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 Posted: Thu Dec 08, 2016 2:49 pm
 Ella’s leaving had left a hole in Quilo’s heart that the young hybrid didn’t think was ever going to heal. He tried not to think about her much these days. It just…it wasn’t helping anything, and it just hurt. Unfortunately, it was nearly Haunted Hallows, and this time of year, he always found himself thinking about his friends.
He’d woken up this morning with Startle lying on his pillow, the Nezubat’s wing wrapped lazily around Queen. Queen was the small, pink bat plush that Quilo had gotten the same night he got Startle. That night had been the beginning of the end of his seemingly permanent friendships. His first friend ever, Tarin. His longing for her had long since faded into a memory, but at the time, it had been an acute ache. He thought he’d know her forever. He thought she’d stay around, be his friend and Ella’s friend, but after that one Haunted Hallows together, Tarin was gone. Quilo reached out to pet the brightly-colored Nezubat on the head and pull the little stuffed animal from the bat’s grip. Startle sniffed it for a few seconds, gave Quilo’s fingers a quick nuzzle, then climbed out of the bed and up the wall to the ceiling.
Meanwhile, Quilo gazed at Queen. He was the same color and pattern as Ella’s Nezubat, and that awakened the pain of her loss all over again. What had Ella named her bat? He wished he could remember, but he couldn’t, not anymore.
He didn’t want to feel like this anymore. Quilo sat up and swung his legs out of bed. His roommate had already left for the day—she had plans with friends, probably. He envied the Litch for a second—had she ever felt the same loss he had?
He didn’t want to feel like this anymore. He didn’t want to be lonely anymore. Quilo looked out the window at the sunny morning. Haunted Hallows is three days away, he said to himself. I’m going to find people to hang out with. I will not go alone.
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Posted: Thu Dec 08, 2016 2:50 pm
 Haunted Hallows, oh joy. Zuna wasn’t really sure if she cared about Haunted Hallows. It was a kid’s holiday, after all—what, you went around and got candy? Candy was…well, it was nice, but it was also rather juvenile, wasn’t it? Zuna liked to think of herself as an adult, and candy was, well, not adult. It was a child thing. When she pointed this out to various classmates, they came up with a variety of counter arguments—all of which she could easily retort.
But you get to dress up in costumes! Ah, yes, dress-up. Wasn’t that a child’s game? Adults might engage in cosplay, but they did not dress up.
But candy tastes good! Yes, and it rots your teeth. No thank you.
But they give out all sorts of prizes—nonedible ones, even! Yes, and every kid wanted a toothbrush, right?
There are plushies! Are you all two years old?! Is this how it works? Are you all childish and eternally locked into your—?! Well, point is, Zuna was just not feeling the Haunted Hallows spirit. At least not until someone pointed out the best things about Haunted Hallows.
What about haunted houses? Okay, granted, haunted houses were the best. They were creepy, they were spooky, they were creative, and they scared you! Which got you feeling excited and exhilarated. The only trouble with them was that bad ones were bad and good ones were hard to find. If she wanted to get something out of Haunted Hallows, she’d have to figure out where the best haunted houses were. And maybe get a costume—people would just pester her if she didn’t have a costume. She could dress up as a pirate, right?
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Posted: Thu Dec 08, 2016 2:53 pm
 Yaviss had made his mind up a while ago—as soon as he’d heard what the Academy’s Haunted Hallows fair would be like, he decided that he wanted to go. It wasn’t the candy, although that would be good. Red hots and cinnamon sweets, please! They probably didn’t have jalapeno mango slices here, but there was sure to be something tasty to snack on. Nor was it the promise of stuffed animals, which were pretty tempting. Yaviss hated showing a soft side. Stuffed animals were very…well, they were toys, and not very grown-up toys to boot. But they were cute and they were cuddly and they were often brightly colored. Yes. Yaviss hated to show any sign of weakness or childishness, but who could resist a stuffed animal?
But better than that—far better than that—was the rumors about what happened at school fairs. For some reason, school legend stated, fairs were always thick with new pets. Stray animals gravitated there. Vendors gave them away as prizes. Even animal breeders and animal rescue organizations sometimes set up booths at fairs to give away pets. And the best part about Haunted Hallows? Two words: black. Cats.
Yaviss’s favorite animals were cats. Lithe. Graceful. Aloof. Always sure of themselves. Sometimes silly, but they represented what Yaviss most wanted: the ability to hide his true self from other people. That was a difficult thing to do. He didn’t think he’d ever have any real skill at it. And black cats were his favorites. There was something about their sleek, glossy fur that attracted him. Maybe it was their ability to hide in the dark? The way the sunlight caught their fur? The way the sun warmed their fur under his fingers? He wasn’t sure. But he did know that he wanted cats, black cats, and if he was right about the sort of atmosphere that attracted animals around the holidays—“they’re always colored appropriately, look at this green Kidden I got last Solstice!”—then he was sure to find black cats at the fair.
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Posted: Thu Dec 08, 2016 2:54 pm
So who could Quilo invite with him to the fair?
Well, Quilo’s first consideration had to be the size of a group he wanted to be in, and the dynamic it represented. He felt a little ashamed of how…well, how cold-blooded he was being in his planning, but hey—he was just being forward thinking, right? So what size group? Well, he felt like a trio sounded about right? Yes. Two other people. So what about the dynamic? Well…
Quilo didn’t want to join a pre-established group. He’d just feel like the third wheel. Oh, Nine, what if that’s how Ella felt? No. Not Ella. He was not going to think about Ella right now. Okay, so he had to establish a new group, bring two strangers together. So who?
Quilo went to class that day and kept an eye out for anyone who seemed to be alone. There were quite a few people like that, but two of them stood out. One of them was a Naiad who huffed and tutted through class. The other was a Goblin who spent most of his time with his face pointed at his notebook and his pencil working away in a busy way that suggested that he was doodling in the margins of his notes. When class ended, Quilo went to the Naiad first. He tapped them on the shoulder cautiously. “Hi! My name’s Quilo.”
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Posted: Thu Dec 08, 2016 2:54 pm
Hey? So what? Who cares?
Zuna had spent the entirety of a very dull class, riddled with factual inaccuracies, trying like heck to keep from shouting out at their teacher that he was an unqualified idiot who should shut up before he embarrassed himself. But hey. She couldn’t do that. She’d get in trouble, and it would get her a reputation for…well, for delinquency. It was not a pleasant prospect, to be considered a troublemaker. Zuna didn’t mind being a pain in the a**, but an outright troublemaker was not the sort of reputation she wanted to make. So she kept her head down and quietly made sounds of disapproval when the teacher got something really irritatingly incorrect. She thought she’d managed to make it through class without the teacher—and her classmates—noticing her. But no. Apparently, she hadn’t gotten away entirely unscathed. Some freak was tapping her on the shoulder trying to talk to her. Ugh.
She turned in her seat to see a Bapho-Geist-whatever hybrid holding out a hand to shake and introducing themselves. Zuna stared at the hand, then looked up at the hybrid. “I don’t shake hands,” she said. “My name’s Zuna, though, if that’s what you’re asking.” No, wait, she shouldn’t have told them that! Shoot! “Can I help you?”
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Posted: Thu Dec 08, 2016 2:58 pm
Yaviss packed his sketchbook and notebook into his bag and swung it onto his shoulder. Class was getting out now. He had all of the homework written down for the day and he was eager to get to work completely ignoring it. It would be the weekend soon, after all—there was no need to worry about it this afternoon. In the meantime, the sun was shining, there was a light breeze in the air, and it was the perfect time to get some more sketching done. He was working on a comic right now, depicting his classmates and their mannerisms. It was quite droll, if he did say so himself, full of satire and sarcasm.
Before leaving the class, Yaviss caught sight of one of the Nightmares approaching a Naiad on the other side of the classroom. He paused. He didn’t know the Nightmare hybrid very well—he’d need material for his comic if it was to be complete. Besides, this looked like an entertaining display—a Nightmare attempting to befriend a Naiad? Good luck! Even the ponies couldn’t pull a stunt like that all the time, and they were avid fish-botherers at the best of times. Yaviss leaned against the wall and wished to Kegebroth for some popcorn to munch.
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Posted: Thu Dec 08, 2016 2:59 pm
Quilo shrugged. He’d met a fair few people who didn’t like shaking hands. It didn’t bother him that much. He lowered the hand and put it in his pocket. “Nice to meet you, Zuna,” he said. “I was wondering if you had anyone to go to the Haunted Hallows festival with. Not as a date,” he added hastily. “I’m just looking for people to hang out with.”
Yeah. No. No dates. Quilo wasn’t ready to date again. He’d never be ready to date again, ever. Even if he was, someone who tutted through class wasn’t really…well, wasn’t really his style. He didn’t mind having someone like that as a friend, of course! There was nothing wrong with having friends like that. It was just…well, if he was going to date someone, they had to be, y’know, nice? Not critical? The closer you got to Quilo, the less critical of…everything you had to be. Hey, if I don’t like Zuna on Haunted Hallows, that’s okay. I’m not marrying them, just offering to hang out with them. That’s okay, right? To not hang out with someone if you don’t like them?
Quilo’s world was rapidly falling apart. He didn’t know what to do anymore. Ugh. He had to get his head back in the zone—he didn’t even know what he stood for anymore. “You game?”
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Posted: Thu Dec 08, 2016 3:00 pm
Zuna looked the hybrid over appraisingly. So this total stranger walked up to her, asked her if she had plans for an event, asked her if she wanted to hang out at that event, and made it clear that this had nothing to do with dating or anything.
Not exactly a very good sell, huh? No one liked to hang out with random people they didn’t know. It was just…well, it was unwise, y’know? It meant essentially wasting what could otherwise be a wonderful evening on someone who could turn out to be, at best, a bozo, and at worse, a serial killer looking for their next victim. Yeah, no. You don’t hang out with someone you don’t know. Basic survival instinct. Ugh. Worse came to worse, she could always scream for help, but frankly, Zuna’s voice was absolutely terrible as Naiads went. She’d never been a very enthusiastic crooner, and it was only now that she was starting to regret that fact.
So when some random serial killer bozo asks you to go out on a not-date with them, what do you say to burst their bubble? She couldn’t really think of much, except—gross—the truth. “I was kind of planning on going to a Haunted House, actually,” she said. “Kind of my favorite thing to do at Haunted Hallows.”
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Posted: Thu Dec 08, 2016 3:02 pm
Yaviss looked the hybrid over. Geist, mostly—but with a Baphomet’s fluffy sheep tail. How did that work? Weren’t those races supposed to be mortal enemies or something? Man, whatever. But whatever this kid was, he had guts. He had a plan in mind, obviously—he’d gotten the Naiad alone, asked them to go out with them, made it clear that he was not actually asking them to go out with him, and then…what? Said he just wanted people to hang out with? So why did you pick the loner with no friends, idiot? If you ask someone with friends, you get to piggyback on a bigger group! Some people are just…not the brightest people, y’know? Especially if they were the sort to have to travel in packs.
Nonetheless, it was hard to resist the urge to stand and listen to what his fellow teen had to say. The Naiad had made a counter-offer—well, not an offer to the hybrid, but it was an offer of sorts, anyway. So how would the hybrid react?
Wait…should he get out of the way? If the hybrid was looking for warm bodies to invite to Haunted Hallows, Yaviss realized with a lurch that he would be next. There were no other students around, after all...
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Posted: Thu Dec 08, 2016 3:03 pm
Quilo shrugged. He had been expecting a reply like that, actually—someone who huffed that much in class was probably going to have a ready excuse. But Quilo could not be brushed off that easily—no, you’d need a better excuse than that when dealing with someone like him. He knew people—and he knew how to talk to them and how to offer things to them. He knew what he needed to do and what he needed to say.
He needed to roll with it. He needed to say something tempting. He needed to offer something in exchange for some companionship. No. Wait. That sounded illegal. And, er, sexual.
But that wasn’t what Quilo meant!
What he meant was… “I’ve been living here since I was a kid—I’ve gone trick-or-treating out here every year since I was old enough. I know where the haunted houses are—we could go to the good ones, skip the ones that are…less than good.” If he’d read Zuna right, they’d only want to go to the very best haunted house available, one that was spooky and scary and had some serious atmosphere. They weren’t…Quilo’s favorites, but he was willing to do a lot for a friend.
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Posted: Thu Dec 08, 2016 3:05 pm
It wasn’t easy to wriggle out of a circumstance like this, honestly. The fact that she wanted to go to a haunted house had been her best excuse, and when she used it, he’d just snapped back with a solution. It was a reasonable solution; it was logical, and it fit, and it blew her only excuse out of the water quite handily. But it was still so annoying to find out that she’d been so handily outmaneuvered—she had no choice but to go with him!
Well, okay, she did have a choice. In theory, she could have told him that she didn’t want to spend an evening with a stranger and that she didn’t want to hang out with someone, that she preferred being alone…but what would that accomplish? Zuna sighed. Well, it would get him to go away. But it would also make him very upset. He could retaliate against her! Unlikely. He seemed the kind of person who wouldn’t retaliate no matter how mean you were to him. Total doormat. Probably awoken under the sign of the Key. But…being mean to him would make her seem like a heel? Well, who was there around to see that? The teacher of course, who was packing their bag and giving them a look. It was the end of the school day—they should have been leaving the class by now.
Teachers matter way more than students—even if they can’t affect your life every day, they can every so often, and with greater consequences. There probably wasn’t any punishment for “being a jerk and ruining someone’s creepy dreams,” but there could be…I don’t know, disapproval?
Zuna looked around and caught sight of a Goblin lounging in the corner. Aha! Perfect! Goblins were perfect doormats—it was like the gods made them that way. Zuna turned back to Quilo and gave him an innocent smile. “Alright, then!” she said. “I’d love to go with you on Haunted Hallows. Let’s ask that guy, though—they look kind of lonely. Maybe they’d like to come with us?”
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Posted: Thu Dec 08, 2016 3:06 pm
Crap. He’d moved too slow! Yaviss heard a reference to him in the conversation and sighed quietly. Yup. Inevitable. He was going to get dragged into this, and all by a Naiad who was giving him a “come here, you poor, shy thing!” gesture all the while they gave him a look that said, haha, sucker, sucks to be you! Ugh. This is why we Goblins hate everyone else, Yaviss thought. You’re always getting us involved in your nonsense!
But what excuse did Yaviss have for not joining the group? “I’m sorry, I’m not a team player, I don’t have friends and never had, I don’t like being in large groups of people, I was hoping to spend the holiday alone hunting house cats”? That wouldn’t work! Not at all! His excuse for not going with was worse than the Naiad’s!
Be polite. Be accommodating. Agree with people. Do not make a scene. Do not be a threat. Do not draw attention to yourself. Thanks a lot, Mom, it’s a little late for that last one! Yaviss was a Goblin, though, and he couldn’t refuse something like this. It would get him into more problems than it would get him out of. He’d just have to put up with other people for an evening. He looked at the other two, summoned his most innocent face—no, I wasn’t eavesdropping and engaging in a comfortable, if mercilessly short, moment of schadenfreude—and his most innocent voice. “What is it?” he asked the faces turned towards him.
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Posted: Thu Dec 08, 2016 3:07 pm
Quilo had been planning on talking to the Goblin anyway, so he didn’t mind the evasion supplied by the Naiad—and evasion it clearly was. Quilo felt like he knew them, and what they were all about—he’d been gathering that data during class, after all, and everything Zuna had said after that had only confirmed his suspicions.
So if Zuna was an arrogant, self-centered person who liked to drag other people into things because misery loves company, why was Quilo even doing this?
Because people are like burritos. Or cakes. Or—something spiky on the outside, but soft inside? Something like that. Point is, they aren’t the same all the way through. Once you dive in deep enough, they changed into something different. Quilo hated thinking of people as their rough, rude exterior. He liked to think of them instead as a normal person who protected themselves behind a spiky shell, but he could only do that if he knew what was inside of them. He was sure that Zuna was wearing a spiky shell right now, something to protect her. If he got to know her better, he’d maybe get to see past that spiky shell and see the real her—the bit of her that was genuine, and not just lashing out. That was the hope.
He looked over at the Goblin and felt his worldview change. He saw the brief flicker of sullenness suddenly change to an expression of humility and surprise. It was…disconcerting. Quilo felt the glow on his cheek flash in surprise. He’d heard of spiky shells—but was this someone with a smooth shell? Intriguing! What was that? And more importantly…why?
“If you’d like to come with us,” he called out to the Goblin, “you’re welcome to! My name’s Quilo, this is Zuna. What’s your name?”
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Posted: Thu Dec 08, 2016 3:08 pm
Haha! Misery loves company, gobbo! Zuna felt pretty satisfied with herself as she turned to the Goblin and gestured for him to come closer. She added a friendly smile on top of that, though that was more for the Goblin’s benefit than for Quilo’s sake. He couldn’t see her with her body turned around like that, but the Goblin could.
He didn’t seem to appreciate her smile, though. Instead, the Goblin gave her a look of deep seated mistrust followed by a rather dopey smile of naivety. Well, well, well! Someone who acted and dissembled as much as Zuna herself did! What a weirdo! Well, he’d calm down soon enough, but she could tell now that he didn’t want to hang out with Quilo any more than she did. Oh well. If I’m going to be stuck with him, then so is the Goblin! “We’ll get some candy as well,” she added. Didn’t Goblins have a thing for food or something? Or was she thinking of one of the Nightmare races? She couldn’t remember quite well. Eh, people weren’t really her thing, like, at all. And they never will be, she thought with smug satisfaction.
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Posted: Thu Dec 08, 2016 3:09 pm
Oh…words of impolite denotation!
Yaviss definitely didn’t have any excuse. He couldn’t escape. They’d seen him. And now they’d asked him his name. Yep. No recourse now but to…dive straight in. “Nice to meet you, Quilo and Zuna,” he said. He smiled. “My name’s Yaviss. Um…I didn’t really have any plans for Haunted Hallows?” Well, of course he had! He had a costume picked out, he had a plan for candy to get, he had plans to get his hands on some cute cats, what more did he need in the way of plans? But he couldn’t back out now without drawing attention to himself, so he was just stuck with these two for an evening. One that would have been perfectly acceptable without them!
Why did fate hate him?
Eh. No use fighting against it, or he was going to get a bad stomachache. “So I guess, um, if you’ll have me, I’ll come with? I don’t want to step on your toes, of course, but…if you don’t mind me coming along, I guess I’ll come along?”
He was rewarded—or punished—by a nod from the hybrid, Quilo. “We’ll be happy to have you, Yaviss,” he said.
Though neither would ever have dreamed of it, both Daydreams had the same thought: Well, that’s my evening shot!
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