
“Why not?” Featherweight asked.
“Don’t you see what’s missing?” Scootaloo deadpanned.  When she was met with a blank stare from Featherweight she sighed and facehoofed.  “Monster faces!”
“Oh!” Sweetie Belle added, “Stone devils!”
Applebloom began to wave her front hooves overhead, “Marble demons!”
“Gargoyles!” a strained voice half growled, half fluted from a clawed shadow behind them.  Moundshroud rose from the shadow with a flourish, “Ever wonder why we like to dress up as monsters, beasts, and ornery critters?”
The ponies looked to each other before Scootaloo wrung an answer out.  “I just put this costume on because I thought I could scare somepony with it.”
“And rightly you could have!” Moundshroud happily began.  “But tell me little monster; why is it that all monsters are feared?  Does it have to do with the body parts; the eyes, teeth, padded paws, razor claws, or silent wings maybe?  What do these things come from, eh?”
Scootaloo puzzled over the question for a moment before remembering the shifting hieroglyphs in the pyramids.  “Could it be, because all these body parts came from some predator of the old ponies?”
“Well done monster!” Moundshroud crooned.  “Yes!  Monsters remind us of all the dark times in all the dark places and all the old fears and nightmares of the past; of our ancestors past!”  With that he nodded to the sky, where a horned, clawed, and fanged shadow crept with lightning eyes across the sky.  The foals shivered together.  “Now why is it we decorate on of the most impressive and glorious of buildings, Notre Atessa, ‘Our Highness”, with so many monsters?  Because these monsters were once used against others!”
“That’s right my little trick-or-treaters!  The gargoyles of Notre Atessa were once the protectorate daemons of cults all across Equestria!  But what happens when a greater good arrives?  One that doesn’t need sacraments to protect you?  Why, now the monsters are out of a job!  So we gave them a job here; protect our greatest gift to the Princess and live here forever, never to be forgotten.  Now foals, we must call the protectors of this place, they won’t come otherwise!”
“Call monsters here?” Scootaloo jumped back.  “And just how do you expect us to do that?”
“Give them a signal, anything, for they await your summons little monster.”
“Well, I guess if you had to call one, it would be like calling a pet or something” she said, thinking to herself.  “Only thing is, I don’t have a pet yet.”  She looked for aid from her friends.
“Well,” began Applebloom, “When Ah wanna call Winona, we usually shout her name, or whistle.”
“I guess it’s worth a shot.”  Scootaloo gathered herself and marched to the edge.  Stopping at the eave, she gulped air, and gave an ear-piercing whistle from between her teeth.
The unemployed of all midnight Equestria shivered in their stone slumber and came awake.  
Which is to say that all the old beasts, all the old tales, all the old nightmares, all the unused demons and legends, quaked at the call, reared at the whistle, trembled at the summons, and in spectral dust devils of propulsion skimmed down roads, rattled though shaken trees, forded streams, swam rivers, pierced clouds, and arrived, arrived, arrived.  
Which is still to say, that all the dead statues and idols of Equestria lying like a dreadful snow all about, abandoned in ruins, gave a blink and star and came as salamanders on the road, or bats in the skies, or wolves in the brush.  They flew; they galloped; they skittered.
Obediently, the demons clawed their way up the walls, to perch upon eaves, lurk in niches, and hang from gutter corners.  Dark forms sat on stone, only to have the whip crack of lightning snap down, and strike them in place with a feral, bestial, shrieking call.
“Little monster!” Moundshroud crowed.  “There is your carved stone quarry!”
“Well, now the cathedral is complete” Scootaloo smugly smiled.
“A-a-a-a-appppleeeeebloooom!  Sweeeeeeeeeetieee Belllllllllle!  Scoooooootaaaaloooo!  Featttthhhhhhhhhers!  Heeeeeellllllp!” a shaky, stone voice whispered.
“Where are you Pip?” Featherweight asked, searching with his friends over the walls.
“Ooooooooooover here!”
The foals looked to the left, and two levels down, clinging to a gutter spout was a carved, winged image of Pipsqueak, clutching his pumpkin and spouting water from his mouth.  Without waiting for an invitation, the foals began to climb over the slick stones and over to their petrified friend.  “Caaaaaan youuuuuu heaaaaar meeeeee?  Iiiiiiiiii’m scaaaaaaared!”
The foals gathered under him, “It’s gargoyle language!  He can only talk when the rain comes out of his mouth, or the wind blows over his teeth!” Scootaloo exclaimed.
“Let’s get him down fast!”  Featherweight said.  However, no matter how they reached, or hovered, their friend was just out of reach.
“No cutting in line!” a levitating Moundshroud called down.  “Plenty for all!  One at a time?”
After a couple more reaches, Scootaloo bolted upright.  “Now wait a minute gang!  Mr. Moundshroud, I’m the only live gargoyle here right?”
“Indeed.”
“And I answered all your riddles right?”
“Again, indeed.”
“And I learned why we wear costumes like mine right?”
“Again, indeed little monster!”
“So it’s up to me,” Scootaloo mused.  “Applebloom, to the left of me!  Sweetie Belle, to the right!  On my mark you lift me up on your backs!”
“You mean like that time we tried to be acrobats!” Sweetie exclaimed.
“Yes, but don’t think about what happened afterwards” Scootaloo answered, rubbing her flank in a painful memory.  “Now on my mark!  Ready!  Set!  Go!”  Scootaloo was hoisted into the air by her closest friends, only again to come short of the height requirement.  “I need more reach!  Alright, again on my mark, you two prop yourselves up on the walls and I’ll stand on your shoulders!  Ready!  Set!  Go!”  Scootaloo jumped and hovered for a second as Applebloom and Sweetie Belle set up.  She reared and touched down on their shoulders, and Sweetie Belles’ hoof slid for a second.  Scootaloo yelped and tumbled forward, bad memories returning, arms pin wheeling, until she latched onto Pipsqueaks’ pumpkin.  “Oh Pip!  What happened to you?”
“I think I’m dyyyyyyyyyyying!” the statue gurgled.
“Oh no you aren’t allowed to!” Scootaloo ordered.  “Now you listen to me!  That isn’t going to happen!  We have a lot still to do!  And besides, I never got to thank you.  Remember the time we tried to get our cutie marks in firework making?  I smuggled the powder into my house and hid it under my bed.”
“Yeah, burned your bed and walls out!  Good thing you live on the seeeeecond floooor!”
“Yeah, well, you took the blame for me, and I never thanked you.  I mean, I was so sure my mom would be furious, and she just had you repaint the room for us.  Really, that means a lot to me!”
“You mom is a really nice pony Scootaloo, you really should spend more tiiiiimmmeeee with her!”
“You know,” Scootaloo thoughtfully looked down, “you’re right.”
“Scootaloo!” sang Moundshroud from above.  “Toss is right up here, two points!”
“I’ve got to go now Scootaloo” Pipsqueak mourned.
“No Pip I won’t let you go!”  As Scootaloo tried to pull herself up by his pumpkin, a crack broke around the stone gourd.  The moment it broke away, the jack-o-lantern regained color.  
“No!” screamed Pipsqueak as both gourd and friend fell away.  Lightning struck him, and the once again transparent ghost of Pipsqueak flew after his pumpkin!  
Scootaloo safely landed upon the statue of a great winged gargoyle. Lightning flashed again, and the statue came alive under Scootaloo.  It dove after Pipsqueak, with Scootaloo scrambling for a grip on its wide shoulders. When Scootaloo pulled up on the neck, she found the gargoyle yielded to her.  With a determined grimace, she leaned forward, encouraging the gargoyle as well.  “I’m coming Pip!”
Pipsqueak caught the pumpkin, and with another spin, was wheeling with stars into the sky.  The other three friends were tore from the wall with a wind, and fell upon three more gargoyles.  Three more flashes of forked lightning, and they too were off flying after Scootaloo and Pipsqueak.  “Come on gang!” Scootaloo called back, “We can’t lose him now!”
As the foals followed their friend into the clouds, Moundshroud flitted his watch back into the pocket from whence it came.  “There’s no escape!”  The cloak snapped about him as rings of lightning sped about.  Launching into the air, the forked legs ran along the cloud tunnel, spider webbing him with cloak billowing and sailing into the night.  “I’ll chart his course to a final graveyard!”
	
> Chapter 6
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Nightmare Tree 
Chapter 6

Deep within a dark cloud bank, four gargoyles bearing riders slid through soft partings, feverishly beating mighty stone wings in pursuit of a small, transparent blue figure.  The blue colt was streaming stars and sparks behind him, flying faster and faster in the air currents, until he finally broke away from the pack.  “Drat!” swore Scootaloo, “And we almost had him that time!”
Moundshroud arrived in spectral silence and swooped up in front, leading the foals along the cloud layer.  “Well, I have good news foals!” he crowed back to the CMC and Featherweight.  “We have arrived at our final destination!”  Through the thick black clouds, music could be heard wafting up from the ground to greet the visitors.
“Alright, but, where are we?” Featherweight asked.
“Wait a minute,” Sweetie Belle cocked her head down to the ground and put a hoof to her ear.  “That sounds like marimbas.”
“Oh!” Applebloom piped up.  “That sounds like xylophones and those little guitars some ponies play!”
“Ole!” cried some crowd faintly from below.
“I betcha that’s a bull fight!” Scootaloo hoped up and down on her gargoyle’s shoulders.
Dark clouds soon parted, clearing the night scene to show a scene of plastered houses, brightly painted in greens, reds, oranges, and some left white.  Lanterns hung from long lines cast between building corners and arches, illuminating the streets below in light that would have rivaled day.  Cow, bulls, calves, minotaurs, and a couple buffalo were meandering in the streets playing music and cooking vast amounts of beaten corn into breads and other foods.  “Taurus!” the foals realized and shouted in enthusiasm.  
The gargoyles flew in the invisible winds, unseen by the populous below.  Calves of all three races with skull masks adorning their faces ran in the streets from house to house, snatching cookies decorated with sprinkles, sugar, and all other sorts of confectionary decoration.  Coffins were being made openly for sale, to match with little puppet funerals.  A bull fight was being performed in an arena, where hundreds of attendants were watching a red dressed minotaur matador taunt a large red bull with his cape.  The bull charged, only for the minotaur to pull out in the last moment, drape the cloak over his arm, and give the bull a good smack as he passed.  The crowd cheered as the minotaur spread his arms, basking in the praise, only for him to be sent face first into a mud puddle when the bull kicked his rear end.  Uproarious laughter lavished the bull, who now took his turn to raise booth front hooves into the air in acceptance, and body slam the matador into the ground. All the overly hammed up humor went on for some time, each opponent embarrassing the other until the bell sounded.  Both stood up, shook hand and hoof, then walked out to rest and recuperate from the act.
Spectral stone wings clapped again as the four were lifted off towards the edge of town.  A newspaper was snatched in the updraft, which Sweetie Belle caught with her hoof.  “Hey!  The newspapers are full of bones and stuff!” She hoofed some of the paper to her friends, who began scanning the papers in interest.  The cartooned bones of the Tauric races were seen on display in the paper, with small effigies and biographies of the deceased.  All sorts of little details were included, from their favorite foods, to personal achievements, and who they fathered or mothered.  
“Wow!” wondered Featherweight, “I should probably do something like this with the Foal Free Press sometime!”
The gargoyles flew over a hill, dotted with the marble and stone markers of many final resting places.  Troves of longhorn cows, minotaurs, and buffalos were trailing onto the sites, bearing candles, pictures, and mats to sit upon.  “Wait,” Applebloom peered, putting aside her paper.  “What are they all doin in the graveyard?”
“El Dia de los Muertos!” Moundshroud answered.  “Far south of both Appleoosa and the Buffalo territories lies a subtropical land inhabited by settled buffalos, minotaurs, and longhorn cows.  Here, once a year they visit the graves of the departed in loving memory.”  Down below, a many cows and buffalos were sitting in front of graves, lighting candles in silent vigil and lovingly leaning upon their significant others.  An old minotaur in military uniform, with enough brass on his chest to start a band, was saluting an older sepulcher.  
The foals looked on in wonder, until a pale blue pony sped under them, out towards another gravesite.  The gargoyles, spooked by the apparition, began to buck and cry out wildly, refusing to bear their riders anymore.  Stone wings beat franticly as the foals cried and tried to remain atop.  Swooping and sweeping down, the beasts ducked into an alley, and shook three of the foals off like fleas.  They, in turn, fell safely into a wagon filled with hay.  The last foal, Applebloom, was wrapping her gauze around her monsters neck, while it bucked wildly to and fro.  “Ah, no you aren’t!” she yelled, hardly staying on the back.  With a final kick, Applebloom was sent flying head first into the hay pile.  Her gargoyle sped off to catch up with the others, who soared into the clouds to find their way home.
“Sweet skulls!  Sweet skull!” a piping voice lilted from down the alley.  A pony dressed in a multicolored coat and wide brimmed sombrero that obscured his face came into view.  “Sweet skulls!  Sweet skulls!  Sugary candy sweet skulls!”  
“Whoa, gang!  Look at the candy he has!” Featherweight exclaimed.  Leaning over the ponys’ shoulder was the branch of an ancient tree, and hanging from the twigs were the chocolate smiling faces of white candy skulls with red lettering inscribed along the forehead.
“Give me your name and I give you a skull” the colorful tunic wearing pony offered. 
“Featherweight!”  Snap!  A small pony skull with his name was yanked from the branch with a black horseshoe and hoofed over to him.
“Oh! Scootaloo!”
“Sweetie Belle”
“Applebloom!”
Each of the foals were tossed little sugar and chocolate pony skulls bearing their respective names.  The foals giggled and inspected the little treats, until the shadowy pony laughed in a short, high pitched cry.  
“Hold the dark holiday in your hoof,
Bite it, swallow it,
Come out the dark, black tunnel of Nightmare Night
And be glad, oh so glad you are alive!”
With that the pony tossed his cape and tunic aside, revealing Carapace Clavicle Moundshroud, throatily laughing.  The foals stopped, with the treats just barely in their mouths, gawking at the strange outburst from this even stranger pony.  “Alright, that’s it!” Featherweight shook his head. “What was that even about!  You fly us halfway across the world, through tombs, dark fields, and all the scariest stuff I have ever seen!  Then give us candy and go off on some song or poem or something like that!  Do you know just how creepy this is becoming!”
“Well to be honest, yes I do” Moundshroud answered.  “It is my job to be creepy this night, and last I remember, nearly everything is creepy or scary on Nightmare Night.  The poem you just heard is a very common piece down here, and can be found in several songs throughout.  If you are wondering if it was some incognito threat against your lives, I can assure you; I don’t kill ponies, and I will not ever do so.  Go ahead, eat your treats.”
Cautiously, the foals began to chew on the snacks, eyeing Moundshroud the whole time.  Featherweight looked back over his shoulder in the direction of where Pips’ ghost had gone.  “Anyway, we should go find Pip and save him.”
“Right you are little skeleton, Nightmare Night is slipping away!”  As the last bite was finished, Moundshroud summoned a wind overhead, bearing the piñatas of a mummy, witch, monster, and skeleton.  With a twirl of his cape, Moundshroud himself was turned into a miniature piñata and joined the dance.  Up from the shadowed alley, several calves and young minotaurs ran up with skull faces and sticks.  They swung enthusiastically at the paper and cardboard containers, until one stick connected with a solid Thwack right between Moundshrouds’ eyes!  The piñatas turned into a swarm of bats as the calves ran screaming in fright.  A black swarm of winged furry bodies snatched the four foals into the air, and carried them off.
Way out beyond the walls of the town, in a forgotten low spot between two hills nestled an abandoned graveyard.  No cow or minotaur visited here, and the grass grew tall and unkempt.  The squeaking swarm flew to the front of a large door in the hillside, and set down four laughing and tickled foals on the ground.  Shadowy and silently, the form of Moundshroud appeared from the coalescing bats.
“That was actually kinda fun!” Featherweight exclaimed.
“What’s next?” Sweetie Belle asked.
“No more time for fun and games foals!” Moundshroud throatily laughed.  “The night ends here!”  With an outstretched hoof he gestured to the door, which swung open by its own accord.  Filthy mist seeped out into the air from some deep, dark, filthy place within.
The foals stared wide eyed for a moment.  “Is Pip down there?” Featherweight hazarded a guess.
“Yes, he’s waiting down in the catacombs.  Simon says, bring him up” Moundshroud finished, his voice echoing down the stairs.
Featherweight walked to the edge, then peered down into the abyssal dark.  He looked Moundshroud in the eye, and in the most determined voice he could muster said, “Fine!  We’ll go get him, but we’re keeping him for ourselves!”
“Bravely spoken, Skeleton!  Pip would have liked that.”  The brass watch was again brought out from some deep pocket, “Now hurry!  The dawn approaches!”
Leading the way, Featherweight stepped down into the gloom.  The foals stepped past piles of dust, over leering red rat eyes, and through cobwebs.  Eventually, they made it to the base floor, and stepped into the chamber.  When their eight eyes had adjusted to the low light, the four gasped in fright.  “Mummies!” Applebloom shrieked.  All about them, down every corridor, the desiccated and dried out bodies of cows and minotaurs were lining the walls in niches and cubbies.
Moundshroud stepped from a hole under the stairs.  “Their families couldn’t pay the rent for their graves, so the grave digger put them down here!”  He cleared his throat before continuing, “A little too dry for me.”
The four friends were about to move forward when a soft sound reached Featherweights’ ears.  He motioned for silence and strained to hear the sound again.  Slowly, he realized where this familiar sound had been heard before; one year to this night ago, when Pipsqueak softly sobbed when he feared that it would be his last Nightmare Night.  Peering down a corridor, Featherweight saw the pale blue colt standing alone at the end, still clutching his pumpkin.  “What are you doing there Pip!” Featherweight called.
“I have to stay Feathers!” Pipsqueaks’ hollow old voice called back.  “I’m trapped!” he mourned.
“What do you mean trapped?  It’s just us!” Featherweight pleaded, stepping forward.  With a snap and crack, the closest corpse began to move, and soon, all the skeletons and dried bodies were waving their hooves in front of the way towards Pipsqueak.  “Oh sweet Celestia, they’re alive!” Featherweight recoiled towards the CMC, who were now bundled into a ball, hugging each other.
Moundshroud stepped forward, silencing the dead, and placing a hoof upon Featherweights’ shoulder.  “Why do you wear bones, colt?” he demanded.
“Well, because my dad, Snowflake the bodybuilder dresses up as the reaper, so we thought it would look funny if we wore matching costumes” Featherweight honestly explained.
“Oh!” Moundshroud moaned, removing his hoof to stamp on the ground.  “Have you learned nothing tonight, colt?!” 
Featherweight looked back to his scared friends, searching for an answer.  He looked back upon not only the night he had just had, but also the other nights in his short life.  He wondered about how some ponies scared others, how some like his dad, dressed up to make others laugh.  Then the idea came to him, if he could just put it to words.
“Maybe,” he began hesitantly, “when we dress up as our fears, and look death eyeball to eyeball, we don’t truly fear it?  When we dress up as our fears, and greet and entertain each other, death can’t scare us anymore, and it loses its’ power over us!”
“Yes!  Yes!  Very good skeleton, that’s using you skull properly!  Now, since you have answered the riddle…”
Featherweight turned to face the long hall to Pipsqueak.  “Now it’s my turn to save Pip…alone,” he gulped.  Stepping up to the edge of the corridor, Featherweight gathered himself, closed tight his eyes, and then began a mad dash between the skeletons.
“That’s it!” Scootaloo jumped from the ball, cheering on Featherweight.  “Just go straight!”
“Don’t open your eyes!” Applebloom shouted.
“I can’t look!” Sweetie Belle cried, burying her face into Applebloom’s shoulder.
Skulls collided with each other, hooves skittered upon empty floor, and ribs jangled with others, rattling to sit still upon the floor.  Featherweight ran as fast as he could, not daring to open his eyes to the horrid moans and crashes coming about him until he finally reached the raised dais before Pipsqueak, gasping for breath.  “Oh Pip!  Don’t die!  Please don’t die!  I’m so sorry!” he wept openly before Pipsqueaks’ feet.
“What do you mean Feathers?” a baffled Pipsqueak asked.  “You made it!  You got to me!”
“No, it isn’t that Pip,” Featherweight sniffled.  “Long ago, after you joined up with us, I wished you would go away so the others would listen a little more to me again.  I was happy that they forgave me for taking those pictures, and just wanted to keep making them happy with me, and saw you more as a rival.  I let my jealousy get the best of me.  I just never imagined it would be something as bad as Colitis!  Could you forgive me?” he pleaded.
“For crying out loud, Feathers!  Nopony could have guessed I would be here or wished it!” Pipsqueak admonished.  “How about this, I promise to listen to you more often, and you forget about this whole mess.  Honestly!  There’s nothing to forgive!” he assured, reaching out with a hoof.
Smiling away the tears, Featherweight reached out with his own hoof to grasp Pipsqueak.  When the hoofs just brushed each other, Pipsqueak became solid, and dried with the onslaught of countless ages.  His coat bleached out, fell out, and his skin turned shallow and cracked.  The cracks ran up the withering body, weaving across his features until they reached his head and still face.  The skull and chest caved in, releasing Pipsqueaks’ dust into the air and falling in a small pile to the floor.  “Wait!  Pip!  No!  What happened!” Featherweight yelled, when a dry laugh came from back in the door.
Moundshroud, cloak about him, laughed almost manically.  “Well, this has been fun hasn’t it foals!”  With a flourish he produced Pipsqueaks’ pumpkin from under his cape.  It was still lit and slowly whispering away its’ song.  “And I know just where I am going to hang this!”
> Chapter 7
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

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.