A/N: I know that I generally post these stories on the first of the month, but here's a special story for the season. Happy Halloween!
~X X X~
"Okay, now you just stand right here, Shuck."
Shuck gave Cressidor Blan-Virgine an apprehensive look. He was a not-quite-fully-grown barghest, meaning that he could just barely rest his chin on the seven-year-old's head without stretching, with blazing red eyes and flames flicking along the tongue that lolled from his fanged, wolflike muzzle, but he had the instinct of any dog who realizes that he's probably not going to like what comes next.
Face intent, Cress pushed a stepladder up to her pet's side. She bit her lip as she considered having Shuck lie down, instead, but decided that this way was better, because she'd need to get to his belly and legs, too. Picking up the sack of flour, she started to climb. Unfortunately, she soon found that the sack was too big to handle while keeping her balance on the ladder. She tottered, gasping, and then dropped the sack so she could reach out to grab hold of Shuck. It was too late, though—she was already falling, and she squealed in fright as her hands flailed helplessly, missing everything.
The barghest's head whipped around and his massive jaws snapped shut with a speed that would put striking snakes to shame. Flour exploded everywhere when the sack burst open upon hitting the stone floor; Cress's apron did little good to keep her clothes clean. The apron did help in other ways, though, because Shuck had caught the strings between his teeth, holding Cress about a foot off the floor.
"May I ask what, precisely, is the meaning of this?"
Many a child has lamented the fact that his or her mother had a sixth sense, enabling them to show up just when it was too late to stay out of trouble but before it was possible to hide the evidence. Cress had two mothers, so she was completely out of luck.
"Shuck caught me when I fell, Mother!" Cress tried to accentuate the positive.
Amoretta Virgine walked into the pantry amid a settling cloud of flour. Shuck lowered Cress to the floor and bent his head to receive a congratulatory scratch behind the ears from the homunculus.
"Well, good for you, then, Shuck," she said. "I'm glad that you were there to protect Cress. Very good boy!"
He wagged his tail enthusiastically, sending flour swirling this way and that.
"Now, Cressidor, please tell me why it was you were climbing ladders while alone in the pantry and where all this flour came from?" Amoretta's tone of voice changed substantially. "Especially since I thought that you were looking forward to trick-or-treating, so you ought to be changing into your costume."
"I was getting into my costume!" Cress protested.
Amoretta didn't answer, but just gave her the dreaded "Mom stare."
"I was!" Cress insisted. She knew how her mother felt about lying, after all. She hadn't needed to experience it to believe that she'd get in a lot more trouble for lying about something than she would for doing it—almost regardless of what she'd actually done.
"Explain, then."
"I'm going to be a Valkyrie for Hallow's Eve, right?" They had made the costume, complete with winged armor, based on an illustration in a book about Lusatian pagan myths. "Well, in the stories, it says that Valkyries rode giant hoary wolves into battle. So I thought I'd ride Shuck! He's big enough to carry me, and he looks a lot like a wolf! But I didn't know what 'hoary' meant, so I looked it up, and it meant gray or white, and he's black. So, I wanted to cover him with flour, and then he'd be the right color!"
"So why didn't you ask one of the kitchen servants to help you with this, instead of trying to carry a sack that's too heavy for you to handle up a ladder?"
"I—"
"Because you knew that it was something you shouldn't be doing without asking Lillet or me first," Amoretta finished for her. "What if Shuck got scared, or went chasing after something, and you fell off him? Or if he thought you were in trouble and bit someone? He's only a puppy, after all. It's a lot to ask that he be on his best behavior all night, with all the strange sights and the noise and the people." She stroked the dog's flank gently. He was a bit more intelligent than a normal dog, and Amoretta didn't want him to think he was being criticized.
Cross hung her head.
"I'm sorry, Mother. I just thought it would be neat."
"I know, but you need to think things through, and listen when your conscience tells you that something's wrong. Now, you've wasted half a sack of good flour, made a mess, gotten Shuck and yourself all dusty, nearly hurt yourself, and are going to be late joining your friends for trick-or-treating."
"I'm really sorry. I'll clean it up!"
"No, you'll go upstairs and we'll see to getting you cleaned up and dressed so you don't miss trick-or-treating entirely. We'll have one of the kitchen-maids clean up here, and then tomorrow your punishment can be to do some of her work to make up for the time she spends cleaning up after you. I think there will be plenty of dishes for you to wash."
"Yes, Mother," Cress sighed.
"And in the meantime, you can think about how you're going to apologize to your pet."
"Apologize to Shuck? For what?"
Amoretta looked over at Shuck again.
"For making it so he has to have a bath right now, because I am not going to let him track flour all over the rugs."
Shuck ducked his head and whimpered again.
~X X X~
A/N: The title is a slang term for dressing up for a formal/fancy event...which is not quite the point of Halloween, but close enough for a gag story, methinks! Incidentally, for the physics-inclined among the readership, I'd like to point out that Shuck's flaming tongue is a matter of appearance only, not a source of heat unless he actually uses his fire breath...which is a good thing in a flour-saturated atmosphere.