"Trick or treat!"
The tiny demon had been hearing this phrase all night from the strange creatures coming to his father's garden.
The king of the demons, Baphomet, allowed these strangers into his home on this night, and this night only, for this was Halloween. This was the one night out of the year where demons and monsters did not attack the humans or noels on sight, for they were clever. They, for some reason, dressed up as them this night. As skeletons, mummies, pixies, all manner of creature. Then, even more curious, they would travel from place to place, stating the familiar challenge. If it even was a challenge. Those they challenged never seemed angry or frightened, but instead gave them the treats in which they demanded. Baphomet had observed this ritual year after year and quickly came to the conclusion it would be too dangerous to allow any monster to attack the humans or noels. No one would be able to tell who was who, or what was what. So, in his wisdom, he declared that there would be a truce for this day.
The demon king sat upon his throne in his garden. He did enjoy watching what the humans and noels could come up with. He would grin when he saw a particularly convincing costume. If the costume was a bit *too* convincing, however, he would stare the "trick-or-treater" down menacingly. He would chuckle to himself as the monsters pretending to be humans or noels in costume ran away quickly, leaving their treat bags behind.
His son, Baphomet Junior, watched from beside his father's throne as the deviruchis sat around a large cauldron filled with various candies at the center of the garden throne room. It was their appointed task to greet the humans and noels and hand them their treats. A couple of mischievous deviruchis in particular snuck some candy and started giggling like mad. They ran around in circles at full speed, fueled by the sugar, until they ran straight smack into each other. They bounced off each other and flew onto their backs, still giggling from there sugar high. King Baphomet put a hand to forehand and shook his head, groaning. The little demon prince giggled at the display and then turned his attention to the entrance of his father's throne room.
Standing there was a group of five people consisting of three teenage humans and two noels. Baphomet Junior looked at them in wide-eyed amazement at the detail of their costumes. The first human, a teenage boy with brown hair, wore beautiful blue Asian robes and a hat with a torn talisman. The second human was a teenage girl with long brown hair braided down her back. She wore red Asian robes and a red hat that also had a talisman attached. The third human was also a teenage boy, but appeared older than the other two. He wore brown Asian robes as well as a brown hat. The talisman attached to his hat was worn on the side.
The noels, a boy and a girl, wore something a bit different. The girl's outfit consisted of an orange fox head hat, a fur bikini top, fur short shorts, large fur gloves, large fur boots made to look like paws, and a collar with a bell attached around her neck. She also held a staff with a large bell attached to it. The boy wore an outfit of a similiar color. He has ninetail fox ears, a ninetail fox tail attached to his backside, similar boots and gloves, but wore an orange shirt and orange linen pants. He also had a collar with a leash attached. The female noel was holding the other end.
The little prince meekly tapped his father's hoof in order to get his attention. Baphomet looked at his son and leaned down in his seat.
"Is something the matter, little one?" Even attempting to speak in hushed tones to his young son, his voice still managed to boom. The newest batch of trick-or-treaters jumped at his voice, power evident even in his whisper.
The prince removed the pacifier from his mouth and straightened himself up. He was still considered a baby, but he still tried his best to have the sort of regal composure his father would approve of.
"Papa, what are dey?" He pointed to the trick-or-treaters, now recovered from the shock of Baphomet's voice and receiving their candy from the deviruchis. "What are dey pretendin' to be?"
Baphomet inspected the group. They stood respectfully at the entrance to the are. He regarded the human boy in blue first. The boy stood still, letting Baphomet examine him.
"The human in blue is dressed as Bongun."
The boy nodded. His gaze turned to the human girl. She smiled sweetly and waved with one hand, the other holding her basket of treats.
"The human girl is dressed as Munak."
She nodded happily at his correct deduction as Baphomet's eyes moved to the second human boy. The boy fidgeted uncomfortably as he could feel Baphomet's gaze burn into him. The demon king enjoyed inwardly watching the human welp squirm.
"The second human boy, the one in the brown robes is Hyegun."
'Hyegun' gave a small nod, acknowledging that he was indeed correct.
Baphomet's eyes moved to the noels and raised an eyebrow. The female noel grinned as she dropped the leash momentarily and did a slow spin to show off her costume. Her companion blushed furiously. Baphomet couldn't decide if he was blushing from her outfit or at the fact it appeared she made him wear a leash.
"The noel female is Moonlight Flower, while her companion is her pet Ninetails."
Moonlight giggled and nodded, bending over to pick the leash back up while Ninetails groaned quietly.
They bowed before the king (as instructed by the deviruchis). The deviruchi's ushered them forward to get their well-earned treats. They thanked Baphomet and the deviruchis and turned to leave, happily chatting amongst themselves about their treats and the king's correct observations. As Junior watched them go, a thought occurred to him.
"Papa, are we allowed to trick-or-treat? Or do only humans and noels do it?"
"I am Baphomet, King of the Demons! And you are my son! We are allowed to do as we please!" He stopped and considered his son for a moment. "Why do you ask?"
"Papa, I wanna go trick-or-treating! May I? Pwease?" He looked up as his father with large eyes and a hopeful smile. Baphomet shook his head.
"It would be effortless to simply stroll into Prontera. The humans would assume we were one of them in costume. Except they might catch on because our "costumes" are a bit too realistic."
Junior's eyes watered, disappointment clearly evident on his tiny face. Baphomet's mind thought quickly. He couldn't stand that look on his precious little boy. King of demons or not, he still tried to be a good father. And he couldn't help but dote on his little boy.
"What if we thought outside the box? We could still dress you up, and it would be a "costume" within a costume. Those foolish humans won't notice."
Junior's eyes lit up and he jumped up on his father's throne to hug him. Smiling only briefly, as he couldn't let his subjects see him with such an expression, he ordered a few of the deviruchis to look around and see what they could dress his son up as.
The deviruchi's first attempt was to dress him up as a poring. It was simple enough, except the costume consisted of pink jellopy rather than fabric and it wouldn't stay where they had tried to place it on the boy. The second attempt was a lunatic. Shaved lunatics hopped around in vain as the costume the deviruchis had sewn together with their fur made Junior sneeze relentlessly.
Elsewhere in Prontera, the girl dressed as Munak went to knock on a door as she noticed the bracelet from her wrist was gone. She turned in a panic.
"M, my bracelet! It's missing! I had it on an hour ago! My grandmother gave me that bracelet!" The alarm in her voice was rising quickly. They had already trick-or-treated for a while, and there were hundreds of people around. Anyone could find it and simply pick it up. Bongun stepped forward and placed his hands on her shoulders in an attempt to soothe her.
"Calm down. Panicking won't solve anything. Now, let's stop and think, when do you remember having it on last? Let's retrace our steps..."
Back at the garden, a deviruchi was admiring the bracelet on his wrist. He was modeling it, prancing about like a Kafra model. One of the other deviruchis slapped him on the back of the head and took the bracelet off of him.
The previous trick-or-treater's returned. They explained that Munak had lost her bracelet and were tracing their steps in order to find it. They happened to walk up as the deviruchi's were in the process of covering Junior in leaves in order to make him look like an Andanora.
One of the deviruchi's walked up to "Munak" with the bracelet she had lost and told her they found it by the entrance. The group thanked the demon but didn't turn to leave, not being able to help overhearing what was going on. They saw the little demon prince start to whimper at all the failed costume attempts when the girl dressed as Munak stepped forward and spoke up.
"You know... I made all of our costumes... I even have some needle and thread just in case something ripped. If you could get me a few things, I have the perfect costume idea for him." The demon king looked down at the group, his face an unreadable expression.
"And why would you, a human, want to help us?"
"This is Halloween, the one night out of the year where humans, noels, and monsters don't attack each other in fear of attacking one of their own. But it's also become the one night were we can walk side by side and talk like this. And besides," She smiled. "Your deviruchis found my bracelet."
Baphomet grunted his approval and the deviruchi's got to work, following the girl's instructions. She took measurements of the prince and a deviruchi of similar size while a couple of deviruchi's snuck off to Prontera to play some tricks (a few of them posed as children to get treats as well) in order to get the materials needed. When they came back, Munak set to work quickly.
With the help of her friends, she finished quickly and helped Junior get into his costume. He looked at himself and to the deviruchis and smiled. One of the deviruchi's gave him his pitchfork as a prop to use. Baphomet nodded approvingly at the costume.
"Baphomet Junior as a Deviruchi? Clever. It looks good. Thank you, human."
Junior squealed in delight as he finally got an appropriate costume. Munak thanked the king for his compliment, and took a second large helping of candy as a reward for their help.
"Papa, Papa, can we go trick-or-treating now? Pwease?" Junior couldn't contain his excitement. Baphomet nodded and handed his son a basket.
"We'll go to Prontera, but you are to not leave my side." The group smiled to themselves and took their leave. A few of the deviruchi's grabbed some baskets as well.
"And what makes you think you're going?" The deviruchi's giggled and put the baskets back, smiling sheepishly.
Later that night, the group of three humans and two noels spotted the King of Demons and his son, walking the streets of Prontera. Baphomet Junior smiled happily to his father as his father looked at his son's cheerful face.
"Happy Halloween, Papa!"
"Happy Halloween, Junior."
