Cooking is an endless wasteland.
A wasteland dotted with flavors both delicious and disgusting.
I plan to walk the long and arduous path to become the best.
My name is Azikiwe, and by the time I’m a father, I’ll be world renowned as the most celebrated creator of food on the planet.
Vegetables from across the lands, herbs from the highest mountains, spices from the rarest cultures, even meat from the most dangerous animals will be my playthings!
No one can stop me on my journey to the pinnacle of-
“-zikiwe?! Stop gathering clouds and join us back in class,” a voice scolded and the sound of a snap of pinion feathers against his desk.
He snapped back to reality with a shake of his head and brought his eyes to focus on the teal pegasus mare standing beside his desk with a frown he’d grown to expect, while his classmates chuckled and giggled at his expense. Her tired look told of her career stress and her wings were off her sides and angled in the way that showed she was frustrated. It didn't bode well for him at the moment.
Kiwe ran his hoof through his black and white striped mane and it fell to outline his face. In a slightly zebra accent he spoke softly. “Y-yes, Miss Caramel. I’ll pay attention. I apologize, I was distracted again.”
“Yes, we could all tell. Now, since you think living in your imagination is so much more interesting, Mister Azikiwe," the whole class seemed to giggle at his full name. Miss Caramel rolled her eyes. "Mister Kiwe, perhaps you’d like to answer the question on the board?”
“Kiwi,” a colt whispered loudly at him from somewhere, Miss Caramel gave a stern look past Kiwe, but he was distracted at the moment.
He looked past the colt sitting in front of him and his spiky mane to see a complicated math problem across the board. His ears drooped, and he fought the urge to pout when he glanced to his side at his teacher. “I, don’t know the answer. I wasn’t paying enough attention,” he admitted somberly.
“Stay here for recess, young colt, and I’ll go over it with you,” she said more kindly. The class of foals ooo’d at his expense as the teacher turned and trotted ahead to the front of the class. “Anypony else have an idea of the answer?”
A filly answered while he looked at his blank page that should have been full of scrawled notes on the topic.
“4x is less than 6y, Miss Caramel,” Mist replied snidely. He didn’t have to see her to know she was looking smugly at him, as were probably half a dozen others, at least.
“Very good, Mist, now when we take this next problem I’d like you to work on the math yourselves and we’ll see how well you’ve taken to the process.”
“Yes, Miss Caramel,” the class chimed in unison, save for one colt’s voice.
*
The class emptied quickly into the halls for their first recess while a lone colt stayed at his desk until only he and the teacher remained. She was using a cloth held in her wing to clear the board when he got up and sulked his way to her.
“Miss Caramel, I apologize I was gathering clouds in class again,” Kiwe said as he reached a comfortable distance to stop.
She didn’t answer and continued to clean the board while he waited, standing still. His mind began to wander as she finished and clapped her wings together, returning him from his beginning daydream. She turned and smiled softly.
“Kiwe, I didn’t mean to come at you so hard during class and I’ll apologize when the students return. However, we’ve had this conversation so many times that I’m almost at a loss on what to do.”
He looked down in shame for a second until her wing lifted his chin and his eyes met hers. “You have great potential and I know your dream is a passion. You can become a great cook, but you need to have education to go along with your dream. If you can’t handle school at your age, what kind of cutie mark might you get instead?”
He pouted as she took her wing from his chin. “I want to cook and be the best chef in the world, Miss Caramel. My cutie mark isn’t going to change that,” he paused, “but I understand what you’re saying. I don’t know why I’m always drifting off and casting sparks, but mom and dad have been seeking help for me.”
She smiled widely at him. “Casting sparks, gathering clouds, digging holes, isn’t it interesting how each tribe has made their euphemisms for not paying attention? I think that’s a good way to make up for drifting away in class,” his eyes widened at the implication and what she was about to say. “Write me a one thousand word essay on pony euphemisms, due Friday. Now, about the portion of class you missed, please gather a pencil and paper then take Tree’s seat at the front of the class until recess is over.”
He quickly returned to his desk and gathered his blank page from the start of the math lecture and a pencil, then took the assigned seat. “This is algebra, and you will use it every day in your adult life,” she began as he placed the tip of the pencil to the blank paper.
*
“So,” Mist began in a nasally mocking tone as she followed Kiwe after class into the hallway, “a certain somezony still can’t keep his mind on task? Just digging holes during class isn't going to get you anything when you grow up unless you start farming, Kiwi," she tittered a laugh and her friends' laughter only goaded her on. "Or whatever a half-stripe like you would do. What if his cutie mark is a striped brain?”
Her herd of friends giggled at him. “Yeah, and no one likes it, like him.”
Another round of giggles followed as he made his way to his locker and another filly piped in. “Good one, Silver Plate. I think Kiwi’s destined to have his head buried in the ground like an ostrich because he's useless to two races, and should just hide.”
Mist tittered haughtily. “That was gold! Watch out, I heard his kind worships gold so he might try to steal your joke.” There were scattered giggles at Mist’s last joke as he reached his locker and used his mouth to open the lock and heard another snide remark. “He can’t even use magic yet, and at his age? Maybe little Kiwi can't?! Maybe he won’t even-”
He turned to glare at Mist. “Ostriches don’t bury their heads, that’s false, just like your eyelashes.”
The herd of fillies fell silent as they looked at Mist, who returned the glare. “At least I have my cutie mark.”
“Yes, you do. And when I get mine I won’t brag about it because I’ll have something actually interesting happening in my life and ponies that care about me to share it with,” he replied flatly.
The fillies looked anywhere but at Mist when she looked back at them for support. “C’mon girls, we’ve got better things to do than hang around this all day,” she gestured to Kiwe with a dismissive wave of a forehoof and a flick of her mane before she lifted her snout and walked away.
He turned back to his locker and used his magic to grab his saddlebags from the hook in the back. The faint yellow glow of his magic enveloped it and flickered out before it could be lifted high enough to fall free. He stared at his failed attempt at the most basic spell when a light purple aura lifted and dropped the saddlebags.
He looked over his shoulder at one of the fillies in Mist’s herd of friends, Violet Melody, and noted she was smiling at him again, slightly in an apologetic manner, even as her horn’s light faded. “Thanks,” he managed before she turned and quickly left to catch up to her friends before they noticed what she’d done.
He watched her trot away, talking to one of the other three fillies in the group without looking back before he donned his bags and placed his notebook inside and thought on the fact that she was the only one that never picked on him out of that group. “Great days ahead,” he said to himself as he closed his locker with a slam.
Stepping outside, Kiwe was awash in the early summer heatwave that typically passed through Manehattan. It was early for the season, but he endured as he walked down the steps and turned left on a routine path while avoiding most of the other school children as he made his way into the hustle of the city itself.
A colt could easily get lost in the crowd, pushed around, stepped on, even pickpocketed and no pony would care, including him. With sadness, he focused on the cement under hoof until it turned to polished marble and his mood brightened immediately. He glanced ahead at the black and white tiled floor of the malt shop as he walked in.
The chilled air, background conversations, and especially scents perked him right up as he took a seat by the counter. “Hey, Malty, can I get the usual?”
The earth pony mare behind the counter smiled at him. “Long day again?”
“Yes, however it’s just the same stuff though,” he brushed his forelocks from his face as he gave a weak smile.
She nodded quickly. “Yeah, I hear that. Can’t be easy being a colt in the big city these days, but I love your accent and I wager other fillies do, too,” she reached under the counter and pulled out a perfectly prepared chocolate strawberry malt that matched her coat in darkness. “This should help,” she winked as she slid it to him, “with your mood, anyway.”
He grinned and took it in his hooves, ignoring the question that always plagued his mind as to how she’d have his malts ready under the counter every day he’d show up. He took the straw she offered in her mouth in his magic and placed it into the treat before starting the struggle of slurping the thick cold dessert into his mouth.
Malty had moved on to other customers and he noticed she would reach under the counter to give them what they’d asked for and they exchanged bits right away each time. His tail swished behind him on the floor as he leaned back to inhale some fresh air to his parched lungs when a sharp pain from his behind made him yelp loudly.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, Kiwe. I wasn’t watching where I was going.”
He looked back to see Violet through his teary eyes. “I-it’s okay, it was an accident,” he dismissed her and blinked his eyes clear. She sat next to him and used her magic to take a napkin from the dispenser on the counter two seats away and offer it to him.
“Here, for your eyes. You got some dust in them,” Violet offered a comforting smile.
He took the offered folded paper and dabbed his eyes quickly. “Thanks, stupid dust,” he smiled weakly. “Thanks for saying my name right,” he said quietly, “I was just having a chocolate strawberry malt, want some?”
Violet looked at the treat and shook her head. “Sorry, but I don’t like those flavors together. I prefer just strawberry, in a shake.”
He nodded and turned back to his drink. “Thanks for earlier, at school. Where’s the rest of her herd?”
“They went to Mist’s house to help her with her eyelashes and makeup. I said I had to go home to feed my cat,” she snickered and leaned closer to him. “I don’t have a cat. I just didn’t want to be around them tonight, but I didn’t expect to bump into you here,” she leaned back, “or step onto you here.”
He snorted in humor. “Yeah, that really hurt. But it’s okay; it’s better than the rest of the day.”
She cocked her head. “How is having your tail stepped on better than the rest of your day? Class wasn’t that bad, was it?”
He looked intently at his glass and inhaled his lungs full of air as he began.
“I got scolded, laughed at, teased, mocked, missed recess, given a one-thousand-word essay, had to sit through a math lecture, and then had to hold going to the toilets until class was out, after which the biggest meanie tortured me. I stepped out into the hottest day of the year, so far, without any water in my tummy and then somepony told me to ‘go back where I came from’ because I walked under them cuz they were blocking the street," he grumbled and frowned as he recited his day growing slightly louder with each example as he inhaled again. "All because I started casting sparks in class and got caught. So yeah, having my tail stepped on is kinda kind compared to all tha-” he went quiet as Violet wrapped her forelegs around him in a hug.
“It’ll get better. My dad always says that when you have a bad day, one good thing will happen that will make it all better,” she said with one final squeeze before ending it.
He stared at her for a couple seconds before he spoke without his mind to filter the words. “Yeah, better. Hot outside. Drink?” Quickly turning to his straw, he sucked and was finally rewarded by the flavors dancing on his tongue, cooling it, wettening his palate, and kick-starting his brain again. “Ahhh,” he exhaled happily, “that’s good stuff.”
“You know, Kiwe, Mist is mean to you, but she’s kinda intimidated, too.”
He looked at her and blinked twice. “Huh?”
She touched her hooves together anxiously. “You’re the only one that’s ever talked back to her in the two years I’ve known her and she doesn’t know what to say, that’s why she always leaves when you get the better of her.”
Kiwe thought for a moment. “My parents would approve of that, then,” he said taking another sip.
“I want one, too. Miss Malty, can I have a strawberry shake, please?” Violet waved a hoof at the mare as she served a customer their banana split.
“One strawberry shake for the strawberry mare,” Malty called as she reached under the counter and produced a strawberry shake and walked it down the counter to the filly. “Seven bits.”
“Got it,” she replied and placed the bits on the counter with her magic before closing her saddlebags with a snap.
“That looks good, too,” Kiwe said as he looked at the frosty glass colored pink from the shake within.
“Wanna taste?” He looked at her and the offered shake before nodding, taking a straw from the straw holder on the counter, and placing it in. Kiwe then took a sip, quickly realizing that her shake was firmer than his malt. “Here, it’s mine, so I’ll get it started.” She took the drink and turned the straw to her lips and began the task of trying to move the liquid to her waiting tongue.
Kiwe couldn’t help but stare intently, ears perked, as she performed the task. He watched the light pink fluid make its way up the straw slowly until it disappeared into her lips, which curled up quickly as she hummed to herself and looked at him. “Got it! Here, it’s really yummy.”
He scooted closer to her as she turned the straw to him and she watched as he took a struggling sip, smiling as well once he tasted it. “It’s really pretty, nice! It’s pretty nice,” he amended. His ear swiveled at the sound of Malty’s breathy chuckle when she passed by them to serve other customers from her side of the counter. “Uh, but I kinda like mine still, too. Sure you don’t wanna try some?” he asked expectantly, with a hint of hope that was dashed when she made a face that matched her distaste for his offer.
“I’m really not a fan of chocolates, but thank you for the offer,” Violet said as she sipped more of her drink.
He took note of that and nodded, scooting back to his spot and returning to his drink. He slurped and tasted it, then hummed questioningly. “Huh, it’s actually not as good as yours.”
She giggled and smiled with the straw in her lips, humming agreement while looking aside at his drink. "Mmm-hmm."
“Malty, can I change my malt to a strawberry banana shake?” Violet’s eyes widened and her ears perked as she let the straw go, looking at him. “What? Did I do something bad?” he asked cautiously as she gazed at him in awe.
“No,” Violet replied, “I love bananas but never thought together with strawberries. Can I have a taste of yours?”
The world seemed to focus into a tunnel as everything besides her faded away, and a frosty shake was placed beside his chocolate strawberry treat that he'd loved until those short minutes with the red filly beside him.
He passed the shake to her and she bypassed the straw for a plastic spoon, taking it to the top of the treat. “I’ll just try a bit, so if I don’t like it…”
She spooned herself the tip and brought it quickly to her lips. Her eyes widened and she quickly scooped a larger one for herself, the third was just as large but she offered it to Kiwe by forcing him to take the spoon and ice cream on it quickly before she took the forth for herself.
She giggled giddily and scooted beside him, passing him the spoon and taking a new one for herself. “This’ the best thing I’ve ever tasted, how’d you think to come up with something so amazing?”
He looked at the menu on the wall and at the various options, easily finding strawberry-banana option. “I guess I’m just a natural at combining things,” he said softly while looking at her.
“Oh, Sweet Celestia, you should be a chef,” she offered and didn’t see as his smile grew to a grin. The sound of bits rattling on the counter and a short 'bye' was the last thing Violet heard of him as he cantered from his seat on the floor and out onto the busy sidewalk, disappearing into the crowd. She shrugged as she returned to the dessert as Malty came to collect her money.
“So, never heard of strawberry banana?” Malty asked.
“I have it every week, but I knew he needed something nice to happen today, so I kinda fibbed. You’re not upset, are you?”
The mare laughed loudly. “Filly, you made his month with that.”
“Oh, good then. And I get a free shake,” Violet rocked her head side to side with pride, “double goodness.”
"So," Malty leaned over the counter and asked softly, "do you like him?"
"Huh? Not really. He's kinda weird and quiet and casts sparks a lot, but he's not a bad colt. So, I guess he's okay," she shrugged to the mare.
"No, I mean; do you like him?"
Violet sneered and recoiled. "Gross! He's a colt, and that's totally weird to like a friend that way," she paused, "I mean he's not a friend. I mean he kinda is, but it's, complicated," she stammered and turned her focus to her shake.
"Indeed. I'll keep an eye open for any fillies that do like him and make sure they know he's available." She flinched as a piece of banana flew out of Violet's mouth at her.
"What?! No, d-don't! I mean, uh, he might think it's gross, too. Right?"
Malty smirked slyly. "Uh-huh, you think so? Well, I'll just have to wait, then. Enjoy the shake he bought you and call if you need anything else, okay?"
"O-okay, Miss Malty."
*
Kiwe walked into the open door of his apartment complex with a bounce in his step, climbed the stairs quickly, and didn't trip once while his mind raced through recipes to try. He finally reached his floor and trotted down the hall to his small home.
Opening the door, he turned his head as he entered and bit the girth strap on his bags, yanking it just right to let it slide loose from his body dropping haphazardly beside the door with a slight kick to send it to the wall and out of the way.
"Mother, dad, I'm home.” He entered the living room and stopped as he saw his mother sitting oddly with her hindlegs crossed and her back vertical. Her forelegs extended to her sides and her hooves, frogs up. He heard his father quickly coming down the hall and peeked around the corner at him.
“Kiwe! You mother’s meditating and is going to have some training with you after she’s done. I was hoping to catch you when you came in,” he said with a slight but awkward smile, “but you’re early so,” he entered full view and moved to his wife. “Nangila, dearest. Our son is home,” he said as he placed a hoof on her black and white foreleg.
With deftness that defied common understanding, the mare moved and hooked her fetlock around his golden brown leg and bounded over him, taking him off balance and when she landed on her hind legs, standing tall he stumbled to the same stance.
“Ah, you may not be a zebra by birth like our son, but you are learning the skills of one,” Kiwe’s mother said with an exotic accent as she stared her husband down.
“Darling, it’s our son’s time with your teachings,” he said in a flatter tone as he held his posture by moving his tail slightly. He thrust a foreleg out and Nangila jerked to the side and grabbed his foreleg in her forehooves with a spin and sent him tumbling to the floor with his own momentum.
He sighed and got to his hooves and bowed to his wife who landed on her four hooves and bowed to him in return in a fluid motion. “You’re holding back for his sake, dear husband, but you should show him what you have learned so he knows what to aspire to.”
Kiwe’s father smirked. “I like to watch you two train and I can’t do that if I’m dying from exhaustion and thirst before you are.”
She smiled to him and looked at Kiwe. “Are you ready, our son?”
Kiwe rolled his eyes and ran his hoof through his black and white mane. The unruly strands moved, outlining his face. “Mom, I wanna cook right now. I have inspiration and want to try it out!”
“Oh, my, my, my. Our son,” the zebra mare smirked knowingly, “I have seen that look before, you have inspiration... from a girl?”
The colt blushed and averted his eyes. “She’s not a filly. I mean she is, but she’s not like that to me. Or me to her. Ugh, stop looking at me like that, mother!” he stomped a hoof on the carpeted floor and both his parents’ knowing smirks turned to grins.
“If you do not wish to train in the art of physical skill, then perhaps maintaining your magic through strong will?”
Kiwe brought a forehoof to his horn and tapped it. After a couple more taps and deep thought he looked into his mother’s amethyst eyes with a short exhale. “Fighting, I guess.”
Nangila frowned briefly and his father took a step away as she scolded their son. “Child, our son, the physical portion of your training is not for combat or to be the victor, but as a way to bind the mind and body into one so you may find peace within. You have been told this before; that what you learn is not to settle a score.”
Kiwe snickered and his mother took a confused expression. “Mother, you rhymed again.”
She lifted her snout into the air. “I have done no such thing.”
“Really?” Kiwe challenged with a wiggle of his eyebrows.
“A rhyme is like how one sings… and I did not do it.”
“You did rhyme, dearest.” Nangila shot him a disapproving look and he backed away. “I love you more than the stars,” he said with love in his eyes and perked ears.
She snorted and stood tall. “And the love I have for you is as bright as the sun in the sky. Peanut Butter Crunch, my husband, please prepare for our training,” she gestured to her son.
“Right away, dear,” he turned around and down the hall while mother and son stood in opposition.
Kiwe bowed, then Nangila. “Prepare your stance.”
Kiwe spaced his forelegs apart and lowered his rump as he crouched, focusing on her as she lowered her front. He held his pose and after a few seconds used his forelegs to pull himself forward. He twisted his hips sending his hind legs in a single spin that flew through the air where his mother’s forelegs were an instant before.
His tail dragged on the floor and he adjusted his eyes to find her standing casually on two hind legs. He ended his hind rotation with a firm planting of his hooves on the floor. He leapt at her and she hopped over him in a long arc.
Using her tail to grab him around the neck, he was turned with her momentum and sent to slam into a wall across the room, cracking it from the impact. He climbed to his hooves, shook his head, his mane flaying, and growled, dragging his right hoof across the carpet he charged her. She stood on all fours again and waited for him to reach her, that was when she leapt in a cartwheel and poked his back with her nose as she sailed over him.
He twisted midflight, sending a kick out at her blindly and a hindleg managed to brush her ear. He didn’t feel it but she was smiling when she landed. “Well done! It is a great day, indeed.” He looked at her quizzically and she beamed. “You managed to touch me with a motion. Your right hind hoof, if I am correct. Did you, by chance, drink a potion?” She winked at him as she reared onto her hind legs and moved her right foreleg forward and her left back, hooves facing up and down, respectively.
He took the same stance and frowned at her. “Then I’ll do it again and make this a historic day.”
She smiled sagely and nodded.
He charged at her on two legs and ducked low under her hug, with a sweep of his left foreleg, he narrowly missed her ribs as she hopped back. He blocked the kiss she’d aimed toward the top of his head with crossed forelegs and fell low and twisted to the side, away from her. She landed on all fours and watched as he looked at her and leapt towards her with hooves outstretched and nearly touched her side. He tumbled into a roll and followed with an awkward end as he balanced on his hind legs, stumbling but managing to stand.
He barely gasped as he saw black and white stripes fill his vision as his mother cartwheeled over him and landed behind, grabbing his foreleg in hers. She turned to the right and bent, sending him flying through empty space as she let him go. The room blurred as he sailed and landed in a pile of sitting cushions.
He impacted on his back and complained with a groan. “Ugh, mother, why can’t you let me just tag you?”
She responded playfully. “You won’t learn if I let you get me right away, as I have had to teach your father as well,” she looked up to the stallion holding a first aid box in his teeth.
“He’s not old enough for that information yet, my love. Come here and I’ll rub some salve on your-”
Kiwe held a hoof up as he stood and cracked his neck by craning it to the left. “No, I’ll be fine. Mom went easy on me this time.”
Crunch looked at the cracked wall and then to his wife with a sardonic look. “Went easy?”
“We’ve only begun, as you know. Sit down, my love, and watch the show,” she gestured to the couch against the wall under the window looking out over the busy city streets.
“Yes, my dear, I will watch without fear,” he rhymed and smiled to her as she rolled her eyes.
She leaned back as a small hoof swiped where her muzzle was and she smiled down as she ducked, back and flipped with a hind leg outstretched that missed him barely, but she still struck him with her soft tail and sent him tumbling through the air where he landed on his hooves and galloped back at her.
***
He lifted a hoof from the floor and waved it at her. “Ah, am. Ah’m done. C-can’t move,” he panted. His chest heaving in heavy breaths as he lay on his side. His mother lay behind him and kissed his cheek.
“My little stallion, you are so strong and fast that if you were to practice with him, you are nearly your father in skill.”
Crunch lay on the other side and looked the colt over with a proud smile. “You’ve done better and better every week, you can take me on anytime.”
Kiwe winced as his father touched a tender spot and chuckled. “It’s not about winning, dad. It’s about balancing my body and mind then dancing with your balance to make harmony out of the chaos that is our own.”
Both parents stopped and stared at the exhausted colt then looked at each other with growing smiles. “My son, those were wise words indeed. Did you read them recently?”
“Nah,” Kiwe managed a smirk, “just felt right.”
A couple seconds passed in silence but before he could ask anything his parents resumed their attentions and affections.
His dad spoke as he rubbed a salve into Kiwe’s coat. “Kiwe, you’re going to make a great pony someday.”
The colt and mother chuckled. “I’m a zony, dad.”
“And he will be great no matter what he is because he is our son, yes?”
“Definitely, my love.”
Nangila looked between her mate and son with compassion and kissed Kiwe’s ear, making it twitch. “Mother, please.”
“Am I not allowed to show my first born son love and affection?”
Kiwe was silent for a second, then grunted. “Yes, you are. But I don’t have to like it.”
She grinned and rolled him to his back, before he could protest she blew a raspberry on his belly and sent him giggling. “Mother! N-no!”
He struggled as she held him and used her lips to tickle him along his barrel as he laughed and loved.
“Dear, you’re just making it worse for his healing.”
She looked at her husband while she used a hoof to move the colts foreleg against his vehement protests and blew a raspberry on his defenseless underleg.
“Mother! I gotta pee, lemme go!” He shouted mirthfully and then galloped to the restroom before it was too late. He was sore in several places and his legs were all tired. He had finished panting as he finished and looked at himself in the mirror a few seconds after flushing, grinning at who he saw.
A young stallion with stripes, surrounded by love and family. His grin faltered and fell as his day fell back on him as his forelocks fell into his vision, blocking most of his left eye from view. He reached a hoof to his reflection and clacked softly against the mirror and he whispered. “Stripe? Mixed breed? They’re just mean girls, right?”
He lowered his hoof and smiled at himself, washed his hooves, then left the restroom. “Mother, father, may I use the kitchen?”
“Our son, first I would like you to make a healing potion. It is good practice and you need it,” Nangila told him with a smile and bow of her head. “You did fantastic earlier and deserve extra dessert, your father agrees.”
Kiwe looked to his father and broke into a grin. With a whoop and hop he hugged his mother around her neck. His shoulder vibrated with his mother’s silent laugh. “Thanks mother, father,” he said and let her go. With a pat on his flank he moved to his father and gave him a hug much shorter in time before he left his parents for the kitchen.
He pulled a medium sized cauldron from below the sink and moved deftly through the cupboards and cabinets, tapped a runic symbol on the cauldron, and waited as the cauldron itself warmed with enchantment. He added water that hissed when it contacted the bottom just as his father rounded the corner to check on him.
“Stop!”
Kiwe started and herbs fell from his mouth to the floor as his father jumped to the sink and pulled out a ring with feet on it. Kiwe gasped and reared to his hind legs, helping his father in the same way move the hot cauldron to its stand. His father frowned at him as he pointed to the scorch mark in the apartments linoleum floor.
“I’m not mad, just frustrated you forgot about this. I’ll have to pay to fix the wall and the floor now, it gets expensive.”
Kiwe blushed and rubbed one forehoof against the opposite foreleg, still standing. “I understand and am sorry.” He felt his father’s hoof on his shoulder and exhaled nervously.
“It’s alright. You’re not going to forget again, are you?” The colt shook his head. “Good, then get back to it, we love you still. Drink some water, you’re still sweating,” he advised as he left.
With a nod, Kiwe landed on all fours and picked up the dropped herbs. His father left and the colt let a tremble run down his legs, then continued the potion. A mere two minutes later he’d finished it and looked into the bottom at the thick yellow goop that smelled less than healthy. “Mother, can’t I add something to make it smell better? Or taste better?” he asked loudly.
The chuckle that came back furrowed his brow. “Our child, to change the recipe is to change the potion and the results. Do you wish to have bad gas or blue eyes?”
“No,” he grumbled as he used his hoof to scoop some of the mix and lift it to the rim of the cauldron. He turned his hoof sideways and watched the medicinal stretch from his hoof to the bottom and he shuddered. He took a mug he’d set aside and scooped a large portion of the potion and pouted.
With a trembling set of lips he brought the concoction to his mouth and leaned his head back, letting the thick mix slop into his mouth. He gulped instinctively and began gagging and coughing loudly, dropping the mug but not breaking it.
His mother ran into the kitchen and looked at him with worry, then bounded to the cauldron and looked inside. With a worried expression she looked at the ingredients he’d used and her eyes widened. “Our son! You have made the wrong potion, where is your recipe?!”
He coughed in reply and fell to his rump while she looked at the scattered ingredients and relaxed. “You made… oh my. Thirst of Ages. Do not worry now, but when you’re done coughing you will have a desire you have not had yet in your life. I will leave the home until supper and let your father explain and help you recover in a way only he can understand.”
The colt’s worries grew exponentially and his mother leaned down to quickly kiss his ear. “You’re not in trouble, but you must use the written recipe until you know what you’re making, even I still do,” she stood and called to Crunch. “Husband, I must leave until supper. I’ll explain while I get ready.”
“Want me to join you?” he asked.
“No, our son will need your advise far more that I could need your company right now.” She chuckled to herself and left the colt to cough quietly.
A warm feeling tickled his ear tips as the door to the hallway closed. “Ah, Kiwe,” his father said in a deep but kind voice, “this is not how I’d planned to explain things to you.”
The colt whined as a feeling he had never experienced before wormed its way from his ears to his neck and down to his back. “Father, I feel funky. And tingly,” he sniffed that air and let out a quiet whine.
Crunch sighed, knowing what the colt was smelling. "Well, let's have a talk I was going to give you when you were a bit older..."