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// Never miss a beat 
// Story: The Potion Shop 
// by Ashfur 
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Mage Meadowbrook casually sipped her tea outside a local café on Market Street.  As attached as she was to Hayseed Swamp, Rainbow Falls was quite a sight. In addition, it was home to some very rare ingredients, and on top of all that, her adoptive son lived there.

Speaking of her son, her mother's intuition was tingling.  She could feel a hyperactive, unhinged presence rapidly approaching from behind.  With a warm smile, she turned around to greet- nopony in particular?  Odd.  She turned back around to her tea, and nearly jumped when she saw Arca sipping on an apple juice box in the seat across from her.

"Mom!  You came to visit!"  The stallion grinned, getting out of his chair and approaching for a hug, which Meadowbrook of course reciprocated.

"You silly pony.  I always come to visit."  To her credit, she was right.  Arca made the trip to Meadowbrook's every other month to visit her and gather swamp ingredients, and Meadowbrook did the same.  "I was actually going to head over to your home once I was done.  I thought you were open today."

Arca smiled.  "We are!  I left Juniper and Princess Luna- er, I mean the recently hired unicorn mare Star Chaser, in charge.  I have to do some emergency, last-minute shopping.  But I always make time for my mom!"  He gave Meadow one last squeeze and let go, dropping back to all four hooves and circling back to his chair.

"Emergency shopping, hm?  Would you like me to tag along, dear?  I could use some new kitchen supplies, myself."

"Sure!  I got a few hours before I need to be done, so I'll gladly help you out… although they never let me use the blenders at the kitchen supply stores."

Meadowbrook chuckled, imagining her son's antics.  "I can only imagine why."





The sun was hanging high in the afternoon sky as the mother-son duo returned to Market Street.  Having completed a fair amount of mundane shopping and sharing lunch together, the final stop was completing Arca's so-called 'emergency shopping run'.  And so, the pair found themselves standing outside Sweet Symphony's music supply store, a high-end shop in the area of the market with the expensive shops.

'Expensive' meaning 'further away from the blast zone known as the Arca Limit', that is.

Meadowbrook was admittedly intrigued by her little one's need to shop at a music store.  "Arca, I didn't know you knew how to play any instruments other than the banjo."

"Well yeah, I learned that in the swamps.  But over the years I've also learned how to play the piano, the guitar, the drums, and the mayonnaise!"

"Uh, Arca, mayonnaise isn't-"

"Why does everypony keep saying it's not an instrument?!  Nopony even lets me TRY anymore!"  He groaned, swinging the door open.  "Ugh, whatever.  Let's go inside, this is very important."

The inside of the store was filled wall to wall with musical scores and equipment, brass instruments reflecting the light onto various string instruments.  A bored-looking mare sat at the counter in the back, reading a book with a pair of headphones on her head hooked up to a record player.

Arca motioned for Meadowbrook to follow him up to the counter.  She took a nice, big sip of the tea she had acquired in a to-go cup from a café.  She probably wasn't needed in this interaction, so—

"Hello, ma'am!  My name is Arcane Catalyst and I would like to purchase one sex!"

Meadowbrook promptly spit out her tea.  "ARCANE CATALYST?!"

"Yes, Mom?  Was your tea too hot?"

"WHAT IN THE BUCK DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING, YOUNG COLT!"

Arca tilted his head in confusion and pointed at a large brass instrument hanging on the wall.  "Buying a sexaphone?"

Meadowbrook took a moment, groaned, and proceeded to slam her head on a nearby table.  "Arca, that's a saxophone."

"But Razzle said she was going to teach me how to play the sex if I wanted to learn, and neither of us own a sexaphone!  So I need to buy one!"

Meadowbrook didn't even move her head from its new resting place facedown on the table.

"Mom, I don't understand what the problem is.  I'm just trying to buy an instrument.  Razzle said we were going to make beautiful music together!"

Meadowbrook began banging her head into the table.

"Huh, apparently mom can play the table.  If only I had some mayo we could do a duet.  Oh wait, I remember a spell to make instruments play themselves!  Let me just-"

"Quack."

Arca froze in place.  His head slowly turned to the side, an expression of irritation covering his face.  "Hm… I think I'll need to buy this guitar too."  He reached over and picked up a rather expensive-looking electric guitar.  "After all, in addition to an awesome song…" after he finished casting the spell to force the instruments to play a tune, he swung the guitar down at The Duck.  "I NEED AN AXE!"

WHAM

"HOLD STILL!  YOU'RE GONNA B-FLAT BY THE TIME I'M THROUGH WITH YOU!"

CRASH

"Quack."

"KEEP THAT UP AND I'M GONNA SHOW YOU HOW WELL I PLAY THE CANNON!"

CRUNCH

"OH YEAH?  DODGE THIS!"

It was at that moment that Razzle Dazzle poked her head in the busted front door of the shop.  The mare at the counter finally noticed a presence, and looked up.  "Can I help you?"  She asked, clearly not interested.

Razzle carefully stepped over some broken glass to get closer to the mare, and to avoid a few stray conductor's batons Arca was shooting like arrows from the stockroom with the bow of a violin.  Not that she should’ve been worried, as his aim was terrible because he had somehow gotten his head stuck in a tuba.  "Yes, although it seems my beloved has been busy here, so you might not be able to help me… but do you have any saxophones?  I promised Arca I'd teach him to play."

Meadowbrook slammed her head into the table again.