"Ugh. I'm soooooooo bored," retorted Scootaloo. She paced around the treehouse over and over again.
"Well, we've tried everythin' on this list!" Apple Bloom said, waving a sheet of paper in the air.
"Hey, what about that one?" Sweetie Belle asked. She pointed to an unchecked activity on the list.
"Al-alch-alchemy?" Apple Bloom sounded out the word. "What in the hay is that?" She tossed the sheet on the ground in front of her. It fluttered slowly to the floor, and disappeared under the table.
"Lemme see that," Scootaloo demanded. She grabbed the list from under the table and held it in her hoof as she pulled out an object from behind her back.
"Hey, what's that?" the young Apple asked.
"Oh, it's a pocket dictionary! Twilight gave it to me last week." She flipped open to the 'A' section and began to read off of the list. "Abate, abolitionary, accent, accusingly..."
"Gimme that!" Apple Bloom snatched the dictionary out of Scootaloo's hands and flipped furthur into the book. "Aerial, agenda, ahunt, aklan... ah, here we are! Alchemy. Alchemy: a magical process of transformation, creation, or combination."
"Hey! That sounds cool!" Scootaloo exclaimed.
"Yeah!" Sweetie Belle jumped in the air.
"But who knows about alchemy?" Scootaloo's expression faded.
"Twilight, duh!" Sweetie Belle playfully punched the orange filly.
"She's in Cant'rlot," Apple Bloom explained. "She ain't gonna be home for another week."
"Aww... then who do we ask?"
"I bet Zecora knows a thing or two about it!" Sweetie Belle theorized. "We should go to her, and maybe she can give us a hoof in earning our cutie marks!"
"Good idea, Sweetie! Let's go." The young pegasus grabbed her helmet and hopped on her scooter, and Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle followed suit. As they raced out of the treehouse, the piece of paper fell to the ground.
When Zecora opened the door, the last ponies she expected were the Cutie Mark Crusaders. "Ah, hello, my dear old friends. Your arrival, I did not portend." She invited them inside, but not before asking them why they were at Zecora's hut.
"We wanna earn our cutie marks in balcony!" Scootaloo announced.
Zecora stood there with a blank look on her face.
"Alchemy, not balcony!" Sweetie Belle corrected.
"In the case that you want to see, you have come to the right tree!" The CMC walked past Zecora and into the safety of the hut, where they were ready to begin their lessons.
Zecora gathered a few materials and set them down next to the CMC, which consisted of three vials and a syringe.
"If you want to become an alchemist, you first must become a pessimest." The zebra took great care in rhyming her words together, like always. She was eager to help the Cutie Mark Crusaders earn their cutie marks, but she expected the worst.
Like a pessimest.
"And... what in th' hay is that supposed to mean?"
"A pessimest means expecting the worst. For example, you could become cursed." Zecora trotted to the shelf on the wall and carefully took a vial off of the shelf. She placed it on the edge of the cauldron in the center of the room, uncapped it, and poured it in. It started to smoke, and she nodded her head and retreated back to the shelf and retrieved a bowl of mint leaves.
She dropped it on her wooden table and opened a drawer to reveal a muddler. Using it to crack open the leaves' veins, she released the chrolophyll, which was the next step in the potion.
"What'cha doin' now, Zecora?" Apple Bloom seemed to be the most curious of the group.
The answer was quite straightforward: "I will make the herbal spice. After this it will taste twice as nice." After all, chrolophyll doesn't taste good.
"Ah hope so. Ah ain't drinkin' anythin' that tastes bad!" The filly turned her head away in disgust.
Zecora continued making the potion, and the Cutie Mark Crusaders observed closely.
Zecora took the wooden bowl over to the cauldron and poured in the leaves. Then, she stirred it vigorously. Eventually, the leaves evaporated into the water, and the smell of mint lingered in the air. She used the spoon to taste the potion that was now a shade of purple.
It seemed to taste okay; Zecora didn't seem to be disturbed. At first, it seemed like nothing was happening, but gradually, the area around her hips grew larger. She frowned, and stirred the potion more until it turned pink. Then, she took another sip. The extra weight near her hips vanished, and instead reappeared below her withers. She nodded in approval.
Zecora turned to the trio. "Do you understand what this is about, or are you three in doubt?"
"I don't know.. what's the point of this?" Sweetie Belle raised an eyebrow.
"You will see when the time has come. But first, I must complete the concoction." Zecora turned around towards her cauldron. She added a dash of pepper and a few petals of lavender, and stirred the potion more. It started bubbling, and the zebra grinned. She picked up the vial on the ground next to the Cutie Mark Crusaders and filled the glass bottle with the pink liquid. She shook it up, waited a moment, and then placed it down. She continued doing this for the rest of the vials, until they were all full. Then, she walked to the back of the hut and found a very small amount of tincture and placed it in each glass to preserve the taste and effects, She shook them once more until the tincture was saturated and the potion turned a darker shade. She then took the syringe and filled it with a sample of the concoction.
Then Zecora spoke eleven words that changed all of their lives forever.
"Come here, Scootaloo. I have something I want to show you."