Cultivating Plants

“Ugh...” Aloe groaned as she woke up. Every fiber of her body screamed in pain and exhaustion. “My crotch hurts so baaadly...” The girl rolled back and forth on the bed.

Fikali hadn’t been gentle with her yesterday. Even if in the end they had only ridden for a for minutes, that was enough to make her body sore beyond a night’s rest.

“Never riding again without a saddle.” The words came out muffled as she faced the pillow. Though Aloe was aware of the terminology she had used. She never said she wasn’t going to ride Fikali again. “It... it was fun... I think. But it’s remarkable how it was worse for my body than standing naked in the desert for a few hours.”

And Aloe instantly repented of thinking about it because now her skin itched.

After Fikali’s surprisingly vigorous ride, Aloe was too beaten to do anything else. She managed to carry her body to the potatoes and infuse them as she had regenerated some vitality, at least enough to infuse a single potato. Or rather a chunk. She had planted three potatoes and broken all of them into four chunks, meaning there were eleven more infusions to be done.

Aloe couldn’t tell if it was because the potato was fragmented, but it took considerably less vitality to infuse it than the pistachio.

“Potatoes are way smaller than palm trees...” She added with a yawn as she finally stood up from bed. “But I would like to try if a full potato takes more vitality. In theory, it shouldn’t. For what the soil respects, a chunk or a full potato is still just one seed. Both can produce a patch of potatoes... Again, in theory.” Aloe wasn’t a farmer, so she couldn’t be absolutely sure about it. Nor an expert on vital arts. But then again, not even Karaim could be called one. He was as blind and perplexed by the subject as Aloe.

As she made her way to the kitchenette, Aloe couldn’t help but groan as she saw the countertop.

“Right. No more bananas.” She sighed. “Well, the ones I planted are not going to grow for a few months even with the infusion, so I’ll guess I’ll have some coconuts and dates.”

Whilst she was a bit reticent about leaving her house with an empty stomach, Aloe quickly donned a fresh set of clothes. Though another problem arose as she got dressed.

“Not a lot of clothes are remaining. Oh...” She realized what was happening. “Damn, I have yet to wash my clothes. Or do the dishes, for that matter. Oh well, I already know what to do after breakfast.” With another sigh, she finished dressing up and got out to the oasis.

As usual, Fikali remained sleeping during the early morning.

“She’s energetic, but she certainly values her beauty sleep.” Aloe joked as she collected a single coconut and a handful of dates.

Breakfast was short and fast, but Aloe took advantage of her moment of respite to check Karaim’s cultivation technique. There wasn’t anything new, but she felt like eying it to refresh the contents of her mind.

“Hmm, he has talked about how it’s harder to infuse evolved plants... I kinda want to try it with the Aloe Veritas now. Or what about the Cure Grass? What is considered grass anyway? The connected roots underneath, or a single blade? Food for thought, but later. I shouldn’t forget about the chores. Because if I don’t do them now, I’ll have nothing to wear in a few days.”

But even before washing or doing the dishes, Aloe had another chore. A self-imposed one. While she wanted to try Infusion with evolved plants, first she needed to clear a bit of her pile of non-infused crops. And she wasn’t procrastinating!

Absolutely not!

This was just the most efficient way to use her time. It made no sense lying on a full vitality deposit. Using it up now meant that she would regenerate it whilst doing the actual chores without the need of taking any pills.

“Yeah...” Aloe grunted after infusing the first potato chunk of the day. “It doesn’t need much vitality at all. Maybe a fifth of the vitality needed to infuse a banana seed.”

Because there were only twelve potato chunks in total and she could infuse three banana seeds with a full deposit, it meant that she was able to infuse them all without needing to rest. And she would still have some leftovers!

She thought about using the last pinches of her vitality on the beans but considering that her body was uncomfortably heavy when she was fully spent out of vitality, she decided otherwise.

What she needed to do now was wash her clothes.

Feeling vaguely lethargic after using up most of her vitality, Aloe grabbed the washing board she had taken with her from her luggage.

With difficulty, Aloe carried outside the massive board along with the pile of her dirty clothes to the shore of the oasis.

“I’ll need something to leave the clothes on.”

Aloe searched around the house and greenhouse to see if Karaim had a drying rack or something along those lines. He did not.

“Honestly, I’m not surprised at this point.” She added with a groan.

Thankfully, she did have a lot of rope. Not from her grandfather, but the rope they had used to tie all the bags together on Fikali’s back when she departed from Sadina.

“Not too long, but I think that with two meters it will suffice.”

Aloe tied the rope on the closest pair of trees to the oasis shore, perfectly making a makeshift drying rack.

“Alright, down to business.” Aloe knelt down on the shore, yet again dirtying her clothes, and started rubbing her clothes against the board. “Hmm. This would be far better than in a tub. I fear that I’m poisoning the waters with all this dirt and soap.” That didn’t stop her, though.

She had to be careful with the washing board as some pieces of clothing were delicate, but most were old pieces of linen, so she mostly went overboard.

“Yeah, a tub would also help me use less soap. I’m losing too much... Oh well, I have a few bars. But could I use a jar or something to clean the clothes in?” She pondered as her hands moved at high speeds. “Nah, not likely. Their mouths are too small to clean effectively, but it would be possible.”

Before Aloe even noticed, she finished with her first set of clothing and hung it on the rope.

“Alright, four more to go.”

By the end, her hands were hurting enough to worry her.

“I hope I don’t get any callouses...” Maybe not a courtesan, but she wouldn’t like to go brandishing coarse and bruised hands around. She had standards.

As the only child of the family, Aloe wasn’t inexperienced with washing clothes. As both her mother and father worked when she was younger, the responsibility to clean the clothes of the whole family fell unto her. As a little girl, she had to carry every day a basket full of dirty clothing to the public bath, where there was a section designated to wash clothes, to clean them.

The memory of her little self trying to wash the clothes on the channel in front of her house flashed before her eyes. She had gotten in a lot of trouble back then; the guards had stopped her because she was polluting the waters. That scared me a lot, Aloe grinned. Water was precious in the desert, even if Sadina had reliable access to the Eyana River. 

Even if her parents scowled her hard that day, Aloe recalled the memory fondly. She valued the moments when they were still a whole family unit.

Aloe sighed. “I’m done.” No matter that she tried to hide her tone with exhaustion, nostalgia still filtered through her voice. “Dishes time, it is.”

Whilst not as acquainted with doing the dishes as no one ate in her home, their kitchen was rarely used, Aloe did know how to do it.

“Hmm, using soap will be a waste.” She looked at the tower made out of bowls and cutlery. “I have an idea.”

Aloe carried all the dirty dishes outside and dropped them on the hot sand. She then buried them deep, allowing the scorching grains to reach every last corner. After that, she unceremoniously threw them to the oasis.

“There, cleaned and no grease remaining thanks to the sand. And then the water has taken care of the dust. Perfect solution.”

Though she needed to rub them clean because with her poor handling some pieces had come in contact with the dirt inside of the oasis.

“Clothes and dishes are drying, I’m finally done!” Aloe extended her arms to the skies in alation. “It’s infusin’ time.”

Her vitality deposit had yet to be filled, around two-thirds full. As she wanted to try infusion on the Aloe Veritas, and she rather not kill herself, Aloe took one pill just to be sure.

“Hmm.” The pill took effect instantly. “It’s good to know that not having an empty stomach means I can use the pills on the spot, but that didn’t give much vitality. Half of what it should, or less. It’s really difficult to quantify vitality.”

Aloe scratched her head in annoyance after having wasted a pill and filled her stomach with grass for nothing, but mostly because her banker itch screamed at her to measure and quantify the workings of vitality. An ordered ledger where all the values were registered. She left that thought for later.

“Well, it won’t be for nothing if it keeps me alive.” She nervously waddled to the greenhouse, hoping that Karaim’s words on Infusion were but an exaggeration of his old age.

Epsilon_Twilight

Rather boring chapter, that's what realism does to a story. Anyways, here you have Aloe in her desert garb!

By @ondi_puri

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