The long walk back from Everfree after a patently exhausting and largely unfruitful trek through the forest’s depths weighed heavily upon Mercury as she skirted the woods on her way back to Ponyville. She’d been searching for new species of plants to document and test the properties of, for often they prove useful in alchemical experimentation. The mare yawned to herself, half lidded expression betraying her sleepiness even though the sun was still high in the sky.
 
Mercury stumbled and tripped, nearly falling on her face and bringing her out of her sleepy delirium with a start… she hadn’t even noticed that she’d strayed from the path and evidently gotten herself tangled up in a dark brown vine with deeply hued leaves. It looked remarkably out of place, she thought to herself as she grumpily looked back at her hooves, twisting side to side to extricate herself from the offending plant. It looked almost like an Everfree species she’d heard of before, but she was safely outside the bounds of the forest, surely it couldn’t be?