After a bit of a discussion, Aloe tried wearing the slaver's clothes again. Her new hourglass shape actually made it easier to wear the pants, which she would have expected to go otherwise, but there still was quite a bit of an issue with the shirt. Her shoulders weren't as broad as before, but now she packed quite the rack, which also made it impossible to button the shirt.
With a bit of quick thinking from Xochipilli's part – who was blushing harder by the minute – Aloe took the white blanket from the bed and tied it in such a way that looked like a half-decent dress. She still wore the trousers, just in case, as she still refused to wear the man's undergarments.
As for footwear, Aloe was pleasantly surprised to find that the spare boots she found in the wardrobe fit her new feet. They were a bit too tight for her liking, but nothing too egregious like the trousers which were close to bursting from the very fabric, let alone the buttons.
"Should we get going?" Aloe asked Xochipilli and he nodded back. The boy left the safe house first and Aloe closed behind. "Can you keep the key? It's hard to access the trousers' pockets with the blanket covering my waist, and my… personal storage is even more difficult to reach."
With another nod, Xochipilli accepted the key to the safe house and pocketed it. The gesture made him happy though.
They started walking towards the city itself instead of remaining in the undeveloped neighborhoods as Xochipilli insisted that she should get quality clothes appropriate for someone of her status.
"Uhm… Aloe?" Xochipilli sheepishly inquired.
"Yes, child?"
"Why aren't people… questioning your looks? They are looking at you, but that's all…"
It was impossible to go through the populated streets without being noticed, so it was obvious that they would receive more than one look. And looks they received. Every passersby's eyes locked with Aloe, but none had a puzzled expression even if she still looked very much like a human-plant hybrid.
"Glamour, the magic I am using, makes people… pleased whilst looking at me. And because people wouldn't be pleased to look at plants, they acknowledge me like a person."
This was, of course, a pile of camelshit.
She theorized that glamour would work like that, but she couldn't be sure of it, even now when it was proving to have some moderate success. Yes, they weren't screaming at her in confusion, but she doubted she could affect the minds of the people who observed her. Though at the same time… that's how the world of ideas works…
"Oh!" Xochipilli's eyes glinted in childish joy at the explanation. "Would I be able to do it?"
"Well, there's not much use for you. Is it now?" She added with a motherly smile.
"I guess…" He deflated a bit, but that wasn't enough to kill his enthusiasm.
As they walked further and further into the center of the city, Aloe couldn't help but be in awe at the size of each and every building. Each edification felt like a megastructure, and they were still far away from the tallest ones that they could see looming on the horizon.
Wide pavemented streets, hundreds or thousands of passersby, decorated façades with glass, plenty of streetlights that were normally seen only in very select noble districts everywhere…
Madness.
This cannot be constructed in a handful of decades. She had been pondering that for hours now, but that fear beat harder and harder with each beat of her own heart.
"Where are we going to?" The creeping dread in her heart dissipated when Xochipilli asked again with his infinite curiosity.
"Well, I found a direction on the slaver's body," or more like his mind, "to what I think is a pawn shop. I still don't know how expensive things may be here, but I have something that should net us a bit of money for our expenses."
It had been through vague imagery, but Aloe managed to see that the man with the mustache and the big top hat in the slaver's dream had a pawn shop, or at least, it felt like he had one. Navigating foreign dreams was something she was still very green at. Pun not intended.
Her intention was to pawn her single drupnarea, as even if the currency had shifted from metal-based to paper-based, gold was still gold. No matter the place or the time, that held true.
Once they arrived at the more urban streets, the avenues got wider and cleaner. And also more occupied. Yet regardless of the number of people watching her, none seemed to be bewildered by her looks. Even if she had covered her head with a rag to hide the Aloe Veritas, her skin black skin was very much non-human, and her hair literally had leaves on the strands.
Even if she were not to be a vegetable human, Aloe didn't appreciate the attention. Not because she had been a hermit for decades at the very least, but ever since she was young she didn't appreciate having eyes laid on her. Especially if those eyes wanted to devour her…
Not anymore. She told herself and toughed out her resolve. I'm strong now, I can fight against anything. I'm not weak. Not anymore.
There was almost a visible line between each neighborhood they walked across. With each passing crossing, the buildings and the people seemed to get fancier. No longer she saw sweaty men in suspenders, but women with frilly dress and parasols, and men with dapper suits and hats.
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How are they wearing such heavy clothes? They must be sweating a lot, besides also being weighed down. That held truer with the women as some wore dresses in which skirts were inflated like bells or balloons. She was tempted to ask a woman but decided against it as she didn't know the limits of glamour, and she could get the answer from a tailor.
"Xochipilli, tell me," she mused as they continued walking with their hands held. "You still see me as a plant, don't you?"
"Well," he blushed for some heavens' forsaken reason. "I see you as I've always seen you."
"I see…" So that was completely useless. She could have asked him for further confirmation, but that was enough of an answer for her. Xochipilli sees me normally whilst others – even if I cannot read their thoughts – don't seem to question my looks. This means that there's a suspension of disbelief with people who aren't aware of my nature. I'll note that down. Sometime.
After having had all the time in the world for years now, it felt weird to Aloe not being able to sit on the ground, cut an Aloe Veritas leaf from her body, and start writing down her thoughts.
Most of the Slowtide's volume had been filled that way with all of her notes and sketches.
"Why do they even make buildings this tall?" She changed the subject out of boredom. "Putting aside how difficult it would be to construct such tall buildings, it must be outrageous having to climb these many stairs to get to one's house."
"I… don't have the answer to that…" Xochipilli looked saddened at the pavement, almost teary-eyed.
"Don't react that way, Xochipilli." Aloe stopped and patted him with her free hand. "I was just musing my thoughts out loud, if I'm a native and I don't know the answers, then it's impossible for you to know them, so cheer up." She rustled his hair a bit and that seemed to do the job better than the previous words.
"Mmm," he wiped his tears and nodded at her.
The more they continued walking, the more oppressive the feeling in her heart became as she noticed the dream wasn't as much of a dream as she originally thought. Her own dreams had portrayed fantastical elements, especially that world of ideas, but the slaver's dream was almost… not prophetic, but uncanny with its realism and portrayal of actual reality.
What caught their attention next was a child on the streets thrashing papers around.
"Today's news! A new silver mine has been found in Tecolata! Get your news!" The boy – who couldn't be more than ten like Xochipilli – thrashed papers around as he shouted at the top of his lungs. "Get your news! Only a drupnar a piece!"
The boy stood on top of a crate and wore simple suspenders like the people back at the outskirts of Selen but with the added bonus of a beret and a bandolier where he carried more of those papers but rolled into tubes.
Hmm, that paper looks curious, Aloe pondered. It doesn't look like the parchment I know of at all. Also, it's grey. Has there been also a revolution in the paper industry besides in construction and textile ones? The more she saw the current state of Selen and its progress, the stronger her doubts and that ache in her heart got.
For a moment she thought it was some kind of scam, a child wouldn't be selling something as expensive as paper for a drupnar, but as she saw a suited man buy one without giving it much thought, Aloe thought otherwise. Well, it's only a drupnar…
Aloe approached the crying boy and as soon as she got in front of him, his shouts died out.
"I… uhm… uh… get your news…" He whispered faintly as his eyes darted all over the place unable to fixate on one spot and he slightly blushed.
"How much was it?" Aloe asked amused even if she had heard his shouts perfectly.
"Uh, o-one drupnar, m-ma'am," the boy hid behind one of the papers he was selling.
"Here you go," she placed one drupnar on his hand that she had taken out beforehand as otherwise she would have needed to almost undress herself to access any pocket.
"Uhm…" He remained looking at the copper coin in his hand for a few seconds, thinking and failing to utter the words, and finally, he pushed one of those papers onto her and he ran away.
"How cute," Aloe mused and unrolled the paper she had just gotten.
"Uh, Aloe?" Xochipilli interrupted at her side.
"Yes, child?"
"You gave him a copper coin?"
"And?"
"Aren't drupnars the gray ones?" He said with a hint of doubt.
"What are you talking about? Drupnars are the… oh," she noticed her mistake. "Wait, are you telling me that they have substituted the drupnars with the zinc coins, and the drupnari are now coppers?"
"Yes, I think so? I'm afraid I'm not well-versed in the local currency…"
"I… what sense does that even make? The prefix '-i' literally means silver! If you change the coin materials, then you should change the name!" This wasn't just that rigorous grammatical instinct that most scribes had, but her banker background speaking.
She was more infuriated by the wrong terminology usage rather than being scammed. Or rather, scamming herself alone.
"I don't know…" Xochipilli flinched and shrank at Aloe's heightened voice.
"Sorry, Xochipilli, my rage wasn't directed at you, just at society at large," she sighed and rustled the child's hair, which he greatly enjoyed. "Anyhow, it's time to look at this paper."
She was surprised to find how thin the paper was and how much ink it had without breaking down. But beyond all else, what shook her more were the words. She could understand them just fine, the dialect used was a bit disorienting but not illegible, but rather how they were written.
All the letters were exactly the same shape, no matter the position or the page.
As a former scribe shook her and she hastily turned the pages, but beyond occasional splotches of ink, all letters were identical, and all words were leveled.
The degree of precision was… breathtaking.
How have they done that? The text formatting confused her so much that she couldn't even bring herself to care about the crisp drawings on some pages or the fact that there was precious paper wasted on advertisements. Advertisements! The only advertising she had ever known was the oral kind, advertising by text was… unthinkable.
"I… Aloe?" The cultivator snapped out of her frenzy as Xochipilli pulled her makeshift dress.
"Is there something wrong, Xochipilli?" Aloe was tempted to continue reading by leaving one eye on the papers and having the other look at the child, but she didn't want to gross him out with her flexibility even though she wanted to keep reading.
"You asked me about the date when we met, right?" She nodded at his rhetorical question. "There's always a date on the first page of a newspaper." Xochipilli tapped with his finger at the top of the first page.
"Lemme see…" As Aloe read, the papers fell to the ground.
Her heart started beating faster than ever before. Not having her life threatened, not being boiled alive, not being raped, not being used as nothing more than a sex toy had caused her so much distress ever before on her life.
The date read: 22nd Sawad, 832.
The numbers felt meaningless before her eyes as her fingers trembled and she felt bile gathering on her throat. Something deep inside of her cracked. Rifts she thought she had fixed only became greater now. She felt her sanity escaping her grasp. Again.
Her body itched, her breathing quickened, her teeth clattered.
"A-ah…" Aloe groaned pathetically.
It… it had been two centuries since she had gone into the chasm.