Fatima's departure was felt around the palace. Not because her lack of presence left a vacuum in the palace, but rather because she made sure everyone heard the trumpets and drums as she left.
The following days, though, ended up being most of the same.
Working as a scribe was as exciting as any office job could be, and for once, the many pleasures the palace dulled to Aloe's senses. Wake up. Audience. Eat. Work. Sleep. Such had become her routine.
There was a vital difference between studying – or being in an apprenticeship – and working, especially in a position elevated as herself. She was the one calling the shots, yet she felt more of a beast of burden in a long caravan than ever before.
But Aloe didn't let the monotony drown her. Her plans were already headed for the long game, so maintaining concentration and discipline was imperative. Daily she had to infuse and evolve seeds to keep her vitality in check and also make her deposit grow. No matter how much vitality kept increasing, the healing from the regeneration stance stalled at a low potency, her body was pressed and strained from too many fronts.
Advances were few and far between, but they were present. For starters, Aloe revised her notes and evolved the seed where the Grace's Exaltation sprouted from. The herb-slash-flower wasn't that big in her grown state, so she just placed it alongside her Blossomflame in her house, so she no longer had to go to the greenhouse whenever Fatima deigned it appropriate to buy more aphrodisiac.
And talking about the Blossomflame… it had died.
She had demanded too much from the evolved flower, and the early signs of withering she had shown were a forecast of her death. As much as it was a setback and it partially saddened, it took her only a few vitality pills and an afternoon to plant a new one, and that was only because she decided to evolve a new one instead of using one of the spare ones she had lying around. Now the office at her home was littered with flowerpots and watering contraptions.
Two and something weeks after Fatima's extravagant exit, Aloe finally had access to a blossomed Blossomflame. The healing of the fire plant was as miraculous as it was painful, but a new issue arose from the healing.
It wasn't a new one, mostly because Aloe had ignored it as delusions rather than an actual problem, but it would appear that… she had forgotten how to walk.
That was an exaggeration, of course, but her body presented difficulties upon walking. Her hips were mostly healed after four months of healing – two of them whilst blasting the recovery internal infusion – but her body seemed to disagree.
Pain struck her when walking. Only when walking.
Her routine got added a new layer as she faked that her hips were still fractured whilst she trained at night to walk again. No matter how many hours she rode on a palanquin, or she stood upright, her hips no longer hurt. It was only the djinnic moment when she took her first step that made her body tumble down in pain.
One week became two, and two weeks became three, but after multiple visits to the Blossomflame, her body still ached when she tried to walk even if it was perfectly healthy.
Such paradoxical pain only stressed her further.
Fleeting and scarce of mention were the days that followed. Only Lulu seemed to notice that something was wrong as she found Aloe drenched in sweat every day when she went to wake her up, but the maid had the presence of mind to keep her mouth shut and not ask questions. For what the palace respected, the scribe of commoners was still bound to a wheelchair.
Autumn came fast and therefore many other things to be taken care of.
Finally, after two months, Fatima sent a missive to alert Aloe that she was on her last bottles of aphrodisiac, and she wanted more soon. To keep face with the lies she had told to the princess, the scribe only sent her six bottles and a letter that summarized how she awaited the payment for them with the next courier.
How she had spent those ten flasks in only two months, Aloe wanted not to hear that.
Her job became more frantic with the arrival of the harvest festival, with people from all over the emirate coming to Sadina for the celebrations. She had expected some turmoil as she was the person in charge of organizing such events, scribe of commoner's stuff and all of that, but she had looked over a crucial detail.
The Loyatan Embargo.
It was easy to overlook the trade stop of food imports from their northern neighbor as food never lacked in the palace, but once Aloe checked the numbers, it was obvious that the emirate was slowly starving and the harvest festival wouldn't be as grand as any previous ones.
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The emir's answer to the starvation of her people? Seize private farmlands.
Fertile and arable land was uncommon in Ydaz, so seizing the few ones that existed made sense on paper. An issue that Rani overlooked though was that most of those private farmlands were owned by… the assassins.
Not officially, but it was obvious that the assassins controlled them.
Whilst the decree found success in the acquisition of more fertile lands, the expropriation didn't land well with the… illustrious minority. Aloe feared that the forceful takeover had radicalized the local assassins, but Rani's response to that was: "That is Aaliyah's problem."
Aloe could only take solace in the fact that she would never be the target of the assassins if they ever decided to assassinate another emir of Sadina.
A starving population, a radicalized armed minority, and winds of war fluttering strong were the issues of the emirate, and the scribe of commoners found herself missing the monotony from a few months ago.
Now, she actually believed she could deal with some of these problems, or at least mitigate them, but that would only be the case if she cared for her country.
Which she did not.
At the end of the day, the people that would die were the soldiers, the commoners, and the governors. None of her issues. A 'good enough' job was all she gave, and looking at how some other poorer emirates fared, she was even doing a superb job.
The only requirement for the scribe of commoners was being a commoner, and she doubted most of them could afford a general academic education or an extensive apprenticeship in economics. Aloe, whether she wanted it or not, may have been the most qualified scribe of commoners Sadina had seen, and she didn't bother to make her country a better place.
Perhaps, and only perhaps, if the one leading the country weren't the imperial family, she would have put some effort.
Her heart shrunk and grew colder each time she heard from her assistants that a village was suffering death from starvation. At one point, she could care no longer.
It was ironic that those were the days that she dedicated most of her free time to visiting Uncle Jafar and Aunt Mirah. Seeing little Aya grow and happily talk about her academic prowess warmed her dying hurt even just a bit.
The scribe didn't tell her family her progress with walking as she didn't want to get their hopes up, as she didn't know when she would be able to talk. It was just enough to spend time with them, and more importantly, away from the court.
People did ask her about the wheelchair from time to time, mostly why she was still on it. Their suspicion wasn't unfounded as there had been almost half a year since the wound, and when the question came from the princess who knew she was a cultivator, it made even less sense to them. With the regeneration stance, she had had more than a year of healing by now.
All those questions, though, dissipated the instant she made a show by standing up. It was always horrendous taking that first step, but the pain she displayed convinced any onlooker.
Boredom was the greatest enemy in the end, for what was a good job and money worth for if one didn't have the autonomy nor time to exploit it? Those many months weren't bad, but they weren't exactly happy. At one point, Aloe thought that was what she deserved.
A stale life without highs or lows.
Some would have shuddered at the idea, dynamism was the essence of life and stagnation its detriment, but Aloe embraced warmly the notion. For her lows had been of the deepest lows a person could imagine.
She preferred never having highs in her life if that meant never ever again experiencing those lows.
And maybe it was that selfishness that invoked more of those lows.
It was an afternoon like any other, they bled so much that Aloe no longer kept the count of the months or the days of the week unless someone reminded her, but then one maid came to her office. She asked to speak with Lulu and the fair-skinned maid much obliged, but the moment the unfamiliar maid whispered to her, Lulu's visage turned whiter.
"I… understand. Thank you for the notice." Lulu told the maid and the woman bowed to her before removing herself from the office.
Sometimes servants would go searching for each other for certain tasks, so it wasn't an uncommon sight for a fellow maid soliciting Lulu. But that pale visage wasn't common at all.
"What is wrong, Lulu?" Aloe put her quill to rest and asked her.
"Uhm… nothing, Aloe." The maid dismissed. "Nothing at all. I should get going, I have been called…"
"Stop!" The scribe raised her voice the moment Lulu placed her hand on the doorknob. "Something is happening here, and you will tell me. Please, Lulu. It is obvious that something is afflicting you, let me help."
The fair-skinned maid was the only company Aloe had inside these walls, and it pained her to put on such an expression.
"I…" Lulu turned to face her, but her eyes pointed down to the ground, her lips unmoving.
"Please, Lulu. Let me aid you." Aloe offered. "Is it money that you need? Did someone from your family fall ill? I will do anything in my capabilities to relieve your ache."
"I-it is nothing like that." The maid admitted. "It is… the emir. She has summoned me."
"Oh…" Of course, it was bound to happen sooner or later… Aloe's arms lost their strength. I… I can't let her go. She's on her last drops of vitality. And any servant that cannot be reaped anymore… is made out.
"If you excuse me then." Lulu opened the door, accepting her fate.
"Stop!" Aloe reiterated. "D-do… do not go, Lulu."
"I have been summoned by the emir herself, I cannot defy her orders as a lowly maid."
The scribe of commoners bit her lip upon hearing her companion uttering such deprecating words.
"Do not go." The cultivator stated more firmly. "I will go myself and convince Rani to cease these callings to you."
"But…"
"No buts." The petite dark woman interrupted the tall fair one. "I will see this issue resolved. Understood?"
"I… yes." Lulu bowed dutifully.
Aloe climbed her wheelchair and pushed it herself, dreading growing in her body with every push across the corridors. After months of inaction, she was forced to oppose a sultanzade one more time.