The hospital room was clean, had a strong smell of soap that made Tarnish want to sneeze, and was a little chilly. He had no memory of how he had come here, the last thing he remembered was drinking the horrible goo. He groaned, feeling some pain his stomach. The cool, somewhat moist air felt good on his lungs. Beside him, Maud lay sleeping, her eyes covered over with gauze bandages. There were tubes and things sticking out of him, all of them quite annoying.
The room wasn’t quite like other hospital rooms though. In one wall, there was a pane of glass but it was not a window that allowed him to see outside. It was one way glass and Tarnish wondered if they were being watched. He turned his head and stared at the glass for a moment.
After staring at the glass, he continued his look around. There was a table beside his bed, a typical hospital bed table, one that could swing over his bed and over him. There was a pitcher of water on it, a container, a little simple looking tea set with a small teapot and two cups, and there was a note written on beautiful looking ivory coloured paper, a type of paper that Tarnish had never seen before.
Dear Mister Teakettle.
Intrigued, Tarnish lifted the paper in his telekinesis, unfolded it, and began to read.
Dear Mister Teakettle,
Try not to worry, you are safe and sound. This is Las Pegasus’ University Hospital and they will take very good care of you. If you could though, be a dear, and do try to drink your special blend of tea. Because of a variety of problems, you and your dearest wife Maud are in the quarantine wing. It is my understanding that your special blend of tea has a way of gently removing magical radiation, which is quite preferable to the method that I had to use when I rescued you. You do have my apologies, but the extreme approach was necessary; you had to be made somewhat safe so that other ponies could help you. This is of course not even taking into consideration your other little problem. All of your belongings are safe and sound. Flamingo is quite an impressive sword. Twilight Sparkle is there with you, you should be seeing her soon.
Your family has been notified, they were quite worried, all of them.
Until we meet again,
Helianthus.
P.S. I do apologise for my departure, I would have liked to have stayed and had a chat, but I suffered quite an amusing allergic reaction due to your rather unique talent.
Tarnish looked down and saw that his sapphire amulet was glowing a dangerous looking purple, the colour of an angry storm cloud hanging on the horizon during sunset. He blinked a few times, not liking what he saw.
He poured some water from the pitcher into the tea kettle, thought about hot thoughts to get the water to boil, and then began to add tea to the infuser that could be dropped down inside of the teapot. After adding the infuser to the pot filled with boiling water, the room filled with the heady aroma of tea. Tarnish sighed, the scent brought him comfort and the feeling that everything was going to be okay.
Laying in bed, Tarnish waited for his tea to steep.
“Hello Tarnish, it is good to see you awake and doing well.” The voice of Twilight Sparkle came out of an intercom, and she was speaking in such a way that she tried to make her voice sound as pleasant as she could. “Maud is going to be fine, both of you are, although we were worried about Maud for a while. She is expected to make a full recovery, but she is being kept in a magically induced sleep to allow her body to recover.”
Staring at the window, Tarnish took a sip of tea.
“I hope you don’t mind, but I took the liberty of developing the film in your saddlebags. I avoided looking at the private photographs, but I have been looking at the film of your escape from the Crack of Doom. It is quite amazing… you kept filming during your long and scary journey, it’s amazing… you’ve contributed to science in a way that you might have trouble imagining.”
“I take it you saw the reaction?” Tarnish asked.
“Yes.” Twilight’s voice came out heavy on an strong exhale, causing the intercom to crackle. “Tarnish, I want to believe you, but we need more time to study the phenomenon. There are already those that are saying that it was you and your presence that caused the Crack of Doom to erupt. Of course, they don’t have evidence of that either, thankfully. If they did… I don’t know what would happen to you.”
“That is worrisome.” Tarnish, feeling calm, took another sip of hot tea.
“Tarnish, I know this is a little soon to mention it, but Princess Celestia wishes to hire both you and Maud for a bit of scientific research. It might help to establish some evidence that poison joke is a necessary part of the environment and is helpful, even beneficial. We can talk about it later.”
“Okay,” Tarnish replied.
“Seeing the film… Tarnish… all that poison joke appearing… the trees all turning into crystal… it’s all so amazing.” There was a long pause and the sounds of Twilight breathing could be heard over the intercom. “The Crack of Doom eruption was small, but powerful. The crag where the Crack of Doom was located is now a tiny volcano, it is less than a hundred feet tall at its peak, but it is continuing to spew out ash and some volcanic gasses. Of course, we can’t get anywhere near it to study it.”
“Twilight?” Tarnish stared at the one way glass.
“Yes?”
“Burning down the poison joke caused this. Don’t ask me how I know this, but I do. It demands that you ponies stop your ceaseless war against it. It wants to help you. You’ve burned away and destroyed so much. If you keep going, this is only the beginning of the consequences—”
“How...”
“Never mind how,” Tarnish replied, “you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“At this point, I might be inclined to believe anything,” Twilight said in a breathy voice over the intercom, causing it to crackle somewhat.
“The jokes, the pranks, it was a way to discourage you and keep you away from danger. It never meant to hurt you, it was accidental when it did, it only wanted to help. During one of my surges that happened while Maud and I were staying in the cave, I had a profound experience during a moment of delirium. I’m certain that you’ve noticed that my cutie mark has changed.” Tarnish cleared his scratchy throat, it was still difficult to speak, and took a big sip of tea. It was soothing and made his throat feel better.
“Tarnish, can you please tell me everything? I want to know… I need to understand what is going on… are we in danger?” Twilight’s voice sounded worried and mechanical over the intercom.
Nodding, Tarnish replied, “A danger of your own making…”
Tarnish lay in bed, contemplating the silence. There was nothing to do but stare at the ceiling. Twilight Sparkle, after hearing what he had to say, had gone off to have herself a think. Maud was asleep, her breathing slow, steady, and only somewhat wheezy.
There was nothing to do, nothing at all.
It was a terrible state of affairs, as Tarnish did not like boredom. If Flamingo was here, he would have pulled her out and had a chat with her, but he didn’t know where his belongings were.
The transition was almost painful; he had gone from running for his life, a desperate struggle for survival, to laying on his back in a somewhat uncomfortable hospital bed. He wondered if there was something wrong with him, because a part of him wanted to be back out in the wilds, struggling, fighting for his existence, facing the many challenges of life in the wilds.
It had been one very interesting honeymoon, that much was for certain. Exotic locales, life on the road, meeting new ponies, moments of scientific discovery, dancing, and lovemaking… lots of lovemaking, usually under the stars. Or under a nice shady tree. Or in soft, warm sand. In the back of the wagon on top of trunks and lumpy things, while waiting out the rain.
He and Maud had finally hit the point in their relationship where things were getting creative, the point where talking about it wasn’t so embarrassing and they could discuss all the wonderful and perhaps perverted things they wanted to do with one another… or to one another. It was a time of exploration and experimentation.
They had done a lot of exploration, or so Tarnish realised. They had explored the world, there was scientific exploration, self discoveries had been made for the both of them, and of course, they had explored, sniffed, prodded, poked, examined, and even licked just about every inch of one another. Maud took a scientific approach to lovemaking just as she took a scientific approach to everything else. There were even notes, detailed notes, and Tarnish had made certain to grab that one particular journal. There were all manner of notes, diagrams, and hoofnotes about anatomical applications of applied leverage; it was Maud’s work and Tarnish could not bear the idea of losing it.
Quite without meaning to do so, Tarnish, bored out of his mind, closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.