Tarnished Teapot and Maud made a dry camp in a little turn off on the side of the road, leaving the body of the hydra behind them. Very little water was left in the twelve gallon water barrel. Maud was rinsed off, but she wasn’t clean. This worried Tarnish and left him in a moody state. There was also the matter of making more tea. The flask was half full and would be empty soon with Tarnish’s regular drinking.
It was tempting to use the mirror and call for help.
Sitting on a stump in the middle of their camp, Tarnish tried to figure out how he had made steam. Now that he was a little calmer, he tried to think about his spell, what he had done to make it happen, curious if he could make enough steam to somehow reclaim as water.
Maud was inside the wagon, sleeping. Tarnish supposed that he should be inside the wagon sleeping as well. The ground was too spongy and damp here to sleep upon. This whole place was wet and soggy. The air was humid to the point of being hard to breathe. This was a miserable place full of water, but nothing drinkable.
He had been angry when he had made steam. He had been so very angry. Maud, a pony that he loved, his wife, had been swallowed by a hydra. Tarnish was aware that he had a few issues, but he hadn’t been aware that he was so full of repressed rage. Anger or passion fueled heat related magics, like making fire. Tarnish reasoned that such a thing would also work for steam. Tarnish wasn’t certain how he had condensed the water in the air. He had done it somehow, reflexive magic. So his mind knew how to do it at some level.
Closing his eyes, Tarnish began to think of white, fluffy clouds. He thought of rain clouds. He visualised them in his mind. As he did so, he tried to think of angry thoughts. He thought of Maud being eaten. His neglect. He thought of his father. He felt his magic fizzle.
Opening his eyes, he heaved a sigh, He wasn’t the most magical unicorn. Lifting his tea flask, he took a tiny sip, swallowed, and then screwed the lid on tight. Anger wasn’t going to work. Tarnish hated being angry. Closing his eyes, he settled onto his stump, trying to get comfortable.
Instead, he focused on passion. He thought about soft, puffy, fluffy rain clouds. He thought about Maud. He thought about nibbling on Maud’s ear. He thought about Maud nibbling on his ears. He thought about Maud’s little love bites on his neck, the way her flat teeth would give him a teasing, tugging pinch. He thought about dancing with Maud, slow dancing, pressed up belly to belly with one another.
The top of Tarnish’s head felt hot, as though he had his head too close to a fire. It had felt this way when he had shot off a jet of superheated steam. He didn’t want steam, he wanted clouds, he wanted water. He thought of Maud laying on her back, the way she looked when she looked up at him when he was above her and looking down, the way her mane spilled out around her head, over her pillow. He could almost imagine her forelegs around his neck, clinging to him, the sultry yet sleepy expression caused by her half opened eyes.
Tarnish felt something hot splash on the tender flesh of his nose. He grunted. “Hrrrgh!” He gritted his teeth together to keep from crying out and waking Maud. He clutched his muzzle with his forelegs, the pain on his snoot was almost unbearable.
Pulling his forelegs away, Tarnish crossed his eyes, trying to see his snoot. There was a large, bubbling blister. He had made a boiling hot raindrop. He fanned at his nose with his hoof and began to whimper. It hurt. It hurt a lot. Still cross eyed, he could see beads of water along his horn, and then, as he was watching, another drop fell down.
“Oh, fudge!” Tarnish cried as the second boiling drop hit his nasal bridge. The droplets were sliding down his horn, condensing, collecting together, and dripping down onto his face. He tilted his head forwards, angling his horn down towards the ground. A little bit of water trickled down to the ground as his movement caused the many water droplets to collide with one another.
“Well, at least I’ve figured out how to scald myself.”
Maud Pie awoke to the sounds of soft crying. She lifted her head, worried for Tarnish, and fearing that he was being hurt or was in pain. She was weary, sore, and still very, very tired. She looked about the wagon and then, after standing up, she looked around the camp. She saw Tarnish with his head over the water barrel. Maud lept from the wagon, landing with a soft thump, and went to Tarnish’s side.
When Tarnish turned to look at her, Maud couldn’t help herself, she gasped. Tarnish’s face was covered in blisters. His horn was damp. She could see his lip quivering. Confused, worried, even a little fearful, Maud shook her head. “What are you doing?”
“I can make boiling water,” Tarnish replied and then, he began to sniffle. “I’m getting better at it, but the drips, they really hurt.”
“Tarnish…” Maud sat down on the soft, spongy ground, wrapped her forelegs around Tarnish, and pulled him closer. “What have you done to yourself?”
“We needed water. I’ve managed to fill up our water barrel to almost half,” Tarnish replied as he fell limp into Maud’s embrace. “Heat magic needs passion… I’ve been thinking about hot thoughts of you for hours.”
“Hours? You’ve been doing this for hours?” Maud’s eyebrow raised as she began to examine Tarnish’s face. “I heard you crying—”
“Oh, the boiling water keeps dripping onto blisters that are already there,” Tarnish said.
Leaning her head forward, Maud kissed Tarnish on a place that was not covered in blisters. She could feel the heat coming from his horn and a wisp of steam curled up from the tip. Maud came to the odd conclusion that she had married a tea kettle. “So you’ve been thinking about my sexy, supple, slinky body for hours?”
“Sometimes slippery.”
Maud felt Tarnish relax against her. “We’ll need to figure out a safer, better way of you doing this if you plan to replenish our water this way. Tarnish, I can’t have you burning your face like this. We have enough water for now.”
“I’m exhausted.”
“I would imagine.” Maud looked at the steam rising up out of the water barrel. Tarnish had pulled the barrel out of the wagon, probably so he wouldn’t disturb her. “Tarnish, get some sleep. I’ll keep watch because we’re in a sort of dangerous place.”
“There is hot water for a bath—” Tarnish said in a voice that came out as a whine when his words trailed off into a yawn. He smacked his lips a few times and then pulled himself free from Maud’s embrace. “Make the most of it. I can get us more water.”
She watched as Tarnish hopped up into the wagon, turned around a few times, and then laid down upon the blanket she had been sleeping on. Sighing, Maud decided that a better bath was in order, being a little cleaner would be nice.
Afterwards, Maud planned to make a long entry in her journal.