70. Control (Patreon)

For a moment, Aloe thought Tamara was joking. But she soon became aware that wasn’t the case. It makes sense. She told herself. From her understanding, I’m just a girl messing with normal plants and found a recipe to make ink from them. There’s nothing wrong with that. So I shouldn’t act disturbed. Aloe thought disturbingly.

“I think I will refuse the offer.” The scribe of commoners said calmly.

“You sure?” Tamara raised her brows. “You have nothing to lose, only gain.”

She’s already suspecting... Selling her “formula” – if it could even be called that – would equate to revealing the Aloe Veritas. Maybe she could find some way to keep Evolution and Infusion to herself, withholding the vital arts as much as possible, but if that worked, it wouldn’t take that long for the secret to come to the truth. Karaim said it, Evolution is based on another vital art... and I have an idea where it may come from.

If she showed the world the existence of the Aloe Veritas, Evolution wouldn’t take long to be discovered. The amount of knowledge that it gave was astonishing, too expensive to be revealed or shared. It was the token on her sleeve that contained all her power, her only real playing card.

“I’m sure about it,” Aloe told as diplomatically as possible, but instead of neutral, she said it with a voice of indifference. “You’ve said it, the market of masses isn’t just there. No matter how cheap it may be to produce the ink, it would get nowhere.” She knew this wasn’t enough of an excuse, a merchant like Tamara needed more to desist. “And besides, I’m afraid the problem will be the logistics.”

“Logistics?” The old woman raised her brow.

It wasn’t a word a trader wanted to hear. Mostly because they were tired of it.

“You know how my greenhouse is on an oasis, right?” She nodded. “Well, let’s say the plants require a lot of water.”

“Meaning that doing a plantation on a big enough scale in Sadina is unfeasible.” Tamara continued.

“Exactly.” It was Aloe’s turn to nod.

This was, of course, a lie. The Aloe Veritas were cactuses, so they were extremely resilient to the harsh environment of the desert. And compared to some of the plants in the greenhouse, the veritas didn’t require nearly as much water.

“Well, it wasn’t like I had many hopes. It was just a nudge on the back of my mind.” Tamara sighed. “It’s a knack I have from my younger years as a trader, I can’t let go of an enterprise. It doesn't matter if it’s profitable or not, I need to at least investigate it.”

“It seems like a rather bad knack for a trader to have. How were your businesses even profitable?”

“It isn’t like I started every enterprise, girl.” She scoffed. “It’s more like a hobby. I do like to theory-craft about future business and see if they are potentially profitable even if I don’t even invest in them.”

“That sounds like a very taxing hobby, I think gardening is quite lighter on the mind.”

“Not everyone can choose their hobbies. Some grow onto you like a pimple and won’t let you alone, and others are just forced into you.”

“I can get behind that.” Aloe sighed. “I certainly didn’t think about botany, gardening, and farming until my grandfather died.”

“I won’t deny gardening sounds lovely.” Tamara chuckled. “Being a scribe is a job that takes too much mental power to have a mentally draining hobby. A physical one sounds much better.”

“Indeed.” Aloe took a pistachio for herself after remembering that there was a bowl filled with them on the desk. “A laborer should have a mental hobby, whilst a scholar a physical one.”

“That would be the perfect world.” Tamara followed suit, grabbing pistachios for herself.

“You know, it’s a luxury to have all the pistachios pealed already.”

“I believe it removes a bit of the charm. Sometimes I want to peel my own pistachios.”

“...That sounded rather deep.”

Tamara cackled. “Listen to your elders, wisdom comes from every word.”

“I would cheer to that, but I don’t have any beverage. Should we ask for tea or something?”

“Aloe.” The scribe of commerce interrupted her as she was going to stand up.

“Yes?” The scribe of commoners asked innocently.

“I know what you are doing.”

“And what that may be?”

The old woman sighed. “Sit down and stop evading work.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Aloe replied with an almost military response.

Truth was, she wasn’t trying to avoid work. Maybe a bit, but she knew it needed to get done. No, what she was doing was fooling the scribe. By making her think she had pressured her into menial conversation and a tea break, Tamara would forget about the ink recipe proposition. Aloe wasn’t a master of subterfuge, but she certainly could be sneaky.

{*}

It didn’t take long for the two scribes to finish their conjoined work. Aloe mostly left the work to Tamara; instead of writing herself, she asked the experienced scribe for notes and advice.

And also finances.

The treasury of the palace was regulated by Tamara, so after prodding around a bit, Aloe got a solid idea of what spending margin she had for her scribe of commoners’ tasks. Most of the budget mostly went to public works, either way.

Yes, the scribe of commoners’ budget and the public works’ budget were one and the same. She may have a lot of money to spend, but in practice, she only got a small fraction of that. Roads are nince-damned expensive to maintain. Aloe groaned as she made her way through the palace’s corridors. Maids were already lighting some candles as the only light coming through was that of twilight. At least highway security doesn’t form part of that. Anything military-related was the duty of the imperial scribe.

Talking about the imperial scribe... The sound of supersonic slashes came to Aloe’s ears.

Aloe didn’t know where the young sultanzade’s office was, but she was sure as the heavens existed that she didn’t spend much time there. One could find Naila Asina in many parts of the palace, though she tended to orbit the enclosed patios.

After their weird meeting during the feast a few days ago, the imperial scribe became... tamer. She still didn’t accept Aloe’s presence, but she hadn’t attacked her in any way and if she directed her words toward her, they tended to be least combative.

That didn’t mean Aloe took advantage of that. She knew better than to pull the knots of an imperial.

And if she was wiser, she would have walked away as she noticed Naila’s presence. But...

The strongly built girl danced as if she was way lighter and thinner than she truly was. Her steps didn’t perturb the grass, though that didn’t matter as the sways of her blade did. There was grace in those fast movements, but above all else, control.

Maids would suppose that the sultanzade was only being fast, but Aloe knew how hard it was to control one’s body after being infused with ‘speed’. The body became impressively faster, but the mind remained unchanged, easily lagging behind. It wasn’t only the wide movements like strides that were affected, but also the minute ones like finger movements or hand rotations.

Everything involving a muscle was just faster.

What impressed Aloe wasn’t the dance – though it was noteworthy – but the control needed to even perform it without tumbling.

She remained there in a trance, looking at the sultanzade dancing with the orange sky in the background. Minutes passed, enough for Aloe to shift her internal infusion to ‘speed’, a task that took her far more than expected as she wasn’t used to this infusion.

How? She had approached a wall beforehand and rested her back on it to not tumble to the ground once the infusion’s effects kicked in. How can she move her body like that? Aloe tapped on the wall with a single finger. The most minimal of movements was enough to send her digit straight to the wall. She tapped fast, nince a second, even if in her mind she was going slow. How much training does one require to control a whole body if I can barely keep up with a finger?

She knew that the sultanzade were special, every imperial was. They were stronger, faster, and more fertile than most so she wanted to attribute the control to... Wait. She stopped tapping as realization hit her. What if all the stories of the sultanzade being strong, durable, fast, and such, didn’t refer to all at the same time? Maybe... only one at a time? For others, it would not make much distinction, but for Aloe, it was world-changing. Oh... I knew it.

The seed of doubt had been planted long ago since she read Karaim’s cultivation technique. Then it spurted when she saw Naila training for the first time. It was the ‘speed’ infusion, but she didn’t want to jump to conclusions. But after watching her for many minutes, there was no denying it. The sultanzade can use Infusion.