22. Back (Patreon)

Light had become scarce when they arrived at the oasis. Even if her hands were wounded, Aloe refused to stop unless Fikali herself wanted to, and the dweller was dotted with seemingly endless stamina, they continued all the way to the greenhouse without resting once.

Her body was absolutely thrashed after continuous hours of riding, but Aloe was thankful for the little light remaining in the dunes. The sun had long set, but the sky still held some light, enough for her to see the way forward.

Fikali had a good memory though, she hadn’t needed to pull the reins of the dweller once on the whole travel, so the lack of light wouldn’t have been a problem either way.

Prevention is better than cure as the saying goes, and staying in the desert even if it was only to pass through, was not a welcoming nor safe time.

Aloe, very slowly and lazily, took the saddle out of Fikali. The many straps were difficult to remove, and there wasn’t a sliver of strength remaining in her body – not that she had much to begin with after applying her infusion – but she made it work.

“Have fun, Fikali...” She added weakly as she heaved up the bags and let out a groan after she felt the weight on her back and arms.

Unlike last time, Aloe didn’t tie the dweller to a tree. Fikali had proved trustworthy and reliable to get her freedom, and besides, getting the rope would mean going back and forth from the house and she just wanted to lie down now.

Forever if possible.

She took the keys out of her many satchels and unlocked the house, anything she had to do, she would do tomorrow. With that exact same line of thought, she dropped the bags all over the house. It wasn’t as if this was going to damage them more than they were after a full day of high-speed jolting in the desert.

With eyelids heaving down on her, Aloe managed to take out her desert garbs. A difficult task as they were meant to stay in place and survive the harsh weather of the desert, whether it was the merciless sun or the violent dust storms.

She didn’t even bother to pick up one of the nightgowns she had left on the hanger before leaving. Aloe had made it back, and she instantly fell asleep in the rough wood slate she had as a bed in just a pair of panties.

{*}

“Wro! Wro!” The muted dweller sounds reverberated through the walls.

“Ah...” Aloe groaned half-asleep as she stood up from the bed. “Oooo...”

Her whole body was sore. It was to be expected considering how much she forced herself yesterday, but she had hoped that the ‘toughness’ internal infusion would have done something more; maybe mitigate the effects, but no. Even though she forgot to turn it off and it worked overnight, her body was thoroughly sore.

Her legs were numb, and her hands itched. The wounds on her palms had closed, but she didn’t want to look underneath the bandages, even if she ought to change them as soon as possible.

“Wro! Wro!” Fikali’s grunts continued to assault her tired mind.

Lazily and weakly, Aloe made her way out of her room. It was difficult to walk, and she didn’t have enough presence of mind to don some clothes before she rested her hand on the door handle and pushed it open.

The sunrays blinded her. It was early in the morning, but even the limited sunlight was enough to make her recoil. It took her a few seconds to grow used to the light, but her daze didn’t end there.

“Huh?” Aloe’s confusion magnified as she looked over where Fikali was.

The dweller thrashed around where Aloe had planted the pistachios; bellyflopping, screaming, and hacking away with her claws at the air.

But those erratic and uncharacteristic movements weren’t what flabbergasted the girl, but the figures next to Fikali.

“Are those...” It was difficult to tell from her position. Not only she was far away, but the light still continued to overpower her eyes. Even with those handicaps, Aloe knew what she was seeing.

Dwellers.

Plural.

Aloe rubbed her eyes multiple times; each time she stopped to look back, blink thrice, and then repeat the process. She didn’t know how many times she repeated this sequence, but regardless of her actions, the outcome didn’t change.

“What the...” She was speechless.

Fikali also seemed to be distressed, so Aloe hastily rushed back to the house and donned a spare dress. Other clothes like her garb would have been better, but she was pressed for time, and a one-piece dress was easy and fast to put on. As for her footwear, instead of putting on her sandals, she shoved her feet inside her boots and rushed outside.

Going out naked could have been an option if it weren’t because where dwellers were humans normally followed behind.

“Fikali!” Aloe shouted as she stepped into the sand. “What’s happening?”

The old dweller turned her face around and responded with a “Wrooo!”

That didn’t answer Aloe’s questions, but she managed to get close enough to make an idea of what was going on.

“Are those wild dwellers?” The girl asked, looking from far away at the monsters next to Fikali.

Even though Aloe had a dweller as a mount, she didn’t know much about them. Everyone knew that they rode the dunes in packs, even managing to travel at night, but she had never seen one that hadn’t been domesticated by humans.

“Huo! Huo!” One of the wild dwellers grunted as soon as they saw Aloe.

She took a step backward. Even if she was infused with ‘toughness’, the claws of dwellers were menacing. And that one looked far more than Fikali. Next to them, there was another. It was a couple, not a pack. Aloe didn’t know how only two wild dwellers had made their way here. Had they been separated from the pack, or were they a female and male dweller couple ready to start their own?

For all the subjects Aloe had been lectured on in school, desert ecology wasn’t one of them.

“Wro!” Fikali grunted in defiance, her claws held up high as if ready to strike a moment’s notice.

The dweller grunting was far bigger than the other, and it fought Fikali aggressively to a stand-off. Thankfully, none of the three dwellers engaged in combat. Aloe absolutely didn’t want things to escalate into that.

Based on the bigger size, Aloe assumed it was a female. She didn’t remember if there was a size disparity between dweller genders, but judging how the aggressive dweller was more similar to Fikali’s size than that of their smaller partner, that seemed about right.

Carefully and non-aggressively, Aloe approached the dwellers.

Her eyes parsed through the oasis, looking for more, but as she had thought, these dwellers were the only ones.

“Let’s calm down,” Aloe said slowly and sweetly as she kept her arms up. The gesture would work against humans, but she wasn’t sure about that with dwellers. “What’s happening here?”

“Wro! Wro!” Fikali stated frenetically.

“Yeah, I can’t understand that, Fikali.” Aloe circled around the dwellers, keeping a solid distance between them.

The presumed female dweller fixated her pearly black eyes on her. Her gaze wasn’t aggressive, more reminiscent of tension the tension a dog had when they defended their territory. A bit ironic because this is MY territory. Aloe didn’t express her dissatisfaction and instead kept her tender and peaceful mask, something that was far easier to do against monsters than humans.

Okay, how do I defuse this situation without getting lunged by a two-hundred-something-kilo monster? Aloe was incredibly tense, even if she didn’t show it.

At some point, all dwellers had stopped grunting at each other, the impasse was only strengthened by Aloe’s presence.

Aloe’s non-aggressive tactic worked, as the female dweller proceeded to ignore her, instead looking back at Fikali. It was easy to understand that she didn’t consider Aloe a menace. Not only was she small, but dwellers had a thick hide that no unarmed human could penetrate.

The two female dwellers, Fikali and the wild one, locked themselves into a staring contest. There was frustration in both of their faces. Taking advantage of their distraction, the presumed male dweller slowly edged his way toward where the pistachios were planted.

Aloe had now a seed of an idea of what was happening, but at the same time, couldn’t understand them. The pistachios had already sprouted, they weren’t trees yet, nor were they nuts anymore. Aloe didn’t stop the smaller dweller as he got closer, but the same couldn’t be said about Fikali. She didn’t take in stride that the dweller tried to steal the pistachios.

“Wro! Wro!” She raised the front of her body in an intimidating posture.

It worked, and the male dweller quickly backpedaled in fear. Though his partner didn’t share the same cowardness.

“Huo! Huo!” The female wild dweller also raised her forebody in anticipation.

Well, I already know what I have to do to get them out of here. Aloe thought with a half-groan, half-yawn. Why must these things happen at sunrise?