(Being in) Hot Water Just Makes Everything Better

(Being in) Hot Water Just Makes Everything Better
Vilnius leaned back and closed his eyes. The cauldron was small, but not too small and the warm water was flowing in such interesting ways

Maybe I’ll just sleep here tonight. It’ll be nice, assuming Scald doesn’t turn me into soup before morning.

But tomorrow

Tomorrow I walk into the Stead with half of my skin boiled off, a pot of dirt that leaks water, a cedar box that leaks steam and worst of all I’ve dented the village’s largest cauldron and while it doesn’t leak the being that now resides in it is likely picky about who and what she’s willing to share it with.

Are people going to praise me for what I’ve done? Probably not. I’ll get yelled at. Called a ‘Filthy Shaman’ or worse. Maybe have to pay for the pot.

Oh. There’ll come a time -- a month or two from now, where everyone will rejoice at the benefits the Sisters brought and wonder how we ever got along without them, but by then no one will remember who brought them here.

So. Tomorrow. I need to get everyone over the initial hue and cry of my return and arrange for proper establishment of my new friends.

What to say to accomplish that?

The truth? Obviously not! They’d never believe the truth and there are some times when the truth simply won’t do.

No, I need something better than the truth. More believable. More satisfying. Something that doesn’t turn into an embarrassment for all parties involved. Most importantly, it needs a great title, maybe something like

=== Mantis versus the Steam Spirits === No, that won’t do. It’s got alliteration but no pizzazz. It depersonalizes and it also sounds like it was all fighting and frankly there wasn’t much. No need for combat when you are smart. How about?

In the Harem of Lord Steam

Now that’s a story I want to hear just from the title. Maybe a bit salacious for the younger crowd, though. Perhaps I’ll jot that one down for the next Corrobary. It doesn’t help now though. I need a crowd-pleaser like. ..

Mantis and the Temple of Lost Gases
A heroic tale of derring-do with sword fights aplenty, even though I don’t know how to use a sword. Title sounds silly. Never mind.

Vilnius gets the Vapors
Accurate, but hardly Heroic.

In the Slave Swamp of the Steam Lords  

Hrm. . . Alliterative. Evocative. Provocative. Sufficiently suggestive without over salaciousness.

Nah. . . Maybe as a sequel “In the Harem. . .” but it won’t work for my purposes.

The trouble is that all these titles leave me with Lord Steam as the principal villain and he wasn’t really. He also may be useful if we ever. ..

Return to the Petrified Forest
No, that just makes it a sequel to a story everyone would rather forget. Anyway, I never had to enter the forest itself and it doesn’t even mention. ..

==The Lost Daughters of Lord Steam ==

That’s more like it. I remove myself from the title and emphasize the plight of my charges. Technically,   they were more abandoned than lost. Well, even more technically they were driven out for being insufficiently steamy (or in one case scandalously Earthy) than lost.

Ah, the story practically writes itself and even includes some stray elements of truth. Society! Society is the main villain. A rigid society that shuns the different. A misguided king that that follows the edicts of his land (well swamp) rather than guidance of his heart. Romance! Betrayal! The Sacred Bonds of Sisterhood! Much weeping will ensue.

It’ll be great.