Silverstreak's eyes opened, heavy as the night from which she was desperately trying to escape. She had a nightmare in which her 'special somepony', Datura Daydream, was strangling her.
"Stro!" she yelped his nickname as her eyes nervously darted around, before settling on the empty spot in her bed. Slowly, she came to remember what had happened and her fear subsided. Silverstreak wiped the sweat from her periwinkle brow with a still-shaking hoof. The nightmare had seemed so real, she had even felt his hooves crushing her throat and saw the mad rage in his eyes. The fact that Datura Daydream had been away for a couple days did not help her anxiety. Despite how hard she had been working on her positivity lately, she could not help but wonder... What if her dream was a premonition? What if, when he came back, he would be angry at her for some reason? What if he didn't come back at all? Silverstreak cursed her petty insecurities for making her think that way. She pushed those doubts aside and reassured herself that Datura was in safe hooves, and he was what mattered the most to her. Datura was off visiting Zecora, the Zebra medicine-mare and herbalist. He himself was an herbalist, and a damn good one, too. He had learned from the best--you see, Zecora had raised him since he was a young foal. She had raised him as if he were her own since the day that she had found him. She had come across him on one of her trips to Ponyville. He had been sleeping in a large patch of a poisonous plant called datura stramonium all alone, abandoned and helpless. She spotted footsteps leading back to the small and friendly town; they appeared to be at least a day old, but the small foal was not crying, despite his abandonment. AND, he was not dead. Surely the Timberwolves would have gotten him by now, maybe the datura plant's distinctively poisonous smell or its spiky seed-pods had somehow kept them away. Regardless, he was not going to survive long on his own. The Everfree Forest was no place for foals without parents (or for the parents themselves). A little unsure of herself, Zecora had decided to take him home, for the day had been nearing nightfall and the very woods had begun to rustle as if it were one big nocturnal entity.
Days, months, and years passed peacefully, although there had been the odd encounter with Timberwolves and other various creatures of the forest. When Datura outgrew his colthood, he became a strong Earth-Pony stallion and moved to the edge of Ponyville. However welcoming the apparently-friendly town seemed, he was considered somewhat of an outsider. He was too weird for the other ponies, with a foreign way of doing things and an exotic accent. He was lonely too, nopony wanted to date an Earth-Pony raised by a Zebra. His cutie mark was somewhat off-putting too: a poisonous white datura stramonium flower. Regardless of the various stigma that had surrounded him, Datura had lived a quiet life, tending his herb and vegetable garden, and living alone in his small comfortable cabin--that was, until he met Silverstreak.
Author's Note
Datura Daydream:
Silverstreak:
By the way, I haven't yet put their cutie marks on but they'll be there eventually...
-The Mountain.
About a year since Datura had moved to Ponyville, news reached him of a crisis. He had been trading some home-grown cinnamon bark for a bushel of apples with an old and kindly light green Earth-Pony mare, named Granny Smith, when he overheard two Pegasi gossiping about how somepony got herself lost in the Everfree Forest the previous day. Naturally, Datura inquired, turning away from Granny Smith. One of the apparently young mares (the one with a pale blue coat and an effervescent yellow mane) said that it was a Pegasus-Pony called "...Silver-something, I dunno."
"I kinda remember her from flight school," said the other one, a small crimson mare with a short blue mane, "She flunked out and became some sort of low-life writer."
"Where was she last seen?" inquired Datura in a serious tone.
"Over by the Everfree Forest heading down a path with blue flowers," she said with a huff, "A weird place for a weird pony," answered the red one, finishing with a tone that Datura would have gladly removed from her jaw, had she been a stallion. Having been spoken to that way many times before, he had little tolerance for impertinent remarks.
"Thank you for your intricate observations," he said, somewhat sarcastically, making no attempt to conceal his thick Zebra accent. He usually attempted to hide this facet of his self but he feared no judgment from such impolite laymares.
"Oh, you're the creepy pony that lives at the edge of the Forest and talks like a Zebra!" the blue one realized aloud. Then, the red one whispered under her breath, "Freak." Instead of responding to such rude remarks, Datura began to canter in the direction to his cabin and, to a further extent, the Forest, thinking to himself why this 'Silver-something' had taken the path to his adopted mother's hut. The Pegasi laughed at his sudden haste but he paid them no heed.
"Aren't y'all gonna take your apples!?" shouted a concerned Granny Smith.
"No time!" Datura yelled over his shoulder, "Keep the spices!" She just shrugged, put the apples back, and continued about her day as Datura hurried away.
Once home in his small Forest-side shack, he quickly filled up two gourds with fresh spring water, shoved them into the saddle-bag he was already wearing, and promptly headed out. As he approached the way into the Forest headed to his mother's hut, he noticed the hardly used path's grass was bent and compressed in some places, forming subtle tracks. Being the excellent tracker that he was (as he had learned from the best), he set off to follow them. It had rained the previous night, making it all-too-easy to track down the undoubtedly lost Pegasus. It was nearing nightfall and soon the Timberwolves would be out to hunt. He had to hurry, she might not be dead, she could have survived somehow, he thought optimistically. Over halfway towards Zecora's hut, he noticed that the tracks began to stray off of the path and onto a well-worn game trail. Datura followed the stray tracks for about a mile but stopped when he noticed something startling. The tracks had stopped being hoof-prints and had begun to change into sliding marks promptly leading to a steep drop-off. She must have been near, with a fall like that, she could have likely broken something and would then not be able to fly away, even if she had passed flight school. He slid down gracefully, empirically superior in forest travel than most ponies. To his surprise, he found himself amidst that very plant of his namesake. A patch of datura stramonium; this must have been where Zecora had first found him as a young foal. Nostalgia flooded his mind and he sat down, forgetting why he was there, as he began to remember all the good times he had had with Zecora.
He sat there for a few minutes, lost in remembrance until he heard the howl of a Timberwolf much nearer than he preferred. Datura Daydream snapped out of his revelry and proceeded to wade through the small sea of datura stramonium towards a slight patch of raised land in the middle of the plants. This was where Zecora had found him. The nostalgia did not come this time though, for on that hill lay a Pegasus mare with a crumpled wing and a muddy periwinkle coat. Blood stained the ground around her. Apprehension coursed through him as he dropped to the ground beside her. His heart was beating strongly--he hoped her's was, too. He checked her vital signs--they were there: signs of vitality.
"Good," he said as the first bit of relief came to him. Her pulse was slow and her breathing was raspy; both were consistent. That done, he continued to examine her body, no bite marks--the datura plants must have kept predators away. He then checked her wings, although knowing almost nothing about them, he could tell that the left one should not have been bent that way. The other had been torn up by thorns, though luckily the bleeding had ceased. The rest of her body was banged up, but nothing too bad. She was lucky that she had been able to crawl here from where she had fallen, otherwise, the beasts would likely have gotten her. The datura had kept them away, due to its bitter scent and the powerful aether infused within.
She was alive but needed immediate medical attention if she was to survive. First off, datura stramonium contains an organic compound known as atropine which tends to make one sedated. Also, several ancient cultures have utilized its analgesic properties in bone-setting, and Silver-something's wing bones could sure use that. He would need to brew a proper potion out of it at Zecora's. One problem: they were surrounded by a dense forest which harbored many a deadly beast. Most prominently--the Timberwolf, a large predatory elemental canine made up of sticks and leaves with incredible regenerative powers. Suddenly he had a realization! First, though, he took out one of the water-gourds from his saddle-bag opened her mouth gently, and made her drink some water. Then he took some datura plants (spiky seedpods, leaves, roots, and all) and put all but one in his bag. It would take awhile, but he could make a cold infusion (which would not need any fire or heat. he estimated her body weight and broke open a spiky green seedpod between his steady hooves. Out came several hundred tiny black seeds. He estimated how much atropine he could extract in an hour, then, using his expert calculations, he took exactly eighty-five seeds chewed them up in his mouth then spat the resulting paste in the other (smaller) gourd. Even for an herb-pony, this amount of expertise was uncanny. He knew all of this because, when he was a colt, Zecora had told him myths about the evil magician, Datura. For a few ancient cultures believed it to contain an evil that transcended the physical manifestation of the plant. He figured that, if he could master such an evil and harness its toxins for good, he would become a sort of magician himself. He had always been jealous of the Unicorns for their ability to manipulate Arcane Magic, so he asked Zecora to teach him a magic of his own. Despite however strong his mastery of Nature Magic had become since she had begun training him, he was still jealous. To quell his thoughts, Zecora had told him,
"Love yourself the way you are. Master this, and you'll go far." Wise words from a wise Zebra; so Datura Daydream studied datura stramonium vehemently and incessantly for several years to this day. It was truly one of the most useful herbs; it could do anything from cause the user to see shamanic visions, to kill the user, to cure allergies, or to lessen nausea. Such deep knowledge of this plant could be dangerous in the wrong hooves; it is exceedingly toxic. He thought back on all he knew about datura as he laid on the ground with Silver (as he began to call her), gently wrapping his forelegs around her broken body. It was getting cold in the Forest and he was keeping them both warm.
After a while, he figured it had been about an hour so he got up, fetched the gourd with the datura infusion in it, and made her drink the correct amount. He waited a few minutes because he did not want her to wake in agony as he carried her to Zecora's; and yes, he was going to carry her all the way there on his strong Earth-Pony back, regardless of how many beasts were prowling in the nighttime Forest. He had a plan: he was going to pour the rest of the datura brew onto both of them, hopefully masking their tasty pony scents with those of poison. It was time. He lifted the injured Pegasus onto his back with ease, for he was a pony with incredible endurance that only a pony who has grown accustomed the rough terrain of the Everfree Forest for years could obtain. He poured the infusion on both of them, shivering before he trudged onward through the wet, cold, dangerous night. He heard howls coming through the darkness; luckily he knew his way around the Everfree. Still, he had to hurry, he did not know how long they would smell like datura after the water evaporated. As they reached the point where Silver had strayed from the main path, Timberwolves suddenly surrounded them, their glowing green eyes were now the only lighting they had. They were closing in on them. Datura glimpsed out of the corner of his eye and saw the largest one, the alpha. Thinking quickly (and quickly acting), Datura reached into one of his saddlebag's main pockets and briskly whipped out a datura stramonium seedpod; which he then partially crushed between his left hoof and the ground. A strongly scented weapon now, he threw the pod as hard as he could at the alpha Timberwolf. Being an Earth-Pony, that was pretty hard shattering on impact as it hit the Timberwolf right between its fluorescent eyes. Releasing a howl of surprise and panic, it let the others know of the danger. They scattered, each going different ways into the Forest. Datura had never thought that they were that terrified of the plant. He smiled and continued on. There only light source now gone, still "caterwauling" in the distance. He had to make the rest of the journey in the dark, which was not such a big deal, seeing as he knew by heart the way to Zecora's cabin.
There were no more disruptions as they made their way through the Forest. They were about a half-mile away; Datura trudged through the darkness as Silver slept peacefully on his back, oblivious to her pain and the recent commotion. Finally, they reached the well-decorated hut in which the Zebra lived. All the lights were out, meaning that she was certainly asleep. Datura Daydream was about to give; even he could not carry her forever and, having little energy and time, he forcefully and loudly burst the door open. As he carried her in, one thought breached his exhausted mind: Zecora is in for a big surprise...
Author's Note
I hope you guys are enjoying this so far. Since you are likely fellow writers, any advice would be welcome; just PM me. Thanks, 'til next time.
-The Mountain
Datura is a poisonous, medicinal, and hallucinogenic (deliriant) plant. It is not to be taken lightly. I use it in this story because of its multifaceted versatility. I do NOT advocate it's use even if you consider yourself to be an herbalist. If you want to know more about this sacred (as it is in several cultures) herb, I would recommend first going to the Wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datura_stramonium
Then, to learn about its hallucinogenic properties, you should go to the Erowid Experience Vaults at erowid.org
Don't do it.
-The Mountain
