Cultivating Plants

Aloe's eyes snapped wide open the first moment she noticed the person before her, who might as well have been standing there for long as the regeneration stance dulled her senses, and that was without factoring in her deep sleep.

Quickly, the girl switched to the acuity internal infusion, her heart beating faster than it was healthy. The penumbra of the alleyway slightly vanished, her eyes intaking more moonlight, and making it easier for her to see the figure standing before her.

It was an old man. Unkempt. Ugly. Poor. Smelly.

Her newly switched stance certainly hated that last one, making her nose itch.

Oh, heavens damn that stench.

Whilst she couldn't know the man's intentions, which her imagination mostly classified from bad to awful, she was aware that freaking out would only make everything worse. So with much composure, Aloe slowly woke up, raising her torso from the ground but still remaining sat.

"Ehm," she started with a meek tone appropriate to the situation and her age. "Can I help you with something?"

For the time being, she decided that acuity was her best choice. She wasn't sure if the infusion boosted reaction time, but it certainly would allow her to notice faster if something was afoot. Then she could switch to toughness in less than a blink.

"Who's to say? Who's to say?" The man mumbled.

"I see…" Slowly, Aloe made a gesture to stand up. With her keen eyes, she saw that the man's eyes were bloodshot, so it was more than likely that he was intoxicated.

The last thing she wanted was to have her sleep interrupted by a drunk man. Or getting pissed on, which was likely to happen in an alley next to a drunkard. Their aim was notoriously awful.

The man mumbled more, but between the low volume and the fact that she was sure it was nonsense, Aloe didn't catch it. Taking advantage of the fact that he was distracted, she unlatched from the wall and slowly walked backward without removing her eyes from the man.

She doubted an old man could oppose much threat to her when she had dealt with an assassin and trained guard, even if it had gone down mostly to luck. Or misfortune, considering who that person had been in the end.

But now that wasn't time for remorse. Once she was sure the man was far enough and not a danger, Aloe turned her back to remove herself from the streets as she was more likely to hurt herself by walking backward.

"Where are you going, little girl?" Aloe snapped her head back at the alleyway upon hearing those words. Not because they had a threatening undertone, but because of their cadence.

Those words have been clear and flowed as honey.

Her eyes landed on the old man. It was a drunkard old man, she was sure of it, but now he stood straighter. She couldn't tell if it was just the change of posture, but there was something different with the man now. Before he inspired pity, yet now he exhumed menace.

Something's wrong. It was a gut instinct, but it was too powerful to ignore. The only previous time she had seen a shift of behavior, specifically the manner of speech, had been with Tareek, Umar's niece and the new apothecary after the demise of the late one.

An assassin? Aloe pondered on edge, her posture slightly shifting. A change in behavior didn't outright mean the man was outright an assassin, but this situation was far from normal. The fact that he was looking at her whilst she slept certainly didn't help.

"Does it matter to you, old man?" She added with grumpiness, trying her best not to betray who she was.

"Well, it certainly struck this old man's heart to see such a young and feeble woman like yourself sleeping without even a blanket on the streets." The cadence was so uncanny when compared with his previous nonsense. He no longer appeared old, but quite juvenile. At least his voice.

"I don't need pity." Aloe acted as if she was a street urchin. Which was not technically far from the truth. "Nor will you get answers. Piss off, you stink, old fart."

It was a bit cruel using such hard language if the man ended up being just an old sod, but it scared Aloe how easily the words came out of her mouth. Whilst irascible, Aloe wasn't one to curse. At least before others. She didn't enjoy being this volatile, even if it was supposed to be an act. Which she couldn't trust that was the case anymore.

"Hmm, I see, I see." The old man mussed as he scratched his chin. "Well, continue with your night, little girl. This old man is probably going to jump into a well, probably head first, to clean himself and end his life after being mercilessly assaulted this badly."

Aloe scoffed at the man, her brows frowned in anger, and listened to his words, then she made her way out of the alleyway. "If you want to kill yourself, feel free to do so, it's not any of my busi-"

She shifted to toughness the moment she heard the wind fluttering. In the blink of an eye, the old man was behind her, his body coated in shadows. Before she could fully turn her head, the man grabbed her by the neck and drove Aloe to the ground.

If it hadn't been for her current internal infusion, she would have suffered a contusion from the violent shock with the stonework.

Her sight slightly spun for a moment, but in the next blink, she had recovered and had a closer sight of the man. Not only were his eyes bloodshot, but also slightly yellowy, like his crooked teeth. She didn't need another sight to tell this man was a drug addict and an assassin.

The shadows were more than enough confirmation for the latter.

"Ya' know," his voice became scratchy in age again, "they told me there was a fugitive plant master and killer, but they told me she was last seen in Sadina's surroundings. We're quite far from Sadina, ya' know?"

What was angering Aloe more about being pinned down to the ground against her will was the old man's awful breath. She thanked the fact that donning toughness slightly diminished her sense of smell.

"How did you know about me?" Unless the man had any paralyzing agents like Jafar had had, she didn't fear him. Instead, she believed it was better to try to get some information as it no longer made sense to hide who she was. No matter how he had discovered it. "We are weeks away from Sadina, it's impossible for you to have learned it already."

Even with a courier constantly switching mounts in every town and said mounts being dwellers, it was cutting it very close for some backwater town to have heard of her. But at the same time, she still had yet to know how Enlightenment – the assassin vital arts – worked.

"Distance matters not when your mind is as open as mine." The old man smiled. Which was repulsive.

Through the discussion, Aloe had been trying to resist the man's lock on her, more of a façade than anything else, but it surprised her how much strength the man had. However, she was also quite weak as a baseline and further weakened by the defense stance. Still, she was confident in her ability to throw him off with a burst of potency.

He had her arms pinned behind her back and he sat on her thighs, so it was impossible for her to damage him besides some loose kicks at his back without the use of the strength stance. But she opted to wait a bit more.

"What does that even mean?" She questioned, her voice loud and distressed. Which was only a partial actuation. "Are you high?"

"We are always high, little girl." He laughed. "If you don't know, then you are more blind to the magics of the world than they have led me to believe. Fret not, you will soon learn about them." The old man chuckled and took out a sickly long needle from his clothes.

Aloe's eyes almost rolled to the back of her head at the sight of the weapon, but she held by will alone, not letting herself get intimidated. That's enough. She wouldn't risk being poisoned by an assassin again.

"Get that away from me!" Whilst the sentiment was true, she shouted to gain time.

The old man took joy in her cries of distress, but in a few breaths, Aloe had switched into the potency internal infusion. She kicked him hard with her heels, driving her feet into the man's back. Then as he twisted in pain, the cultivator put an extra oomph on her arms to undo the lock and pushed the man away.

Her body was certainly feeling the weight training she did with Naila. Strength flowed across her arms.

"Ugh…" The air was forcefully expelled from the assassin's lungs as he rolled on the ground and impacted the alley's wall. The threatening needle had fallen out of his hands and skittered on the ground, far away from anyone's reach.

What now? Aloe suddenly froze as she noticed she didn't have a next planned action. If she ran away, not only she couldn't be sure that the man would just keep following her, but also she would be unable to resupply. She peered at the sky through the corner of her eye, and whilst it was no longer deep in the night, it would still take a while for sunrise.

Do I hide with subterfuge and wait for the stalls to open? Do I just run away? I could knock him, but how? I've never done that. For the first time, Aloe realized she wasn't a fugitive, but a very lost scribe. She had no idea what her next plan of action should be.

"Hehe…" The old man slightly recovered, raising her torso and supporting it on the wall. "Can't decide what to do, right, little girl?" The assassin looked at her, over her, as if he knew everything about her. "I was expecting a cold-blooded murderer, but in the end, I just got a scared pussycat who got lucky."

The assassin raised his head and locked eyes with Aloe. They were bloodshot but resolute.

"Back away!" Aloe barked.

"Or what?" He chuckled again and took a step forward. It was a hard-fought one, though. He had taken a lot of abuse to his back, and regardless of his apparent strength, he was still quite old. "Be real with me here, little girl. You can't hurt a fly. You just got a half-assed set of ideals that scream at you to not associate with the 'big, bad, evil assassins'. Am I wrong?"

The assassin's tone was mocking her, but those steps were no joke. She still didn't know how the old man had closed on her in a blink before, so one step or ten might make no difference to him.

"Back away, I said!" The petite woman shouted, trying her hardest to come up with a plan.

Anything really.

Yet no answer came to her. Detection was the worst-case scenario; she had expected to make the whole way to the Loyatan fjords without being seen.

The old man snickered. "You can't do anything to me, just surrender. You got lucky, even if you calcined that other assassin." He took another step, forcing Aloe to take one backward. "Now that I think about it, I believe I heard he was your uncle. How did it feel to set aflame your family? Did you enjoy his screams?"

"Ah…" Aloe yelped at being reminded of the scene. Of how Jafar had screamed in pain at the assault of the Blossomflame and then his apology moments before his demise.

Then her mind remembered something else.

How badly it was broken.

It all happened very fast, her consciousness was only partial, but she charged towards the old man. As he had done before, Aloe extended her hand and grabbed him by the neck, raising him from the ground. The assassin tried to struggle, but his strength was pitiable compared to before.

Aloe was the strong one now.

She could see the fear in the man's eyes and hear the gasps of air, but that sight was substituted by one of the flames and the sound of blood-curling screams. She had killed Jafar. She had killed Jafar. SHE HAD KILLED JAFAR.

CRACK.

The loud snap awoke the petite girl from her trance and the first thing she saw was the assassin's face tilted to the side, saliva drooling from his mouth, and white eyes curled into his skull.

"Ah…" Aloe groaned in surprise and let go of the man's neck.

He collapsed to the ground.

He wasn't moving.

It was a corpse.