There are those who are blessed and cursed with exemplary talent in their chosen field, even beyond the gifts granted to them by their cutie marks. Blessed, for they are capable of feats nopony else could ever hope to match. Cursed, for if they are to retain the capacity to perform those feats, they must do so whenever they are challenged to do so.
Berry Punch was one such pony, and the latest challenge set before her was truly one she could not reject.
"You want me. To ferment. A typewriter."
No matter how much she wanted to.
The one who had posed that challenge looked furtively about the bar, though they were the only two in it at this early hour. "Look, I have made a lot of enemies very quickly, and I need to destroy the evidence as quickly as throughly as possible."
"Featherweight, you're eleven years old. You shouldn't even be here. Why in the name of Celestia's left... wing did you come to a brewer to deal with this?"
Featherweight fidgeted, nearly getting himself airborne through his nervous flapping. "Uncle Bulk said you're good at helping ponies forget their troubles."
Berry held back her sigh. "That's true, but it's usually through alcohol. Made from grains or fruit or some other form of plants."
"But..." Featherweight bit his lower lip, his buck teeth digging in as his eyes watered.
Berry hesitated herself. She could feel the eye of destiny upon her, the weight of obligation resting heavy on her withers, an encumbrance that no amount of earth pony strength could help her support.
Freaking mead of poetry, she thought to herself. That was the last time she took a commission from an elk god. Or at least the last time she'd sample the results. She shook her head and tried to scrape the taste of sour honey off her tongue. "Okay, I'll give it my best shot, but I can't promise anything."
Featherweight zipped up and wrapped his forelegs around her neck, hanging light as a daisy chain. "Thanks, Ms. Punch."
"Don't thank me yet, kid."
"Oh, and if Diamond Tiara asks, I was never here."
"And that," Berry concluded, "is how tonight's special was made."
Twilight gulped. "Oh. Joy." She'd never been much of a drinker, but since her ascension, her earth-enhanced constitution and pegasus metabolism had made her the ideal test subject for Berry's stranger experiments in applied biochemistry.
At least, that was how Twilight liked to think of it. Though all the ethanol molecule diagrams in Equestria weren't enough to keep her from thinking twice about downing the shot laid before her. It was the exact shade of her preferred brand of ink, had the same earthy smell laced with an added alcoholic sting, and occassionally released a tiny bubble with a grudging "glurp."
"C'mon," said Berry. "If the ghost pepper schnapps didn't kill you, this probably won't."
Twilight scowled at the memory. "I was belching up ectoplasm for a week."
"And this week you could save a fortune on quills. What have you got to lose?"
"Do you actually want me to answer that?"
"No." Berry pushed the glass closer.
Twilight rolled her eyes, grabbed the glass with a wing—she'd learned not to expose Berry's experiments to magic—and slung it back.
"And that, class, is how the dark alicorn Courier Nova came to be."