Cultivating Plants

"So you are back," Rani commented as she lazily sat on her throne.

"I arrived yesterday at night," Aloe affirmed. She had just entered the audience hall and was pushing her wheelchair forward.

The scribe kept Lulu away from her to protect her from the emir, but the truth was that for once in a good while, she felt good enough to push herself with ease.

"I presume there have been no issues with your journey." The sultanzade had a date as the rest of the scribes had yet to arrive.

"You are correct in thinking so." Aloe placed herself in her usual spot at her liege's left. "I overestimated the distance between Sadina and my lands. Even with my dweller going at low speeds, it didn't take more than the whole day to arrive."

"Hmm." Rani mussed. "Still, it would not have been easy for your body to undergo such a long journey."

"It was not." The scribe's tone was dried and deprived of any glee. "Putting aside my experiences, have there been any issues in my absence? I have not been able to perform my duties until now."

She had arrived at Sadina when it was getting dark, and getting to the palace hadn't been a swift process. She had to send one of the city gate guards to the palace to ask for her palanquin, then wait for said palanquin to arrive, and finally be carried to the palace. At least she had been able to spend all that time playing with Fikali until they arrived. A respite she valued a lot as she hadn't been able to give Fikali any love during these days.

Dark as her mind and starry not the sky was when she made it to the palace, but with a single shout, she was able to get into the baths with Lulu and Nesrine. For once, the female guard wasn't ecstatic about being called for the bath due to the late hours, but she complied, nonetheless.

That had been, without a shed of a doubt, the longest bathing session Aloe had been part of in her life. No matter how much Lulu scrubbed her, grime kept appearing on her body. Only once she had felt that dirty before. The grime still lingered from that occasion.

"This will seem pathetic coming out of my lips, but my grasp over low-end affairs is feebler than before I ascended into power," Rani admitted without so much of a shed of worry. "My mind and time are so occupied with dealing with the capital that I cannot even focus on my own emirate. Do you know how frustrating that is?"

"I cannot even begin to imagine it." Aloe impassively affirmed.

She had, of course, noticed how the emir had avoided her question and made the conversation solely about her. Fortunately for the scribe, the audience hall started filling with people, meaning that the princess had to be more careful with her words.

As always, the audiences were a sluggish mess that she was forced to go through every day. Yet no rest was allowed of her as she had to work to keep her vitality at lower levels than her maximum unless she wanted the sultanzade to detect her.

No scribe – except Naila – remained still during the audiences as they had many documents to fill. Whether they were connected to the audiences at hand, though they had lower scribes to redact petitions instead of doing it themselves, or other issues that required constant attention and simply took advantage of the fact that other scribes were called for certain issues to advance on their work.

Most petitioners were nobles or landowners, even if they composed a fraction of the population. Truth be told, Aloe couldn't care less of inequality, only that those people didn't befall on her jurisdiction but the scribe of nobles. Audiences had certainly become more fluid since Ruhena had joined them.

Now, commoners weren't discouraged from attending audiences or presenting their petitions, but when you were living day to day, you couldn't afford to do that. Especially if you lived outside of the city of Sadina and instead were from a rundown village on the border of the emirate. Doing such a journey may as well be a death sentence as most people didn't have the savings to do so.

The system, whilst advanced to most other countries, was far from perfect.

And the scribe of commoners of Sadina had no intention whatsoever of changing it, her mind fixated on totally different issues. More personal ones.

Before Aloe even noticed, the audience ended, and she followed her fellow scribes to the lunch hall. Dear Ruhena – even if she were a noble – offered to push her wheelchair, but the commoner refused on the premises of wanting to seize more control of her life.

This was why Aloe thought Ruhena was green to the political field. Perhaps the woman saw no issue with it, after all, Aloe was her senior and a fellow scribe at the same step of the ladder, but other nobles wouldn't like seeing one of them 'serve' a commoner. Even in her daily life, Aloe had to watch out for appearances. Influence she may have, but lineage not.

The day ended with her slaving in her office alongside Idris and Fayruz, the assistants bringing her all the documents that had gathered up over the last week. Lulu, she had sent away under their charade to buy glass flasks that she intended to fill with her aphrodisiac waterskins. Aloe kept them under scrutiny because it was one mistake away from someone thinking it was wineskins that were scattered around.

Night became day, day became night. Such was the repetitiveness of the palace, the repetitiveness of life.

Her life was composed of a few activities. Audiences, eating, office work, toiletries, and sleeping. With the constant seasoning of vitality and perhaps a pinch or two of Evolution.

Aloe had felt less exhausted plumbing the field under the harsh desert sun even when she had never worked the earth in her life. She was one of the few privileged people who could say that physical work was far more preferable than mental work. However, she was biased, as the daily vital arts she was forced to perform were very much physical. Her body and mind were continually overworked, and even then, not even her heart could have much of a respite.

It was hard seeing daily the face of that woman on her employer.

Every day Aloe woke up thinking she had composed herself, and every day she was reminded of her weakness as Rani's amethysts greeted her.

The cycle of stagnation and torture was broken with the cry of trumpets and drums.

"Be smiling and erupt in joy, for I am here!" Out of every sultanzade in the imperial family, Fatima Asina had a special knack for fanfare.

The imperial princess stated her presence with a following as she waltzed inside the audience hall, her vestment overflowing with colorful silks and gold. Fatima lacked the overwhelming beauty of the imperial family – though that didn't mean she was ugly by any means – and it was apparent that she compensated for her shortcomings with blinding clothing. Dark hair far from ebony and closer to auburn, dark skin diluted as coffee with milk, and green eyes that lacked the strength of gemstones. Neither were unattractive characteristics on their own, but once stacked together, anyone could tell she lacked the innate attraction that someone like Rani possessed.

Of course, everyone was more beautiful than Aloe. Only one person didn't boast such beauty in this room, and that person was Naila Asina, for she showed no interest in any appeal, whether it was aesthetic or sexual. The scribe took a hint of happiness knowing that no one would call both of them beautiful and mean it.

"You have finally made your way to Sadina, sister." Rani welcomed her half-sister diplomatically. Other people may have not noticed it, but to Aloe, her attitude was crystal clear.

The emir showed no disdain for the visiting princess, but neither joy. Rani-al-Sadina showed more enthusiasm over a plate of fruit that she could be handed every day at any time than over meeting her sibling who she hadn't seen for a season.

"Indeed, I have." She pushed her bosom outward, boasting a size greater than the princess before her. "It has been a while, Rani. And even more so to you, Naila."

"Fatima." The imperial scribe of Sadina stated dryly, animosity pouring out of her being.

"Flavorless as always, I see." Upon such offense, the visiting sultanzade offered a warm smile. "As much as I would like to talk business and catch up with my dear sisters," Aloe didn't need acuity to know she didn't mean the words, "I am rather tired from my travels. Diplomatic missions across Ydaz are so tiresome~ The heat of the desert does no one good. I prefer to be sent to more template climates for my missions, but alas, someone has to take the fall."

A harmless monologue that may appear to the many servants and petitioners of the hall, yet the hidden meaning didn't flee Aloe's comprehension. I hate you all, always with your poison-coated words, every breathing moment a fight. Fatima had referenced the fact that Rani wasn't originally meant to be a governor, but a diplomat of foreign affairs and likely to be married outside of the country.

"We must agree with that." Rani offered a smile of her own, but it was difficult to ascertain what she was agreeing with. "I will send you with my servants to your room then, I would not like to have you standing around." Especially in the middle of an audience. The emir didn't utter those words, yet they reverberated loudly in Aloe's ears.

"Your hospitality is scorching, my sister." Fatima led her hand to her chest with an open palm, a rather obscure way to 'bow' between equals.

Not only her compliments were treading the line between the politically correct and not, but it was easy to dispute the princesses' positions as equals as once was only employed as a diplomat-slash-soldier, whilst the other was one of the greatest emirs of the land.

"We will be meeting this afternoon, do with your time as you please since then," Rani commanded and made out her sister and her escort with a sway of her hand.

I'm not liking this fanfare… Aloe dreaded the future, for she knew having three sultanzade in a single spot was four sultanzade too many.

---

To Aloe's greatest dismay and misfortune, she was summoned to attend the princesses' meeting due to Fatima's request once the afternoon swooped by. She almost puked at the news and certainly gagged, but alas she couldn't turn down the summon. Politically speaking, this wasn't the request of a single sultanzade, but the three of them.

Lulu offered to push her to the rendezvous point, but the last thing the scribe wanted was for Rani to lay her eyes on the fair-skinned maid. If that also got her away from the other sultanzade, even better.

Fearing for her vitality – and what the keen-eyed sultanzade might detect – Aloe brought more than a handful of seeds to infuse, and in the most extreme of cases, to evolve.

Aloe pushed her wheelchair through the shining corridors of the sunlit palace of Sadina. The growing orange tinge of the afternoon donned the tiles with a golden glint.

Unlike the palace of Asina where the gardens were a prevalent section of the perimeter, the palace of Sadina opted for a lot of diverse inner patios, normally a squared opening where the sun could shine above and the wind flow from the sides.

Only three people were meeting on the small patio, though one could have mistaken it for a veranda party by the sheer number of servants walking up and down. The palace staff made themselves invisible to the mighty presence of the princesses, but those tables brimming with fruit, sweets, and warm foods required constant assistance. A kebab roll was left unassisted for the very princesses to gorge on if they wanted, alongside a rotisserie chicken too.

All those meats were growing cold by the moment, but none touched them as this was late-ish afternoon. Too late for lunch – they all had lunched already – and too early for dinner. It hadn't taken Aloe that long to get to the patio, but in that small span, she had already seen a maid carry a chunk of meat to be reheated.

"Ah, you finally made it, Aloe!" Fatima announced gleefully as she supported her body on a wine barrel. Without any decorum at all, she opened the faucet to the casket and poured herself a serving that may knock some people on their feet.

"I was not aware of your familiarity with my scribe, Fatima," Rani questioned diplomatically, deciding on tea instead of an alcoholic beverage.

"You abandoned said scribe for two months with Mother." Aloe saw the emir physically recoil at Fatima's statement, the seductive woman's eyebrows spasming with subdued anger.

"As much as I value my assistants, I cannot abandon my emirate for one of them. But of course, I would not expect a woman of your standing to understand such conundrums." Rani metaphorically stabbed her sister in the throat. Repeatedly.

I want out. I want out. Perhaps she had the sufficient – emphasis on sufficient – training to withstand court intrigue, but that didn't mean Aloe enjoyed it.

"Are you done?" Surprisingly enough, it was the youngest sultanzade's job to be the voice of reason. As unstable and unpredictable as Naila was, the stoicism of the martial princess had its perks. So dry was she that whereas her sisters drank tea and wine, she had a glass of water.

Three sultanzade born from the same mother, yet none looked the same.

Rani was a mirror copy of Aaliyah, though instead of brawn, her appeal came from sensuality. Perhaps every size of the woman was lesser to her mother, but it was the proportions between them and the curves that connected the whole that made Rani a beauty of her own classification.

Naila possessed none of the charms of the imperial family, it would have been easy to mistake her for a soldier, if not outright a man. There was no femininity in the girl. Perhaps it was still undeveloped due to her young age, though it was likely the very person had atrophied herself through training as her muscles threatened to rip out of her skin.

Fatima was, in a way, a mixture of both sultanzade. She had a touch of erotism, especially present in her breasts the size of heads, but wasn't without muscles like Rani. Her body wasn't as extreme as Naila's, only her biceps were marked and her abdominals barely hinted at her stomach, unlike the young sultanzade that had very distinct valleys in her lower chest area. Perhaps that was why Aloe found the visiting sultanzade more enticing than the others, just because she didn't swing on the extremes of beauty and played on more balanced terms.

Neither of the older sultanzade responded, so Aloe took it as her invitation to join the conversation. "I have heeded your summon, my princesses." Dry and diplomatic as always, the scribe of commoners showed no enthusiasm whatsoever.

"My princesses?" Rani snickered. "Maybe that may be the case with me, but do not heed a word that comes out of their mouths." She pointed to her sisters with her eyes.

"I am incapable of obeying such command, Rani." The emir frowned at the scribe's words. "For me, a commoner, to betray the desires of a sultanzade would be to commit treason against the sultanah."

"You mean the woman who raped you?" It was Naila who interjected.

Rani's eyes opened like plates, whilst Fatima held on to a snicker for dear life. The fact that the woman found such a topic amusing indicated how much she really valued Aloe as a person.

Aloe didn't respond instantly, not for lack of quick thinking, but rather because they knotted on her throat in a painful mess. She didn't let any of that doubt and pain be seen by the predators surrounding her.

"Would it do me any good to go against the daughters of the sultanah?" The scribe expressed neutrally. Unfazed. Dead. "I know rancor when I see it, and she would not like for me to mistreat her descendants."

"That woman does not see us as her daughters," Naila stated dryly. "She would not care about how you talk to us."

"When have I said that she saw you like people?" Aloe's tone lacked any snark, but the princesses collectively squinted at her words. "A person can care about their property and how it is handled."

"Property are we know?" Rani's words were sharper than knives.

"For that woman, yes." Partially to save her skin, but Aloe meant the statement. "I believe Aaliyah-al-Ydaz is incapable of empathy and humanity."

"Perhaps you are right." Rani put the matter aside, alongside her teacup. "But I would loathe talking about Aaliyah when we are purposely away from her. Tell me, Fatima." The emir turned her head to the woman in question. "Why have you summoned for my scribe of commoners?"

"I mean," Fatima started, a goblet of wine swaying on her hand, "what better way to start a meeting than with all the cultivators of Sadina?"

"What?" Rani jolted from her seat.

Aloe's heart instantly sank, dread drowning in absolute darkness. Oh. No curses manifested in her mind, only the sheer weight of the situation as the veil of deception had been lifted.