Ramona and Queen

The barn was blasting Spooky Scary Skeletons on repeat the entire day of Halloween. Everyone was running around setting up decorations, and painting cute designs on their horses! This was the first annual Elysian Eventing Halloween Party and everyone was invited, riders and non-riders alike! At 6 o’clock, the guests started rolling in, all dressed up in their costumes. Then later at 6:30, the town’s weather alert system went off, signifying that trick-or-treating had begun!

Queen was rolling around in the pasture as the weather alert system went off. She immediately stood up, looking around curiously. She paced around the pasture nervously for a few minutes. Shortly after, she began to relax, but then… the creatures arrived.

The first few creatures showed up, running down the driveway of the barn, holding strange bags in their hand. Queen took off running at the first sight of them. She started calling as loud as she could, hoping that someone, anyone, would come and save her from the scary monsters! The monsters turned and saw her panicking in the pasture and came closer to see what was happening.

Queen took a quick look at them and saw the gory, bloody, deformed faces of the creatures. One’s jaw was hanging off their face, barely hanging on by one side, the other was missing an eye. They were a strange pale green color, like nothing she had seen before. She spooked again, frantically calling out, galloping around the pasture as fast as she could.

The more she ran around frantically, the more monsters appeared, all watching her, making strange noises in response. She stopped galloping for a minute to breathe, and looked at all these new creatures. There were skeletons, witches, vampires, werewolves, every terrifying monster known to man, and they were all stood right outside her pasture.

One of the werewolves opened up their mysterious bag, reached their hand in, and pulled something out. It was too small for Queen to see, but a very familiar scent filled her nostrils as the wind blew toward her. Her eyes widened, her ears perked up, and she slowly, nervously, started making her way toward the vampire. They opened their hand to her, exposing the sweet treat she knew all too well. A red and white peppermint laid in their palm. Cautiously, Queen stuck her nose through the fence, and into the palm of the little vampire’s hand, grabbing the mint. Once her teeth were around the mint, she quickly retreated back into the middle of the pasture, back turn toward the monsters, and ate it. When she turned back around, more of the creatures were rustling through their bags and pulling out mints. She cautiously made her way back over, confused by the kindness of the creatures.

Just as she got back to the fence keeping her safe from the monsters, one of the skeletons reached up to their neck and pulled off a mask revealing their face. Queen immediately turned around and started running again. She ran for another five minutes, until finally she had calmed down. As she turned back around to look at the fence, she saw that all the monsters had taken off masks revealing the faces of a bunch of children. Queen was even more confused than before, but all the kids were still holding out mints for her. She walked over and went from hand to hand taking the mints and chomping them up.

The owner of the barn came out with some treats of her own. She stood with the children, holding a bag filled to the brim with apples and carrots. She handed them out to the kids next to her and told them to pass them around. Everyone took turns feeding Queen carrots and apples, completely gaining her trust. The owner stroked Queen’s face, calming her down even more, and making her completely relaxed.

Halloween may not have started off well for Queen, but by the end of the night she had decided it would be called “Treat Night” based off of the amount of treats she got from the barn owner and the kids that stopped by. She can’t wait until Treat Night next year!