Roar of Dragons

[Greyson – 11 years]

"Alright!" I say once I've reached my brothers and Kale at the street. "Trick-or-treating time!"

I'm dressed as a robot this year. Griffin costumes are too exhausting to make and put together, so a simple robot one is best. The inside of the box acting as the head has been enchanted to act as if it doesn't exist from within. That allows me to view the outside world unrestricted, and it doesn't affect any of my other senses, either.

There are apparently magic underclothes which are warm basically all the time, so I'm wearing those this year instead of layers and layers to keep me warm under the costume. A simple pair of pants and a long-sleeved shirt.

It's not the same thing as Xander's environmental spell (which he still won't teach me), so some parts of me will be cold.

Unfortunately, holding the candy bucket isn't easy with robot hands, so I'm just wearing silvery gloves with another pair of lighter gloves underneath them instead. The gloves are to keep my hands warm, but also to keep up the robot look. The double-layering of gloves also makes them look thicker, like the Robot Guardian in my favorite TV sho.

That's proof it doesn't break the immersion, since some robots have human-like hands. At least, if they're built to, like the Robot Guardian does.

This one was, too. It was built to gather candy and treats this Halloween night. Or rather, to allow me to, since it's just a costume. But it's my best robot costume yet! And now that the sun has set and trick-or-treating has begun, it's time for Robot Greyson to begin his job!

"Seriously, Greyson?" Cal asks.

"What?" I ask.

"You've been a robot every year."

"Yeah!" I say. "Robots are awesome!"

"And every year," Cal says. "I end up having to carry you home because you fall asleep by ten-fifteen. Carrying you while you're in that costume isn't easy. I have to get you out of it first, and that means doing something with the pieces. And if those don't all make it home, you'll have a meltdown. It's just going to be stressful for you."

"I won't fall asleep this year!" I tell him. "I'm energized and ready to go!"

"You say that every year."

"This year is different!" I tell him. "I'm older now and I'll still be awake for all ten hours!"

Cal gives me a disbelieving look and I can feel how in disbelief he is.

"And that's why I've got the wagon," Travis says.

A wagon will make it easier to carry all of our loot from tonight, since ten hours of trick-or-treating means we'll all have some actual bags filled. Candy buckets are cooler, but they just can't hold everything. My plan was just to use an expanded spatial bag I have in my costume, but the rest of them can definitely use the wagon.

"Don't worry," Cal tells Travis. "Papa's going to be nearby at all times, with the van. We can get Greyson out of his costume and Papa'll drive him home."

Papa bought a minivan last week, so we have more space now. I won't fit in there while wearing my costume but that's okay! We'll walk around the neighborhood first, then slowly move out to nearby ones, like we do every year.

Only we're starting from the neighborhood we live in now rather than our old one. We probably won't go to that one. Most of the people who lived there were poor so the candy wasn't that great. To be fair, most people probably just bought massive packs of them at the store just like there. But the people in this neighborhood are unlikely to run out as fast, and they're more likely to have bigger pieces of candy, fancier candy, or treat bags. They can afford more, so it's only natural that they might do more.

Or buy bags of fancier candy.

"Let's go!" I say, then turn around and walk up to the table Dad's set up.

Dad's dressed as a vampire, complete with paling makeup and fake fangs. I made sure he, Papa, and all of my brothers have the warming underclothes to wear. They're not great for wearing indoors due to never cooling until their magic fades, but they're great when one's planning on being outside at all hours.

Apart from it not warming exposed skin like faces, but Dad assured me he'll be fine.

"Greyson!" Cal laughs. "Don't hit up our own home! You'll be able to get the leftovers!"

"We must do every house!"

"Argh!" Cal groans.

"You owe me some chocolate cake," Travis snickers.

Why would me doing this make Cal owe Travis chocolate cake?

"Here you go," Dad puts a treat bag into my bucket.

Our treat bags are just small, clear plastic bags decorated with ghosts, skeletons, and fictional mages with their pointy hats and black robes. Each one has five pieces of candy in it. They're smaller pieces rather than bigger ones, which is why Dad's giving everyone five instead of one.

I wanted it to be four or eight, but he said five was better. He did let me add stickers to the bags, though. Each bag has one sheet, and each sheet as eight stickers.

At least I'll be getting a lot more candy tonight than just these little bags.

Once I've received it, I return to the street, and we begin moving down along it. The first stop we make is one of our neighbors, an older woman with treat bags which have stickers, cookies, and candy in them.

"Hello, boys," she greets us as we arrive. "Who's that in the robot costume?"

"I'm Greyson!"

"Oh!" She says. "Hello, Greyson! I don't believe we've met before."

"Cal's told me about you," I say. "He says you bake really good muffins."

Though I've never had them. He never brings any home, just gets them sometimes when… I don't know. I suppose he visits her and helps her out or something. Paying in muffins if he mows her yard sounds like a fair deal, as long as it's at least four dozen of them and they're made with premium ingredients.

"I do my best," she chuckles. "I used to run a bakery, before I retired."

"Then the cookie is probably good!" I say. "Thanks! Okay, guys! Let's go to the next house!"

"Greyson!" Cal says. "Slow down! There's no hurry! And no temporal acceleration! And don't forget that you have to stay with us or you're grounded for the rest of the break."

"Awww…"

Using temporal accelerations to navigate the streets more quickly makes getting places faster. I love doing it. Unfortunately, it seems that I'm once again banned from doing so on Halloween to increase my candy haul.

Though it's Cal banning me from doing so this year rather than Xander. I'd mentioned doing it last year and Xander said it wasn't good to do that because it'd be cheating. He didn't tell me that this year, though probably only because I didn't mention it this time. But since he didn't tell me it's bad again this year, that means it's fine! He definitely would have told me if it was still cheating.

Which means that turning eleven means it's cheating. I really was going to, but Cal's banning it this way.

Regardless of how I do it, ten hours of trick-or-treating awaits!

"Let's go!" I bounce a little as my brothers take their time returning to the street. "There're more houses to visit!"

[Xander – 13 years] → begins around the start of Greyson's PoV.

"So we just go up there and ask for candy?" I ask Sig as we get out of Dad's van.

Sig is feeling strangely expectant right now. All of my friends are, though my parents don't give me that feeling. It's like my friends are expecting me to do something, I think. I'm not entirely sure. They also feel proud of themselves, too.

It doesn't feel malicious, but it does make me want to make sure I'm doing trick-or-treating right.

I made sure I grabbed my bucket before leaving the van.

"You're supposed to say 'trick or treat'," Sig tells me. "Then you get candy. Either they give you candy, a treat bag, or something, or you grab one from the bowl, box, jar, whatever they've left out. If they left out a thing, you're only supposed to grab one unless its says otherwise. Some people are inconsiderate and grab more, but most don't."

"Amusingly," Sam snickers. "People who try to loot entire bowls rarely manage to get more than one. I've heard some kids say they tried to get as much candy as possible from houses like that, but they end up needing to stop after the first."

"Oh, yeah," I nod. "The fairies probably don't like that."

"The fairies?" Sam asks. "What do you mean?"

"There are little fairies everywhere," I say. "Not the pixies, and not the not-real fairies which indicate someone's been blessed by a god or more. Some of the fairies don't like the pixies and fight against them. Trenton told me earlier that they don't like it when people mess with the warding. They probably take action against those thieves because if you ruin the fun for others, then they might not trick-or-treat next year, or they might quit earlier. That would reduce the warding effect against the pixies. So I think the fairies who fight against the pixies wouldn't like it and would mess with people who take more than their share."

Since not everyone wears costumes and only some wear masks due to the cold, it's better to have more people trick-or-treating than fewer. I thought most people wore costumes but that's apparently not the case.

"Dad's told me something similar," Jake says. "Though we can't see the fairies. That's a unicorn thing. We can see the pixies, though."

"Oh," Sam says. "Huh. That's… well, I'm glad I never take more than my share!"

Speaking of shares, I'm still not sure I'll do this right.

"Can I see you guys do it first?" I ask. "So I know I'm doing it right?"

"Sure!" Sig answers. "Come on! We're starting here."

Dad stopped around the end of the street (out of the legal no-parking range), so we're not starting at Sig's house. Once our buckets fill up, he'll bring the van back to us and we'll empty them out into the bags in there, then return to trick-or-treating. Sig said that depending on what's given out and how many houses are participating, we might have only one bucket of treats by the end of the neighborhood, or we might have two or three.

We walk up to the first house, which only has a table, no person handing them out. The table's decorated for Halloween, though, and it has two bowls of candy. One is on the left, one is on the right. The one on the right has chocolate candy in it while the one on the left doesn't. The package sizes for the candies are approximately the same, and a piece of paper fixed to each bowl says to take only one piece total.

They separated the chocolate from the non-chocolate? But that was only a requirement for vendors at the park in Dragon Falls, not for homes. That's a little confusing, but my friends don't act as if it's strange.

Sig feels really happy right now as well, and his tail is swishing back and forth.

Jake dressed up as a pirate for Halloween, switching back to human form for it, but Sig and I didn't dress up. We also stayed in our beastkin forms, though I did offer to turn him back if he wanted me to. He wanted to go as a snow leopardkin for Halloween, while I'm just going as myself.

And right now, I'm feeling like a wolfkin.

The next house we go to has treat bags in bowls on the table, the left-hand one having bags with chocolate candies and the one on the right having bags without. Both bags have stickers in them as well.

That's two houses where they separated the chocolate from the non-chocolate. Sig feels even happier now than he did before we reached the house, so it's definitely not unusual. He's just enjoying himself and getting happier with each new treat he gets.

No light is on at the next house, and Sig seems a little annoyed by that for some reason. It's not good to be annoyed by that, there are plenty of houses with lights on.

Do they know that the candle in their jack-o-lantern went out? Should I relight it for them? It feels like Sig just doesn't like them, though. Letting people get cursed by the pixies probably isn't good but they must have done something to upset Sig beyond just not participating in trick-or-treating. They're also not helping to ward off the pixies, which is also bad.

As I contemplate that and decide not to, we walk to the next house, which is neighbors with Sig. There's no one on the porch and no table for candy bowls, but the outside light is on. Sig knocks on the door and a moment later, a woman in a black dress with ghost earrings answers the door.

"Trick or treat!" My friends say in unison.

"Hello, boys," she smiles. "Chocolate or no chocolate?"

"Chocolate, please!" They all answer.

"Um… no chocolate, please," I say.

"Alright," she pulls out a bowl with chocolate-covered caramel bars in them. "One each, boys."

She lets each of my friends take a bar, and they drop it into their buckets. Why did she ask if it was all just going to be chocolate, anyway? The only things in there are those bars.

Then she sets the bowl down and grabs another bowl, holding it out to me. This one has bags of jelly beans in it, of around the same volume as the chocolate bars for my friends.

Oh! She had two bowls! Just like the other houses so far. That's weird. I was told that houses normally just have them all in the same bowl, and that's how it was in the pictures Greyson sent me in previous years.

Then again, it's Greyson. He probably just mixes them all up and then thinks that's how they came.

"Thank you!" My friends say once the jelly bean bag is in my bucket.

"Thank you," I add.

I was too slow for that, but I was going to thank her even without my friends doing so.

"Enjoy the treats!" She says.

She closes the door as we leave and once we're at the street, we walk over to Sig's house. At the door, Sig lets me knock.

"Trick or treat!" I say with my friends when Ms. Rachel answers the door.

"Hello, boys," she smiles. "Chocolate or no chocolate?"

"Chocolate, please!" My friends answer.

"No chocolate, please."

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Ms. Rachel has two bowls, too. One has treat bags with a few smaller pieces of chocolate in it, the other has small treat bags with gummies and caramels. We're allowed to pick our own from the bowls, and I pick one with a lot of gummy bears in it.

"Thank you!" We tell Ms. Rachel, then continue on.

We visit nearly every house on this street, and the only one without candy or a treat bag was the third house we walked past. All of the others not only have something to pick out or receive, but they're keeping the chocolate separated from the non-chocolate stuff.

There are even things which aren't candy at some houses. A few houses have cookies in treat bags (either by themselves or with other things), some have stickers with their treat bags, some glow sticks, some popcorn balls (caramel, chocolate, or strawberry), some chip or pretzel bags… there's really a variety.

I didn't know that some houses will even give out freshly-cooked hot dogs, hot chocolate and mulled cider (in disposable travel cups), and soda. Those were four different houses, and that was in addition to their treat bowls.

That makes sense, though. They're probably wanting to make sure the trick-or-treaters have plenty of fuel for four hours of walking around. A few houses even have trail mix we can pick from.

Most of the houses are using things which they bought in stores, then divided up. Some companies apparently even add in individual wrappings for things like cookies this time of year for that purpose. A few houses have treat bags with homemade goods, though, and those seem really nice. One lady has thumbprint cookies with caramel in their centers in her treat bags.

On the next street, three houses don't have their lights on, and only one of them makes me feel like Sig doesn't like the person who lives there. That's two houses Sig doesn't like. Neither of them have lit candles in their jack-o-lanterns.

Good.

Bad, Xander! No feeling good that people might get cursed by pixies!

We have to empty out our buckets twice by the time we've finished the second street, and when we go to the third street, we come across the first house which doesn't have stuff with chocolate separated from the stuff without. Sig feels really annoyed here, even more so than at the other two houses he seemed to have an issue with.

Whatever this guy did must have really pissed him off. And recently, too. I think? That's how it feels like to me, anyway. It feels like Sig is annoyed by something recent.

Movement draws my attention as we return to the street from that house, my bucket not having anything new in it and me feeling bad for being upset by that. When I look back at the house, a fairy lands in front of the jack-o-lantern on the porch.

Then blows out the candle.

Why did it do that? Don't fairies hate pixies?

By the time we've finished the neighborhood, we've come across three houses with hot dogs, five with hot cocoa and cider, seven with chips and pretzels, three with soda, and one which didn't separate the chocolate from the non-chocolate treats. We've emptied our buckets out six times in total, too.

That's so much candy and other treats. Getting the bags was a good idea, and I'm glad Dad suggested really big ones. Regular candy wouldn't take up as much space as all of the treat bags, popcorn balls, bags of chips or pretzels, and so on we've received.

"That was so strange," I say as we get into the van. "It's not normal to keep stuff with chocolate separate from other things, is it? Greyson's sent me pictures from his trip already and none of them had it separated."

"It's not," Dad says. "At least, as far as I know."

"It's not!" Sig says. "I went around to the whole neighborhood and asked them if they'd be willing to do that! I even offered to pay for extra candy and treats and a second bowl for them!"

"You… did?" I ask.

"Yup!" He grins at me. "I told them that one of the boys in my group was trick-or-treating for the first time since he was six, and he's thirteen now. That he hates chocolate to the point he won't touch it even if it's in a package, and he won't touch packaged candy that's touched packaged chocolate!

"And I told them," he continues. "That I wanted you to not feel left out and for your first trick-or-treating in years to be awesome, which is why I was asking and offering! Almost everyone told me they would, and some told me they didn't have an issue doing it without the extra money to pay for the stuff."

"You… did that for me?"

"Yeah!" Sig answers. "Like I said, I wanted to make sure you enjoyed it!"

That had to have cost a lot of money… but I guess he has enough to do it. There was still no need for him to do that, though.

"And he did that for all of the neighborhoods we'll potentially hit tonight," Connor tells me.

"Though not everyone was honest," Sig huffs. "Two houses which agreed didn't even do candy despite knowing we'd be coming here first, so they probably just lied and took the money. And that jerk! He said he'd keep them separate but combined them!"

The jerk? Wait. The house with everything combined rather than the chocolate separate.

So the fairy blew out the jack-o-lantern to punish him for lying to and stealing from a kid. Then does that mean fairies blew out the candles at the other two, too? The ones Sig got annoyed with were the other lying thieves.

Good. They deserve to be punished. But I deserve to be punished for being happy that the fairies are trying to punish them.

"Which houses were they?" Jake asks.

"Why?" Sig asks after telling him.

"They upset my friend," Jake smiles, and I can feel a little bit of malice in his mind. "And I'm a dragon, not a human. They're going to know they messed up."

He's really going to punish them in some way over them breaking a promise to Sig and stealing from him? Though I guess it makes sense. Sig's his friend. I'm really pissed they broke a promise to him and stole his money.

More importantly… Sig really did all that for me? Just so I can enjoy tonight? That's… really, incredibly, amazingly nice.

Why am I crying? I'm happy! Stop crying, stupid face!

[Xander – 13 years]

"Xander," the parfait says. "We're at the next stop."

"Don't put your hand-" the devil's food cupcake begins.

"OW!" The parfait exclaims.

"-near his face," the devil's food cupcake finishes.

"He's eating my mana!"

No wonder the parfait is delicious. It's not just from the berries and nuts and oats and yogurt, it's because it has mana in it! I guess I did notice that it had a ton when it approached.

"Xander, you're dreaming!" Onigiri appears. "You just bit Jake."

"His grip is really tight," The parfait says. "Oh, he let go."

"So that's not a parfait?" I ask.

"Nope," the onigiri tells me. "That was Jake. We're at the mage district, so it's time to wake up."

"Oh… do I have time to eat the rest of the food? Well, the food that's not you or containing chocolate?"

"Sure," the devil's food cupcake snickers. "But wouldn't real food taste a lot better? We're here to get more treats!"

"I guess that makes sense," I sigh, then look at the banana cheesecake with a caramel swirl. "Sorry. I'll eat you next time you show up."

I open my eyes and find Jake examining bite marks on his hand. He's bleeding.

"I'm sorry!" I exclaim. "I'm-here, lemme fix that! I can heal small things like that!"

"It's fine," Jake chuckles as I heal the bite. "That'll teach me to try and poke your cheek to wake you. Man. I knew your bloodline from Magus Adrian and Lady Lily was kind of strong, but that's insane. A mana-eater?"

"It came from them?" Connor asks as I finish healing Jake's hand.

"From Lady Lily, yeah," Jake answers. "The noble shrubbies have that innate to them. Most Lumaria Kings don't inherit but, well, Xander's a bit special. Most Lumaria Kings can't casually kill wyverns, either."

"Sorry…"

"It's fine!" Jake laughs. "Come on! Let's go get more treats!"

He really doesn't seem upset by the bite. Wouldn't most people get upset at getting bitten, even if it was an accident? Well, I guess it's because he's a dragon and I was thinking of how human people would react. Dragons are different so it makes sense he'd be understanding.

We go through the mage district. Each shop has a table set up outside with workers/owners running them. Everything here is handmade, even the subs. Just as Uncle Roger told me, the businesses giving out chocolate have stuff without chocolate as an alternative, and in a different container than the stuff with chocolate. There are some businesses which don't give out anything edible, but a lot of them have at least a little bit.

Mr. Vincent is even given out small containers of fudge! Each person can pick three of them, and they each have a bite-sized piece of it inside. Uncle Roger has bags full of candy from his shop, some with only chocolate, some without, and some with a mix of chocolates and non-chocolates.

Once we finish this street, Dad drives us to Connor's neighborhood.

"How many houses has Greyson gone to tonight?" Sam asks once we're all on the street again. "He'll be using his magic to speed himself up, right? So he'll probably hit, like a thousand houses?"

Walking from home to home doesn't take very long, but even two or three minutes adds up. That's just walking between homes, maybe waiting for the group before us to finish, and also getting our treats. We also sometimes have to return to the van to drop off the candy, or we eat food rather than move on to the next home. Once a neighborhood finishes, we have to get driven to the next one.

All of that adds up so even if we go the full ten hours, we'll probably only hit around two hundred homes or so. Greyson could definitely do more, but I don't think he's using his temporal acceleration. He mentioned he was going to go with his brothers and I don't think they'd be comfortable with the feel of it for very long.

Mom still says it feels weird even after we've done baking and cooking in it a lot.

"Cal sent me a picture awhile ago," I tell him. "Greyson fell asleep sitting on the back of his papa's van at ten-o-four. He insists he'll stay up all night every Halloween, then falls asleep around that time. I'm struggling to stay awake, too, but I did try and take a nap earlier to give me more energy. And I had a nap on the way to the mage district. And I'm eating energy-boosting foods. So I might manage it."

Some homes providing those really helps with it, and it even helps the others feel warm, too. Well, eating hot foods and drinking hot drinks does. I'm using magic to keep myself warm, so it's not bothering me at all. But they do help me with energy, especially the trail mix one home in Connor's neighborhood provided.

"Don't push yourself," Dad tells me. "If you want to sleep while the others keep going, you can return to the van. Katie or I can stay there and have it on so you'll be warm. Then once you're ready to return to trick-or-treating, you can rejoin the rest."

"Okay," I say. "But I want to try and go all night. I'm not dressed up scary so the pixies won't be as scared of me as they would if I were dressed. They're not coming close to our group, but that doesn't mean they might not try it when I'm not looking."

"Xander," Jake snorts. "They're not coming near our group because they're terrified out of their minds of you. Dad says that it's suspected they can sense true selves, just like we dragons can. And remember what I said? Your real self is… absolutely terrifying. If I were a pixie, I'd probably be scared that you'd try to eat me."

"Trenton told me that they taste bad."

"You left him in the dorm, right?" Sig asks.

"He was watching a romcom series in the theater when we left."

Dad gives me a confused look and his mind is filled with exasperation. My friends just find it funny, and Sig even snickers a little.

"When did he try eating a pixie?"

"He says it was when I was younger," I answer. "He got curious about what they tasted like, so he lured one in and ate it while I was trick-or-treating. I don't remember that… but I don't remember much from back then. And I don't understand how he could have eaten one… teddy bears don't have functional mouths. They can't eat stuff!"

"Did you ask him?" Sig asks.

"He was struggling to explain it," I say. "Anyway! I smell something good coming from that house. Can we get started again, please?"

[Xander – 13 years]

All of the invited youth except for Ian and the girls returned to my house after finishing trick-or-treating. Some returned early, while others are like my group and only return after it ends at six in the morning. Another year of pixies successfully chased and scared off, and a night with a ton of treats and candies obtained.

Dad apparently prepared extra bags for all groups for if our decorated one got full, and it was a good thing he did. Not everyone did candy and some of the non-candy stuff took up a lot of space. Popcorn balls, bags of chips, stuff like that.

There's a ton of candy, but a ton of other stuff as well. The non-candy will probably be gone within a month, while the candy will probably be gone by the Festival of Frost at the end of December.

Now, it's time for people to share and trade candy and treats. All of those who returned early are still awake, just doing activities here. That's surprising. If I'd returned early, I don't think I would have been able to stay awake.

Maybe they're doing stuff in order to keep themselves awake? That would make sense.

I'm happy with most of what I acquired, but I do give away some. I also give away all of the non-edible stuff. Halloween-themed stickers and stuff just doesn't make any sense to me.

The holiday ends tomorrow. After that, the next one is the Autumn Festival (sometimes called the Harvest Festival), then the Festival of Frost, then New Year's. Giving out temporary things like stickers at the end of it doesn't make sense. Glasses and magic lamps themed to it make much more sense. They can be used again and again, and my friends and other invitees seem to like getting them. A… what was it they called the magic lamps?

I can't remember, but it's less about the holiday and more about the celebration, and more of as something to show for it for years to come. Stickers will often be gone or forgotten a lot sooner than that. And I doubt plastic spiders will get displayed very much, though maybe used a toy on occasion.

Sig has has pumpkin party glass sitting on a shelf in his bedroom, right where it can be seen on streams. The magic lamps he's made here are on the shelf, too. The others in the group chat have them on display in their rooms or use them regularly, too.

That might change as time goes on, but it's true for right now. They're getting a lot more use than a toy miniature skeleton would.

"Xander?" Gabe draws me out of my thoughts about the party and the stuff we made and received.

"Yes?" I ask.

"I don't each chocolate, either," he tells me. "And didn't get anything with it. Most houses, it was either all chocolate, or just grab from the bowl something that didn't have it. Did you want to do any trades? I'll take gummy worms for gummy bears."

"Sure!"

We look through our hauls and trade the things we're willing to trade, then I check on the jack-o-lanterns. Dawn has finally begun, which means the pixies are gone. If the candles in the jack-o-lanterns are still lit, then they were successfully warded off from the home.

They're all still lit. That's good and means that they pixies left the house alone. Everyone who's at the rec center didn't get cursed by them while out, too. Knowing that makes my tail wag, even if slowly due to my sleepiness. The pixies left all of my invitees alone.

I'm heading to bed. It's past my waking time, but I haven't slept since yesterday and I'm really tired. Dad said it's okay to sleep in really late today, and he was being honest when he did.

Which means it's really okay for me to go to bed now even though it's almost breakfast time.

"Sig," I find him. "I'm going to bed now. G'night."

"I'm going to bed soon, too," he says as I hug him. "Just a few more trades to do, then I'll be in there. I think Nash already crashed, too."

"Crashed?" I ask. "He was in an accident? When? He was here just a few minutes ago!"

"Not that kind of crash!" Sig laughs. "I meant that I think he went to bed, too."

"Oh… why 'crashed'?"

"That's… just what is said?" He asks. "Like if someone 'crashes' onto their bed in their tiredness."

"That's just weird."

"Maybe," he shrugs. "Anyway, go get some sleep! See you when we wake!"

[Greyson – 11 years] → begins shortly before the end of the previous PoV.

How did I fail again? Not only that, but I even slept longer than normal! I suppose I'll have to try again next year.

At least Cal put my costume in my room and made sure it didn't get damaged. All parts are accounted for! My treat bag is missing, though… which means it's probably in the kitchen or living room. At least it's not past breakfast time, that means I can eat breakfast as I go through my haul from last night.

Cal's never let me go through it until after breakfast before, but this year will definitely be different. I'm eleven now so I won't sneak a bunch of candy while eating breakfast. Based on what I remember of my haul, I did get quite a lot before I fell asleep.

All of my haul has been memorized, so I'll know if anything's missing when I look through it.

I get out of bed and get dressed for the day, then leave my room and walk to the dining room, where the Cals are setting the table. They're both in just jeans and their minds are still a little sleepy, so they probably only woke a little bit ago, themselves.

Or they haven't been to bed yet. That actually feels less like post-waking sleepiness and more like them trying to stay awake.

"Hey, sleepyhead," Cal grins at me. "You'd make it all night, huh?"

"I tried…"

"We tried waking you up," Kale tells me. "But you were out cold."

"I don't even remember dreaming," I cover my mouth as I yawn. "Which is weird, because as a dreamsage, I should remember my dreams really clearly. Dunno why I was so tired or why I didn't dream. Oh, well. Where's my treat bag?"

"After breakfast."

"I'm eleven now!" I tell him. "I won't sneak any before finishing breakfast!"

"Uh-huh," Cal says, the disbelief in his mind ridiculously strong. "Breakfast first, then you can look through your haul."

"Aw…"

"And no using magic to speed up the cooking!" Cal adds. "Let Dad handle it!"

"Ookaaay."

Once breakfast is served and eaten and the dishes are taken care of, I'm allowed to look through my treat bag, which holds all of what I gathered, my bucket dumped into it each time it filled up. The Cals confirm they hadn't slept yet by going to bed, and Dad watches as I go through my haul.

Henry's the only other person up, and he's watching TV right now. He apparently fell asleep not long after I did, so he got a full night's sleep.

"Everything alright?" Dad asks as I frown at my haul.

It's all organized based on what it is and their sizes, ready to be put into bags based on that for even better sorting. There's something wrong, though.

"Everything's here," I tell him. "But… there's also lots more taffy than I remember receiving. First, I don't remember dreaming. Then, I don't remember everything correctly? Something must be wrong. I need to do a full mental analysis and-"

"I don't like taffy," Henry says. "I know you do, so I put mine in your bag."

"Oh," I say. "That explains why it seemed like all of the extra ones were on top."

"Travis wanted to trade you some bars for your peanut butter cups," Dad tells me. "But he was too tired after staying out all night to wait for you to wake."

"Are they the bars with caramel and nuts?"

"Some with coconut and/or nuts," Dad tells me.

"Okay," I say. "I'll set some of the cups aside. Lemme get some pictures of this, though. I wanna show Cody and Finn what I got! And then I'm gonna eat the cookies."

When I go to send my friends the pictures I took of my treat piles, I discover that they already sent me pictures of their hauls. Cody managed to get so much candy and other treats this year, even more than Finn did, and Finn got twice as much as I did.

They both managed to stay awake a lot longer than me. That's not fair!

"Dad?" I ask after bagging my treats and labeling their bags.

"You want to go to the workshop?"

"Later," I tell him. "Can I make some candy?"

"Don't you have a bunch of it?" Henry asks.

"Yeah," I answer. "But it's not anywhere near as much as Cody and Finn! I need more!"

"Why don't you put those in your cabinet," Dad tells me. "Then you and I can bake some cookies and brownies?"

Another change which occurred this past week (beyond Papa buying a minivan) was that two cabinets were purchased. They're tall cabinets with two sets of doors, an upper set and a lower. Each one has three shelves in it (including the bottom of the cabinet).

Those cabinets are for us boys. We're allowed to store snacks and candy and stuff in them, each of us getting one cabinet-half. Mine is the upper set of the left-hand cabinet. This is so that if we make or buy something for ourselves, the others know not to touch it. It gives us more space.

Which is important, because of my brothers now learning magic and needing more food. Now they can have snacks exclusive to them.

As long as it's bought with their allowance, anyway.

"Okay!" I say. "Wait! I need to check on the jack-o-lantern first! Xander told me that the flame has to stay lit all night!"

I use telekinesis to move all of my bags onto the table, then I head outside to check the jack-o-lantern. The flame still burns, though the candle is very low. It's also cold outside, so I wrap some warm air around me. Coming out here in just jeans and a regular t-shirt probably wasn't the smartest move. A jacket and sneakers would have been smarter. Even socks would have been an improvement.

A few analytical spells are cast and I determine that the flame remained lit all night. It didn't go out and then get re-lit.

Good. That means the pixies should have failed to leave curses on us.

Now that I've checked on this, it's time to put my treats in my cabinet, then bake with Dad!