Zecora's night
It must have been a hard night for Kirabo, but it surely paled in comparison to the kind of night Zecora had.
Zecora wasted a lot of time getting back to her hut. Most of the path she usually took was now gone, completely destroyed in one sided battle between the full grown Spike and the enraged ursa major. The journey took even longer because of her new body.
When she eventually reached her home she could not believe the sheer amount of chaos her home was in. The place was a mess, Discord himself couldn’t have done a better job. The name of a particular red maned, yellow coated filly came to her mind along with a couple of words she would never say out loud, no matter what. After the incident, Apple Bloom managed to make the manticore repellent bath, but was not carefull with the rest of the ingredients, in her panicked state.
Some bottles were opened, some were dripping, others evaporated, and most were dangerously close to causing lots of problems, most of which would be directed towards Zecora. She acted quickly moving a few of the ingredients away from each other, and stabilizing or cleaning some of the more volatile concoction.
With the current crisis averted, she could begin preparation for tomorrow. First there was something she had to do though.
Ponies, for the most part had an odd relationship with clothes: First, it was assumed, that ponies, as a species, were naked, then with the invention of clothes they started wearing them. Again it was assumed that the reasons were decorative instead of practical, paleo pony historians jokingly would call that period, the Peacock Era. As pony society evolved so did their relation with clothes.
Long before the reign of the princesses, before even the formation of the three tribes, back when pony society was more divided than ever, each ‘clan’ - clan being the generally accepted name- decided what their opinion of clothes were. Some considered them unnatural, others immoral, some a necessary evil. Most of the earth pony clans only wore clothes that they considered useful, some of the unicorns would only wear the most beautiful and complicated ones, despite the lack of functionality, just like their ancestors from the Peacock Era. Pegasi hated them completely, at least until metalworking would be invented, then it all changed.
Earth ponies still wore practical clothes, unicorns still elegant clothes matching their jewelry, and pegasi wore light clothes, mostly tunics and togas, but also special armor, the formation of the three tribes solidified the practice of wearing clothes.
This trend lasted until the sisters defeated Discord. Under their rule Equestria entered an age of peace, prosperity and progress, this resulted in more and more ponies wearing less and less clothing, until most of them were nothing at all except for the important events in their lives. There were a few bumps in the road, like King Sombra and Nightmare Moon, but their defeats did little to change the attitude of the general populace.
Zebras however had a more straightforward relation with clothes. Since almost all of them are the equivalent of earth ponies, and Zebrica was consistently dry and hot the whole year round, clothes were used for one thing and one thing only, to block the sun. After metalworking reached their lands, jewelry spread like wildfire. While not all zebras wear clothes, there wasn’t a zebra alive who didn’t have at least a simple golden necklace, earring, piercing or bracelet.
She was no exception. For as long as she could remember she had worn something, and so did her parents. She felt naked without them, it was an odd feeling, hard to describe to anyone that did not wear clothes regularly. Nopony considered ribbons clothes, although some thought that bowties, or ties should be. In fact, as long as they covered at least part of the body it could be considered clothing.
So the first thing she did, after making sure nothing would blow up or worse, was to get her golden heirlooms. She found them, partially covered by a large pile of ash in the place she stood before the accident. A cold chill went down her spine at the sight but she ignored it and took them out. The five golden rings that served as her necklace slid down her head without a problem, even if they were too big for her she felt relief when their weight pressed down on her neck and shoulders. The earing proved a little difficult, her young body did not react well as the metal pierced her ear, but the joy she felt outweighed any pain. She lifted the remaining five smaller rings on her foreleg, and held it bent so that they would not fall of.
After saying a little chant, the golden pieces of jewelry started glowing ever so slightly, before shrinking to a size more suited for the filly.
She was overjoyed at the development and started bouncing around the cauldron laughing happily. She stopped after a while, embarrassed and relieved that there was no one around to see her, she was a grown mare after all, at least in mind if not in body.
From underneath her bed she pulled out a rope. With one end tightly held in her mouth, and the other disappearing into the tree that was her home, she pulled. As she pulled wooden wheels started turning, making the rope move around a system of pulleys, slowly lifting the bed a few feet into the air, revealing all that lay beneath it.
Underneath her bed and out of Apple Bloom’s reach Zecora kept hidden: a couple of sealed jars filled with various ingredients that for one reason or another had to be placed there, a couple of books that she had forgotten about, pieces of food that rolled there, some empty vials, bottles and jars made from an assortment of materials, a few knifes rolled in cloth and leather, lots of dirt, dust and grime, and a metal ring square in the middle of them all.
She moved everything to the sides creating a clearing around the ring about three feet wide. Despite all the filth that the ring was covered in, even after a quick wiping, she still had to pull it with her mouth, it did not taste well.
As she pulled the ring higher the flooring followed revealing a hidden compartment. It was not big, only a few feet across and less than a foot deep.
A mix of sadness and joy could be read on her face as she looked at the contents of the compartment, a pair of old, but brightly colored filly sized saddlebags. She gently picked them up and held them to her chest, hugging them tightly as a few tears rolled down her cheeks, before placing them on the ground and closing the hatch and lowering the bed down.
She lit the fire under the cauldron and walked around the room, gathering the ingredients for tomorrow's dance. Most of them were hidden behind other smaller compartments, but none so elaborate as the one under her bed, and none of them provoked such an emotional reaction as the jewelry or the bags.
The rest of the night was spent mixing, boiling and jarring potions. Once one was done she would let it cool down before carefully placing it in her saddlebag, she did that with all except for the first.
When the first was done, she placed a hoof inside the still boiling pot so that the black liquid could cover her hoof. She drew a spiral on both her tights and eleven small outward pointing triangles. By the time she would leave her house and head towards Imamu’s the paint would have dried and changed its color so it would match her stripes.
Adanna Zecora would fight as a true Black Sun.