Pumpkin, Spice, and Everything Nice

Briar's grin brightened at Talyssa's excitement at the idea, but had to giggle softly when her daughter questioned how to carve a pumpkin. It felt like such a pup-like thing to be so excited about something that she had no idea how to do. "Go ahead and pick out your favorite one. I'll be right back with some tools." With one quick kiss to Talyssa's cheek she turned and trotted back into the castle, making her way toward the kitchen to get a couple of knives—one larger and one smaller—and a couple of bowls. She returned quickly to see which pumpkin her daughter had settled on. No matter which one she picked she gave Talyssa an equally pleased grin and a nod all the same. "Very good choice!" she said approvingly before grasping the larger knife carefully between her teeth and using it to cut the pumpkin free of its vine.

"Lets take this over here so we have more room to work," she said, passing off the light weight wooden bowls to the little pup to carry while she rolled the pumpkin over to a grassy patch and then went back in a second trip for the knives. "So first we need to cut open a place to get to the inside!" she said with a smile, tapping the top of the pumpkin. "I'll handle that part this time, okay? I wouldn't want you accidentally getting hurt on the knife." She made pretty quick work of cutting a hole around the top of the pumpkin and soon she pulled the new lid free by the pumpkin's stem. Tipping the pumpkin over so that Talyssa could reach she said, "Now we have to get all this gooey, stringy stuff out. Think you can handle that part?" She giggled and let her daughter get to work on the more fun, messy task of the project, scooping up the globs of pumpkin insides as they were pulled out onto the ground so that she could load them up in the bowls.

With that all done and the pumpkin prepped for carving, she sat it back on it's base and get the smaller knife at the ready. "Now the really fun part! We can make whatever kind of design you want on the front. We could make a face, a pattern, a flower, some flames... whatever you feel like!" Smiling, she pulled Talyssa closer to sit the little girl between her front paws with the pumpkin in front of them. She kept a hold of the knife, but let Talyssa guide her movements, following her daughter's lead to carve out a design into the surface of the pumpkin.

"Briar Carpathius"