Cultivating Plants

Aloe’s house was dark, with only a vague luminance coming from the kitchen. She pushed the wood strip curtains that worked as a door and entered the kitchen to see her mother eating a bowl of soup.

“Oh, Aloe. You are back.” Shahrazad said a bit absentmindedly. “I didn’t hear you enter.”

“I just arrived at the city.” Aloe sighed and left the backpack on the ground, promptly seating on a kitchen stool. “It’s comfortable to see that you have enough strength to make food.”

“I may be old and grieving, but I’m not stupid enough to forget to eat.” Her mother responded. Aloe gave her an unsure look. Shahrazad wasn’t the emotionally strongest person.

“Well, you look healthy enough if you haven’t eaten these prior days.”

“I have!” Shahrazad scoffed at her unruly daughter. “There’s more soup in the cauldron if you haven’t had supper yet.”

“Oh, thank the skies, I was starving here.”

Aloe jumped from her stool and grabbed a wooden bowl from the kitchen cupboards. She peered into the cauldron and saw the steaming potato and carrot soup. She filled the bowl to the brim after diving the ladle twice in the cauldron.

“Yeah, I can see that someone is hungry.” Her mother snickered. “Beware, you may become fat.”

“Shut up, you haven’t been walking in the desert for a full day.” The daughter retorted, though there was a glimpse of amusement in her voice. “And can soup even get you fat? It’s mostly water, and there’s no meat in here.”

“Anything can make you fat, even air.” Aloe squinted at her mother’s words and decided that it was better to let her be.

The soup was nothing out of the ordinary, but the cozy and familiar taste of a mother’s soup felt glorious. Especially considering her whole body was screaming in agony. She could still feel the heat of the sun weighing on her even if the sun had gone down around an hour ago.

“Aren’t you hot with all those clothes on you?” Shahrazad asked, leaving her bowl to the side.

“Ehmm... yes. But I’m hungrier.” Aloe admitted, though that didn’t stop her from opening part of her vest. “I’m drenched and dirty, I think I’ll go tomorrow to the public baths.”

“What’s wrong with our bath?” The older woman added with a fake offense.

“That it’s sand. And I’m tired of the sand. And I want water.”

“Understandable.” Shahrazad sighed. “You have enough money?”

“Mom, it’s only a handful of drupnars for a bath.”

“Just making sure.” She raised her hands in defense.

“Oh, I almost forgot.” Aloe left the spoon in the bowl. “Tomorrow we will dine at Safar’s house.”

“Oh, you saw him on the way back?”

“Yes,” Aloe nodded. “He also sent his regards.”

“Well, I’m relieved that I won’t need to make supper tomorrow then. Though if you go to the public bath, you should go soon.”

“Yes, yes,” Aloe responded after finishing her bowl. “Tomorrow morning I’ll go with Jafar to an apothecary to appraise some seeds I have gathered from the greenhouse.”

“Talking about the greenhouse, how did it go?” A sparkle appeared in her mother’s eyes.

“The trek there is nefarious, there’s no saving grace there. But...”

“But?” The expectation was palpable in Shahrazad’s voice.

“It’s a worthwhile investment.” Aloe sighed in defeat.

“Yes!” Her mother jumped off the chair with a grace that made her twenty years younger, the sulking of her mourning totally forgotten. “How happy you made me, my daughter! You don’t know how much this means to me.”

“I... “The sheer cheerfulness of her mother paralyzed Aloe. She blinked thrice before her brain rebooted. “I didn’t know it meant this much to you.” And that surprised her. And also made her feel a bit bad.

Shahrazad finally relaxed and straightened out her hair and robes, then directed to her daughter.

“It honestly doesn’t mean that much...” Aloe squinted her eyes at her. “I truly meant it! It’s not like I have been in the greenhouse many times, but your grandpa was always so happy with his plants... I feel like it will do the same thing to you. Especially considering that you sulk around all the time with that face of yours.”

Aloe groaned. “That’s my resting face!”

“See! That’s what I meant.” It was curious seeing this facet of her mother, overenergetic and enthusiastic. “You are always groaning around.”

“That’s not even a real term,” Aloe responded, her face devoid of emotion.

“If you do it constantly, then yes, dear. It is a term.”

Aloe held with all her might, not giving Shahrazad the satisfaction of yet another groan.

“You are holding yourself.” Her mother pinched her in the face.

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Aloe said, her face a monument to stoicism.

“Of course, you do!” Shahrazad jumped behind her and put her hands on Aloe’s shoulders only to quickly remove them. She examined her dusty hands. “Huh, you should remove your clothes at the entrance to not make more of a mess.”

The daughter rolled her eyes. “Yes, mother.”

Aloe had always been told that she had inherited her mother’s physique, but her father's mood. And with that she agreed, for better or worse, her mother was too emotional. Though she guessed it was better having her hopping around rather than drowning in misery. 

But a part of her hoped for the reverse genetics. It’s not like she behaved like she did on purpose, that was truly herself. She couldn’t change that. And her late father had a strong physique, equal to that of Uncle Jafar even if the man had only been a banker. Tall and emotional, which would have made her far more popular than her short and apathetic self.

She sighed as she removed the sand-covered desert garbs on the house entrance, a small cloud of dust forming on her feet as the clothes dropped to the ground.

“I do need that bath now...”

Aloe cleaned her feet in the mat and went to the bathroom where she picked up a towel and dusted herself off. Not the best, but certainly far better and comfortable to sleep with. She thought of removing her socks but decided to keep them for now.

She went back to the kitchen to pick up her backpack and found her mother dry-cleaning the kitchen utensils and cutlery.

“Oh, hi sweety. Are you still hungry? There’s still more soup.” Shahrazad pointed at the cauldron ignoring her daughter’s nakedness.

“No, I’ll pass. I just was going to take the backpack to my room.”

“Oh, okay. Remember to dust it off first.” Expressionlessly and wordlessly, Aloe raised the dirty towel in her hand. “Right, right. There’s no need to be this aggressive.”

Aloe took a deep breath and held her groan, and instead took the backpack to the entrance where she promptly cleaned the sand away. She carried the backpack on her bare shoulders and took it to her bedroom.

The room was dark, so she took the scribe’s light from the bag, lit it up, and left it on the desk. Before doing anything else, she rushed to the closet and took out a translucid white nightgown. Unlike the middle of the desert, mornings in Sadina weren’t scorching hot, but nights were equally as cold. Sleeping without pajamas ended up in either a cold or a restless sleep.

Even if her body was still covered in a slimy layer of sweat, donning her soft silk nightgown brought Aloe back to life. She took her socks and panties out, the cloth was too dirty for her liking, and she didn’t feel like sleeping with underwear today. A slight breeze coming from her room’s window grazed her, but instead of feeling cold, the low temperatures reinvigorated her.

“Ah,” She sighed, standing nearby the window covered by a circular clay pattern. “Cold, I love you so much. Why don’t you kill the sun and embrace me forever?”

Aloe snickered and got away from the window. She doubted anyone saw her with the low visibility at this hour of the night, but she wouldn’t like to push it. She picked up the ‘cultivation technique’ from the backpack and the scholar’s light from the desk and brought them both to her nightstand.

A yawn escaped her mouth as soon as her back rested on the soft bed, prompting her to grip strongly the book in her hands. Sleep assaulted her body, but she didn’t feel like dozing off yet.

“Let’s see, where did I leave...” Aloe opened the book, slowly cruising through the pages.

One thing that surprised her was how much emphasis Karaim put on the vital arts and the ‘Evolution’ but he had yet to explain how it worked or how he evolved the different plants. He only explained fragments of it in the ter’nar section, but Aloe had a lot more questions.

She started reading.

“Beyond the Aloe Veritas and the Na’mul Ter’nar I have failed to create evolved plants with such flamboyant aspects or effects but...”

Not even a paragraph in, her eyelids failed her. Her hands became weaker as the book fell to the side of the bed, her consciousness drifting faster than she noticed.