Pursuit of Diligence: Chapter 6 Autumnal Ambrosia

Pursuit of Diligence: Chapter 6

Word Count: 1576

Characters: Cassandra Wicke, Primrose

After last week’s muddy situation while harvesting the Ambrosia flowers, Wicke had taken a few days to herself as Primrose had told her. He needed time to prepare and dry some of the stems of the flowers while keeping the petals fresh with a special method that he did not want to divulge.

As promised, Wicke arrived in front of the gates of the Garden of Virtues at 11 AM on the dot. Ish. It was actually 11:07 since she had overslept a little and did not want to leave the house without taking a shower like last time.

As soon as she touched the metal gates, her eyes wandered over to see a disgruntled Cherubun with his hooves crossed in front of his chest, tapping their feet impatiently.

“I told you, I expect you at 11, right? You should be glad that Dove put in a good word for you since you both worked so hard last week. Ugh. Let’s just start. We have a long day ahead of us.”

Without saying another word, the cream-furred Cherubun turned around on their feet and wandered to the shed where he had stored the Ambrosia flowers while Dove and Wicke were busy harvesting the rest of the flora. Hesitantly, Wicke stepped inside. As expected from the most diligent and serious of the Cherubuns, everything inside was meticulously organized and squeaky clean. Even if Wicke tried, she probably couldn’t find a single speck of dust in there.

The shed had two large tables, one with measuring cups, pipettes, thermometers and bowls.. Every single piece of equipment looked like it had their place and if it just moved a single Millimeter, Primrose would probably notice. It seemed like Beanny hat initially prepared this setup for her fellow Cherubun since Wicke recognized the exact same order of equipment that Beanny had in their little Paradise cafe for her own experimental concoctions.

The other, slightly smaller table was filled with empty flasks and several funnels, some of which were already placed inside the flasks to make work easier on them. Mortar and pestle were placed on the smaller table, ready to be worked with. 

On the walls Primrose had strung several hempen cords that had seemingly hundreds of little stems tied around them with thread, all of the stems looked dry and ready to crack at any second. And lastly, there were differently sized containers, one seemed to be full of viscous liquid while the other held soft, colourful petals that had a slight purplish hue to them with another, smaller container that seemed to hold more dried parts of the Ambrosia plants.

“As it is already October,” Primrose began, “we are going to make some Divine and Bitter Ambrosia today. While I personally prefer the more sweeter variant, some of our new arrivals from the Heavenly Meadows have requested this concoction. We can only provide this specific type of Ambrosia during the autumnal months so I would like to cater to their wishes. I will show you what you can do to help me and I will take care of the rest as the recipe is strictly forbidden to fall into the hands of anyone else.”

Wicke nodded. Primrose seemed in a good mood today, although he had chewed her out before. Maybe she could earn a rare little smile on that gorgeous face of his today.

“Sure, just show me how I can help.” Wicke replied while putting on the gloves she had already gotten used to. Better safe than sorry with the Ambrosia plants, she thought.

Primrose handed the Succubun the container holding the colourful petals and gently guided her towards the mortar and pestle.

“I would need you to mash these petals please while I distill the nectar of the purple Ambrosia plants. Do not worry, you don’t need to be too gentle with the petals, they need to be a fine paste in the end so make sure that they’re all mashed. After that, please fill up the empty flasks with this liquid here. About three quarters full should be enough, it doesn’t need to be exact so no need to worry.” Primrose pointed his hoof towards a large bottle, filled with a transparent, yet also viscous liquid. “What’s this?” Wicke inquired curiously while immediately grabbing the bottle she had just been shown and taking a big whiff to maybe recognize the smell.

Nothing. Strange.

“This, my dear Cassandra,” Primrose sighed silently “Is sugar water. Exciting, isn’t it? Now please get to work, I would like to get this done today.”

The Cherbun had already turned his back towards Wicke and started opening up the container with the other viscous liquid that Wicke had seen earlier, filling it into the distillation equipment on the bigger table. Swallowing her burning curiosity, Wicke slammed down the pestle into the mortar, making a satisfying, squishy sound.

This was great. Wicke squished again, this time slightly swirling around the pestle, turning her head slightly after she heard a bubbling sound from next to her but Primrose quickly blocked her view before she could even snatch the tiniest glance. He really didn’t want anyone to know, fine.

The Succubun continued mashing the little petals into a lilac coloured paste and transferred it into another container that had already been prepared by her chemistry partner beforehand, making sure to not waste a single little drop of the precious plants she had harvested a week earlier. It was important to work as exactly as possible since that meant freedom an hour or two earlier if Primrose was happy. So she gave it her all and Wicke was pretty sure that she almost filled an entire litre of the container with the meshed petals before she ran out. Curiously, Wicke sniffed at the container filled with the petal paste before her face scrunched up into an expression of disapproval. No, thank you, sir.  She gently pushed the container away, turning around to the Cherubun to ask for new directions.

She didn’t even have to say a single word before Primrose pointed towards the bottles and the sugar water and waved his little hoof to signal that she could continue while he filled a new, darker liquid into a tiny flask that barely looked like you could pour from it. Wicke blinked. Did she just see a ghost? She just shook her head and went back to work.

Since the sugar water wasn’t as irreplaceable, Wicke was a bit more time efficient with this one, using the funnel to help her guide the sticky liquid into the glass bottles and as Primrose had requested, she estimated about three quarters of the bottle before moving onto the next one. Strangely, the sugar water had only been enough for a dozen or so of the bottles before it ran out. Huh.

“Once you are done with the sugar water, then you can start scooping in the meshed petals. Exactly 80 Milliliters per bottle, not more not less. I will then add the last ingredient for the bitter Ambrosia to halfof them and the other six we will just add some more spices to.”

Wicke swallowed while looking at the Container of the petal paste before she started scooping in (hopefully) exactly 80 Milliliters into a flask that had little markings on it to help her find the exact measurement. Someone had manually added another marking on it in black marker that said “80 ML” in the most delicate handwriting she had ever seen. Wicke silently thanked her saviour for that and continued with her task, making sure to transfer the paste into the 12 bottles evenly. From time to time she nervously glanced over to see if Primrose was ready to reprimand her for any possible mistakes but he had just been silently working on his own distillation project, seemingly not acknowledging the Succubun.

Finally, after what seemed like an hour, Wicke was done with her exact measurements and had added the ingredient to the bulbous bottles, sighing in relief after she was done with the last one.

The Cherubun had already been waiting for what seemed like a short amount of time, impatiently tapping his foot, when the Succubun turned around to proudly announce that she had finished. Without a single word, Primrose grabbed the now full phial and walked over to the second table, inspecting Wicke’s work in the most meticulous manner before adding a few drops of the phial’s contents to the first six of them.

Once again, Wicke blinked when she saw that the contents of the bottle seemed to swirl around for a second, almost forming a ghostly shape before turning the contents to a dark purple hue.

Finally, after Primrose had added the last drops of the distilled nectar to the sixth of the bottles, he grabbed what seemed to be decorated corks and placed them next to the first half of the dozen they had created.

“I will take care of the other half of the Ambrosia now as they demand a special blend of spices to develop their full flavour. And Cassandra?” Primrose stopped for a second, then cleared his throat, his cheeks seemingly turning a soft shade of pink for a second. “Good work. I did not expect you to be this meticulous when working with the Ambrosias. Thank you.”

Wicke thought, she even saw the tiny smile that she had so eagerly been waiting for.