19. Charm (Patreon)

“Let us continue, then.” The sultanzade’s words snapped Aloe out of her thoughts. “Change into the speed stance.”

“Princess, I fear that stance may not be appropriate for my current predisposition.” The prone girl gave a look at her covered legs.

“You do not require movements to test speed.” Fatima grabbed Aloe’s hand and tapped on her palm. “Yes, the utility of the speed stance mostly relies on the enhanced mobility, but it affects the whole body equally. With a metronome tapping, I can know how fast your factor is.”

Aloe met the princess’ gaze for an instant, but she quickly unpledged from her dark green eyes. The sultanzade dedicated her a smile. 

“Understood,” the scribe added taciturnly.

Changing into the fast-paced flow of vitality was difficult for the bedridden woman. Speed was one of the stances she had less practice with. Thanks to Fikali, she hadn’t needed to use the internal infusion if it wasn’t for the sake of training it. Toughness was the most useful, especially when she felt under the weather, and in the labor-intensive greenhouse, strength had its niche applications. Most of them amounted to shoveling though.

Speed turned her body more energetic, with the easiness and restlessness of a child. And whilst that energy may be appreciated, it wasn’t without its flaws. Without a doubt, speed was the most physically draining stance Aloe had tried. Toughness made her breaths shorter, but it wasn’t intensive. Same with strength. Acuity only had the disadvantage of being mentally draining, but it was less oppressive on the body than the rest of the infusions.

That wasn’t the case with speed.

Accelerating one’s body meant that it needed more air. More water. More food. It was a violent stance on the virtue of being gluttonous.

Aloe found her breathing becoming slightly erratic as she finished setting her stance to speed. Fatima also noticed it; the scribe could see it in her eyes. There was a feline uncanniness to them, unaffected by the dim lighting of the room.

“Come on tap. Count one-two one-two in your mind, like a heartbeat. That should be enough for me to measure how fast the stance makes you.”

It partially scared her to give this much information to a sultanzade, but the absolute truth was that her infusions couldn’t compare to the princess’. Not only she had more practice and knowledge than the scribe, but the difference in vitality was overwhelming. Aloe wasn’t a woman of violence, she wholeheartedly believed that the pen was mightier than the sword, but there was a huge difference in principles when one was forced to only use a pen because the enemy’s sword was too sharp.

One-two. One-two. Aloe tapped on the woman’s sturdy hand. It wasn’t the hand of a protected princess, but a battle-tested warrior. One-two. One-two. Even if her counting had perfect timing, there was an offset between taps and thoughts. There it was, the dissonance of mind and body. Speed only accelerated the body, not the mind. Even if she wanted to do a one-two rhythm, her body was faster than that.

The scribe peered at the imperial, her eyes closed in concentration. Even though she wasn’t using acuity, she could notice the irregular breathing of the woman. She’s trying to breathe at the same tempo as my breathing. She couldn’t understand the logic behind it, it only seemed like a good way to give oneself a headache, but Aloe continued to do as demanded. 

The two girls stood there with their hands wrapped together as the tapping reached a perfect metronome, no longer followed by an internal pounding, but muscle memory.

“Stop.” The princess exhaled shallowly. It took the commoner a few taps to process the order as she was no longer acting consciously. 

Fatima let go of Aloe’s hands and tapped the same hand herself. The sultanzade sighed not long after that and stretched her neck.

“That was not much speed, but it was a solid tempo. You are certainly better at speed than strength. I would like to see you move with a recovered body. How well may you engage in a shared tempo.”

Aloe ignored the sexual innuendo, not allowing herself to blush, to give the woman that win. Whore. She kept it to herself, clearing her mind from the sultanzade’s gestures. Instead, she focused on her praising. Well, I haven’t seen anyone use strength, but I know someone proficient with speed. The images of Naila Asina’s training flared in her mind. She hadn’t observed her many times, but she wasn’t discreet with her training, from time to time she managed to catch a look of her fellow scribe, of her frantic yet coordinated movements. Speed was violent but also graceful.

Fatima turned her visage dull once I didn’t respond to her advances. “Let us try charm now.”

“I warn you that I do not have much practice with the stance.”

“Warn?” She snickered. “What will an unpracticed stance do?”

“Murder you of boredom.” Aloe gifted her a shit-eating grin.

“I am a patient person, do not worry about it.” Fatima met Aloe’s emerald eyes, her sense stance obviously trying to find any structural flaw in the commoner’s façade. “Start.”

Aloe wasn’t joking when she spoke about killing her with boredom. Charm was by far her least-used stance. As a matter of fact, she had only used it once. It had taken her many tries to achieve it, but it was a matter of trial and error. She may not be competent with it, she may not be comfortable with it, but the sheer knowledge of its existence was enough for Aloe to achieve the internal infusion. 

It only took hundreds of tries.

The greatest motivators of humanity were boredom and spite, and she oozed them both. The stance always escaped her clutches, every time she thought she had it in her hands, it drained away like water in a hand.

The scribe took a deep breath. The flow of vitality needed to achieve the charm internal infusion was unlike any of the others. The other stances could be described with physical, quantifiable adjectives. Roughness, slowness, sleekness. All of those could be applied to stances, but charm was more… qualitative.

She would describe infusions as cold, same with vitality. A cold breeze that renewed her.

Charm wasn’t like that.

Charm was hot.

The flow of vitality was a river of molten glass flowing through the desert, somehow infusing life in its shores, infusing a primal sense of propagation, of reproduction. Unadulterated mating.

A hot, charred, and sultry exhalation escaped Aloe’s lips.

There was a wet energy coming through the steam in her mouth. It’s… it’s hard to control. The innate viciousness of the stance made her sick. Made her… remember. Bile threatened to gather in her throat, but she powered through. Projecting weakness at this moment would be the worst misplay of all. Strength before weakness. The weak get culled… The scribe recited the words, though she no longer knew who they were. Her father’s? Hers? Or someone else?

Her breathing was erratic, as it was her vitality. It pained her as much it had strained her the Blossomflame evolution. The competency of stances as Fatima had mentioned was very real. And she had no proficiency whatsoever with charm. There was no seductiveness in her, no social component, no reproductive instinct. If all other infusions were a part of her, charm was but a tool. An item that she discarded and left in a shed for days without end, only using it when it was truly needed.

Nine minutes.

It had taken her nine minutes to switch into charm.

Almost twice as long as the first-ever internal infusion had done, and that was taking into consideration her increased knowledge and mastery of vitality. She felt her body looser, her facial muscles more maneuverable than ever, her breathing sweet and melodic. The changes were obvious before she moved a muscle or spoke a word.

And she hated it.

The commoner opened her eyes to find an imperial staring at her with fervor. It was a complex emotion Aloe was unable to decipher.

“You are not enthralled by me, right?” Aloe tried to joke, but the truth was, she was terrified. If she had truly captivated the sultanzade, a bewitched and ravishing beast uncontrolled, she was in no position to stop her from…

No. Not again! The scribe gritted her teeth and kept the bile at bay. Tears threatened to come out too, but her enhanced facial control prevented her tear glands from emulsifying. If acuity allowed her to detect infinitesimal facial twitches, charm allowed her to negate them.

“Do not jest.” Fatima laughed at the idea. Those words snapped Aloe of her dark thoughts. The sultanzade may have not realized it, but her control was the only thing that kept the scribe from breaking. “Whilst it is true I am not used to being subjected to charm; I am far from influenced by it. Especially yours.”

The hidden meaning of the words was cruel and sharp, yet they felt soft to Aloe. If her charm had been potent enough, the effects would have been way more devastating than if it was weaker. For once, Aloe embraced weakness. A feeble façade, a scorpion can even hide under the dirt of an oasis. Weakness can be a tool, but it is a two-edged sword. Do not use it if you can. The words of her father echoed in her mind, bringing her a kernel of comfort.

“I was simply inspecting its power.” The sultanzade continued. “Not the worst I have seen, Naila and Kareem certainly do worse than you, but considering the lack of practice you have – nine whole minutes to switch a stance, something that should be instantaneous at best – you could bring serious punches with your charm once you practice.”

Not in a million years. “I prefer not to. Other stances may be more useful to me.” Aloe scowled. “Charm would not have a potent effect if it was wielded by a person like me, either way.”

“I highly doubt that. Remember this,” Fatima crossed her arms under her bust and raised her brows, “every person out there has different tastes. Charm can exploit that independently of those preferences, but if you happen to find yourself in the likes and kinks of someone? Charm can truly become a more potent weapon than any other stance.” 

The sultanzade leaned forward, closing her face to Aloe’s. Even if the scribe was one donning the stance, she felt as if she was the one being played.

“You know what the stance we fear more in Mother’s hands is?” Aloe swayed her head in negation. “Charm.” Even with her increased facial control, cracks showed in the commoner’s expression. The revelation was too shocking. The last thing you would worry about a natural disaster – a force of nature incarnate – was if it was beautiful. And Fatima certainly realized that with her sense stance. “Once someone has too much vitality, the properties that should be penalized by stances, are bolstered either way. And it is not the strength or speed of gods that lead nations to war. But their beauty.”