Title: Night-Riders (Part VI: The Night Ride)
Author: Jordanna Morgan
Archive Rights: Please request the author's consent.
Rating/Warnings: G.
Characters: Ed, Al, and assorted original townsfolk.
Setting: General.
Summary: Another October finds Edward depressed - until the brothers get caught up in a family's secret.
Disclaimer: They belong to Hiromu Arakawa. I'm just playing with them.

Sitting on the porch steps of the Romney Inn, young Sophie Waggetts couldn't keep herself from squirming with excitement.

For most of her life, the end of the Harvest Festival had been her favorite day of the year - but that wasn't because of the games and food and costumes. To her, the Night Ride was the greatest thing in the world. She loved it so much, she didn't even mind giving up her bedroom to help accommodate the town's overflow of Festival guests, because those few nights she spent sleeping in her mother's bed meant the Night Ride was close at hand. Besides, as the innkeeper's daughter, she was rewarded with the best vantage point on the entire street.

She hadn't always loved it. When she was three years old - nearly four - and Mama had let her step onto the porch to watch the Night Ride for the first time, one glimpse of the Headless Horseman was enough to send her shrieking beneath her bed.

A year later, she trembled and peeked out from behind Mama's skirts until long after the demons rode away, missing out on the candy they left in their wake. But afterward... she couldn't get the torch-lit images of those creatures out of her head. Thinking back on them didn't scare her. It fascinated her, and she suddenly found she couldn't wait to see them again. When the next Night Ride came, she didn't care about the candy. All she wanted was to watch the Night-Riders, never taking her eyes from them for a moment. She was so very curious about where they came from and how they existed.

She never confessed it to anyone, but a naughty little part of her had even wished the local bully's candle would burn out, leaving him with no protection from the Night-Riders. She knew it was terrible of her, but she wanted to see what happened when they stole a child's soul. After all, a mean boy like that wouldn't really be a loss to anybody, now would he?

To Sophie's astonished delight, the demons actually did single out the very surprised bully during that same Night Ride, cutting through the crowd to encircle him with their ghastly horses. Speaking for the Headless Horseman - who had never been known to speak, and how could he, not having a mouth? - the one called Screech-Owl told the boy his cruel soul would make him a splendid Night-Rider. Although they could not touch him then, the Horseman vowed to claim him one day, even if it meant making a special visit from the grave to do it. On some dark night, the Horseman would return and catch the bully off-guard when he had no candle to save him... unless he made his soul unfit for their company, by learning to be kind.

The boy was so terrified, he ran home as fast as his legs would take him. From then on, he was polite to his elders and nice to other children. He had never come to see the Night Ride again, and for years afterward, he would not set foot outside without a candle after dark.

From that night forward, the Headless Horseman was Sophie's favorite hero and first crush. She was ten years old now - nearly eleven - but no storybook prince had ever managed to replace him in her heart. She still spent the rest of each year waiting for this one night, as ardently as a much older girl would wait for a secret visit from a forbidden lover.

Her anticipation was shared by everyone around her. As the evening grew later, people had begun to close in more tightly, lining both sides of the street. Some children eagerly squirmed their way to the front row, but others preferred to peer out warily from behind their parents. This was especially true of those who had come to see the Night Ride for the first time, and didn't know what to expect.

The electric lights along the street were shut off, leaving the crowd bathed in an orange glow of candlelight. In the spirit of the occasion if not for superstition, every man, woman, and child carried a candle. Tapers of colored wax were sold at a booth during the Festival, and the proceeds from their sale were donated to the local orphanage. It was just one more way in which the Night Ride benefited the town.

"Tsk, Sophie, you know your candle should be lit by now!" Mama's voice spoke up, as Mrs. Waggetts bent down from the steps above Sophie to light her daughter's bright blue candle with her own.

The innkeeper was dressed as a witch, all in black, which was funny to Sophie because she knew Mama was the farthest thing from a witch. Her own guise was a sharp contrast to her mother, an angel in white with down-covered wings and a little halo of golden tinsel. It was a very pretty costume, but Sophie harbored some sneaking doubts that she would really make a very good angel - darkly fascinated as she was by the Night Ride's demons.

And the truth was, maybe she hadn't quite exactly forgotten to light her candle.

As the minutes passed, the excited babble of the crowd increasingly sank into hushed murmurs. A ragged veil of clouds passed over the moon. The stillness grew so powerful that Sophie was startled when the town's clock tower struck ten, ringing the hours in its deep, hollow chime.

Then, far off down the road that led to the graveyard on the outskirts of town, there came the sudden scream of a wild horse.

"They're coming," Mama said nervously, and began to hurry back and forth, inspecting the candles of Sophie's friends who were privileged to share the inn's steps with her. "Oh, they're coming!"

Further neighs and screeches of phantom animals followed, mingled with the cackles and yells of somewhat more human voices. Beneath these cries came a lower note, the faint rumble of hooves, like a ghostly thunder that was quickly drawing nearer.

At the end of the street, there was a sudden wave of children's shrieks: terror combined with delight. Sophie's heart leaped into her throat, and she sprang to her feet. Although Mama forbade her to set foot off the bottom step of the porch, she leaned forward as far as she could, looking down past the crowds to the source of the coming excitement...

And suddenly they were there, five freakish figures mounted on huge stampeding beasts, with green-yellow firefly light swirling around riders and horses alike. The brightest glow of all floated above the gaping empty neck of their leader - nothing but a ball of green fire with a terrible face glaring out of it - and streaks of the same unnatural-colored flame seemingly flowed like water off the tattered cloak that streamed from his shoulders.

The Headless Horseman was a giant, even bigger than Sophie remembered.

With unearthly wails and screams, the Night-Riders galloped past, throwing off a trail of small objects that sparkled like gems in the candlelight. These were chocolates and other sweets wrapped in foil: a bait to tempt children into letting go of their candles. Sophie reached out to catch a few in her palm. Some of her friends darted to the edge of the street to pick up the candy that fell - but they each gathered their prizes with one hand, none of them brave enough or greedy enough to put down the candles they clutched tightly.

Although Sophie had eyes for little but the Horseman, she glimpsed other demons who had become familiar in the course of many Night Rides. Screech-Owl rode alongside his master, just as he had for as long as Sophie could remember, and she recognized the grinning banshee features of the one called Imp as well. The other two were obscured from her view, and they vanished up the street before she could make them out.

Sophie was not disappointed. From experience, she knew this had been only the first pass... and the best was yet to come.

The uproar of the Night-Riders' passing faded away toward the opposite end of town. For a few minutes, there was silence; then the sound of hoofbeats rose again, as the demons turned to retrace their course. A moment later the phantom horses came thundering back down the middle of the street, only to rear and bellow and paw the air as their riders pulled them up short in front of the inn.

This was why Sophie's front porch was the best seat in town. It was the Night-Riders' custom to present themselves at the Romney Inn each year, to give visitors for the Festival a grave message.

"Behold, doubters!" Screech-Owl's cracked shriek of a voice exclaimed. The feathered monster stretched out a claw-hand toward the Headless Horseman, who sat towering on the back of his demon-horse Hades. "When you strangers return to your cities, tell the people what your eyes have seen - and heed this warning. The Headless Horseman is not the only one to do the work of culling wicked souls from among you!"

The warning was familiar enough to be predictable, and as Screech-Owl delivered it, Sophie studied the other Night-Riders in the company. The Horseman definitely seemed bigger and blacker than ever before. Imp's horse was prancing skittishly at the edge of the group, and an ugly little frog-like creature called Toad was there too... but the fifth Night-Rider was unfamiliar. With his sackcloth head and crooked wooden limbs, his scarecrow form was both eerie and unmistakable.

Screech-Owl's message was hardly completed when an older boy, standing several feet to Sophie's right, let out an incredulous snigger. One of the out-of-town guests, he was a belligerent and misbehaved child who had spent the last three days declaring his skepticism of the Night Ride. He submitted to holding a candle only because his parents insisted he humor the locals and the younger children.

"I'm not scared of you," he declared to the Night-Riders, and deliberately dropped his candle on the sidewalk at his feet. "What are you gonna do now?"

The answer was clearly more dramatic than the boy expected.

With a loud croak and an acrobatic leap, Toad vaulted over the neck of his horse and landed on his feet. Then he literally hopped toward the doubter, his rangy frog-like springs covering the ground between them with astonishing speed. A rattling hiss emerged from his throat as his long webbed fingers reached out, eager to pluck a soul ripe for the taking.

With a terrified squeal, the boy snatched his candle from the ground and held it out defensively.

Confronted by a flickering candle flame, the change in the onrushing demon was instantaneous. Toad froze on the spot, uttering a deep grunt of dismay, and sullenly crept back to the side of his ghostly horse. He would have no soul to steal this time.

A rough chuckle came from Screech-Owl's throat, and as he looked at his fellow demon, Sophie had a sense that he was smiling in amusement. "Be patient, Toad. His is not the only soul worth our attention."

"You'll have no souls in Romney this year," a voice spoke up firmly from the porch behind Sophie and her friends. It was Mr. Karo, the mayor. On any other day, he was a jolly, grandfatherly man; but when he addressed the Night-Riders, as mayors of the town had done for hundreds of years, he always looked frightfully stern and protective of his townsfolk. "As you see, we were ready for you again - but we'll thankee, all the same, for the reminder to be good to one another. I hope some of our guests will take that lesson home with them."

The scarecrow-demon uttered a sarcastic snort, and Mr. Karo looked at him curiously, adjusting his spectacles.

"Well, now... In my whole lifetime of watching the Night Rides, I don't think I've seen you before. You must be a new servant of the Horseman. What are we to call you?"

Suddenly finding the attention focused on himself, the demon of sacking and straw almost appeared to squirm. After a moment's hesitation, he leaped down from the back of his horse. It seemed he was trying to imitate Toad's graceful dismount - but he stumbled and wobbled badly on his landing. Although Sophie managed not to laugh, several other children giggled, and the demon looked around at them hotly with every sign of genuine embarrassment.

Then he staggered forward a few steps... and when Sophie caught a good glimpse beneath his ragged cape, and saw the way his broken-stick limbs seemed to point in wrong directions, she couldn't blame him at all for his awkward movements.

"Call me Scarecrow - because that's what I am! " he rasped, in a high reedy voice. He pointed a crooked wooden finger at the cowering boy who had challenged the Night-Riders. "I used to be a boy like you, but I did terrible things... and then the Headless Horseman found me. He took my soul and put it inside this scarecrow, and now I have to follow him through endless night, until I steal enough souls to give him in trade for my own. Let that be a warning to you!"

As the Scarecrow spoke, Sophie noticed that the Headless Horseman had turned toward his newest servant. The ghostly face within the green fire never changed its wicked expression, but his big dark body seemed to be quivering just a little. As if with some strong emotion... or maybe with laughter he had no voice to utter. Cruel laughter, at the plight of the child-soul trapped in that walking heap of sticks and straw.

And just like that, Sophie found she had a new hero.

Mama cried out Sophie's name as the girl plunged from the steps, rushing into the street. Several children shrieked with horror, and even a few adults gasped and shuddered; but strangely, Sophie felt no fear at all as she stepped up to the Scarecrow. It surprised her a little to realize he was hardly any taller than she was.

She dropped her candle at his feet, and its flame guttered out as it struck the ground.

"You can..." Her mouth suddenly felt dry, and her heart was beating fast. "You can take my soul... if it would help you."

The Scarecrow almost took a step back. Almost, but not quite. As the crowd stood frozen and breathless, he studied her from beneath the brim of his big black hat. His unreadable stitches-for-eyes stared at her for a long moment... and then he slowly shook his head.

"I'll never hurt another sweet soul like yours," he said. His voice was not the thin, scraping croak it had been before, but much softer, and for a moment very nearly human. "Even if it takes me a thousand years - it's only the bad ones I could ever take."

He raised his hands close to his chest and clapped them together, causing a few onlookers to flinch in fear for Sophie; but all he did then was to bend down and touch her fallen candle. A beautiful liquid light flowed over it, and the wax melted and reformed as if by magic, taking the shape of a pretty little bird.

As the light faded, he gathered the wax figure in his clumsy twig-fingers and held it out to her. She shivered on the inside as she gently took it from him.

"Go back now!" he growled, and his voice was all thorns and brambles again - but Sophie heard the tiny little catch in it. Impulsively, she rose on tiptoe and swiped a kiss across his rough sackcloth cheek before running up the steps.

Sophie expected her mother to be angry... but there was only a crooked little smile on Mama's lips as she looked thoughtfully at the Scarecrow, and then at the wax bluebird in Sophie's hands.

When Sophie turned back, the Scarecrow still stood as inanimate as he once might have in some farmer's field. For a moment he looked almost unsure of what to do with himself. He flinched when Screech-Owl whistled a sharp night-bird signal; but as he and Toad hurried to mount their horses, Sophie saw him glance furtively at her one last time.

"There are no souls for us here, Master," Screech-Owl reported regretfully to the Horseman. "Shall we ride on while the night is ours?"

For answer, the ever-silent Horseman raised a powerful black hand. He spread it in a sweeping gesture toward the edge of town, and the world beyond - where evil souls still waited to be seized, somewhere out there in the darkness.

Screech-Owl whistled again, and the Night-Riders turned their horses toward the open road. Hades reared and snorted, hooves thrashing, and sprang forward at a gallop as if wolves were at his heels. The servants of the Headless Horseman followed, back through the town and on into the blackness of the countryside, their eerie shouts fading on the wind.

With their departure, a palpable tension slowly broke, like relief and disappointment all at once.

The first few tentative voices to speak became a swell of talk and laughter, until the street buzzed like a live wire with the pent-up excitement of the experience. Candlelight gave way to electric light, and in its brighter glow, children bolted into the street to snap up the few pieces of candy that had been missed. The crowd began a slow migration toward the Town Hall, where the Midnight Feast awaited.

But as Sophie Waggetts clutched her bluebird to her chest and followed her mother, she already yearned for the next Night Ride... and it was not the Headless Horseman she would be dreaming of in the year to come.

Half an hour after the Night Ride, there was no witness to the strange caravan that traveled the deserted road beyond the edge of town, making its way back to the Maddock farm from the cemetery. Without any apparent driver, the great horse Tor followed the road he knew well, hitched to his familiar cart. Four other horses tethered to the back of the cart followed obediently, a dramatic change from the wild phantom beasts they had impersonated a short while earlier.

The horses were not really alone. At the bottom of the cart lay the Night-Riders' costumes, hidden beneath a thick bed of straw - and on top of that straw lay the Elric brothers, stretched out on their backs and gazing up at the stars.

Those pinpoints of light in the sky glittered with an unusual intensity. In the fields and houses along the road, not one mote of artificial light could be seen, for the inhabitants of the farms were all in town for the Festival. Only fireflies competed with the celestial brightness above them, their tiny sparks flickering over the surrounding cornfields.

Nowhere else but in Resembool had Alphonse seen the stars shine so brightly.

Ed had been quiet ever since they returned to the cemetery to remove their costumes. Verbally quiet, at least: Al could tell there was an excited energy bubbling in him after the thrill of the Night Ride, but his smile conflicted with the thoughtful perplexity in his eyes. He had volunteered to take the horses back to the farm before rejoining the Maddocks at the Midnight Feast, and Al readily went with him. The food was irrelevant for the armored boy anyway, and he was just a little concerned for his brother.

For his part, Al was enthralled by the Night Ride, and his brief but fascinating sense of power in the role of the demons' terrifying ringleader. It was one of the most fun things he had ever done during his existence in armor - and so easy, just sitting in silence on Tor's back and looking monstrous. With two hundred years of legend doing the real work, he hardly had to lift a finger to give the crowd the good scare they wanted.

On the other hand, with the Scarecrow's eventful introduction, the experience seemed to have been much more complex for Ed. Whatever it was that affected him so, Al hoped it had not undone the progress of the last two days in curing his October melancholy.

"Al... were you upset by the story I told?"

The sudden question came softly in the night air. Surprised, Al turned his helmet to look at Ed beside him. "What?"

"About the Headless Horseman putting the boy's soul inside the scarecrow." Ed glanced away. "I turned it around, because the Horseman was supposed to be the big villain. But if you switch the roles, it's..."

He trailed off awkwardly, and Al sat up to study his troubled face in the moonlight. It took a long moment of puzzling for the younger Elric to figure out the unspoken ending to the words; but once he did, he let out a sudden bright laugh.

"Oh, Brother. All those terrible things you said as the Scarecrow... Is that really how you think I feel about this journey I've made with you?" He chuckled and shook his helmet. "Don't be silly. You didn't steal my soul. You saved it - and I'll never be in darkness as long as you're with me." In a tender gesture, he reached over to brush Ed's bangs out of his eyes. "Of course I wasn't upset. Didn't you know? I was trying not to laugh."

Metal fingers twined impulsively around Al's leather ones, and Ed sat up, blinking at Al with a look of gentle wonderment. "Really?"

"Honest. I was afraid I was going to burst out laughing and ruin the whole thing." Al deeply wished he could show his brother the smile he felt inside. "It was a great inspiration, Ed. And besides, if you hadn't told the story, we might have missed out on seeing that little girl get a crush on you!"

Even in the silver half-light, Al could see Ed's face turning as red as his coat.

"It's not my fault she didn't have the sense to be scared!" he protested hotly. "Girls are crazy that way. It's just like when Winry got into those trashy vampire novels. Remember that?"

Al winced. "Oh yeah..."

After leaving the horses and costumes at the Maddock farm, Ed and Al hurried back to the Town Hall to join the Midnight Feast. They slipped inside as unobtrusively as an armored giant and a red-hooded teenager could - which was surprisingly not difficult, given the array of striking and colorful disguises in the crowded room. Several dozen long tables had been set up in the cavernous meeting space, and around these sat hundreds of happy and satisfied Festival-goers, helping themselves to a vast spread of food.

Ed's eyes became huge behind his black mask the moment he saw the repast, and Al couldn't help chuckling.

There was seemingly nothing that wasn't on the tables. Roasted turkeys and mutton legs, fried chicken and glazed ham; creamy potato salads, deviled eggs and stuffed peppers. Rich soups of beef and barley and vegetables. Golden corn boiled and buttered on the cob, or popped and coated with caramel. Candied apples, gallons of spiced cider, endless pies and pastries and cookies. All the bounty of Romney's fields that the Harvest Festival celebrated had been represented here.

Ed scampered from one buffet table to another, eagerly heaping a plate with the delectable offerings. As for Al, he followed along and collected somewhat more modest servings of whatever his brother seemed to like best. Apart from the sake of appearances, he knew it would spare Ed an inevitable trip for second helpings anyway.

"Ed! Al!" a voice called out, and they turned to see Jep in his pirate costume, waving to them from a table where he sat with his parents and sister. The family had saved two seats there for the brothers, who gladly joined them.

"You should hear it, Ed!" Jep exclaimed laughingly, leaning close to the older boys, his voice lowered as far as the noise of the gathering would allow. "Everyone's talking about the Scarecrow, and what happened with Sophie Waggetts. And Sophie..."

He pointed to another table nearby - where young Sophie sat beside her mother, her plate of food barely touched, dreamily petting the wax bird Ed had transmuted from her candle. Her enraptured expression was the cue for another blush to creep down from beneath Ed's mask.

"I think I really did create a monster," he groaned, drawing laughter from Al and the Maddocks.

Late the next morning, after a long night's rest and one last resplendent breakfast, the Elrics departed for the train station - and the Maddock family came to see them off.

"Here are some leftovers from the Midnight Feast," Fay said kindly, pushing a large covered basket into Al's arms. He accepted it with a slight bow and a murmur of thanks, aware that Ed was already eyeing the basket hungrily.

"You'll come back for next year's Night Ride, won't you?" Jep asked eagerly, looking up at Ed with shining eyes.

"We can't promise that. There's no telling where we might be a year from now," Ed admitted. Then he smiled with a solemn warmth, and added: "...But we can try."

The smile on Jep's face reflected exactly what those words made Al feel.

"Sure, you gotta come. We'll even save the Scarecrow costume for you," Jep offered with a grin, causing Ed to chuckle and shake his head.

"You don't need to do that. In fact, if we don't make it back next time... I think you oughta play the Scarecrow, Jep. We wouldn't want that girl at the inn to be disappointed, would we?"

Jep's freckles stood out as he blushed furiously. "Aww, I wouldn't want Sophie Waggetts kissing me..."

"We'll do our best to make it back," Al laughed. "Maybe by then, you'll even be ready for some lessons in alchemy!"

"Oh, that would be awesome!"

Smiling wryly, Japheth clapped his hands on the shoulders of both Elrics. "We'll all be looking forward to seeing you boys come back. What you did to save the Night Ride doesn't just mean a lot to us, but to the whole town - and we want to thank you again."

Ed ducked his head slightly. "Thank you, sir," he said, and nothing more; but Al knew exactly what he meant.

Thank you for making this time of the year something better for us.

The whistle of the train pierced the air at that moment, a final call for boarding. Ed and Al glanced at each other, and then looked back at the Maddocks, to receive one last round of smiles and waves.

"See you later!"

HISTORIAN'S NOTE:

By the following year, the Elric brothers had been drawn ever more deeply into the dangers and challenges of their journey. They did not make it back to Romney for the next Night Ride. Jeptha Maddock was disappointed; but as Ed had urged him, he wore the costume of the Scarecrow himself that year. The character's return brought great delight to Sophie Waggetts.

In time Jep became a skilled alchemist, but instead of making a career of it, he chose to follow the Maddock family traditions of tending the farm and carrying out the Night Ride. Many years later, Sophie became his wife - and upon being introduced to the family secret, she was thrilled to discover she had become a Night-Rider after all.

As for the Elrics, they did find occasion to return for the Night Ride eventually, and they didn't come alone...

But that is another story.

2011 Jordanna Morgan