Poeni: An Ancient Breed

by DaBeejees

Chapter 3: Starting Research

I do not know why, but I have never required much sleep. It has never bothered me much, though, nor did it now, as it gave me some extra time alone for the morning. I must say, I love mornings. The tranquility alone is enough to make me internally-giddy! Additionally, the magestic beauty of the sunrise, the peacefulness of the dewdrops as they rest upon the leaves, as well as the slight-chilliness of the early morning air all make me thankful that my wings are wrapped to my body. If you know what I mean. However, this morning was going to be different that most, as I felt that I should give a turn at philanthropy for a change, deciding to make some breakfast for Twilight and Spike. It only seemed to be the proper thing to do, considering that they - well, Twilight at least - had been so...eager to offer to house me. Fortunately, I wasn't pushed to make anything exquisite, not that I wasn't capable - I can make a mean peach cobbler...though that probably isn't quite fitting for this time and place - but more-so because I didn't know what they would like, so I didn't want to make something they wouldn't eat. There's few things that I dislike more than wasted effort. For some odd reason, I have an urge that I should point out that being chased through a forest by a dragon with a blood-lust is one of those few things. Anyway, going back to the meals, Poeni even decided to help me out, choosing of her own accord to use her naturally-high body temperature to keep the food from getting cold, which solved the only problem that would have kept me from getting straight into starting my research.

Since I didn't have that problem, I did just that, taking great care to clearly mark where on the bookshelves I get each of the books I take from. Even with the limited amount of details that Princess Celestia had provided me about her student, I could still diagnose the Element of Magic with severe Obsessive-Compulsive disorder, and the ease of which I could do it didn't help much, either. Considering how bad I am - with only mild OCD - I didn't want to take any chances with the organization of the library. Frankly, I don't at all think that having made breakfast would nearly suffice as collateral were I to mess anything up. So as to not mess anything up, I put together my own little 'system' in addition to my marking: the books I decide to use I neatly stack in the center of the room in stacks of at most four books, to reduce the risk of them falling over. Then, once I had massed together about five stacks, I would sit down in the center and begin skimming through them, again using a clear-marking system, but this time in the actual books, to signify any particular sections of interest. Finally, I'll place the books that lacked any interesting sections in a separate pile, so that I wouldn't accidentally select the same book from the shelf again. This process then cycled for about..........a while, let's leave it at that.

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After a while, Poeni breaks my concentration by wriggling herself in front of the book I was currently reading through. I grin and start petting her.

"Oh hey, Popo, I thought you had decided to keep their food warm for them!" I said, ruffling her feathers playfully.

"She did," came a feminine voice from behind me.

I turn and see Twilight in the entryway at the room, looking around at the shelves, levitating her plate of food I had made for her in front of her. She comes and sits next to me to eat, slightly leaning into me due to the chilliness of the morning air. When she finishes her food, she levitates one of the books I had piled and begins assisting me in my research.

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After infinitely many hours of research, lasting over a course of several days, we finally put together enough information for me to go off of. In fact, the other Elements of Harmony dropped by every now and again to help out. Strangely, however, the most frequent visitor of them was Rainbow Dash, which makes it incredibly difficult to not jump to any conclusions about...well, a number of things. Regardless of that, the first of the things we found was regarding the two most common ingredients - oak branches and palm leaves - which both can easily be found northeast of town, in the Whitetail Woods, where the annual Running of the Leaves takes place. In fact, the trees in question for the Running of the Leaves are oak trees, so all I would need is permission from the Ponyville mayor for permission to cut off a couple branches, since the Whitetail Woods is town property. Fortunately, considering my connections with Princess Celestia and now with the Elements of Harmony, obtaining such permission is - in this case - easier done than said. Hell, for all I know, Twilight could have gone out and gotten it for me already. *shrug* All things considered, this is a good example, though, of how obtaining 'connections' comes quite in handy. As for the palm leaves, there are a number of palm trees just outside of the woods itself, such as where the finish line traditionally is for the Running of the Leaves. There's actually about five palm trees within several yards from where the winner's podium was this past Running of the Leaves.

However, there was one thing we discovered that trumps practically all else: the location of frankincense. As it turns out, even though frankincense is almost impossible to find in Equestria, is apparently is quite common among traders in Zebravana, the zebra homeland to the south. Twilight told me of a zebra hermit who lives in the Everfree Forest - whose name she tells me is 'Zecora' - whom she offered to introduce me to. However, I decided to make sure I got the oak branches and palm leaves first, before I went to meet Zecora, as I wanted to make sure I got those first two out of the way. We were hoping that Zecora could give me some more information about how I could go about obtaining some frankincense, or perhaps even if she might have some herself. If she did have some frankincense herself, however, I would be highly reluctant to ask for it, though, for several reasons: first, if somepony randomly came up to me and asked me for my rare ingredient, I would in no way be willing to oblige; and second, the fact that it is such a rare ingredient speaks for itself, at least in my opinion.

Speaking of which, that actually reminds me: I thought I had seen some cinnamon trees while I was in the Everfree Forest, but was unable to get a closer look, considering that I was being chased by a fucking dragon. Actually, it could have also been cassia, since both cinnamon and cassia are both of the same genus - cinnamon is Cinnamomum verum, and cassia is Cinnamomum aromaticum.

A/N: I actually didn't know that these two were of the same genus until I did more research on the ingredients themselves, which I started doing after I had already begun writing the story. xD

I definitely need to check that out when Twilight escorts me later to meet Zecora. And, if I do manage to find cinnamon and cassia on my way to meet Zecora, then all I would have to worry about would be the spikenard, the remaining myrrh, and the frankincense, the latter of which being what we would be going to ask Zecora about anyway. This was going a lot more smoothly than I would have expected it to...I guess it does pay off to get help from others, even though I might not have before wanted to get anypony else involved in my affairs, even if even I didn't realize it before.

However, I decided that I should find out where I could potentially obtain the remaining ingredients, just in case, say, the spikenard would also be in Zebravana, so that I could get it there if I would have to go there for the frankincense. I didn't want to have to make any unnecessary back-tracks. Thus, it was back to the books for me. Twilight, meanwhile, decided to go over and visit Zecora herself to ask her about the frankincense. At this rate, we could have Poeni's pyre lit by week's end. Well, unless I would have to travel to Zebravana to purchase some frankincense from a Zebra trader, but I digress. Regardless of anything, everything was going much quicker than I had previously anticipated.

Comments

[GuyFace]

As for the last chapter, which I failed to comment on, I like it a lot. As for this... I shall read.

[GuyFace]

The only individual. That gets a boner. From a morning.