//------------------------------// // Chapter 3: Iridaceae // Story: Arcana's Wrath // by oop //------------------------------// “Mom!” crackling, somewhat wavery, a voice arching out of a hallway within a hollowed home of a tree, graced the ears of the zebra hunched over a bubbling cauldron at the front of the house. “I am busy dear!” she turned her head, hooves still busy with the ladle before her, the movement of the water within captured and refracted in the countless bottles and shelves which seemed innumerably to line the walls, only broken by the single pump and subsequent pipes leading to the cauldron on which Zecora now worked “If you wish me an inquiry you will have to draw near!” The dark hallway yielded the clear sound of impatient grumbling, and then a dull blue light as the fungi within responded to the stimulus of breath in nearby. Stomping hoof steps could be followed by ear up the hallway until a much younger zebra, whose foggy purple eyes were narrowed in frustration, stood at the entrance. “I just wanted to know when dinner was,” she muttered, slouching visibly at the sight of the active cauldron “You know, assuming you ever finish that…” “Iris, when my work is finished I may aid in your plight,” said Zecora, eyes widening as the clear liquid, presumably water, coagulated into something more paste-like and somehow awkward looking. She cut her sentence short, ducking over to a shelf and procuring a bundle of carrots so yellow they looked as though they were plated in gold “But a customer has placed a very urgent request for a potion to help her see in the night.” She finished only after dropping the whole bunch into the stirring fervently. “Well great for people who can see,” said Iris, rolling her sightless eyes and walking over to the cauldron, clearly having memorized the terrain very effectively. She stood on her hind legs, still a good deal shorter than her mother even at twice height, and took a heavy whiff of the contents “You didn’t add enough wart of Tartarus, it needs to be four pinches to the ounce, but I think you’ve got almost a pound of carrots in there. The stuff’s still going to be chunky.” Zecora turned in mild surprise, then looked down, seeming to take some mental calculations “An astute observation,” she said, going over to what appeared to be a pepper grinder full of little red orbs “I would want the highest quality in a potion for our nation’s leader.” Iris perked up at this one “Celestia?” she asked, wondering if her ears, for the first time ever, had actually deceived her “Doesn’t she have royal alchemists up at the castle? Why in Equestria would she even be talking to you?” Zecora almost scoffed at this “For her usual chore she might look for another,” she said “But Golden Harvest’s special stock goes to no other. Besides, none is able to make potions with such skill as your mother.” “Says the one who just got helped by her own daughter,” said Iris, hiding a smirk “You’re not going to forget the crushed ruby are you? A high brow customer deserves the extra staying power. “Only a fake would make such a mistake,” said Zecora “But the carrots still need time to brew before the crystal powder is added to the stew.” She looked to her daughter now, feeling a gentle weight pass through her stomach. Iris had changed over the past few years and she wasn’t wholly sure it was for the better. As far as appearance she had grown in a way she had expected, keeping her own hair instead of following the styled tradition, as well as forsaking the customary golden adornment, something that entirely confused her. Perhaps the traditional garb would never appeal to her, it would clash poorly with her anyway and Zecora did admit the mostly black hair looked better falling across her back, the single white streak pleasantly offsetting. It wasn’t anything in her attire that worried her though, but the way she seemed to have come along in terms of thought. Since her birth she had been somewhat timid, afraid to cause harm inadvertently due to her handicap, but lately she seemed to have wholly moved past that. Blindness apparently wasn’t something she felt she had put up with, but something those around her had to accommodate. In her defense she had improved her mobility drastically to the point at which she had no qualms letting her roam the forest or even Ponyville on her own, but the fact remained she was still not fully capable and she worried about that, maybe a little more than she should. “Can I make the delivery?” Zecora’s reverie was broken by Iris, ears tilted in her direction which she had learned was the attention equivalent of ‘eyes on me’ “I’ve been to Canterlot before, remember? You could save some bits and I could finally get to go out you know?” Zecora did a double take at this, backing slowly away from the cauldron almost in shock “Iris,” she said “With your surroundings here you have developed an amity, I fear that should you make such an excursion it would be a calamity.” “Please?” Iris turned her voice into the desirous whine any parent would recognize in a heartbeat “I promise I’ll be super careful, Canterlot is only an hour by train! If I go in the morning I can be home by lunch! The books say that the city is super simple to navigate and everything. You, like, never let me out of the house!” “There are reasons I keep you child of mine,” said Zecora, clanking across the cerulean glow of the cauldron “On that occasion when you went to get herbs…” “I came back just fine,” Iris snapped, her eyes narrowing, unfocused, in a vague “Shook up, maybe, a little frightened, yes, but I was alright wasn’t I? Shadow and his friends helped me a lot…” she trailed off slightly towards the end, a singular filly with a fiery attitude remembered as the exception to this statement... Zecora, for her part, was still reeling from her daughter’s oddly antagonistic attitude. It was the first time in years they had spoken of the incident which precipitated her heightened sense of protectiveness, and the first time ever she was so shameless to talk about it. Ultimately she found herself shocked into a state of compliance. “I shall take it into consideration,” she said in a quiet tone, “For now, some extra chores may help your situation…” Iris felt a little excitement flutter in her chest, this was further than she had ever been able to talk her mother into so far as freedoms ventured. There was an odd lack of victorious emotions in her mind, yet the thrill that she might be exploring was phenomenal. “Th-thank you mother,” she stammered, a little other previous shyness showing through in the stammer of her voice. “Will you be aiding me in the potions completion?” Zecora asked, now moving towards the aforementioned ruby dust “Or will you be working downstairs with that odd secretion?” “It’s puffer fish oil,” said Iris, a smile slipping back to her face “I got it in town from the traveler who gets you some of your rarer stuff. I’ve got kind of a crazy idea…” The matter was left there, Zecora’s attention going back to the brew as Iris went back down the hall, soft patches of moss coming in contact with her hooves around the solid wooden surfaces. There was a smell of damp about the hall, and that of the fungus she was told illuminated the place. It didn’t matter to her much, and her own small chamber on the left had none of the stuff, she hated the smell anyway, but even here the air tasted damp and slightly mildew from them. Well it wasn’t as though they had a lot of alternatives without electric lines coming out this far, so she could forgive her mother for that much. Her room was nice enough to atone for such simple sins anyway, a soft bed with spider’s silk sheets, a beginner’s cauldron tucked away in the corner atop a little pile of charcoal over which it could be hung. Most of her current experiments, though, required a little more finesse. Somewhat begrudgingly Zecora had also gotten her a series of tubes and glass bottles used in the finer potion-craft. Here she seated herself and started work with a few vials, water filled to serve as a classic sight, though she desperately wished for other liquids with which to test. Her mother would consider straying from the classic ten potion medium without medical necessity to be a little dicey, but Iris loved to test. Iris’ tail swished slightly as she began the concoction, cranking a lever to turn the strainer at the top of her assembled sequence and agitate the spores of a tram of Tartarus Warts. Boiling this, along with some more purified puffer fish oil would hopefully produce a newer effect completely apart from the classics. As she worked with the bottles and assorted tubes she began to hum a sweet little tune, quiet yet somehow heroic in suggestion. Lightning, she supposed, might be able to provide some lyrics for it. She mentally cursed the name again, resigning to come up with something all on her own to spite the very memory. I know that my time is coming soon The time comes of the harvest moon As time leaves a wear on every thought This is the future that we have wrought She had begun the ditty as something more melodious than what it ended with, and the end result had come out as more of a witching chant than anything else. The thought prompted a giggle, while it certainly wouldn’t be a renowned melody it was passable, at least somewhat, maybe? She shrugged it off, she couldn’t write songs worth a damn and she knew it. Oh well, at least with the vaguely chartreuse potion bubbling before her eyes her personal talent would never be called directly into question. She smiled, work was progressing smoothly, by the end of the day she could hope to have a brand new potion. But now the darn song was stuck in her head…