Noon was drawing near, yet hunger felt like a stranger to Aloe, so she did the first thing that came to her mind. She knocked thrice on the door in front of her.
“Coming!” The muted voice of a woman responded, her steps far louder than her voice. “Who’s the- Oh.” Mirah opened the door and met her gaze.
“Hello.” Aloe saluted shyly.
“You’re back!” Before Aloe could react, Mirah locked her in an embrace. The height difference was ever-so-perfect for the housewife to suffocate her in her bosom.
“Uhk!” Aloe pushed her back as she struggled for air. “Yeah... Sorry for going out again as suddenly as I did.”
“You don’t need to apologize, Aloe,” Mirah said heartfeltly. “You were wounded, both physically and mentally. I understand that you needed time alone, and even then, it’s your life to live. Your mistakes to make.” She smiled welcomingly, and then her eyes illuminated. “Oh! I didn’t notice you were wearing a cayora. You look dashing!”
“Well, I wouldn’t say dashing is the most adequate of epithets.” Aloe toyed with a lock of hair, a faint blush appearing on her visage. She blamed the lack of air.
“Nonsense!” Mirah denied. “I feel so bad for grabbing you like I did, I messed it up! Here, lemme straight it up for you.”
Mirah didn’t give Aloe the choice to respond as she assaulted her with her hands, fixing the position of the cloth and aligning it with her head in a matter of seconds.
“Way better!” The housewife puffed her chest proudly with her hands on her waist. “But let’s get you inside, you surely have a lot to tell me.”
“I don’t know if I have a lot to tell you, but I’ll take your offer nonetheless.”
And, indeed, Aloe didn’t have much to tell Mirah. She spent the noon in her house, but they didn’t talk much. That was until the word ‘cooking’ left Aloe’s mouth.
“You’ve eaten that?!” Mirah cringed; her expression growing visually sick as Aloe told her about her new ‘recipe’. “We have to correct that!”
In the end, she hadn’t even needed to ask her for cooking classes, Mirah imposed herself before that. Considering her family was out the whole day – Aya arrived first in the afternoon – Mirah followed the classical dining scheme. Depending on the social standing and the family unit, people would have lunch or not. Instead opting for throwing copious feasts at night. Mirah, as she was always home alone and loved cooking, preferred more to prepare for a big meal.
Having said so, she didn’t hold back any food as she taught Aloe. They were basic things by any standards, but there was a huge difference between seeing someone cooking and being lectured on how to do it. Mirah and Aloe prepared herself a light lunch, and then the housewife gifted all the leftovers to Aloe.
“I... Thank you, a lot, Mirah.” Aloe had felt a one-sided sense of petty rivalry and envy all her life, but these last weeks, she was only thankful for her presence.
“It’s only leftovers, Aloe. That’s barely worth mentioning.”
“It’s not only that.” She swayed her head in negation. “You gave me a bed, treated me, encouraged me, and then taught me. To that, I can only say thank you and offer nothing in return.”
“You need to offer nothing in return, you dummy.” Mirah chuckled. “That’s what family is for.”
“I...” Aloe was left speechless. She had lost her family, there was no one else living with her blood anymore. But perhaps... perhaps there were other ties other than blood. “Of course, Aunty Mirah.” She smiled at her.
Mirah smiled back. “You are welcome.” Those words held more meaning and weight than she was aware of.
----------------------------------------
Aloe quickly said her byes to Mirah and departed her house, mainly because she was about to cry, and she didn’t want to show any weakness. However, that raised the question of what weakness was even. A question that Aloe didn’t stop to ponder or doubt.
It was time to fight her djinns. The insurmountable tower in a tale, the fear that made her heart beat erratically.
Aloe stepped onto the stairs leading to Sadina’s palace.
There were guards at the foot of the hill where the palace was situated, but they didn’t stop nor inquire Aloe. Even the ones at the entrance once at the top let her pass, which paradoxically made her far more anxious than if they had stopped her.
She practically tiptoed as she nervously walked across the decorated hallways. Audiences were normally reserved for the mornings, but there were some cases where they extended to noon. If she remembered correctly, today was one of those weekdays. Her nerves screamed at her that she was incorrect, constantly second-guessing herself, already imagining the embarrassment she would go through if she was wrong.
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But of course, she wasn’t.
Anxiety was an insidious torturer. Logic was oblivious to it, only passion mattered. A senseless and idiotic feeling that ceaselessly knifed her heart with each beat.
Aloe’s breathing was rugged by the time she made it to the audience hall even if she had simply walked in a straight line. She was thankful for her dress that covered most of her skin, lest others may see how badly she was sweating.
The audience hall gates were guarded by a couple of female soldiers. Not exactly rare under Aaliyah-al-Ydaz’s rule, but certainly not common. Even if the Sultanah pushed a matriarchal agenda, funnily enough, she didn’t hide that she preferred to have men as soldiers instead of women. This was a second-hand fact spoken by the snake tongues, so it probably wasn’t true – or at least not word for word – but Aloe had heard that the Sultanah said that if someone had to die, it was better if those were men.
Aloe didn’t have any insight into that comment. She only knew that she was babbling, ignoring the reality before her eyes.
Her idiotic fears had been wrong, the audience hall was open to the public. Then why do I feel more nervous? Paradoxes upon paradoxes, Aloe couldn’t answer them as she was pressured by some gazes – she couldn’t even remember whose – to step into the room and join the supplicants.
The conversations were trivial, or at least trivial for a royal audience hall. Some trade deals, some street crime reports, an update on the farmlands, et cetera. Normal business.
The woman sitting at the pillowed throne looked tired from a day of work, her expression lacking any real energy. Yet even then, no one could deny Rani-al-Sadina looked beautiful as the orange sun rays grazed her bronze skin. The lack of energy only made her more regal, as her laying position – her head laying on her hand, which arm was resting on the throne arm – made her look like a statue.
Her eyes turned to Aloe’s direction, her sun-shone amethysts locking into her as her lips drew into a djnnish smile.
Her breath stopped. She couldn’t know why. Was it the mystical sight of the sultanzade basking in the twilight? Or the sheer terror she felt by having an imperial’s attention set on her?
Against her desires, Aloe stepped forward as one petitioner made his way out, scribe Nuha calling for the next one to attend. Aloe was still deep in the queue, it would take at least one hour more for her to be listened to, maybe only half of that if the queue moved fast.
Rani-al-Sadina made no motion to accelerate the queue or to take Aloe out of it, she just observed patiently with a smile drawn in her visage. Is she getting a thrill for making me wait? Because I’m not tired... Correct, Aloe was not tired, she was nervous. She wasn’t sure if the emir knew that as Aloe was putting on her greatest mask: that of indifference.
It was easy to see when one had a mask on their face, especially when they were playing cards. Or in Aloe’s case, when they were lying about their finances. But a mask that was impossible to interpret, no matter how proficient one may be at expression queues, was that of pure apathy and lack of care. Indifference was an emotion so truthful that people didn’t even question themselves if someone was faking it.
Her default expression was indifference.
The problem wasn’t what was printed on her face, but her breathing. She could easily fake her expression, but her breathing was more complicated. If it weren’t for Nuha’s powerful voice – echoing through the chamber with her practiced and projected tone – someone would have surely heard Aloe’s erratic breaths.
She coped with her anxiety by ignoring the outside world, mindlessly prancing forward when the queue moved, not even bothering to check on the room’s inhabitants.
At some point, her internal clock had long stopped working, there no longer was a person in front of her. She was the first in the queue.
“Name and purpose of visit?” Nuha announced with a cutting voice, awakening Aloe from her self-imposed slumber.
It took a lot of might and control of her body reflexes to not jump scaredly as her mind kicked into activity once more.
“Aloe Ayad,” She stated surely, “I’m here for... work?” then lost it all.
“I’m afraid that’s not a valid purpose of visit,” Nuha responded in what seemed to be an automatic manner. Her tired and dead eyes reflected no light. She hasn’t even recognized me...
“I’ll make an exception for this case.” Rani-al-Sadina’s voice cut through the room, snapping Nuha out of her work-induced trance.
“I...” Nuha blinked several times, only now realizing who was before her, “of course, my Emir.”
“And what work would you be interested in, Aloe Ayad?” Rani-al-Sadina revealed a smile that countries would have waged wars for.
“Uhm... scribe, my Emir,” Aloe added with a bow, struggling to keep her breathing steady.
Not even an instant later she remembered how the emir had ordered to refer to her last time she saw her. Aloe raised her head ever-so-slightly, but thankfully the princess was still smiling from side to side. If she cared about Aloe’s offense, she did not show it.
“Well, it is true that we have a scribe position open, yes.” The sultanzade looked at her nails uninterestedly. “But what makes you think you are worthy of such a position?”
Upon hearing such a shattering statement, Aloe’s heart dropped. If she had been thinking more straightly, she would have realized that the princess was playing with her as she was the one who had offered the work to her.
But her mind wasn’t working straight.
Before Aloe could utter a response, which she would have honestly messed up. Another person interjected the conversation. Aloe hadn’t noticed her presence before, but she walked from one side of the throne and stopped right in front of her, cutting her line of sight with the emir.
What she could only assume was a scribe – though it was difficult to say as her clothes were basic and utilitarian rather than colorful and expensive – was a young woman. Barely a girl looking at her face, yet her build told another story. All of those characteristics faded into obscurity as one of them outdid every other.
Her eyes shone like ambers.
A bewitching sight that captivated people, though they were incomparable to the amethyst gaze standing above them.
Then she unfortunately spoke. “Who’s this virgin?”