[open quest] trick or treat?

[avocet]

Avocet had tried following Manikin. That had been his first mistake. And this will probably be the only time that he attempts to follow his twin again.

"Manny," the bay yearling whispers angrily to the dark. She's out here somewhere. He's sure of it. (There is something out there and Avocet rationalizes that it has to be his twin. He never considers that it could be the gates to the Afterlife - or other realms - opening or closing. He never considers goblins or ghouls, spirits or specters. The thing that is out there is only his sister, searching for the beak and talon that Carnage had stripped from her.)

The lanky adolescent stumbles on a root and when he looks up, the colt freezes. He isn't alone. There are others - a few that have gathered around the thing that is not his sister - and the yearling stands quietly, wishing that he could blend better in with the dark and shadows. He wishes that he could vanish beneath the brambles and leave the group that he has stumbled across.

Something croons in the dark. Something that seems far worse than Popinjay.

"Trick," Avocet quips back, certain that this is what it was.

[Barrow]

Barrow is untouched by the grasping hands of Death in any of its forms.  

He hasn’t suffered any great losses or even witnessed any true violence. He doesn’t know that his father has ended lives down in his watery kingdom with his sharp, hungry mouth.  He perhaps hadn’t been paying attention when his mother doled our wisdom on the circle of life.  

The closest thing to death he has experienced has been the withering away of tropical, Tephran plants under the sulfuric sun.

So when he feels Death, it is only like an incessant breeze against his neck that also tousles the reddish-copper hair behind his ears.

Ever curious to a fault, Barrow bounds along a rather spooky trail, the light catching in the tree branches like a spiderweb and casting their pattern on the ground.  He isn’t worried because he’s never had anything to worry about.  The darkness doesn’t bother him, either, because there is just enough moonlight to see his way by.  Instead, he thinks of the grand adventure that is the ordinary: he marvels at the mundane aspects of everyday life.  How miraculous, then, to be caught up in something more!  For surely, the air is different on this night.  He means to see why.

Just ahead is a symphony of noises, of voices and movement.  He thinks he is not alone in his journey.  How exciting!  Barrow surges ahead with renewed vigor, his feet slower than his growing enthusiasm.  When the trees start to open, the shadowed outline of other bodies start to become exposed, even in the darkness.  Ahead of all of them, in front of a doorway of sorts, is a gloomy sort of guy.  He can’t tell what the purpose of this impromptu shindig is at this most haunting hour.  The figure they all stare at is certainly no help.  Not at first, anyway.  

Barrow is just about to ask the nearest night-owl what the deal was, when the thing speaks.  Others answer quickly, but he bides his time and bites his lip as he considers.  Really though, there’s hardly a choice.  “Trick!”  Because who doesn’t love a good trick?  No matter that this figure looks like it just stepped out of a graveyard and could devour the lot of them at any given moment.