78. Itch (Patreon)

A lot of ideas and half-baked plans had been concocted in Aloe’s brain, but she left them on the back burner for now. These weren’t things she could apply in a single day, maybe not even a year. A whole lot more planning would be needed to even start.

For now, she returned to the shack, drank a bit of cold tea, and prepared herself a bit before returning to the greenhouse.

“Alright, two plants remain, don’t they?” Aloe looked at the two evolved plants in question.

One was white and blue; the other was yellow and green.

She first approached the white one, only because she could recognize its original form.

“This must be the Moonlight’s Tooth.” She guessed, slowly circling around the plant. “It’s just a lion tooth, isn’t it? A big lion tooth,” she put her hand on its peak, barely reaching her chest, “but a lion tooth nonetheless. So tell me, do you have anything special?”

That was a rhetorical question as she pulled out her ‘diary’. It was a great misnomer to call it that, it was mostly an almanac with all the descriptions she had gotten out of the Aloe Veritas. And even calling it an almanac was wrong because it was just a pile of parchments that weren’t even tied together. She shuffled through the papers – of course, written in the characteristic blue ink of the Aloe Veritas – and searched for the Moonlight’s Tooth one.

“Two characteristics: airborne seeds and innate bioluminescence.” Aloe read aloud. “The first one... I mean, lion tooth already does that. Nothing new here. But innate bioluminescence, huh.”

Aloe approached the Moonlight’s Tooth, the plant looked like a scaled-up lion tooth. There was no visible difference besides the size and the fact that the stem’s color was blue. Not an egregious blue, though. Alike the Flourishing Spring, it was a hue green enough that it could pass like a normal, non-magical plant.

“Yeah, I see no light.” The woman said with her eyes practically glued to the white pom-poms. “Is it that weak? Perhaps it only works under the moonlight? That would make sense. Evolution sense... I should test it at night.”

Aloe sighed, her gesture voicing aloud: Yet another useless plant.

“Lemme try something first.” She straightened her back, hands on her hips. “Evolved plants tend to have magical things, and those things are on the description, so... is the ‘airborne seeds’ part referring to another mystical quality instead of normal flying seeds?”

So the most logical next step was to slap the top of the Moonlight’s Tooth like a cat. Fast and filled with malice.

The slap wasn’t that strong considering Aloe didn’t intend to harm the plant, plus the fact her strength was diminished from the internal infusion. Be as it may, the seeds started gliding in the air like their unevolved counterparts.

“Nothing special so...” Then she noticed the movement of the seeds. “They aren’t descending...”

Instead of flying around like lion tooth seeds, the Moonlight’s Tooth seeds maintained a constant altitude, moving in a pre-established pattern.

“They are orbiting the flower.” Aloe was amazed by the movements as the seeds glided around the main plant in perfect circles.

There was a mathematical beauty to it that she could appreciate, no matter how simple the movements may be. A perfect dance of coordinated orbits, a latent synchrony that prevented the seeds from intersecting. Simplicity at its finest.

“But why?” She tilted her head in confusion. “Lion tooth seeds fly around to seed themselves, why would a plant want its seeds to, well... not touch the ground?”

Aloe remained still for a few minutes looking at the dancing seeds. The movements were hypnotic, near enticing. But alas, if the gliding seeds were losing altitude, it wasn’t perceptible by her senses.

“Bit of a stretch, but maybe they only leave the plant with moonlight?” Aloe made a doubtful grunting noise, already knowing that her theory had no foundation to stand on. “Oh well, I already had to check on the night, so let’s see then if I’m right. And unless the plant glows brightly under moonlight, I guess this is another: beautiful but useless plant. At least they are beautiful...”

The woman sighed, the air leaving her body so hard that she became hunchback and lost a few fingers of height for a moment as if truly deflating.

“Final one, what was it?” Aloe consulted her notes, too lazy and exhausted to think for herself. “Grace’s Exaltation, huh.”

She stopped reading and approached the plant. It was a bit different from the others; it looked more like an herb than a flower. The stem was thick and rigid, similar to that of a sugar cane, but thinner. What intrigued Aloe was the glow.

Yes, unlike the self-proclaimed bioluminescent plant, the Grace’s Exaltation glowed. It wasn’t powerful, the sun overcame the shine with ease, it was barely brighter than a candle.

“That has some application, yes.” She observed the cane-like formations.

The glow didn’t just come from the top of the plant, which was bowl-shaped, but from the stem too. From the ground, rising up through the stem – or maybe even trunk – and culminating on the bowl, the Grace’s Exaltation glowed with a yellow hue as if someone had replaced its sap vessels with liquified sun.

“Talking about liquified sun...”

Some sort of nectar gathered on top of the bowl like in a big drop. The yellow glow made it look delicious, a miniature dim sun. Liquified light.

“I know I shouldn’t... but...” The liquid sun was too enticing to her. She wanted to touch it. “Please, heavens protect me, because I have been born with severe stupidity.”

And she touched the sun.

“Huh.” Aloe pried on the drop with her finger, bobbing it up and down. “It’s like syrup. Gooey and thick. Not even hot.”

She removed the finger, and alike syrup, some remained in her fingernail. She pinched it with the tip of her fingers and once she separated them, the liquified sun stretched like honey would.

“Hmm... I want to try it. I mean... what could possibly go wrong?” Besides agonizing slow death, nothing came to Aloe’s mind, so she took the plunge and licked the gooey glowing syrup. “Hmm~ Sweet!”

Aloe brought her hands to her cheeks, delighting herself in the flavor of the Grace’s Exaltation. She traced her tongue back and forth on her palate, the nectar got stuck in her mouth and refused to be consumed without a bit of help and saliva.

“Also a bit spicy? Why are you spicy?” The woman frowned, mad at the fact her possible substitute for sugar cane resulted in being a spice rather than a source of free sugar. “Hmm, maybe that’s better. An already prepared sauce that is sweet and spicy has a lot of potential. Heavens know my cooking needs a bit of help.”

She continued tasting the sweetness and spiciness in her mouth, slowly caressing every corner of her palate with her tongue. Aloe panted.

“I like my curry and spices, but I prefer sweet and salty before spicy.” She let out a hard exhalation. “Maybe this is a bit too spicy for my liking.”

Her tongue exploded with taste, she couldn’t stop licking her palate and teeth from the taste, but she knew better than to put another finger. This spiciness was already too much for her, a second finger would knock her out. Her breathing accelerated, her eyes watering.

“Isn’t it getting a bit hot here?” Aloe fanned herself with her hand. “Maybe I should rest, it’s almost noon and I haven’t had anything to eat and have been mostly riding Fikali...”

She grabbed her old dress by the collar and started thrashing it around to get some air inside.

“I... I need some water.” Aloe rushed to the shack and grabbed one of her waterskins, taking a hearty gulp out of it. “N-not... en-ough...”

Aloe panted more.

“I... am getting dizzy.” She finished the waterskin and grabbed the last one, throwing a bit of the contents on her face to cool down herself a bit. “It’s hot here.”

She continued fanning her dress and sat down on the desk chair, unable to stay on her feet any longer.

“Dunes, what a hot day...” Forgoing breathing from her nostrils, air poured in and out of her mouth. “All this heat is making me sweat...”

Aloe rubbed her nape, which had been covered in a layer of sweat. Stretching her arm as much as she could without getting up from her seat, she grabbed a towel and began drying her body. First her nape, then her arms. Her armpits became swamps, so she dried those too. Her legs started sweating like crazy too. She turned the side of the towel, already being drenched from the previous sweat.

She started low on her feet and slowly made her way up.

“Ugh, my body is itching from all the sweat.” With one hand she scratched her neck, with the other she dried her legs.

Slowly, her hands shifted from position to position. Her scratching hand made her way downward to her chest which itched like crazy, and her drying hand made her way upward to her pelvis which was as moist as a river.

Aloe bit her lip, irritated from all the itching, and put more force into her movements. No matter how much she scratched, her nipples didn’t stop itching. And from all the drying, her pelvis began to itch too. She discarded the towel and started scratching her pelvis. Aloe was careful, knowing better than to be rough around those parts, but all the heat made her dizzy, unable to control her strength and messing with her coordination.

Before she knew it, she started scratching the itch inside of her body.