At the edge of the Everfree, under a purple and darkening sky, Zecora stood over a great iron cauldron that sat upon a flickering fire. She muttered as she worked her magic, stirring the boiling liquid with a large blackened stick. Twilight Sparkle and Fluttershy stood close by, their faces worried but resolute, and they passed Zecora various things from her packs and bags as she requested them. The firelight danced and underlit their faces, casting inverse shadows that made them look like grim shades from the underworld.
Zecora worked by rote, chanting her memorized recipies as she added ingredients to the roiling concoction.
Give me those purple pulsing reeds,
with warts upon their hulls.
And next these dry and dusty seeds
That rather look like skulls.
I’ll add three drops of liquid smoke,
And one small leaf of Poison Joke.
As she stirred in this ingredient, the sky darkened and a chilly wind blew through the roiling smoke with a sound like a heartrending groan. The trio around the cauldron continued their work, Fluttershy giving an anxious glance over her shoulder.
Some brown pond-scum and river grime
And muck from in the bog,
And next some gritty yellow slime
That oozed out of a frog,
And things you’d wipe off from your shoe,
All come to complement our brew!
The boiling fluid burbled and released a foul mephitic steam, but all the mares were used to bad smells in their own ways, Twilight through alchemy and Fluttershy through animal care, and they barely wrinkled their noses.
Next, a morbid bit we bring,
A pale old moldy bone,
And now I add a slimy thing
I found beneath a stone!
It has no eyes or legs, it seems.
I hope we do not hear it scream!
This time, the sky brightened to a dull orange glow, and a swarm of bats, or things like bats, fluttered and screeched overhead. Zecora’s face was outlined in the firelight as she chanted, working a mortar and pestle.
I have some dried stale potion flakes,
Left over from an old run.
I’ll grind them ‘til my pastern aches,
And add them to my cauldron.
Like cheese that ripens ‘til it moves,
The potency with age improves.
The sky grew dark again, and more things flew overhead that surely weren’t bats or birds.
Now, from a mordant shrubbery
We add some bitter buds
And then a mix of lard and lye,
All slippery with suds
For there is nothing soapier
Within my pharmacopeia!
Bubbles rose up from the stew and popped in the sky with little bangs like fireworks. There was a distant groaning rumble as the sky took on a greenish cast.
This toadstool weeps with dark red drops,
And this one glows pale green,
And this blue moss has strands of glop
With insect eggs between.
They stink like socks and moldy paint,
Now to the brew they add their taint!
The fungi tumbled into the broth with disgusting noises; one hissed and dissolved, one exploded with a sound like a wet sloppy sneeze, and one sank like a stone with a dreadful plop.
An egg that’s moldered in a cave
For twice a dozen years.
And soil from a sailor’s grave
Moist with a sparrow’s tears.
—But now, remove it from the heat!
Make haste! Our brew is now complete!
The brew bubbled and bulged ominously, and Twilight picked the whole thing up swiftly with her magic. The three rushed quickly to Fluttershy’s cottage and raced into the spare bedroom, where Discord lay in uncharacteristically neat array. His limbs were stretched straight out, and his tail, bent in places at right angles, rested on a series of chairs and ottomans placed at the foot of the bed. A sack of ice was on his literally burning brow, and a huge thermometer in his mouth gave readings in degrees Kelvin. A wastebasket nearby overflowed with tissues stained with various colors and textures of disgusting goo.
Discord moaned, shuddered and sneezed, and a wave of frogs with butterfly wings issued from his snout, croaking and fluttering about in the air and filling the room with confusion until they found the windows and took to the skies, which changed in color to a rosy mauve. Fluttershy rushed to bathe his forehead with a wet towel, using an oven mitt to hold it. “Please hurry!” she cried as the steam rose around her and Discord started to sweat polka-dotted mice, which skittered out of his pores and ran to hide under the furniture.
Twilight levitated the entire smoldering cauldron to Discord, who took it and looked at it with a hint of his old curiosity. He drank the whole thing in three evenly-spaced gulps. His eyes turned fiery orange and blazed; his ears smoked and his tail curled, the thermometer burst and wilted like a dead flower. Then, then the fires died down and soothing cooling clouds of blue snow swept over him. He sighed and burped a string of smoky bubbles that formed the words “Ah, potent stuff, that.”
“The perfect cure for Stagnant Flu is a disgusting drink,” said Zecora. “It kills the ills inside of you as quickly as a wink!” She held out three pills that of a size that would choke an elephant. “And now, these tablets you should take, and call tomorrow when you wake.”
Fluttershy poured Discord a rain barrell full of water as he gulped the pills one at a time, his throat distending like a bullfrog’s each time he swallowed.
Twilight sighed with relief. “Zecora, I simply can’t thank you enough, and I’m sure everypony else shares my gratitude…” Through the window, a dark spiral of errant flying frogs was seen converging in the sky over Ponyville. “ButIhopeyou’llexcusemefornowWe’lltalkmorelaterBye!” She swiftly teleported away to aid in restoring order to the town.
Zecora clicked her tongue cheerfully, took up her cauldron’s handle in her teeth, and turned to leave as the sky changed color again to the soft and normal shades of evening.
Author's Note
The rhyme scheme and meter for Zecora’s speech came from the works of Guy Wetmore Carryl, specifically The Sycophantic Fox And The Gullible Raven.
