Fatima unlatched from Aloe with a smile on her face. It was thoroughly unreadable even with acuity, which led the scribe to believe that the princess was using charm.
"You are quite tougher than I initially thought." The imperial mused as she walked back to her seat, her back pointing to Aloe. She sat down with grace worthy of someone of her monarchic title. "But let us begin with these lessons."
Aloe was more focused on that pastry though. Not because dark thoughts had blossomed in her mind from the interaction, but rather because it was lunchtime and the treat had opened her appetite. Her stomach grumbled against her will. As much as she could control her expression, bodily functions like those remained out of her control.
"Oh, you have not eaten yet?" Fatima smirked with visible superiority.
"I am af…" Aloe stopped talking and thought her words very carefully. "Your summon came before I could do so, princess."
The woman smiled with satisfaction at the exchange. "Let me call for Nasira."
Out of seemingly nowhere, Fatima took a white bell and tolled it. The sound was sharp yet melodious, impossibly clear to her enhanced senses. So much so, that she could feel the sound reverberate in the back of her mind. The door to the sultanzade's chamber opened.
"You called me, Mistress?" Nasira, the maid, announced.
"Lunch." A short yet simple command.
The maid didn't respond back and simply closed the doors. The weakening steps revealed that Nasira was already gone into the corridors of the palace.
"There are many stances you can learn," Fatima began, "and even practice the ones you do not have a solid grasp on. But something tells me you have your sights put on one in specific."
"I would like to learn the regeneration stance, teacher." Aloe pleaded respectfully.
Satisfaction once again blossomed in the sultanzade's expression. She's too easy, frighteningly so. Aloe couldn't know when the woman was being genuine or just acting. Was it that easy to appeal to her inferiority complex with vague samples of submission or it was a clever manipulation on her part? Fatima may not be the most enlightened of the imperials Aloe had met, but she was still a sultanzade. I can't forget that. No matter how excellent her education had been Sadina, it would be dwarfed by that of imperials.
"As I explained the day prior, the regeneration stance accelerates the regeneration – as the name suggests – of every resource your body may produce or require. Blood, flesh, bone, breath, stamina, vitality. It certainly is versatile, but that is also its weakness." Aloe remained quiet as Fatima lectured. "There is no way to focus on a single one of those aspects, trust me, we tried. Enhanced vitality regeneration, whilst useless for common cultivators, is vital for the flowing stance. Emitting vitality out of the body means you lose it, therefore, lowering the power of any subsequent stance until it regenerates."
Aloe was already aware of that. If the vitality deposit wasn't full, the effectiveness of any stance would decrease. Another thing that she learned during that night was that beyond external infusions, internal ones could consume vitality if they were pushed to their limits. In her case, toughness ended up depleting her deposit in an attempt to… withstand the damage.
She didn't allow Fatima to even catch her body shudder.
"I would suppose that the regeneration stance is vital for training, then?" Not an interesting question nor a good one, but she needed to distract the sultanzade.
"Quite," Fatima nodded. "Even a young sultanzade can rest in only a couple of minutes under the regeneration stance. However, I may need to clarify something. This regeneration heals the body, yes, but the fatigue remains. Do not expect that you will become tireless under the effects of this stance."
The imperial said that as if it was a bad thing, but even with only her deposit thrice as big as an average adult, Aloe had more stamina than before. If that amount increased in the future, which she had every intention to do so, then it would become even harder to tire out.
Before Aloe could utter a word, three knocks were heard from the door's direction.
"I have brought the lunch, Mistress." Nasira's voice wasn't mitigated by the door thanks to the scribe's current stance.
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"Come in, I am starving." Fatima gestured for her to enter even if the young maid couldn't see it.
The doors slowly opened – or so Aloe supposed from the noise – and Nasira entered the chamber. The scribe already knew what was going on as she heard the screeches of wheels.
"Already?" Aloe voiced out her confusion. Her question was veritable, and she was sure that it didn't overstep any lines with her controlled tone.
"But of course." The princess smiled. "Who in their sane minds would let a sultanzade go hungry?" In other words, there was food ready every moment of the day. The night included judging by the grin.
The maid stopped at the side of the table to reveal a cart full of food. She positioned herself in front of Fatima and deposited the plates efficiently as she removed the older ones.
Her posture was perfect. Straight legs, straight back, only bending her waist. Which meant she flashed her bottom right in front of sultanzade. The princess, always the opportunist, caressed the maid's exposed flesh. I… I'm not even fazed anymore. Aloe did her best to not roll her eyes nor deadpan. And talking about controlled expressions, Nasira showed none at all. The scribe would have understood if she had dead eyes, but no, they were alive.
That's a misnomer. No one in this palace was alive, not even the sultanzade. Perhaps because they were sultanzade in the first place. Nasira wasn't a paragon of joy as she was assaulted by her mistress, but she certainly looked more alive than Aloe.
The two women's gazes met for a fraction of a second as the maid placed a goblet in front of the scribe, and without needing any word, they could understand each other.
Aloe didn't know Nasira's story, but she was sure the young girl wasn't like some of the deviant servants she had heard about. She only knew that the palace of Asina paid well.
Such was the reality of the world.
The work of a servant wasn't that different from that of a whore. And not many people did it for pleasure.
"If you excuse me." Nasira performed a perfect ninety-degree bow and pushed the cart full of half-empty plates away.
"What about all those plates, princess?" The question was a bit offensive, so Aloe threw an honorific on the way. "Some still had pastries."
"I can always have freshly baked ones." Fatima snickered at the question. She looked at the scribe as if she had asked why the desert was hot.
"But of course." Aloe nodded in repentance. "Fool of me to ask such an obvious question."
Once the maid faded from her hearing range, Aloe thought there wasn't much difference between her and the half-empty plates. Eaten, but only partially so. But not because the eater was full nor it was picky, just that it had grown cold.
The only saving grace, if it could be even considered that, was that the half-eaten meals wouldn't go to the trash. If the palace of Asina shared but a kernel with the one in Sadina, then the servants could enjoy lukewarm top-quality food. Which was better than going hungry.
The princess didn't blow air again, but she grinned, nonetheless. "You are free to not eat, but considering your current situation, it would be better if you did."
Aloe simply nodded at the statement. She instantly shifted to toughness and with great difficulty, grabbed a whole bowl of salad. There were many foods on the table, more succulent ones, but this was the only one she could eat without making a mess. She was comforted to see as Fatima ate with her hands. It was bad manners to eat expensive food with cutlery – a disservice to the chefs – but seeing a literal imperial do so meant she didn't have to bother using tools. A difficult prospect in her half-prone state.
The scribe's fingers were covered with oil and juice; this was the most seasoned salad she had ever seen. Vegetables or fruit, it had plenty of everything. She would have drowned in the flavor, alas, she still wavered her defense stance. Aloe started shifting her infusion back to acuity.
"Regeneration," Fatima began talking out of nowhere with a chicken leg in her mouth, "is not that complex of a stance. Maybe because it is untrainable. Well, untrainable besides the change speed."
"So no matter how much I train with this stance, it will not get better?" Even if the princess had no issues with talking with her mouth full, the scribe waited before she gulped down the food to talk.
"As I have said before, the regeneration factor is only affected by maximum vitality, so no." Thank the heavens I've changed my stance, otherwise I wouldn't be able to understand her. Aloe praised her foresight even if it had been for totally different reasons, for the munching sultanzade sounded intelligible with her enhanced senses. "This is why it is a mostly forgotten stance. If you can switch in-and-out in a minute, it is already worth it."
Fatima talked about it as if it was nothing, but the only sub-minute stance on Aloe's disposal was her preferred defense. No other internal infusion was close to her toughness, but she knew she could get there. But it would take time. A lot of it.
"I am more than satisfied with only learning it for the time being," Aloe said in the most diplomatic tone possible. The last thing she wanted was for the sultanzade to take it as a snarky remark.
"We will work on that after you finish eating." Fatima gulped down her wine goblet in a single swig.
The princess looked at the empty goblet then at the wine jar in confusion for a brief instant, as if pondering why no one had refilled it. She dared to give the scribe a gaze before she refilled herself the goblet. I would strangle you if I could. Aloe didn't hide her contempt to herself but kept it on her body. Otherwise, the strangled one would be her.
A dozen plates for a princess, a bowl for a commoner. That was more than enough. If she had more, Aloe would have puked it all just like the days before. The imperial family had too much presence on her mind, she would rather keep them away from her stomach. Though Fatima's antics had made the scribe lose her appetite already.
Aloe refused to be a plate.
Not again.