77. Healing (Patreon)

After having washed her hands on the oasis, Aloe returned to the greenhouse, her body tumbling in a mixture of giddiness and worry.

“Please don’t catch fire. Please don’t catch fire.” She muttered in a mantra, her mind set on the Blossomflame.

Foresight wasn’t exactly her strong suit, but after the effects of the ter’nar tea dissipated from her body, she mustered enough brain power to fill an amphora with water and have it at hand. Of course, she hadn’t gathered enough brain power to realize that a blanket was better than water to deal with localized fires.

Step by step, Aloe approached the red flower, tunnel vision making her ignore the rest of the parterre. Please don’t catch fire. She continued on with her thoughts; too scared words may incite the evolved plant.

“Uhh...” She exhaled lightly, her hand drawing close to the Blossomflame.

She didn’t know why but she believed she had to touch it. In her mind, if touching the plant didn’t make it summon flames, then everything else would be fair game. What she feared wasn’t getting burned. With ‘toughness’ she was way tougher than a normal person, and with her increased vitality, she had reasons to believe that no flames could hurt her badly. Most deaths by fires were actually caused by bad air and smoke rather than flames. No, what Aloe feared was that the Blossomflame burned the greenhouse down.

Once started, she doubted she could stop a fire and, in a blink, she could lose everything. The chance of repair and recovering minimal.

Was it all paranoia? Perhaps. But a healthy dose was called foresight. Or anxiety.

But anxiety wasn’t healthy.

I’m rambling. Aloe realized. Focus. She told herself. Inhale, exhale. Aloe gulped saliva down and centered herself.

She touched the orange-red petals of the Blossomflame.

And...

Nothing caught on fire.

“Phew...” Aloe exhaled enough air to fill an amphora and wiped her forehead. “I was really scared for a moment.”

Then the flames blossomed.

“Ah!” The woman fell on her butt as embers sprouted from the pistils of the flower.

And as soon as they appeared, the embers disappeared. Aloe waited for a moment on the ground, her hands pressed against the soil, hoping for the worst. But blessed her fortune be, normality reigned supreme.

“Why did I have to talk...?” Aloe sighed and groaned her way up.

Aloe squatted, hands resting on her knees as she attentively observed the Blossomflame. No matter how many deathly stares she gave to the flower, no more flames came out.

Warily, Aloe touched it again. She touched a petal with a finger and instantly removed it. After nothing happened, she went with a longer test and caressed the petal.

“So far so...” Aloe waited for something to happen, but nothing did. “...good. Huh, I was almost sure it would interrupt me. I guess I’m really paranoid.”

For a plant, the Blossomflame’s petal was soft. It even felt more so when she caressed it with the back of her hand instead of her fingers. The red petals were soft as velvet, yet she highly doubted she could use that quality for something useful.

“It’s also warm.” Aloe was almost tempted to bring her face to the petals to taste that warmth with her cheeks, but she knew better than to do that. “Cozy warm. I like it.”

Cold countries could take advantage of the innate warmth, but even winter nights were survivable without a fire in Ydaz. Cold, yes, but nothing a blanket couldn’t solve.

“I wonder about the fire...” She mumbled as she circled her finger around a petal. “I don’t remember the exact words, but the veritas said something about healing allies and setting fire to enemies. Considering it didn’t set me ablaze....”

Aloe took her pocketknife out and cut herself.

She failed to scratch her skin.

“’Toughness’, right.” She clicked her tongue.

Now, she could have turned off her internal infusion, but considering how that was the only reason why she felt this comfortable around the Blossomflame, she opted instead to constantly cut herself for five straight minutes to draw blood. She mainly blamed the reduced strength from the shifting of physical attributes rather than blessing the increased toughness of her body. Pessimism at its finest.

“Ugh, finally.” This was, perhaps, the first time in history that someone cutting themselves was bored instead of in pain.

Aloe pressed on the cut to make the blood pour out a bit, mostly to see that it was a genuine cut and not just irritated skin.

“Alright, Blossomflame. Heal me! Somehow.” Aloe’s petition was met with silence. She waited and waited, thrashing around her barely bleeding finger. “Come on, plant! Do your magic!”

Still nothing.

“I don’t know what I expected.” Aloe sighed. “How about...”

And she touched the Blossomflame.

The change was instantly recognizable. The petals began heating up, their mild warmth transforming into the heat of the summer desert, and its pistils flared up.

“Woah!” She almost removed her finger by instinct, her mind didn’t like the fire enclosing her. But she pressed on. If she was about to get burned, then so be it. It couldn’t be bad thanks to her internal infusion.

From the heart of the Blossomflame, embers spurted, almost like they were prodding her. It itches. Aloe thought as the fire raged further on, what was measly embers increasing into true flames. She stopped breathing out of shock, but she kept her finger still. Aloe closed her eyes, feeling the fire enveloping her digit.

It’s not hot. She realized. Only warmth... The fire felt imaginary as if everything was a product of her mind. Something is happening... the itch... is going away?

Aloe opened her eyes revealing meager flames, akin to that of a candle, enveloping her finger. She slowly rotated the hurt digit, slowly revealing what should have been the bloody scratch. What it should. Instead, there was only a pink patch of skin, and it was slowly regaining its color.

“Holy...” Aloe lost all her words. There was no vocabulary right enough to describe her thoughts. “I... dunes...”

She only knew one thing. This plant was useful.

It didn’t matter if it could only heal cuts, even though she had the suspicion it could do more, that was more than well enough. The instant healing of small wounds was invaluable.

“I... we have a winner, that’s for sure.” The flames kept caressing her as she spoke, still working on her skin. “Dunes, this may be on the same tier as the Aloe Veritas. I need to test it more.”

Aloe wasn’t exactly enthusiastic about cutting herself, but she was about healing herself. To test the limits of the plant, and maybe her body.

A few seconds later, the Blossomflame ceased its fire, the flames retreating inside of the plant. Aloe looked at her finger from all angles, and no matter what point of view she tried, she couldn’t see a trace of the wound.

“This healing... a cut like this would take at least two days to heal, maybe even more, but in two minutes it’s already gone...”

Quick calculations told her that was at least a factor of a thousand. The number was so big that it lost its meaning.

“More tests,” Aloe told herself, her expression steeled. “Don’t get your hopes up yet, Aloe.”

She didn’t want to get more failed ideas like the veritas ink.

“Though this time I don’t know how I could even market this... A magical plant that heals with fire it’s worlds away from vegetal ink. Too on the nose...” Aloe sighed. “Why do I even want to market it? I will have the money soon enough...”

Money was important, if she was successful with an enterprise, Aloe knew she could gain more money in a single month than all her life working as the scribe of commoners, let alone a normal banker.

No, the reason was more... humane?

If the Blossomflame could heal more than wounds... the possibilities were endless, maybe she could eradicate sickness from Haffat. And get rich in the process, of course.

But the idea of eradicating sickness and wounds from the world was too precious, it felt bad trying to hide it. It should be known.

“Tests.” She told herself that.

Until she proved the efficacy of the Blossomflame, she wouldn’t get her hopes up. And even if her expectations were met, she wouldn’t reveal the flower’s existence just yet.

“I need more time... consolidate more power... stay ground...” She mumbled as her mind was filled with thoughts.

There were many obstacles on the horizon and many challenges to overcome. A seed of a dream spurted in her mind.

A possibility.

“If I’m going to do this, not even the sultanzade should be able to stop me first...”