Dorathea was lounging against her favourite willow tree, mending one of her preferred corsets and humming a soft tune that made some nearby blobs shiver. The sky was a hazy purple, and a cold breeze whispered through her still slowing changing, slowly advancing, lands. It had been a while since her new and proper big brother had helped her dethrone her foolish failure of a ‘big brother’. Things were advancing and her people were happy, Danny and his friends would be delighted, truly.

Pausing with the needle when one of her royal messengers appears next to her and kneels down, presenting her a glowing scroll, “this arrived for you, my lady”.

She nods respectfully, “you may read it”.

The messenger straightens up, “Dorathea Mattingly, you are cordially invited to a sleepover at Plasmius’s Wisconsin Manor! Please bring your worst behaviour, and snacks (or at least pretend to). To ‘wreck Vlad’s shit’. No full humans. No rules. No bedtime. Midnight sharp. Don’t be late… unless you’re haunting someone. Sincerely, Ellie Phantom. P.s. Vlad’s in Amity and has not been informed”; the messenger nodding once and rerolling up the scroll.

Dorathea blinks before grinning, eyes lighting up. The high princess was having a ‘sleepover’ -which she is to guess is another word for gathering but more relaxed perhaps?- in her creators abode? Clearly with the intent of damaging the place? She doubts Danny knows but she also doubts he would object to his little Ellie being a general terror. Dorathea humming to herself, “hmmm, yes I suppose I simply must attend”, looking to her messenger as she stands up, “have my dressers fetch me something comfortable and items that could be used for destruction of property, grapes especially seeing as it’s the High Princess requesting my attendance”.

The messenger bows, “as you desire, your highness”, straightening up, “do you believe his highness will be in attendance as well?”.

Dorathea laughs to herself some, hand over her mouth and eyes crinkling, “oh I highly doubt it”.

The messenger only sighs before rushing off, understandable, Ellie could be something of a menace especially without Danny keeping something of an eye on her… granted he also made her worse sometimes.

… Most of the time actually.

Either way, she ought to get ready. Heading off back to the castle to meet up with her dressers.

By the time she’d gotten fitted in a decently flowy silk and fur tunic, one of her servants has gather up a few ‘presents’ for her to bring to the High Princesses ‘party’: five balls enchanted to scream and ooze when squished, a jar of laughing slime, glow-in-the-dark paper, and a rubber chicken that contained a replica of Danny’s Ghostly Wail. She’s fairly certain the ‘rubber chicken’ was originally a ‘gag gift’ as he called it from him. She knows he’d sent them to many people; if her memory serves he actually filled that poucher ghosts lair up with them one time when the ghost was bothering him too much. Another servant also offering her a chest of grapes, one of many they had purely in case the High King decided to show up and pelt Aragon with them for a few hours.

She happily takes the items, wrapped up in silks, as her dressers finish braiding her hair up in a way that there was no chance of it dangling down into flames or anything of the sort. One never knew with any Phantom what chaos might be awaiting her.

So long as nothing gets turned into a flaming swamp she’s fine, she’s still not sure how Danny actually managed to do that during the Christmas Truce this year.

She’s almost surprised how easy it is to get into the gothic looking mansion, easily floating through the gate, over decrepit trees, and through the front door. The High Princess must of destroyed or otherwise damaged any defences this place previously had.

At least the moon was beautiful today, if she didn’t care for the company she could come out and watch it. The mortal realm could be truly beautiful sometimes.

“Look at those crows!? They clearly want popcorn! Why did none of you fools bring popcorn! That is the PROPER sleepover food!“.

Dorathea blinks as she floats fully into the main room, or what is likely the main room. The air is thick with cobwebs and the faint scent of… spectral pudding? A ghost that looks like a more modern day cook shouting and seemingly chastising everyone else. A ‘punk’? girl scrolling through one of those square ‘phone’ devices while blowing strange pink bubbles and flipping the complaining ghost off.

Ellie laughing, “I’m sure Vladdie’s got some around somewhere!”, then spotting Dorathea, “oh aunty Dora you came! I legit didn’t think you would, no offence”.

The ‘punk’ girl looking up from her device, blinking, “well shit, mini shit head invited actual royalty, damn. Nice to see one of you shits slumming it with the commoners. Name’s Kitty, and I’m technically one of Danny’s ex’s”.

Then from the top of a banister, Ember slides down on a swirl of musical green slime, coming to a stop by bumping into the bottom post and flipping to be hanging upside down from the railing, “sup, I’m always down for another badass boss bitch who puts men in their place. I heard about that, totally punk rock”, putting her hands behind her flaming blue hair, “you a fan?”.

Dorathea smiles politely, “me and my people only just discovered more modern music, but yes Danny has introduced me to your discography”, tilting her head, “I could have used such messages of female self empowerment in my youth”.

The rocker ghost makes a sign that Dorathea has been told means ‘rock on’, so she awkwardly returns the hand gesture making the other ghost laugh and flip herself off of the bannister. Ember looking to Kitty, “I got that slime cannon set up, totally stole them from YoungBlood”.

Kitty smirking, “hey at least you got something out of that kids pirate phase”.

Just then, a harpy pops in- well, technically, his head pops in first from out of a dusty cabinet. His body wandering in behind it, he squawks loudly at her immediately.

Dorathea quirking an eyebrow, “a harpy?”, looking to Ellie, “really?”.

The harpy letting out a bizarre howl that sounds like a trumpet and a cat fighting over scraps. It grabs a vase and just runs off with it? Two more harpies promptly phasing into the room and giving chase to the first with strange looking furry fake animal things in their claws

Ellie giggling, “I want Vlad to deeply regret cancelling that credit card I stole from him“, nodding to herself, “plus the harpies are awesome company and they brought custom furbies. They started making them when Danny showed them one and they all collectively feel in love with the demonic things”. Kitty laughing a little, “yeah don’t be a hater and their feathers make for great necklaces”.

As if it had been planned, a rough-looking guy waltzes in with a bags worth of feathers, “that they do babe, think we could make a buck or two off of them? and I got those haunted disco lights you wanted. We are totally going to float the roof off of this place”.

Kitty rolling her eyes, “took you long enough, Johnny”.

“Yeah well. Some teenagers were having a séance by the lake. Bunch of fucking dumbasses thinking that shit works, I couldn’t not scare the crap out of them”, grabbing a lit ‘cigarette’ out of his pocket, sticking it in his mouth and crossing his arms, “plus one of them had a sick ass souped up mustang”.

“Classic Johnny”, Ember giving the guy a shove, “bet your ugly mug got them screaming right away?”.

“Oh fuck you. Two fainted, and one gave me a granola bar”.

Ah so this was that ghost Danny sometimes complained about getting into ‘drag races’ and speeding ‘too damn much’.

Kitty walking over and giving him a peck on the cheek, “good for you babe”, gesturing at Dorathea, “and look, we finally get to meet that adopted younger sister Danny’s got”.

“Oh shit?”, Johnny looking to her, up then down, “not my type but definitely not hard on the eyes”; Kitty glares and slaps him immediately.

Right. The biker ghost had also dated Danny’s older sister and was something of a ‘man whore’. Dorathea quirking a judgmental eyebrow at the boy, “yes, I’ve been told you’re a man whore”. Ember chokes and both Kitty and Ellie break out into laughs, Johnny just looks stunned and shocked.

Ellie whipping her eyes, “okay okay, since everyone’s mostly here, tonight we are bringing full blown chaos, movies supplied by Technus, and the food overseen by the LunchLady”.

Ember smirking, “I’ve already coated the stairs with invisible jelly”.

It would seem that Dorathea will be exclusively floating everywhere tonight, either way she hands off the chest of grapes to the still annoyed-looking ‘LunchLady’, “these are more for pelting, but they certainly are edible as well”.

The LunchLady eyeing them, “healthy and light, they are acceptable. I fully support food related DOOM being brought upon this house, especially since there is an UNACCEPTABLE amount of gummies in the cabinets”.

Ellie nodding at Ember, “wanna start with tag in the attic?”.

Ember waving the little princess off, “truth or terror is a better starting point, little baby pop”, smirking, “with real haunted dares”.

The LunchLady looking to the two girls, “and the pudding I brought! I think it used to be pudding?”.

Dorathea following everyone else, eyeing a jar on one of the side tables.

It growls softly.

One of the harpies sticking her head back in and growling back at the jar; putting a ‘furby’ next to the jar, the fury fake creature starts making strange noises at it and wobbling back and forth. It’s… quite disconcerting actually.

Ellie laughing, “nice. Let’s get this party started folks”.

Technus bursting in through the ceiling, shouting, “I FIGURED OUT THE SURROUND SOUND SYSTEM! I HAVE ACHIEVED MUSICAL DOMINATION OVER THIS ABODE!”.

And instantly the Mansion starts glowing with ghostly energy. Johnny gets one of the harpies to clip up his disco ball thing, which starts spinning slowly on the cracked ceiling. Strange music starts playing ‘its tunes’ backwards.

Ember bumping Dorathea’s arm, “hey you wanna add some grapes to the slime cannon? Already added some of the clearly haunted pudding”.

Dorathea doesn’t even get the chance to agree to that request before the LunchLady is already adding them to said cannon in the corner.

The male harpy starts smacking the over sized ‘tv’ making Technus sigh and turn the thing on, immediately getting smacked by the harpy and pecked, “STOP THIS AT ONCE YOU- HEY DONT TAKE MY GLASSES!”; the harpy is indeed flying off with the ghosts glasses, while the ‘tv’ fizzes and shows gray and white and black sparkles? Strange.

Kitty floating over and setting up a strange black box and the ‘tv’ has pictures on it now! How interesting.

Ellie grinning, “oh Nightmare On Elm Street? Nice!”, holding up a bowl with moths fluttering around it, “and I found the popcorn!”.

The LunchLady shouting, “GOOD!”.

Ellie nodding to herself, “oh and there also seems to already be invisible tripwires on the stairs, rubber spiders made out of cheese in the chandeliers, and the mirrors are set to reflect our screaming faces. Also, I replaced the doorknobs with cold spaghetti.”

Johnny scowls, “ew”, but gives a respectful nod.

Ellie smirking, “my bet is that the Dairy King has been fucking with Vlad for a while now, and Danny obviously”.

Technus rubbing his hands together, “so we shall avoid the blame for this? Perfect”.

Kitty leaning back in one of Vlad’s ridiculous chairs, “man I love messing with shitty jerky men”.

Ember laughing, “hell yeah sister”. While Johnny grumbles to himself. Ember pulling a green bottle out of her pockets, tossing it towards the centre of the room, “anyway, Truth or Terror time”. The bottle spins in midair, sparkles, then points directly at… Johnny.

Ellie grinning, “alright, Johnny. Truth or Terror?”

He snorts, “Terror, obviously”, puffing out his chest proudly.

The LunchLady grinning violently, “then you must stick your hand into the Pudding of DOOM!”. Everyone else comically cringes, so Dorathea does as well; this was meant to be a more relaxed event correct? So she should try to be ‘more loose’ as Danny puts it.

Johnny rolls his eyes but scowls at the pudding thing, floating over to the jar, and slowly dipping his hand in…

The pudding gurgles.

It hisses.

Then it… licks him.

Johnny scrunching up his whole face, “oh that’s nasty, what the fuck man”. Two harpies cackle sqwuak and stick out their tongues. Ellie going wide-eyed and floating around the pudding, “oh it has a tongue!”.

Johnny scowling, “yeah that it used to lick me like a goddamn heathen asshole child or something”.

“Are you saying I should be licking you?”.

“Absolutely not! You bastard child!”.

“I technically actually am a bastard child, you know”.

“You are worse than the ghost kid”.

“So what you’re saying is I’m better than you”. Ellie looks very smug and pleased with herself. Good for her.

Next, it was the LunchLady’s turn, with her choosing, “truth.”

Johnny quirking an eyebrow, “have you ever accidentally haunted a blob ghost? Not much else you could haunt successfully”.

The LunchLady growls at him then crosses her arms, huffing, “define accidentally”; making Ellie wheeze laugh and Johnny look absolutely baffled.

Dorathea is honestly a bit curious how one even haunts a blob ghost of all things.

The game keeps going, laughter echoing through the old manor. Dorathea wound up having to show proper grape throwing etiquette at Ember’s terror request, pelting Technus extensively. Technus was also made to ‘prove his technophile ways by ‘humping’ the disco ball, and the ‘dvd player’, and the ‘tv’, and the ‘speakers’. Honestly it became a game of harass the Technus.

Then they played ‘Haunted Hide-and-Seek’, which one of the harpies won by hiding inside the chandelier. And then they had a floating pudding race in the dining hall. Screams of terror and death echoing from the ‘tv’ all the while.

Ellie nudges Dorathea, “hey did I tell you I got abducted last weekend? But, like, politely? Dude bought me chicken nuggies even. Pops wasn’t impressed, until I talked my Kidnapper to get him some nuggies too. Kidnapper was so confused when ‘Phantom’ showed up”.

Dorathea shakes her head disbelievingly, “that sounds like the beginning of one of those crime ‘podcasts‘ Lady Sam tells me about”.

“Oh absolutely, but I’m down for some light stabbing if I get chicken nuggies out of it”.

But just as Ember was about to launch a slime cannon at the male harpy, the temperature drops. A deep, glittering purple breeze rolls in from the doorway; most of the pudding falls asleep. And a starry black claw shoves its way under the door, scratching up the floor.

Kitty pauses mid-spin on the disco, “did anyone invite sleepy?”. Everyone else turning to eye the door.

Honestly, Dorathea was surprised that the Ancient of sleep and dreams hadn’t already been invited to something with the word ‘sleep’ in it; especially because Danny often referred to them as an uncle fondly.

The door getting fully shoved in by the large ancient ghost, them straightening up and their glow throwing shadows over the walls and furniture. They narrow their red eyes, “you dare have a sleep-related event, an event related to my domain, and fail to invite me”.

Then that poucher ghost stomps in as well, crossing his arms, “and at Vlad’s place? You know I wouldn’t pass up a chance to fuck with that man’s property, hope you shitheads saved us some pudding”. Ember covering her mouth and snickering meanly, it seems quite clear she didn’t bring him with her purely to bother him.

Kitty crossing her arms at the two uninvited guests, “that’s because you guys are lame”. Ember laughing more fully, nodding, “yeah, totally lame”; and gives Kitty a ‘high five’. Skulker looks incredibly offended.

Ellie putting her hands on her hips and leaning at Nocturne, “no one’s actually sleeping during this, you know”.

“You say that as if I do not know what a sleep over is, sweet half child”.

“Hey can’t blame me for wondering”, Ellie then looking to Skulker, “and you literally work for Vlad, why would I invite you? You’d probably be a total tattle tale”.

Now Skulker looks offended too, huffing at her, “as if, that man underpays and undervalues me, why would I warn him?”.

Ember snickers, “hell yeah, eat the rich. Fuck up and burn down their houses”.

“Hey we’re not burning down the Dairy Kings lair! We’re just… messing with it, you know, to piss off Vlad. And to waste some of his money”.

Dorathea nodding, “yes, it is brother dearest’s job to set fire to and blow up his godfathers properties”. Ellie gesturing to her, “see!”, and nodding to herself firmly.

Johnny whispering to one of the harpies, “think we should slime them, bird girl?”.

The harpy sqwuaks evilly and nods eagerly; then chirping over her shoulder.

The LunchLady sighing, “well they are already here, perhaps we should merely float and let float”, tilting her head at the two new comers, “Popcorn?”.

Skulker looks appropriately fearful when he says, “no?”. The LunchLady immediately narrowing her eyes at him, but Kitty doesn’t give the ghost a chance to harass the poucher, promptly grabbing some popcorn and pelting him with it.

Nocturne shaking their head then looking around the room, eyeing the pudding still burping on the table, the tripwires stretched across the stairs, the goo covered railing, and the disco ball spinning like wild. Humming gently, “it would seem this party has potential. If we add a little shadow, a dash of ominous mystery… and maybe turn off those blinding lights”.

Johnny sneering, “touch my fucking disco ball and I’ll drive my bike all over your lair as loudly as possible, waking as many of your Sleepers as possible, till next truce”.

Nocturne looks ready to outright murder the ‘biker’, their size growing and sneering, “you should not dare to try that”.

Ellie clapping her hands together, “oh how about we settle this by making the newbies prove their metal, chaos war?”.

Technus grinning a little too widely, “oh I approve of this plot”.

Skulker grinning right back, “you’re on”.

And just like that, the party explodes into ghostly chaos.

Nocturne smiling slightly, “very well, tired children are sleepy children”, and immediately summoning sparkling fog clouds that chases the harpies through the halls.

Technus rigs a piano to only play polka music, which Skulker shoots a rocket at on principle, “will your taste in music ever improve?!”.

“MY TASTE IS THE BEST IN ALL OF THE ZONE!”.

Ember huffing, “I’d agree if you were playing my music”. Skulker stuttering slightly, “y-yeah, Ember’s music is the best”; he sounded like he was being threatened honestly.

Dorathea tilting her head, ah that’s right, wasn’t that one dating Ember? How that worked she’s not going to claim to know. Having to float back a bit to avoid black ink bubbles that pop and leave gentle poetry on the walls. Ancients were quite peculiar, weren’t they?

One of the harpies zips through the air, through walls, and through piles of the squeaky rubber chickens Dorathea brought; managing to stuff one in Slulker’s suit back, making the ghost flail and mostly fail to reach it. The manor walls start moaning from all the spectral energy.

Ellie giggles maniacally, “this is glorious. I doubt Vlad’s shitty little rich person house has ever seen this much chaos”; flying off to spin around Nocturne’s head mockingly, “can’t catch me! Can’t catch me!”. Nocturne looks the be enjoying themselves thoroughly though. Expected since Nocturne had such a soft spot for Danny, and thus Ellie as well.

Kitty yelling, “Dorathea! Fire!”, while swinging around a bag of marshmallows, well who was Dorathea to deny one of her brothers ex’s? So she huffs a mouthful of flames at the bag, which promptly gets thrown at Skulker; coating the ghost in a sticky mess.

The ghosts are all zipping through the air like fireflies with attitude by now. Slime and ink and ecto streaking down the walls. Echoes of ghostly laughter, dramatic sighs, and the occasional polka note from the haunted piano -that Technus kept fixing- filling every corner. The harpies are chasing mice around using the furbies; one furby ends up with a mouse in its ‘beak’ and the harpy uses it to dangle the dead rodent over Kitty’s disgusted head. It is a good thing Lady Sam was not here to see that.

The LunchLady starts smearing pepper under the noses of all of Vlad’s over priced paintings. Moments later, a thunderous ACHOOOOOO! echoes from the walls, and ghostly faces in the paintings begin sneezing random spices.

Ember chuckling from around a wall, “nice, it’s like mace!”. Ellie laughing and giving Ember a ‘fist bump’, “hopefully one maces Vlad later and confuses him!”.

Kitty laughing from the ceiling trying to avoid the harpies, “you know I have actual mace, I could just walk up to the gezzer and mace him”.

“But surprise painting macing is way funnier!”.

On the other side of the livingroom, Nocturne raises a single hand and the chandelier above begins to drip down shadows. The lights flickering. The ceiling groaning. And then… the chandelier turns into a swirling vortex of black mist that rains down tiny snoring ghost bats.

Ember promptly floating over and smacking at them with her guitar like it’s a baseball bat and they're baseballs. Ellie cheering, “whooo! Bat-ball!”; earning her multiple glares.

Dorathea shaking her head at the scene, “bat mist again? You are not very creative for being the Lord of dreams”. Nocturne is suitably offended, as they should be.

The male harpy flying up onto the disco ball and flapping his wings, sending down a rain of glitter like a bomb so bright it briefly blinds everyone, including the paintings which all blink in surprise and collectively sneeze again. Now the rooms filled with spice dust, glitter, snoring bats, gooey ink, and purple mist.

What an absolute mess.

The ghosts all shouting, spinning, slipping, laughing, screaming, and dancing. The floor groans and the pudding roars. Someone summons a flying rocking chair that chases Technus for a solid five minutes. Dorathea feels a little silly and improper but… it is fun. Danny was always telling her to loosen up a little.

Ellie cheering, “THIS. IS. AMAZING!”, as she launches herself down the slime slide stairs for the fourth time, crashing into Nocturne like a bowling ball; the other ghost folding inwards like a blanket.

Skulker and the LunchLady face off in a silent staring contest that cracks five windows and makes a table cry. The table gets smacked with a chunk of uncooked steak, while the cracked windows get shot at to make the cracks into holes instead. The LunchLady also sending off a marshmallow monster to replaced all the ghost-punch with shadow-juice (which tastes like regret and cold tea), but Ellie swaps it again with pop rocks and soda, causing some minor explosions and more than a few delighted giggles.

After what felt like hours of nonstop mayhem, the mansion finally groans so loud that the floorboards tremble. Dorathea eyeing the floor worriedly, floating up a bit more, “perhaps it is time for a truce, yes?”.

A harpy squawking loudly, holding a… gnome she thinks? Ellie laughing, “I think it wants to keep the gnome”.

Then the FrightKnight just appears, stepping out of the fireplace, “I desire the couch slime recipe. It seems inspired”.

Johnny giving the Ancient of fear a thumbs up, “deal, you spooky shit head”. The FrightKnight glares but walks over to get the recipe.

Ellie nodding to herself then clapping her hands together, “then I declare this sleepover a success. This mansion is a disaster in the best way possible”.

Dorathea supposes this would qualify as a success, especially if general destruction and making an impressive mess of Vlad’s abode was the goal.

There was glowing slime dripping down from the chandeliers. Polka music was still playing softly from the many times repaired haunted piano. Glitter spice dust’s hanging in the air like fog. And the pudding looks to have claimed a chair and had acquired a tiny ghost hat at some point.

“Alright”, Ember bending and wheezing a little, moving to sit down on a bookshelf, “let’s call it. No winners, no losers; just a complete and total spectral mess”, smirking, “that Vlad will have to clean up himself”.

Nocturne nodding solemnly, “I can respect that”.

Ellie, having draped herself dramatically in one of the torn off curtains, raises a gooey marshmallow, “to chaos!”

The LunchLady nodding, “and to pudding!”.

The Dairy King sticking a hand out of one of the paintings, “to never doing this in my lair again”, the painting had a mustached lady on it and its frame had been wrapped in neon party tape. The Dairy King promptly disappearing back into the walls, avoiding the chaotic group.

Ellie rolling her eyes, motioning a hand at the two not-really-newcomers, “come on, let’s have snacks and actually watch a movie”. Most of the food was messed up but still, marshmallows that giggled when bitten, glow sticks that floated on their own and pulsed with weird little melodies yet were somehow edible, moaning maybe sentient mini puddings that had seemingly spawned from the original definitely sentient pudding.

Nocturne holding up and inspecting a piece of popcorn, “this appears to be… humming?”.

“It’s got rhythm”, Ember winks.

The FrightKnight, Skulker, and Technus swap scare ideas, drawing out designs for a haunted vending machine that only gave out screams of the damned and edible bats. Ember occasionally reciting her best ‘mourning hymns’ to Nocturne’s approval, while the harpies played a small game of trying to bite each others heads off while also playing with their furbies.

Ellie glancing around at the glowing group, the messy mansion, and the pile of chaos supplies still waiting to be used. Smiling, “I gotta say, for a bunch of spooky weirdos, this is turning into a solid ghost gang”.

Ember raising her cup of punch, “next time, we actually invite everyone, especially the Ancient with a weird soft spot for both Phantom’s?”.

Johnny raising his too, “only if you bring the cannons again”.

“Deal”.

Ellie sticking her hands up in the air, “seal it with a Glow Stick Treaty!”; and running off to get proper non-edible glow sticks from… somewhere? Coming back and giving one to Nocturne and the other to… well to herself. The Ancient of sleep and dreams shaking their head but tapping glow sticks with the little High Princess.

Kitty blinking, popping another strange pink bubble, “so, uh… does this mean we’re friends with an Ancients now? FrightKnight doesn’t count since he serves Danny and all”.

The FrightKnight snarls faintly but doesn’t argue.

Ellie shrugging, “frenemies. With extra fun. You know, like haunted pudding”.

Everyone just shrugging and going to watch the movie in proper, The FrightKnight providing his judgments on the scaring tactics of Freddy Krueger all the while.

As the night grows older, the air in Vlad’s mansion begins to cool. The ghosts, most tired from their whirlwind of mischief and mayhem, floating around a little slower, energy starting to wane. The fog outside thins, and the first rays of dawn creep in through the shattered windows.

Dorathea humming at the sunrise, “I must admit, I didn’t expect to have this much fun”.

Technus chuckling, “me neither”, glancing around at the wreckage, “we should do this more often. Maybe… next time, we invite some other hip and cool folks?”. Half the group cringes at him.

Ellie tapping her chin, “like the Headless Bandits or the Poltergeist Punks?”, tilting her head and yawning a little, “and can’t forget the Haunted Hayride cowboys”.

Ember scowling, “I’m not going anywhere where those country music loving hillbillies are”. Ellie pouting at her, “but they have so many bull rides!”.

“I don’t care”.

Johnny laughing, “invite Black Beard and his crew. Get a whole ghost ship”.

Ellie gasping, almost offended, “there wouldn’t be a mansion left standing then!”, crossing her arms, “the point is to make enough of a mess that it’s a pain to clean, but not so much that Vladdie takes the easy way out and just levels the whole damn thing”.

Dorathea putting a hand over her mouth and giggling, “you are as petty as your father”.

Nocturne nodding, “and just as peculiar”.

“I’ll take the compliments”.

As the conversation drifts, the gang all begin to float off towards the door. They all pause at the threshold for a moment, looking back to take in the state of the mansion: the broken windows, the spooky confetti stuck to the walls, the ghost bats still circling the ballroom, and, of course, the disturbing pudding, there’s slime rolling itself across the floor eating left over popcorn. Oh and a singular furby walks its way across the floor, moving ominously towards the fireplace; it’s designed like a red jester.

Kitty nudging Ellie, “we should leave him a note. Something that says, like, ‘We’ll be back for the sequel, shithead’”.

Ellie beaming, “done and done”; earning her rounds of laughter.

Nearly everyone jumping at a loud angry sqwuak, turning as larger harpy with a fan of feathers around Its head comes crashing in through a window and starts chasing and shrieking at the three other harpies. Dorathea shaking her head, “seems the harpy prince is less than pleased”.

Ellie smirking, “oh yeah, all three were grounded for breaking some eggs”. Dorathea glares at the high princess a little for that.

Johnny rolling his eyes, “well I’m not dealing with a pissed off harpy royal, peace bitches”; Kitty promptly joining him and throwing everyone a two finger sign that Dorathea believes to be ‘a peace sign’.

Everyone seemingly following the ghost couples lead, floating out one by one, and the mansion seems to settle. The haunted piano stops playing, and the floating cobwebs gently drift back into place. But the ghosts still left their mark; a very messy and very extensive mark.

Vlad… Vlad was going to be pissed and Dorathea knows that Ellie is incredibly happy over that. Dorathea watching from a distance as the harpy prince successfully drags the three harpies out of the chimney by their scruffs.

… She’s glad she came, and it would make for a nice story when she sees her brother again. Though something tells her that he’ll hear about it from the unimpressed harpy prince first.

End.