Epsilon Twilight
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35. Roasted
🕑 Added 2024-11-01 13:00:36 +0000 UTCA sweet perfume, a soft caress, the warm rays of sunlight, the feeling of skin meeting skin by a partner on the other side of the bed, the pleasure of fingers seeking more pleasure eagerly, the exchange of kisses that didn't necessarily need to be lip to lip... Individually they were gorgeous things, but when put together… it felt wrong to enjoy them.
"Ah!" Aloe woke up from her sleep with a jump. "I-it was just a dream. I think so?"
It was hard to distinguish between what a dream and a nightmare was supposed to be.
"I… at least it was Rani, it could have been worse if I dreamt of…" Her words were cut off as she felt bile gathering in her throat. Aloe took a pained inhalation and prolonged her exhalations as much as possible. "I didn't puke. That's progress, isn't it?" She giggled as if just to not cry.
Dreams could no longer be classified as such long ago. This wasn't just since that fateful night at Asina, but even months earlier after her mother's death. She had not suffered from such nightmares when her father had also perished from sickness, but she had been young then and hadn't truly assimilated the weight of his death until way later.
And unlike her father whom she had seen slowly wilt away, her mother's demise had been a merciless slap. Too sudden.
In a matter of a few months, too many things had happened to take into account. Her mind just couldn't process them all at once, there was not enough space for that.
But disgustingly enough, the image of the emir of Sadina kept those nightmares away.
It was her mind playing tricks on her, Aloe knew it. She hadn't enjoyed those beddings, but her body did. And unlike the depravity of the sultanzade's mother, Rani had her consent. Even if she had bought it as if Aloe were a prostitute.
She hated associating Rani with something warm and soft when she was just one of her many ailments, but she felt so cold…
The depths of the Tehen River constantly sapped her strength, her heat, her life, and her mind. So it wasn't surprising that said mind tried its best to compose itself, even if it was through absurd lies.
Aloe couldn't deny a part of her was longing for the soft blankets and the warm awakenings, though.
But she couldn't dwindle on her mind.
She stood up from her litter and directly went to the river, skipping breakfast altogether. She felt dirty and had an imperious need to clean herself, even if she only had a towel at her disposal.
"Ah…" Aloe moaned in pain at the cold touch of the soaked towel.
Dust easily clung to her skin with the dampness of the chasm, but what irritated more were the secretions of her own body. Those weren't limited to sweat alone, and Aloe was disgusted to find another type of dampness on her underwear. As much as she hated it, her body had reacted to the wet dream.
"I…" She was at a loss for words as she tried to justify herself. "I preferred when my mind was free of such depravities."
The petite woman couldn't remember when she started feeling this way. This… active. Was it when she used the Grace's Exaltation and her body ached for pleasure – real pleasure – for the first time? Was it when she was defiled? Or perhaps by one of Rani's many ministrations that had corrupted her mind and heart?
She had no answer, and that unsettled her.
Instead of lingering in the essence of erotism, she decided to cool herself by washing her clothes on the river and donning new ones.
Besides laundry, she had many tasks to fulfill. She had many plants to try Evolution with them, new and old, but that was a more secondary task. The living stones had seeded a hint of fear in her heart, and she wanted to have a bit more vitality before trying to evolve new plants. Seven mansworth seemed like a solid yet close enough mark before going on an evolution spree.
And she didn't forget that she needed to make new vitality pills.
But she left all of these for later.
Her current focus was on her plantations, especially her edible ones. Or rather, her edible one. Potatoes would grow faster than the Blossomflames and the veritas so it was a simpler investment than the others.
Investment.
Growing plants had now turned into an investment after her discovery of the infused blood. She could trade permanent vitality – which she could regain either way – for enhanced growth, a supernatural one at that.
She gave another drop of blood to her potatoes to start the day. With any luck, she would be able to reap them in a day or two.
The act did leave her dizzy, so she finally had breakfast. After filling up her stomach with rapidly aging food, Aloe pondered about her options.
"I could evolve more veritas, or rather, I should," she heaved her handful of aloe vera seeds in her hand. "I can only make a limited number of them with the book at my disposal, but they are cheaper to evolve than the Blossomflame whilst still being multiple times more expensive than the Flourishing Springs, meaning I won't tire as much but still reap the benefits. Besides also having more than one veritas at hand."
If she intended to evolve all her seeds in her possession, she would need many veritas leaves. And she didn't have the patience to wait for the plant to regrow them once the time was right, so it was better if she grew multiple of them.
Aloe didn't evolve many Aloe Veritas, only two more. Her reason was twofold. She didn't need that many and she wanted to reserve the book for other evolutions in case the new plants also shared their requirement. Which wasn't unheard of as that was how Karaim had also evolved the Na'mul Ter'nar. As for her other reason, Aloe also wanted to have aloe vera.
Munching grass was NOT an option. She wanted to keep things as civilized as possible, and while she didn't have a mortar and pestle, she would find a way to make new pills.
This day ended with more potato sprouts, a new plantation in the shape of aloe vera, an expansion of her veritas parterre, and another evolved Blossomflame.
The cultivator wanted to do more, but her headache had become so throbbing by the end of this last evolution that she nearly couldn't hear her own thoughts. She was pressing herself not only by performing so many evolutions in her suboptimal environment but also by consuming her vitality with the Forced Growth blood infusions.
As efficient as they were, they took a toll on her body.
It took two more days, or what she assumed were days, for the potatoes to grow with her repeated blood infusions. If she felt well enough during each day, she would also perform a classic Forced Growth as it didn't demand as much from her body as the blood infusions or the evolutions did.
For once in her life, Aloe enjoyed getting her hands dirty. The chasm's soil was frigid, but they had spawned full-grown and normal-looking potatoes nonetheless.
"I hate I don't have a cauldron to make soup, but I have a pan somewhere, so I guess I could make roasted potatoes." She said with a still dirty potato in her hand.
What she called a pan was no more than a ceramic bowl with a lid small enough that couldn't be called a pot. Perhaps a saucepan, but that was being generous too.
With her pocketknife, Aloe cut her potatoes, not without washing them first, of course. Her peeling abilities left a lot to be desired, so much so that she gave up and just put the skin and all else inside. It wasn't as if it wasn't edible, and she had thoroughly rinsed them.
For the fire… that was a bit more complex. With a bit of finicking, Aloe managed to hold the ceramic bowl on top of a Blossomflame with anything she had sparing around, and to light the fire she kept cutting herself.
Quite the rough and bloody cooking set up, but being near a fire for a solid hour was well worth it all the blood she had lost. Not that she had lost much as she was careful with her cuts so not much blood spilled over, and the Blossomflame had enough time to seal the wounds before she could suffer any significant hemorrhage.
In the end, she had to cut the cooking short as the Blossomflame lost much of its potency and she didn't want to be unarmed in the case of an assassin ambush.
The low intensity of the fire and its intermittent flames didn't make for a good roast.
"Mmm~" Aloe hummed as she put the poorly cooked potatoes in her mouth, a tear in the corner of her eyes. "It tastes like crap."
It was awful. There was no sugarcoating possible. But the food was warm and different from everything she had eaten all these days. But above all else, it was cooked food. Grown and prepared by her own hand. It wasn't much, but it was something and her dwindling sanity appreciated it.
"Ah…" She groaned as she rested her back on the cold wall. It was killing her after being hunchbacked over the fire for a whole hour. "I thank the heavens for my lack of sense of taste." It also helped that she could dull that sense at will.
Sleep overpowered her after having a real meal for the first time in ages, but before drowsing off into a nap, Aloe switched her regeneration stance that she still wielded as she had been evolving some Flourishing Springs over her cooking session to make better use of her time. The reason for doing so was because she feared the coming of her internal clock.
She, never ever again, wanted to be caught by her menstruation whilst donning recovery, so since yesterday she had been switching out of it before sleeping as she feared the day was coming. Even if that severely affected the quality and quantity of her sleep.
Thankfully, her suspicions proved correct as two of her 'days' later, she bled once again.
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