For Candy

by Bob From Bottles

Chapters

• Chapter One
• Chapter Two
• Chapter Three
• Chapter Four
• Chapter Five
• Chapter Six
• Chapter Seven
• Chapter Eight

Chapter One

All in all, Lyra felt she had done a pretty darn good job of decorating the inside of her and Bon Bon’s home for Nightmare Night. Sure, she may have goofed and put the legs of one of the skeletons on backwards, and okay, maybe a picture of a pumpkin wasn’t the ideal thing to carve into an actual pumpkin, and admittedly, she should have realized sooner that the box full of fake cobwebs wasn’t full of fake cobwebs, but honestly, the spiders running loose in the living room only added to the atmosphere.

The important thing was that Lyra had finished setting everything up with plenty of time to spare. Bon Bon was freaking out enough just preparing the food for their ‘Night Before Nightmare Night’ party. At least now, she wouldn’t have to worry about getting the house ready too. Every chore Lyra did would earn her brownie points that she hoped to trade in for actual brownies. Cinnamon Surprise Brownies, to be exact. Lyra’s mouth watered just thinking about the sweet, chocolaty goodness mixed with the subtle seasonings of cinnamon, nutmeg, and... other seasonings that she didn’t actually know the names of. Already, the scents of it filled her nostrils with every breath.

After giving the living room one final look over—and wiping away a line of drool with the back of her hoof—Lyra made her way towards the kitchen, eager to brag about her accomplishments. Bon Bon would be so caught up in her oohing and ahhing that she would leave the stove unguarded for at least a minute. Plenty of time to sneak a taste or three.

“Hey, Bon Bon,” Lyra called out as she passed through the kitchen doorway. “The decorations are done.”

Bon Bon didn’t answer right away. She was likely in ‘the cooking zone,’ or something like that. It would take her a few seconds to realize that Lyra was even there. Which was fine, since it gave Lyra time to put on her best ‘I did a good job and should be rewarded in chocolate’ smile.

It always amazed Lyra how Bon Bon was able to create an area of controlled chaos around her while she cooked. She had three pots on the stove with a different temperature on each. To one side of her, the countertop was lined with piles of peeled, chopped, or diced vegetables. To her other side, she had bowls of various batters and doughs. Shockingly enough, everything was clean. No spills, or smudges, or forks bent into unusable shapes. Even the dishes and utensils were washed and sorted next to the sink, waiting to be put away or used again.

After all the years of watching, there was one thing Lyra didn’t, nay, couldn’t understand about Bon Bon’s cooking ability: she never measured anything. All those cups and spoons that had been so carefully crafted to make cooking easier for everypony were forbidden tools as far as Bon Bon was concerned. She eyeballed it all. She even knew how hot a stove’s flame was based only on its size. And yet, she could make the same recipe a hundred different times and each time it would turn out the exact same way: delicious.

Just standing this close to a master at work was mesmerizing, but not mesmerizing enough for Lyra to forget that her cheeks were getting stiff from holding this smile, or that she hadn’t been acknowledged yet.

Still in her own little world, Bon Bon opened the oven door, grumbled something about it not being hot enough, and went back to stirring the pot of liquid chocolate.

Lyra dropped her smile and worked her mouth for a moment to get the soreness out. “Uh, Bon Bon?” she ventured. When that didn’t get a response, she waved a hoof up and down over one of the pots. “Hellooo?”

“Wha?” Bon Bon mumbled as she finally turned away from her cooking. She blinked her eyes a few times before they focused. “Oh! Lyra. Decorations. Right. Thank you.” She returned to stirring the chocolate.

“You know, I can do that for you, if you want to see them,” Lyra said, hoping the eagerness in her voice wasn’t too evident.

“No, that’s fine.” Bon Bon scooped up the chopped peppers and dumped them into another pot. “I’m sure you did a great job.” She moved a bowl from one side of the countertop to the other, then set a fresh bowl in its place. “I’ll take a look just as soon as the oven heats up enough for me to get some things in.” She went back to stirring for several agonizing chocolate-tasting-free seconds, then looked at Lyra. “Can you pass me the sugar? There should be a new bag of it in the pantry.”

Lyra frowned as she crossed the kitchen to the door in the back. Oh sure, it started with the oven needing to be hot enough, but then the dough would need to finish rising, or the soup would need to be more soupy. At this rate, Lyra wouldn’t get a chance to taste the chocolate until after it was mixed in with the batter, baked, cut into squares, and served on a plate for everypony to enjoy. With the sugar held in her magic, she racked her brain trying to come up with a plan that could both distract Bon Bon long enough and not destroy part of the kitchen in the process. She had just closed the pantry when a subconscious thought pushed its way forward.

“Hey, Bon Bon? How have you still not added sugar to the chocolate? I smelled you start making it, like, an hour ago.”

Bon Bon sighed heavily and turned around. “Don’t remind me. I’ve been so frazzled with getting everything started that I forgot I had already added the sugar to the first batch. It ended up way too sweet and I had to toss it out.”

Her magical hold on the sugar nearly failed as Lyra whipped her head in the direction of the trash can. There, mixed in with eggshells and vegetable peelings, was perhaps the only batch of too-sweet chocolate that Bon Bon had ever made. Lyra couldn’t let this opportunity pass her by. Besides, it was probably, mostly, almost still edible. She only needed to find a way to get at it without making Bon Bon think she was weird. Well, weirder, to say the least. Now, she knew the trash can’s narrow opening would require her to angle her horn downwards in order to slip her head inside, but that would make it difficult to get her muzzle in range of the chocolate without submerging her mane first. However, if she were to—

“Lyra!”

Blinking, Lyra realized that Bon Bon had still been talking to her. She forced her head to turn away from the trash. “Huh?”

“The sugar?” Bon Bon said, wide-eyed, as she nodded upward.

Lyra looked up find the sugar pressed against the ceiling, the paper bag crinkling as it threatened to burst. She gave a startled yell and quickly lowered it to the countertop. “Right, sorry, got distracted.” She chuckled nervously, then changed it into a throat-clearing when Bon Bon didn’t join in.

With a roll of her eyes, Bon Bon turned back to her cooking. “I’m not helping you out of the trash if you get stuck again.”

“What? No, no, no. Nooo. I wasn’t thinking of doing that. I was thinking of... spiders? Yeah, spiders! The living room is full of them. You should check it out.”

“I’ll look at the decorations when I get a chance,” Bon Bon said, sounding regretful. “But for now, I simply don’t have the time. It’s bad enough that the brownies set me back, but I only just started the soup, and the oven’s being finicky again. I need to hurry or I’ll never get the sweet potatoes baking, and don’t even get me started on the banana bread.” She sighed and quietly added, “Why did I ever say I’d make everything?” After shaking her head, she added a cup of sugar to the pot, turned down the heat, and slowly continued stirring.

The wooden spoon moved back and forth in a slow, rhythmic motion. The sugar spiraled outwards, then succumbed to the rich, creamy chocolate. Waves and ripples lightly played along the surface of the delicious pool, calling out to Lyra and asking if she’d like to take a dip. She did. If only she knew how to speak the language of chocolate so she could answer. But, she didn’t. So it kept asking. Over and over.

Lyra could feel a twitch coming on in one eye, the opposite ear, her tail, and a hind leg. She had to come up with a plan to get a taste of the chocolate, but she was so hypnotized by the thick, swirling goodness that she couldn’t think of anything.

“Can I taste the chocolate?” Lyra asked without thinking. If she could have kissed her own lips, she would have.

Bon Bon set down the spoon and smiled sadly. “I’m sorry, Lyra, but I’ve used up the last of the cocoa. I know how it is with you. One taste becomes two becomes four, and soon I won’t have enough for everypony. You’re just going to have to wait until they’re finished.”

Lyra’s heart broke.

“However...”

Lyra hastily glued her heart back together.

“If you absolutely need something sweet, there is the bowl of hard candy in the living room. You can have a piece of that, but only one. We’re going to need the rest for the party.”

A sinking sensation came over Lyra, and she had to lick her suddenly dry lips. “Those, ah... those were for the party?”

“Yes they—wait...” Bon Bon stood still. Too still. Then, she calmly reduced the heat on the stove, turned around face Lyra, and narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean ‘were?’”

Lyra fought the urge to take an involuntary step backwards. Bon Bon was getting upset. Bon Bon was scary when she got upset. First would come the hoof-tapping. Then the head-shaking and disappointed sighs. She might even get upset enough this time that she’d do the worst thing imaginable.

“I—” Lyra squeaked, then took a deep breath. “I might have already eaten more than one of those candies.”

“Lyraaa...” Bon Bon whined and held a hoof to her temple. “We went over this yesterday. Those candies I made are for keeping score in the games tonight. Cherry is five points, grape is three, and lemon is one. Remember?”

“I know, I know. It just didn’t occur to me that those were the candies you talked about.”

“Okay,” Bon Bon said softly.

At first Lyra thought that meant she was off the hook, but then she realized that the closed eyes and deep breathing meant Bon Bon was likely talking to herself.

“Okay. This is still salvageable.” Bon Bon opened her eyes. “How many of the candies did you eat?”

“Um...” Lyra attempted to do the calculation in her head and got hopelessly lost the second time she had to carry the one. “Around a million points worth?” she guessed. Judging by how far Bon Bon’s jaw dropped, that wasn’t the answer she was hoping for.

“All of them? You ate them all?”

“They were sugar-free!”

Bon Bon pressed her hoof against her forehead hard enough that it probably started to hurt. “And that’s supposed to make it all better?” She looked Lyra in the eyes. “Now what are we supposed to do?”

“Make more?” Lyra suggested, then instantly regretted opening her mouth.

Bon Bon stared at Lyra for several highly uncomfortable seconds before saying in a low voice, “I’ll barely have time to finish what I’m already making and you want me to add more on top of it?”

“Okay. Bad idea. Um...” Lyra tapped a hoof to her chin and thought about other small, circular, multi-colored objects. “We could use marbles?”

“No...” Bon Bon shook her head and sighed. “You know why it has to be candy.”

Lyra did know why it had to be candy, but she sensed this was her chance to change the conversation’s direction, so she kept her mouth shut and her expression blank. Bon Bon fidgeted and broke eye contact for a moment. When she looked back, Lyra used her secret weapon: tilting her head slightly to one side.

“It’s because it ties the party’s theme together,” Bon Bon admitted quietly. “And it shows I put some thought into planning it. And...” She looked down and rubbed one foreleg with the other. “...and it’s cute.”

Now that the mood had lightened, Lyra smiled. “Aww, you can be a real softy when you try to be.” She quickly held up a hoof to forestall any argument. “Bon Bon? I’m sorry. I made a mistake, but I’ll make it up to you. The party isn’t for another couple of hours. You keep focusing on the food, and I’ll go buy some more candy.”

Bon Bon smiled too. “Thanks, but that’s easier said than done, considering that tomorrow is Nightmare Night. Most stores have been sold out of candy since last week.”

“Well, I’m sure there must be some left somewhere.”

“Let’s see,” Bon Bon said and hmmed to herself. “I think I remember Sugarcube Corner still having candy when I delivered some truffles a few days ago. Pinkie always has the Cakes stock extra for this time of year. If any place still had some candy left, it would have to be them.”

Lyra gasped. The conversation had been going so well, and then Bon Bon had to go and ruin it by saying something like that. “Sugarcube Corner?” she said weakly, then took a step back and shook her head. “No, no. Noo, no, no.” She slashed her hoof in front of her. “I am not going anywhere near Sugarcube Corner until Nightmare Night is over. Have you seen what Pinkie and her friends did to that place? Have you? They turned it into a haunted house, Bon Bon. A haunted house!”

Bon Bon raised an eyebrow. “Er... yes. I know. It’s been the talk of the town since they started setting it up. Why?”

“Why?” Lyra sniffled and turned down her head. This was perfect. A light tug on the heartstrings, and the sympathy chocolate would come pouring in. “I thought you knew me, Bon Bon. How could you have forgotten about the traumatic foalhood experience I had with a haunted house?”

“Probably because you’ve never told me about it.”

Lyra looked up, confused. “I haven’t? I mean—” She let her lower lip quiver and added a just bit of shakiness to her voice. Thoughts about puppies whimpering in a cardboard box during a rainstorm were enough to get her eyes moistened. “Then I’ll just have to recount for you the horrifying tale of my innocence lost…

“It happened when I was a small filly, still living in Canterlot. Nightmare Night was my favorite time of the year. Not just because of the candy, but because of the thrill that came from being scared. I loved it. The adrenaline. The nervous excitement. This year was special because I was finally old enough that my parents agreed to let me enter my first haunted house.

“The haunted house I chose was brand new that year and was supposed to be the scariest thing ever. It was all set up where an axe-wielding ghost would pop out and chase you from room to room. I screamed. I laughed. I was having the time of my life. That is, until I reached the maze.

“Now, I was a smart filly, and I knew the rules for navigating through mazes. But the ghost? He knew them too and was always one step ahead of me. I’d need to turn right, and he’d force me to go left. I’d try to backtrack, and he’d be waiting. I played right into his hooves, and soon, I was at a dead end.

“I sat with my back pressed up against the wall as the ghost stepped closer and closer. I could see my terrified reflection staring back at me in his gleaming axe. I would have screamed if I hadn’t been so scared. He chuckled darkly, enjoying my fear, and kept walking. Then, when he was right on top of me, the unthinkable happened.” Lyra looked up and met Bon Bon’s eyes. “He sneezed. He sneezed, Bon Bon. Ghosts don’t sneeze.” She closed her eyes and lightly squinted one, sending a single tear rolling down her cheek. “That was the day I found out that ghosts aren't real.”

Bon Bon sighed, but not in the reassuring ‘poor Lyra’ way. “I think most ponies are actually quite relieved when they discover that.”

“Why do we do it?” Lyra asked quickly, hoping to get her sob story back on track. “Why do we make up these fantastical creatures for holidays and then lie to foals about them? It’s always so hard when we learn there’s no Hearth’s Warming Reindeer, or Springtime Marmot—”

“Or the Tooth Fairy,” Bon Bon deadpanned.

“Oh no you don’t!” Lyra stomped a hoof. “We are not having this discussion again. The Tooth Fairy is real, I have photographic proof of her existence, and one day, when I get my hooves on her. She. Will. Pay.”

Bon Bon sighed much more heavily and went to the stove, where she turned the temperature back up. “Lyra... just go to Sugarcube Corner and buy the candy.”

Lyra threw her hooves in the air. “Fine!” She made a show of stomping to the kitchen’s door, keeping one eye on Bon Bon all the way. “I’ll just get over my traumatic foalhood experience and stop letting it control my life!”

“That’s nice,” Bon Bon said as she walked towards the pantry.

Lyra smiled, then turned towards the door, lowered her head, and concentrated. This next part would be iffy. “Maybe while I’m gone, you can do the same and get over your fear of strawberries!” She sniffed as arrogantly as she knew how, then walked into the hallway and quickly shut the door behind her.

“I’m not afraid of strawberries!” Bon Bon shouted to be heard. “I am allergic to them!”

“Details,” Lyra called back, fighting to keep the laughter from her voice. She looked to her side where a wooden spoon covered in chocolate floated along with her. She couldn’t believe that had worked. She thought for sure Bon Bon would have noticed her horn glowing or the spoon zipping across the room.

Holding her hard-earned prize before her, Lyra slowly stuck out her tongue and touched it to the spoon. Instantly, her breath caught in her throat, and a shiver raced through her body. Real tears welled up in her eyes. It tasted even better than she remembered. Reluctantly, she pulled her tongue off the spoon. She would have to savor this victory.

A trip to the hallway cabinet netted Lyra a small pouch of ‘rainy day’ bits. She slipped the pouch’s drawstring over her head and was about to head outside when she heard the telltale squeak of the kitchen door swinging open. Lyra’s body locked up, and she tried her best to not start panicking. It was possible that Bon Bon had only wanted some fresh air.

“Lyra? Did you take my spoon?” came Bon Bon’s voice, followed by the sound of approaching hoofsteps.

Lyra positioned the spoon so that her body blocked it from view, then glanced over her shoulder without really looking at Bon Bon. “S-sorry, can’t talk, um... finding candy!” She scrambled out the front door and shut it before Bon Bon could ask why her horn was glowing.

With pilfered treat in tow, Lyra set off to find a candy store that wasn’t Sugarcube Corner. Quickly. In case Bon Bon wanted this spoon badly enough that she’d give chase.

Chapter Two

Despite Lyra’s best efforts, her trudging pace was getting her closer to Sugarcube Corner. She sighed around the spoon in her mouth and hung her head to watch the cobblestones pass by underhoof. It was unbelievable. She had gone from one end of Ponyville to the other, trying every shop along the way—including that fruit stand that sometimes sold those kinda-sweet health bars—but there just wasn’t any unsold candy left anywhere.

The shopkeepers hadn’t been much help; they had either pointed her to places she had already been or outright laughed in her face. One store had even barricaded their front door and had somepony inside shouting, “We don’t got no more candy, so leave us alone!” Pointing out how the double negative meant that they did have candy only got her a cry of, “Get her, Fifi!” and a guard poodle leaping from the window.

Regrettably, it seemed the only place left to try was Sugarcube Corner.

It wasn’t exactly that Lyra hated haunted houses and the lies that they perpetuated. Really, it was more that every time she saw one of them, she couldn’t help but remember her bad experience. Then she’d end up getting defensive and start making up lame excuses as to why she didn’t want to go inside. However, this time she actually had a good, non-lame excuse: this haunted house had been made by Pinkie and her friends. Not that Lyra had anything against Pinkie; that pony could throw a party like no other and always treated everypony as a friend. The problem was that Pinkie always got a little stranger than normal around this time of year.

Now, Lyra liked Nightmare Night as much as the next pony. Admittedly, she probably liked it a whole lot more than the next pony, but Pinkie Pie, well, Pinkie Pie loved Nightmare Night with a capital ‘L.’ Maybe even a capital ‘O’ too. Every year was an attempt for her to outdo, outscare, and outlaugh the previous. After the visit from Princess Luna last year and the resulting panic Pinkie had caused, the town knew that whatever she did next would have to be big. Real big. As in right past the ‘Don’t you think this might be a little too much?’ big and straight into the ‘No, seriously, this is too much. I’m making sure the fire department is on standby’ big.

How Pinkie had managed to talk the Cakes into converting their home and business into the main attraction for tomorrow night, Lyra would never know.

Black paint covered just about every inch of Sugarcube Corner. Not even fresh-looking paint. It was all faded and peeling, making the building appear decades older than it really was. Gnarled wooden beams replaced the candy cane-shaped ones, and the normal, gingerbread-like roof was now covered in loose shingles with thick tar oozing out from several bare patches. The haphazardly boarded-up windows had an eerie, red glow behind them, with the shadow of somepony—or something—passing by every so often. Curiously enough, another room had been added to the second floor, jutting off of it like some sort of abnormal growth. The new room was held in place by rickety-looking stilts underneath, which couldn’t possibly have been enough to support something of that size, and yet, somehow, they did. The building’s spooky transformation was topped off, quite literally, by a billowing, dark cloud that rumbled ominously with a storm that never broke.

Basically, Pinkie and her friends had put the rest of the town’s decorations to shame.

Perhaps the scariest thing about this haunted house was that Lyra had to admit that it kinda, sorta, maybe looked amazingly cool. Not that she was going to get suckered into going inside, or anything. Just that, she could see why everypony on the street kept gawking at it or talking about what sort of crazy, spooky fun they thought it contained.

After one final sigh for good measure, Lyra took the spoon out of her mouth. The chocolate had long since been licked away, and, unfortunately, the wood hadn’t absorbed any of the flavor. Continuing to suck on the spoon was only going to wear it down more, so she tucked it into her pouch of bits and then picked up her pace.

On the front steps of Sugarcube Corner sat three fillies, each wearing what was likely their Nightmare Night costume. As Lyra got closer, she recognized them as Applejack’s sister, who wore green, scaled-patterned fabric from head to tail, fake fangs, and a long, forked tongue; Rarity’s sister, who looked like she had fallen into a laundry basket this morning and put on every outfit in an attempt to escape; and a purple-maned, orange-coated pegasus filly, who wore button-covered, silvery, box-like objects on her head, torso, and limbs.

Even with how often Lyra saw these three running around town, she couldn’t remember ever hearing their names. She would just have to improvise descriptors.

Rarity’s sister pointed at Lyra, and soon all three of the fillies were on their hooves. They formed a line across the doorway, their bodies crouched low as if they were ready to pounce. The smirks on their faces told Lyra they were probably hoping for a reason to do the pouncing, too.

“Hey, um, you three,” Lyra said with a friendly wave, which relaxed all of them except for the pegasus filly, who frowned instead. “Nice costumes. I especially like the fangs on yours.”

“Fanks,” Applejack’s sister somehow managed to say with her mouth full of plastic.

Lyra smirked inwardly. The plight of too-large plastic fangs was something nearly every pony went through at some stage of their life. She couldn’t resist making a comment. “Yeah. Fangs. Like I said, they’re cool.”

“No.” Applejack’s sister shook her head. “Ah sed fanks! Ah gah fengs cuz Ah’ma smake.”

“You got legs by mistake?” Lyra asked, trying her hardest to keep a straight face.

“Ah sed smnak!”

“You’re fed cake?”

“Snmake!”

“Ohhh!” Lyra nodded in understanding. “A cupcake.”

Applejack’s sister took a deep breath, but before she could shout anything more, the other two fillies burst into a fit of giggles. The snake-filly shut her mouth the best she could around the fangs and glared down at Lyra. Biting her lower lip, Lyra tried—and then failed—not to laugh along with the fillies.

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry.” Lyra waved a hoof back and forth. “But seriously though, I really like your anaconda costume.”

With a huff, Applejack’s sister spat her fangs into an upturned hoof. “I ain’t one of those! I toldja I’ma snake!”

“Er...” Lyra slowly stopped smiling. “Right, sorry.”

The apology at least got Applejack’s sister to put her teeth back in and stop her glaring, but it did nothing to halt the awkward silence that followed. Lyra shuffled uncomfortably. In such a short span of time she had gotten one filly upset at being teased, one filly upset that she didn’t get to attack, and one filly still smiling pleasantly but probably waiting for a reason to become upset.

With how often being around children went bad for Lyra, she couldn’t help but wonder if maybe this was why she never bothered learning any of their names.

“So, a-anyway,” Lyra said once she could no longer stand the silence, “can you three step aside? I’d like to see if the Cakes are in.”

Lyra started walking forward but stopped when the pegasus filly hopped down a step, flared her wings, and puffed up her chest—or at least shifted her boxes around. Honestly, Lyra couldn’t tell if the filly was trying to be intimidating or just had to use the bathroom.

“Halt. Intruder,” the pegasus filly announced in a nasally voice. “Threat. Detected. Engage. Tackle. Defense.”

Before Lyra could raise a hoof or voice a protest, the three fillies had leapt from the steps and raced towards her. Two of them pushed against her chest while the third had gotten behind her to start tugging on her tail. Had the fillies been older or stronger they might have been able to do something other than mildly amuse Lyra. Since it didn’t appear they would stop their assault until their foe was vanquished, Lyra sat down and let them slowly roll her over onto her back.

She waited patiently as the fillies held her down with their forehooves. They chattered on about guard ponies, cutie marks, and other things Lyra really wasn’t paying much attention to. Once she had figured she had given the fillies enough of a celebration, she said, “Alright, you’ve got me. I’ve been tackled. Can I get up now?”

Rarity’s sister’s upside down head appeared before Lyra’s face. “Pinkie said to make sure that nopony at all goes through the front door until she says it’s okay.”

“Right... and did Pinkie also say it was okay for you three to knock over anypony that got close?”

“Yes,” the three fillies answered simultaneously.

Lyra blinked. As much as she would love to stage a mock war and go on a counteroffensive, she was running low on time. She began to get up, easily pushing past the hooves of her three captors, who by now must have realized that she had only been pretending to be defeated.

“Okay, I won’t go in the front door,” Lyra said once she righted herself, quieting the fillies’ complaints. She brushed herself off and made sure her bag of bits hadn’t spilled. “Now, did Pinkie say anything about the back door being off limits?”

The fillies looked between themselves, each likely hoping one of the others knew the answer. When it became apparent that none of them did, they resorted to the young ponies’ version of diplomatic problem solving: nodding towards each other while saying things like, “You go ask,” and, “No, you do it.”

“Alrigh, fahn,” Applejack’s sister finally said as she trotted away from the group. “Ah’ll asfk her.”

Actions taken and crisis averted, the two remaining fillies walked back to the steps and resumed their diligent guard duty by talking quietly to one another. Lyra watched Applejack’s sister disappear around the building’s corner and hoped that the filly would at least remove her fake teeth before attempting to explain the situation.

With nothing left to do but wait, Lyra’s choice lay between potentially upsetting the fillies by talking to them or standing there in silent boredom.

“So...” Lyra said, cautiously inching closer to the fillies. With their attention gained, step one of starting a conversation was complete. Step two—introducing a topic—proved difficult as Lyra had no idea what she could talk about that didn’t risk either provoking another attack or making them cry. She had to say something, though, and soon, because standing there with a nervous grin on her face was probably making her seem creepy. She would just have to let her brain say the first thing it came up with.

“Why are you two wearing your costumes? Did you forget that Nightmare Night isn’t until tomorrow? I remember the time I forgot to—” Using every fiber of her being, Lyra shut her mouth and willed herself to stop speaking.

The pegasus filly sighed irritably. “No... we’re trying to convince Pinkie to let us help with the haunted house,” she grumbled. “It’s not working.”

“We even made our costumes extra, extra good this year,” Rarity’s sister added.

‘Extra good’ wasn’t the phrase Lyra would have used to describe Rarity’s sister’s costume. The filly wore both a tiara and a yellow sweatband on her head. Wrapped around her neck was a thick scarf in a red and black checkered pattern. Her light-purple dress matched her quite well, except for how the lower half was tucked into a pair of blue jeans. Each of her hoofs were stuffed in a different style slipper: white bunny, pink pig, yellow duck, and blue whale. Finally, tied to the tip of her tail was a large, red bow.

Extra something, for sure. What that something could be was anypony’s guess.

“Okay,” Lyra said, “snake and robot I get, but what are you supposed to be?”

Rarity’s sister’s face lit up. “I’m a fashion disaster! Rarity said my costume was the most terrifying thing she’s ever laid eyes on.”

Lyra had to smile at the filly’s excitement. “Yeah. I’ll admit it is pretty scary to see somepony dressed up like that.”

Beaming widely, Rarity’s sister looked at her friend with what could only be described as an ‘I told you so’ expression. The pegasus filly countered by rolling her eyes and stating, “She’s just saying that to be nice.”

Thankfully, before the impending ‘nuh uhs’ and ‘ya huhs’ could start, a voice shouted, “Hi, Lyra!”

Everpony turned to see Pinkie waving to them as she finished rounding the side of Sugarcube Corner. Shortly after, Applejack’s sister appeared, followed by Twilight, who—judging by how close she came to walking into the wall—was paying more attention to sorting the notepads and clipboards sticking out of her saddlebags than anything else.

“Apple Bloom was saying that you wanted formaldehyde to sweeten your crepes?” Pinkie said as she got close. She smiled as if that was the most normal request in the world and not a potentially fatal mistake. Although, if anypony knew some secret way to change a toxic, foul-smelling gas into a delicious artificial sweetener, it would have to be Pinkie.

Apple Bloom—Lyra would have to remember that name—went wide-eyed and quickly looked up at Pinkie. She sputtered as she tried to say something, then growled and spat her fake teeth on the ground. “No! I said she wanted to go inside to speak with the Cakes.” She shook her head as she walked back to sit with her friends and muttered, “I shoulda listened to Granny and gone as a lion.”

“Ohhh.” Pinkie closed her eyes and nodded sagely. “That makes a whole lot more sense.”

“Yeah, so, anyway,” Lyra said. “Since you’re here, Pinkie, maybe you can help me. Does Sugarcube Corner—and I know this is last minute, should have thought about this sooner, what are you crazy, cutting it close, ha ha ha, but... does Sugarcube Corner have any candy left for sale? And I do mean any candy. I’ll even settle for those corn things nopony likes.”

Pinkie giggled. “You must’ve been asking this a lot lately. Sorry. We fought a long, hard battle, but even we sold out yesterday.”

“Seriously?” Lyra threw her head back and groaned. “Great. At the rate I’m going, either I’ll never find candy or I’m going to be late getting back. Or both! Bon Bon is going to give me another one of her lectures for sure.”

The lecture would probably be about ‘asking permission first’ or ‘developing listening skills’ or ‘proper eating habits.’ Bon Bon might even find a way to combine all three topics into one super lecture. Lyra shuddered at that thought. Still, the day wasn’t over yet. It seemed like the only option left was to go door-to-door and hope somepony would be willing to part with their candy for a price that didn’t cost her a horn and a leg.

“Buuuut...”

Lyra dropped her head to look at Pinkie.

“I would be willing to part with some of my emergency candy supply, if you agree to do a teensy, little something of a favor for me.”

“Really?” Lyra couldn’t believe her luck. Finally, a shining, pink beacon of hope had appeared before her. “That’s great! What do you need? A special order of Bon Bon’s signature Bon Bons? Private music lessons? I suppose I cou—” Her excitement faded as she remembered she was talking to Pinkie. “What kind of something?”

“Oh, It’s really, really simple. Shouldn’t take you long at all,” Pinkie said, waving a hoof nonchalantly. “You see, there exists a place in Equestria where ponies do not go. A spooky place so full of dreadfulness, hopelessness, and evilness-ess that only the bravest or most foolish of ponies would even think about thinking about it. A place of terror. A place of horrors. A place of inadequate lighting. Do you know of this place? Have you seen the shadows of it in your nightmares?”

Lyra had a feeling she knew what Pinkie was asking. She gulped. “Y-you mean—”

“Yes!” Pinkie shouted as she reared up on her hind-legs and threw her front hooves in the air. “Steel your courage, Lyra, for the task I set before you is to enter my haunted house!” She remained standing with her eyes closed and a grin on her face. After a few seconds, her grin faltered slightly. She opened one eye and looked up at the storm cloud. “Oh yeah.” She dropped back down to all fours. “It only booms thunder when Rainbow Dash is here to control it. Whoopsie.”

Even though the cloud had missed its dramatic cue, Lyra still felt like she had been struck by lightning. “Let me get this straight,” she said slowly, dreading to say the words out loud. “You want me... to en—”

“Enter the haunted house?” Twilight said as she looked up from a clipboard. A smile quickly spread across her face. “Yes. Enter the haunted house! Pinkie, that’s perfect. With the second-floor decorations done ahead of schedule, we can move up the preliminary systems testing. Let me get out my fear-o-meter.”

“Your what?” Lyra asked. Everything was suddenly happening way too fast for her.

“Fear-o-meter. It’s a device to measure fear,” Twilight said matter-of-factly, then glanced over her shoulder and started levitating various papers and books out of her bags. “I know I put it in here somewhere...”

Lyra grimaced. When she had told Bon Bon that she’d face her traumatic experience today, she’d meant it as a sarcastic joke. She wouldn’t panic. Not yet, at least. She just had to remain calm, stall for time, and try to cut a different deal because she really didn’t want to do this.

“Pinkie,” Lyra said as calmly as she could, “are you sure there’s n—”

“I’ll do it!” Apple-something-flower-related shouted and dashed next to Pinkie. Her two friends were quick behind her.

“No. Pick me!”

“I want to be a test pony!”

“You don’t even need to give me candy!”

Lyra’s mouth dropped. The options to remain calm and stall for time had just flown out the window. These pint-sized, wannabe haunted house helpers were about to ruin her chance at free candy before she could even decide if she wanted to take that chance. “Now hold on. Don’t you—”

“Sorry, girls,” Pinkie said with a raised hoof, halting all complaints. “I can’t let any of you inside until we’re absolutely, positively sure that the fear levels are safe. Why, the first room alone is rated a solid four on the ‘Pinkie Pie Scale-O-Scariness.’”

“A four? That’s all?” the pegasus filly said, standing in her ‘I might have to go to the bathroom’ pose. “I can handle that by myself.”

Pinkie blinked and cocked her head to the side. “Really? Don’t you know that the Scale-O-Scariness only goes up to a three?”

Slowly, the pegasus filly’s wings folded back down to her box. “Oh,” she said and looked to her friends, who were doing their best not to make eye contact. Apparently, if the pegasus filly wanted to go off to her uncertain doom alone, that was her choice.

Pinkie held a hoof to her chin and twisted her lips in thought. “Hmm... I suppose I could let an unsupervised filly wander around an untested haunted house filled with horrors beyond all reason.”

The pegasus filly’s ears drooped further and she appeared to be subconsciously trying to withdraw into her boxes. Then, in a true display of the power of friendship—and probably a little bit of the power of feeling guilty—Snake Filly and Fashion Disaster faced each other, nodded once, then moved to stand closer to their pale pegasus pal.

Upon seeing such a touching gesture, Lyra knew what she had to do. As much as it pained her to have to agree to this, she couldn’t let a haunted house potentially ruin Nightmare Night for one so young and full of life. She stepped forward, met Pinkie’s eyes, took a deep breath, and then didn’t say anything because Pinkie winked at her.

“Gee,” Pinkie said with a frown as she dragged a hoof along the street. “And here I was really hoping I could get all three of you to go on a secret mission for me.”

“I’ll go!” the pegasus filly shouted. She seemed to realize how much that outburst had dropped her bravado level and quickly glanced to her smirking friends. “I-I mean... I suppose I could go. If you really need me.”

Pinkie nodded, then twisted her neck so she could root around in her own mane. She mumbled softly to herself as she searched for whatever it was she was keeping in there. After a few seconds, she gave an “Aha,” and pulled out a pink card with a picture of a blue balloon on it. She craned her head back and held the card high for all to see. The late afternoon sun shone upon it, reflecting back the light in a way that made the card itself seem to glow. A hush came over everypony present, as the card was gently lowered towards the pegasus filly. At first eager, the filly reached out with her mouth, but then hesitated as if she had sensed the weight of responsibility her action would entail—or, more likely, because she didn’t want to put something that had come from Pinkie’s mane in her mouth. Regardless of whatever was going through the young pony’s mind, she decided to bite onto the card, thus accepting the mission.

With the sacred relic safely passed from mare to filly, Pinkie spoke in a hushed voice: friendly, yet commanding. “Take this to Carousel Boutique and find Rarity. Tell her it’s a Code Three. She’ll know what to do. Be brave, be swift, and remember, above all else...” She leaned in even closer to the fillies. “Be sneaky. You can’t let anypony know you’re secretly helping with the haunted house or they might try to use you to get in early.”

The effect of Pinkie’s words slowly washed over the trio. First came the grins, playing across their faces as they looked between each other with their eyes growing wider. Then came the giddiness, bubbling up in a fit of giggles and whispered excitement. Next, the three attempted to shush each other since they were being loud enough to let everypony in earshot know something was up. Finally, once they had quieted down and resumed normal breathing patterns, more excited giggles erupted.

With a chorused shout of, “Thanks, Pinkie!” the secret agents darted away. They eventually remembered the stealth aspect of their mission and proceeded to halt in the middle of the street, drop to their bellies, and crawl to the nearest building. Once there, they pressed themselves up against the wall and shuffled slowly along it.

Practically everypony walking down the street noticed the all-too-obvious fillies and watched them with expressions ranging from amusement to confusion. Still, it was doubtful any of the other ponies realized the fillies actually were on a secret mission, so in a way, they were succeeding by failing.

“Aww,” Pinkie cooed, drawing Lyra’s attention back to her. “They’re so excited they get to help out. Even if it is only getting some more black paint.” She suddenly frowned. “Wait... was paint a Code Three or a Code Four?” She shrugged and went back to smiling. “Hmm. Either I’ll get a pail of paint or a box of kazoos, but either way, the night will be fun!”

“Yeah, fun.” Lyra dropped her gaze to the cobblestones and scuffed a hoof against them. Now that she was back to being the only choice, the decision to enter or not seemed much heavier. There was only one thing she could think of to say that might get Pinkie to accept some other favor. It was a long-shot, but she had to try. “Listen, Pinkie. Do you think—”

“Found it!” came the muffled voice of Twilight.

Lyra groaned and looked past Pinkie to the neatly sorted piles of clipboards, papers, pens, and inks that circled both Twilight and her completely empty saddle-bag. Twilight had just pulled her head out of one of the pouches and held before her with her magic some sort of circular, purple, cloth band that must have been her terror-ma-thingy. All the neat piles glowed with magic and rapidly repacked themselves into her bag, which then levitated to land upon her back.

“Here you go,” Twilight said as she presented the band to Lyra. “One fear-o-meter. I don’t know why I thought packing it first was a good idea.” She nodded towards Lyra and moved the questionable object closer. “Go ahead. Just place it around your forehead.”

The glow around the fear-o-meter changed from magenta to gold as Lyra gripped it with her magic. While she was normally hesitant to put anything with the word ‘fear’ in its description on her head, it looked like there really was going to be no getting out of this. She stretched out the cloth and easily slipped it on, positioning it to wrap around her head just under her horn and ears. She released her magic and felt the fabric fit snugly, but not tightly, against her skin. The only problem was that the front came down far enough to be annoyingly close to her eyes.

“So, it’s some sort of headband?” Lyra asked as she attempted to adjust it upwards with her hoof.

Twilight’s jaw dropped. She fumbled for words, likely in an attempt to explain how Lyra had just reduced what was probably a marvel of magical engineering down to a common piece of clothing. She squeaked one more word, then deflated with a sigh.

“Yes,” she admitted. “Yes. It’s a headband. But it’s been enchanted with an empathic-link that will let me know the general location of the wearer as well as the current fear or fear-like emotion they may be experiencing.” Her horn glowed as she closed her eyes and pointed a hoof at Lyra. “Move somewhere. I’ll show you.”

Lyra did as she was told and started off by trotting around randomly. When this proved easy for Twilight’s hoof to follow, Lyra decided to mix it up by circling around Pinkie, stepping lightly to not make noise, walking backwards, and even stomping loudly in place while slowly getting quieter so it seemed like she was leaving. Through it all, Twilight kept her hoof pointed directly at Lyra.

Honestly, having somepony so easily able to track her every movement like that was kind of creepy.

“Oh!” Twilight opened her eyes. “I’m sensing that you’re feeling slightly creeped-out... and now that feeling is getting stronger. Am I right?”

“Y-yeah.”

“Great!” Twilight stopped channeling her spell and clapped her front hooves together. “Oh, before I forget...” She levitated out a clipboard whose metal clip must have been strained nearly to the point of breaking from the ridiculous amount of papers it held. “I took the liberty of compiling a list of all the common, uncommon, and theoretically possible ailments—physical and psychological—that may result from both short and prolonged exposures to fear. They’re sorted by likeliness and severity. You probably don’t have to worry about anything past the first five pages, but you may want to look everything over, just in case you begin to experience any of the more serious symptoms.”

After reluctantly accepting the list, Lyra grinned weakly at Twilight, then stared blankly at the document. It was filled with words. Many words. Probably more words than the last book she had read. However, a few of the words were underlined, and that gave Lyra hope. She called to mind the ancient proverb that had helped her so much in school: when in doubt, skim the parts that look important.

“Chattering teeth, sweaty fetlocks, twitchy cheeks...” Lyra read quietly. Seeing nothing but common, boring things, she flipped forward a couple pages. “...jelly spine, wilted tail, sideways knees, unexpected loss of bladder control. Ew.” She got a hoof under a good portion of the stack and pried it back to take a peek at some of the latter entries. “Irrational phobia of pea soup, spinning moral compass, prolonged wilted tail... randomized parted-mane syndrome?” She dropped the pages and stared flatly at Twilight, who must have been playing some kind of weird, smart-pony joke on her. “Is that even a real thing?”

Twilight nodded firmly. “Oh, yes. There have been more than a dozen reported cases of ponies whose manes would randomly change which side they were parted on several times daily. I’ve read that it makes wearing hair accessories quite problematic.”

Lyra rolled her eyes and passed the clipboard back to Twilight. “No offense, but I don’t think anything in your haunted house could be scary enough to cause that to happen.”

“Maybe not.” Twilight shrugged and returned her notes to her bag. “But it never hurts to be prepared. Thanks again for agreeing to help us, though. The data I get from this will be invaluable.”

Lyra hadn’t agreed to help, but she didn’t bother trying to correct Twilight. So far, she’d been interrupted every time she had tried to get a word in edgewise. It seemed that fate had decreed that Lyra would enter a haunted house today whether she wanted to or not.

Fate was a jerk sometimes.

“Now, hold on just an itsy, bitsy minute, Twilight,” Pinkie said. She smiled and trotted up next to Twilight. “Lyra hasn’t actually accepted my offer, yet.”

Twilight’s eyes went wide. “Oh my gosh!” She took a quick step forward, then hesitated and stepped back while shaking her head. “I am so, so sorry. I didn’t mean to be pushy. You don’t have to help if you don’t want to. We can find somepony else. Although...” A smile slowly tugged at the corners of her frown. “If you do want to help, that’s great too. But, only if you really want to.”

Lyra shot a friendly smile to Twilight, letting her know all was forgiven. Now that she actually had a choice, she was going to take the time to make sure it was the right one. Letting her gaze wash over the chipped and peeling paint of Sugarcube Corner’s front door, Lyra thought.

To go inside, or not to go inside. It seemed a simple problem, but there was much to consider. On the one hoof, she could accept Pinkie’s offer and enter the second haunted house of her life. She’d be guaranteed free candy, but at what cost? Already, memories of that day so long ago were replaying in her mind; memories of having terrified fun one minute and then crying her eyes out the next. That first haunted house had almost ruined Nightmare Night for her forever. A second exposure might be enough to turn her into a grump. She’d spend tomorrow night sitting on the front porch, passing out dental floss instead of candy. That thought was horrible enough to make her shiver.

On the other hoof, she could always try her luck someplace else. The party was still about an hour away. It was possible that she could find enough ponies willing to sell portions of their candy. It was also possible a bag full of most delicious sweets in the world could fall off the back of a pegasus delivery cart and land in front of her. Lyra sighed. Just because something was possible, didn’t mean it was going to happen. She still checked the sky, just in case.

It really was a simple choice then, once she boiled it down to the end results. Did she for sure get the candy here, thereby saving the day and making Bon Bon happy? Or did she go somewhere else, likely fail, and return home in shame to an upset Bon Bon?

Lyra nodded to herself. “I accept. I’ll help you test o—” She then found herself being squeezed to the point of being unable to breathe.

“Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, Lyra!” Pinkie squealed. “I’ll go get my costume. I can’t wait to see you at the end! I’ll have a ginormous bowl of candy waiting for you. You’ll have to tell me about each and every single scary thing you see! And each and every single scary thing you don’t see! And...”

Pinkie kept rapidly spouting out other things, but Lyra found herself paying more attention to all the twinkling stars that had come out to play. Besides, all the noise from that pesky, roaring ocean made it too difficult to understand anything. Which was odd, since Ponyville didn’t even have an ocean.

Then, suddenly, the constriction stopped.

As Lyra greedily sucked in lungfuls of sweet, life-giving air, the pinkish blur mumbled something that sounded like an apology, then vanished. Shortly after, the front door of Sugarcube Corner creaked opened and slammed shut. Lyra held a hoof to her head as her vision slowly returned to its normal, non-spinning state.

“Sorry,” Twilight said. “Pinkie has put a lot of effort into this, and I think she got a little too excited about finally getting to show it off.”

“I’ll say.” Lyra felt across her chest but stopped when she realized she had no idea how to check for broken ribs. Nothing hurt too badly, so she would probably survive. “So, all I need to do is reach the end?”

“Yes, the rooms flow from one to the next, and there are signs up just in case. Take your time, and try to look at everything in each room before you move on, though. That will provide the data I need to adjust the surprises to be the exact level of scariness that’s still considered fun.”

Lyra groaned. She had hoped she could get away with charging through each room as fast as her hooves could carry her. Also as fast as the internal layout allowed. And the furniture. Actually, now that she thought about it, it probably wasn’t a very smart plan to run around blindly in a poorly lit building that was filled to the brim with who-knows-what type of scary obstacles. It looked like she’d have to do this the normal way.

The first few steps towards Sugarcube Corner’s front door were easy enough. The next few made Lyra wonder if she had somehow put on a set of lead horseshoes. She couldn’t give up though. She had given her word and was determined to see it through. She would to do this. For herself. For Bon Bon. For candy.

Through sheer willpower and the physics of forward momentum, Lyra finally reached the steps leading up to the doorway. She lifted a hoof, then paused. The steps appeared warped and cracked enough that she was sure any added weight would cause them to crumble into mulch. However, the fillies from before had been sitting here. Unless they were as light as feathers—and Lyra had hoofprints on her chest that proved that they weren’t—the aged effect of the wood had to either be an illusion or a well-crafted facsimile. She lowered her hoof and was instantly disappointed. Sure, the step may have looked old, but it didn’t even squeak. She’d have to include this oversight in her report to Pinkie.

With a smile, Lyra hurried up the last step and stood before the door. She had made it. This was going be easy, and maybe even a tiny, almost-zero-but-still-a-positive-number amount of fun. She was about to turn the handle with her magic when a loud click sounded from it. Lyra then knew why the steps had been so quiet; the door had already consumed their noise.

The groan coming from the door’s hinges was a primal thing. Deep, reverberating, ancient. It spoke of the folly that would be committed by any who dared to trespass upon these hallowed grounds. Lyra could swear she felt her back teeth vibrating. There was no way anything natural could make this noise. It had to be a spell. A quick glance towards Twilight revealed that while her horn may have been lit up, her attention was on the notepad she was feverishly writing on. She also had one hoof pointed directly at Lyra.

Stupid fear-o-meter.

As the door slowly swung inwards, it seemed to sink into a pitch-black pool. Lyra stared into the curtain of darkness hanging from the doorway and kept telling herself it was only a spell to block light and that there wasn't anything on the other side staring back.

With the gateway into the void fully opened, the groan didn’t end so much as it simply ceased to exist. The silence it left behind seemed unreal, like the sound had always been a part of life and just now was the first time in the history of everything that it had stopped. Lyra panted heavily, feeling as exhausted as the few times she had joined Bon Bon at the gym. She gazed wearily out at the marketplace. Some ponies still stood stunned, while others peaked out from their hiding places. Then, the cheering started.

Lyra shook her head and faced the darkness on the other side of the door. She wasn’t about to let some magical, show-offy illusions unnerve her. She had candy to collect. All she had to do was get her dumb legs to listen to her and walk forward.

A breath of frigid air drifted out of the inky void, washing over Lyra’s head and sending a chill down her spine. She was certain she had just heard something on the other side whisper her name.

The trot down the steps and back towards Twilight was calm, peaceful, and in no way terror-inducing. Exactly how Lyra normally liked to spend her day.

Twilight looked up from her notes as Lyra approached. “Something the matter?”

A few ponies were still looking her way, so Lyra tried to come up with something that sounded like a plausible reason for her coming back that didn’t make her sound like a big chicken. “No, no... everything's fine. I just wanted you to... um...” Her brain failed at coming up with a non-lame excuse. “Hold onto my bag of bits for me?”

“Of course.” Twilight set down her notes and smiled. “You know, we were actually planning to offer to hold onto bags of candy tomorrow night. Just in case of accidental spillage.”

Lyra halted with her bag half-way off. “What? Nooo...” She shook her head and smirked as she finished slipping the drawstring over her head. “I’m not asking you to hold onto it because I think I’m going to get so scared I’ll starting running around willy-nilly, crashing into things and spilling my bits everywhere, which I’ll then ignore since, in my head, I’ll be fleeing for my life from imagined horrors beyond anything an ordinary mind might conceive.” She chuckled at such a ridiculous notion. Somehow, she didn’t think Twilight was buying it, so she cleared her throat and tried to put on what she hoped was a stern expression. “The reason I’m asking you to hold onto it is because I’ve been carrying it for a long time and my neck is getting sore. That, and I’m worried the extra weight of the headband combined with my bag would be enough to give me a muscle cramp.” When Twilight only stared at her, Lyra passed over the bag and added, “Safety first.”

Twilight blinked as if just realizing where she was. “R-right. Yeah. Safety first.” She took hold of the bag, stared at the wooden handle coming out of it, then glanced back up at Lyra.

“It’s a long story. Actually... no, it’s a short story. It’s a spoon I stole from Bon Bon, it was covered in chocolate, I licked it clean, and I needed somewhere to store it.”

Since she had finished completely embarrassing herself and Twilight was at a loss for words, Lyra trotted back to the door, keeping her head down the whole way. At least most of the onlookers had left to carry on with their business. She edged up to the wall of darkness, still unable to see anything beyond it. With a final gulp, she closed her eyes and crossed the threshold.

She waited, expecting to feel a rush of icy air that would freeze her bones, or for the floor to give way and drop her into a never-ending pit, or for something to grab her and slowly sink its fangs into her neck. Instead, walking through this doorway had been about as exciting as walking through any other doorway. She opened one eye.

Before her was a black-painted, plywood wall that featured a red arrow pointing to the right and a sign that read, “Welcome to the buffet. Please, help yourself. No cutting in line!” She opened her other eye. This was not what she was expecting to see. In fact, she was surprised she could see at all. Sure, the few firefly-lanterns hanging along the walls didn’t provided as much light as she’d like, but it wasn’t anything like the pitch blackness she had been staring into moments ago. She chuckled to herself. It really had been yet another magic trick. She turned around and waved at Twilight, who wouldn’t even be able to see her through the illusion.

Twilight waved back. “Goodbye, Lyra.”

The door slammed shut with an echoing boom.

As the noise died away, Lyra remained staring straight ahead, her foreleg still hanging in mid-wave. She knew that she wasn’t trapped. She knew that what Twilight had said had only been an attempt to frighten her. She knew that she could easily turn the handle, open the door, and step back out into the light. She knew all this for a fact. What she didn’t know was why, despite there being absolutely nothing to be afraid of, one of her cheeks had begun to twitch.

She forced her hoof to the floor and took deep breaths while attempting to will her tension away. She wasn’t scared. The stress of the day must have finally gotten to her. That was all.

When her heart rate subsided, Lyra backed away from the door. She then shook her head and set off down the makeshift hallway. Standing here wasn’t getting her any closer to her goal. She apparently had a buffet to visit.

Chapter Three

Figuring out the purpose of the plywood walls that wrapped around Sugarcube Corner’s interior had been easy enough. After all, it wasn't every day that Lyra found something that existed for the sole purpose of being annoying. True, she was being overly dramatic, and the real reason they had been built was to force her to enter the storefront from the rear—for some, as yet, unknown reason. The part that was getting on her nerves, however, was how close the fake wall on her left ended up getting to the real wall on her right. The pathway had already been narrow enough that a group of ponies would have had to walk single file, but after the first corner, it shrank even further to be nearly touching her sides. Children would have probably had a slightly better time, but Lyra didn’t think it would even be possible for an adult to turn around at this point—not without having to rear up and do some weird shuffling maneuvers on their hind legs, at any rate. Although, not being able to easily chicken out was probably another reason the walls had been placed like this.

To make matters worse, the flickering lights of the firefly lanterns hanging above barely provided enough light to walk by without stumbling. At least the glass display cases that normally contained the day’s candy and baked goods were missing from the walls. Otherwise, she would probably have tripped and broken something by now. At any rate, all she could do was press on and try to stop thinking about how the walls were literally closing in around her.

Ahead, Lyra could see a pale light cast through a large break along the left side of the hallway. Knowing that anything could be waiting for her, she cautiously stepped forward and stuck her head past the opening, ready to quickly pull back if needed, and tried to assess the situation in as little time as possible. Like she had thought, she was now at the rear of the storefront, close to where the cash register would normally have been, had that area not been sectioned off by a black curtain. The next thing she noticed was that she wasn’t the only pony currently attending the buffet. She was, however, the only living pony.

Skeletons were everywhere. Silent, unmoving, pony skeletons.

They mostly sat in groups of two or three at the half dozen or so circular tables that filled the room’s center. Some were slumped forward in their seats or hanging off the backs, while others had fallen from their chairs and hadn’t remained intact after their collision with the floor.

Past the seating, along the far wall, Lyra could see where the buffet table had been set up. Three skeletons stood in line at the beginning of it. Well, actually, only one was technically standing—likely because it had its head tilted forward and stuck in a bowl full of something. The remaining two skeletons must have gotten tired of waiting for their turn and had decided to take a nap on the floor.

Stepping out a little further, Lyra looked to her left down the other side of the plywood wall and quickly took notice of the top hat-wearing, unicorn skeleton inches away from her face.

Lyra gasped and ducked back so that she had only one eye peering past the opening. She inspected the stationary skeleton for a moment. It sat on the floor and had one foreleg extended out, holding a plain, brown jacket. Next to the skeleton was a coat rack with a few other garments hanging from it. Lyra gazed into the skeleton’s empty eye sockets, then relaxed and released her nervousness in a short laugh.

She calmly trotted into the room and made her way towards the center. To the untrained eye, this scene may have looked like a ridiculously extreme case of food poisoning that had been brought about by the improper handling of buffet items. However, Lyra could tell it was all fake, with the room’s occupants being the biggest giveaway.

First of all, the skeletons’ rib cages were all wrong. Ponies were supposed to have way more than three ribs. Not to mention that the bones were so comically oversized that internal organs would have had trouble fitting into their chests.

Secondly, whoever had designed these skeletal props had neglected to check which direction a unicorn’s horn spiraled. Frankly, Lyra felt a little offended at such an obvious oversight. The pegasus wings also seemed a little off, though she wasn’t exactly certain why. Perhaps they only looked weird because of their missing feathers.

And then lastly, while biology may not have been her best subject, Lyra was still fairly certain that real bones were not made from plastic.

Now that she had exposed all the embarrassing secrets of the fake skeletons, Lyra decided it was time to check out what they had been eating. She passed from table to table, finding plates with a wilted flower salad and some sort of green, bread-like clump, as well as a few bowls that appeared to be full of dirt.

Lyra chuckled to herself. “Guess I know what not to eat if I want to live.” Her smiled faded as she caught the faint scent of dead flowers. “Er, everything, actually. Yuck.”

As she made her way out of the dining area, Lyra took note of the rest of the room. While Sugarcube Corner’s inside may not have gotten the same paint treatment as the outside, the dim lighting did help mute the normally vibrant colors. There were also several posters hanging crookedly along the walls, each advertising food products such as ‘eyes scream’ or ‘haunted hay smoothies.’ It was actually quite strange how different the room seemed without its regular baked good stands, display cases, or even the sales counter. She looked towards the curtained off area. With the rear exit towards the kitchen out of bounds, that left the front set of stairs as the only way to move further on into the haunted house.

A sign attached to the curtains caught Lyra’s attention and forced her to stop. It read, “Staff only beyond this point. All others will be flugeled.” She stared at the cryptic message for a moment. The last word sounded familiar, though she couldn’t put her hoof on where she would have heard it before. She supposed she could always open the curtains and find out what it meant. However, knowing Pinkie, it probably meant she’d get a loud, obnoxious noise blasted into her ear.

Deciding she needed to overcome her curiosity before it led to a ruptured eardrum, she took her eyes off the sign. She’d just have to ask about it later. As she turned her head towards the buffet line, she caught sight of some things hanging in the shadows above. They looked like rubber bats or spiders—possibly even both. The room wasn’t bright enough to see clearly, but she thought she could make out the half-circle smiles on each of their faces.

Lyra shook her head and continued walking. All in all, she gave the room a B+. While she had to applaud the attempt at a spooky atmosphere, the room’s decor was no scarier than the last haunted house she was in. Which, admittedly, had actually scared her quite a lot. She mentally shrugged. She had probably just been an easy-to-scare filly. Nothing at all like how she was now.

As she arrived at the buffet table, Lyra took her place in line behind the two tired skeletons. She grinned. Whatever was in that bowl ahead must have been good. After all, the skeleton with its head stuck still hadn’t moved. Silliness aside, waiting for the line to clear wasn’t an option.

“Hey, guys,” Lyra said, “I know the sign back there said no cutting, but you don’t care if I go ahead, right?”

The skeletons gave Lyra their silent consent.

“Thanks! You’re all awesome.” Grinning harder, Lyra took her place at the front of the line next to the dunked skeleton. “So, buddy, what’s in there that’s so—”

As soon as Lyra was able to see inside the bowl, her blood froze. She could feel her eyes widening and a scream building in her throat. Her labored breathing increased as she tried and failed to comprehend the terrible sight before her. Thankfully, before her sanity could fall any further into madness, the signal to flee that her brain was so desperately sending reached her legs. She flung herself away from the table and landed on her side with a thud. Even with her eyes shut, the memory of what she had seen was still fresh enough that equal parts horror and nausea washed over her, causing her stomach to roll. She didn’t trust trying to move, so instead she focused on taking deep, calming breaths. In and out. In and out. Over and over.

Lyra swallowed hard. “Of all the puddings in all the bowls in all the world,” she whispered once she was sure she wasn’t about to lose her lunch, “why did tapioca have to be in this one?”

She shuddered. Even saying the name of that ‘substance that didn’t deserve to be called a pudding’ filled her with disgust. The worst part was that Bon Bon actually ate that stuff and always made it a point to tease Lyra about it, saying how if she would only just try it, she would find that she liked it. Lyra laughed weakly as she tucked in her legs and brought herself upright. Never. Not in a million years.

She struggled briefly before somehow finding the strength to rise on her unsteady hooves. As she shuffled onward, using the table for support, she made sure to keep her head turned away from the bowl and the horrible non-food it contained. Even the wilted salad she was passing by looked more appetizing at the moment.

Lyra swallowed again and released a sigh. “Alright. What else does this awful buffet have to offer?” She glanced at the next bowl and snorted a laugh. “Scrambled brains?” she read from the label, a smile forcing its way to her lips. “More like cold spaghetti. And next to it, we have some nice, plump hearts—no, wait! Tomatoes.”

Lyra shook her head and stopped leaning against the table. The sight of familiar ‘spooky’ foods helped her feel a bit better. She hurried on to the next.

“Here we have some delicious moldy, bone-meal rolls. But watch out! If the rest of the room is anything to go by, these probably contain plastic splinters. Oh! Succulent, candied hooves. Yum. Quite a delicacy, and it’s so hard to find marshmallows that big this time of year.”

Unable to resist, Lyra switched to an exaggerated haughty voice as she continued forward. “My, my, my... what have we here? A pile of raisins, prunes, and dates that kind of don’t look anything at all like bugs? Our host truly has gone all out. Not at all like that dreadful party Lord Silky Shirt held last week. Why, he neglected to even serve mud soup, which I see we have right here. And last, but certainly not least, for dessert we have an apple pie that’s actually made from...”

Lyra blinked, then slowly shut her mouth. She leaned forward and inhaled deeply. She knew this scent. Everypony in Ponyville did.

A rich, buttery crust? Check. A sharp tartness that still managed perfectly to blend the sweet with the tangy? Check. Apples so fresh that they could only have come from the recent fall harvest at Sweet Apple Acres? Lyra licked her lips before the drool could leak out.

“It really is an apple pie,” she said, almost reverently.

The pie sat by its lonesome at the edge of the table, cruelly cast aside without even a label to call its own. She knew this amazing treat couldn’t have been part of the haunted house. Somepony from earlier must have brought it in and forgot about it. Lyra looked over one shoulder and then the other, suddenly worried that the owner might have realized their mistake and had just now returned to reclaim their meal. However, except for the skeletons—who historically didn’t even eat pie due to their lack of a digestive system—she was alone.

“Well,” Lyra said as she slid in a little closer, “the sign did say to help yourself, and I suppose just a single slice wouldn’t spoil my appetite for dinner too much.”

She looked along the table but couldn’t find any knives or plates—or at least none that she trusted to use. Lyra grinned, then lifted the pie with her magic, bringing it ever closer to its final destination. She would just have to do this the old-fashioned way. With the pie slowly inching its way forward, she opened her mouth wide and shut her eyes in anticipation. She would go slow and enjoy every moment of this. A small pang of regret came over her as she realized a single bite wouldn’t be enough. Not from a fresh Sweet Apple Acres apple pie. Bon Bon would understand. Hopefully.

With the moment of no return upon her, Lyra quickly bit down into the thick, tantalizing, flaky, lovingly crafted, harder-to-bite-through-than-expected, possibly-contains-small-rocks, might-actually-be-a-rock-itself, completely impenetrable crust.

“Ow...” Lyra winced as she pulled her mouth from the offending baked good, leaving behind a thin indentation. She ran her tongue along her teeth to make sure she hadn’t knocked any loose. “Maybe it’s not as fresh as I thought.”

She balanced the pie on one hoof and drew it in closer for inspection. It looked normal enough and weighed about what she expected. Perhaps she had just started from the wrong end? However, before she could decide on a new angle of attack, the pie began to wobble back and forth. Lyra fell back on her haunches and used both forelegs to get a better grip on the pie, which was now jerking away from her as if it were trying to flee.

Up until now, Lyra had been pretty sure about where desserts landed on the food chain: usually in her stomach. But sitting here, clutching a struggling pie to her chest, she couldn’t help but think that maybe it might actually be time to reconsider improving her diet. Eventually.

Finally, with a ferocity usually reserved for small, furry critters that sit calmly in somepony's forelegs until they decide they no longer wish to be held, the pie flew up and struck her chin, then used the brief period while she was stunned to leap free and land back upon the table.

Lyra got up, slowly wiping the crumbs from her chin, and scowled. The pie, in a show of defiance, rattled in place back at her. Thin cracks now lined its upper crust, clearly showing that Lyra had been the victor in that little scuffle. Round two would be over just as quickly.

However, as she was about to make her move, the pie’s cracks widened and spit further as the center of it suddenly bulged upward. Lyra took a step back. With the way her day was going so far, perhaps having an extended food fight wasn’t the best idea. Something sharp and orange poked up through the crust, followed by a mound of black feathers containing two beady eyes. Wings unfurled and talons emerged as the creature finished breaking free of its prison.

Then, it turned an eye the color of midnight upon her.

Lyra fixed her unblinking gaze upon the blackbird. “The nursery rhyme was true,” she barely whispered.

The bird shrieked a sharp, piercing noise that sent a chill into Lyra’s heart. It leapt from its perch and flew at her. With a startled yell and a quick duck, Lyra felt a rush of air as the bird swooped by overhead. She rose back up and looked about frantically to try to find where the blackbird had gone and see if it was coming back, but it seemed to have vanished. What hadn’t vanished, however, were the skeletons, who now all had their heads raised and were staring directly at her.

Since the situation she found herself in had changed, Lyra decided it would be best to take a moment to calmly assess the available options.

“Well,” she said, pivoting towards the stairs and then marching forward, “I’ve clearly spent long enough in this room. Don’t want to keep Pinkie waiting.”

She tried to force a laugh but it came out as more of a croak. A few of the skeletons had pushed back their chairs and were standing up, so, since the buffet was about to get busy again, a slightly quicker pace was completely understandable and not at all a sign of her attempting to flee.

Thankfully, Lyra didn’t have to travel far since the stairs were right next to the end of the table. After a pleasant trot through the candy cane-striped banisters and a quick turn ninety degrees to her right, she started her nice, steady climb up the steps. Some ponies might have called it a scramble, but Lyra found the word ‘hustle’ to be a more accurate description; besides, scrambling implied she was in a panic and there was no way a lame haunted house could have caused that.

Along either side of the stairway hung many decorations that Twilight and Pinkie had probably intended for Lyra to admire. However, since an adequate amount of admiration would require stopping, she instead chose to pay no attention whatsoever to her surroundings and to continue plowing onwards. Which was probably why she didn’t notice the pair of skeletons standing along the top of the stairs until she practically ran into them. As she turned around to begin her descent, Lyra felt her cheek twitching again.

A new plan was clearly in order, and Lyra knew exactly what she’d do. She’d start out by going back to the buffet. As long as she stayed to the edges and moved quickly, she should be able to get around the skeletons before they noticed she had returned. And if they did notice she had returned, then hopefully she was fast enough to slip past them before any of the bolder ones tried to grab her. Once back in the hallway, she would slow down to a moderate pace and catch her breath. That way, when she went back outside, she would appear calm and collected. Twilight would probably question her return, but Lyra would only say something about the weather and then walk around Sugarcube Corner so that she could enter the back door that lead to the kitchen. There, she would easily be able to access the rear set of stairs in order to bypass probably about sixty percent of the haunted house. Finding wherever Pinkie had hidden herself wouldn't be too hard after that.

She smiled. It was the perfect plan. And best of all, it wouldn’t be considered chickening out. If anything, it would be a creative exploration of alternative solutions.

Once at the bottom of the stairs, she stepped out through the banisters, lifted her head to look out into the buffet, and dropped her smile. The only phrase that came to her mind was that ‘chaos had ensued.’

The skeletons were now free from their chairs and had migrated to various parts of the room—and in the case of the pegasi, the upper half of the room. Groups of skeletons mingled about, holding conversations that consisted of no more than the clicking of teeth, while others had gone to the buffet line for second helpings. A group of unicorns had decided that pegasi flying around didn’t clutter the airspace enough, so they had added tables, chairs, plates, and utensils to the mix. Even the bats and spiders along the ceiling were moving, with the former frantically attempting to escape from the strings attached to them, and the latter taking advantage of their foes predicament to start encasing those closest in web.

Lyra watched three tomatoes float by, each beating to a rhythm much slower than that of her own heart.

“Okay, Lyra,” she said calmly to herself, though for some reason it came out too soft and high-pitched to be intelligible. “This doesn’t change anything. Stick to the plan.” She gulped and took a step forward.

Luckily, the skeletons seemed more interested in their shenanigans, so they probably weren’t going to try and devour Lyra in an attempt to gain her powers of being alive. All she had to do was keep walking, one hoof in front of the other, and she would eventually reach the exit. She also had to keep ignoring that one skeleton whose head was following her movement. But that skeleton was to the leftish, and she could easily go rightish to avoid it and still get to her destination.

Except that there was a bunch of skeletons dancing a tango that way. While it may have taken two to tango, there were clearly four skeletons involved, which had to have been some sort of dancing violation. Lyra didn’t want to be mixed up in the eventual police report, so she tried to find another way, only to have the beating of wings rush by her head. The blackbird landed on a plate and looked up at her as if it were daring her to go for the fork. However, she refused to worry about the bird, because she could always turn around and... find a skeleton without a head. But that was also okay, since there was a path to the right that looked promising. At least it did, until it dead-ended at a huge spider web. She would just have to backtrack to that floating chair and take the fork to the left of the skeleton that now had two heads. The path further on looked a little questionable since some of the bats had managed to get loose, but she could probably squeeze under the nearby, low-flying pegasus if she crouched down low enough.

And now she had somehow gotten turned around completely and wound up back at the buffet table, which had a much longer line that before. At least, the skeleton in the non-pudding was doing a good job of slowing down the buffet goers from adding to the chaos. Lyra gasped. The skeleton in the non-pudding was trying to pull free. She quickly said a prayer to whatever cosmic force was in charge of thick, creamy desserts that this skeleton would never escape its bonds—the terror-inducing levels of a skeleton with a skull full of tapioca was at least ten-fold that of an ordinary skeleton. Not wanting to stick around to find out if any passing cosmic forces had listened in, she set off again towards the exit.

The overturned chairs ahead of her were easy enough to climb over, and thankfully the conga line had yet to reach this far. She just had to keep her wits together and keep moving, but she found it hard to ignore the squeak that came from near her hooves. Lyra looked down and saw a tiny alligator staring back, but that was fine, because why wouldn’t this buffet have tiny alligators that stared at her? It certainly had everything else.

Then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw it: a straight shot to the hallway that would lead back outside. At this point, Lyra was certain that Bon Bon would completely agree that giving up and returning home in defeat had been the only option.

Lyra scampered forward and didn’t even care that she was scampering. Sweet, glorious, freedom was in sight. Then, a plain, brown jacket was in sight. Lyra skidded to a halt as the skeleton who had a job as a coat rack stepped forward to block the opening. It held out the coat and clicked its teeth together.

“No... no, that’s, uh...” Lyra shuffled slowly to her side, hoping to find a way around. “That’s not mine.”

The skeleton clicked again and held the jacket higher.

Lyra shook her head. “Seriously, brown really isn’t my color.” It was no use. There was no way to sneak around the skeleton without actually making physical contact, and who knew what would happen if she did that? “Could you maybe scooch a bit to your left? Or my left? Either or, really.” She grinned, hopefully. The skeleton just grinned.

Something hard touched Lyra’s spine, just past her tail, and held firm. Instantly, her muscles stiffened and she could feel her mane bristling along her neck. She knew that it was a boney, plastic hoof touching her. She knew that a skeleton was behind her. She knew with her rational mind that she was fine and that she could easily dislodge the hoof by taking a step forward, or to the side, or anywhere really. However, at that point, ten thousand years’ worth of pony instincts screamed in her ear and told her rational mind to shut it.

Lyra’s body moved of its own accord, but strangely enough, the motions she went through felt completely natural. She shifted her weight forward in order to raise her hindquarters up into the air. Muscles in her legs that she never knew she had coiled tight and released, sending her rear hooves shooting out faster than she would have thought possible. While Lyra may not have had the strength or technique of those that did this for a living, the satisfying crack of her hooves striking home told her that her buck had been more than enough to get the job done.

As her rear hooves landed back on the ground, she heard the clattering, bangs, rattles, and thuds of many things impacting each other behind her. She winced. Then, once the noise had died down—except for a single plate that was slowly spinning to a halt—she twisted her head to look over her shoulder. The damage wasn’t as bad as it had sounded. She had only sent one skeleton into pieces, bowled over several others, overturned a table, scattered food everywhere, and gained the attention of every undead monstrosity in the room.

Lyra heard a click coming from in front of her. A very angry-sounding click, at least in her mind. She turned her attention back on the hat-rack skeleton, who had dropped the jacket on the floor. The skeleton clicked its teeth again.

Alone and very outnumbered, Lyra backed away from the clicking skeletons and quickly realized that there wasn’t much space left to back into. This room must have had a secret way in because there seemed to be way more skeletons than before.  It was clear that now was the time for the last-ditch display of heroic actions that those knights in the stories always did. Unfortunately, Lyra was pretty sure no knight was coming to rescue her. With one final step, she was now up against the curtain and could feel its soft fabric pressing against her backside.

Lyra’s eyes widened. Of course! She was being stupid. The way out was right behind her!

She spun around. The same sign from earlier hung before her, warning her not to trespass if she didn’t wished to be flugeled. While she still had no idea what that meant, it had to be better than being eaten by the living dead. Most things were.

Lyra gripped the curtains in her magic and gave the skeletons closing in a pitiful smirk. They had been close, but close wasn’t nearly good enough if they had actually expected to outsmart her. With a dramatic whip of her horn to the side, the curtains slid open with a flourish.

And revealing a wall of boarded up planks.

The twitch in her cheek returned and threatened to overtake half of her face. She pulled at the planks with her magic and scraped her hooves fruitlessly against the wall, but it was no use. Lyra dropped her head and hoped she would be able to summon forth the primal pony bucking technique again. But then, she saw it: a handle sticking out of one of the planks. Not wasting any time, she gripped the handle between her hooves and turned, only to find resistance. She jiggled the handle up and down, but it remained stuck in place.

“Oh come on!” Lyra yelled, jiggling the handle a few more times for emphasis. “Why would you lock the door when you already had a sign telling me not to enter? Don’t you trust me?”

She fell away from the handle and sat with her back to the wall. Since the monstrous horde would be descending upon her at any second, there was only one thing left for her to do.

Lyra lay down on the floor, then placed one foreleg across her eyes and the other over her head to cover her ears. After that horrible experience in her first haunted house, she had come up with a mantra. Since then, she had repeated the mantra many times; usually whenever somepony asked her to try another haunted house.

She spoke loudly and with purpose. “Haunted houses are stupid. Everything inside them is fake and lame. Nothing scary ever happens in one.”

She repeated the mantra to herself again and again. Slowly, a sense of tranquility came over her. The mantra was right. All this really was fake and lame. The problem was that her way too incredibly amazing brain was tricking her into thinking otherwise. Now that she was free to think on it, she knew it was absolutely silly to imagine she was in any danger. Pinkie and her friends had made everything in this room. While Pinkie may take the occasional prank too far, it was never out of mean spirit, and she most certainly never wanted to harm anypony. So that meant these skeletons couldn’t hurt Lyra; nothing in here could. Their master had commanded it. All Lyra had to do was stick to her mantra and eventually everything would work out fine.

Hopefully.

It was around the twentieth repetition that Lyra began to notice the lack of noise. She stopped talking and removed one foreleg so that she could perk her ears. She let them swivel slowly, right to left, but she couldn’t hear anything except for her own breathing. Reluctantly, Lyra removed her other leg and looked up.

Everything was back in its place. The tables and chairs were righted. The skeletons remained sitting or slumped in their seats. The bats and spiders had called a truce and retreated back to the ceiling. Even the buffet was exactly the same, with the pie completely undisturbed at the table’s end.

“What? The hay? Was that all about?” Lyra said quietly as she stood up. She looked from one end of the room to the other, but her audience remained silent. “Well?” she continued, louder. “This isn’t—I mean—gah! This type of haunted house isn’t supposed to be like this!”

Lyra paced to one end of the wall, shook her head, then turned to pace in the opposite direction. “I know what you’re all thinking.” She switched to a mocking voice. “‘But, Lyra, you’ve only been in one other haunted house before. How do you know what we’re supposed to be like?’ Well I got news for you!” She pointed a hoof menacingly at the unlucky skeleton that had chosen to sit closest to her. “I studied before I decided on that first haunted house. That’s right. Me. I spent that whole weekend learning everything there was to know about the haunted houses of Canterlot—including some supposedly real ones by accident. Seriously. I was supposed to be doing my math homework, but instead I created a detailed report of my findings. Er... and I did all this on the sheet of paper that had my math problems on it. I ended up getting a really odd grade on that assignment. But I digress!

“For starters, I found that a haunted house’s scariness and coolness levels are inversely proportional to the sum of the total time they will remain in operation during the holiday season plus six. Or something. I may have written that equation over an existing one.” She shook her head and waved a hoof. She was getting off track again. “My point is: all those haunted houses that are open all month? Those are supposed to be the cool ones! Even though they’re just as lame and unscary as all the rest. This haunted house—which will only be open for a few hours tomorrow night, I might add—is supposed to be the opposite of cool. It’s supposed to be corny and cheesy and, and... other adjectives that sound like foods. You weren’t supposed to have put effort into it!”

Lyra dragged a hoof down her face as she sighed. “Look. Just because you have two unicorns helping—with one being super good at magic—it does not give you permission to enchant every single thing in a room. Okay?”

The skeleton she had been lecturing stared back at her, or at least in her direction.

“And what are you grinning at?” she asked as she marched up to her delinquent student. “You think you’re so tough just because you were able to startle me? Well I got news for you mister: I’m real, and you’re not. Hah! You only wish you were an actual pony’s skeleton.”

Lyra swept her hoof across the room. “You all hear that? None of you are real. Tonight, I get to eat brownies. Not just any brownies, but the best ones in the world. Sound good? Want some for yourselves? Well too bad! When all this is over, you’ll get packed away in boxes and stored in somepony’s attic until next year.”

She whipped her hoof up towards the ceiling decorations. “And you’re all made of rubber!”

She grinned, breathing heavy and feeling good now that she was on a rant. These feelings continued even after she heard the squeak coming from next to her hooves. She looked down at the tiny alligator that was looking back up. “Nice try,” she said, then leaned in closer to whisper, “but I can see your stitches.”

Lyra walked away from her now quite somber audience. It had been the hard truth, but it was better that they faced it sooner rather than later. While she may have hated to verbally put down ponies—real or not—it was their own fault for scaring her.

Lyra froze, her eyes widening. Why did she just think that? Especially when there was somepony outside reading her emotions. Her hoof shot up to the fear-o-meter along her forehead. “Twilight? Can you hear me through this thing?”

No answer came, but that may have only been because the fear-o-meter operated on a one-way frequency. Lyra would just have to trust her instincts and continue.

“I want you to know something. Your haunted house isn’t scary. Okay? It’s startling. Very startling.” She looked out at the skeletons. “And just so we’re clear, the reason I’ve been talking to myself and inanimate objects is not because my nerves are so frayed that, at this point, I crave the sounds of a living, breathing pony in order to calm myself and restore my sanity. No, the reason I’m talking out loud is only because I happen to really like the sound of my voice. Seriously, my voice is amazing.”

Lyra waited for the reply. It was possible Twilight needed more convincing, so she continued in a singsong tone. “La la la! Talky talky talking! La la la! Lyra’s voice is cool!”

A few seconds went by with nothing happening other than Lyra starting to get a cramp from standing on three legs for so long. She dropped her hoof and sighed. “On second thought, I really hope you can’t hear me through this stupid thing.”

Something clicked, but not like the skeleton’s way of talking. Instead, it sounded more metallic, and it was right behind Lyra. She turned around to find the locked door slowly swinging open.

Rolling her eyes, Lyra said, “Great. Now it—”

Her voice gave out as a pure white stallion stepped forth from the other side. Not a normal white either. The stallion seemed to glow as a misty vapor around him caught the light. It was only through sheer rage that Lyra was able to get her vocal chords working again.

“You!” she shouted at the ghost. “You are the least real thing in here, and you will stop mocking me with your failed attempt at existence this instant!”

The ghost took a step back, broke eye contact, and fidgeted in place. “Er, I...” he began, then looked up to meet Lyra’s eyes. “Sorry. I, uh, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Somehow, having the ghost talk back to her had been the proverbial straw that finally broke her mind. They weren’t supposed to speak, only moan and laugh and spooky things like that.

A high-pitched noise started in the back of Lyra’s throat. It was currently outside the range of pony hearing, but she feared that once it lowered somewhat it would turn out to be a scream. Then, realization came over her.

There was something familiar about the stallion's blocky frame, lanky limbs, bow tie, and round hat. Not to mention his slightly nasally voice.

“Mr. Cake?” Lyra ventured. “Is that you?”

“Yep, sure is.” He raised a hoof across his chest, then blinked as he stared at it. “Gee, would you look at that. I knew there was a small rip, but that bag of flour really did a number on me. I must look like a ghost.” He chuckled and then started making a horribly cliché oooing noise.

“Yeah... just like a ghost,” Lyra said with a forced laugh. She hoped that humoring him might get him to stop making that sound. “Never thought Pinkie would get you in on the act.”

Mr. Cake laughed. “Oh, she tried, but Cup Cake and I have been far too busy getting prepared for tomorrow night. I don’t even think I would have heard somepony out here if the cellar stairs weren’t right on the other side of this wall. I’m surprised you’re here. I thought we weren’t opening until tomorrow. Unless, um...” He put the tip of his hoof under his bow tie and wiggled it as if he were trying to loosen it. “We didn’t somehow lose track of time and today is Nightmare Night, is it?”

“What? Oh! No, it’s... I—you see... I’m, uh, testing the haunted house. For Pinkie. And I might have gotten a little excited. And said words. Loudly. Sorry.”

Mr. Cake wiped a floury hoof across his forehead and let out a breath of air. “Whew. Scared myself for a moment. We still have plenty of time. Well, I better get these flour bags to the counter before Cup needs them.” He then noticed the small pile of flour on the floor his forehead-wiping had created. “And I better get cleaned up before I make any more of a mess. Have fun with your testing!”

“Mr. Cake! Wait!”

He turned back and raised an eyebrow—or at least raised the flour-cover area of his face that contained his eyebrow. At any rate, it sent another dusting of flour falling to the floor.

Lyra took a deep breath and forced herself to smile. “Do you need any help? With the bags, I mean. I, um...” She tapped her horn. “I could probably move that torn bag without spilling it. If you want.”

Mr. Cake smiled back. “Well, I won’t say ‘no’ to an offer of help, but aren’t you testing the haunted house?”

“Yeah, about that, I...” She sighed and started towards the kitchen. “I think I need a break.”

Chapter Four

Mr. Cake held one of the kitchen’s set of swinging doors open for Lyra. “Watch your step. It looks like I left behind a trail of flour after it spilled on me,” he said, nodding towards the floor.

Lyra did her best to seem appreciative, but found that, after dealing with the buffet, she couldn’t even find the energy to keep her head fully raised. She only hoped some magical labor might help clear her mind. If not, then at least she would be doing a good deed. That might be worth a thank-you cookie later.

Stepping past Mr. Cake, Lyra looked up and noticed she was entering into a much brighter world. It was also a much more dessert-filled one, which was always a plus in her book.

Nearly every flat, elevated surface available in Sugarcube Corner’s kitchen was filled with cakes, cookies, pies, muffins, cupcakes, and a variety of other desserts, including some things Lyra didn’t even know the names of but still looked amazingly delicious anyway. The few places that weren’t host to the cornucopia of delectable treats were instead stacked with pans, trays, and other things that would soon become the home of even more of the fantastic creations.

The sights were amazing enough, but then Lyra took her first real smell. She instantly began to sniff involuntarily at the air, drawing in more and more of the sublimely sweet scents that permeated everything. It reminded her of those wonderful days when Bon Bon went on one of her candy-making sprees. Only without the candy. Well, it didn’t smell exactly like Bon Bon’s cooking, but it did smell like sugar and that was good enough.

A feeling of zen came over Lyra as she reflected upon this perfect moment and how it seemed to melt away all the stress she had accumulated over the past couple of hours. Here was truly the ultimate center of happiness. The only way her joy could have raised any higher—and thereby reach the fabled overflowing level—would be if the Cakes were also giving out free samples.

Lyra adjusted her smile to something that should read as ‘hopeful, but not eager’ and glanced sidelong at Mr. Cake. However, Mr. Cake also appeared to be enthralled by the room. Specifically, the area over by the oven that contained Mrs. Cake, who was methodically rolling out some dough and not even looking up to see who had entered.

Thankfully, Mr. Cake only took a few seconds of admiring his wife before he realized he was supposed to be leading Lyra towards the ripped sack of flour. “Oh! Uh...” He lightly cleared his throat and turned around to walk the opposite way. “We better not bother Cup while she’s busy. This way. They’re over here.”

Lyra nodded. “No problem at all. I recognize ‘the cooking zone’ when I see it. Sometimes, it’s really hard to take your eyes off of somepony in it,” she said, then smirked and shook her head. “I remember a week ago when I went to the kitchen for a drink only to find Bon Bon at the stove. Next thing I know, two hours have gone by, the candy is done, and I’m still thirsty.”

“Yeah, something like that,” Mr. Cake said with a chuckle. “Here we are.” He indicated towards the sacks outside the cellar door. “The one on the left has the rip. I’ll get the other two.”

Mr. Cake hefted one of the sacks across his back. With a grunt of effort, he took the other in his mouth, then kicked the door shut and started his return trip across the kitchen. Lyra concentrated hard and lifted the remaining sack with her magic, being careful to keep the ripped end facing upwards.

Still having not noticed them, Mrs. Cake continued with her preparations that, judging by the number of finished pastries, must have been going on for quite some time. While not as messy as her husband, her apron was still stained in a variety of colors and her coat was heavily matted with streaks of dough. What stood out the most though was that, even in all the cooking chaos, the area she worked in remained spotless.

The life of a baker was obviously a frantic one at this time of year. Maybe even more frantic than normal, considering that the candy had run out. However, as Mrs. Cake turned her head to open a drawer and pull out a cookie cutter, Lyra could see the smile that she wore upon her face.

A smile that quickly faded as a buzzing sound filled the air.

Mrs. Cake sprang into action, dashing between the oven, the counter tops, and the tables. Trays of freshly baked cupcakes clattered into semi straight rows along the counter while bowls of batter sloshed as they poured into pans that then went straight into the oven. A stray mouth mitt broke free from the whirlwind of motion and landed next to Lyra’s hooves. Then, the oven shut and Mrs. Cake gave a gentle tap to the buzzer, which happily went back to ticking off the time.

Lyra blinked to uncross her eyes. It was a good thing she was carrying the flour sack with her magic instead of in her mouth, because her jaw had dropped. Mrs. Cake’s display was clear evidence that speed-baking should have been an event in the Equestria Games.

After setting down his flour by the counter, Mr. Cake approached his wife and placed a hoof on her shoulder. Mrs. Cake gave a startled gasp as she turned towards her husband but soon relaxed and covered her mouth to hold off her laughter.

“Um, Dear? You got a little something...” Mrs. Cake giggled as she motioned her hoof in a circle around her own face.

Mr. Cake leaned forward to touch his nose to Mrs. Cake’s. Being completely covered in flour must not have been too strange of an occurrence in the Cake household, for they were soon sharing an affectionate nuzzle.

Lyra felt a blush coming on, so she looked away and instead focused on levitating her sack of flour to rest gently along with the others. Once finished, she risked a glance up at the two lovebirds to find that Mrs. Cake was now rubbing flour from her nose while Mr. Cake had a sheepish grin on his face.

Getting back to business, Mr. Cake examined the line of cupcake trays, his head slightly bobbing at each one. “...eight, nine, ten. That puts us at... forty dozen total? Is that right, Sugarplum?”

“Sure is, Snickerdoodle,” Mrs. Cake replied, then looked up and held a hoof to her chin. “That means... only five dozen more cupcakes, four five-layer cakes—or was it five four-layer cakes? We’ll have to double check. Six pies, two dozen muffins, and thirty batches of cookies to go.”

Lyra should have just left her jaw dropped from earlier. She had seen Bon Bon get candy orders before that had seemed way too big to ever get done in time, but those had been nothing compared to this. Lyra felt sorry for the Cakes. While they may not have been the only bakers in Ponyville, they were the most popular, and that popularity had a price. She only hoped they could keep up their spirits while facing such an impossible task.

“That’s all that’s left?” Mr. Cake said, his face beaming. “I can’t believe it. At this rate, we’re going to finish with plenty of time to spare!”

“I know! We might actually get to sleep a full eight hours tonight!”

Sighing dreamily, Mrs. and Mr. Cake turned half-open eyes upwards to stare at a point on the ceiling: possibly the direction of their bed. After a minute of this, Lyra began to wonder if she should be staring too. Then, Mr. Cake snapped out of his trance and broke the moment of silence.

“Well, if you fillies will excuse me,” he said, nodding towards Mrs. Cake and Lyra. “I better get cleaned up a little before I end up spilling milk, eggs, and sugar on myself and become a cake in more ways than one.”

Chuckling to himself, Mr. Cake left the kitchen back out the swinging doors. The sound of his hooves going up a set of regular, non-creaky stairs gradually faded until Lyra was left with the near-silence of the room. A silence that was in danger of becoming awkward.

As Lyra stared at Mrs. Cake, her mind went blank as to what she could possibly say to the baker. They hardly even knew each other and had certainly never been alone in the same room together. Oh sure, they may have exchanged pleasantries from time to time during one of Pinkie’s parties or talked about what was going on in town while Lyra ordered a breakfast muffin, but that had always just been business.

To make matters worse, now that she found herself in this situation, her stupid brain wouldn’t stop replaying that one embarrassing moment from that day years ago when she had visited Sugarcube Corner for the first time. Lyra could still hear the irritated sighs that had come from Bon Bon as she held her forehead with her hoof.

But Mrs. Cake wouldn’t want to talk about what had happened back then. She probably didn’t even remember that honest little mistake. Hopefully.

Lyra grinned weakly at Mrs. Cake, who returned the same grin back. It was clear this stalemate would continue until one of them broke the silence or Mr. Cake returned.

“Hello, um, Lyra was it?” Mrs. Cake asked.

“I swear I thought it was real gingerbread!”

The silence then became awkward.

“I mean, yes! My name is Lyra.” Now that the conversation had started, Lyra had to find a way to direct it away from the time she had learned how painful it was to get splinters stuck in her tongue. Enthusiasm would be a good start. “Wow! Is all this for the town’s celebration tomorrow night? I have to say, Mrs. Cake, this is absolutely amazing.”

“Oh, thank you,” Mrs. Cake said and raised a hoof as to hide a blush. Although, the flour on her cheeks did a much better job of it. “It’s a combination of things for the town party, personal orders, and regular daily stock. But I really can’t take all the credit. I would never have gotten this far without Carrot’s help. Both with baking and the twins. Oh! I just remembered. Do thank Bon Bon again for me. The Triple Trouble Nightmarish Truffle Cake turned out beautifully thanks to her.”

“Oh yeah! I will.”

Lyra remembered all the work that had gone into those truffles. Bon Bon had spent nearly an entire day shaping the chocolate candies to look like pumpkins, skulls, bats, and other Nightmare Nightish designs. She had looked so serious at the time, even though she was smiling. Lyra had been able to tell those truffles had been important to Bon Bon, so she hadn’t even asked for one. Of course, the bowl of leftover chocolate she had been given to lick clean had helped.

“You know,” Lyra said, smiling, “Bon Bon will never admit this, but she’s really proud that her candy will be on the centerpiece for tomorrow night’s dessert buffet. It’s just too bad most ponies will devour them without really paying attention to what they look like. Except, I guess having everypony enjoy your candy is its own reward.”

Mrs. Cake nodded. “That’s exactly how I feel when I bake.”

Lyra nodded back and realized that she was already out of possible conversation topics. It wouldn’t be a problem, though. As nice as it was being able to take a break and talk, it didn’t take a genius to realize that the Cakes were very busy. Slowly shuffling away to not seem rude, Lyra said, “Well, it’s been great talking with you, Mrs. Cake, but I better get back to testing the haunted house before Pinkie wonders where I am and has to come find me.”

Mrs. Cake's eyes lit up. “Oh, that explains it! I was wondering if that really was a scream I heard earlier," she said. Her smile slowly faded afterward. “Er... are you all right?”

Lyra was not all right. She felt like her entire body had just been dunked into a tank of icy water. As she struggled to keep her breathing steady, she couldn’t—or rather, didn’t want to—wrap her mind around the implication of those words. She forced herself to meet Mrs. Cake’s eyes. “I screamed?”

Before Mrs. Cake could answer, Lyra quickly continued. “I mean, yeah, I screamed. No big deal.” She polished the tip of a hoof against her chest, then held it up for inspection. If she could play this cool, Mrs. Cake would be none the wiser. “Ooooh! Aaaaah! Heh heh. All fake of course. After all, I had to put on a show. Couldn’t let Pinkie and Twilight think there was something wrong with their haunted house, you know?”

Lyra laughed richly, but it died out when Mrs. Cake didn't join in. Instead, Mrs. Cake smiled at Lyra with that small smile mother’s get when their foals insist that they’re old enough to stay up past eight o'clock and that they’re going to prove it by doing so.

Well, Lyra wasn’t about to fall asleep at eight-o-five. She cleared her throat and added, “I wasn’t scared.”

“I didn’t say you were.”

Mrs. Cake’s smile remained. If anything, it somehow got stronger.

“Ah, r-right. Good,” Lyra said. “Because haunted houses are the least scary part of Nightmare Night.”

“I agree.”

Lyra held a hoof in the air. “I mean, they’re only buildings that were created for the sole purpose of terrifying ponies.” She shrugged her one raised foreleg. “What’s scary about that?”

“Practically nothing.”

“Exactly.”

Now that she and Mrs. Cake were in agreement, there was nothing preventing Lyra from marching out the kitchen door and proving how not scared she was.

“Do you think a cupcake would help you feel better?” Mrs. Cake asked.

Her defenses shattered in a masterful blow, Lyra hung her head and softly answered, “Yes.”

“Okay.” Mrs. Cake walked over to the table and lifted a platter of cookies onto her back to make an open space. She wiped the tablecloth clean of imaginary crumbs and motioned to the chair. “Why don’t you sit here? I was worried this might happen. Some of Pinkie’s ideas sounded far too scary. I was hoping her friends might be able to keep it toned down.”

As she sat down, Lyra sighed and shook her head. “No, it’s not that. It’s not too scary. In fact I like being scared.” Even without looking, she could tell Mrs. Cake was probably staring at the back of her head in confusion. Lyra tried to put her thoughts to words. “It’s just that haunted houses are—well, I know that’s just me, and that they’re really supposed to be—but I didn’t think I’d still get—I mean, I knew going in that I might... I’m just...” She turned halfway around in her seat and shrugged at Mrs. Cake. “You know?”

“I’m not sure that I follow,” Mrs. Cake said with a small frown, “but it’s clear to me that you have something on your mind that’s bothering you. Just try to relax, and I’ll fetch you a fresh cupcake once I finish frosting a batch. Maybe something sweet will help you unravel your thoughts.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Cake.”

Lyra stared down motionlessly at the wooden tabletop. Her brain felt completely knotted up. She knew Mrs. Cake was right, though. Something was bothering her, but she wasn’t certain why. She liked being scared, that much was true. Tomorrow night was going to be amazing with all the costumes, and the horror stories, and the attempts everypony would be making to frighten each other. It would be fun.

So why wasn’t she having fun now?

Lyra could still vividly remember that day, years ago, after having learned that ghosts aren’t real. She had burst out of the haunted house and instantly sought her parents for comfort. They hadn’t understood what she was trying to tell them—likely because she couldn’t stop crying and blubbering long enough to form a complete sentence—but they had done their parental duty and made everything better by hugging her and then buying her an ice cream cone. She had angrily eaten that ice cream, and all the while, she had sworn that she would never, ever set hoof in another haunted house as long as she lived.

And yet, here she was.

Since trying to sort out her feelings was only giving her a headache, Lyra decided to think about something else. There was a smaller problem that had been bothering her for a while: one that Mrs. Cake may very well know the answer to.

“Hey, Mrs. Cake?” Lyra asked.

Mrs. Cake looked up from her tray of half-frosted cupcakes, but remained silent since she held a pastry tube in her mouth.

“You can answer when you’re done, but how is it that Ponyville has run out of candy? I mean, I know it’s a small town, but I’ve been here for years and I’ve never seen us even get close to running out. Sure, a few little stores might, but never Sugarcube Corner. It’s almost like—” Just then, a thought came over Lyra so horrible that it forced her to gasp audibly. “Mrs. Cake! Tell it to me straight because I swear I can handle the truth. Is... is Equestria suffering from a candy shortage?”

Mrs. Cake snorted, sending a stream of frosting shooting out over the cupcakes and onto the wall. She dropped the tube next to the tray, letting her laughter escape. She shook her head and made to answer, but then her laughter redoubled and she was forced to lift her apron to clear away her tears.

“Sorry... sorry,” she said as she breathed heavily to get herself under control. “It just that you looked so serious when you asked me that. No, there’s no shortage. Or at least there shouldn’t be one outside of Ponyville. I don’t know for certain, but I think everypony is buying up the candy in hopes that Princess Luna keeps her promise to return this year.”

“Oh.”

Lyra turned back to the table and stared blankly ahead. While it was a relief to learn that Equestria wasn’t running out of candy and had thereby avoided entering into a dark age, this new information presented a puzzling situation that may or may not have been the prelude to something worse. Apparently, visiting royalty somehow had an effect on the supply and demand of the candy market.

She tried running a few explanations through her head, but the more she thought on it, the more she realized this riddle was going to keep her awake in bed all night.

A clinking sound drew Lyra’s attention downward to where she found a plate that held a blue-frosted, pink-sprinkled, vanilla cupcake. She looked up at Mrs. Cake, who smiled down at her.

“I can tell by your expression that you may be overthinking this,” Mrs. Cake said. “The reason everypony is buying more candy is because all the fillies and colts are excited that they’ll get to give their candy to the real Nightmare Moon.”

“Ah, gotcha. That makes more sense,” Lyra said as Mrs. Cake returned to her work.

Lyra knew all too well of the Nightmare Night tradition where children were encouraged to present some of their collected candy to a statue of Nightmare Moon. It was supposed to be a 'thank you' gift in return for not being gobbled up. Most of the other children had laughed and used it as a reason to go door-to-door for a second run, but for Lyra, sacrificing even a portion of her candy had always been the saddest part of the holiday for her. True, while not being gobbled up should be pretty high on everypony’s to-do list, dumping perfectly good candy on the ground was still an abhorrent practice.

Besides, everypony knew that Nightmare Moon didn’t really eat that candy. No, in reality, it was always eaten by ants, bears, or unscrupulous ponies that snuck in under the cover of darkness; the latter being a group Lyra knew absolutely nothing about despite any accusations of Bon Bon’s.

With the cupcake held in her magic, Lyra took a bite. She let her mind go blank and instead focused on the flavors running through her mouth. Cake and frosting blended together into a perfect harmony that sang from the moment it touched her tongue all the way to her stomach. Even the sprinkles were more just than a decoration, with every bite causing another one to burst and add its sweetness at just the right moment.

While Bon Bon’s candy was still hoofs-down the best tasting thing in the world, Lyra had to admit that Mrs. Cake’s cupcakes were a very close second.

Lyra sighed and took another bite as she remembered Bon Bon’s candy. She had really screwed up. She had told herself at the time that one was enough, that she needed to remember why it had been set out in a bowl, that while they may have tasted amazing she should probably have stopped after five, but then, the deed was done and the bowl was empty. Once she had talked with Bon Bon and realized her mistake, she knew she’d do anything to undo it.

But that was why she was here; she needed to set things right.

Then, anger came over Lyra. Anger at herself. She fiercely took her next bite.

She had actually thought about quitting.

She had actually thought it was acceptable to give up on returning home to a smiley-faced Bon Bon, who would thank her for saving the day and forgive her for any wrongdoings.

She had actually thought it would be fine to return to a disappointed, shaking-her-head Bon Bon, who would be so upset that she’d—

Lyra refused to finish that thought. She wasn’t going to quit. It didn’t matter whether this haunted house was scary, or not fun, or whatever. She was going to get back out there, make it all the way to wherever Pinkie was hiding, and get that candy.

With a fiery determination burning within her heart, Lyra finished her cupcake, turned to thank Mrs. Cake for giving her the courage to continue, and then realized that Mrs. Cake had still been speaking during that whole cupcake self-reflection thing.

“...and once we finally scraped them off the ceiling, it turned out that they really had been cherries all along!” Mrs. Cake said and erupted into laughter. She stamped the cookie cutter into the dough a few more times, but had to give up as her shoulders were shaking too badly. She stepped away from the counter, and, while wiping her eyes, turned toward Lyra.

Before Mrs. Cake could finish dabbing her eyes with her apron, Lyra put on her best amused-looking grin and acted like she was trying to hold back laughter of her own.

“Ooh,” Mrs. Cake sighed. “But don’t let Carrot know I told you that. It really was an honest mistake and I don’t want to discourage him from trying again.”

Lyra nodded. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Cake. I’ll be sure to forget everything I just heard.”

Just in time to have missed the possibly embarrassing story of himself, the kitchen doors swung open to reveal a squeaky-clean Mr. Cake. He strode proudly through the door, letting the world know that his coat was, indeed, a bright yellow and not a pale white.

“Good evening,” he greeted the room, then turned to Lyra. “You’re looking a whole lot better.”

Lyra felt a smile coming on. “You know, I think I feel better too.”

He walked up to Mrs. Cake and said softly, “I drew some more bath water if you’d like a turn.”

“Thank you. Let me finish cutting out these cookies, and I’ll get myself cleaned up.”

Lyra got up from her chair and was about to say her goodbyes when something heavy landed between her shoulders and then skittered forward to cling to her mane. All feelings of courage vanished as her brain rationalized that this was the end, that some kind of horrible abomination had escaped from deepest Tartarus and was about to drag her away to a land of eternal boredom. However, the reality of the situation turned out to be much, much worse, for Lyra then heard the noise.

Her body went rigid and her breathing momentarily stopped; she didn’t dare risk making any sudden movements. She hoped that maybe she had only been mistaken, but then she heard it again. The most terrifying sound in all existence: the giggling of a foal.

It was widely known—regrettably, so far only to herself—that children reacted badly to Lyra’s presence, and the younger a pony got, the worse that reaction became. She could still recall how those three fillies outside had scowled at her, tackled her to the ground, and disappointedly sighed in her general direction. And that had been after only a few minutes of exposure.

If Lyra remembered correctly, then the Cake’s twins were only about half a year old, easily the youngest ponies to have ever encountered her. If she didn’t do something soon, anything could happen. Crying, spit-ups, dirty diapers, the apocalypse!

Alright, well, maybe not the apocalypse, but with a foal pressing against her neck, the prospect of a dirty diaper was equally as bad.

Careful to keep her movements to a minimum, Lyra looked to Mr. Cake and whispered, “Help me.” Or at least she tried to, but it came out as more of a high-pitched “eeeee.”

Thankfully, the noise coming from Lyra’s throat must have been within the audible hearing range, because Mr. Cake’s ears perked up and he turned around.

Lyra was hoping for immediate action on his part to remedy the situation. Instead, Mr. Cake’s face scrunched up in a smile that held dangerous levels of parental pride.

“Well, it looks like somepony got out of his playpen,” Mr. Cake said as he walked forward and lowered his head to the side of Lyra’s neck.

Lyra could feel the foal’s weight shift and leave her shoulders. When Mr. Cake stepped back, he had a small, brown-and-tan pegasus perched on top of his head.

“Sorry about that,” Mr. Cake said. “Pound’s been going through a phase where he has to get on top of everything and everypony.”

Lyra slowly retreated half a step. “That’s fine. No harm done. I should probably—”

“Say!” Mr. Cake said, his face lighting up. Lyra knew that couldn’t be good. “I don’t think you’ve ever met our foals, have you?”

“Well, n-no, but—”

“No need to be shy.” Mr. Cake lowered his neck until his son was at eye-level to Lyra. “Pound? This is Lyra. Lyra? Meet Pound.”

Lyra’s chest began to feel tight as her heart rate increased. She fought to keep herself from hyperventilating. Didn’t Mr. Cake realized he was about to doom them all? Saying something would be bad, but not saying anything would be insulting.

The pegasus foal stared at Lyra with his large, curious eyes.

Lyra gulped. “H-... hi?”

Immediately, the air filled with the wailing cry of tiny lungs that were able to produce a louder noise than physics could account for. All heads turned towards the corner of the room. By standing on her tippy-hoofs, Lyra could see over some boxes of baked goods to a playpen that contained an orange-and-yellow unicorn foal, who had a constant stream of tears flowing down her cheeks.

The cookie cutter clattered to the floor as Mrs. Cake rushed across the room. “Oh, Pumpkin, sweetie! What’s wrong?”

Light peeps of a whimper came from nearby, and Lyra could see the moisture welling up in the pegasus foal’s eyes. Mr. Cake quickly took his son in his forelegs and tried to calm him, but it was too late. The pegasus’s wail rose in volume to join his sister’s.

“Uh oh...” Mrs. Cake looked up from the edge of the playpen. “Dear, Pumpkin’s made an oopsie. Can you fetch me a fresh diaper?”

“Right away, Honey,” Mr. Cake called back as he continued to rock his son ineffectively. He turned to Lyra. “Sorry, but things have gotten busy again.”

“No problem. Duty calls. I completely understand,” Lyra said as she calmly backtracked in what she hoped was the direction of the exit. “I’ll get out of your mane. Good luck. See you tomorrow. I can’t wait to taste that truffle cake.” As soon she felt her tail brush up against the door, she spun around and dashed through it.

Safely back in the buffet, Lyra shut the plank-covered door, slid closed the curtains, and heaved a heavy sigh of relief. Two crying foals and one dirty diaper. That had actually gone better than she thought it would.

Lyra looked across the room. The skeletons were obviously still ashamed of what they had done, since they hadn’t moved an inch since she had left. She turned her nose up as she trotted down the buffet table towards the second set of stairs. It served them right, as far as she was concerned.

Once at the stairs, she crept forward until her head was just past the banister and peered upwards. Nothing was waiting for her at the top this time. Which was good, as word must have gotten around, sending all the upstairs skeletons into hiding lest they suffer the wrath of Lyra’s scolding.

Now that she had taken the time to calm down, Lyra could see that all the decorative bits and baubles that she had passed earlier had in fact been decorative bits, baubles, and a painting. Lyra looked up at the life-sized portrait of Pinkie Pie, which hung at the bottom on the stairs.

The plaque beneath the portrait read, Count Pinkamena Diane Pie. Pinkie sat in a comfortable looking chair and was dressed in a black coat, a white shirt with a ruffled collar, and a black cape. Her eyelids were half-closed and she wore a slight frown on her face. Even doing it for her haunted house, Lyra guessed that Pinkie must have been bored out of her mind sitting still long enough to have a painting made.

As Lyra started to move to the next decoration, she caught sight of something out of the corner of her eye and quickly looked back to the portrait’s face. She was certain that Pinkie had just stuck her tongue out, but the bored expression on her face hadn’t changed one bit. Lyra glared at the painting, daring it to do something, but nothing happened. Shaking her head, she continued upward.

The rest of the decorations consisted of things like masks making scary faces, necklaces with miniature skulls, and brass carvings depicting ponies in unfortunate circumstances, such as running from a boulder, slipping on a banana peel, or both. Lyra stopped to stare at the last carving. This one depicted a unicorn tied up in a cauldron of water and a warty witch cackling nearby. With the way the polished brass reflected light, the unicorn appeared to be an all-too-familiar shade of green. Lyra hurried up the remaining steps.

At the top of the stairs, the spooky decorations abruptly ended and were replaced with seemingly normal ones like a framed, family photo of the Cakes and a small table with a vase of flowers. Lyra began to wonder if she had somehow missed a turn when she noticed the standing sign in the middle of the hallway. The sign read ‘Haunted house this way’ and had an arrow pointing at a door to the left. Lyra nodded. It made sense that most of the upstairs would be unchanged since the Cakes and their twins still had to live up here.

Just as Lyra lifted a hoof to step forward, a light flashed so brightly that she had to cover her eyes. As she stood there blinded, she could only listen to the cacophony of noise around her. Wood cracked and splintered, glass shattered into a thousand tinkling pieces, heavy beams fell to the ground with booming thuds. Through it all was a horrible, howling wind that reminded her of when the pegasi had created a tornado to lift water to Cloudsdale. Except this was louder and she was in the center of it.

Slowly, the noise of destruction faded until all that was left were the pops and crackles of nearby flames. Lyra opened her eyes, blinking away the afterimage of the light, then felt them widen. The hallway was gone. Sugarcube Corner was gone. Most of Ponyville was gone!

Giant balls of fire streaked across a dark-red sky, leaving behind smoking contrails. The earth had split open in several places, creating miles-long fissures that spewed forth fire of their own. The few buildings left standing in the ruined town showed structural damage, and it wouldn’t be long before they collapsed as well. Try as she might, Lyra couldn’t make out the forms of any other ponies. Either they had gotten away to safety before the disaster had struck, or the smoke and debris hid the reality from her.

Lyra peered over the edge before her, into the flaming wreckage below, then stepped back to stare out at the broken landscape around her. Finally, she rolled her eyes.

“Yes, Twilight,” she deadpanned, “your illusion is so amazingly realistic. Truly, your skill at magic is without equal.”

She shook her head and waved a hoof over the platform beneath her. “Did you honestly expect me to believe that these stairs I’m standing on could somehow be the only thing in Sugarcube Corner to survive something like this? That I’m so amazingly lucky that I’d be miraculously untouched? That I wouldn’t have—oh, I don’t know, felt the earth rumbling, or the wind blowing, or something?”

Lyra smirked. “I’ll give you an ‘A’ for effort. Rarity too, if she helped. I admit this looks like a pretty convincing end of the world. Keyword being ‘looks.’”

She waited for a few seconds, but the illusion didn’t fade. It was probably on a timer or something. Still, she had done enough stalling today and needed to pick up the pace if she was ever going to get to the party on time. The door she needed to go through had been close by, so she could probably feel her way along the invisible wall to find the handle.

Chuckling to herself, she stepped over the edge, only to have her hoof pass through where the floor should have been.

Lyra’s brain processed this new information instantly. It told her that, despite it making no logical sense, there really was no floor in front of her. She had been so sure of the illusion that she had committed herself to stepping off this cliff. With her current momentum and forward-shifted center of gravity, any attempt at scrambling backwards would be futile and only prolong the inevitable. She had just made the final mistake of her life and was now going to be falling into the flames below.

Then, a split-second after her brain told her all this, her hoof struck solid ground.

The illusion warped and melted away like sidewalk chalk caught in the rain, and soon Lyra was back in the ordinary hallway as if nothing had happened.

It was true: nothing had happened. She was safe. And yet, Lyra still had to make a conscious effort to remind herself to breathe.

There were a thousand different things that should have been going through her mind at the moment, but instead, she only found herself wondering why her rear hooves were higher off the ground than her front. She glanced back at them to find that her hindquarters were standing atop a wide wooden block. She was certain that block hadn’t been there before; it was far too noticeable. There was only one conclusion for it.

“A double illusion,” Lyra said weakly as she stepped off the block. She tried to laugh but her shaky breathing made it difficult. Instead, it was much easier to growl. She gritted her teeth, shut her eyes, and felt her forehead heating up.

“This is! I mean! Argh!”

Lyra stomped up to the door. This haunted house was making a fool of her. It wanted to be scary? Fine. But she could be scary right back.

“Alright, door!” she yelled, jabbing out a hoof to prod the door harder than necessary. “Let’s get this clear. You do anything other than open normally and you’ll never open normally again. Got that?”

She pressed down on the handle. The door wisely chose to open normally.

“That’s right. Not so tough now, are you?”

Lyra barked a laugh as she strode into the next room. She had this. In a matter of minutes, this haunted house would be so terrified that it’d be begging for her to leave.

But Lyra wasn’t leaving. Not without that candy.

Chapter Five

As the door clicked shut behind her, Lyra found herself in what was normally the upstairs party room. She knew this room well, having been in here dozens of times for all manners of celebrations. This room had seemed so friendly back then, with all its streamers, balloons, and generous helpings of cake.

Alas, those wonderful times had come to an end. Like it or not, now that this room had agreed to become part of the haunted house, it was to be considered the enemy.

If Lyra had learned anything during her history classes, it was that information was key when it came to dealing with an enemy. In order to obtain that information, she would stand here as a silent observer, watching, waiting for the perfect opportunity. One by one, she would discover this room’s secrets, and then, once the final piece of the puzzle was in place, she’d strike. Preferably while wearing a bandana and spouting a heroic one-liner.

Those history books had been amazing at hiding comics from her teachers.

However, as her eyes swept from one corner to the next, she knew more and more that she didn’t like the look of this.

All four sides of the room were still painted the same sunny yellow, but the wall to her right now bore an additional painting of a happy-looking valley. The windows, both the two to her left and the two in back by the balcony door, all had their normal sky-blue curtains drawn closed, but the color of those curtains seemed brighter. Almost as if they had been recently washed. Underhoof, the wooden floor shined with a polish so powerful that the spots of light reflecting from beneath the two corner lamps were like miniature suns. Compared to the rest of the house, stumbling about in the dark would be an incredibly difficult feat. A pink, frilly cloth covered the table along the left wall, and atop it stood an inviting assortment of bagged snacks, bottled drinks, magazines, board games, and a centerpiece of lovingly arranged flowers contained inside of a woven basket. Against the wall across from the table, three thick-cushioned chairs had been arranged into a half circle. With their close proximity, any ponies that choose to occupy them would easily be able to hold a conversation while they relaxed. The center of the room even contained a miniature potted tree, whose gentle branches stretched across the ceiling and seemed to be asking Lyra if she’d like to curl up on the large shag rug below to take a nice, refreshing nap.

No, Lyra didn’t like the look of this room one bit.

With how mundane and unassuming this room appeared, it was clear that something unreasonably horrible would happen the moment she let her guard down. All she had to do was figure out where the scare would come from, learn what it would attempt to do, and then either find a way to safely trigger it or, preferably, avoid it entirely.

The only problem was that she had no idea how she was going to do any of that.

The easiest thing to do would be to bumble about the room, poking and prodding at everything until she eventually found the true terrors that lay within. However, having already done that at the buffet, she knew how terrible the outcome would be if she tried it again.

Although, being a unicorn, she could easily manipulate all the objects from a safe distance. Except for the fact that Twilight had probably already taken that into account and had set the trap’s trigger to sense the use of magic. Lyra chuckled. It had been a nice try, but she was smart enough not to fall for such an obvious ploy. She would just stand here patiently for as long as it took to figure out her plan of action.

Unless, of course, standing here was part of the trap.

Lyra shot forward and spun around to face the door she had just came through. Her eyes quickly scanned the ordinary wooden frame, the dark-stained finish, and the curved handle that was in the correct location for handles. All these observations meant one thing: nothing at all had changed behind her.

She couldn’t rest, though. No, no. Not yet. It was only a matter of time before something would jump out at her, or fall on her, or materialize out of thin air. Possibly even all three at the same time.

Then a chill went down her spine. She silently cursed herself. Like a fool, she had forgotten to take into account the psychological effects of paranoia. Clearly freaking out and taking her eyes off the room had all been part of its fiendish plan. Now, when she turned around, everything would be horrible.

Again, she spun around, her head darting left and right. Everything wasn’t horrible. Everything was still unchanged. Why was everything still unchanged? Where would the attack come from?

Her heart pounded, and she could feel her ears dropping low. She crouched down, wanting to keep her muscles tense in case she suddenly needed to move as fast as her legs could carry her, but instead, her stupid body kept flinching and trying to shy away from everything.

This wasn’t fair. She had been so confident before. But then this room. This maddening room. Its deviousness clawed at her mind until she couldn’t take it anymore.

“Well?” Lyra shouted in a voice that sounded way too squeaky to her ears.

The silence that followed was deafening.

Somehow, Lyra found the strength to rise back to her full height. She swallowed down the lump in her throat and tried to control her breathing before she ended up hyperventilating. If it was inevitable that something was going to try and scare her, then she was at least going to face it head-on like the tough pony she was.

“What are you waiting for? I’m here. Aren’t you going to have some nightmarish thing pop out and scream at me?”

Still, only silence answered.

Lyra gritted her teeth. She knew the surprise was coming, but this stupid house was playing dumb. Well, she was through being toyed with. With as much defiance as she could muster, she stomped forward onto the rug.

“Look! I’m on the rug! I bet it’s only a matter of time before it catches on fire, or... or turns into snakes, or... fire snakes! Those are probably a thing. Somewhere.”

When the rug below refused to transform into flaming reptiles, drop out into a bottomless pit, or fly away on giant bat wings, Lyra shuffled off it and started backing her way around the room. She reasoned that spooky things always tried to creep up on unsuspecting ponies from behind. Therefore, if she were to walk backwards, then that would force the spooky things to appear in front of her.

Although, even though she was walking like this, her behind was still technically behind her. She probably should have thought her plan through a little bit more before deciding to act upon it. Whatever. It didn’t matter. What did matter was that something worse than the rug turning into icky seaweed was going to happen. She had to keep moving so she could find it before it found her.

“Yeah, you chairs, I see you over there,” Lyra said as she passed them. “Want me to sit down, huh? Rest my weary hooves? You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Then you could easily suck me into the cushions and transport me to your lint mines. Thanks, but no. Somehow, I don’t think I’d have fun being forced to dig for loose change for the rest of my life. Nice try, but I’m onto you.”

Now that she had wandered around to the other side of the room, Lyra took notice of the area that normally held the balcony. Between the cracks of the curtains, she could see that the windows on either side of the door had been boarded up from the outside. It unnerved her to know a potential escape route had been cut off, but it was just more proof of this room’s diabolical design.

The balcony door also had a sign on it that read, “Haunted house continued this way.” Lyra narrowed her eyes. Anything with a sign like that had to be trapped. However, she wasn’t able to check it yet. She couldn’t risk letting the chairs out of her sight now that she knew of the magical portals hidden within them.

Then, she felt something bang against her hind leg.

Lyra whirled around and gave a fierce battle shout that didn’t sound anything at all like a cry of terror. However, her voice lost its enthusiasm when she realized she had only backed into the refreshment table.

Various flavors of snacks and sodas splayed out before her. Oh sure, they looked normal enough, but they were probably loaded with super-sugar, which had a million times the fattening powers of ordinary sugar. One bite and she’d be so large that she wouldn’t be able to fit back outside.

The magazines and board games couldn’t be ignored either. Even if that was the latest issue of Canterlot Music Weekly. She hadn’t had a chance to read that one yet. Her eyes widened. There was a book of number puzzles! Lyra loved those things. Even though they were impossible to solve without adding extra boxes and ignoring that whole ‘using each number only once per line’ rule.

But she was getting distracted! Now that she realized what was happening, she was able to take her eyes off the enchanting puzzles. It was a good thing that her will was strong enough to have resisted the devious attraction spell that had obviously been cast upon the activity book.

The table also held one other item that couldn’t be ignored. A single look, and Lyra knew she had finally found the monster hiding in plain sight.

“Clever,” Lyra said as she nodded at the bouquet. “I was almost tempted to bury my face in there to take a long sniff of your lovely, fragrant scents. I bet you’d still like me to do that, huh? However...” Her hoof shot out at the dangerous flowers. “Your trick won’t work! I know all about that poison joke stuff that grows in the Everfree!”

Her hoof jerked back and forth, giving each flower its own punishing point. “Which one of you is it? Maybe you! Sure, you may look like a daisy with your white petals and yellow center and, well... well, you probably are just a daisy. And you’re probably a rose, and you’re... a tulip?”

Lyra dropped her hoof to the ground and shook her head. “Honestly, I have no clue what most flowers are named. But I got my eye on you. All of you! If any of you try anything funny...” She leaned in closer so that every terrified petal could stare into her eyes and know without any doubt that she was serious about her coming threat. “I. Will. Eat. You.”

As she backed away from the table, Lyra assessed her remaining options. There weren’t many places left that the scare could come from. That is, unless Pinkie had somehow managed to modified the walls. However, it wasn’t very likely that the Cakes would have agreed to something like that. Although... just because something was unlikely, didn’t mean it was impossible.

Lyra’s eyes widened. How could she have been so blind not to recognize the blatant threat? There were walls on each side of the room; the attack could literally come from any direction.

“Oh, I see how it is,” Lyra yelled, spinning around in a futile attempt to not let the walls get behind her. “Get me distracted with all the doo-dads and then glorp! You’ll have some hidden pipes start gushing out a horrible viscous fluid like... like, I don’t know, tapioca.”

She stumbled to a halt as her stomach lurched at just the mention of the dread pudding. However, that sickening feeling paled in comparison to the horrible sense of realization that came over her; she may have been giving a certain somepony ideas.

Her hoof went up to the fear-o-meter. She hoped she was wrong, but she couldn’t take the risk.

“Twilight? Are you listening?” Lyra asked, then continued without waiting for a response. “I swear upon my cutie mark, Twilight Sparkle. If my body comes into contact with tapioca while I’m in here, I will march out there, and we will exchange words. You got that? Words! Plural!”

She waited, but, like before, there was no indication one way or the other that the fear-o-meter provided any form of long-distance, verbal communication. Lyra dropped her hoof and sighed. “I’m still really glad you can’t hear me through this thing.”

Even without a magically adept unicorn jotting down new ways to terrify her, Lyra still had the problem of being completely at the mercy of this room that had so far done absolutely nothing to try and scare her.

She blinked.

Pursing her lips, Lyra wondered if perhaps the sign on the exit had actually been telling the truth. Maybe she really was supposed to continue on. It wasn’t like there was much else to try. Still, she would need to be careful. After all, that sign could easily fall off and give her a paper cut.

As Lyra turned around to start her cautious approach towards the balcony, she made the mistake of looking at the tree in the center. Then, everything made sense. The trap wasn’t at the sign; it was right here before her! The tree’s branches were stretched out across the ceiling every which way. No matter where a pony walked in this room, they would be within grabbing distance of its limbs.

By the time she had realized the tree’s true, blackhearted nature, it was too late, for it had already begun its attack. The branches swayed back and forth; obviously a leafy version of a sinister laugh. Soon the gnarled, wooden claws would reach out and snatch her. Then the tree’s narrow trunk would splinter and bulge, its bark ripping open into a hideous maw twice her size. She’d be swallowed in one bite!

Once she was fertilizer, malformed pods would bud and start to grow among the leaves. Eventually, the pods would split open to release plant-pony clones of her into the world. The evil Copy-Lyras would blend into society and act normal enough, but every week, another pony would be led here, to this very room, and the process would begin anew.

Lyra whimpered and found at some point she had curled up defensively into a ball. Why would Pinkie put something like this in here? Hadn’t she intended to let children into this haunted house?

Only one hope remained. Lyra summoned up the few remaining drops of courage she had left and forced herself to look at the tree. She let her lower lip tremble and put on her best pair of puppy-dog eyes. If this monster had any semblance of a soul, perhaps it could feel pity. Even if it were only for a fleeting moment, it would still allow her to live a few more seconds of glorious life.

The tree responded to Lyra’s plea by gently continuing to sway its branches at her.

Unsure of what that meant, Lyra remained still for a while, then stood up as her cheeks began to burn. She held a hoof to her forehead and sighed. At least nopony had been around to see her cowering before the harmless potted plant.

It was odd that the branches were still moving, though. None of the windows were open, and she certainly didn’t feel a breeze. There was also an almost-too-quiet-to-hear thumping sound coming from nearby.

It only took a moment for her to follow the sound to its source: an upside-down cardboard box next to the tree’s pot. The box wobbled at an unsteady rhythm, lightly bumping into the tree while it did so. Lyra wasn’t really sure how she could have possibly missed something so obvious—although, the room did contain many interesting, non-scary things, so if anypony asked, it was plausible for her to say she had just gotten caught up in the moment.

Still, a wobbling box meant that something inside it was moving, and judging by the size of the box, that something could easily be a somepony. A certain pink pony, to be exact.

Lyra smirked. She had Pinkie right where she wanted her. Finally, the day would be over, candy would be secured, and she would be able to return home a hero.

Now that her task was nearly complete, Lyra supposed that she could spare a minute to have a little fun at Pinkie’s expense. After all, there was no reason all of today’s scares had to be one-sided.

“Gee,” Lyra said, fighting not to laugh. “I guess I was wrong. There isn’t anything scary about this room at all!” She let her voice get quieter and lightly stepped on the floor so that it sounded like she was moving farther away. “Oh well. I’ll just have to move on and—gotcha!” Her magic sent the cardboard flying into the air.

The pink-and-yellow pegasus that had been hiding beneath the box turned her wide-open eyes upon Lyra and let out a shriek.

In this circumstance, Lyra could only think of one thing to do: scream back.

So it was that Lyra found herself screaming at a pegasus, who in turn was screaming back at her, and Lyra figured the only reason either of them hadn't stopped screaming, was because the other one was still screaming. Thankfully, ponies had a natural defense to prevent being caught forever in a perpetual scream feedback loop.

Once Lyra had expelled that last of the air from her lungs, her voice gave out and she was forced to suck in a long, ragged breath. She stood there, gasping in and out while holding a hoof to her chest in an attempt to keep her heart from breaking free. Across from her, the pegasus cowered on the floor and appeared to be trying to bury her mane further beneath her forelegs.

It took several long seconds until Lyra felt she could even attempt to speak. “Flu-Fluttershy?” Still a little light-headed, she decided to wait a few more breaths until she felt well enough to continue. “D-don’t do that. You... you nearly gave me a heart atta—ack!”

Suddenly, Fluttershy had her forelegs wrapped around Lyra’s neck. She trembled slightly as she pulled Lyra closer into a hug. “Oh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you,” she said softly between breaths. “I knew somepony would come rescue me eventually. I just knew it.”

Lyra awkwardly patted Fluttershy’s shoulder in what was hopefully the comforting gesture to let somepony know that, ‘Yes, everything is all right now. By the way, do you think you can please stop squeezing my neck so that I can actually talk? Thanks.’

While Fluttershy’s grip may not have been tight enough to prevent Lyra from breathing, it was still more than a little bit uncomfortable. Especially since, if Fluttershy didn’t start supporting more of her own weight, they were both going to end up toppling over onto the floor.

After a minute of increasingly desperate patting, the gesture got through. Fluttershy let go and sat down on her haunches, seeming to deflate with a heavy sigh. She closed her eyes as she held a hoof to her chest. Lyra thought she caught a few more whispers of “I knew it.”

“So, Fluttershy,” Lyra said as she also sat down, “you’re probably—well, no—you’re definitely the last pony I expected to find in a haunted house. Why are you, um, you know, here?”

Fluttershy shook softly and didn’t look up. She started a hushed explanation that was too quiet to follow. Lyra craned her ears, but had little luck understanding more than a word or two. However, judging by the way Fluttershy’s voice steadily rose in pitch until it was no more than a series of squeaks, she was likely about to go emotionally critical and unleash a torrent of dammed-up tears.

Lyra raised a hoof to stop her before that could happen. “Whoa. Hold on. Ease up. Take deep breaths. In and out. In... and out. That’s it.”

Lyra looked to the snack table and selected a bottle with a picture of an apple on it. Using her magic, she uncapped the juice and levitated it down to Fluttershy’s reach.

“Here. Drink this and try to collect your thoughts. Not too fast, though. Drink as much as you need. There you go. Okay. Do you feel any better, now?”

Fluttershy shook her head.

“Do you think you can talk loud enough to explain to me what happened?”

“I’ll try.”

After a couple more steadying breaths and another sip of juice, Fluttershy began her explanation.

“I didn’t want to help with the haunted house. I didn’t want anything to do with Nightmare Night. But Pinkie wouldn’t stop begging me. She wanted all of us to do this together. But I just wanted to stay home where it would be safe and not at all frightening. Then she told me that I could have a whole room to design, and that I could make it nice and pleasant instead of scary.

“I liked that idea. Everypony could rest and calm their nerves. They could play games, talk to each other, or just take a nap. Twilight even offered to stay in the room so she could teleport anypony that wanted to leave outside.

“I came here this morning with a box of supplies. The outside was really scary, and I almost went back home, but Rarity and Pinkie were there and had already offered to help me, so I tried to be brave. We worked together to set everything up. They even had some new things to add like this tree and furniture. It took us awhile, but... well, in the end, we made this.” Fluttershy looked out at the room and a smile slowly came to her lips.

Now that Lyra knew that there were no deadly surprises waiting for her, she had to admit that the room was actually kind of soothing in a ‘sure, things may have been bad before but, hey, free drinks!’ sort of way.

“We all went outside after that, and everypony else was there,” Fluttershy continued. “They were going to go somewhere to have a late lunch and discuss something about testing for the evening. They invited me, but I was feeling exhausted and just wanted to lie down at home.

“As I was flying back, I realized that I left my box behind. I didn’t want anypony else to have to clean up after me, so I came back to get it. I was ready to leave when I... I saw...” She gulped and quickly said, “There was a horrible, scary swamp out in the hallway!”

Lyra looked over her shoulder at the door. “You saw a swamp out there? Huh... I guess it must be something different for everypony. Beats what I got, at least.” Seeing the questioning look on Fluttershy’s face, Lyra added, “You probably don’t want to hear about it. But it was only an illusion. It couldn’t hurt you.”

“I know. I remember Twilight explaining how it worked. I tried to ignore it and walk past, but...” Fluttershy shut her eyes and shivered. “It... it was so real. It reminded me of—I just couldn’t make myself do it.”

“Yeah, it did seem pretty real. I can’t say I blame you. But what about the balcony?” Lyra nodded towards the other doorway. “Couldn’t you just fly off of it?”

“I would, but there’s another room on the other side now, and it’s, well...” Fluttershy frowned and looked away. “I’m not actually sure what’s in there, but Rainbow Dash didn’t make it sound good.”

“That must be the room I saw on stilts earlier,” Lyra said to herself, then addressed Fluttershy. “And the windows in here are all boarded up from the outside?”

Fluttershy nodded.

“Sheesh. Trapped in your own creation. At least it’s not a bad place to stay.”

“Well, I thought so too at first. I knew the others would be back eventually, so I ate some snacks and tried to read a magazine. Everything was fine for about an hour, but then I started to hear things. Creaks, and moans, and thuds that sounded like they were right behind me.”

Fluttershy wrapped her forelegs across her chest and bit her lower lip. After a few seconds, she looked towards Lyra but didn’t quite meet her eyes. “It just kept getting worse after that. I even thought I heard somepony walking down the hall, b-but when I called out, the hoofsteps suddenly stopped and something banged against the door. I didn’t know what it was, so I... I panicked and hid. I covered my ears and told myself that I only had to wait a little longer. I knew my friends would rescue me soon. I kept whispering that to myself over and over.”

Lyra winced. While there had been no way of knowing anypony had been on the other side of the door, she still felt like a big jerk for making all that noise. “Yeah, that... that was me in the hallway. I, uh, I’m really sorry I scared you.”

“It’s okay. You didn’t mean to.”

“Well, anyway...” Lyra said, then shook her head. “I can’t believe you’ve been stuck in here all this time. I haven’t even been in this house a half hour, and already I just want to find Pinkie, get my candy, go home to my party, and never come back.”

“I know. It’s just been awful. I—oh!” Fluttershy’s ears perked up and she finally made eye contact for more than half a second. “Did you say Pinkie came back?”

“Yeah. I’m the one they got to start testing the haunted house. She promised me some candy if I meet her at the end. It’s been...”—Lyra fished around for a word that was polite but not too much of a complement—“...an experience.”

“Do you think when you see her, maybe you could tell her I’m in here? I mean, if it’s not too much trouble.”

“Well, yeah, of course I will.” Lyra started to stand but then Fluttershy’s words hit her. “Wait. Are you saying you want me to leave you here alone? Are you sure you’ll be okay?”

“Yes. I’ll... I’ll be fine. I feel better now that I’ve had somepony to talk to.”

Lyra stood the rest of the way up and walked towards the balcony but kept an eye turned back over her shoulder. While Fluttershy’s lips may have been smiling, the rest of her face told another story. Her ears had lost their temporary perkiness, and her eyes kept darting to her box that had fallen near the wall. Already, Lyra could make out the small shivers that would soon grow into full-fledged trembling.

It was moments like this that somepony had to step up and be a hero. Unfortunately, it didn’t look like Fluttershy was eligible, so that somepony would have to be Lyra.

“Alright, look, Fluttershy,” Lyra said as she turned back around. She took a deep breath and straightened her posture. “My conscience won’t allow me to leave you here alone. So, I’m going to take you with me to find Pinkie.”

Fluttershy gasped and quickly shook her head. “Oh! N-no, it’s fine. Really. You shouldn’t worry about me.”

Lyra rolled her eyes. “Obviously you’re not fine. I bet right now you’re starting to imagine that, as soon as I leave, horrible, writhing monsters from the nightmare dimension will break down the hallway door and drag you off, kicking and screaming, all the way to their Castle of the Everdark, where they’ll force you to be the royal back-scratcher for their overlord, who is a creature that has ten thousand teeth but no mouth.”

Fluttershy made a “meep” sound and hid her face behind her mane. She squeaked out, “Now I am.”

“You see? This is why you need to come with me.” Lyra turned sideways and struck a pose that she hoped radiated pure bravado. “We’ll be an unstoppable team. Nothing will stand in our way. Together, we’ll find Pinkie in no time. Er... by the way, do you happen to know where the final room is?”

Fluttershy kept her eyes shut and shook her head.

“Darn. I was hoping we could skip to it,” Lyra said, dropping her pose. “Oh well, we might get lucky and this next room will be the one. So, are you ready to be rescued?”

Fluttershy shook her head again. Or maybe she hadn’t stopped shaking it yet. “B-but I can’t come with you,” she stammered, then looked over her shoulder and started scooting away. “I-I’m not as brave as you are. If I s-saw anything s-scary, I... I... I just don’t know what I’d do!”

“Which is why you’ll be wearing a blindfold.”

Fluttershy stopped her retreat and slowly turned back to Lyra. “I... I will?”

“Yep. If you can’t see something scary, then it won’t be able to scare you.”

After a few seconds of consideration, Fluttershy said, “I guess that makes sense. But what about—”

“Right,” Lyra quickly exclaimed before Fluttershy could think of any more ways to frighten herself. “So, all I need to do is find something to use as a blindfold.”

Lyra walked around the room, searching for anything she could use. The tablecloth seemed like a good choice, but it might prove awkward to use without cutting it into strips first. However, Pinkie probably wouldn’t like it if Lyra destroyed the cloth. Besides, it didn’t look like there was anything sharp lying around. The cushions on the chairs were right out; they would be way too heavy. The magazines could be a good choice, but it would be awkward holding one over Fluttershy’s eyes while walking. Especially since Lyra didn’t quite trust her magic not to fail the next time she was startled. It might be possible to fold the pages into something useful, but, after her disastrous attempt at breaking the world record for most paper cranes created within twenty-four hours, the mayor had forbidden Lyra from practicing origami within town limits. That only left the plants to make a blindfold out of. Was it even possible to weave leaves and flower petals together into a band?

She tapped her forehead in thought. There had to be something else she could use. Something like the headband she kept hitting with her hoof.

Smiling to herself, Lyra congratulated her brain for proving, once again, how smart it was at problem solving. The fear-o-meter would make the perfect blindfold. Twilight probably wouldn’t even mind if her data became slightly less valid because of this. It was for a good cause, after all.

Twilight also probably wouldn’t suffer any negative consequences from having her fear-sensing empathic-link moved onto the head of a pegasus who was incredibly afraid at the moment. And if she did? Well, that was the reason why aspirin had been invented.

Lyra used her magic to remove the fear-o-meter and hold it out for Fluttershy. “I should have thought of this sooner. You can wear this around your eyes. It’s a fear-o—headband!” She scarcely breathed as she looked at Fluttershy, who hopefully hadn’t noticed her slip-up. After a few seconds of no reaction besides a slightly increased frown on Fluttershy’s face, Lyra continued, “This is a headband I received from Twilight. And it is in no way anything else besides that.”

Fluttershy eyed the fear-o-meter for a moment, then tentatively reached out to hook it on her foreleg. She looked at Lyra as if searching for a reason to refuse.

“If you don’t want to go, we can stay here,” Lyra said, at first slightly surprised to hear the words come out of her mouth, but then realizing they were true. “I know it seems like I’m being pushy, and—well, okay, I admit I’m being pushy. It’s just that it’s going to be dark soon, and I really want to get home in time for my party. But I can tell that you’re nervous, and I’m not going to force you to do anything you don’t want to. If you want to stay here, then I promise I won’t leave your side until Pinkie, Twilight, or somepony else finds us. Even if it means I’ll be late getting back.”

Fluttershy glanced down at the headband then back at Lyra. This motioned repeated itself a few times before she swallowed hard, took a deep breath, and slipped the band over her head. After a little maneuvering to get her mane untangled from it, she set the headband in place across her eyes and stood up to face in Lyra’s general direction. Her mouth opened, but it took her a moment to form words. “I’ll come with you. I really don’t want to be stuck in here any longer. I’ll try to be brave.”

“Thanks, Fluttershy. I’ll be sure to make it up to you once Nightmare Night is over and you’re feeling better. Think you can follow my voice?”

Fluttershy nodded. A smile almost crept to her lips before it faded into a frown. “Let’s hurry. Rainbow Dash talked a lot about how her room would be the one that scared everypony the most.”

Smirking to herself, Lyra walked to the balcony door and placed a hoof on the handle. “Oh, I know all about Rainbow Dash’s repertoire of Nightmare Night pranks. They may be shocking—sometimes literally—but they’re fairly harmless. Trust me when I say that there’s nothing she could have come up with that we would seriously need to worry about, at all.”

To prove her point, Lyra pressed down on the handle and swung open the door. Immediately, wind whipped at her face, forcing her to shield her eyes with a foreleg. She stood there for a dozen or so seconds, listening to the leaves rustling, magazine pages flipping, and a squeaking sound that may or may not have been coming from Fluttershy. Finally, the wind died down enough for her to lower her guard.

The room before them was like staring into a storm. Possible because it was a storm. Dark, swirling masses of clouds covered the floor, ceiling and walls, forming a tiny hallway with a fork leading both left and right. Every so often, a tiny spark would emit from the clouds and nip at the air in a crackling pop. Heavy mist traveled on the wind, with some of it spilling out into Lyra’s face.

“And then I open a door to an indoor thunderstorm,” Lyra said weakly, swishing a foreleg before her to clear the mist. She sighed and hit a hoof against her forehead. “I tempted fate. Why did I tempt fate?” She turned back to Fluttershy and gave a hopeful grin. “Still, thunderstorms aren’t all that scary.”

“They can be.”

On cue, the storm rumbled with thunder, causing Fluttershy to yelp and flinch away.

“Alright, new plan,” Lyra said as she quickly closed the distance between them before Fluttershy could try to flee again. “Do you think it’d be better if I covered your ears too? You wouldn’t have to listen to the storm that way.”

“Maybe,” Fluttershy said at a near-whisper. It took her several seconds before she turned her head back towards Lyra. “But how would I follow you?”

“Good question. Let’s see, um... ah! I know.” Lyra turned around and levitated the end of her tail so that it barely touched Fluttershy’s mouth. “Bite onto my tail and just follow whichever way I’m tugging. That should work, right?”

“I suppose so,” Fluttershy said, then tentatively reached out to grab a mouthful of hair. Her face briefly squirmed with displeasure. Regrettably, while Lyra’s favorite shampoo may have been vanilla-scented, it definitely wasn’t vanilla-flavored.

Fluttershy said something through her teeth that was probably something to the tune of, “Let’s do this before I change my mind.”

With her magic, Lyra gently pulled at the sides of the headband. Fluttershy’s ears were already hanging limp, so it was a simple task to tuck them under the band in what was hopefully a comfortable position.

“Can you hear me?” Lyra asked in a slightly louder than normal voice.

No response came from Fluttershy, so the plan must have been working.

Lyra took a few steps and felt her tail hair pulling taut. She slowly continued forward, trying to ignore the tears that were forming in her eyes. Thankfully, Fluttershy moved before anything could be torn loose.

With her charge in tow, Lyra eased up to the door. Things had suddenly gotten serious, and she had a new mission set before her. Candy was important, but candy could wait until Fluttershy was safe.

Together, they walked into the storm.

Chapter Six

As much as Lyra wanted to hurry onwards, she knew she had to stop and take in her surroundings. After all, it wasn’t every day that somepony found themselves inside of a thunderstorm.

That is, unless that somepony happened to be a pegasus who was part of a weather patrol. In that case, this was probably a fairly normal occurrence and more than a little boring.

Nevertheless, being an earthbound pony, Lyra decided the smart thing to do would be to stay calm and plan out her actions. That way, she wouldn’t end up freaking out, fleeing in circles, and swirling the clouds into a hurricane that threatened to destroy half of Ponyville.

She started off by taking note of the obvious things; such as how the slightly chilly mist clung to her coat, the way the wind whipped her mane as it gusted down one corridor and onto the next, and especially the way the static electricity made all her hair stand on end.

However, with the clouds all formed into wall-like structures, something about the room tickled at her memories. For one thing, the open area she and Fluttershy stood in looked like it had been purposely shaped in a corridor. For another, a quick glance in either direction revealed that one of their potential pathways curved deeper into the storm while the other split into a fork.

Then, Lyra realized where she had seen a pattern like this before. She would have to travel further to be certain, but for now, she had a strong suspicion of exactly what this room was: a maze.

She let out her breath as a chuckle escaped her lips. When she had first seen the storm clouds, she had expected the room to be filled with cheap scares that all involved being zapped repeatedly by lightning. Which, in all likelihood, was still going to happen. However, if everything was laid out in a maze-like format, then it would be much more manageable. After all, Lyra knew the rules of mazes, and, as she glanced over her shoulder, she also knew that sometimes those rules needed to be broken.

Fluttershy’s face had gone a few shades paler, and her body shivered almost constantly. Lyra would have liked to place the blame on the cold mist, but that was probably only a minor inconvenience compared to what must have been running through Fluttershy’s mind. It would only be a matter of time before she shut down and curled up into a whimpering ball. At least she was still biting onto Lyra’s tail with a vice-like grip, so she probably wouldn’t end up getting lost. Still, they needed to move quickly before something bad happened, and that meant they’d have to cheat.

Lyra remembered seeing this room from the outside. She recalled that one end had started by the second-floor balcony and from there it had wrapped around Sugarcube Corner clockwise. It seemed then that traveling to the right would be a good direction to start. With each step forward, ominous creaks came from below, bringing to mind how flimsy the room on stilts had looked from the outside. Already, visions of the floor collapsing into an endless void filled her mind.

Lyra gulped and shut her eyes. She wished she hadn’t skimmed Twilight’s checklist so fast; developing a fear of falling was probably on it somewhere. She shook her head to try and clear it. If a phobia had gotten into her brain, then she would just have to spend a day jumping off of high places until she frustrated it into giving up on her. For now, she would have to ignore the feathery feeling in her stomach and trust that Pinkie hadn’t settled on using cheap lumber.

A couple more shuffling steps forward, and Lyra stood safely next to a wall. Or, at least, safe in the sense that nothing had broken, splintered, or exploded yet. Still, now that she had made it this far, she had a test to perform. As she reached out with a hoof, she hoped her guess was correct.

Pressing forward, Lyra’s hoof met with the cloud wall and passed through with no resistance. She smiled as she waved her foreleg, gently pushing aside the clouds. However, her disturbances didn’t last long as the hole she had made quickly resealed itself once her hoof was no longer in the way.

The anti-destructible nature of the walls didn’t matter though, because Lyra had confirmed her suspicion. She now knew that only the exterior of the room was made from wood, and that the entire interior of the maze was made out of nothing more than easily walk-throughable clouds.

Lyra had to snort a laugh at such an oversight. Apparently, this maze operated on the honor system. That, or her mighty brain was just way too awesome to be misled.

Now that she had an easy path to the exit, Lyra marched forward and plunged into the cloud. She felt a thin ring of colder air slide down her body as she passed through the wall, but other than that, she had no indication that anything had stood in her way at all.

With the simple obstacle overcome, she found herself in another part of the maze: a dead-end, by the look of it. But that wouldn’t be a problem. She smirked, feeling proud of herself. Not only was she shaving precious minutes off of her quest to save Fluttershy and collect candy, but she was also going to set a new world record for solving this maze. With any luck, nopony else would figure out the shortcut tomorrow night and she’d be champion for life.

The next wall loomed close, and Lyra would have gone through it as well, had a pain not suddenly shot up her spine. She gritted her teeth in an attempt to bite back a yelp. It felt like the end of her tail had just been yanked off.

Blinking away her tears, she looked behind herself and saw that her tail was miraculously still attached. It was, however, sticking straight out into the clouds. Fluttershy had stopped walking for some reason and had likely just taken off a chunk of Lyra’s tail hairs in the process.

Lyra couldn’t get too mad—or so she tried to tell herself—after all, a sudden temperature change may have been a startling experience while blindfolded. All she needed to do was apply a little more pressure, and soon her companion would get the clue to keep moving.

After she felt the third strand of hair getting pulled out, Lyra stopped with the pressure-applying before her tail ended up with a bald spot. She groaned. Everything had been going so smoothly. Of course something had to go wrong. Now she had to find a way to reverse back through the clouds without bumping into Fluttershy.

It took a little shuffling, but Lyra managed to maneuver herself back into the hallway without a collision. She looked at Fluttershy, who was still facing the wall and rubbing the tip of her nose. There were several things Lyra wanted to ask, but one burly question beat its way past all the others to arrive at the forefront of her mind first: when did Fluttershy get so tall?

Then the realization hit Lyra. She didn’t know whether she wanted to groan, cry, scream, or laugh. Fluttershy wasn’t taller. Fluttershy was standing on the clouds.

Lyra never felt stupider, and had to resist the urge to whack her forehead. Of course, everypony knew that pegasi could walk on clouds. However, for those ponies that spent the majority of their time on the ground, clouds were things that were ‘up there’ and not really a part of daily life unless the town had scheduled a rain. Still, an ordinary cloud shouldn’t have been completely solid for a pegasus. Just solider. A pegasus could still push their way through if they wanted too. That meant that these were no ordinary clouds.

Remembering how the walls could seal up, Lyra had a feeling she knew what was going on. She tested her suspicions by kicking at the cloudy floor, then nodded. Not even a scratch. With how well the clouds held their shape, they were likely some sort of building material that went into the construction of pegasus sky structures. It was still probably possible for a pegasus to force their way through this stuff with enough effort, but it would require speed or strength, and something told Lyra that Fluttershy didn’t have enough of either at the moment.

Lyra lifted the fear-o-meter off one of Fluttershy’s ears. “Sorry about that,” she shouted above the wind. “Are you okay?”

Fluttershy gave the barest of nods.

“That’s good. We ran into a little snag. Uh, literally in your case. It looks like we’ll have to take the long way around. I’ll hurry as fast as I can.”

Fluttershy made a squeaking noise that Lyra hoped was an agreement.

With a heavy sigh, Lyra racked her brain as she tried to formulate a new plan. The maze was not designed how she thought it would be. For one thing, unicorns and earth ponies could easily skip most of it, if they figured out the trick. Rainbow Dash wouldn’t have wanted anypony to cheat their way through the room. Which left the question of why even use clouds at all?

Lyra’s thoughts were interrupted as a screeching caw sounded from behind. She cried out and barely had time to duck before a dark shape swooped by overhead. That blackbird had it in for her! She dropped to her belly and hoped the clouds along the floor would provide some cover. That still left the problem of Fluttershy being an unassuming target, but with any luck, the blackbird would consider all other winged-creatures an ally.

After a few pounding heart-beats passed with no further attacks, Lyra lifted her head slightly and scanned the air. While she didn’t see the bird anywhere, she did discover something about the maze that filled her with a sense of dread: the clouds covering the ceiling had holes in it. More specifically, holes large enough for a pegasus to easily pass in and out.

Everything came together then. Come tomorrow night, Rainbow Dash would prowl the area above the maze. She would be watching, waiting in anticipation, orchestrating the scares to come at just the right moments. She wouldn’t care if somepony tried to cheat. In fact, she probably looked forward being able to drop down and terrify anypony who thought they were being clever. This room wasn’t just a maze; it was Rainbow Dash’s Nightmare Night playground.

Lyra shivered as she stood up. She was fairly certain that only Pinkie and Twilight were running the haunted house at the moment, so the odds of having to deal with pegasus pranks on top of everything else weren’t too high. With the blackbird no longer harassing her, Lyra decided it would be best to finish the maze quickly before Rainbow Dash learned of what she was missing out on. If cheating wasn’t an option, then Lyra would have to start walking the maze normally.

After two steps of normal maze-walking, Lyra blundered into a hidden dip in the floor and found her front legs submerged up to her fetlocks in a pool of icy water. With chattering teeth, she climbed out of the trap and tried not to think about how lucky pegasi got to cross the pit on nice, fluffy clouds.

Once she had shaken most of the water off her hooves, Lyra set her neck straight and marched forward. Even with the tricks, a maze was still a maze, and she knew mazes. After all, she had once solved a whole activity book of them during a particularly boring family trip to the Great Salt Flats.

She knew that the first and easiest rule to solving a maze was known as the right hooves rule. Simply put, all one had to do was follow the wall closest to their right hooves. They may go down a few dead-ends and loop back on themselves, but eventually, following the wall would lead to the exit.

Of course, there were mazes specifically designed to trip-up somepony that was following that rule, but those required complex designs and likely wouldn’t fit in a room this size. Lyra slowed down. However, Rainbow Dash did have access to Twilight. That meant it was entirely possible that Lyra and Fluttershy had wandered through some sort of shrinking spell and were now inside a relatively miles long maze. On top of that, Twilight could probably design a maze that made the ones in those old activity books seem like straight lines by comparison. If that was the case, then Lyra and Fluttershy were doomed to walk these hallways for the rest of their lives.

Or until Twilight realized something was amiss and used her link to the fear-o-meter to track them down. Whichever came first.

At any rate, the current plan was to not panic, stick to the wall, and hope the maze was actually solvable.

Lyra shook her head. Her heart was beating too fast. She knew what it was, though; she was letting her overactive imagination get the better of her again. While she loved how creative her mind could get sometimes, this was not the appropriate time or place to realize that nopony had ever disproved the existence of cloud monsters.

Lyra came to a halt and squeezed her eyes shut. “Stupid brain,” she muttered. “Didn’t you learn anything from the last room? You’re doing a much better job getting yourself worked up than this dumb haunted house is doing trying to scare you.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I got this. No, we got this. Lyra and Fluttershy: champion maze solvers.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Isn’t that ri—”

Her voice gave out as she spotted the blackbird perched atop Fluttershy’s head. The bird stared at Lyra with dark, soulless eyes, then flared its wings and screeched its hate-filled cry. Try as she might, Lyra couldn’t get her legs to listen to her, so she could only watch helplessly as the bird took to the air and exploded into a cloud of mist that vanished on the wind. Lyra felt her eye begin twitching.

“That didn’t just happen. Right, Fluttershy?”

Fluttershy remained standing still and made no indication one way or the other that a murderous death bird may have been using her head like a branch.

Lyra turned back to the path and walked forward. “That’s what I thought. Glad we came to an agreement.”

The first right-hoof fork turned out to be a dead-end, so Lyra gently spun Fluttershy around and continued to follow the wall back the way they had come. She tried to keep her mind blank and only focus on the menial task at hoof, but every creak of a floorboard or particularly loud gust of wind filled her with a sense of apprehension. Every so often, she could swear she could make out the form of another pony hidden in the mists. However, the pony would fade away whenever Lyra focused on it.

“S-so, Fluttershy…” Lyra said as she led them around another corner. “I know you can’t hear me, and therefore have no idea that I’m talking. And that, even if you could hear me, you couldn’t respond without spitting out my tail. But that doesn’t mean we can’t have a conversation, right”

Without waiting for an answer, Lyra continued, “All I’m saying is that it doesn't count as talking to myself if I’m directing the comments at somepony else. So, now that we have established that I’m not so unnerved that I need to hold an imaginary conversation just to keep my mind functional, we can talk about boring, everyday items to pass the time.”

Lyra took another right. She strongly suspected this part of the maze was spiraling into another dead-end, but she would stick to the rule.

“I’ll get the discussion started. Let’s see… uh…” Lyra tried to think of a boring, everyday item to talk about, but the only topics her brain could come up with were about clouds, mazes, and the horrible, red, glowing eyes that kept appearing and then vanishing from the edge of her vision.

“Let’s talk about mazes,” Lyra decided. “I bet you’re wondering if we’ll ever see the light of day again. Or dark of night, I guess, since it’s getting late. But there’s no need to worry. This maze isn’t that original. I mean, right turns? Left turns? Who hasn’t seen those a million times in their life? Trust me when I say that I’ve been in plenty of mazes before and nothing bad has ever happened in any of them.”

Just like she thought, the spiral looped in on itself and she had to turn around.

“Well… when I say nothing bad, I’m of course excluding the maze where I found out that ghosts were made up creatures. That realization hit me hard and led to me eventually questioning the existence of other holiday figures, thereby ruining just a little bit more of the magic of childhood. But that was only one bad time. The next maze was so, so much better. I bet you’ve heard of it. The Royal Hedge Maze of Canterlot? That was a fun school trip. Or… well, it was until I got distracted and lost the group. But the royal guards found me curled up under a bench a few hours later, so it all worked out in the end. Even though my school never did include the hedge maze in our field trips ever again.”

Lyra had difficulty swallowing with how dry her mouth had become.

“Alright, so, two bad experiences out of two may seem like a hundred percent so far, but the next maze… no. That was the one where—but the one after… or, well… oh! The Hedge Maze Center, where I took that assertiveness seminar! I admit it may have been a tad easy since it had a bunch of signs up to guide the way, but nothing bad happened in that maze!” Lyra triumphantly held her head high, but then she began remembering further about that day. “Afterwards… well, let’s just say that Bon Bon has forbidden me from ever rhyming in the house again.”

Coming to a halt at a crossroads, Lyra slumped her shoulders and shut her eyes. Nothing good had ever come from any maze she had ever been in. In fact, several of the worse experiences in her life had come as a direct result from entering a maze.

But that didn’t mean she could give up. Bon Bon was counting on her. So was Fluttershy. Lyra stood up straight and turned towards the right path. She had made promises, and she intended to keep them.

Even if it meant having to face the phantom pony with the glowing, red eyes forming out of the mists ahead of her.

Lyra’s ears drooped. She turned around and took the left path.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” Lyra whispered through gritted teeth. “It’s not a ghost. They aren’t real. You need to turn around this instant. It’s called the right hooves rule for a reason.”

Lyra’s legs refused to listen to her. If anything, they started walking faster once she heard the creaking hoofsteps of the phantom pony following them.

“Alright, so, left hooves rule it is. Good to switch things up a bit. Am I right, Fluttershy?”

As her pace outmatched Fluttershy’s, Lyra’s tail hairs pulled taut, limiting her movement to a slow trot. However, the sudden increase of speed had caused Fluttershy to begin resisting, slowing them even further. This wasn’t good as the phantom pony’s hoofsteps sounding like they were getting closer.

“I bet you’re wondering why we’ve picked up speed, right?” Lyra called out, now choosing paths at random. “Well, it’s not because a ghost is slowly chasing us, delighting in our futile attempt to escape. There’s plenty of other things that pony could be. Like… like one of those monsters from the comics that wait for their victims to turn around and witness their unspeakable, mind-shattering horror before they grab them with their tentacles and drag them away into the realm of despair, never to be heard from again.”

Lyra attempted to laugh lightly but failed to keep the hysterics from it. “Jokes on it, then. We’ll just never turn around again for the rest of our—”

A wall blocked the path: a dead-end.

“...lives,” Lyra finished weakly as she stopped. Fluttershy came up beside her and pressed her trembling shoulder against Lyra’s side for support. Slowly, Lyra turned them around to face their fate.

The phantom stood a short distance away. It had no need to hurry, it had them right where it wanted them. With it so close, Lyra could make out its features. Its head was a pale imitation of a living pony’s, having only small indentations where its mouth and nostrils should have been. Its skin was a sickly white with a slight transparency to it. But most of all, Lyra couldn’t stop staring at its hollow eyes with pinpricks of fire burning inside.

Lyra’s mind could no longer deny it; this creature standing before her was unmistakably a ghost. Thinking quick, Lyra came up with two plans for getting out of this mess. She could either A: dive through the dead-end behind her, suffer the loss of a good portion of her tail hair, and leave Fluttershy alone to fight off the ghost. Or B: stand her ground, show the ghost that she wasn’t afraid of it, and likely have her soul devoured when she discovered that maybe some ghosts actually were real.

Lyra gulped, braced herself, and tried to steady her nerves for what was to come. The correct choice was obvious. Even at the cost of her delicious soul, Lyra wasn’t going to abandon Fluttershy, because friends don’t let friends down.

Although, truth be told, she and Fluttershy didn’t often hang out together much. Or at all, really. If anything, their relationship was probably more along the lines of being friendly acquaintances rather than actually being friends. But that didn’t matter, because there was probably also a saying somewhere that friendly acquaintances don’t let other friendly acquaintances get eaten by ghosts.

Lyra squared her shoulders, snorted out some air, and scraped a hoof menacingly against the floor. “Alright, ghost,” she said, letting her voice be low and rumbly. “You think you’re so tough? Then come on! Come get a piece of me!”

The ghost stepped forward, indicating that it, indeed, wanted to get a piece of her.

Lyra flinched and backed away. “Ah! Okay. I was just kidding.” She raised a foreleg in a futile attempt to shield her face. “How about we make a deal? You let us go, and I’ll give you two pieces of the candy I’m going to collect. Deal? No? A third of the candy? A forth? Wait, that’s less.”

Risking a glance over her foreleg, Lyra could see that the ghost was nearly on top of her. Suddenly, memories forced their way back and she was once again a terrified, little filly. The big, spooky ghost had finally caught her. Except, this time, it wasn’t going to sneeze.

Lyra squeezed her eyes shut. What was wrong with her? This was just another illusion. Ghosts aren’t real; they’re just silly things that were invented for a holiday. Haunted houses were stupid. Everything inside them was fake and lame. Nothing scary ever happen in one. She wasn’t scared. She wasn’t scared. She wasn’t—

“Alright! I admit it!” Lyra took a deep breath and shouted, “I’m scared!”

Lyra wiped her eyes with the back of her hoof and then forced them to open. She could feel the lump in her throat getting tighter with every breath.

“There. Are you happy? Pinkie? Twilight? You got me. I’m scared!”

Lyra rubbed her eyes again and sniffed her nose. The ghost had stopped moving. It was waiting for her, silently judging her.

“I’ve been trying to act tough, but I’ve been on edge ever since I set hoof in here. Everything has been popping out at me, or being weird, or making noises, and it frightens me. Okay? It frightens me. I just want to go home. I just want to get my candy and go home.”

With the last of her energy spent, Lyra hung her head and closed her eyes. There. It was all out in the open. After all these years nothing had changed. She was still the same scared filly she had always been.

Lyra’s voice choked, but she managed once more to whisper, “I’m scared.”

Then, everything stopped.

Lyra’s head jerked up as she felt a jolt of energy surge through her body. She scarcely breathed. She scarcely moved. All around her, the world appeared to have faded into a muted shade of gray—or rather, a slightly more grayish shade of gray since she was still standing amongst storm clouds. Time seemed to have stopped for everything except her, but she really didn’t have time to think about that because, right now, her brain was going at a million miles per hour.

“I’m scared,” Lyra repeated, though this time, her words came out strong and unwavering.

With the realization upon her, the world slowly began to brighten up and return to normal speeds. She looked up at the ghost and stepped forward. “You’re a ghost, and... and I’m scared of you.”

A smile tugged at her lips as her heart beat faster. She glanced at the ghost, Fluttershy, the maze, the haunted house. All the while her breathing increased as the excitement swelled in her chest. She felt the chill of sweat on her coat.

But most of all, she felt a word building in her throat. A word that she longed to—no, needed to shout out. A word the perfectly summarized exactly how she felt at this very moment.

“Yes!”

If it wasn’t for Fluttershy still holding on to her tail, Lyra would have been spinning and dancing so that her body could experience the same joy that was currently coursing through her heart. Instead, she’d have to settle for giddily bouncing up and down on her hooves. She landed in front of the ghost and looked deep into its nightmarish eyes.

“Isn’t it great? I’m no longer not afraid of ghosts anymore!”

Lyra gasped hard, held a hoof to her chest, and whispered, “I can sit around the campfire tomorrow night and listen to everypony telling ghost stories without feeling the need to roll my eyes.”

And that was only a single change to how her Nightmare Night would play out. Dozens of new possibilities had just opened up for her. Tomorrow’s Nightmare Night was going to be just as good as her first. No, better!

However, she couldn’t celebrate yet. After all, there was still one thing standing in her way.

“You’re scary,” Lyra said calmly. She raised a hoof into the air, then quickly swiped it across the ghost. Like the blackbird, the ghost’s body exploded into mist and faded away. “But you’re nothing compared to the disappointment that awaits me at home if I fail to get that candy.”

With one problem completely solved, Lyra turned her attention on the next. She pressed against Fluttershy, letting her companion know that she had the support she sought and wasn’t facing this ordeal alone. Fluttershy’s trembling slowed until she willingly separated herself from Lyra and took a few steps back. Lyra smiled and started back along the path towards the fork that she had taken the wrong turn down.

“I can’t believe it,” Lyra said, feeling for the first time in so many hours like she was in control. “I actually did overcome my childhood trauma today. Huh, guess Bon Bon was right.”

She watched as a miniature lightning storm erupted around them. While the booming of thunder and sparks of electricity were impressive, none of the bolts got close enough to Lyra for her to tell if they were real or not. She laughed as she enjoyed the light show.

“You’re missing out of this, Fluttershy. I wonder how many tricks and traps are in this room. Oh! And what will Rainbow Dash do when she’s here. Do you think she’ll—ya!”

Lyra jumped as a clawed arm suddenly swept out of the wall and across their path. She held a hoof to her beating heart and giggled.

“I so have to come back tomorrow when I have more time to enjoy this. Hey! I’m enjoying this!” Lyra blinked. “Wow. I guess haunted houses can be fun and aren’t stupid wastes of time. Guess I won’t be needing my mantra anymore. But yeah, I definitely need to come back. Oh! And I’ll have to talk Bon Bon into joining me. She hates getting scared. I bet she won’t stop screaming for a minute.”

Before she knew it, the maze had ended, and Lyra saw an illuminated sign before her with the word ‘exit’ written on it in red letters. Just below the sign, a ramp led up to a rectangular hole in the clouds. Lyra approached carefully, making sure Fluttershy’s steps lined up so that she wouldn’t bump into anything. Once through the opening, they stepped down another ramp and found themselves back in the hallway. Lyra looked back at the window they had come through. She could see the storm, but couldn’t hear it. There must have been a noise-blocking spell across the hole.

Lyra turned towards Fluttershy. “Well, that was fun. Guess I should free your ears so you can drop my tail.”

She used her magic to gently pull the sides of the band away from Fluttershy’s head. However, Fluttershy’s ears remained limp. Lyra then noticed the dampness around Fluttershy’s cheeks and knew that it probably hadn’t come from the mist.

“Hey… hey, Fluttershy,” Lyra said softly. “It’s okay. We’re out now. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

Lyra took her time, using gentle words and a soothing voice. After a few minutes, Fluttershy’s ears had risen enough for Lyra to let go of the band.

Fluttershy dropped Lyra’s tail and sat down. She delicately spat out a few stray strand of hair before whispering, “S-sorry.”

“No need to be sorry.” Lyra continued to speak in the same soft voice. “If anything, I should be the one apologizing. That wasn’t a very good plan. If anything, it was probably scarier not knowing what was going on. You were very brave for sticking it out so long. Forgive me?”

Fluttershy nodded. Some of the color seemed to have returned to her face.

“Well, the bad news is that Pinkie wasn’t in that room,” Lyra said. “But the good news is that there’s a sign pointing up some stairs. Can’t be much further, right?”

“Pinkie’s bedroom is up there.”

Lyra took a few steps and looked up the stairs. Darkness began about halfway up, blocking sight of what lay beyond. “I guess that has to be the final room. Sugarcube Corner doesn’t go much higher. I wonder how we get down afterwards?” She shrugged and turned away from the stairs. “Anyway, if you’re feeling out of it, I think I see the stairway that leads down towards the kitchen. We can exit the haunted house that way if you want.”

Fluttershy remain silent for a while, then stood up and shook her head. “No, I—… I think I’d like to talk with Pinkie for a bit and calm myself down.”

“That sounds like a good idea. If anypony knows how to cheer somepony up, it’s Pinkie. You may want to keep the fe—headband on over your eyes. For now, at least. Pinkie doesn’t know you’re here and may have a surprise waiting for us. Take it slowly, and I’ll guide you up... the... stairs?”

Lyra slowly blinked. When she re-opened her eyes, a cupcake still sat on one of the steps leading upwards. She leaned in close to better observe the baked good. The cupcake appeared to be made from a soft-rubber material. Its fluffy white frosting contained many comically oversized, pink sprinkles. The one thing that struck Lyra as odd about this cupcake—besides it being made from rubber, appearing out of nowhere, and sitting on some stairs in the middle of a haunted house—were the red bull-horns poking out its top. Looking up, Lyra spied many more similar cupcakes lining the path up the stairs. She turned back towards Fluttershy to comment only to find the hallway was now filled with the cupcakes.

“That’s… kinda creepy,” Lyra said.

“C-creepy?” Fluttershy said as she took a step back. Her rear hoof landed on one up the cupcakes, which emitted a loud squeak. Fluttershy sprang forward and landed in a crouch, her wings flaring open. “What was that?” Her voice sounded in a near panic.

Lyra instantly realized that, despite her companion attempting to put on a brave face, Fluttershy’s stress levels must has just reached the danger zone, and her body had entered into a fight or flight state. Lyra racked her brain. She had only seconds to respond before she would have to deal with a panicked pegasus flying blind in a hallway.

“It’s nothing! I-it was a… a…” Lyra tried to think of other small, rubber items that squeaked. “A dog toy!” she shouted.

Fluttershy remained crouched, but her wings lowered slightly. “A dog toy?” she asked. “But neither Pinkie nor the Cakes own a dog.”

“I know!” Lyra flailed for answers. “It’s, um… th-that’s why… I said it was creepy? Not that it’s the scary type of creepy. Just that, I, uh, I didn’t expect to see so many in one place.” She laughed weakly, then cleared her throat.

Thankfully, Fluttershy tucked her wings back against her sides and came out of her crouch. “Oh. I guess that would be a little weird. Sorry. I got startled.”

Lyra wiped a hoof against her forehead. The crisis was averted, but she wasn’t out of the woods yet. There was still one more room standing in the way of her candy.

Chapter Seven

“Alright. Carefully… that does it. Now for the next one.” Lyra watched from a few steps behind, doing her best to help guide Fluttershy slowly up the stairs. “I think I can see the top. Curve a little more to the left. You’re doing fine.”

In truth, Lyra couldn’t see the top of the stairs. After only a few steps, the darkness had engulfed them like a thick fog, leaving only a small bubble in which Lyra had any vision. The steps seemed to be endless, constantly curving upwards to impossible heights. Although, Lyra knew they had likely only gone up a half dozen or so—Fluttershy really was being more careful than necessary. Never the less, Lyra kept craning her neck to check further ahead and kept finding nothing but blackness and the occasional bull-horned cupcake. She wanted to sigh—it had to be getting close to sunset and her party’s start—but she knew Fluttershy was in a delicate state of mind and didn’t need to be rushed. Also, an ill-timed sigh might alert Fluttershy to the fact that they were potentially traveling up an eternal staircase, and no good could have come from that.

Then, a stench invaded Lyra’s nose, forcing her to gag.

“Ugh, what is that?” Lyra said, waving a hoof ineffectively in front of her face. “Whatever it is, it smells nasty.”

“Like rotten eggs,” Fluttershy commented.

“Probably not a good smell to be coming from a bakery… or anywhere, for that matter.”

As they continued to carefully climb the steps, the darkness began to change from a pitch black to a deep red. The horrible smell lessened—either that or Lyra’s nostrils had finally given up in protest—and soon, the stairway leveled off into a circular room.

Lyra blinked. While she had never seen Pinkie’s bedroom before, she knew that the remodeling done to it for the haunted house must have been extensive. The walls and floor were covered in irregularly cut plates of black, polished stone. A red light shone from behind the cracks in the plates, illuminating the room in a sinister glow. All decorations and furniture were missing save for a large ebony desk and an executive-style swivel chair behind it.

Lyra held her breath as the swivel chair slowly spun around to face them.

“Ah, if it isn’t my special guest, Lyra,” Pinkie said, as the chair came to a stop. She wore the same black coat, black cape, and white, ruffled shirt from her portrait, but had added a pair of red bull-horns to her ensemble. Unlike the cupcakes, these horns were full-sized and likely weren’t made from soft rubber. She grinned wickedly. “You’ve kept me waiting, but no matter, for I—”

“Pinkie?” Fluttershy asked as she took a step forward.

Pinkie blinked, then her eyes widened. “Fluttershy? What are you—oooohhh! So that’s why my mane kept randomly changing how it was parted. That must have been my Pinkie Sense for ‘Fluttershy is trapped in your haunted house.’ I’ll have to remember that one.”

“Oh, Pinkie!” Fluttershy smiled and raised a hoof to her headband. “It’s just been awful. I came back to get my box and—”

After the headband had cleared her eyes, Fluttershy stared at Pinkie for a few seconds, and then promptly collapsed onto her side. Pinkie leapt over her desk while Lyra rushed to Fluttershy’s side.

“Is she okay?” Pinkie asked.

“Uh…” Lyra bent down and gently opened one of Fluttershy’s eyelids. Medical knowledge of fainting and its related traumas was not something Lyra understood. She wasn’t sure what to check for—or even why she had made the attempt to check in the first place—but judging by Fluttershy’s soft snores and the smile on her lips, the unconscious pegasus was likely in a better, less frightening place.

Having finished her examination, Lyra stood up and said, “I’m not a doctor, but I think she’s sleeping.”

“Aww, poor Fluttershy,” Pinkie said. She took off her cape and draped it over Fluttershy. Next she bundled her shirt and coat together and carefully slid them beneath Fluttershy’s head. Fluttershy wrapped her forelegs around her makeshift pillow, pulled it tight, and mumbled something softly.

Pinkie smiled and gently patted Fluttershy’s mane. “Thanks for finding her. I’ll be sure she gets home where it’s nice and safe with no scary monsters at all. But first, we have a haunted house to finish.”

With a sudden burst of speed, Pinkie bounded back across the room, once again jumped over her desk, and landed perfectly in her chair. Her momentum sent the chair into a spin, causing Pinkie to erupt into a fit of giggles.

Lyra walked forward until she stood on the other side of the desk. As she stared across the polished, dark wood that nearly came up to her chin, she couldn’t help but gulp. She wondered if this was how ponies with corporate jobs felt when they were sent to meet the ‘big boss.’ Although, she was sure that, most of the time, the boss wasn’t shouting “Whee!” as they spun in their chair.

Pinkie finally seemed to remember where she was and stopped herself by grabbing her desk with her forelegs. She scooched the chair forward and sat up straight. “Right, sorry.” She giggled again. “I got carried away.”

“Not a problem,” Lyra said. She glanced around the room, but couldn’t find any clocks or windows. “Pinkie? Do you think we can hurry? I’m pretty sure I need to get back home soon.”

“Oh! Sure, sure.” Pinkie waved a hoof. “Just let me get back into character.” She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, then smiled her wicked grin. “You’ve kept me waiting, Lyra, but no matter, for I am a patient host. Now then, I believe we had a deal?”

Lyra’s heart beat faster as Pinkie ducked down behind her desk. There was the sound of a drawer opening and closing, then Pinkie rose and placed a plastic bowl atop the desk.

There, in such a plain-looking vessel, was the final step of Lyra’s journey: candy. Sweet, glorious candy of all shapes and sizes. She didn’t even care that she was getting a little misty-eyed. She had endured so much to reach this point. When her confidence had faltered, she pressed on. When small children had accosted her, she escaped relatively unscathed. When her fears had become too much, she confronted them and came out with a new outlook on life. And now, her quest at its end, Lyra would claim her well-earned reward and return home victorious. Holding her breath, she used her magic to lift the bowl from the desk.

Then, Pinkie placed a hoof on the candy and pushed the bowl back down. “Of course, candy is one thing,” she said, sounding as if she were talking about watching paint dry. “But you were so much help to us today, maybe you deserve something else instead? Something better?”

Lyra rolled her eyes. She tugged at the bowl, but Pinkie’s hoof had it firmly held in place. “Come off it, Pinkie. I get the costume and know you’re trying to tempt me with something else, and let me tell you, it won’t work. I need this candy, and there’s nothing you can offer me with that would get me to change my mind.”

The corner of Pinkie’s mouth quirked up, letting Lyra know she may have spoken too soon. After lifting her hoof and watching Lyra for a moment to make sure she wouldn’t attempt to steal the candy, Pinkie once again ducked behind her desk. This time, instead of a drawer opening, there was the sound of metal scraping, followed by a muffled grunt. Slowly, Pinkie rose back up, lifting with her teeth a large object that reminded Lyra of a black cloth-covered birdcage. Pinkie placed her front hooves on the desk in order to steady herself as she lifted the cage higher and higher. With a final grunt of effort, Pinkie heaved the cage on top of the desk and dropped into her chair.

“That…” Pinkie said, panting heavily, “was a lot... heavier... than I thought it’d be.” She sucked in a deep breath and slowly let it out. “Now where were we? Oh yeah! The complex moral choice. I love this part.” She cleared her throat and sat back in her chair, calm and collected. The sweat, still damp on her forehead, ruined the effect somewhat. “I seem to recall a certain party. You may remember it, Lyra. Your ‘Welcome to Ponyville’ party?”

Pinkie waited, slowly tapping the tips of her hooves together as Lyra thought back to that day.

Her welcoming party had been so many years ago, but Lyra didn’t think anything particularly noteworthy had happened during it. She remembered the great feeling of being so welcomed, even though she barely knew anypony at all. She remembered eating too much cake and feeling sick afterwards. But she didn’t remember anything specific that had anything to do with the birdcage in front of her.

“I seem to recall,” Pinkie continued in a playful tone, “a certain conversation we had. One where we talked about silly things that happened to us as fillies. You told me about this mythological creature you’ve been searching for…”

Lyra’s ears dropped and she suspected her face had gone ghostly pale. Now she remembered what Pinkie was getting at. Lyra tried to speak, but found her mouth had gone dry. “Y-... th-that…” she managed to croak out, then tried thinking about lemons to get her saliva working again. “That was the sugar talking! I ate way too much cake that day and never should have told you about her. It’s bad enough that Bon Bon thinks I’m crazy, but I’d be the laughing stock of the entire town in anypony else found out! You promised not to tell!”

Pinkie closed her eyes and raised a hoof. “Oh, don’t worry, Lyra. I haven’t told anypony.”

The way Pinkie cracked open her eyes and grinned told Lyra that the word ‘yet’ had been silently added to the last sentence.

Lyra’s mind spun. Was keeping the secret Pinkie’s counter-offer? Lyra didn’t want to believe that Pinkie could be so cruelly manipulative. But then why the birdcage? Surely Pinkie couldn’t have caught the…

Could she have?

“You’re bluffing,” Lyra said calmly.

The sly look on Pinkie’s face faltered only slightly before it recovered. “Oh, am I?” Pinkie asked innocently.

“Of course you are. I know it took me longer to get through this haunted house than most ponies will take tomorrow night, but there is no way that birdcage contains anything other than air... or maybe a bird. I don’t know. But what I’m trying to say is that there’s no way you had time to capture the—”

The cloth covering the cage whipped through the air as Pinkie pulled if off in a flourish. The creature inside definitely wasn’t a bird. Lyra couldn’t take her eyes off the cage. For so much of her life she had searched. Even when others had laughed and called her crazy, she still believed. And how could she not believe? After what this creature had done to her, she had vowed to never end her hunt until she had her revenge.

“You,” Lyra said, her voice dripping with venom.

Pinkie blinked. She had been prattling on about choices or something, but Lyra didn’t care about what. Right now, Lyra was more concerned about keeping herself from laughing maniacally. This creature had eluded her so many times. But now? Now it was trapped in its one weakness: an ordinary bird cage with a twist lock.

Lyra shook her head slowly. “After all this time. Finally, you have no escape. I had often asked myself what I would say to you if I ever got this chance, but there’s no words that can undo the past. So, now you’re going to pay for the mistake you’ve made.” Lyra pointed her hoof at the trapped Tooth Fairy. “You owe me a bit!”

The tiny, copper-colored pony inside the cage rolled her eyes and sighed in her high-pitched voice. Her dragonfly wings beat to life as she lifted herself to hover in the center of the cage. Once airborne, the pony’s golden mane and tail billowed and flowed as if she were underwater.

“Oh great,” the Tooth Fairy said, “it’s you again.”

“You owe me a bit!” Lyra repeated.

“Yes, yes, I heard you the first time, but the answer is still ‘no.’ You were paid your allotted sum of money for your tooth as per my realms agreement with your ruler. No amount of begging, demanding, or stalking is going to get you any more.”

Lyra gritted her teeth, but her biting retort got cut off as Pinkie clapped her hooves to get their attention.

“Whoa, hold on,” Pinkie said. “That’s why you were searching for the Tooth Fairy? To get money out of her? That doesn’t seem very nice.”

Lyra gasped and took a step back. “That’s not it at all! Don’t go taking this winged-rat’s side until you hear the whole story.”

After making a show of clearing her throat so that everypony—and every fairy—knew that what she was about to say was serious, Lyra began, “Now, I know how this is supposed to work: baby tooth placed under a pillow equal a free bit when you wake up. Parents tell their foals the story about the Tooth Fairy all the time. Now sure, maybe I was skeptical after I lost my first tooth, but once the cash started rolling in, I wasn’t going to question the arrangement. That is, until I lost my final baby tooth! When I woke up, the tooth was gone, and there wasn’t a bit in its place. So you see, obviously a mistake was made—maybe intentionally, maybe accidentally, but that’s irrelevant. The simple fact is that she owes me a bit I have yet to receive.”

The Tooth Fairy huffed. “As I have explained to you previously, you probably shifted in your sleep and knocked the coin onto the floor. What happens to the coin after delivery is not my concern.”

“Yeah,” Pinkie said, nodding. “That used to happen sometimes with me and my sisters. We always found the bit beside our beds.”

Lyra groaned and held a hoof to her forehead. “I knew this would happen. I finally accuse you with a witness nearby and you start coming up with logical-sounding excuses. However, we all know that if I had knocked the bit onto the floor, then it was only because you failed to use your calming-sleep dust on me.”

The Tooth Fairy fell slightly before her wings started buzzing again. “My what?”

“Oh ho… surprised I knew about that?” Lyra turned and began pacing. A little more pressure and the truth would finally be revealed. “I see how it is. You wrong a foal here or there and say to yourself, ‘It doesn’t matter. It’s not like any of them will become obsessed with uncovering my seedy tooth-collecting operation. They’ll forget about the missing bit in a couple of days.’”

Lyra quickly faced the Tooth Fairy and stood proud. “Well, the jokes on you. Because I was an obsessive, little filly that refused to forget. It took time, but I eventually discovered nearly every detail about your sinister objectives. For starters, I know how you use mind-control dust to make parents think that they were the ones leaving behind the bits. That way, if anypony got too close to the truth, they would find overwhelming evidence to point otherwise. I also know that you use our teeth to power the magic of your kingdom. How, I’m not exactly sure, but I’m getting there. I should also point out that unicorn teeth would contain far more magic than other teeth, so you should have been paying us more to keep us quiet. But I digress.”

Lyra smiled and shook her head. This was all too easy. “So, I guess the question is: what now? What do I want to keep my silence? Well, I’m a reasonable pony. All I ask is to be paid what’s owed.” She bit her lip. Now that her moment of triumph had finally come, did she really want to settle for a single bit? “Plus interest.”

“Oh ho, this ought to be good,” the Tooth Fairy said, crossing her forelegs. “And just how much is this interest? Hmm?”

A sense of panic came over Lyra. She knew that she shouldn’t have deviated from the plan. Now she would have to improvise, and, unfortunately, that improvisation would need to involve a lot of math. “Uh… w-well I...I think a fair sum would be… maybe a five—no, ten percent interest taken… um, monthly? Or, n-no, annually. That would be easier to figure out. So… so that would be…” Lyra tried to work out the math problem in her head but got hopelessly lost once she realized she would need to use the dreaded decimal point. “Eight hundred bits?”

The Tooth Fairy erupted into a laughing fit, her flight jerking about erratically. Lyra looked between the hysterical fairy and a confused-looking Pinkie. She then slouched down and suddenly wished she were a lot smaller.

“Alright, so math isn’t my strong point,” Lyra admitted. “Just give me a bit and we’ll call it even.”

After regaining control, the Tooth Fairy wiped off her eyes and sighed. She looked down at Lyra with a smile and said, “No.”

“No?” Lyra said, taking a step back. “W-well, then you’ll force me to—”

“To what?” the Tooth Fairy asked as she recrossed her forelegs. “Threaten to expose my existence? Go right ahead.”

“What? But… but I have pictures! Photographic proof! Everypony will know the truth!”

“Yes. You showed me them the last time you bothered me. Very nice splotches of light in an otherwise black picture, by the way. So, I’ll tell you now what I told you then. Go ahead. Expose me. Gather up all your evidence and go to the authorities, or the royal guard, or even one of your Princesses. Tell them all that the big, mean Tooth Fairy isn’t giving you another bit just because you lost your last one.” The Tooth Fairy tapped her lips and looked away. “Really, I wonder why you haven’t already. After all, last time you seemed quite adamant about following through on your threat. Could it be…” She turned an eye on Lyra. “...that maybe you would then have to explain to those same authorities why you were hiding in foals rooms with a camera?”

Lyra stomped a hoof and growled. “Hey! I’ll have you know that every single one of those foals was either related to me or the child of a close friend of the family, and I am absolutely certain that each and every one of their parents would have given me their heart-felt permission to hide in their kid’s closet with a camera and wait for you to show up, had I figured out a way to ask for it that didn’t make me sound creepy and/or delusional.”

Pinkie stood up on her chair and slammed her front hooves onto the desk. “Alright, you two, stop being meanies this instant. This was supposed to be fun, Lyra, and you’re both—”

“Fun?” Lyra said with as much contempt as she could muster. She added a sneer to her lips for extra emphasis. “I don’t see what’s fun about talking to the fairy who ruined my life!”

The room suddenly became very quiet. Even the buzzing of the tooth fairies wings stopped as she sat down in her cage. Pinkie looked between the Tooth Fairy and Lyra, then slumped back into her chair. She opened her mouth to say something, stopped, then softly asked, “How did the Tooth Fairy ruin your life?”

Lyra took a deep breath and blinked. How had the Tooth Fairy ruined her life? The only reason she had said that was because it would sound overly dramatic and help gain sympathy points for her cause. She hadn’t actually expected to be called out on it. In truth, ‘ruined’ was perhaps too strong a word for the embarrassment she had experienced. However, with the touch of worry on Pinkie’s face, now would be the perfect time for a sob story in order to win the argument.

“How did the Tooth Fairy ruin my life?” Lyra asked. She let her lower lip quiver slightly and sniffed. “I’ll tell you how…

“Back when I was a filly, there was this doll that all the cool kids on the playground had. I tried to get them to like me, but they would always laugh at whatever toy I showed them. I knew that if I was ever going to become their friend, I would need to get that doll.

“I broke open my piggy bank, Mr. Snortles, but I didn’t have enough. Even after searching through couch cushions, checking storm drains with a magnet on a string, and doing some chores for the elderly ponies near my home, I was still one bit short. I tried to beg my parents for an advance in my allowance, but they wouldn’t listen. They gave me a speech about how if I would save my money instead of constantly spending it on candy or comic books, then I would be able to afford the things that I really needed in life.

“With not enough money and the weekend nearly over, I knew I would spend another week being uncool if I didn’t act fast. Luckily, my last baby tooth was loose, so I knew of one surefire way to get the bit I needed: I wiggled that tooth with my tongue like no filly had ever wiggled before.

“I went to bed, secure in the knowledge that tomorrow would be a better day. That night, my dreams were some of the most vivid in my life. I sat atop a throne high in the sky, my doll held close, and all across the fields below, ponies cheered. I waved down to them, smiling as they called out to me, asking to be my friend. Then, just after dawn, I awoke and immediately lifted my pillow.”

Lyra turned down her head and waited a few seconds for dramatic effect. “Imagine the heartache I felt,” she said, speaking slightly above a whisper, “when I found my tooth gone—stolen!—with no bit in its place. That week, I felt terrible and didn’t even try to talk with the cool kids. When I finally got my next allowance, I rushed out and bought the doll. I thought maybe there was still time. Maybe now they would finally accept me. But I was too late. The fad had changed and a new toy was popular. I was laughed away for the final time. After all, what would a lame, behind-the-trends pony like me be doing trying to be friends with them?”

There. With a story like that, nopony could deny that Lyra had been wronged. The Tooth Fairy, worthy foe that she was, would not be able to worm her way out of this one. Lyra risked a glance at Pinkie, then quickly looked away as if she were too ashamed to make eye contact. Just like Lyra had hoped for, Pinkie’s eyes were misty and her lips quivering. A little more pressure and Lyra would be walking out of here with the money she was owed and the free candy.

Then, Lyra’s body froze as the Tooth Fairy opened her mouth and ruined everything.

“That’s it?” the Tooth Fairy asked. Lyra could hear the smugness in her voice. “That’s the reason you’ve been hounding me all this time? Because you couldn’t impress a bunch of stuck-up children who laughed at you?”

Taking another glance, Lyra could see the beginnings of uncertainty on Pinkie’s face. In a matter of seconds, Pinkie would again be questioning Lyra’s motives and taking the Tooth Fairy’s side. Well, Lyra had one final trick in her saddlebags.

“That’s not it at all!” Lyra shouted, drawing attention back to herself. She needed a counter argument; something that was all raw emotion with none of that pesky logic to get in the way. Feeling all fired up, she didn’t even try to control her speech and instead just let her brain say whatever it wanted. This would be the rant to end all rants.

“You don’t understand. You don’t know what it’s like living in Canterlot. All the pressures of trying to fit in, to not be an outcast. Those ponies. Sure, they excluded whoever they wanted for reasons only they knew—or maybe for no reason at all—but they were the in-crowd. They were the ponies who would control the trends, set the fashions, be the ones who got chosen first for everything. Not just at school but throughout life as well. That was my chance to be a part of that world. To be somepony special instead of the weird filly that sat by herself at lunch. But you took that away from me!

“Don’t you get it? I would have been popular. And that popularity would have instantly gone to my head until I surrounded myself with ponies that only cared about what I could do for them instead of for who I was. I would have used them in return, leveraging their influence to convince my parents to get me anything I wanted, becoming spoiled and uncaring to the point that I’d judge other ponies based on their clothes and styled manes before anything else. I would have dated the hoofball captain for a few months before he dumped me for a prettier cheerleader. Eventually, the hollowness of my life would have become too much and I’d collapse into an unstable mess, trying desperately to find something, anything, to fill the endless void where my heart used to be. The ponies I once called friends would move on, leaving me to fend for myself, thereby shattering my perception of reality as I realized that everything that could have ever been important to me was now lost forever.”

Lyra took a deep breath and continued.

“Instead, I was forced to hang out with the less-popular kids! I timidly approached them, sacred that they’d reject me like the cool kids did, but they welcomed me to play with them, no questions asked. We grew up together, experiencing what life had to offer. Our laughter was genuine as we learned what it truly meant to be friends, to have someone who understood you and was there for you when you needed them to be. I came to appreciate myself despite my faults, and that appreciation extended to others. It’s because of those bonds we shared that I came to be the caring and fun-loving pony that I am today.”

Her rant finished, Lyra panted, feeling drained. It wasn’t often that she let her brain go on full autopilot, but when she did, the speeches it produced would always fill those listening with a sense of awe. Also, in rare circumstances, it had been known to cause crushing hopelessness or outright terror, but usually it was awe.

With some effort, Lyra lifted her head to check on her audience. What she found was Pinkie and the Tooth Fairy staring at her like she had just grown a second head.

Not the reaction she was hoping for.

Figuring that she must have said something weird or started speaking in a made-up language, Lyra replayed her rant in her mind, actually paying attention to it this time. Once she finished, she clicked her tongue and said, “Wow… you know, when I vocalize it like that, it makes me realize that maybe my life hasn’t turned out so bad, and that it’s kind of scary how one little change could have potentially led me to ruin. I also realize that maybe harboring plans for revenge all these years has been a colossal waste of my time.” She quickly shook her head and pointed at the Tooth Fairy. “But that still doesn’t change the fact that you shorted me one bit.”

The Tooth Fairy took to the air. “You little money-grubbing weasel!”

“Cheapskate crook!”

“Loud-mouthed ignoramus!”

“Bug-winged cheat!”

Whatever insult the Tooth Fairy was going to throw next got cut off by Pinkie yelling, “Enough!”

“She started it!” Lyra quickly added before the Tooth Fairy could claim the same.

After giving a disapproving glare, Pinkie cleared her throat. “It is now time for you to face your complex moral choice, Lyra. Do you choose the candy that you have searched so hard for? Or do you choose the Tooth Fairy and get back your lost bit?”

“Hey!” The Tooth Fairy flittered to the side of the cage closest to Pinkie and slipped her head in between the bars. “That was not part of our agreement, Pinkie.”

Pinkie then put on the largest pair of puppy-dog eyes that Lyra had ever seen. The shear pleading force was enough that Lyra had to turn away lest she got caught in it. But it was too late. Even with her eyes closed, Lyra could still the power of the gaze washing over her, urging her to give in to Pinkie’s demands just to get her to stop making that face. If Pinkie decided to say, “Pretty please with sugar on top,” Lyra was sure that her brain would suffer a cuteness overload and reduce her into a gibbering mess.

Thankfully, the Tooth Fairy broke first.

“Alright! I give. Enough. Enough, I say!”

Lyra reopened her eyes to find a smile on Pinkie’s face and the Tooth Fairy hovering with her forelegs crossed.

“If she chooses me,” the Tooth Fairy said, “then I will give her one bit. But either way this ends!” She pressed up against the bars and pointed at Lyra. “Should you choose the candy instead, then you will forsake this ridiculous vendetta against me. Which means no more stalking me, no more getting in the way of me doing my job, and no more setting up deliberately over-elaborate devices by which you hope to entrap me!”

Pinkie nodded sagely. “Yes, I agree. If you pick the candy, then you’ll stop being mean to the Tooth Fairy. Now, choose your complex moral choice!”

Lyra grimaced. The choice had been clear before, but now, the stakes had suddenly gotten higher. Although, she could think of one argument that might get Pinkie to sweeten the deal. Both figuratively and literally.

“You know, Pinkie,” Lyra began, “I think that—”

Pinkie made a shushing noise. “No thinking! Complex moral choice. Er… I mean, yes thinking, but no talking… complex moral choice.”

“But, Pinkie—”

“Complex moral choice!”

“You really like saying that, don’t you?”

Pinkie giggled. “I know! It sounds so sinister and spooky. I can’t wait for tomorrow night. I have sooo many choices to offer. Do you choose a candied apple or a slice of pumpkin pie? Gum drops or just gum? This whole chocolate cake or the mystery prize behind door number three? I even have special choices set up for my bestest friends!” She blinked, looked down at Lyra, and cleared her throat. “Lyra? Complex. Moral. Choice.” She punctuated each word with a tap on the desk.

Rolling her eyes and shaking her head, Lyra said, “You keep asking me to choose between them, but from where I’m standing, there’s only choice.” She pointed at the Tooth Fairy. “You.” She sighed. “I just hope you realize what a lucky flying rat you are.”

“Then that means…?” Pinkie asked, a smile slowly spreading on her face.

“Yeah,” Lyra said half-heartedly. “I pick the candy.”

With a smile in full force, Pinkie leaned down and twisted opened the lock to the birdcage. The Tooth Fairy instantly rushed out and flew up towards the ceiling where she was both out of reach and could look down on them. Lyra flinched under the disapproving glare of the Tooth Fairy.

“Uh, heh heh. No hard feelings?” Lyra asked.

The Tooth Fairy continued to stare for a few seconds, then stuck out her tongue and vanished in a puff of glittery dust.

Lyra gritted her teeth and felt her forehead heating up, but then her building anger escaped as she let out her breath. She knew when she was defeated, and getting upset over it wouldn’t change anything. Besides, if Lyra had learned one thing today, it was that she did an absolutely horrible job when it came to holding grudges.

A click sounded from nearby and the room illuminated. Now that she could see properly, Lyra noticed that the walls only appeared to be covered in stones because of the wallpaper patterns. The floor, however, actually was covered in real stones. A benefit of having family in the rock business, Lyra supposed.

Pinkie stepped away from a wall switch. With a flick of her head, she sent her fake horns tumbling through the air to land on her chair. “I’m proud of you, Lyra,” she said as she came around the side of the desk. “You made the right choice.”

“Yeah, I know… but how did you do it? The Tooth Fairy, I mean. I’ve been after her most of my adult life, and the best I could manage was to catch her long enough for her to insult me. How could you have possibly managed to catch her in the short time since I saw you last?”

“Oh, that’s easy. She owed me a favor.”

Pinkie must have seen the confusion on Lyra’s face since she laughed and waved a hoof nonchalantly. “Twinklehooves and I go way back. It’s a long story from when I was a filly. It all started because of a case of mistaken identity and then a crazy adventure sprang up from there. In the end, I accidentally saved the Kingdom of the Fairies from plaque pirates, so Twinklehooves said she would do anything in her power to repay me. I’m just glad you agreed to test my haunted house today, because I had no idea when I was ever going to be able to use a favor from the Tooth Fairy. Although, I probably should have asked you why you were after the Tooth Fairy before I brought her here.”

Lyra broke eye contact. “Yeah, that, uh… that must have been awkward, having me go off on a friend like that.” She laughed weakly. “Still, it could have gone a lot worse. I could have chosen her.”

“I know, but I didn’t think you would. After all, you said it yourself. You’re a caring and fun-loving pony, Lyra. You mentioned you were doing this for Bon Bon, and I knew you would want to make her happy. Because let’s face it…” Pinkie switched to a hissing whisper before continuing. “Bon Bon is scary when she’s upset!”

“I know!” Lyra said, dropping her voice to match Pinkie’s. She looked over her shoulders to make sure nopony else could be listening in on their conspiratorial whispers. “Like, how once she starts getting angry, she’ll look at you with a slight frown.”

“And how she taps her hoof while asking you to explain yourself.”

“And then when she sighs and shakes her head.”

“And says how disappointed in you she is.”

Lyra shivered, having experienced that last part several times herself. She then shook her head and got right up to Pinkie’s ear to whisper the next bit. She wasn’t going to take any chances with this next part. “No. That’s bad, but the absolute worst is when she’s so upset that she doesn’t say anything at all. All she does is stand there, but you can’t help but feel like a filly caught by her parents with her hoof in a cookie jar. And the jar is broken. Also, the kitchen’s on fire.”

Upon learning about the absolute worst thing ever, Pinkie’s ears drooped and her face paled. She searched Lyra’s eyes as if hoping for a sign that Lyra had only been kidding. But alas, there was none.

Lyra was pretty sure she would have earned a ‘there, there’ pat on the shoulder had Twilight not chosen that moment to teleport into the room.

After taking a moment to orientate herself, Twilight wasted little time with pulling out her notepad and going into full researcher mode. “Sorry, girls, I hope I’m not interrupting anything. It’s just that I haven’t sensed any movement from the fear-o-meter for a while, so I wanted to check if you were done.”

“Yeah, we were just chatting,” Pinkie said.

“Great. I’ve been going—oh! I nearly forgot.” Twilight turned her head towards Pinkie. “Rarity came by earlier with an eggbeater and a set of roller skates. In have them in a box outside. She said you needed them for some reason?”

Pinkie stared blankly with her brow scrunched up for a couple of seconds before her eyes widened. “Wait, wait, wait… an eggbeater and roller skates is a Code Twelve! I asked for a Code Three. Or… maybe that was a Code Three and I really needed a Code Twenty-Eight. Hmm. I really should have written all this down.”

“Pinkie,” Twilight said flatly, “you did write this down. You gave all of us a copy and told us it was really important to keep it close at hoof until we finished the haunted house.”

“Whoops, silly me,” Pinkie said with a giggle. “I guess I should have kept a copy for myself then.”

Twilight turned back toward Lyra with a smile on her face. She rolled her eyes, opened her notepad, and flipped through the pages until she found what she was looking for. “As I was saying, I’ve been going over the data I’ve collected so far, and, I got to tell you, some of this just does not make any sense.” She turned around the notepad to reveal a neatly drawn graph.

“This graph shows your fear levels starting with when you opened the front door. Notice the dips and spikes? Most of them align to the times and locations I would expect. Kind of. Well… some of them align at least. Anyway, things went acceptably well until a few minutes after you had entered the break room. As you can see here”—Twilight flipped the page pointed to a spot midway along the continued graph—”the fear-o-meter suddenly stopped collecting any data at all. I thought there might have been some sort of magical interference going on with my spell, so I increased its strength to try and reconnect it. Then this happened.” She moved her hoof slightly to the right towards a section of the graph were it looked like a pencil had torn a jagged line upwards across the rest of the page and then snapped when it had reached the end. “The sudden spike in fear levels was highly unexpected, to say the least. As you can guess, well, this is the point where I canceled the empathic link and went to get some aspirin.”

Twilight lowered her notepad and smiled at Lyra. “So, as you can see, my data is incomplete, and I would really appreciate it if you could provide some much needed context so that I can attempt to make sense of it.”

Lyra thought for a bit to try to come up with a good summary of her experience with the haunted house. However, she hadn’t gotten far when she noticed that Twilight’s gaze had moved upwards to where the fear-o-meter should have been. Twilight flicked her head towards Pinkie, then began glancing about the room until her eyes finally fell upon the sleeping form of Fluttershy and, more importantly, the headband she still partially wore.

“Oh,” Twilight said as she checked her graph once more. “That explains a lot, actually. Huh. I guess we can move on to general feedback then. So…” She bit her lip and shifted her weight from one side to the other. “What did you think?”

With how much this information would mean to Twilight, Lyra couldn’t help but make a show of her answer. Slowly, Lyra tapped her lips while repeating “What do I think?” quietly to herself. Finally, when she figured Twilight was about ready to burst from anticipation, she lowered her hoof and said, “I think… that it was awesome!”

“Really?”

“Yeah! The outside decorations are amazing, so everypony knows the inside must be great too. And let me tell you, it is! The buffet was a ton of fun. I really liked the atmosphere and the fake out with the pie. But when the skeletons started moving? Oh geez, I completely lost it. It must have taken hundreds of enchantments to get everything moving the right way. It think it’s going to be a big hit tomorrow. I really want to see what happens when a whole crowd come in.”

Lyra looked up as she thought back on her experiences. It amazed her that, now that she wasn’t actively trying to hate it, she found she had actually really enjoyed herself. “And then the stairs. Really creepy decor, but I kinda feel they lack the oomph that the previous room had.”

Still scribbling on her notepad, Twilight nodded and said, “I know, but don’t worry. It should be better when Rarity is here to do the lighting and sound effects. And you should see what Applejack can do in the buffet. She really knows how to direct the skeletons to maximize their performance. She says it’s a lot like herding.”

“Alright, that’s good. I guess I can’t really say much about the break room, since it’s not supposed to be scary. I mean, it’s relaxing, I guess. Just, you know, any readings you got from the fear-o-meter in their probably weren’t accurate.” Lyra cleared her throat. “Let’s just say that room is probably going to cause some paranoia. Oh! But the maze! That was my favorite part. It was scary enough as is, but I can’t wait to see what will happen once Rainbow Dash is involved.

“And finally, I really enjoyed Pinkie’s performance with her trying to lure me away from my candy. I think that my reward will be all that much sweeter knowing that I was able to overcome temptation and do the right thing. All and all, I’d have to say this place easily makes my top five list of best haunted houses ever.”

Twilight finished writing and glanced up. “Thank you, Lyra, this is great news. I’m going to need to question you about some specifics, but I really think we’re on the right track and will be ready in time. Although... I do notice you didn’t comment on one part.” She gulped and laughed weakly.

Lyra mentally sighed in relief, this would be easier to say since Twilight appeared to be expecting it. “That illusion in the hallway? Well, I think one word sums it up best.” She switched to a voice that she would use on a misbehaving puppy. “No. No. Bad, Twilight. You do not make me think I’m falling to my doom. That’s bad. That’s baaaad. No treatsies for you.”

Except for a slight wince at the beginning, Twilight took her scolding well. “A little much, huh?” she said, then pressed her lips into a line and nodded. “I was afraid of that. Sorry. Applejack and I were debating on whether to include that one, so I thought I’d show it to you. I’ll be sure to remove it from the rotation.”

Lyra smiled to show there was no hard feelings and said, “Or maybe just tweak it a bit? I admit I have no idea how complex the spell for that illusion is or if it’s even possible to change it without starting over, but I’d be willing to help test it to get it right.”

“Thanks. I’d love to get more feedback.” Twilight looked at Pinkie, who appeared to be attempting to lift Fluttershy onto her back without waking her. “We were going to be breaking for a light dinner in a half hour—and I guess taking Fluttershy home—but you’re more than welcome to join our other test groups tonight if you’d like.”

Lyra liked the sound of that. She felt proud knowing that at least some of the screams from tomorrow night could be because of her help. “Well, maybe later I could—wait. Did you say dinner? Oh no! What time is it? Has the sun set?”

Twilight looked around, perhaps mistakenly trying to find a window or clock like Lyra had, then said, “I’m not sure the exact time, but the sun was about on the horizon when I came in.”

Lyra placed a hoof to her chest and let out her held breath. “Then I still have some time left. I’m sorry, Twilight. I’d love to stay and test, and report, and whatever, but I really need to get home. Like, five minutes ago. I promise I’ll stop by your library first thing in the morning and help with whatever you need to make this the best haunted house ever. But for now? I have a party to save.”

Chapter Eight

As she quietly shut the front door behind her, Lyra perked her ears to try and find out what state her party was in. She expected to hear talking and laughter, but instead, only the ticking of the hallway clock greeted her. That was either a good sign or a really bad one.

She walked up to the hallway cabinet and return the unused pouch of rainy-day bits, making sure to first remove the wooden spoon. Stepping lightly, she approach the door to the living room and peaked inside.

To Lyra’s relief, nopony was present. So, that meant there was about a ninety percent chance that the guests just hadn’t arrived yet and only a ten percent chance they had been so disgusted at the lack of candy that they had stormed out mere moments after stepping through the door.

Still, only one way to find out.

“Bon Bon? I’m home!”

A clatter came from the kitchen that sounded like a plate being set a little too hard on a table. This was followed by the sound of rapidly approaching hooves on tile. Bon Bon stuck her head out the kitchen doorway, her eyes wide. Upon seeing Lyra, she smiled, and stepped into the hallway. She wore the black cloak from her Nightmare Night costume; though her pointy witch’s hat was missing.

“Lyra. You were gone so long, I was starting to worry something happened.”

“Sorry,” Lyra said sheepishly. “I would have been back sooner, but there was this huge cart wreck in the town square. Apparently, the pegasus who was pulling it’s harness snapped. Don’t worry. Nopony got hurt, but there was a ton of ponies standing around gawking.”

Bon Bon smirked and said, “Were you one of the gawkers?”

“Anyway,” Lyra said, quickly changing the topic. She held up the bowl of candy with her magic. “Ta da!”

“Lyra! You did it!”

Lyra grinned, basking in the glory of her accomplishment.

“Although…”

Lyra’s grin faltered somewhat.

Bon Bon shook her. “I really do need to apologize to you.”

Lyra blinked. “Huh?” She started having a dread suspicion that she was about the hear something she didn’t like.

“After you were gone for a while and the cooking settled down, I started thinking that maybe I was too hard on you. As it got closer and closer to the party starting, I realized that I would much rather have had you here than the candy, but by then it was too late to go look for you. So, I’m sorry.” Bon Bon smiled. “I’m happy that you managed to find some candy, but I’m happier that you made it back in time.”

“Oh! Uh…” Lyra felt a blush coming on. “Thanks.”

“I also see that you found my spoon,” Bon Bon said, nodding toward it floating alongside the bowl.

“Oh! Uh…” Lyra began heading towards the living room. “Yeah, it’s a crazy story, but don’t worry. I recovered it and brought it back safe and sound.”

Once in the living room, Lyra walked up to the glass bowl she had pilfered of candy earlier and dumped the fresh bowl into it. When she had finished, she turned towards Bon Bon. “Taffy, lollipops, caramels, and jawbreakers may not be as special as your homemade candy, but it should work for tonight.”

Bon Bon nodded. “Yes, they will work fine. You do know you’re going to have to tell me about today. I have a feeling you’ve had quite an adventure.”

Lyra rolled her eyes and laughed. “That’s putting it lightly. We don’t have time before the party, but the abridged version is that you were right. Every store was sold out of candy, including Sugarcube Corner. Luckily, Pinkie agreed to share some of her candy with me if I agreed to test their haunted house.”

Seeing Bon Bon’s eyes widen, Lyra decided to milk the story for all it was worth. “Now, I knew how important getting this candy was, so the only thing I could do was get over my traumatic foalhood experience, realize that even if ghosts aren’t real, they can still be scary, and then bravely face the horrors, laughing and screaming along the way.”

Before Bon Bon could reply, saying how amazingly impressed she was, Lyra’s excitement got the better of her and she blurted out, “We have to be first in line tomorrow night! That haunted house was so cool, and it wasn’t even finished yet. There’s this—well, I can’t spoil it. But the ending is crazy! After all the scary stuff, there’s a slide all the way from Sugarcube Corner’s roof down to this vat filled with slime that’s actually green jelly. At least, I think it was jelly. Well, it tasted like apples, whatever it was.”

Bon Bon giggled and shook her head. “Well, I’m glad you were able to start enjoying haunted houses. I can’t claim to have had any life-changing experiences today, but I did finish all the food. The banana bread is sliced, the soup is chilled, and the sweet potatoes are ooey and gooey and just being kept warm in the oven.”

“Chilled soup?” Lyra asked, hoping she had only misheard.

“It’s gazpacho. It’s supposed to be served cold. Please at least try some as it is before you heat it up.”

Still trying to wrap her mind around cold soup, Lyra just pressed her lips together and nodded.

“I do have to say that I love what you did with the decorations,” Bon Bon said, slowly spinning around to take in the room. “Although, you did go a little heavy on the cobwebs.”

Lyra looked around at the web-covered lamps, end tables, and curtains. “Wow! Those little guys were busy while I was gone.”

“Huh?”

Then, Lyra notice the plate on the table filled with perfectly cut squares of baking deliciousness. She gasped and looked at Bon Bon, unable to keep the eager excitedness from her eyes.

“Go ahead,” Bon Bon said, nodding at the Cinnamon Surprise Brownies. “You’ve more than earned it.”

Slowly, Lyra lifted a brownie with her magic. As it came closer to her mouth, she could smell the array of spices that would elevate the chocolate to a whole new level. She bit down, and for that moment, her taste buds knew only bliss.

“Oh,” Lyra said with her mouth full. “They get better every time you make them!” As much as she didn’t want to, she had to swallow before she choked on her own saliva. Thankfully, there was plenty more brownie to go. “You really need to tell me what the surprise in these is some day.”

Bon Bon gasped and looked away. She chewed her lip while rubbing one foreleg with the other. “Th-the surprise? Well, you worked so hard today. It’s, um… the flour. It’s a starch made from a certain root.” She squealed a bit and shook her head. “I mean. You like them, so I shouldn’t say more.”

Lyra laughed. “Okay, okay. You don’t have to tell me. Honestly, if I knew how to make them, they’d probably not be as special anymore.”

Whatever reply Bon Bon was about to make got cut off as a knock sounded from the front door.

“Oh! They’re here,” Bon Bon said. “A little late, but now the party can begin.”

“They were probably looking at the same cart wreck I was. I mean! The same one I saw earlier but passed by quickly because I wasn’t lollygagging.”

Bon Bon hmmed and smiled, then started walking towards the door. “I’ll go greet them,” she said. “That’ll give you time to get into your costume.”

A sinking sensation came over Lyra and she had to lick her suddenly dry lips. “Costume?” Lyra asked weakly.

Bon Bon nearly stumbled as she turned around. Her eyes darted about as her mouth tried to form words.

In this situation, Lyra knew what she had to do: laugh like she never laughed before.

“Sorry… sorry,” Lyra said between giggles. “I couldn’t resist. I’ll go put it on.”

Giggling as well, Bon Bon held a hoof to her chest. Another knock came from the door. She smiled once more at Lyra before leaving the room.

Lyra made her way out the back of the living room and further into the house. She figured she had about five minutes to come up with, create, and put on a costume before Bon Bon would come check on her. A toilet-paper mummy would work, but Lyra wore that costume last year. This year, she decided she was in the mood to go as a bed-sheet ghost.

Taking another bite from her brownie, Lyra knew this was the start of the best Nightmare Night ever.