Lifting his head, Tarnished Teapot stretched his neck, causing his bones to crackle. He turned his head one way, he then turned his head the other way, and each turn of his head caused even more alarming crickle-crackle noises to come from his neck.
Maud looked up from her book, an almost sleepy expression upon her face.
“I’m fine,” Tarnish said, knowing somehow that Maud was worried. She had pulled her head up out of her own book after all. “Maud, I have an idea… a what do you call it—”
“A theory?” Maud blinked once and then her ears swivelled forwards.
Excited, Tarnish nodded. “Yes, a theory! There are cures for exposure to poison joke. I’m now curious about if those cures would work on ponies after an exposure to me… if it would change things. I’m also wondering if using one of the many cures upon myself would help stabilise my magic for a while. I’ve got ideas Maud… I’ve never really been into studying before, but now I have ideas.”
“Hmm.” Maud tilted her head to one side. “What do you need to make a cure?”
“Well, there is a soap you can make for a bath, but that seems impractical. Always bathing, I mean… this book that Twilight Sparkle sent, there is a recipe for a tea you can brew in here. You need whole stamens of poison joke, both the anthers and the filaments—”
“Tarnish, it sounds as though you’ve actually been studying. Are you getting smarter for me?” Maud asked.
Blushing, Tarnish shrugged. “You do have that double rocktorate. That’s kinda intimidating… anyhow… a whole bunch of stamens are needed, and they need to be dried, the book tells you how to dry them. It recommends that you blend it with black tea leaves. You also need the root of the plant mandragora officinarum. The root needs to be minced and then dried out in rocksalt. The book mentions that the salt can be used for all kinds of things.”
Maud closed her book. She made a few careful mental notes about her planned visit to Ponyville and then considered how this new information might affect her plans. “Tarnish, would you like to go for a walk with me? I know where we can collect all the poison joke we need.”
“I’d like that… but we have to be careful. It is the petals of the poison joke plant that are dangerous. If we bring some home to try and make a tea with, we will need to collect the stamens out in the field and leave behind the petals. We don’t want to bring those into the house.” Tarnish closed his book and then set it down on the low wooden table beside his chair.
“Seems like a waste. Leaving behind the petals I mean. Can’t they be used for anything?” Maud asked.
“They can be dried out and weaponised.” Tarnish’s face became serious. “It doesn’t strike me as a very nice thing to do, and most ponies run the risk of having a violent reaction to the poison joke, unless they’ve been using the cure preemptively—”
“Wait… Tarnish, you can use the cure before exposure?” Maud asked.
“Um, yeah. The book says that a bath with the special soap lasts for a few hours but isn’t very practical because it wears off and things like rain can mess up the lingering effects of the soap. But if you drink the tea, the effects last longer and you can keep drinking the tea.”
Maud made more mental notes and filed them away.
“Says the tea is also an outstanding cure for hay fever and allergies.” Tarnish dropped out of his chair and stood on the floor. “I’ll go get my hat. It’s hot out there.”
Still sitting in her chair, Maud watched as Tarnish went through the door and down the hallway to his room. When she was alone, she said, “Hmm, it’s hot in here, too.”
The Haunted Wood was a little cooler and there was a nice breeze. Maud had borrowed one of her mother’s straw sun hats, it had a broad, floppy brim and a turquoise ribbon around the crown. The pair were in no hurry, there was no urgency in their movements, and moved along at the pace of Tarnish’s three legged hobbling.
“Where are we going to find mandragora plants?” Tarnish asked as Maud stopped to look at a rock lying just off the trail. He watched as Maud picked up the small purple-blue stone and dropped it into a pocket. “Hey… is that sodalite?”
Lifting her head, Maud turned to look at Tarnish. She turned her whole body, took a few steps, and then planted a shy peck upon Tarnish’s lips. She then took a step backwards. “You have been studying.” Maud shrugged. “I’m not sure where we can get mandragora roots. We might want to ask Azalée though. She’s a botanist.”
“We’re alone… we could do a little studying together,” Tarnish said.
“What are you proposing?” Maud asked.
Giddy, Tarnished Teapot began to giggle and he was forced to turn away from Maud. “We could talk about beautiful petals and pollination methods.”
“Uh-huh. We could talk about that. I’m a field geologist though. I prefer the hooves on approach.” Maud peered out from beneath the brim of her sun hat. “No amount of classroom lecture and talking prepares you for actual work in the field.”
At this point, Tarnish was giggling like a school filly. “I wouldn’t mind poking around in the moist earth of your fertile crescent.”
Almost as if it was swatting at a swarm of invisible flies, Maud’s now curly tail swished around her hind legs. The rest of her was statuesque. Her eyes were half open and locked on Tarnish.
“Given enough heat and pressure, I could leave behind sedimentary deposits—”
“Stop… stop… I can only become so aroused,” Maud deadpanned. The mare took a deep breath. “Not here though. I want to lay with you in fields of blue.”
“That’s poetic… and kinda pretty.” Tarnish grinned. “We still have a ways to go. We should get moving.”
“Yes, yes we should.”