Gamefic: Thirteen Tricks and Treats
Title: Thirteen Tricks and Treats.
Rating: PG-13.
Fandom: All sorts of different RPGs.
Synopsis: Thirteen Halloweens for thirteen very different characters. The source PCs are taken from games spanning well over a decade, and every possible gaming format. I have too much time on my hands. Sort of a follow-up to Fourteen February Kisses.
***
1. Slow Night.
*
The demons stay in on Halloween.
It's not quite a law, precisely; more of a guideline, or perhaps an unwritten truce between the forces of good and evil. For one night out of the year, the demons and the demon-hunters can be entirely at ease, existing side by side without anyone getting any unpleasant holes punched in places that would really prefer to stay fully intact. Halloween, and everybody gets the night off to do as they please, whether it be staying home and watching the television, visiting the graves or unmarked slaughtering-grounds of loved ones, or just doing the grocery shopping in a semblance of peace.
After a great deal of bribery, trickey, coercion, and out-right threatening of life, limb, and bodily integrity, Geraldine Harrington was staying in. In a functionally empty house, mind, with none of her fellow Slayers about to drive her slowly out of her tree. AMC was having an all-night monster movie marathon, starting with 'The Fog' and spooling slowly through an assortment of ghoulish delights from there, ranging from serial killers to cornfield hauntings. Add in a large bowl of overly-buttered popcorn and a pot of hot chocolate, and it was as close to perfection as any night was ever likely to get.
The eerie sounds of the title sequence began to emit from the front room, followed by a fascinated, "Ewwwwwww," as Sam got his first proper look at the works of John Carpenter. Jerry grinned.
Perfection got easier all the time.
Trotting into the living room, she slid herself over the back of the couch and plopped down next to Sam, who wrapped his tail around her waist without looking away from the screen. "What'd I miss?" she asked, swatting his hand away from the popcorn.
"Killer fog. Lepers."
"That's all right, then." Settling closer, she put her head down against his shoulder, and prepared to watch as vengeful spirits destroyed a town for the sins of its fathers. The demons stay in on Halloween.
Sometimes, that's the most wonderful treat of them all.
*
2. Simulated Terror.
*
The house was old, creepy, and rattled with every gust of the icy wind that blew around it. Dim shrieks echoed through the night outside, which was lit only by the ever-present glow of the fat, full harvest moon riding low over the haunted hills. Tombstones broke the line of the horizon, like rotting teeth showing through a madman's eternal lunatic grin. Whatever lived in this place was less than sane, and it walked alone.
Barefoot, wearing thin cotton pajamas and clutching a two-by-four in both hands, Anis Bihari made her solitary way through the main hallway of the house, trying to ignore the way the pictures changed when seen out of the corner of her eyes. It wasn't easy.
"Noooooot liking thiiiiii-is," she sing-songed, under her breath. Then she froze, listening intently to the sounds of the house around her. Had that been a rustling noise, or was it just the cuffs of her pajama pants tangling around her ankles? Were those footsteps, or echoes? "Nooooooot liking this at aaaa-all," she amended.
Something creaked behind her. Bihari whirled, holding the two-by-four out in front of her like a splintery talisman against the ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties and things that went bump in the night.
There was nothing there, and slowly, she relaxed, grumbling, "I thought Halloween was the festival of hyperactivity and sugar, not ditching the Trill in a big spooky haunted mansion full of things that think spots add flavour."
When Magnus and Gavin suggested a 'real, old fashioned Earth Halloween', she'd been all full it, reasoning that the maintenance of cultural traditions showed a strong sociological grounding, and increased the chances of everyone involved staying sane. That was before the zombies. And the lake monster. And the werewolf. And definitely before the party got split, and she wound up alone in a holographic haunted house that she'd pledged not to terminate before the end of the program.
Sometimes it's hard to be a good girlfriend to a crazy man.
"You people are making me miss the Dominion," she muttered. Something rustled in the shadows.
Sighing, Lt. Anis Bihari turned around to face her fate. And hopefully, to beat it stupid with a two-by-four.
*
3. Days of the Dead.
*
The fog rolls off the River in waves, making gray and white swirls in the leaden air. There are no shores here, no stones or solid ground; only the eternity of the water, the water that ebbs and flows and knows neither its beginning nor its end. There is no time here, no past and no future. There is only now, the great, unending 'now', the beast that swallows its own tail, and endures, and endures, and never grows, and never ages, and never dies, however much it might desire to do so.
Somewhere, elsewhere, in another world (another series of worlds, world after world, stacked atop each other like playing cards, with the jokers always wild, and the rules too numerous to name), time ticks by in slow, lazy steps, each day fading into the next, becoming lost, becoming intangible as the mist that rolls across this mighty sleeping River. In that world, in those worlds, the calendar has rolled around again, the great wheel of the year turning and turning, until it is All Hallow's Eve, the Night of Remembrance, and the year prepares to die, and rise again.
At the center of the mist -- or perhaps not the center, precisely; perhaps these mists have no center, as they have no beginning and no end, but this is a spot where the gray is deep and solid, where the white cannot be penetrated; it is close enough to a center for this night's workings, in this dim twilight where the sun is never seen -- a small boat is anchored, held in place as much by hope and prayer as by the thin chain that descends into the darkness of the water.
A tall, slim figure kneels on the boat, bleached as pale as the mists that skirl around her, with unbound hair that flows in white waves to her knees. Her eyes are blue, dark blue, River blue, the pupils almost obscured by the slow shadowing of her irises; they have seen too much, those eyes, and are never anything but sad.
Her long-fingered hands are quick and easy as they straighten the wicks of the candles she pulls from her bag, one by one; they are shaped like lilies, those candles, with broad petals to keep them afloat, and shallow cups to keep them from the wind. They might drift as far as Babylon, if the currents are kind.
She hopes the currents will be kind.
They so very rarely are.
"This is for my sister," she says, and lights the first candle, and sets it on the water. She was never good at being a big sister; she never had the knack of it, never quite understood what to make of a baby sister who was smarter than she was, but in such a distracted, off-hand way, like being smart was only the beginning of what would be required of her. And maybe that was so, because the towers are fallen, and all the smart little sisters are gone away. There's only her, now, the last of her line, as she places the candle in the water, and watches it float away.
One by one she names them, lights the candles in their honour, and releases them into the mists, little fires that start to fade the moment they ignite. Family, friends, enemies, comrades from a dozen different worlds, a dozen different lifetimes...but she's always been the same, and she's always come here, to this River, when the wheel turns around again.
The last candle she lights is for the man who brought her violets, once, when she was young and innocent, when the River was a friend, and not a traitor, sweeping her ever further from home, and ever deeper into a madness that has no end. The wax spatters her fingers before she lets it go, like thin white tears that burn where they strike the skin. She leaves it where it is, places the candle in the water, and pulls her hand away.
Her gaze remains on the mist long after the fire has faded from sight. Another year gone; another year beginning.
Someday, she only prays, someone will light a candle here, for her.
*
4. Good News, Girls...
*
Halloween is when everything odd becomes ordinary; nothing stands out when goblins and ghosts flood the streets, begging for candy and threatening mischief. The compacts say that the demonic forces will stay in on Halloween night, conveniently out of the way, taking a much-needed break from the carnage. The definition of 'in', however, varies from person to person. As far as Sarah Tapper is concerned, 'in' is where you make it.
Three platinum blonde wigs, three identical plaid skirts, three Xavier's Academy blazers, and three plain white shirts later, 'in' was the Morbid Midnight Madness Monster Movie Marathon at the old Capri Theater (tickets for the night, thirty dollars, with a five dollar discount if you came in costume, and a ten dollar discount if you came in a costume that the judges liked).
The judges liked the Stepford Cuckoos.
Savings transmuted into 7-Up with catsup in it (to the awe and revulsion of the man at the snack counter, who had never seen three attractive women arguing about how to get their jumbo-sized soda under the condiment dispenser before), a large bucket of popcorn, and a box of Junior Mints, Sarah sailed gladly on into auditorium three, where 'Night of the Creeps' was just getting underway. Alien slugs were asphyxiating young men and reanimating their corpses.
The entire audience chorused along with, "Good news, girls, your dates are here. Bad news: THEY'RE DEAD!"
When you can't have the company of your own kind on a holiday evening -- not that Sarah had ever quite figured out what her 'own kind' was, exactly, since humans were too, well, human, and the few other Johrlac Queens she'd encountered were unnervingly self-centered and homicidal -- settle for the company of your peers. Even if those peers happened to be a sea of semi-washed horror movie fans who could recite the entire Wes Craven ouevre from heart. She could have watched the movie with her eyes closed, since she wasn't technically 'watching' it at all, just stealing glimpses from the optic nerves of everyone around her. She could have, but what would have been the fun in that? The demons stay in on Halloween. Tonight, she just wanted to be Sarah.
She didn't look around when the man in the Morrison-era black leather jumpsuit and ruby sunglasses plopped down next to her, eyeing the crowd with wariness. "Sorry I'm late. I couldn't--"
"Shhhhhhh." Sarah offered him the bucket of popcorn with one hand, all three sets of eyes staying riveted on the screen. "'The Midwich Cuckoos' is just getting started."
"A little family history?"
"Don't make me hit you."
Sarah Tapper loves Halloween.
*
5: All I've Ever Wanted.
*
"Mom! Sandy took my sneaker!"
"Mom! Patrick's bein' a little tattle-tale!"
"Mom!"
The din raised by two eight year olds locked in the throes of pre-trick-or-treat jitters was getting to be enough to grate even on Laura's customarily ungrateable nerves. Putting down her armful of toddler on his unresisting older sister's lap -- Janice was too absorbed with AIMing her friends about the unfairness of being drafted to help take her younger siblings trick-or-treating to notice -- she waded gamely into the fray, grabbing Spider-Man and the fairy princess by their respective collars and hauling them bodily apart.
"I don't actually care who started this," she said, in a conversational tone of voice, "because it doesn't matter. If this isn't finished, right now, I'm going to make your big sister very, very happy."
Clever enough to recognize an oncoming train when he heard one, but not quite sure of which direction the whistle was coming from, Patrick gave her a wary look, and asked, "Why?"
"Because rather than making her help haul you little hellions around the city streets until you have enough candy to build yourselves another sibling, I'm going to put the two of you to bed and let her stay here to babysit," Laura said, and smiled, displaying a great many strong white teeth.
"I'm okay with that," said Janice, suddenly alert, and looking with interest towards the combatants.
Sandra and Patrick exchanged a glance, then chorused, "We'll be good," while turning their best angelic expressions towards their mother.
Laura released their collars, and snorted. "I'll believe it when I see it."
In Janice's lap, Jack had managed to squirm around enough in his home-made wolf costume to start biting his own tail. Clucking her tongue, Laura walked over and scooped him up, tucking him firmly under one arm. "Come on, you. Let's go find your father and your sister, and get going. Janice, don't let them kill each other." She paused. "Or if they do, make sure it looks like an accident." Baby still dangling from one arm and burbling with incoherent glee, Laura turned and strode out of the room.
Marc was at the back of the house, attempting to zip Lily into her own wolf costume. Lily was 'helping', largely by grabbing the zipper in both hands and squealing every time he tried to get it past her belly button.
"This isn't working," he informed Laura, as she walked into the room.
"I can see that," Laura replied, with amusement. "Here." Handing him Jack, she knelt, grabbed Lily's hands, and snagged the zipper-pull with her teeth, yanking it shut in one efficient motion. Lily crowed with delight.
Marc raised his eyebrows. "Do you often clothe our children with your teeth, woman?"
"Only when the situation demands it." Laura scooped Lily into her arms, and kissed his cheek. "Ready to go? Chaos awaits."
"And to think, you came back from the dead for this."
Laura blinked at him, once, and then smiled, freeing one hand to lightly stroke his cheek. "Are you kidding, crazy man? This is all I've ever wanted."
"MOM! GET THEM AWAY FROM MY COMPUTER!"
Marc and Laura exchanged a look, and laughed.
*
6. Miracle.
*
Alone in the field behind the stables where she works, Polymatheia Hypatea St. John, Etherdyne Engineer, either the lost daughter of a fantastic world beyond the sphere of what is commonly known, or irredeemably insane, raises her hands to the star-spangled Halloween sky. The mages she serves with in this cold and foreign land would scarcely know her, if they saw her now; her modesty has been set aside as easily as the constricting, antiquiated garments she customarily wears, which are even now folded, neatly, beneath a piece of oil cloth at the paddock's edge. She stands naked underneath this sky, and her unbound hair is a ribbon of red that runs past her ankles to tangle with the frostbitten grass.
If they saw her now, they might not know her at all...and more, they might come to question their casual dismissal of her past as a fairy story, because the shape of her ribs without their containing corset is bowed in a way that has not been seen in this world, in this place and time, for a century or more. Her skeletal structure has been compressed by the garments that she wears, until it seems there can be little doubt that she has worn those garments for ten years or more -- a virtual impossibility in this place, and in this time.
But here and now, she is alone, her nudity unremarked upon, unseen by any but the moon towards which her empty, questing hands are turned.
"Persephone," she says, "lady of these changes; Allomai, who guides the lost ones home into the shadows of the silver trees; Diana, who watches all beneath the shadow of her eye; Epona, who has known me always, and to whose side I, like those before me, one day must ride; I beg for your indulgence on this night, when the Wheel reaches its summit and begins to fall down into the darkness of winter, where snow and ice and the Kings of Snow must reign supreme."
The night gives no response; in the distance, crickets cry, and cars roar by on some unseen road.
"I am here, now, as I have been here, as I fear I will remain. I beg your indulgences, for I have been weak in the shadows of these challenges, and I have quailed before the things you ask of me. I know this is my journey, to be faced and be completed, but I beg of you, Ladies of the Wheel, to consider my pleas, and release me from this burden. I am tired, and I am frightened, and I am just a woman, in a world where I cannot know my gods will hear me.
"I come to you this Samhain night as I came last year, as I fear I will come in the years to come, and beg of you one mercy, so very small in the face of your majesty, so very great in the face of my small life. Let me go, if you have any love for me. I am dying here, too far from home.
"Let me go."
Naked beneath the sky, Polymatheia lowers her hands, and closes her eyes, and waits for a miracle to come.
*
7. Go Get 'Em, Tiger.
*
The trick to getting treated is knowing your audience.
With some blokes, it was all about little lacy black things, pointed nails, and knowing looks. And not to say that Fang didn't have a proper appreciation of such accessories, but really, he'd seen them all before, some of them too many times to be counted, and often enough from her. Back when all she'd worn was black and white, it had been little lacy black things all the way, when it wasn't little lacy white things, and those always struck her as too funereal to be borne.
No, the black lace and the manicures and the smug 'one swallow can make a summer' expressions were good enough for some blokes, but not, if it was intended as a special occasion -- one special enough that she'd pawned the baby off on the mad apprentice with the room full of snakes, and sent the cat off to gad about with the cobra for the evening -- for Fang. Fang required a bit of...planning.
Planning, and spandex.
Planning, spandex, and utter denial of gravity.
Planning, spandex, utter denial of gravity, and a great deal of willingness to wait.
It was, however, entirely worth it for the look on his face when she dropped off the ceiling and into his arms, wearing the Spidergirl uniform that she'd bought from the adult costume shop downtown. He stared at her. She smiled beneath the costume's half-mask.
Finally, speculatively, he asked, "Does this make me Mary Jane?"
"I think that could be negotiated."
"Excellent." Grinning an enormous monkey grin, he started for the bedroom. "C'mon, tiger."
Trick or treat.
*
8. Breaking and Entering.
*
The upstairs hall was dark.
Sliding a thin metal sheet delicately under the windowjam, the black-clad figure that was clinging to the one portion of trellis not covered by either the security cameras or the sensor plates carefully jimmied the lock out of position, finally sliding the window open and eeling her way gingerly inside, freezing with her hands braced on either end of the windowsill, away from the 'decorative' jars that had been placed to fall and shatter if anyone tried to break in through one of the house's three unalarmed windows.
Once she was certain of her balance, she braced her heels against the far side of the windowpane, carefully sliding the window itself back down, and unspooling herself onto the floor without so much as knocking a jar out of place. It was a smooth, practiced motion, one that spoke of countless hours spent in practicing this precise action.
There was no sound as her weight settled first onto the balls of her feet, and then onto her heels. She listened to the silence of the house for a moment before nodding, satisfied, and beginning to make her way smoothly down the hall, towards the bedrooms. She didn't need a map to find the way; this joint had been wall and truly cased, long before she made her move.
In the empty bedroom, she slid her gloved hand along the wall until she found the walk-in closet door, turned the knob, and stepped inside.
Downstairs, the nobility of Golden Gate were thronging in the ballroom, dressed to the nines in their fall finery. The ball to celebrate the coming of November -- and the survival of another Samhain -- was in full swing, and everyone who was anyone in the Duchy had come out to show that they'd made it through another year.
Sir Sawyer Matthews ap Gwydion walked casually down the stairs and into the throng, wearing a long, simple gown that was black when the light hit it one way, and white when it hit another. Snagging a glass of fizzing wine from a waiter, she made her way through the crowd to the Duchess, leaned up, and kissed her cheek. "Boo."
"Sawyer!" Magda's dignity had never been able to survive her delight. She swept the smaller eshu into a hug, demanding, "When did you get here?"
"Oh," Sawyer said, smiling, "I let myself in. Happy Halloween."
*
9. Masquerade.
*
The sun was setting, the library halloween party was getting underway, and Mary Jane Smith -- known to her friends as 'Newt', for reasons that perhaps only another Malkavian could ever fully understand -- was making her way onto the scene, resplendent in patchwork skirt, red and white striped tanktop, and sparkly blue shawl. Her hair, never terribly tidy, was done up in a series of braids, pinned in place with tiny glittery butterfly clips.
One of the other librarians laughed as she slipped inside, saying, "Ms. Smith, what are you supposed to be?"
Newt met the genial mockery with a sweet, mild smile, replying, "Myself. I find it a most excellent role to play, when the opportunity allows."
The librarian laughed again, and left Newt free to make her way further into the party, into the golden glow of crepe-draped lights and the smell of candlewax and caramel apples. The rest of her co-workers were already there, and they turned as she entered, waving, laughing at her outlandish attire, wishing her a happy Halloween, a happy holiday, a happy everything. She smiled back, and waved, and wished them only what she knew would be the truth.
Halloween had never been her favourite holiday, when she was alive, but now that she was 'life challenged', as Peter once put it, she found herself warming to it, year after year. It was the only time when she didn't feel as if she were wearing some sort of a mask. The longer she was among the undead, the harder the tiny falsehoods, the things unsaid, became. Before much longer, she knew, they would be beyond her completely. True Thomas claims his own.
But for now, it was Halloween night, and some lies -- some little, unspoken, unconsidered lies -- were still within her power.
Still Mary Jane Smith, at least a little, at least for now, Newt went to join the party.
*
10. First Night Out.
*
"The only thing better than an underage sidhe hyped-up on sugar and getting ready to conquer the planet are two underage sidhe hyped-up on sugar and getting ready to conquer the planet," Nell opined, as she watched Jan trying to get the brown pixie-cut wig centered on Hope's head. Hope submitted to this activity without a peep of protest, just as she had tolerated being squeezed into her green and black season one Jenny jumpsuit. Holding still was plainly costing her a lot of effort, and Nell had to respect that. It's not easy to sit still when you're seven years old, and about to go trick-or-treating without parental supervision for the first time ever.
Everyone's Unseelie on Samhain; well, that's true enough, and it goes for the young as well as for the old. But sometimes, that just translates into the meglomaniacal need to collect as much candy as humanly possible. Thank God for sugar, and all of that.
"Done," Jan proclaimed, and stepped back to beam at Hope, admiring her handiwork. Nell had to admit, the costume had come out well; from tip to toe, Hope was a perfect little mini-Jenny. Jan herself was dressed in black and gray spandex, with a white wig covering up her natural crazy-henna hair. "We look just like sisters!"
Sadly, Nell had to admit that it was true, even as Hope clapped her hands, and giggled, and went running off to find the fabric-painted pillowcase that would be used to haul home her loot.
Fifteen minutes later, she stood on the porch with Scarecrow, watching as the figures of their daughter and his fledge dwindled into the twilight. The evening wasn't that cold, and at the Freehold, the revels were just beginning; still, she shivered, and he slid his arms easily around her, and held her.
"Think they'll be all right?" she asked.
"Janny knows her job. She'll take care of Hope just as good as we would. Better, maybe; takes a kid to know a kid, on a night like this." He squeezed her, lightly. "We could leave them together like this forever, and they'd both be just fine."
"I hope so," she said, and turned, and let him lead her back inside.
Time for the little goblins to play.
*
11. Warm.
*
The only thing worse than being a ghost on Halloween, when the walls of the world are so damn thin that you can hear everyone you've left behind callin' to you from whatever afterlife is out there, is being a sober ghost on Halloween. In Rose's opinion, anyway. That's why she's here, in this seedy little bar in a seedy, half-dead little Maine town, trying to drown her sorrows in a glass of scotch that she can't even taste. Stupid rules. Stupid Halloween.
Stupid death.
It's gotten to where she's not even sure anymore, where or when she buried them. Any of them. Sure, some of 'em ain't dead, but they might as well be, because they grew up, moved on, and put the Passage where it belonged, in the past. She's never had the option. For her, every hurt is a sixteen year old's hurt, and every wound is just as raw and cruel as it was on the day that it was made. That's how it works. How it has to work, maybe, when you're something like she is, caught between life and death, with no way to go all the way in either direction.
"Bought you this," says a voice, and it's familiar enough to ache; so familiar that the pain doesn't even set in until after she's smiled that artless, guileless smile that she worked so hard to acquire, reached up, and taken the icy-sided bottle from his outstretched hand. Then the familiarity strikes her, and she catches her breath, taken unprepared by the sudden sharpness in her heart. "Y' all right, miss?"
No, she wants to say, no, I'm not all right; I don't know you, but you sound like a man who loved me and left me, left me the way they always leave me, and this isn't fair, not here, not now, not ever. But she says none of those things, just tilts her head coyly to the side, and replies, "Startled is all, bwana. To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"Missed you," he says simply, and sits down at her table, and smiles.
Rose stares.
"Clem?" she whispers, with lips gone half-numb (half-dead) with shock. When he nods, still smiling, she stammers, "B-but...how?"
"Walls get thin for everyone, right time of year," he says, and takes her free hand, squeezing it lightly. "Got my car outside. If you think you're finally ready to go."
"I've missed you," she whispers.
"So come."
Rose hesitates, and finally, her hand tight in his, asks the one question that really matters: "Will it be warm?"
*
12. Wicked.
*
Kevin and Ing announced the arrival of Samhain morning by tearing into the bedroom and jumping onto the bed, where they proceeded to bounce up and down like tiny dervishes, heedless of their mothers struggling futilely to stay asleep. In case there was any chance that the sudden seismic disturbance had gone unnoticed, Ing started to sing 'Oogie Boogie's Song' from 'The Nightmare Before Christmas'. At the top of her lungs. Off-key.
Kerri hit her with a pillow.
Ing shrieked protest -- still off-key -- only to stop as she got a mouthful of feathers from Ophelia's lazily swung, excellently aimed pillow. That was as good as declaring war, and for the next fifteen minutes, the bedclothes flew with a mad enthusiasm only seen in houses with small children, or during the very best orgies. It wasn't until Kerri got an arm looped around Ing's waist, and Ophelia performed a similar tackle of Kevin, that things actually started to settle down.
"Well, me foine bastard spawn o' an uncaring wairld," Kerri drawled, accent intentionally broadened, "tae what d' we owe this foine, foine wakeup call o' an October mairning?"
"It's Halloween!" Kevin informed her, brightly, as if this were meant to be some sort of a surprise.
"He's got you there, Kerri," said Ophelia, with amusement.
"Indeed, stoirin, but t' what purpose, I wonder?"
"Trick-or-treat!" both children howled.
Kerri winced. "Oh, aye."
"Children," Ophelia said, smiling serenely, "we must begin this properly. You want your brother's first Halloween to be proper, don't you?" Ing nodded agreement, barely stifling her giggles. "Good. So you must start with the right house."
"Which one?" Kevin demanded, eyes wide.
"The Chairman's."
After the children had raced, shrieking, from the room, Kerri turned an admiring look towards her wife. "You, stoirin, are wicked."
"Oh," said Ophelia, reaching lazily for her, "I try."
*
13. One Night.
*
One night out of the year when she can be herself, and here, and real as anything; just one. No masks, no illusions, no filters or screens, for just one night. Halloween night, the night no one remembers.
Just one.
Bunny Batzri, sometime Lady of the Lake, sometime Chimnet Phantom, sometime Spirit of the Internet, sits at the bus stop and watches the crowds go by, and wonders if she can find a hot dog vendor, if the world can be peachy-keen for her the way it was for a different short-timer, one whose problems were a little more eternal, and a little less than real.
One night.
Make it count.
Rating: PG-13.
Fandom: All sorts of different RPGs.
Synopsis: Thirteen Halloweens for thirteen very different characters. The source PCs are taken from games spanning well over a decade, and every possible gaming format. I have too much time on my hands. Sort of a follow-up to Fourteen February Kisses.
***
1. Slow Night.
*
The demons stay in on Halloween.
It's not quite a law, precisely; more of a guideline, or perhaps an unwritten truce between the forces of good and evil. For one night out of the year, the demons and the demon-hunters can be entirely at ease, existing side by side without anyone getting any unpleasant holes punched in places that would really prefer to stay fully intact. Halloween, and everybody gets the night off to do as they please, whether it be staying home and watching the television, visiting the graves or unmarked slaughtering-grounds of loved ones, or just doing the grocery shopping in a semblance of peace.
After a great deal of bribery, trickey, coercion, and out-right threatening of life, limb, and bodily integrity, Geraldine Harrington was staying in. In a functionally empty house, mind, with none of her fellow Slayers about to drive her slowly out of her tree. AMC was having an all-night monster movie marathon, starting with 'The Fog' and spooling slowly through an assortment of ghoulish delights from there, ranging from serial killers to cornfield hauntings. Add in a large bowl of overly-buttered popcorn and a pot of hot chocolate, and it was as close to perfection as any night was ever likely to get.
The eerie sounds of the title sequence began to emit from the front room, followed by a fascinated, "Ewwwwwww," as Sam got his first proper look at the works of John Carpenter. Jerry grinned.
Perfection got easier all the time.
Trotting into the living room, she slid herself over the back of the couch and plopped down next to Sam, who wrapped his tail around her waist without looking away from the screen. "What'd I miss?" she asked, swatting his hand away from the popcorn.
"Killer fog. Lepers."
"That's all right, then." Settling closer, she put her head down against his shoulder, and prepared to watch as vengeful spirits destroyed a town for the sins of its fathers. The demons stay in on Halloween.
Sometimes, that's the most wonderful treat of them all.
*
2. Simulated Terror.
*
The house was old, creepy, and rattled with every gust of the icy wind that blew around it. Dim shrieks echoed through the night outside, which was lit only by the ever-present glow of the fat, full harvest moon riding low over the haunted hills. Tombstones broke the line of the horizon, like rotting teeth showing through a madman's eternal lunatic grin. Whatever lived in this place was less than sane, and it walked alone.
Barefoot, wearing thin cotton pajamas and clutching a two-by-four in both hands, Anis Bihari made her solitary way through the main hallway of the house, trying to ignore the way the pictures changed when seen out of the corner of her eyes. It wasn't easy.
"Noooooot liking thiiiiii-is," she sing-songed, under her breath. Then she froze, listening intently to the sounds of the house around her. Had that been a rustling noise, or was it just the cuffs of her pajama pants tangling around her ankles? Were those footsteps, or echoes? "Nooooooot liking this at aaaa-all," she amended.
Something creaked behind her. Bihari whirled, holding the two-by-four out in front of her like a splintery talisman against the ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties and things that went bump in the night.
There was nothing there, and slowly, she relaxed, grumbling, "I thought Halloween was the festival of hyperactivity and sugar, not ditching the Trill in a big spooky haunted mansion full of things that think spots add flavour."
When Magnus and Gavin suggested a 'real, old fashioned Earth Halloween', she'd been all full it, reasoning that the maintenance of cultural traditions showed a strong sociological grounding, and increased the chances of everyone involved staying sane. That was before the zombies. And the lake monster. And the werewolf. And definitely before the party got split, and she wound up alone in a holographic haunted house that she'd pledged not to terminate before the end of the program.
Sometimes it's hard to be a good girlfriend to a crazy man.
"You people are making me miss the Dominion," she muttered. Something rustled in the shadows.
Sighing, Lt. Anis Bihari turned around to face her fate. And hopefully, to beat it stupid with a two-by-four.
*
3. Days of the Dead.
*
The fog rolls off the River in waves, making gray and white swirls in the leaden air. There are no shores here, no stones or solid ground; only the eternity of the water, the water that ebbs and flows and knows neither its beginning nor its end. There is no time here, no past and no future. There is only now, the great, unending 'now', the beast that swallows its own tail, and endures, and endures, and never grows, and never ages, and never dies, however much it might desire to do so.
Somewhere, elsewhere, in another world (another series of worlds, world after world, stacked atop each other like playing cards, with the jokers always wild, and the rules too numerous to name), time ticks by in slow, lazy steps, each day fading into the next, becoming lost, becoming intangible as the mist that rolls across this mighty sleeping River. In that world, in those worlds, the calendar has rolled around again, the great wheel of the year turning and turning, until it is All Hallow's Eve, the Night of Remembrance, and the year prepares to die, and rise again.
At the center of the mist -- or perhaps not the center, precisely; perhaps these mists have no center, as they have no beginning and no end, but this is a spot where the gray is deep and solid, where the white cannot be penetrated; it is close enough to a center for this night's workings, in this dim twilight where the sun is never seen -- a small boat is anchored, held in place as much by hope and prayer as by the thin chain that descends into the darkness of the water.
A tall, slim figure kneels on the boat, bleached as pale as the mists that skirl around her, with unbound hair that flows in white waves to her knees. Her eyes are blue, dark blue, River blue, the pupils almost obscured by the slow shadowing of her irises; they have seen too much, those eyes, and are never anything but sad.
Her long-fingered hands are quick and easy as they straighten the wicks of the candles she pulls from her bag, one by one; they are shaped like lilies, those candles, with broad petals to keep them afloat, and shallow cups to keep them from the wind. They might drift as far as Babylon, if the currents are kind.
She hopes the currents will be kind.
They so very rarely are.
"This is for my sister," she says, and lights the first candle, and sets it on the water. She was never good at being a big sister; she never had the knack of it, never quite understood what to make of a baby sister who was smarter than she was, but in such a distracted, off-hand way, like being smart was only the beginning of what would be required of her. And maybe that was so, because the towers are fallen, and all the smart little sisters are gone away. There's only her, now, the last of her line, as she places the candle in the water, and watches it float away.
One by one she names them, lights the candles in their honour, and releases them into the mists, little fires that start to fade the moment they ignite. Family, friends, enemies, comrades from a dozen different worlds, a dozen different lifetimes...but she's always been the same, and she's always come here, to this River, when the wheel turns around again.
The last candle she lights is for the man who brought her violets, once, when she was young and innocent, when the River was a friend, and not a traitor, sweeping her ever further from home, and ever deeper into a madness that has no end. The wax spatters her fingers before she lets it go, like thin white tears that burn where they strike the skin. She leaves it where it is, places the candle in the water, and pulls her hand away.
Her gaze remains on the mist long after the fire has faded from sight. Another year gone; another year beginning.
Someday, she only prays, someone will light a candle here, for her.
*
4. Good News, Girls...
*
Halloween is when everything odd becomes ordinary; nothing stands out when goblins and ghosts flood the streets, begging for candy and threatening mischief. The compacts say that the demonic forces will stay in on Halloween night, conveniently out of the way, taking a much-needed break from the carnage. The definition of 'in', however, varies from person to person. As far as Sarah Tapper is concerned, 'in' is where you make it.
Three platinum blonde wigs, three identical plaid skirts, three Xavier's Academy blazers, and three plain white shirts later, 'in' was the Morbid Midnight Madness Monster Movie Marathon at the old Capri Theater (tickets for the night, thirty dollars, with a five dollar discount if you came in costume, and a ten dollar discount if you came in a costume that the judges liked).
The judges liked the Stepford Cuckoos.
Savings transmuted into 7-Up with catsup in it (to the awe and revulsion of the man at the snack counter, who had never seen three attractive women arguing about how to get their jumbo-sized soda under the condiment dispenser before), a large bucket of popcorn, and a box of Junior Mints, Sarah sailed gladly on into auditorium three, where 'Night of the Creeps' was just getting underway. Alien slugs were asphyxiating young men and reanimating their corpses.
The entire audience chorused along with, "Good news, girls, your dates are here. Bad news: THEY'RE DEAD!"
When you can't have the company of your own kind on a holiday evening -- not that Sarah had ever quite figured out what her 'own kind' was, exactly, since humans were too, well, human, and the few other Johrlac Queens she'd encountered were unnervingly self-centered and homicidal -- settle for the company of your peers. Even if those peers happened to be a sea of semi-washed horror movie fans who could recite the entire Wes Craven ouevre from heart. She could have watched the movie with her eyes closed, since she wasn't technically 'watching' it at all, just stealing glimpses from the optic nerves of everyone around her. She could have, but what would have been the fun in that? The demons stay in on Halloween. Tonight, she just wanted to be Sarah.
She didn't look around when the man in the Morrison-era black leather jumpsuit and ruby sunglasses plopped down next to her, eyeing the crowd with wariness. "Sorry I'm late. I couldn't--"
"Shhhhhhh." Sarah offered him the bucket of popcorn with one hand, all three sets of eyes staying riveted on the screen. "'The Midwich Cuckoos' is just getting started."
"A little family history?"
"Don't make me hit you."
Sarah Tapper loves Halloween.
*
5: All I've Ever Wanted.
*
"Mom! Sandy took my sneaker!"
"Mom! Patrick's bein' a little tattle-tale!"
"Mom!"
The din raised by two eight year olds locked in the throes of pre-trick-or-treat jitters was getting to be enough to grate even on Laura's customarily ungrateable nerves. Putting down her armful of toddler on his unresisting older sister's lap -- Janice was too absorbed with AIMing her friends about the unfairness of being drafted to help take her younger siblings trick-or-treating to notice -- she waded gamely into the fray, grabbing Spider-Man and the fairy princess by their respective collars and hauling them bodily apart.
"I don't actually care who started this," she said, in a conversational tone of voice, "because it doesn't matter. If this isn't finished, right now, I'm going to make your big sister very, very happy."
Clever enough to recognize an oncoming train when he heard one, but not quite sure of which direction the whistle was coming from, Patrick gave her a wary look, and asked, "Why?"
"Because rather than making her help haul you little hellions around the city streets until you have enough candy to build yourselves another sibling, I'm going to put the two of you to bed and let her stay here to babysit," Laura said, and smiled, displaying a great many strong white teeth.
"I'm okay with that," said Janice, suddenly alert, and looking with interest towards the combatants.
Sandra and Patrick exchanged a glance, then chorused, "We'll be good," while turning their best angelic expressions towards their mother.
Laura released their collars, and snorted. "I'll believe it when I see it."
In Janice's lap, Jack had managed to squirm around enough in his home-made wolf costume to start biting his own tail. Clucking her tongue, Laura walked over and scooped him up, tucking him firmly under one arm. "Come on, you. Let's go find your father and your sister, and get going. Janice, don't let them kill each other." She paused. "Or if they do, make sure it looks like an accident." Baby still dangling from one arm and burbling with incoherent glee, Laura turned and strode out of the room.
Marc was at the back of the house, attempting to zip Lily into her own wolf costume. Lily was 'helping', largely by grabbing the zipper in both hands and squealing every time he tried to get it past her belly button.
"This isn't working," he informed Laura, as she walked into the room.
"I can see that," Laura replied, with amusement. "Here." Handing him Jack, she knelt, grabbed Lily's hands, and snagged the zipper-pull with her teeth, yanking it shut in one efficient motion. Lily crowed with delight.
Marc raised his eyebrows. "Do you often clothe our children with your teeth, woman?"
"Only when the situation demands it." Laura scooped Lily into her arms, and kissed his cheek. "Ready to go? Chaos awaits."
"And to think, you came back from the dead for this."
Laura blinked at him, once, and then smiled, freeing one hand to lightly stroke his cheek. "Are you kidding, crazy man? This is all I've ever wanted."
"MOM! GET THEM AWAY FROM MY COMPUTER!"
Marc and Laura exchanged a look, and laughed.
*
6. Miracle.
*
Alone in the field behind the stables where she works, Polymatheia Hypatea St. John, Etherdyne Engineer, either the lost daughter of a fantastic world beyond the sphere of what is commonly known, or irredeemably insane, raises her hands to the star-spangled Halloween sky. The mages she serves with in this cold and foreign land would scarcely know her, if they saw her now; her modesty has been set aside as easily as the constricting, antiquiated garments she customarily wears, which are even now folded, neatly, beneath a piece of oil cloth at the paddock's edge. She stands naked underneath this sky, and her unbound hair is a ribbon of red that runs past her ankles to tangle with the frostbitten grass.
If they saw her now, they might not know her at all...and more, they might come to question their casual dismissal of her past as a fairy story, because the shape of her ribs without their containing corset is bowed in a way that has not been seen in this world, in this place and time, for a century or more. Her skeletal structure has been compressed by the garments that she wears, until it seems there can be little doubt that she has worn those garments for ten years or more -- a virtual impossibility in this place, and in this time.
But here and now, she is alone, her nudity unremarked upon, unseen by any but the moon towards which her empty, questing hands are turned.
"Persephone," she says, "lady of these changes; Allomai, who guides the lost ones home into the shadows of the silver trees; Diana, who watches all beneath the shadow of her eye; Epona, who has known me always, and to whose side I, like those before me, one day must ride; I beg for your indulgence on this night, when the Wheel reaches its summit and begins to fall down into the darkness of winter, where snow and ice and the Kings of Snow must reign supreme."
The night gives no response; in the distance, crickets cry, and cars roar by on some unseen road.
"I am here, now, as I have been here, as I fear I will remain. I beg your indulgences, for I have been weak in the shadows of these challenges, and I have quailed before the things you ask of me. I know this is my journey, to be faced and be completed, but I beg of you, Ladies of the Wheel, to consider my pleas, and release me from this burden. I am tired, and I am frightened, and I am just a woman, in a world where I cannot know my gods will hear me.
"I come to you this Samhain night as I came last year, as I fear I will come in the years to come, and beg of you one mercy, so very small in the face of your majesty, so very great in the face of my small life. Let me go, if you have any love for me. I am dying here, too far from home.
"Let me go."
Naked beneath the sky, Polymatheia lowers her hands, and closes her eyes, and waits for a miracle to come.
*
7. Go Get 'Em, Tiger.
*
The trick to getting treated is knowing your audience.
With some blokes, it was all about little lacy black things, pointed nails, and knowing looks. And not to say that Fang didn't have a proper appreciation of such accessories, but really, he'd seen them all before, some of them too many times to be counted, and often enough from her. Back when all she'd worn was black and white, it had been little lacy black things all the way, when it wasn't little lacy white things, and those always struck her as too funereal to be borne.
No, the black lace and the manicures and the smug 'one swallow can make a summer' expressions were good enough for some blokes, but not, if it was intended as a special occasion -- one special enough that she'd pawned the baby off on the mad apprentice with the room full of snakes, and sent the cat off to gad about with the cobra for the evening -- for Fang. Fang required a bit of...planning.
Planning, and spandex.
Planning, spandex, and utter denial of gravity.
Planning, spandex, utter denial of gravity, and a great deal of willingness to wait.
It was, however, entirely worth it for the look on his face when she dropped off the ceiling and into his arms, wearing the Spidergirl uniform that she'd bought from the adult costume shop downtown. He stared at her. She smiled beneath the costume's half-mask.
Finally, speculatively, he asked, "Does this make me Mary Jane?"
"I think that could be negotiated."
"Excellent." Grinning an enormous monkey grin, he started for the bedroom. "C'mon, tiger."
Trick or treat.
*
8. Breaking and Entering.
*
The upstairs hall was dark.
Sliding a thin metal sheet delicately under the windowjam, the black-clad figure that was clinging to the one portion of trellis not covered by either the security cameras or the sensor plates carefully jimmied the lock out of position, finally sliding the window open and eeling her way gingerly inside, freezing with her hands braced on either end of the windowsill, away from the 'decorative' jars that had been placed to fall and shatter if anyone tried to break in through one of the house's three unalarmed windows.
Once she was certain of her balance, she braced her heels against the far side of the windowpane, carefully sliding the window itself back down, and unspooling herself onto the floor without so much as knocking a jar out of place. It was a smooth, practiced motion, one that spoke of countless hours spent in practicing this precise action.
There was no sound as her weight settled first onto the balls of her feet, and then onto her heels. She listened to the silence of the house for a moment before nodding, satisfied, and beginning to make her way smoothly down the hall, towards the bedrooms. She didn't need a map to find the way; this joint had been wall and truly cased, long before she made her move.
In the empty bedroom, she slid her gloved hand along the wall until she found the walk-in closet door, turned the knob, and stepped inside.
Downstairs, the nobility of Golden Gate were thronging in the ballroom, dressed to the nines in their fall finery. The ball to celebrate the coming of November -- and the survival of another Samhain -- was in full swing, and everyone who was anyone in the Duchy had come out to show that they'd made it through another year.
Sir Sawyer Matthews ap Gwydion walked casually down the stairs and into the throng, wearing a long, simple gown that was black when the light hit it one way, and white when it hit another. Snagging a glass of fizzing wine from a waiter, she made her way through the crowd to the Duchess, leaned up, and kissed her cheek. "Boo."
"Sawyer!" Magda's dignity had never been able to survive her delight. She swept the smaller eshu into a hug, demanding, "When did you get here?"
"Oh," Sawyer said, smiling, "I let myself in. Happy Halloween."
*
9. Masquerade.
*
The sun was setting, the library halloween party was getting underway, and Mary Jane Smith -- known to her friends as 'Newt', for reasons that perhaps only another Malkavian could ever fully understand -- was making her way onto the scene, resplendent in patchwork skirt, red and white striped tanktop, and sparkly blue shawl. Her hair, never terribly tidy, was done up in a series of braids, pinned in place with tiny glittery butterfly clips.
One of the other librarians laughed as she slipped inside, saying, "Ms. Smith, what are you supposed to be?"
Newt met the genial mockery with a sweet, mild smile, replying, "Myself. I find it a most excellent role to play, when the opportunity allows."
The librarian laughed again, and left Newt free to make her way further into the party, into the golden glow of crepe-draped lights and the smell of candlewax and caramel apples. The rest of her co-workers were already there, and they turned as she entered, waving, laughing at her outlandish attire, wishing her a happy Halloween, a happy holiday, a happy everything. She smiled back, and waved, and wished them only what she knew would be the truth.
Halloween had never been her favourite holiday, when she was alive, but now that she was 'life challenged', as Peter once put it, she found herself warming to it, year after year. It was the only time when she didn't feel as if she were wearing some sort of a mask. The longer she was among the undead, the harder the tiny falsehoods, the things unsaid, became. Before much longer, she knew, they would be beyond her completely. True Thomas claims his own.
But for now, it was Halloween night, and some lies -- some little, unspoken, unconsidered lies -- were still within her power.
Still Mary Jane Smith, at least a little, at least for now, Newt went to join the party.
*
10. First Night Out.
*
"The only thing better than an underage sidhe hyped-up on sugar and getting ready to conquer the planet are two underage sidhe hyped-up on sugar and getting ready to conquer the planet," Nell opined, as she watched Jan trying to get the brown pixie-cut wig centered on Hope's head. Hope submitted to this activity without a peep of protest, just as she had tolerated being squeezed into her green and black season one Jenny jumpsuit. Holding still was plainly costing her a lot of effort, and Nell had to respect that. It's not easy to sit still when you're seven years old, and about to go trick-or-treating without parental supervision for the first time ever.
Everyone's Unseelie on Samhain; well, that's true enough, and it goes for the young as well as for the old. But sometimes, that just translates into the meglomaniacal need to collect as much candy as humanly possible. Thank God for sugar, and all of that.
"Done," Jan proclaimed, and stepped back to beam at Hope, admiring her handiwork. Nell had to admit, the costume had come out well; from tip to toe, Hope was a perfect little mini-Jenny. Jan herself was dressed in black and gray spandex, with a white wig covering up her natural crazy-henna hair. "We look just like sisters!"
Sadly, Nell had to admit that it was true, even as Hope clapped her hands, and giggled, and went running off to find the fabric-painted pillowcase that would be used to haul home her loot.
Fifteen minutes later, she stood on the porch with Scarecrow, watching as the figures of their daughter and his fledge dwindled into the twilight. The evening wasn't that cold, and at the Freehold, the revels were just beginning; still, she shivered, and he slid his arms easily around her, and held her.
"Think they'll be all right?" she asked.
"Janny knows her job. She'll take care of Hope just as good as we would. Better, maybe; takes a kid to know a kid, on a night like this." He squeezed her, lightly. "We could leave them together like this forever, and they'd both be just fine."
"I hope so," she said, and turned, and let him lead her back inside.
Time for the little goblins to play.
*
11. Warm.
*
The only thing worse than being a ghost on Halloween, when the walls of the world are so damn thin that you can hear everyone you've left behind callin' to you from whatever afterlife is out there, is being a sober ghost on Halloween. In Rose's opinion, anyway. That's why she's here, in this seedy little bar in a seedy, half-dead little Maine town, trying to drown her sorrows in a glass of scotch that she can't even taste. Stupid rules. Stupid Halloween.
Stupid death.
It's gotten to where she's not even sure anymore, where or when she buried them. Any of them. Sure, some of 'em ain't dead, but they might as well be, because they grew up, moved on, and put the Passage where it belonged, in the past. She's never had the option. For her, every hurt is a sixteen year old's hurt, and every wound is just as raw and cruel as it was on the day that it was made. That's how it works. How it has to work, maybe, when you're something like she is, caught between life and death, with no way to go all the way in either direction.
"Bought you this," says a voice, and it's familiar enough to ache; so familiar that the pain doesn't even set in until after she's smiled that artless, guileless smile that she worked so hard to acquire, reached up, and taken the icy-sided bottle from his outstretched hand. Then the familiarity strikes her, and she catches her breath, taken unprepared by the sudden sharpness in her heart. "Y' all right, miss?"
No, she wants to say, no, I'm not all right; I don't know you, but you sound like a man who loved me and left me, left me the way they always leave me, and this isn't fair, not here, not now, not ever. But she says none of those things, just tilts her head coyly to the side, and replies, "Startled is all, bwana. To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"Missed you," he says simply, and sits down at her table, and smiles.
Rose stares.
"Clem?" she whispers, with lips gone half-numb (half-dead) with shock. When he nods, still smiling, she stammers, "B-but...how?"
"Walls get thin for everyone, right time of year," he says, and takes her free hand, squeezing it lightly. "Got my car outside. If you think you're finally ready to go."
"I've missed you," she whispers.
"So come."
Rose hesitates, and finally, her hand tight in his, asks the one question that really matters: "Will it be warm?"
*
12. Wicked.
*
Kevin and Ing announced the arrival of Samhain morning by tearing into the bedroom and jumping onto the bed, where they proceeded to bounce up and down like tiny dervishes, heedless of their mothers struggling futilely to stay asleep. In case there was any chance that the sudden seismic disturbance had gone unnoticed, Ing started to sing 'Oogie Boogie's Song' from 'The Nightmare Before Christmas'. At the top of her lungs. Off-key.
Kerri hit her with a pillow.
Ing shrieked protest -- still off-key -- only to stop as she got a mouthful of feathers from Ophelia's lazily swung, excellently aimed pillow. That was as good as declaring war, and for the next fifteen minutes, the bedclothes flew with a mad enthusiasm only seen in houses with small children, or during the very best orgies. It wasn't until Kerri got an arm looped around Ing's waist, and Ophelia performed a similar tackle of Kevin, that things actually started to settle down.
"Well, me foine bastard spawn o' an uncaring wairld," Kerri drawled, accent intentionally broadened, "tae what d' we owe this foine, foine wakeup call o' an October mairning?"
"It's Halloween!" Kevin informed her, brightly, as if this were meant to be some sort of a surprise.
"He's got you there, Kerri," said Ophelia, with amusement.
"Indeed, stoirin, but t' what purpose, I wonder?"
"Trick-or-treat!" both children howled.
Kerri winced. "Oh, aye."
"Children," Ophelia said, smiling serenely, "we must begin this properly. You want your brother's first Halloween to be proper, don't you?" Ing nodded agreement, barely stifling her giggles. "Good. So you must start with the right house."
"Which one?" Kevin demanded, eyes wide.
"The Chairman's."
After the children had raced, shrieking, from the room, Kerri turned an admiring look towards her wife. "You, stoirin, are wicked."
"Oh," said Ophelia, reaching lazily for her, "I try."
*
13. One Night.
*
One night out of the year when she can be herself, and here, and real as anything; just one. No masks, no illusions, no filters or screens, for just one night. Halloween night, the night no one remembers.
Just one.
Bunny Batzri, sometime Lady of the Lake, sometime Chimnet Phantom, sometime Spirit of the Internet, sits at the bus stop and watches the crowds go by, and wonders if she can find a hot dog vendor, if the world can be peachy-keen for her the way it was for a different short-timer, one whose problems were a little more eternal, and a little less than real.
One night.
Make it count.