#tohhalloween

[rosemaidenvixen]

Master Carver

Ao3

A few more cuts and Hunter set the knife aside, spinning the pumpkin around with a grin “So, what do you think?”

Clover buzzed with approval, hovering around the pumpkin with their image carved into it.

“I think she likes it,” Willow said with a giggle, lifting the pumpkin from the table and moving it to sit beside the other carved pumpkins on the bench. Clover followed, joining the other palismen, Emmeline and Ghost and Stringbean and Owlbert, flying and crawling around their portraits.

Hunter beamed back at her, then grabbed another pumpkin, picked up his knife, and got to work.

“Hey how’s it– whoa!” Luz stopped short as soon as she came into the room, Gus and Amity right on her heels “Dang, your pumpkin carving game is strong!”

Amity leaned down close to the pumpkin with an image of Ghost carved into it, Ghost herself curled up around it “Yeah Hunter these are really good,”

“Of course they are,” Willow folded her arms across her chest, satisfied smile on her face “Hunter is the best up and coming palismen carver in the Boiling Isles,”

Hunter met her eyes and smiled back, a red flush spreading across his face all the way to the tips of his ears, then ducked back behind the pumpkin he was working on.

“A palismen carver carving pumpkins with pictures of palismen, that is so meta…”

“These are cool,” Gus stepped up to join Amity and Luz “But I thought human jack o lanterns are supposed to be scary,”

“Oh don’t worry,” Hunter carved out a sliver of orange flesh from the pumpkin in front of him “This next one is going to be utterly horrifying,”

That got their attention, four heads swiveling towards him.

“What is it?” Amity asked.

Another twist of the knife and more flesh fell away “Only the most grotesque, terrifying creature in all the Boiling Isles and the human realm combined,”

The others were all gathered around the other side of the work table now, craning their necks to try and get a look.

Luz was practically hanging over the table to try and catch a peek “Ok but what is it specifically,”

One more cut and Hunter set his knife aside, grinning up at them “Are you sure? This creature is said to be so unspeakably hideous that even looking upon its image can drive you to madness,”

“I was Grom Queen! I can handle this,”

“Yeah come on dude, you gotta show us now,”

“I feel confident that we can handle it,”

Willow giggled again “Well even if it melts my eyeballs out I still want to see it,”

Hunter smirked up at them and set his hand on top of the pumpkin “Well then, prepare to be…” he spun the pumpkin around in one fluid motion “Horrified!”

For a few seconds the four of them just stared at the pumpkin in silence. Then Amity’s cheeks puffed out, snorting a giggle that turned into uproarious laughter. Less than a second later Luz, Willow, and Gus were laughing right along with her. The four of them laughing and laughing with all their might.

The merriment was contagious as Hunter felt the beginnings of laughter bubbling in his own chest.

“I– I– I– gotta hand it to you Hunter,” Luz managed to get out between laughs “That is the most terrifying jack o lantern I’ve ever seen,”

“Yep,” Hunter patted the pumpkin, sporting an image of Kikimora carved into the side “With this I’m sure our house is going to be the scariest one on the block,”

Another wave of laughter surged through the group, this time Hunter didn’t stop himself and laughed right along with them. All five of them laughing uncontrollably, sides in stitches and tears leaking rolling down their cheeks.

[rosemaidenvixen]

Hmm how about..“It’s a full moon tonight—wonder if we’ll run into any werewolves.” (Or something along those lines.) Jlaire?

And “We should carve pumpkins!” King and The Collector? (What’s their friendship tag, PlatinumBones?)

Jlaire prompt answered here, Platinum Bones prompt answered below

Ao3

The demon realm was great, full of fun and friends, but the Collector was having a blast in the human realm to. Camila had taken him and King to get a human snack called ice cream, which they’d finished only halfway through their walk back to her house, and she’d promised to take him and King to a special human holiday called–

Abruptly they spotted something across the street that stopped them in their tracks.

“What are those?”

Camila stopped mid step and looked to where the Collector was pointing “Those are jack o lanterns. They’re a special decoration that people make for Halloween. They by carve a face into a pumpkin, then when it gets dark you put a candle inside and it glows,”

The Collector felt a grin spreading across his face, giddy feeling bubbling up in their chest, whipping around to where King was standing on the other side of Camila “King, we should carve pumpkins!”

King jumped up from four feet to two “Yeah let’s do it!”

“Can we Miss Camila? Please please please!”

“Ok ok,” Camila raised both hands placatingly, smiling down at them “I’ll get some pumpkins and check with Eda to see if tomorrow’s ok for some pumpkin carving,”

“Yay!”

--

The next day King and the Collector stood in Camila’s kitchen. The table had been covered in layers of some kind of gray paper covered in tiny writing, a large bowl and several sharp knives sitting in the center that Camila made them promise not to touch without permission and supervision.

Sure they could just make pictures in the pumpkins with their magic, but they wanted to make jack o lanterns the same way humans did.

But what held the Collector’s attention the most was the four large, orange gourds crowding the table.

Off to the side Eda was screwing in a serrated blade in place of her regular hook hand “Remember kids, always have to be very careful using sharp knives, that’s how I lost this hand,”

King and the Collector giggled while Camila rolled her eyes from where she was tying on an apron “Now pumpkin carving gets pretty messy, so are you sure you don’t want aprons?”

The Collector shook their head “No,”

“Nope,”

“Alright then, do you know what pumpkins you each want to–

The Collector slapped a hand on the biggest pumpkin on the table “I wanna do this one,”

Beside him King jumped up to cling to another gourd with all four paws “Ooh this one!”

Eda chuckled as she and Camila stepped up to the table “Well I guess that settles it,”

Camila giggled along with her as she set four markers on the table “We start by drawing the design we want on the outside of the pumpkin,”

The Collector peeked at her from over their pumpkin “Design?”

“Well most people do a spooky face, but it can be whatever you want,” she picked up a marker and uncapped it “I’m going to do a cat,”

King reached over to pick up a marker “I think I’ll just do a regular face, keep thing simple,”

The Collector nodded and grabbed their own marker “Me to,”

“Well I’m doing an owl, I’m the owl lady, I’ve got a schtick to stick do,”

Finishing their drawing, the Collector reached for a knife and got ready to start carving their design.

“Hold on there,” Camila gently laid a hand on their elbow “Before we start carving our designs we need to scoop out the guts,”

The Collector blinked up at her “Guts?”

From beside they heard King standing up in his chair “I didn’t think plants in the human realm had intestines,”

“Well they’re not really ‘guts’ it’s just the seeds and the goop inside them,”

“Goop?”

“I’ll show you,” Camila picked up a knife, inserting the tip into the top of her pumpkin at an angle “First we need to cut off the tops…”

Under Eda and Camila’s careful supervision King and the Collector each cut lids out of the tops of their pumpkins, allowing them to reach inside with large spoons while Eda and Camila went back to their own pumpkins.

The Collector lifted their spoon out, staring wide eyed at the clump of large white seeds connected by tangles of orange slime “Eeewww,”

He dumped the contents of the spoon into the large bowl at the center of the table, the seeds landing inside with a splat, strands of orange still clinging to the spoon.

“Eeeeeeewwwwww,”

King leaned over to drop his own spoonful into the bowl “I can see why you call these guts,”

Eda popped the top her pumpkin “Let me know if you need a hand getting all that stuff out,”

“No!” the Collector leaned protectively over their pumpkin “I want to do it myself!”

“Yeah!” King piped up.

Camila laughed, dropping a spoonful of guts from her own pumpkin into the bowl “Alright, we won’t help unless you ask…”

With the four of them working the bowl was soon brimming with pumpkin guts. Camila and Eda finished first and got to work carving their designs while King and the Collector were still scooping. It was hard getting all the guts out, but they were almost done, and the Collector wanted to do this themselves–

Abruptly something wet and slimy hit the side of their cheek.

Turning on reflex, they saw King grinning at them, paw still stained with orange from the handful of seeds he’d tossed at them.

The Collector felt a wide smile of their own spread across their face. Slowly reaching into the bowl to grab their own handful of guts. 

Before they knew it guts were flying all over the place, King was laughing, they were laughing, slime was getting everywhere–

They reached in for another handful only to find Eda’s arm covering the bowl.

“Alright alright,” she laughed “That’s enough of that you little monsters,”

“Awww,”

“Come on Eda,” King scurried up to the bowl “I was just about to win!”

“Was not!” 

“Was to!”

“Was–”

“Ok kids,” Camila cut in “If you want to play with the pumpkin guts you can, or…”

She smiled at each of them in turn “I can show you how to make barfing pumpkins with them,”

“Barfing!?” the Collector stood up in their chair “How!?”

“Well first we have to finish carving their faces…”

The Collector and King cut out the faces from their pumpkins, Eda and Camila watching them like hawks from the instant they picked up the knives until the second they set them down. Then Camila picked up a handful of guts out of the bowl “So to make barfing pumpkins you put some of the guts back inside and have them handing out the mouth, like this,”

She reached an arm inside the Collector’s pumpkin, dropping the handful of guts so that bits of seeds and slime hung out of the mouth while the Collector watched with glee.

"Let me do it let me do it!" 

Camila stepped aside, allowing the Collector to grab a handful of guts, leaning over their pumpkin reaching all the way inside to place them.

While Camila and Eda carved out their designs King and the Collector took turns grabbing guts from the bowl. Putting more and more inside their pumpkins until the guts were nearly spilling off the table. 

Before they knew it all the bowl was empty and all their pumpkins were done. Camila’s cat and Eda’s owl neatly cut out, while King and the Collector’s spooky faces were barfing all over the table.

The Collector felt sticky all over, covered in pumpkin goop from head to toe, some of it was still wet and some was half dried and tacky. King was just as messy as them, fur clumped with goop and smears of orange on his skull. 

They didn't care about the goop or the mess, carving the pumpkins had been so much fun! 

"Great work kids," Camila gathered the knives and set them next to the sink "We'll put them on the porch with candles tonight, but for now we need to clean the kitchen, and you two need baths–"

The Collector froze instantly, whipping towards King, the two of them sharing a panicked look.

Quick as a flash the Collector pulled a star out of their pocket, expanding it and jumping on top with King hopping on right beside him. Less than a second later they were zooming out the backdoor, leaving Eda and Camila shouting after them.

"Hey we talked about this, no big magic in the human world!"

"Don't worry Camila I'll get ‘em," 

King leaned forward on the star as they flew through the trees "Go faster!"

"I'm trying I'm trying!"

Behind them Eda ducked and weaved through the trees as she pursed in her harpy form "Get back here you rascals!"

The two of them squealed and flew faster.