Cultivating Plants

Her headache had, in fact, not ceased. She tried doing everything at her disposal to calm the pain, but she had no medicine to do so, nor could she waste the little water she had to refresh herself, if just by soaking a rag and washing herself a bit.

The idea of forcefully growing a Flourishing Spring as she had done with the Blossomflame did cross her mind as she had evolved black seeds in her satchels, but alas, she had no soil to plant the seed in. And unlike the shining Myriad, she doubted the water-bringing plant would grow in sand, no matter how fine it was.

The only real way she had to deal with her growing migraines was to rest more. Instead of ten minutes, she took fifteen.

A five-minute difference didn't seem like much, but it was a fifty-percent increase. And when taking into account the resting factor of the recovery internal infusion, that number was closer to half an hour more of rest for her body.

The most difficult part of her short rests was actually not falling asleep. Whilst that virtual hour and a half didn't exist in her mind, it truly was the case for her body. And considering she had been running nonstop for two days with dubious sleep at best, her body craved that sleep.

It didn't matter that she was getting like thirty-six hours of sleep every night.

She was demanding too much from her body, and it was showing.

If just to soothe the monotony, Aloe tried evolving a black seed. It was a simple endeavor, using up an adult's worth of vitality – she still had to come up with a term to abbreviate that – was almost trivial by now.

Making her vitality flow did release a bit of stress, but it was only a temporary measure. Though after only needing a few minutes to recover that lost vitality when wielding recovery, Aloe decided to at least evolve a black seed in each rest, if just to keep increasing her reserves.

Nurture on its own wasn't that powerful – at her level of vitality, she was well aware of the monster and natural disaster that was Aaliyah – but constantly switching stances at their appropriate times was unfathomably useful.

Fatigue, nearsightedness, pain, shortness of breath, and so forth, all of these problems could be resolved by donning the appropriate stance.

Having said so, Aloe didn't have the luxury of using toughness to ease her pain. If she wasn't wielding recovery every second of her rests, she wouldn't have enough energy to keep moving. And moving without the speed stance active was a colossal waste of time.

As most things went, the murderer wasn't worried about having anyone hot on her trail. She wasn't sure how fast assassins could move, even if she was sure they had supernatural abilities with their own vital arts – Jafar himself showed the ability to shroud in shadows and Tareek could somehow augment his intellect – but she doubted they could travel almost two weeks in two days and a half.

Cultivators for sure could do that, but Aloe doubted Aaliyah would send her children to hunt her down just for the sake of logistics, and even if she did do that, they had no trail to follow. Unlike the assassins.

"Heavens, I wish there has been a sandstorm behind me. Not to slow them, but to cover my steps." The problem with striding like crazy across the desert was that her footprints were deeper than they should be for a woman of her build and stature. "I guess I could hide in a sandstorm if anyone ever got close…"

That wasn't something she particularly looked forward to, but Aloe trusted her toughness to survive through a sandstorm. Maybe overzealously so.

Whilst she continued marching east, Aloe knew the terrain would soon change. Geography wasn't her forte, but soon she would reach the Whistling Sands, and past them, the Ridged Highlands.

None were locations she looked forward to either.

The Whistling Sands were full of mysticism and the Ridged Highlands, whilst in the frontier with Loyata, were even more harsh than the desert. They said that, instead of sand, the ground was composed of needle-like stones that led travelers to death by a thousand cuts. And much like the Qiraji, it was a barren wasteland.

Soon the third day came to an end and Aloe went to sleep with a heart full of dread. Or rather, more than she was normally pumping through her veins.

It was then that she partially became more understanding of her headache.

"Nince-damned dunes, I didn't sleep at all the first day." She groaned in her rocky litter. "I fell asleep before… Jafar," Aloe didn't feel comfortable calling him 'uncle' anymore after what she did, "woke me up. I had what? Two, or three hours of sleep? And that was whilst resting my head on a desk, that can't be considered true sleep."

The fugitive murderer forced herself to sleep as she lay on a rock.

Unable to dwell more in suffering than that, Aloe fell asleep from exhaustion, and like the previous days, she woke up instantly with a blink and a rising sun.

"Ugh…" She groaned as she emptied one of her waterskins during breakfast. "One left… If I don't find one soon, things might get dirty."

She was being quite literal with that. Any medical field was out of her area of expertise, but she knew that in very precarious circumstances, drinking urine could save a person. She didn't look forward to it if ever came down to it, but she was willing to do so to stay alive.

Toiletries were a touchy subject, especially when she was on the run. Of course, she hadn't had a bath for days now. The last one she had was on the eve of her departure to the greenhouse, which was now… five days ago. As for waste management, Aloe did her business in the sands as if she were a cat. It wasn't that bad by the sheer fact that everyone who traveled had to do so, even 'mighty' sultanzade.

Comparing it to when she had to be escorted by the imperial soldiers from Asina to Asina whilst she was fully immobilized in her palanquin, she had more dignity and mobility here.

"Should I begin storing my urine?" She asked herself the gross question. "I… rather avoid it until I'm really out of water. What if I reach an oasis and I now have an unusable waterskin because I peed in it?" The girl cringed at the image, cursing herself for even thinking about it.

Aloe continued moving beneath the harsh sun, slowly but surely getting more confident with her strides. If there was one positive outcome of her fugitive status, it was that she had all the time in the world to train and grow used to the speed stance.

Not even Naila can even dedicate this much time to training. She snickered in the confines of her mind as she soared through the sands.

Something in her mind told her that she shouldn't think as if she was still in the palace. Especially about the sultanzade, those were already very much in the past. But at the same time, if she wasn't thinking about the trivial past and a semblance of normalcy, her mind wandered to... less-than-pleasing moments of her past.

Recent or otherwise.

The murderer gritted her teeth and continued running.

Every time she formulated an entire thought whilst she was moving, it ended up being an awful one.

Another advantage of her fugitive status was how fast she was building muscle mass in her legs. Even if she was quite the short and thin person, the truth was that after so many months of inactivity and lack of walking had made her thighs rather… full. For a lack of better wording.

Rani had seemed to enjoy that aspect whenever she took her, much to the former scribe's dismay. Aloe almost crashed to the ground from the intrusive thought of the emir of Sadina, barely managing to recover thanks to her repeated practice. Mainly because it was an indecorous image that had come to her mind.

The problem with Rani was that there were no feelings toward the woman. Aloe was so neutral toward her that it scared her. She should hate her with all her guts, yet she couldn't. She blamed such perversion of her thoughts on the cultivator's blinding charm stance. With Rani, there was no emotion, only blind passion and lust.

That was yet another advantage of being a fugitive, to not have to see her again.

Aloe stopped to rest as she couldn't calm her thoughts about the sultanzade and was worried she would end up truly crashing because of it.

"What about Lulu?" She wondered about the reason why the whole deal of Rani had started for. "Will she do something to her? I hope not…"

The former scribe regretted leaving the maid without so much of a notice, but she regretted other things way more. What worried her more was the promise she had made with Rani.

"I mean, I haven't exactly broken the deal, have I?" Aloe was well aware that her words were a coping mechanism. "I… please Rani, don't do anything to her." She told to the wind, for no one else could hear her.

The deal was that the emir wouldn't call the maid to her bedroom if the scribe substituted her and obeyed her every call for satisfaction, but she was now unable to attend to those calls. At worst, Aloe expected that Rani would just drain Lulu of her last drops of vitality and would dismiss her from her position. That was what would have happened if she hadn't intervened, after all.

But if that wasn't the worst…

Aloe shook her head and stood up. Thinking about it was making her sick.

It was then when she saw it on the horizon:

People.

Epsilon_Twilight

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