Cultivating Plants

“Ugh...” Aloe groaned as she twisted her neck upwards in pain, her nape resting against a slate of sandstone. “Never again.” She let out a loaded groan, after exiting her meditation and changing her internal infusion back to ‘toughness’. “I still feel it... I would say it’s a phantom pain... but it’s very real.”

The girl’s back curved as she curled forward a bit, her hands placed on her stomach. She had felt fine over the last hours, Aloe would go as far as to say that she felt good, but the instant she deactivated the infusion, the pain hit her like a full-speed dweller.

“My hands are trembling.” Aloe chuckled, her voice as faint as a whisper. Better laugh than cry. “It’s good to know that the infusion has a powerful effect, but at the same time, what would I have done without it? I almost puked and fainted, it would have been impossible to meet with the emir...” 

A voice whispered in her mind, compelling her to refer to the woman as ‘Rani’, but her decency kept her at bay. She had only referred to the sultanzade that way because it was a direct order, but she didn’t want to make that into a habit, especially when the woman was nowhere near her.

“Twilight is near...” Aloe stopped an instant to regain her breath. That last sentence she spoke was too much for her fatigued and afflicted state. “I should make haste if I want to do this today... but at the same time, do I really need to?”

The answer was no, she wasn’t in any haste to do anything. Unlike the previous month, there wasn’t a deadline looming over her – if ‘toughness’ continued to work as well as it did, she could even ignore her menstruation – but at the same time, she didn’t want to stay still. Doing so led to thoughts, and she didn’t to do such a thing right now.

Her mind worked better whilst occupied, unable to think or feel.

Aloe passed her hands through her scalp, vaguely fixing her hair, though she did so to refresh herself as a few beads of sweat trailed down her forehead.

“Let’s just pay him a visit.” The girl said after weakly standing up from the bench.

Unconsciously, Aloe reached for the waterskin on her bag, only to remember that she didn’t carry one.

“I’m no longer in the desert...” As she was inside the city walls, she didn’t think of carrying water with her like she did on the oasis or her treks.

Aloe sighed and removed her hand from her bag. She was traveling light with her simple white dress and pistachio shawl, but especially so compared to her normal attire back on the oasis. Her desert garb was heavy in contrast to these clothes and far more cumbersome. Even though she was in pain, the agility that this attire brought refreshed her.

However, it was problematic not having access to her satchels.

Those little bags had a lot of useful trinkets.

“I wonder if the vitality pills would do something to soothe my pain...” Aloe inquired as she strolled away from the bazaar, turning a corner into the labyrinthic streets of Sadina. “Nah, probably not.” She sighed. “I’m at my maximum vitality unlike before, they would do nothing. Unless I found a way to permanently infuse myself like I do with plants...”

The idea fancied her, but she doubted it was possible. For all she knew, internal infusion was the human equivalent of the infusion she applied to plants. Though it was quite obvious that it suffered from the fundamental difference of being self-applied and reliant on her total vitality rather than an external influence like it was with plants.

Those thoughts didn’t fully form as her mind was both sluggish and she made it to her destination.

It was a house like any other, except that in the façade hung a sign with a nondescript leaf and instead of a door there was a red curtain. It was a shop, not a home. And the kind of establishment was quite obvious. Aloe pushed the curtains to the side and entered the dimly lit shop.

“Hello?” She asked as there was no one at the counter. “Umar? Are you here?”

“Yeah! One moment!” A muted shout came from the back store.

The interior of the apothecary smelled like dried plants, even if there were plenty of alive ones. Aloe roamed along the room, looking at the shelves filled with pots, seeds, plants, and trinkets. What the raspy voice called a moment ended up being four minutes.

“I didn’t expect anyone at this hour.” The man grunted as he entered the shop. “Oh,” And then gasped as he saw Aloe, “and especially not such a young beauty.”

“Didn’t you call me ugly the last time we saw each other?” The girl added with a frown.

“No, I did not.” He scratched his thin whitened beard in thought. “But that’s a thing I would do, yes.”

“Anyways,” Aloe half-groaned, half-sighed. “It’s nice to see you, Umar.”

“Really?” The old man seemed surprised by her words. “It’s the first time someone told me that.”

“I don’t know if to feel sad upon hearing that.”

“Don’t.” Umar shook his hand around dismissively. “I don’t need the pity of a youngster.”

“Alright.” Aloe harumphed. “I was just being polite; it was only an expression.”

“I could say the same thing.” The apothecary chuckled. “Don’t get your hopes up, no one is going to fall over your looks.”

Surprisingly, Aloe found herself smiling even if she had been insulted. Today it had been a hard day, and most had just looked at her with pity. Yet the unapologetic man’s behavior felt refreshing, comforting, and normal. She just had the urge to punch him in the face.

And that felt good!

“Well, are you going to tell me why you are here or are you just going to stand there looking at me with that bloodlust in your eyes?”

Upon hearing Umar’s words, Aloe blushed. Not because he had read her perfectly, but for the reason she had come here before.

“Ah, you planted the cannabis seeds, didn’t you?” Aloe’s blush intensified and so did the man’s grin. “Well, what are you waiting for, lass? Take them out.”

“Umm, I think there’s a misunderstanding.” Aloe cut out. “I’m not here to sell cannabis. Well, not yet at least.”

“Then why in the heavens’ sake are you here?” The old man’s mood instantly soured as he discovered he wasn’t going to get any cannabis.

“To ask you how to harvest it.” The girl asked with a straight back as she recomposed her mask.

“Whilst it bothers me that you have crossed that door without drugs in your hands, I must congratulate your foresight,” Umar said. “Not everyone is clear-headed enough to ask the farmer how and when the potatoes are harvested.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“It is.” The apothecary nodded. “Anyhow, what’s the type of cannabis you use?”

“Wait.” Aloe was left agape. “There are different types?”

“Indeed.” The old man continued scratching her beard in an old-man manner. “Three of them, in fact. But you kinda can ignore the third, it’s just a hybrid. The main two are Indica and Sativa.”

“How can I know which I have?”

“You don’t,” Umar stated seriously.

Instead of worrying about the man’s words, Aloe deadpanned.

“Bah!” The apothecary groaned. “I try to jest and this is what I get as a reward?”

“It wasn’t particularly amusing.”

“Not my problem.” The old man harrumphed. “You don’t need to identify them. If it’s your grandfather’s, then it will be Indica.”

“What’s the difference between the two anyways?”

“Mainly the flowering time. Though the shape of the leaves does change. But that’s the external changes. What actually matters is the inside. The Sativas have a greater kick, ya’ know?”

“If that’s the case, why did my father uhm...” Even if she didn’t blush now, Aloe’s words lost her cadence. It was difficult to talk about drugs with a straight face.

“Drugs with a lesser punch?” Umar snickered. “For the first reason I told you, the flowering time. Indicas take around two weeks less to grow, and Karaim had some tricks with his greenhouse to cut that time in half. Never knew how he did it.”

Aloe reinforced her mask to the limit, not letting a single tick escape her. She was not going to reveal any secrets with involuntary expressions.

“So he chose quantity over quality?”

“Yeah,” Umar shrugged. “Which is weird because he has a greenhouse, ya’ know, the place where you plant fragile plants and yield better results at the expense of having a lower seeding area? He probably did it because of assassins. If you had two identical plants but one had more punch, they would go for that one, even if it were less of it.”

“I know, but I can’t answer questions for him.” I barely knew him, to begin with. She thought, mostly ignoring the comments of assassins. If they weren’t a problem before, they shouldn’t be now. “Okay, what I do next?”

“Now, here comes the hard part.” Umar started.

“Right.” Aloe nodded, paying close attention. “What do I do?”

“You know that the grown cannabis plants are short, and you know what the stem is, right?” Aloe nodded to the rather obvious question. “Okay, so you need to trace your finger from the stem to the branch,” Aloe nodded again, closely listening to the wise man’s lesson, “and then you cut the branch.”

Aloe deadpanned.

Her expression was stone, her heart cold, her thoughts daggers, and her feelings void.

“That’s all?” The girl asked with a lot of hesitation, but mainly the unhidden wish to hit something very hard. Namely, old men.

“Yup.” Umar nodded nonchalantly. “You are just the farmer, but I’m the artist. The one who requires actual hands and makes the kush. I just need intact branches to make actual hashish.”

“Return me my worry,” Aloe stated annoyed and cross-armed.

“No,” Umar smacked his lips “I don’t think I will.”