Ampere had always said Gaucho was magnetic, but maybe it was the other way around, her electricity working in more ways than she may have realized whenever her emotions got the better of her. If blue sparks could fizzle from decaying matter around them when she wasn't paying attention, why not her other ability too? The one that controlled the electricity in other things, things like Maren's body.

Then again, maybe it was just dumb luck.

How they ended up together was not half as important to Ampere as they fact that they were together. She hadn't felt anyone on her like this since... well since the last time he had done it. In prior times of trauma Ampere had no reservations about hurtling herself at the nearest decent looking stallion to soothe whatever ailed her heart, but then that was just it, wasn't it? This wasn't an ailment of the heart, this was the utter devastation of it. All those times before were nothing compared to this, because back then she'd still held onto it, but when she finally gave it away he went and set it ablaze- that seemed nice at first, but eventually the fire exhausted itself. So now Ampere was left with a pile of ashes and an empty hole in her chest, a hole that nothing seemed to fit in, but alcohol could be crammed in quite nicely she was finding.

So as Maren continued to pin her down, to dominate her the way Gaucho could, Ampere felt an all too familiar heat flush through her body. She squirmed at the sensation; not because Maren caused it, the tiger mare had always been appreciatively attractive in Ampere's mind, but because she could feel it still. Part of her had been content at feeling dead inside, reveling in the numb sensation that crawled through her like winter across the realm.

Ampere was the type to take up smoking just to remember his fire, health detriments be damned. Loneliness was part of the reason she wanted to drag that memory out of the grave repeatedly, a picture to hold until it got so worn and faded it wasn't even worth looking at any more (but she would any way). The other part of it though, the really fucked up part, was this notion that she ought to mutilate whatever bit of happiness she felt again, shoving it back into the depths of sorrow until it drowned and she felt sad enough to look at that picture again, hit that drag on the death stick. Because if he was dead, and she hadn't been able to save him - because he was better but still gone, and she was a shit storm but still breathing - well that was why she couldn't be happy any more. She had loved and lost, and she didn't deserve anything else. She never had deserved it in the first place...

That's what you get for finding joy in fire. So long as it's burning you're warm and you're good, but once it's out, it's out. Whatever tears were shed during the cold saturate the wood too much that it can't burn again, so all you got is happy memories drifting up and away with the smoke.

So why exactly was she feeling warm underneath Maren? As always, Ampere's own treachery was worse than anything someone else could do to her.
A strangled, ugly sigh that was dangerously close to a sob was the only answer Ampere had for Maren's question. A joke? Not any more.

Averting her gaze for her shame, Ampere let her head flop unceremoniously back down on the sand, her eyes unblinking as she stared off into the desert, wondering when the golden sand and its dunes began to look so much like the gray waves of the sea, and if they prove just as effective in consuming her if she wasn't able to swim.

"Cactus piss," Kygo responded to Maren, his voice oddly similar to Ampere's, His green body fluttered to a landing on an outcrop from the Temple, where he stared at the heap of pegasus with a cocked head. He'd been too buzzed from their experimenting to follow, but his quick metabolism and fewer sips had helped his recovery much faster than Ampere's, lending to his appearance now. He would have said more on the matter, but speaking verbally didn't come easy, so all he managed was to repeat the phrase.

"It needsssss a bettur naame," Ampere muttered into the sand. "Fire piss? Fire water?" She huffed dramatically, the effort of naming something too great in the moment. "Don't mattur, not's rong enough," she declared, apparently hoping for death.

She'd seemingly forgotten she'd asked Maren about the sun and never received an answer, but with the recent betrayal, Ampere's thoughts had drifted from the deity and to his ascended Sultan. "Why'd 'e die?" Ampere asked softly, tightly, her throat thick with the emotion- punctuated by her drink. "Whyyyyy did the Sun take the fire?"

Ampere tried to crane her head back around, pleading gaze searching for answers among the mare and her house of wisdom.