Epsilon Twilight

65. Vitality

“Here only basic food or ingredients are served,” The maid continued talking, but she barely kept an ear on the woman’s words. “If you want prepared food, we can order the chefs. Would you like us to do so?”

“No, thank you,” The scribe of commoners replied as she slightly turned her head to look at the imperial scribe from the corner of her eyes, a shallow smug drawn in her visage. Politeness, she had said.

Damned woman. She bit on the chicken leg harder, th...

64. Feast

Oh. It was a miracle that she held herself up, or that was what Aloe was inclined to believe. She hyperventilated as the words of the emir reiterated in her mind, the caress of her breath still lingering in her body and memory. Oh no.

Even if she was not one for gossip and politics, the scribe had heard stories of the sultanzade and the palace. Everyone had. If something had more reach and perseverance than tax collectors, it was the words of the snake tongues.

N...

63. Step

Even though it was just her second audience as a scribe – she had just one more under her belt as a spectator – Aloe had already grown used to them. They were slow and tedious, not a lot of things happened unless the emir accepted a petition, which seldom happened. The most stressful part was the beginning when the emir would ask her personal scribes for brief reports. Thankfully, Aloe had been blessed with copious amounts of information after she met with her assistants, Fayruz and Idris...

62. Undress

The sun greeted Aloe like a cold slap of water.

“Auuuugh!” The woman groaned like a dweller going into labor.

Whilst she lingered on the warmth on her sheets, Aloe raised her back from the soft mattress. Her vision was blurry, and her head pounded down on her, but her number one question was:

“When did I get here?” She brought a hand to her head. “Damn, I... fuck.” Politeness wasn’t the strong point of the scribe when drowsy. It took her a bit of time to get us...

61. Imagine

“I am Idris,” the man started, though his voice trembled slightly, “and she’s Fayruz. As you may have guessed, we are the assistants of your predecessor, the scribe of commoners, Shahrazad.”

Idris bowed slightly and Fayruz followed suit. Their eyes were filled with doubt, fear being too strong of a word. They were certainly not comfortable, the firing of the other assistant fresh in their minds, but it was not a death sentence. No one wanted to lose a high-paying job, but it w...

60. Assistant

Aloe had no way of knowing how much time she spent on the bath floor, the cold stone caressing her calves, but when she left, the sun was already coming down.

“You look radiant, Aloe!” Lulu greeted her as the scribe entered her office. The maid made no mention whatsoever of the time she had spent in the bath. “I knew that dress would suit you like a fiddle!”

“Thanks for the praise, Lulu, but I have work to do.” All the energies she had managed to recover from her nap w...

59. Naked (and Afraid)

Dread would have filled Aloe’s mind but another more prominent thing occupied her thoughts.

Boobs.

Rani-al-Sadina looked at her with all her mighty and exposed body, the emir did not flinch nor blush at her presence. In any case, the buxom woman only appeared more comfortable now that Aloe had stated her presence.

“I... uhm... wrong bath...” Aloe said shyly as she clutched the towel enveloping her body. “I-uhm will r-remove myself from here now.” Even as she said s...

58. Clothes

Two dry knocks rippled into the unconsciousness, causing consciousness to shift into motion.

“Nine more minutes...” Aloe weakly mumbled, more a reflex than a coherent thought.

“Venerable Scribe, the two hours have already passed.” The voice sent a clear message through the air, though she decided to ignore it.

Instants later an explosion woke her up. Aloe jumped out of her sheets in alert, turning her head from side to side expecting destruction, but instead only fou...

57. Rest

It was hard to keep her concentration after staying for more than thirty hours, but Aloe had a trick up her sleep: drugs.

Lazily, she poured ter’nar leaves on her recently heated teapot, courtesy of the palace maids. Whilst the leaves weren’t a stimulating substance, they managed to keep her focused. There were many papers she needed to go through, and the more time she took, the harder the responsibilities would later fall on her shoulders. She couldn’t allow herself to even thin...

56. Alike

No one paid attention to Aloe. Well, they did, but no one congratulated her on her dress or makeup. Being an adult is hard... It was worth mentioning how she selectively erased the memory that she hadn’t made the makeup herself nor did she own the dress, but those details were not worth even mentioning.

The morning audience went well, or so she would like to assume. Aloe fulfilled her duties, she reported to the emir before starting and then assisted her when any petitioners�...

55. Luxury

Aloe hadn’t slept. And this wasn’t an exaggeration or a hyperbole, no, she hadn’t had the time to sleep. Tamara had vaguely instructed her on everything her mother had been doing, and it soon became obvious that it was a lot.

As a child, she had never been a crybaby who resented her parents for not being present. She understood since little that they had obligations, but only now the weight of those obligations was visible to her.

And it certainly didn’t help that the pala...

54. Training

First light vanished the coldness of the night. The caress was light, a probe more than anything, but in a few hours, the low temperatures would be substituted by an appalling heat. She liked it better that way.

Heat made it better to train.

Swoosh, swoosh. Her blades broke the air with each strike, she imagined that was how painters made their works, wild slashes that manifested their creativity. Though hers were all but wild. Calculated wasn’t the right word, it was m...

53. Scribe

“I... of course, Rani,” Aloe responded submissively, doing everything in her reach to not irate the ruler of the city.

“Good.” The emir clasped, a smile written on her face, her eyes closed in amusement. “Going back to the subject at hand, you want to be my scribe of commoners. Right, Aloe Ayad?”

There was something in the woman that it made Aloe impossible to be mad at her. It wasn’t only her unparalleled beauty, able to leave men and women breathless alike, but als...

52. Object

“Excuse me?” Unfiltered confusion flooded Aloe’s thoughts. Though her visage was overrun by embarrassment as she violently blushed.

“Don’t fret, you are excused.” The girl, no, the child said to her face. “Though you should be ashamed of being a virgin at your age.” Then any rage Aloe had managed to build up was slapped out of her being, her blushing intensified.

“Hahaha!” The emir meanwhile laughed in the comfort of her throne, her voice echoing through the wh...

51. Anxiety

Noon was drawing near, yet hunger felt like a stranger to Aloe, so she did the first thing that came to her mind. She knocked thrice on the door in front of her.

“Coming!” The muted voice of a woman responded, her steps far louder than her voice. “Who’s the- Oh.” Mirah opened the door and met her gaze.

“Hello.” Aloe saluted shyly.

“You’re back!” Before Aloe could react, Mirah locked her in an embrace. The height difference was ever-so-perfect for the hous...

50. Taxes

The day ended before Aloe noticed. She was tired from the journey, so even if the sun had yet to set, she went to sleep. Her house felt empty when she woke up. With the shack at the oasis, that was fine, it barely had three rooms, more than enough for a person; but her two-story house with more commodities than entire commoner families could afford, she felt more alone than in the middle of the desert.

“Maybe I could get Jafar and his family to move here...” Their family had no econ...

49. Transaction

Umar took the cloth out of the jar and unfolded it to reveal a mound of leaves and flowers. They were still green, but some sections had begun to dry becoming slightly brown by the withering.

“Looks good so far.” He commented not a second before literally eating one of the flowers.

“Umm...” Aloe didn’t know how to react to that.

“And that’s a solid taste. Yup, that’s quality stuff right here. Far better than some of the trash I get.”

“Is it valuable...

48. Product

“Are you ready, Fikali?” Aloe stood up after tightening the last straps holding her belongings on the dweller’s saddle.

“Wroo!” Fikali raised her claws and head high, though instead of intimidating, it came as a rather cute gesture.

“Good to hear that.” Aloe knelt and patted her head. “Here, have a treat before we depart.” She offered her a handful of pistachios which the dweller accepted delightfully.

The sun had yet to come out and the girls were...

47. Requirements

Disregarding the events of her coming of age, Aloe felt good. These last days she had been feeling horrible as she told herself that it all had been her fault, that she had abandoned her mother, even if she had never uttered those words to herself. The cruelest of thoughts were those that came without words, those made from only raw instinct and pain.

But as she cried her loss, Aloe finally saw reality for all that it was.

Life.

She wouldn’t have liked anything to come at ...

46. Adult

She couldn’t believe it, but it was true. She had had a good night’s rest. It almost felt nature-defying. To celebrate such an accomplishment, Aloe slept until noon.

There weren’t many daily tasks remaining at the oasis, most could be done weekly like cooking, washing, and shoveling waste, so for once in a long time, Aloe had the day to herself.

Which unfortunately started with cooking.

Cooking didn’t run in her blood, neither her mother nor father were great cooks, ...

45. Spree

Yesterday had been a hectic day. Mainly a pain-ridden one, but for Aloe, that had become the bare minimum requirement as of late.

After reinfusing the cannabis plant – and almost collapsing, Aloe took a bath on the oasis. Some days she just dipped in water, yesterday wasn’t one of those days. Her skin had been incrusted with layers upon layers of sweat and dirt, meaning that even soap had difficulties scrubbing the dirtiness away.

And let’s not talk about the dress. That pie...

44. String

Aloe was ecstatic. After more than a month, she had finally made it. She had changed the infusion of an already infused seed. The possibilities... there weren’t many, to be honest, but those that did exist held so much potential.

“Oh dunes...” Then the gift of afterthought fell on Aloe’s shoulders. “Now I have to reinfuse every grown plant I planted!” She let out a groan that could be mistaken for the last breath of a dying man.

The situation was not as bad as it could...

43. Change

The thing with seeds was that they didn’t have much vitality. Aloe had yet to check it to make an actual solid theory, but every living organism was born with low vitality and only got more as they grew older. She hadn’t checked for humans, but the difference between date seeds and grown palm trees was staggering.

Whilst one only had the vitality equivalent of a blade of Cure Grass, the other had as much – if not more – vitality as an adult human. And she doubted babies had only...

42. Infusions

“Oh.” The muted sound coming out of Aloe’s mouth was but the pure expression of surprise. No words were needed except... “I knew it.” Her lips curved into a devilish smile, there was no feeling more intoxicating than being right.

However it may be, Aloe read the leaf in front of her fearing it may have been an illusion induced by heat.

Species: Phoenix Dactylifera

Sobriquet: Date Palm

Description: Member of the Arecac...