Cultivating Plants

“We are finally home!” Aloe raised her hands to the air as the grass blades of the oasis caressed her boots. It was incredible that they had actually managed to arrive at the greenhouse even before twilight, let alone sunset.

The dweller, on the other hand, was more interested in the plentiful food around her rather than their arrival. 

“Stop Fikali, let’s first get to the house and unload your back then you can eat as much grass as you like.” She pulled on the lead to move the dweller out of the grass.

“Ouuuuh...” That gesture got a protest out of Fikali, but the old dweller obeyed, nonetheless.

In a manner, unloading her luggage was far more tiring than walking across the desert. Whilst the trek had been long, at least it has been light to her body. Not unlike the knots tying the bags together, Aloe had to fight for her life to undo them.

“I know. That. They need to. Tie them hard. To not. Lose. The bags.” Aloe added between tired pauses, her knuckles becoming white from the strength applied to the ropes, a striking contrast against her dark skin. “But. Damn. These are. Fucking hard.”

By the time Aloe managed to undo the knots, her fingers had become a throbbing pinkish mess. Her bottom dropped to the sand, her back lying on the house’s wall.

“What are you looking at, huh?” Aloe shouted at the inquiring dweller.

This time, Fikali didn’t respond with one of her grunts, but Aloe could swear she saw the monster roll her eyes.

“Bah, doesn’t matter. Just let me move the bags into the house.” She stood up and unlocked the main door.

It took her a solid five minutes to grab the bags from Fikali’s back and carry them inside. Most were incredibly heavy, making her stop to regain her breath every single time. After she was over, her garb was soaking from the inside from all the sweat.

Without thinking it twice, Aloe undid the bindings of her garb and dropped it to the ground. Leaving her mostly naked, but above else, able to be grazed by the shallow breeze.

“Ah, freedom.” She rose her arms to the air in a V-shape as the sun bathed her.

“Hroooooo!” A powerful grunt distracted her.

“Oh, I forgot about you, Fikali. Sorry.” Aloe picked up the garb, dusted it off, and unceremoniously threw it inside her house. Then she picked up Fikali’s lead and lead her to the oasis. “I don’t have a pen for you, so you are going to live here.”

“Whuu.” That grunt she didn’t understand. But Aloe saw a hint of a frown on the dweller’s face.

“What?” She asked in protest. “You have grass, water, and shade. What else would you even need?”

“Uoh.

” And now it felt like Fikali was shrugging.

“Yeah, I’m fucking losing it already. That or I’m dehydrated.” Aloe sighed in defeat. “Let’s see where I can tie you.” 

She proceeded to look for the best spot for Fikali to roam. The rope wasn’t that long so it was actually quite a challenge to do so. In the end, she settled for a date tree that was close to the oasis and surrounded by grass. Whilst it didn’t provide much in terms of shade as the tree was separated from the rest, Fikali would have her basic necessities covered for this night at least.

And monsters wouldn’t attack her. Or so she wanted to believe.

“Hwoooo!” Fikali protested at the fact she was left tied on the tree, but it wasn’t as this was nothing new for her species or her. 

If dwellers could survive for days in the desert without food or water, she was more than settled here. And if she were to be attacked, she could easily cut the rope with those claws of her with ease. 

Wait. Aloe’s thoughts stopped in realization. She could cut the rope! She knew that dwellers were tame and Fikali wouldn’t do that, in theory, but the possibility of losing her one hundred and fifty drupnars scared Aloe.

But after pondering it for a minute, she realized there was no alternative. There wasn’t space for Fikali in the house, and she would eat the plants in the greenhouse if she let her sleep there. Aloe could only pray the monster was satisfied enough to not escape. Though she still had a carrot in her metaphorical stick.

“I’ll grow some pistachios in the future, you know?” That got the dweller’s attention.

It was a cheap shot, not only for the extorsion but because she knew that at best it would take the plants months to grow. Though by that time she could go back to Sadina and buy her weight’s worth in pistachios.

With Fikali’s loyalty supposedly bought, Aloe finally realized her nakedness. She didn’t try to hide it, she knew no one would see her, but the thought that she had undressed herself with such ease unsettled her.

Nonetheless, she covered her braless chest with her arm and walked back home.

She sighed as she saw the mess she had made in her distress and started to clean the main room. The first thing was picking up the garb from the ground and hanging it behind the door. She would probably not wear it until the day when she was going to return to Sadina as the cloth was too heavy to work with, but being remotely tidy didn’t hurt anyone.

As for the multiple bags, it took her a longer while to order them. Aloe decanted the multiple full waterskins into the amphoras of the kitchenette. That already freed her of a lot of weight and space.

The second heaviest thing were the potatoes and beans sacks, but she left those in the ground of the storage room. It was a misnomer calling it a room because the place didn’t even have a door, making it rather a continuous section of the main living room-slash-kitchenette-slash-office, and now, slash-storage-closet.

But without a doubt, what took most of the volume of the luggage was her clothing. None of the pieces were fancy, she knew they were going to get dirty out here, but just in case, and mostly because of her mother, she had packed different sets for every day of the week and double the undergarments.

Just in case.

“Oh my...” Aloe led her hands to her face as she entered the bedroom with the clothing-filled bags. “I’m such a moron.” Her expression drowned in dread. “Karaim didn’t have a closet!”

She had obviated the detail as she didn’t linger much time in the bedroom during her first stay at the greenhouse, but the old man didn’t treat his clothes exactly well. Karaim had a clothes hanger where he left his clothes, and as a matter of fact, most still remained hanging there.

“Alright, how do I do this.” There weren’t many spaces on the hanger, not enough to fit all her clothes. Aloe checked the nightstand’s drawers, finding a few of Karaim's underpants and socks. She could throw the clothes on the hanger and the drawers, but she still wouldn’t have enough space. “Damn.”

The first task at hand was to remove of all Karaim’s old clothing. Even if they were only rags at this point, Aloe now had enough presence of mind to not throw them to the ground. At the very minimum, they could be used as bandages.

She stacked all of Karaim’s clothing in the bed and stored all her undergarments and socks in the drawer. After pilling them up carefully, she noticed that she had made a dune out of a pile of sand because there still was a lot of space remaining. Enough to store her nightgowns. Aloe brought them... just in case, but she knew she probably wouldn’t end up using them. Thankfully, a small space remained, enough to store her foulard and shawl.

As for the completed set of clothing, she hung the most expensive ones in the hanger and left the remaining ones in the bags.

“I could put a shelf right here.” Aloe visioned her redecoration with hand gestures. “Not a closet, but still better than having the clothes laying around.” The question was: where would she get that shelf from?

By the time she left the bedroom, twilight had come and sunset was approaching. There were a lot of things to do, but she was incredibly tired from the journey, even if it had been lighter on her body than the previous ones.

Aloe went out of the house to check on Fikali, yet again forgetting her semi-clothed state, and after verifying that the dweller hadn’t escaped and was just laying around, she took out some jerky and pita and ate it for dinner.

Not a glorious dinner, but by now, she was too tired to even think. Aloe removed her boots, leaving them outside the house to not infest the already charged air, and donned a white silk nightgown. It was remotely hot outside, but the embracing touch of the silk was too good to let it pass. She also closed all the windows, remembering what happened the last time she didn’t do so.

With enough luck, she wouldn’t wake up tomorrow in a pool of her own seat. Just after the sun hid to reveal the golden moon, Aloe was already laying on the bed, her grandfather's old clothes thrown on the ground. Not even nine heartbeats later she passed away from exhaustion.