Herbal Spice

Herbal Spice is a unicorn pony. As a colt, he had a pretty basic routine. Get up in the morning, get ready to go to school, get teased because of his glasses, go home and sleep. This went on for weeks upon weeks. One morning, something had changed his routine. It was a small patch of flowers and plants. Something about that patch of foliage drew him to it. Herbal Spice felt as if he knew how to use these small plants to help other ponies. He pulled out an empty notebook that he hadn't decided what to do with yet and picked one of each plant then carefully place one between each set of pages.

At school, he was listening to Miss Cheerilee, but he was mostly absorbed in his notebook with the plants he found so much that he couldn't even hear the other fillies and colts teasing him. He carefully observed each of the foliage and documented certain characteristics of each individual plant. As he was on his way home, he kept an eye out for any new plants that he could pick and document. He found a few here and there, but nothing rare from what he could tell.

Instead of going straight to sleep, he worked on documenting all the plants he had found. As he worked his little sister, Herbal Brew, came in wondering what her brother was doing. She was ruffly one year younger that Herbal Spice. He explained what he had gathered and was doing research on the plants. Brew was intrigued and asked if she watch and observe with him. Spice didn't mind. They spent the rest of the day chatting and cataloging the plants.

The next day, Spice didn't have school and decided to explore around Ponyville to see what plants he could find. He found only one or two that he hadn't already picked. He thought about going into the everfree forest hoping that he could find new and interesting plants to document.

He found a large variety of plants that he hadn't picked before. He even picked a poison joke, with his magic of course, then placed one of the plastic covers that he carries around with him for these types of plants over the poison joke. While he was observing a strange plant he had spotted out of the corner of his eye, a manticore leaped out of a near by bush frightening Spice to death. Out of nowhere, a strange pony came out and chanted some words that he couldn't understand. Suddenly, the manticore ran off very quickly. She turned to see the young colt had been frightened to death.

She was covered in many markings and Spice had never heard of a pony that looked like her. The pony then said "What are you doing out here little colt? This is no place to play." Spice explained everything to the mysterious pony. "I see." said the strange pony. "My name is Zecora."

Zecora took Herbal Spice to her hut and shared multiple plants that he had never even heard of before. Zecora offered to teach him how to ground up the plants into a fine powder and paste for different things. Spice quickly accepted her offer. She taught him how to make powders to heal burns, help headaches, and other healing powders and pastes. She even taught him how to administrate them to ponies.

Herbal Spice felt as if he had solved a great mystery. His cutie mark appeared and Zecora was happy for him that he had found his special talent. Zecora lead him home and told him that if he ever needed any plants or wanted to explore a bit to let her know first and she would take him and help him learn even more than he had already.

As soon as he got home, he was greeted by his family that was scared to death about him. They heard he went into the everfree forest and was trying to find new plants. Spice and Zecora then explained everything and showed them his cutie mark. His family wasn't mad anymore, in fact they were ecstatic to hear about his cutie mark. Finally, they thanked Zecora for everything.

Spice continued to go with Zecora to the forest every once and awhile. He practiced what he learned then grew up to become a professional herbalist. He still explores the everfree forest to find new plants and creates new pastes and powders.