“I hope this doesn’t knock me out.” Aloe prayed as she sipped from her mug, trying the ter’nar tea for the first time. “Woah...”
She instantly comprehended what her grandfather had said about feeling his head clouded but faster. It was difficult to focus on a single thought, her head wandered around, as her body did. She didn’t trust herself to not fall onto the oasis, so she sat down and took another sip.
It certainly was the strangest tea Aloe had ever tasted. Some infusions had noticeable effects, but they weren’t instantaneous. However the ter’nar worked, it kicked at the exact moment that it went down her throat.
“Yeah, I’m tripping.” Aloe looked down at her hands, they weren’t blurry or had more fingers than normal, actually quite the contrary. They were incredibly detailed, but the moment she stopped thinking about them, her hands vanished from her sight as if they were in a blind spot.
Focusing her mind on a single thought, Aloe found herself that her mental calculations were faster than ever. She had a knack for numbers, she wouldn’t have tried to become a banker otherwise, but it felt awkward. The moment another thought passed through her mind she completely forgot what she was calculating.
“Useful, but damn it tastes awful.” It was true that she lacked any finesse and didn’t possess the best teamaking skills, but considering her permanent thirst, any liquid should taste like glory. That wasn’t the case with the ter’nar tea.
That didn’t stop her from finishing her cup and having a second one.
“Ya’ know, I’m beginning to understand why gramps stood in this place, hihi~” Then she refilled her cup with a third round. Unfortunately, the kettle emptied by now, only managing to fill it three-quarters up.
The scorching, ceaseless assault of the desert weighed down on her, prompting Aloe to open her garbs a bit and refreshed herself with the cold water of the oasis. She lay under the comfortable shadow of a palm tree.
“I could, could get used to this~” Her limbs relaxed, occasionally taking a small sip of her tea, trying to make it last as long as she could. “He was right, I do feel alive.”
Aloe blinked. When she opened her eyes, the orange and pink of twilight greeted her. She blinked twice, feeling a cold breeze caressing her collarbone.
“Fuck.”
She quickly stood up, stored the boiling kit in her backpack, and went inside the house. It was a really bad idea to spend time in the desert at night, and it didn’t look like she had much time left.
“So much for going to sleep early to wake at first light.” Aloe sighed as she left the backpack at the entrance.
Even after having eaten nearly nothing for a day, she did not feel hungry. Instead of eating, she gathered the most expensive-looking seed jars and stored them in the backpack, along with her grandfather’s journal.
She didn’t know when she would come back to the greenhouse, so it was better to come back to the city as loaded as she could afford.
Her body surprised her with a yawn even if she had just woken up from a solid nap. Aloe took her clothes off, this time leaving them well folded and hanging in a coat hanger instead of laying around, and dozed off in the old, creaking bed.
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Aloe woke up from the bed feeling hungry yet rested. Waking up early in the morning meant that the cold of night still lingered around and because the sun had yet to truly come out, this time she wasn’t covered in sweat.
Well, much sweat.
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She hadn’t cleaned herself after working in the greenhouse, so a slim layer of sweat covered her skin. But considering how the journey back would only get her dirtier, it made no sense to have a morning bath.
The first thing she did after going out of bed, even before dressing up, was to have a sizeable breakfast. Her backpack was filled with an ungodly number of rations because she had skipped lunch, dinner, and anything in between. She took a drink directly out of the water vase, finishing it first instead of wasting the limited water on the waterskin.
The breakfast consisted of pita bread, cheese, and jerky. Not exactly fancy, but the quantity certainly made up for it.
After having filled her stomach and lightened a bit the load on her backpack, Aloe checked one last time that she didn’t leave anything important behind, especially in the cupboard.
She pondered about taking some Aloe Veritas leaves with her, they could be useful, but paranoia assaulted her. This was Karaim’s masterwork, a certainly incredibly powerful plant, an asset. And if it fell into the wrong hands...
It could cause a lot of problems, but also meant an incredible loss of money.
The mind of a banker was not something she could say she was proud of, but the heartless viewpoint of risk and reward was undeniably useful.
“Aloe Veritas is too magical to show to someone, ter’nar on the other side...”
Sheepishly, Aloe entered the greenhouse and pruned some of the most peculiar blue leaves of the white tree to help it grow stronger in the future. Or that’s what she told herself, avoiding thinking about yesterday’s episode, leaning to believe this was a logical decision rather than an emotional one.
One last time, she revised her backpack, checking that all seed and leaf pots were in place and secured. Aloe took the ‘cultivation technique’, feeling the leathery cover in her hands, and stashed it inside.
“Alright time to go back to Sadina.” She locked her late grandfather’s house, stepped into the warming sands, and departed from the place she had once hoped to find nothing.
The journey back was something she was not looking forward to.
Aloe was leaving earlier than she had when she originally departed from Sadina, and whilst she now knew the path, that didn’t mean her travel time would speed up much. She had arrived at the oasis once the sun had shortly set, so that meant that she would see civilization around the sunset.
The earliest hours were the most comfortable, or as comfortable as trekking the desert could get. The air was slowly warming up, but in the span until the sun finally took to the skies, the coolness of the night still comforted her.
Once morning had barged its way in that was when the journey started becoming miserable. She didn’t suffer as much as the first time, now knowing how dredging it would be, but her mood remained sour as ever.
“Why don’t you go and die in a hole?” The woman shouted at the incandescent ball of fire in the skies.
The celestial body didn’t reply back, though Aloe felt the desert got ever-so-slightly warmer after her curse.
Aloe groaned and continued walking in silence.
Only a faint trace of her face was uncovered by cloth, and it was mostly protected by the sand as she constantly looked down, yet she couldn’t help to feel the oppressive weight of the sunlight on her skin.
Some nomads recommended against using sleds to carry loads unless you were in a convoy on long journeys because apparently some creatures of the night did follow the prints and waited for night to ambush travelers. She asked why didn’t happen with footprints then, but the nomads just shrugged. Their response was just “I guess the sled prints anger them” which was stupid, but she trusted the words of the people who lived in the desert to guide her survival.
“But I don’t intend to stay the night in the desert, the oasis is close enough... Maybe I could buy a sled, monsters are abhorred by civilization so they may not approach the house. Hmm, I should consult it with the nomads.”
And then she fell silent for a few more hours, knowing better than to waste saliva by talking to herself.
Once the sun reached its apex, Aloe rested on a ragged rock. She could sit on the sand, but that would only warm her body. She opted for survival before commodity.
Moving at high noon is a bad idea as it is the hottest time of day, meaning it takes more effort to walk and your body heats and dehydrates faster. She took out some of her rations and slowly gnawed on the dry meat.
The water felt like a blessing in her sweltering state. Even if the water itself was lukewarm, to her, it was as cold as the southern glaciers she had listened the bards sing about.
Half an hour later, she was rested enough and returned to the path.
The break helped her greatly, renewing her spirits and speed. The spring in her step was more vigorous, even if the seeping sands and the withering sun were going to dimmish that energy in a matter of hours if not minutes, but for now, she pressed on.
Before she noticed, the clear blue skies gained an orange tinge.
Her estimate had been perfected as the moment the sun began to hide, the beige walls of civilization became visible to her.
“Ah, sweet Sadina, how much I missed you.”