Trick or Treating

Edith's tail swished as her handler pet her neck, the mare's gaze continuously roaming over the open space where horses and humans alike were already milling around.

Halloween had finally come, and with it the stables' event.

"Ready for some trick or treating, girl?"

Edith whinnied, nudging her human's hand before eagerly nodding.

The woman laughed. "Okay, okay, let me get your hood settled and you're good to go, okay?"

The blue roan stilled, ducking her head to allow the human to gently pull the black cloak up her neck and over her head, gently guiding her ears into the holes for them. There was some sort of scythe on one side of the cloak, lightweight enough the mare barely noticed it and carefully balanced and held on so it wouldn't fall or get in her way.

Kind of like that mysterious human she'd seen with the ghosts when she'd been exploring the humans' decorations for this event.

"There you go. Now, behave yourself for me and have fun, alright?"

Edith whinnied, nodding her agreement and pawing at the ground, eager to get started.

"Okay, okay, go on!" The human laughed, and Edith grinned before darting off.

She slowed quickly, not wanting to risk bumping into someone, especially one of the many human children running around shouting 'trick or treat' at adults.

It was noisy, humans talking animatedly and horses calling back and forth to one another, and there was a sort of chaos to the night even though it was early, the last rays of sunlight still fading. But it wasn't unpleasant, Edith decided as one small child rushed up to her with a gasp. She lowered her head, nickering softly at the little creature.

He patted her nose with another giggle, grinning ear to ear, before rushing back to his mother's side.

A good start to the night, Edith thought warmly.

Edith watched as one of the visiting children rushed up to a stablehand who was holding some sort of decorated bucket and dressed in some really weird dress with a mask. "Trick or treat!" the child cried, holding up a bag they were carrying.

With a smile, the stablehand deposited something from their bucket into the child's bag. With a giggle, the child darted off, possibly in search of more people offering something.

What were they giving out.

Ears pricked and curiosity peaked, the blue roan inched closer to the stablehand, peaking into their bucket when she could to find... What were those? The little things were carefully wrapped, keeping them safe from anything that might do them harm.

"I'm afraid that's human candy," the stablehand chuckled, but put their bucket down to pull a small baggy out of his pocket.

"How about a horse candy for you, hm?" they offered, pulling a sugar cube from the baggy and offering it to the mare.

So part of Halloween was giving out candy. Alright, that just sounded like a lot of free treats to Edith and she certainly wasn't going to complain.

Taking the offered treat, Edith bumped the stablehand's shoulder with her nose in thanks then trotted off. She could see other people who were handing out candy to the kids, or occasionally treats to the horses that approached, and it made her smile.

Unable to resist, the blue roan approached a couple more of the candy-givers, getting a grape from one and another sugar cube from another, before she found herself wandering towards where the 'market' had been set up when she was exploring the Halloween decorations.

On her way, she bumped into a one of the stables' riders, dressed quite similarly to her. He laughed.

"Don't you look stunning!" He pulled out a treat baggy, setting his human candy bucket down to do so and holding out a small strawberry to her.

Grinning, Edith took the offered treat and trotted on. If Halloween was always like this, Edith decided she really liked Halloween! Then again, who wouldn't like free treats just for walking up to people?

As Edith neared the market, she realized it was no longer an abandoned ghost town. Humans were milling about, and each stand was being run by someone. Water bottles, soda, various snacks... Everywhere she looked something different seemed to be offered for visitors to either take or purchase.

Her tail swished once, before the mare carefully began her way through the barely controlled chaos. Her ears swiveled taking in the various conversations she could hear bits and pieces of as she walked, brown eyes glancing from side to side as she drank it all in.

Once plain stalls had come alive since the last time she'd passed through. Some humans had brought machinery, either to prepare what they were offering customers or keep things cold, and all the stalls had some form of added decoration, whether it was as simply as a few cobwebs or lights or as intricate as some pretend scene to make the stall seem like it came from somewhere else entirely.

It was a wonderful thing to see, in the mare's opinion.

Though she was curious. She kept passing humans with odd apples, and she was quite curious if she could have one too.

Finally she neared the end of the market, where the odd green human had been last time she passed. In fact, there the fake human was! Sharing the stall now was a real human, dressed in black robes and pointed black hat like her fake counterpart and handing out the odd coated apples to a small group of children.

Edith couldn't help but approach, ears pricked in intrigue as she took in the stall. It was much the same as last time, with the odd black pots. But this time there were trays of the coated apples in the back along with apple slices that were also coated and an additonal black pot seemed to contain the substance to coat the apples.

"Hello."

Edith looked at the human as she was addressed, whinnying her greeting.

The human smiled. "You want a candy apple?" she asked.

Edith tilted her head. That had to be the odd apples, right? She nodded, ears pricking in excitement.

"You got it." The human turned and grabbed one of the apple slices, holding it out in her palm for the mare. "One caramel apple for the lovely Grim Mare," she reported.

Grim Mare? Alright then, that was apparently Edith's name for the night, she thought with a chuckle.

She gently took the offered apple slice, pleasantly surprised by the sweetened taste of the hard coating. She whinnied her approval, earning herself a beaming smile from the human before the mare turned to continue her Halloween adventures. After all, who knew what else there was to see?!

After leaving the market behind her, Edith had ventured off towards a location she hadn't explored back when she had just been looking at the different Halloween decorations the humans had set out. But there were still plenty of people wandering to and from this area, so she was certain something had to be this way!

What she wasn't expecting was to find a giant cornfield, with a makeshift sign put out and a path carved into it.

She wandered over to the human who seemed to be in charge, based on the fact he'd just sent a trio of humans off into the corn.

"Hey! You interested in trying to find your way through the Spooky Maze?"

She tilted her head. A maze? That was like a puzzle she had to find her way through, right? Why would she want to do that? She let out a questioning noise. It did sound kind of fun, but she wanted to know the point anyway.

"Make it through and you'll get a reward! Of course," the man grinned, all wry humor, "that's assuming the creatures haunting the maze don't get you!"

She whinnied, raising her chin defiantly. She wasn't scared of some dressed up human in a cornfield!

"Alright, give the last party a couple more minutes and then you can start, yeah?"

She nodded, moving towards the entrance but waiting obediently to be told she could go in.

Almost five minutes later, rather than the promised two, the human running the maze's entrance came over to her. "Alright, in you go!" he encouraged.

She whinnied once more, then started in at a trot.

Very quickly, she realized why it was called a maze. The path split off in three directions, and really she had no idea which one would lead her out.

She tried continuing straight, but that turned right not long later and dead ended. She backtracked, trying another direction.

Every once in a while as she wound her way through dead ends and continued paths a human would jump out of the corn at her, usually making some noise.

It usually startled her a bit, but it wasn't that scary. Perhaps it would be more scary if she couldn't just sniff them and tell they smelled like a normal human?

That was probably it, she figured. Especially considering their disguises were pretty good.

Just as she made that conclusion, she turned and found herself at another dead end. Great, this maze was going to take a bit longer than she thought, wasn't it?

Edith felt like she'd been trapped in this maze for ages! It just kept going! And every time she thought she'd finally found the right way out, she'd run into a whole bunch of dead ends that led her no where!

Honestly, why had she thought a treat was worth this? Though she had to admit, the humans popping out of the corn at her were kind of fun, if a bit startling when it happened.

Her tail swished behind her, ready to be done with the maze and get her reward for being persistent.

Her ear flicked as she heard it: the distant chatter of humans.

It had been absent most of her time in the maze, only the occasional yelp of another adventurer getting startled or the noises the disguised humans made when they jumped out at her. But now she could hear it again! She had to be getting close to the maze's exit!

She picked up her pace, ears pricked forward and a new energy to her movements.

When the next human jumped out at her, she once more found it amusing even as she stepped back in surprise before she continued on her way.

Then, at long last, she turned a corner and saw something other than more corn and pathways. The path led out, a human standing by the entrance and others milling around beyond that.

She whinnied happily, cantering forward.

"Welcome to the other side, adventurer! Glad to see you made it safely!" the human standing at the entrance greeted her, pulling out a baggy and taking two little white, orange, and yellow triangles out of it. "Your candy corn reward, madam!"

She took the treat with a smile, whinnying her gratefulness to the human before turning and leaving the maze behind her. So, her reward for navigating a corn maze had been special candy corn. Fun!

Edith hadn't gone far from the corn maze when a huge building caught her attention. Parts of the wooden structure looked moments away from falling apart, but there were humans going in and coming out periodically as she watched, so it had to be safe.

She slowly approached, noticing another human standing watch at both the entrance and the exit. If this was another maze, count her out! As good as that candy corn was, she was not interested in navigating another maze.

"Ah, if it isn't another brave soul! Are you here to explore the haunted mansion?"

She tilted her head. Explore a haunted mansion? She looked at the big building, then back at the human. It was tempting. She wondered what she might find inside?

She nodded, and he smiled. "Alright! Just wait here and I'll let you know when to go."

She nodded once more, standing obediently until he told her that she could go in. Once she was given permission, the blue roan mare happily trotted up to the door before slowly to cautiously make her way inside.

It was clear it had been designed for both humans and horses to move through, she decided, based on the high ceiling and well spaced entrance hall.

As she ventured deeper, her hooves made a consistent soft thump noise on the wood floor, eyes darting side to side.

Despite that, she certainly wasn't ready for when the dim lights overhead suddenly went out as she stepped into what might've been the living room, flickering on only to reveal some sort of floating white blob that let out some sort of eerie cry at her.

The mare cried out, rearing slightly, before the lights went out again. When they came back on, the apparition was gone despite her pounding heart.

Hesitant as she was after that, there was a certain thrill to the unexpected encounter that urged Edith to continue on.

In the next room, a human was perched on a table like a cat, hissing at her when she moved past. The horse blinked at the strange human for a moment, wondering if they were okay, before continuing on.

Maybe the human just wanted to act like a cat for a bit! A spooky house like this was probably the perfect place for it.

Edith had been jump scared several more times after she left the cat human alone, but every time there was a certain thrill to it she was enjoying.

Now she had a choice, continue on or detour down this dark hallway. Making the reasonable choice, the blue roan made her way down the dark hallway.

There was only one door here, at the end of the hallway, and she peeked in cautiously. The room was interesting to say the least, and the mare couldn't help but step into the room to better investigate.

On one wall, several diagrams and lists were pinned and taped up, overlapping one another in a frantic, chaotic display of something.

Some of them seemed like notes, others lists of things, none of it really made much sense to Edith.

She looked around more of the room. Another wall was scattered with symbols, runes probably, and the floor in front of it even had a large star and circle rune. Odd.

Then, in the corner of the room and initially hidden by the open door, Edith was surprised to see a human.

The human's face was painted white with black circles around her eyes, a bit like a skull, with an odd red mark on her forehead and curly black hair fanning around her shoulders and face. Her dress was odd, and Edith was certain humans would call it 'old timey'. But what really caught the mare's attention was the bowl of red paint in front of the woman.

Edith let out a curious huff, inching closer with pricked ears and lowering her head.

Dark eyes scanned her. "Hello." The human's voice was soft but almost hollow, as if she was speaking but not all the way present in the moment. "Did you come seeking protection from the darkness? I can complete the ritual for you..."

Edith tilted her head. She hadn't come seeking anything, but she was undeniably curious, so she nodded.

"You're one of Grim's steeds, so I'm sure you have much protection already... but here." The human dipped two fingers into her red paint, before carefully reaching up to draw on Edith's forehead. It was a similar shape to the rune on the woman's forehead, the horse thought. Possibly the same symbol or a variation of it. "Noitpurroc morf dleihs," the woman whispered as she finished the symbol, then dropped her hand back to her lap, careful not to stain her dress with the paint still on her fingers.

"There, you should be protected now."

Edith smiled, nodding to the woman her gratitude before easing her way out of the room and finishing her way through the haunted house.

It had certainly been an interesting adventure!