Epsilon Twilight
patreon
24. Hope
🕑 Added 2024-10-12 12:11:13 +0000 UTCHope was an insidious, lying bastard. It always whispered warm and comforting words, to never give up and to hold your dreams, but as the rope tightened to your neck… did that even matter?
Those were the thoughts going through Aloe's head as she lay on the ground of a humid and cold chasm next to a corpse.
No more sunlight made its way through the slit at the top now. It may be midnight or just twilight, but she couldn't know, nor did she care.
"Is there a reason to keep running?" Her words were but a faint whisper, yet the perfect sound and echo of the rock walls returned the sound to her ears in pristine condition.
The last words of the assassin had affected her badly. Her whole plan depended on running away to Loyata and then catching a boat to anywhere far from Ydaz, but now she had to deal with the fact that Loyata was an assassin hotspot.
The possibility of the assassin lying to her with his last breath didn't even pass through her mind. Aloe had always been great at reading expressions and emotions and lies by extension. It didn't matter that the assassin had been clouded in shadows prior to his death, those words didn't feel like lies.
The worst part was that she even knew that was the case. She had just tried to ignore it until now.
She knew of Aaliyah's – and also her predecessor's – culling of the assassins. Kyra-al-Ydaz put an end to the Assassin States, a set of microstates scattered around Ydaz and some other countries, and Aaliyah followed by erasing most of the assassin cells that remained in Ydaz.
It was nearly impossible to eradicate a group already, especially one ridden by beliefs, so it was obvious that a set of people that could turn into shadows and displace instantly would be outright impossible. The assassins weren't purged, they just moved to greener pastures.
Apparently, in a literal manner.
If it wasn't for the Blossomflame she would be done since the very beginning. Don't think about it. Don't think about it. Aloe gritted her teeth trying to remove Jafar's blood-curdling screams as he died, but it was hard when she could smell the calcinated corpse of the dead assassin next to her. His screams had been more muted than Jafar's, but that didn't make them any worse.
"Ah…" Aloe let out a pained moan.
The irony of the situation was short of comedic as she was healthier than ever before. Not only had she never had this much vitality, but the Blossomflame's conflagration had healed every piece of her body.
"Loyata is a death trap," that much she knew. "What can I do?" The petite cultivator did her best to hold her sobs, but it was getting harder and harder as time went on. "I can't go back, can I?"
If Loyata wasn't an option, then only treading across Ydaz by foot was her chance to reach another country.
"No," Aloe muttered. "I would need to pass through Asina to get to Western Ydaz, and the Heaven's Starway is the most secure and manned mountain range of Ydaz. And besides," she bit her lips, "I'd rather not go nowhere nearby Aaliyah. Not yet."
Maybe ever, she left the last part unspoken.
For now, she slept.
Her mind, body, and heart were so exhausted that she couldn't even be bothered by the corpse scarce few steps away from her. She just donned recovery and closed her eyes, praying and hoping that the gesture would mean anything in her precarious state.
{*}
It was impossible for Aloe to tell how much time had happened down on the chasm, but she didn't care much, all things being said.
She woke up, her body temperature slightly low from the humidity and the darkness of the cavernous structure of the chasm.
The first thing she did after waking up was take a gulp out of her waterskin and clean her fingers with a bit of water. Whilst she no longer felt the pain, blood crusts had formed on her fingertips as she had tried to stop her fall with them. It took a lot of rubbing and dyeing red and black a perfectly fine rug, but she got all the blood away.
As she had no light with her, she performed the whole cleaning in the penumbra of the chasm, but the sense stance helped to mitigate the darkness. Even if not much daylight reached her current position, her enhanced eyes could see as if it was a particularly bright night.
Aloe peered at the assassin's corpse and was partially inclined to push it off the edge with a kick but held herself out of respect. Not that she was going to remain in this ledge for long.
The advantage of her underground location was that everything was well-preserved thanks to the low temperatures, even the corpse, but she was sure the humidity would spoil others.
The cultivator didn't eat much, having slept next to the corpse she had personally created had removed any appetite from her person. From the corner of her eyes, she could see the calcinated state of the body alongside some pools of blood that had yet to coagulate.
"What now?" Aloe sighed alone in the darkness.
She was rather cold, but considering she was wielding a stance and hadn't slept with a blanket on, that was to be expected. To regain a bit of body heat, she took out a blanket and wore it over her backpack. The petite woman walked over to the ledge, looking straight down and then slowly turning her head up.
"Down's closer than up," she commented. "That must be the Tehen that I'm seeing."
Whilst her eyesight was affected by the lack of light, she could vaguely see the current of the water, more of occasional glints of the reflections than anything, and especially hear it.
"I guess this is better than nothing…" Aloe scratched her head, switched her internal infusion to toughness, and slowly made her way down.
Her fingers may have been long healed, but they were numb, and the cold touch of the stone wasn't one she was enjoying. The only saving grace of her downward climbing was that falling down wouldn't be lethal. She had fallen from a greater height and only broken a femur, or that was what she still believed, but there wasn't much time to ponder on her wounds as the Blossomflame healed them rather fast.
Aloe was conscious and methodical with her steps.
Even if she wouldn't get hurt and the pain was greatly dulled by toughness, she would rather not go through the whole process if possible.
Time was a fickle thing down there as she normally guessed the passage of time by looking at the heavens, but she couldn't have taken more than half an hour to get down to the bottom of the chasm.
To the riverbed of the Tehen River.
Without thinking about it twice, Aloe walked to the river whilst in complete darkness and submerged her hands in the water.
"Oh, heavens!" She snatched them fast. "That's cold!"
She rubbed her hands together furiously and exhaled on them to recover the lost heat.
"Well, at least I won't go thirsty." For better or worse, Aloe had resigned herself to wait a bit at the bottom of the chasm, if just to weather the storm that was the assassins and the sultanate. "But better look for a drier spot. And a… corpseless one at that."
She changed her infusion to acuity before walking as her descent down the chasm had been rather terrifying. Fear was born from the unknown or the known, and blindness was the paradoxical ailment that presented both aspects.
"I guess I shouldn't be surprised there's less light here." Even with the sense stance, it was hard to get a good grasp of her surroundings. "If only I had some bioluminescent plant like the Myriad or the Moonlight's Tooth…"
Aloe almost slapped her face out of her head as her thoughts caught up to her words. She knelt down, groaned, and took out the Blossomflame from the backpack.
"Mmm, warmth," she shivered in pleasure at the warm touch of the plant. Even the pot holding the plant was warm.
Then she switched to potency and bit her thumb. The Blossomflame awakened from its dormant state upon sensing the wound and let out embers proportional to the wound. Aloe intercepted the fire with an oil lamp that she had bought. It was wasteful using her scarce oil this soon after leaving Selen, but there was no better place in Khaffat to use it.
It took a bit of finicking to set the wick ablaze, but soon she had a dim light all to herself. "Damn, that makes a lot of difference."
The light was objectively pathetic, but even the dimmest lights were the brightest of stars amidst a sea of the blackest darkness.
With a lamp in hand and acuity boosting her sight, Aloe trekked across the humid cavern that was the underground in search of a better place to set camp. Her hope was like the lamp she was holding, fickle but refusing to be put out. She wouldn't give up now after everything she had suffered, everything she had done to survive.
Her sins were many, and that was why she had to keep running away and surviving. Extinguishing that hope would be betraying the life she had extinguished to get this far.
Comments
The3rd
Infinite cookies are here 🍪♾️
