“What’s the page for the potion, Nyx?”

Everything they would need today was splayed out on the kitchen table. Apollo, Nyx’s dragon familiar, had claimed an empty cardboard box and watched the two men from the top of the fridge.

“If I remember correctly, it was page 140.”

Zain flipped to the page the alicorn had mentioned, and started reading.

“Uh, Nyx, are you sure this is the right page? It says ‘Aphrodisiac’ here,” The human said while blushing slightly.

“It is an aphrodisiac, Zain,” Nyx replied with a small grin, “What else would give you the stamina needed for handling me during a full moon?”

The redhead groaned. He could have known.

“Anyway,” Zain continued, “Do you need any help with making it?”

The alicorn nodded. “If you could chop up the ginseng and horny goat weed for me, that would save me some time.”

With Apollo serving as his supervisor, Zain got to work. The plants were at least not as gross looking as that ambergris. He really wondered if he would even be able to drink that potion while knowing what the ingredients were. Maybe he should have let Nyx do the shopping alone, he thought. But then again, would he have been able to kiss the gorgeous alicorn so soon if he hadn’t gone with him?

Looking back over his shoulder, he saw the taller man summoning a cauldron, just like the ones you would see in a movie about witches. He dumped all the various ingredients in it, while mumbling some words that Zain couldn’t quite hear.

When Zain was done, he brought over his work and, following Nyx’s directions, added them to the cauldron too. Another spell escaped the alicorn’s lips, this time clearer. The last item to be added was the defiled holy water.

“You know, that holy water looks pretty cloudy. I wonder if that’s because...”

“Don’t think too much about it, Zain,” Nyx interupted, “If you think too much about what’s inside...”

“Yeah yeah, I get it.” Zain sighed.

After glancing over to the redhead to see if he was okay – and he luckily was –, the alicorn shifted his attention to the miniature dragon. Apollo picked up the cue and came soaring down from atop of the fridge.

Apollo sat down on the table while waiting for instructions from his caretaker. Zain was still amazed at the little creature.

“Apollo, please create some self-sustaining purple fire for me.”

Nyx’s request was simple but effective, because in a few seconds purple flames were licking the black metal of the cauldron. Apollo cooed when his fluffy head was petted. The scene was rather endearing.

“Now we need to wait,” Nyx announced, “Around midnight we should be able to distill the concoction into a proper potion.”

Zain nodded. So far, everything seemed to go well. He was even surprised that Apollo’s flames didn’t leave any burnmarks on the table, which was a relief. Tables were expensive.

# # # #

After spending the rest of the day watching TV, playing video games and cooking (the normal kind), the clock finally marked a bit before midnight.

“Should be about done,” Nyx remarked, stirring for a bit in the now blue-ish liquid. He then waved with his hand and the dragon’s fire extinguished.

Zain joined the alicorn, curious about the process. They had set up a glass distilation set a few hours prior and Nyx was now tranfering the concoction from the cauldron to a beaker.

“Do we need a new fire?”

Apollo stirred at the mention of fire. The creature was very enthusiastic about his fire-making duties. He crowed in excitement.

“We need Apollo’s silver fire. It has a smaller range and is hotter. We need a candle for it though.”

The readhead went on his way to rummage through the kitchen cupboards, wondering out loud if he still even had candles.

“You’re into magic but don’t own candles? And what if the electricity goes down someday?”

“Never needed them,” Zain replied, shrugging, “And I have a flashlight for that very rare case. Somewhere.”

Nyx chuckled, and finished prepping the distilation process. He called over his familiar, just as Zain had found a set of black candles.

“Ah, the color of my soul,” The alicorn said dramatically upon seeing the candles.

Zain snorted. “If the color of your soul is black, then what color would mine be?”

He had expected the winged unicorn to ponder about that for a bit, but he replied instantly.

“Red. Like the color of your hair and your fire within. Your soul is the color of love, Zain.”

The shorter man fumbled with his hands, not quite sure where to go from here. Nyx knew though, planting a surprise kiss on the redhead’s lush lips. He grinned when he saw the other wide-eyed and blushing furiously.

“W-what was that for?” Zain stammered, still taken aback.

“For being cute. Now hand me one of those candles.”

Still a bit dumbstruck, the human did what he was told. He then watched as Nyx held the candle over to Apollo so he could light the wick. A silver fire started melting the wax.

The process was mesmerizing. Steam rose up in the beaker and was let through a series of pipes, changing into a dark-blue liquid and then was caught in a medium-sized bottle. When it was almost full, Nyx blew out the candle. He screwed a lid onto the bottle, waved with his hand to make the mess disappear, and then turned to Zain, smiling.

“Done!”

Zain couldn’t help but smile too. Even though he was slightly scared of Nyx as an incubus and the effects of the potion, he was at least happy it was the alicorn and not some random stranger from the streets.

Nyx, only Nyx.