The procession into the woods was led by Zecora, who carried one of the emerald Changeling lanterns, and tailed by two town guardsponies who carried the same. Rumble noted that there were a lot more foals in Ponyville than he'd thought. He had no way of knowing that the rebuilding of the Castle of the Moon was drawing workers-- and families-- from all over Equestria, or Ponyville was well on its way to becoming a boom town.

Still it was neat. New faces were always fun. And some of the costumes the new foals were wearing were really neat. Rumble saw one filly dressed as a yo yo; another as a can of trash. There was a colt dressed as a dragon and his friend dressed as a draconequus, and the filly next to him was a cotton candy cloud, complete with chocolate drops on strings for "chocolate rain."  One colt was a gryphon, and there were two dressed as diamond dogs, their pockets full of fake gemstones. There was even one next to him with a really awesome changeling costume, with colored goggles for changeling eyes and stockings painted with black holes on her legs. The wings looked really real, but you could see the straps holding them on.

Regardless of how they were dressed, everyone huddled together under the emerald lamplights. It was creepy out in those woods at night, and especially on this night. He found himself practically pressed up to the side of the filly in the Changeling costume, along with Twist. For lack of anything better to do, he struck up a conversation with the new kid. "Hey. I'm Rumble. This is Twist. You new here?"

The filly nodded. " My name's Flitter. Neat costume."

"Thanks!" Rumble beamed. "I'm a pony from the future. Heh. And so's Twist, and all the other Cutie Mark Crusaders."

"Cutie Mark Crusaders?"

"Itth a club for ponieth who don't have their cutie markth," Twist said. "Um, well... thorta." She looked at her own rather obvious cutie mark.

"Don't worry, you'll hear all about us soon enough," Rumble said. "Ponies are always talking about us."

"Yeah, uthually they're YELLING about uth," Twist said. Flitter giggled. "That'th a thuper Changeling cothtume, by the way," Twist added.

"Um, thanks," Flitter said. She suddenly seemed to notice Twist's candy bag. "oh, did you get some of those candy canes? I'll trade you for 'em. They're my favorite." She showed the others her treat bag; obviously she'd been bargaining hard with the other foals; most of her treat bag was full of the canes, in every flavor and color imaginable.

"Hey, thothe are mine!" Twist exclaimed.

Flitter scowled. "No they're not-- I got them myself!---"

"No no, she means she made them," Rumble laughed. "Candy making's her special talent. She probably helped make half the candy people bought for Nightmare Night."

"Ohh," Flitter said. "You've got a really good talent. These are really really special." She took one out of the bag, peeled the wax paper off and started sucking on it greedily. It certainly must have been her favorite, Rumble thought; her face practically glowed with pleasure eating them.

Twist blushed. "Thankth," she said.

"Are all the Cutie Mark Crusaders good at making candy?" Flitter asked innocently.

         Rumble laughed and shook his head. "Nah. In fact, don't eat anything SweetieBelle tries to make unless you like tummyaches and the taste of charcoal." Flitter and Twist laughed. "But all the Crusaders are pretty cool... even if we are a little crazy."

Twist giggled. "We're probably the crazietht bunch of ponieth in Equethtria," she said. "We've got every kind of weird."

"Weird but cool," Rumble said. "Especially Nyx. Wait'll you meet her..." he looked around. Where was Nyx anyway? After a moment's casting about he saw her; she was trailing way back at the back of the group, almost out of the range of the lamplight. He could just make out the moonglow of her bracelets and her magic hourglass. And he couldn't be sure but she looked unhappy about something. At least, she was frowning a lot and staring at the ground, like she had something on her mind.

Rumble pawed the ground nervously. Maybe he should go back and check on her? Of course, that would mean dropping back almost entirely out of the lamplight. Out of the nice, bright, safe, Changeling-catching lamplight.

He settled for calling "Hey Nyx! C'mon, you're falling behind!...." Nyx seemed to pick up the pace a bit, but she didn't draw much closer to the group. And the lanterns were drawing off... guiltily, Rumble turned and galloped for the safety of the group. She'd be okay. And he could ask her later about what was wrong, right?

Nyx held back as far as she dared. For some reason she didn't want to be seen by Zecora or anyone else...She didn't know why, she couldn't put it in words in her head. Maybe if she'd been a little bit older, she could have put her nebulous thoughts into these words: she wanted to see what this was all about--- without anyone knowing she was listening or changing their words.

Eventually the group reached a clearing in the woods. It was carefully trimmed and mowed, and was large enough for the entire group of foals to enter, with room to spare. Which was fortunate, because every foal gave a wide berth to what was standing in the middle of the open area: a life-size statue of Nightmare Moon. She was rearing back on her hind legs, wicked sharp hooves flailing, fangs bared in a hideous leer.

Nyx stopped, thunderstruck. Fangs??

Zecora turned and faced the huddled group of fillies. Only her lamplit eyes were visible under the hem of her robe. "Listen close, my little dears, and I shall tell you where you got your fears, of Nightmare Night, so dark and scary, and Nightmare Moon, who makes you wary..."

Zecora was way too good at this. She had the foals gassed up in minutes with her sinister voice and ominous rhymes. Nyx could see several of the smaller ones shivering already. She stepped back out of the light and huddled behind a bush. I have to hear this, something inside her said. I have to hear what they're all saying when they don't think I'm there....

Zecora continued "Every year we don a disguise, to save ourselves from her searching eyes, for Nightmare Moon wants one thing this night-- to gobble you up in one swift bite!!" the zebra lunged forward, growling and gnashing her teeth. The foals shrieked in fear, several of them tucking their faces in each other's sides.

All except one, hiding just out of the lamplight behind a bush. Nyx was gaping in speechless horror as Zecora went on, describing in gruesome detail how Nightmare Moon was going to go about tonight, searching for children to gobble up like candy corn. Nyx couldn't believe it. She collapsed in her hiding place, tears welling in her eyes. They think I ate ponies? ATE them??  It was too much to bear. She'd done awful things as Nightmare Moon--- but she'd never killed anyone, and she'd never ever eaten anypony! How could they say things like this? How could Zecora.... This, this was too much! She was too stunned to even cry.

Her shocks for the evening were far from done. She composed herself to listen in some more... and now Zecora was telling them all how to keep Nightmare Moon from eating them up! ".... quickly now my tiny friends, Nightmare Moon you must not offend--- fill her belly with a treat or two--- so she won't return to COME.. EAT... YOU!!" More antics with the green smoke, and now "Nightmare Moon" was lunging about, looking for a pony to devour. Shrieks and not a few wails of fear went up. A couple of the smaller foals burst outright into tears and had to be comforted by their brothers or sisters.

Once everyone was composed, though, one by one the foals trooped up and obediently poured a hefty share of their night's loot at the statue's feet.

Nyx--- couldn't even think of words to describe how she felt. She'd been stunned before, but now she was absolutely gobsmacked. She watched in silence as her friends and schoolmates and every other foal in Ponyville walked up, some shivering in fear, to toss their hard-won candy at Nightmare Moon's stone feet like pagans offering a sacrifice to some ancient bloody idol.

Dinky gave her candy, looking like she expected to be devoured on the spot. And the filly in the changeling costume looked like she'd lost her best friend when she dumped her candy canes out.

Nyx watched, her emotions heating up. No, she did have a word for what she was feeling now. Outrage.  Absolute, white hot OUTRAGE, blazing like hammered steel straight from the furnace. They were using her to swindle candy out of little kids! She was so angry she got up and stamped her front hooves in the soft dirt in rage.

She stayed behind her bush, breathing heavily, teeth grinding in the righteous fury only a child who's seen adults break the rules can muster. The last of the fillies left their 'tribute' at the statue's feet. "Now my dears, the night is yet full, make your way to the festival, Princess Luna's castle fair, you'll find a glorious party there!" The foals cheered in relief and happily followed the lantern-bearers back down the path. Zecora waited until the last of them was out of sight, then, chuckling to herself, popped a gumdrop from the tribute into her mouth.

Ohh, that just tore it.

Scowling like a tiny thunderstorm, Nyx stepped out from her hiding place and walked up behind the ruminating zebra. "Aintcha afraid Nightmare Moon will catch you eating her stash?" she said, her voice dripping sarcasm.

Zecora "accked" and choked, spluttering as she dislodged her pilfered treat. She obviously hadn't been expecting company. She managed to clear her throat and compose herself. She turned around, smile pasted on her face.  "Ack, ahem-- And what is this? Someone who / has to pay Nightmare Moon her--- oo dear...." she finished lamely, staring down into the angriest little alicorn face in the world.  A face that happened to belong to the nine-year-old reincarnation of Nightmare Moon herself.

Zecora's storytelling skills, unprepared for possibly the most confusing confluence of story, character and audience in history, simply blew out. The only thing she could think was one phrase, the one known to every parent who'd ever been caught out about the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy:

Busted.

She stood there, stammering for a moment. "Erk?" she said.

The tableau held for a frighteningly long time. Nyx stared at Zecora so hard that by all rights two icy holes should have been burned into the zebra's forehead. Without a word, Nyx dumped her bag of candy, all of it, right at Zecora's feet. "Enjoy your candy," Nyx hissed, and, sticking her nose in the air, turned on her heel and galloped off after the others.

"Wait-- but it's not-- I didn't--- you don't--- " Zecora shouted after her, her rhyming failing utterly. "Drat."

The downward spiral had begun.

Once Pomp and Circumstance had hastily removed the "please ignore me" spells from the archway, it hadn't taken long for the two sides of the party to begin noticing each other. There was no massive spillover from one to the other yet--- some pony instinct for herding was keeping the upper crust and the hoi polloi divided--- but it was only a matter of time. It was after all hard for the nobility to ignore the loud music and boisterous dancing in the next room. Or for the common ponies to ignore the stuffy-looking people staring at them from the archway in horrified fascination.

Pomp and Circumstance tried to delay the inevitable. Pomp bustled about, offering drinks and canapes to various ponies, trying to direct the attention of alarmed courtiers to the buffet table, to the chamber quartet, to anything, please, dear heaven, but the archway from which all the light, noise and sound of commoners at play was emanating. Circumstance had to resort to a mix of officiousness and unctuousness--- "how can I help you? Is there anything you need? Something, anything? No?"--- to keep the hoity-toity averse Ponyville ponies on their side of the line. One look at his schmoozing face was enough to send them backpedaling into the room, thankfully.

Of course, it would be the Bearers of the Elements and their dates who finally broke the line. And of the twelve, it would be Pinkie Pie and Pokey Pierce who did it first. The majordomo brothers made their first critical error at setup: they had placed a chocolate fountain in one room, and an array of treats on sticks in the other. Their second critical error was forgetting that Pinkie Pie was now airborne. Even as they hovered by the archway, ever on the watch for breach of containment, Pinkie had flown by overhead with Pokey dangling from her arms, then returned the same way with a dessert cart full of 'carnival fare' in Pokey's magical clutches.(1)

By the time they had spotted the two, it was too late. Pinkie and Pokey were elbow deep in it, doing absolutely frightening things to gourmet chocolate.  "chocolate covered canape's... blech," Pinkie Pie gave her verdict, throwing the half-eaten "treat" into a nearby trashcan. "Anything else we haven't tried?"

"Ooh, I got one," Pokey said. He levitated a caramel apple from the cart over to the fountain. "Caramel apple... coated in chocolate..." he looked around. "ooh, crush up some of those mixed nuts!"

Pinkie pie obliged, scattering nut bits all over the table as she crunched them underhoof. Once she had reduced the entire bowl to crumbs, Pokey rolled the still-warm caramel-chocolate apple in the bowl and held it up. "Triple layer choco-caramel nut apple," he said proudly. Pinkie oooohed. He quickly made a second one. "Oh wait!"  Pinkie said suddenly. She carefully pulled the apples off the sticks. "they need something in the middle..."

"Hey, yeah!" Pokey levitated one of the apples up and pressed the tip of his horn to the stem. There was a loud "plock!" and the neatly-cut core shot out of the end of the apple, sailing across the room to strike the Baron Winchester in the eye. "Sorry," Pokey called, magically whisking a table napkin over to the spluttering baron. "Now, let's see...." he filled the hole through the apple with mixed nuts and chocolate, then coated the whole thing with chocolate once again--- and drizzled caramel sauce over the top for a final touch. "Viola," he said proudly, handing the paper plate over to Pinkie Pie.

"Oooh, yummers!" the pink pony devoured the candied apple in a shingle chomp. Pokey chomped his own in half. "Yummers!" The two began making more even as they chewed.... both completely oblivious to the shocked courtiers standing around them, staring at the mess they were making.

Up above the chandeliers, two pegasi were dancing, or at least trying to. To Pomp and Circumstance's dismay, the main entertainment for the evening had not yet arrived--- and the current entertainers were apparently in some sort of rivalry, so both refused to bow out for the other. The chamber quartet was still playing away, and the DJ on the opposite side was still spinning CDs or dropping basses or whatever it was they did. They were muffled by distance and by the wall between, but up in the rafters the music was overlapping in a dreadful discordant mess.

"Ugh, I give up," Rainbow Dash said. "I can't dance to this noise." She fluttered in a circle, annoyed.

"I gotta agree," Thunderlane said. "Okay, you gonna tell me now?"

"Tell you what?"

"Why you asked me, of all ponies, to come to this with you?" Thunderlane looped around and hovered in front of her. "I was under the impression I was pony non grata with you, the way we last spoke."  Rainbow Dash looked a little chagrined. After the near fiasco with the reservoir tornado, she'd pretty much outright blamed him for their failure to break the standing wingpower record. It had been pretty ugly, and totally unfair, and she knew it.

"Because you were the only pegasus with the guts to tell me to my face what a b-- what a witch I was being," Dash admitted.

It was true. Thunderlane had pretty much snapped and blasted Rainbow Dash with a windmill-spinning tirade about what an arrogant, inconsiderate, egotistical jerk she was, and how her showboating and bullyragging had been what cost everyone the record, and a good dozen ponies had been bedridden because she had drafted sick pegasi and forced them into her obsessive drill-sergeant training regime. He'd quit the weather patrol on the spot and taken a new job in the bowling alley downtown.... and left note that he was not available for any weather patrol work so long as Rainbow Dash was in charge.

It'd been a rough day of self-evaluation for Dash. She'd expected her friends to commiserate with her.... instead they had rubbed salt in the wound. Fluttershy had pointed out how she'd run dozens of her little animal friends through the wringer just to make them prove they were "cool enough" to be Rainbow Dash's pet. Rarity had noted how demanding and pushy she'd been about Fluttershy's cheering her in the Best Young Flier's competition. Twilight Sparkle--- darned egghead-- had harped on how they'd nearly all gotten toasted because Dash lost her temper and kicked a dragon in the face. Applejack had reminded everyone of how Dash's first reaction to Nyx had been to call her a wimp and a crybaby. Every one of her friends had a list of examples of how Dash was routinely impatient and inconsiderate to other ponies, to the point of cruelty.

Dash had sulked for nearly a week. But the lesson had finally sunk in... at least a little bit. She was no angel, but ponies had noted that she was at least a little more considerate of others. She hadn't outright apologized to Thunderlane, but she had at least been polite to him whenever they'd crossed paths.

Then last week she'd showed up on his doorstep, red faced, asking him if he'd take her to the ball.

Thunderlane suspected he'd said "yes" because he'd been too confused to say anything else.

"Aanyway, this really isn't my dance groove," Rainbow Dash said. "Maybe we should... Oh, Hi princess!" She made a quick midair bow. Thunderlane turned and found himself facing the Princess of the Night, who was hovering behind them. "What're you doing up here?" Dash asked.

"Well, I wasn't about to spend all night sitting on my plot," Luna said. "Are you enjoying the party?"

"Yeah, kinda," Rainbow Dash admitted. Thunderlane boggled a bit at how casually she spoke to the coregent. "But the music's a little hard to dance to at the moment." She waved a hoof behind her, indicating the clashing music.

"So I hear," Luna agreed, wincing. "Confound it, I told Pomp and Circumstance to dismiss the quartet with full pay---! Wait here." The princess spiraled down to the stand where the four classical musicians were still playing, struggling to be heard over the growing "wump wump wump" of the DJ next door. The two pegasi watched as the Princess addressed the musicians. The grey pony with the treble clef cutie mark playing the cello seemed to slump a bit, but the princess said something else which seemed to perk her up. Nodding, the four musicians gathered up their instruments and music and proceeded to head out the french doors to the garden. Luna fluttered back up to where Dash and Thunderlane hovered. "Poor thing, I doubled their pay--- but she did care less about the money than about the prestige of performing for royalty.... I suggested they move out to the garden where the atmosphere might suit their music better. And recommended a course of more romantic songs, shouldst there be any young lovers wandering the trails," she said with a wink. "Now, what else...? Excuse me, my little ponies... I have the ominous feeling I hast a great number of tangled webs to untangle...." with that the Princess of the Moon fluttered off, set on her quest to drive her assistants insane.

"Well.... now that the air's cleared. Um... care to dance?" Thunderlane said.

Rainbow Dash tapped her chin. "Mmmmnnnahh," she said. "Not in a dancing mood just yet... wanna take a flight round the castle? I'd like to get a look at the grounds and stuff now that they've renovated..." her dragonfly wings thrummed. "And I wouldn't mind giving these babies a little workout."

"Fresh air seems like a popular choice," Thunderlane said, noting the handful of partygoers trickling out the french doors. "As the lady prefers..."

The two flew off together.

Nyx fumed to herself as she trailed along after the other foals. Using her... her old self to scare little foals and swindle them out of candy---! That's what this 'holiday' was all about? Well it SUCKED then!

She heard Pip up ahead. "Don't look sad, Dinky, we still got lots of candy left..."

"Thure. Oh gosh, Flitter, did you leave ALL your candy??"

"I-- I thought we were supposed to...." the dismay in the fillies' voice was heartbreaking.

"It's okay... We'll share our candy with you..." This from SweetieBelle. A couple other CMCs voiced their agreement.

"T-thank you..." a sniffle.

Nyx halted in her tracks. Oh, that was too much. Her eyebrows and mouth settled in a grim line. This injustice would not stand. "Scootaloo, would you cover for me?" she said. "I... think I left something. I gotta go back."

Scootaloo glanced around at the darkling woods uncertainly. "Are you sure?" she whispered. Nyx nodded. "I'll be right back, I promise," she said.

Scootaloo shook her head. "No way," she insisted. "I ain't letting you go back there all alone."

"But--"

"-I mean I'm going with you," the orange pegasus filly said. "Come on, let's go before we're missed!" There was a hoot overhead. They glanced up; Owlowiscious was perched in a tree branch overhead, staring down at them. Nyx blinked; she'd  entirely forgotten he was there. "You're not gonna fink on us, are you, Owlowiscious?"

"Whoo."

"...Well, okay, come with us then...."

"Whoo." The owl spread his wings and nodded in agreement.

"Come on already!" Scootaloo said.

The two began galloping as swiftly and quietly as they could back along the trail, the owl winging along silently above them.