Saturday finally arrived. The day that Topaz was to spend with Minty Gold, the filly of his dreams. He was so nervouscited, his heart was beating like a bongo drum. He had asked his dad to drive him since his mom had to go to work early that day, which he thanked his lucky stars for.
He could only imagine how much she would flip out if she found out about his date. Constantly fussing over his hair, his clothes, his mannerisms, his hygiene (actually, he did put on some deodorant and grab some breath mints before he left, just to be safe). On top of that, his mom would no doubt get all emotional and suffocate him to death with all the hugging and kisses.
His dad was much more chill about it, so Topaz trusted him not to embarrass him when they got to Minty's house. Speaking of which, here it was now. Topaz could tell by the address. He could feel himself starting to sweat as Spike stopped right in front of the house. He opened the door to get out of the car.
"Well, this is it," the young colt said nervously. "Any last minute words of wisdom?"
"Yeah. Whatever you do, keep your hands to yourself," the dragon advised. "Don't make the mistakes of your ancestors." He laughed as he pointed to himself. Topaz laughed awkwardly with him until Spike turned serious again. "Seriously."
Topaz stopped laughing. "Got it. Thanks."
"Just call and let me know if you wanna get to get picked up early."
"Okay, Dad." And with that, they waved goodbye to each other and Spike drove off, leaving his son to fend for himself.
As he approached the front door, his whole world felt like it was spinning. He was so dizzy that he felt like he could puke at any minute. It was like being on a roller coaster and he wanted to get off so badly, but he was already strapped in for the ride and there was no turning back now. He reached out his finger, rang the doorbell, and braced himself, not knowing who was going to answer.
Only a couple seconds passed before the door flung open and there she stood. Minty Gold in all of her bright green beauty, delighted to see him.
"Topaz! You're here!" she exclaimed with a smile.
The light blue casanova cleared his throat to at least attempt to speak. "Uh, h-hi, Minty!" he said with a nervous grin.
"Well don't just stand there." The excited young pegasus yanked him inside and dragged him up the stairs all the way to her bedroom. "I've already got it all planned out."
It happened so fast that Topaz barely had time to react. Before he knew it, Minty had let go of his hand and he was standing in her room. It was pretty typical. It had a one-pony bed, a dresser, a desk, a few posters, some assorted stuffed animals and a closet. What really caught Topaz's attention, though, was the bookshelf. It reached all the way up to the ceiling and it was completely filled with books of all different sizes. He decided to get a closer look.
"What do you think of my room?" Minty asked while Topaz was admiring the shelf.
"Look at all these books!" He exclaimed. "Have you read all of these?"
"Most of them. If you look, you can see they're divided into two sections. Fiction and non-fiction."
The shelf had pieces of wood lined up right down the middle that kept the two groups separate. The fiction books were on one side and the non-fiction books were on the other. Topaz was impressed.
"Wow, Minty. I never knew you were so organized."
"Thanks."
Suddenly, the door opened and a navy blue pegasus mare entered the room. "There you are," she said. "You ran up here before I could catch you. I wanted to meet this boy you've been telling me about."
"Mom!" Minty groaned.
"You're Minty's mom? It's nice to meet you," the colt greeted nervously as he approached her. "I'm Topaz. I go to school with her."
He reached out his arm to shake her hand, but she seemed to have a surprised look in her eyes. She just stood there staring at him.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
"Oh, I'm sorry. It's nothing," the mother said as she snapped out of it and shook his hand. "It's nice to meet you, too, young colt."
"Okay, great, Mom. You met him. Now if you don't mind, we were about to start studying here," the filly complained, urging her mom to leave them in peace.
"Oh sure. Don't mind me. I'll just let you two get started. Let me know if you need anything."
"Don't worry. We will."
Minty's mom closed the door and left the two kids alone, but they could still hear her give an audible sigh before she walked away.
"Sorry about that," the green filly apologized.
"It's fine. I was gonna meet your parents eventually."
"Yeah, but I'm just sorry about the way she stared at you like that."
"Don't worry about it. It's not the first time I've gotten that reaction."
"If it's any consolation, I know how you feel."
"Huh? What do you mean?"
Then, out of nowhere, Minty started to lift up her shirt, making the young colt's face turn so red that it could stop traffic. His better instincts told him to look away, but she clearly had something she wanted to show him, so he kept looking anyway.
"You see this scar right here?" Minty pointed to something on her left side. Topaz moved in for a closer look and sure enough, there was a decent sized scar just under the spot where her hand was holding up her shirt.
"Uh, yeah?"
"I got it in a flying accident when I was little," the green filly confessed. "A few kids used to make fun of me for it all the time, calling me things like 'klutz' or 'chicken wings.' After I started hiding it, eventually, everypony just sort of forgot about it, but I never did."
She lowered her shirt and Topaz barely knew what do say.
"Wow, Minty. I never would've guessed."
"There's a lot you don't know about me Topaz."
"Touche."
Topaz couldn't believe that this girl trusted him enough already to show him something so personal. Just one more reason not to mess this whole thing up.
"You know, you're lucky my dad's not home," said Minty. "He gets really protective when it comes to boys."
"Really? Where is your dad?"
"He's working today and he usually doesn't get home until about eight."
Topaz was relieved to hear that. Meeting Minty's parents was one thing he had sort of been dreading, especially her dad. He felt really glad that he had avoided having to make that first impression... for now.
Minty decided it was time to get down to the reason they were there. She pulled a book off the shelf and set down it on the desk. The cover read Alchemy 101: A Guide to Basic Potion Mixing.
"Okay. So obviously, I can't cast any spells, but I love making potions," Minty began as she opened the book to page 1.
"You can make potions?" Topaz said in amazement.
"Yeah. I've got all the stuff I need right here." She reached under her bed and presented a couple of different sized beakers.
"No way! How many of those do you have?"
"Come see for yourself."
Topaz peeked under the bed and couldn't believe his eyes. There were beakers, tubes, bunsen burners and flasks of all different shapes and sizes. There were also lots of jars and bags filled with all kinds of different ingredients. It was way more interesting than anything he kept under his bed.
It was official. He was in love.
-----
Topaz and Minty Gold passed hours reading and talking about different kinds of magic spells and techniques. They even managed to teach each other a few new things. Topaz didn't have much experience with mixing potions, so Minty was happy to show him a thing or two. She demonstrated by mixing some of her best potions for him to watch. She made potions for growing plants, changing voices, changing hair colors and even turning cockroaches into butterflies.
In return, Topaz showed off some of his most impressive magic spells, including one that he was still trying to get the hang of: generating a forcefield. He put all of his concentration into it and just when it looked like he was about to pull it off, Minty got all excited and started bouncing in her seat. Just looking at her distracted him and made him lose his concentration. Even though Topaz kicked himself for failing to do the spell, she still thought it was impressive.
Eventually, Minty told Topaz about a certain potion that she'd always wanted to try and make.
"Oh yeah? What is it?" he inquired.
"It's a healing potion," she replied, pointing to a picture of it in the book. "It can heal any injury or cure any infection. It's never been perfected, but once it is, it'll be the ultimate medicine."
"Are you saying you want to try and perfect it?"
"I would love to be the one to perfect it someday, but the problem is it takes a lot of ingredients and some of them are really hard to find. I've asked my parents to try and get them for me, but they just bought these lame instant mix packets."
Topaz glossed over the page with the potion's recipe. "You know, I've seen a lot of these ingredients around town before," he said. "I bet I could find them all for you, if you want."
"You'd really do that for me?"
"Sure. I mean, we're friends now, aren't we?" Topaz asked with a slight blush in his cheeks.
"That would be awesome!" She surprised him with a big hug that rendered the young colt paralyzed. "If you can get me all these ingredients, I could get right to work on perfecting that potion." Even after she let go of him, he could still barely move a muscle.
When it finally came time for Topaz to leave, Minty thanked him again and loaned him her potion book so he could be sure what to look for. He got in the car with his dad and drove off with Minty waving goodbye. Topaz now had a mission. He had to find everything on this list for Minty's potion or die trying.
Maybe not necessarily that last part.