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“Get in loser, we’re going spooking!”
To say that Cleo had been startled was to massively understate just how much the banging on her door had scared her, and she was a little glad that the only person that would have heard the noise of fear she’d just made was the one that caused it.
It was late at night, she thought she would be settling in to sleep, but instead she was opening a heavy oak door to see a laughing Scotsman in a pointy hat. She growled, and he only seemed to laugh harder.
“Did I scare you?” He asked, wiping a fake tear from his eye, and Cleo rolled her eyes as dramatically as she could.
“Not at all. I’ve half a mind to tell you to get lost and leave you to fend for yourself, but I suppose I should invite you in.”
“Nope, you should put some armour on, we’re heading out together.” Scott replied, composing himself enough to put his plan to her. “I want to prank the Southerner’s, call it revenge for trying to steal the enchanting table from Pearl and I. We killed some Witches in a cave and I grabbed their hats: while it’s dark I reckon they won’t be able to tell the difference.”
“You’re redeeming yourself.” Cleo began, stepping aside and nodding her head to let Scott in. She didn’t exactly want him to die while she was putting her chestplate on. “But what’s to stop them from killing us if they think we’re mobs?”
“We’ll shout at them if they shoot at us, and if they come at us with an axe or sword they should be able to see our faces by the time they get close.”
“Oh you’ve really thought this out, so the plan is to terrify them into attacking us and then hoping they aren’t completely consumed by that terror so they realise that we aren’t there to kill them?”
“Exactly! What could go wrong?” Scott asked, a charming smile on his face, and Cleo sighed as she fastened her chestplate over her shirt.
“I don’t know which of us is stupider: you for coming up with this or me for following you.”
“That’s the spirit!” Scott replied, and Cleo felt the fabric rim of a hat being placed firmly atop her head. She tried not to think too hard about where it had been before - or the fact that Scott and Pearl had allegedly killed the last person to be wearing it - and instead looked back to Scott.
“Do I look half as stupid as you?”
“You wish you looked half as good as me.” Scott laughed, deliberately twisting her words, and with that the two left the castle behind. It was a long walk from the castle to the Southerners, but it was one filled with good conversation and less fighting than expected. Scott never seemed to have a shortage of arrows, but the less monsters they came across the less chance they had of getting into any real trouble.
Like most structures in the world, the towers were made of cobblestone: hardly pleasing to the eye but good enough to work as defenses when the worst unfolded. Tonight wasn’t time to think about the worst, though, tonight was time to have some fun.
“Ready?” Scott asked, pulling his hat down just a little further to try and hide his blue hair.
“As I’ll ever be.” Cleo replied, following suit, and the easy conversation that had flowed before came to an end as they crept slowly forward in silence. The closer they got to the towers, the more they could hear from the group. It sounded like Grian and Jimmy were awake and keeping watch, though if the crackling fire and the stories being shared were anything to go by they clearly weren’t paying that much attention.
“--and he didn’t even try to kill me! I’d have thought Scar would--”
“Wait, Grian.” Jimmy cut the man off and Cleo and Scott stopped where they were. “Did you hear that?”
“Hear wh--”
“Shh!” Jimmy insisted, a hand reaching over to cover Grian’s mouth entirely even though he’d been the one to ask the question. “I swear I heard something. Hello? Is someone out there?”
Cleo bit down on her bottom lip to keep herself from laughing when she heard Grian mumbling incoherently against Jimmy’s palm, but it became apparent that silence was no longer their modus operandi as Scott let out an uncharacteristically evil giggle. In fact, if she hadn’t known it was him making the noise, she would have been fooled by it.
“Witch, there’s a Witch, I heard it.” Jimmy said, his voice rising an octave in panic. Cleo breathed in through her nose before copying the sound that Scott had made and she watched as the pair got to their feet. “Two! Do you have your spyglass? We need to find them!”
“Here, should I wake the others?” Grian asked, his spyglass thrusted toward Jimmy and his hand reaching for his sword.
“I don’t think so? If we can get them before they register us we might be able to take them.”
With some semblance of a plan between them the two men part ways - Jimmy searching the horizon with the spyglass and Grian prowling in the dark with a sparkling diamond blade. Cleo let out another giggle, watching as Scott moved away from her to try and confuse the pair as they tried to figure out what direction to focus their efforts in. Jimmy was looking in her direction and she ducked, keeping herself hidden behind bushes when she heard the smashing of glass.
“G? Are you okay?”
“I think so? The break was near me but I don’t feel any different.”
Cleo giggled, she heard Scott giggle from a distance, and Grian raised his voice.
“You’ve got until the count of three to show yourselves and then I’m just going to start shooting.”
“Are you trying to negotiate with Witches?!”
“It might work! I’d rather not waste the arrows if--”
“BOO!”
Scott jumped from the bushes, and the screams that Jimmy and Grian let out echoed around the mountains and left Cleo’s ears ringing painfully. The sword and spyglass were dropped, the two took uncertain steps backward and fell onto soft grass, and Scott cackled as he pulled the hat from his head.
“Oh my God, you should have seen the look on your faces!” He declared. “That was priceless! I will never forget that!”
The game was up, but Scott hadn’t mentioned his partner in crime yet. Cleo elected to stay hidden and stay quiet - she could get them a second time. And now that they had let out such a loud scream she could hear footsteps from the other towers.
“Is everything okay?” Martyn called.
“I heard screaming!” Impulse added.
“Scott?” Mumbo asked. “What on Earth are you doing here?”
“Scaring us red!” Jimmy replied, taking in a breath to calm himself as he and Grian got to their feet, Scott continued laughing, and the three other men stared with concerned expressions. “We’re fine.”
“Speak for yourself, my buttocks are going to be bruised for days.” Grian said, dusting himself off. “Where’d you even get that hat from?”
As they descended into conversation and began to relax, they let their guard down. Clearly they’d forgotten about the second source of sounds - clearly they thought in such a large group they were invincible.
Cleo waited for another beat, before jumping out of the shrubbery herself.
“Argh!” She yelled, and if Scott’s initial cry had gotten a good reaction then hers was outstanding.
Grian, already complaining of bruising, was sent back to the ground on his behind once more. Jimmy managed to remain standing this time but his arms came up as if he was going to hit whatever had made the noise. Impulse turned to run, but stopped once he realised what had happened. The best response, however, was Martyn. He leapt from the ground and managed to land in Mumbo’s arms, sending the two crashing to the floor with Mumbo letting out a sudden breath of air as his chess was compressed between the ground and the final member of their crew.
“Cleo! You are fantastic!” Scott whooped. “Girlbossing the Southerner’s into terrified submission, pop off Queen!”
“Cleo!” Jimmy gasped, exaggerating by placing a hand over his chest. “How could you?”
“Very easily actually, Scott almost broke down my door asking me to come along with him.” She said, approaching the group as they began to regain their composure. “And he’s not getting this hat back, I will be needing it in the future for very important, not-prank related things.”
“Good, because you won’t be catching us off-gu-aha-rd again!” Grian said, his reply met by groans of his peers and a shout of “the jar, right now!” from Mumbo. There were no hard feelings after their little prank - something that in a game of life and death Cleo was relieved about - but she knew she’d need to sleep with one eye open to make sure they didn’t get her back.
Maybe, instead, she could convince them to retaliate against Scott with her.