Private I Put On My Robe and Wizard Hat

Even before moving to the states, he was already aware that Halloween was a thing in America. Four years of trick-or-treating, pranks, and scary movies later, October 31st proved it to be the best day of the year and the only American holiday he cared about. Of course it would be different on Manta Carlos, nearly everything was, but that didn’t stop him from throwing together a costume.

Vampires, demons, and werewolves were obviously out of the picture, plus no one got any pop culture references. So he settled on being a relatively inoffensive scarecrow. His friend Rowan worked at a farm so it was easy to get the farmer clothes and hay needed. Rhett taped bunches of hay to the edges of his clothes and painted some stitches on his face. It was low effort, but got the point across.

More time was spent on the apology gift, or actually costume. The freak out from a week back at the community center was eating him up inside. It wasn’t Mal’s fault that him and Avi acted the way they did, and she should at least know that. A few days after what happened, Rhett came to the reasonable conclusion that he should present her a wizard hat as an apology. She mentioned how her horns wouldn’t fit, which was an easy fix if he could actually remember where her horns were. He printed a skeleton similar to another project of his, it was full of holes that could adjust with shape while keeping the cone’s shape. Way less time was spent on the felt cover with crudely drawn stars.

It didn’t take long for Rhett to spot Mal, she was pretty hard to miss with her bright red skin. “ Mal! ” He shouted across the courtyard then rushed towards her, doing the closest thing he could to run with the hat tucked under his arm.

“ Sorry about earlier.” Rhett scratched his straw hat with an apprehensive smile and handed her the wizard hat he made. “ Here’s a wizard hat, to make up for it.”
@Abbysaurus

“ Yeah! How else would your horns fit?” Rhett replied back with a whole lot of enthusiasm. Apologies were always awkward, there was no way around that, but that didn’t mean they had to be empty.

“ Didn’t know where or how big your horns were, so I made the inside adjustable. You know those balls that’s all spiky can change sizes. Er... Hoberman spheres, but I’ve never heard anyone call them that. Anyways, this works sort of like that.” He rambled on. With both hands now free Rhett waved them around as he explained and bits of hay fell from his sleeves. “ Anyways, there’s a bunch of circles inside and they can expand or shrink so that it fits alright.”

“ Now you can make deals as a wizard.” He joked. “ That or a very cool halloween costume. ”

“ Thanks! It was pretty easy to make.” Rhett waited around awkwardly while she took longer than expected to put on the hat. With the cover on, it was hard to tell what was going on underneath, but it seemed like a struggle. It was probably his fault for basing the hat on another project for his legs which definitely wasn’t meant to go on a head. So of course it took ages for it to line up to her horns, but when it finally did he grinned and gave two thumbs up. “ Nice!”

“ Anyways, I hope you didn’t take that thing that happened last week personally. It’s not your fault me and Avi flipped out like that. Seriously, don’t think we’re freaked out by you.”

" Yeah, that's pretty tricky." Rhett said. " I guess it really depends on where you're from. If it's the narrow reality like me, most people around here would be considered super weird. I guess that goes even if you didn't have red skin or horns. "

" Your other form probably isn't that scary to most people. Everyone is way more chill here. I think it's just a normie thing." He shrugged. " It just reminded us of something else and I guess that's why we acted the way we did."

“ You know what? Give me a month. I’ll be super chill about it by then, you won’t even have to avoid it.” Rhett shot a finger gun at Mal. “ A month is a pretty long time to get it together. I’ll sign a contract on it if I have to.”

“ It’s embarrassing I’m like this anyways.” He scratched his head. There was a time not so long ago where pretty much nothing fazed him, last halloween he was watching slasher flicks and exploring abandoned buildings. “ Unless it’s one of those things I can use one of your magic wishes for, I’ll figure something out. I’ll watch more movies or something, that’s kind of what Halloween is for anyways.”