Aloe didn't give time for the dryads to bid her farewell. She grabbed a still drowsy Xochipilli in her arms and darted into the Evergreen. She couldn't remain here with her daughters. Not yet. Otherwise, she may lose herself forever.

  The sudden movements did jolt the child awake, but it wasn't before they had put quite the distance between themselves and the Heart of the Evergreen that he talked.

  "Where are your clothes, Aloe?" He asked.

  "Of course that's the first thing you ask," she giggled and let him free on the ground.

  The boy blushed. "I mean… you are naked…"

  "Wouldn't be the first time you have seen me naked. What about the hammam?"

  "It isn't the same…" His eyes were locked on the ground. "And besides, there was a lot of steam in the hammam, and here you are all…"

  "Au naturelle?" The voluptuous woman chuckled after the boy sheepishly nodded. "I guess I am, and it's the first time you've seen me naked in the glamour form for this long."

  Xochipilli didn't utter another word and simply restricted himself to toy with his hands. The old druid just groaned and pulled another plain dress out of her Slowtide pocket. Wait. Where's my underwear? She was having so much fun toying with Xochipilli that only now became aware of her actual complete nakedness. Dunes, and that was the good lingerie. I should have removed it beforehand, now I will have to suffice with plain panties. Hmm… I didn't buy any bra, did I? Oh, well. I never wore one before this age, it's not like that they are needed.

  "You can look up again," Aloe told him after she finished dressing herself.

  The child slowly looked up again, but as soon as his eyes crossed a certain threshold, his head shot back down with such violence that she feared he may have fractured his neck.

  "Aloe…" He voiced in a near whimper.

  "Yes, Xochipilli?"

  "Aren't you wearing underwear?"

  "Of course I am," she responded almost offended by the question.

  "Then what are those?" He poorly pointed – as his gaze was once again locked with the ground – at her chest with a trembling hand.

  "Oh," Aloe grunted as she looked downwards.

  Even if it was her body, she was still not used to it. By memory, she knew that she had big breasts now, but her mind didn't quite process that. And if it didn't reach that point, then it was helpless against the perky nipples apologetically showing themselves through the dress' fabric.

  "I now see the problem. These could cause their share bit of problems back in Sadina. People are rather weak to my glamour, and the more sensual I portray myself, the worse it gets; regardless if that sensuality is purposeful or not." Her tone was purely analytical, led by pragmatism rather than emotion.

  "How can you be so calm about it?" Xochipilli questioned. "From what I've been taught and seen, Ydazi women… well, they hide that. And it's seen as outrageous."

  "Truth be told, child, once upon a time I got myself redder than you are right now," the Mother of Plants admitted.

  "Really?" The boy raised his head to show the very red visage she was talking about. He was polite enough to look away as they walked, but his eyes kept darting back to her.

  "Quite," she nodded.

  "What happened?"

  "Oh, many things, Xochipilli. Many things." It would have been easy for the darkness to overtake her, but she did her best to keep it at bay. "It started with nefarious substances that made me more conscious of my body. Then… there were the sins of the flesh. But without a shadow of a doubt, the biggest contributor was solitude. I've been so starved of human interaction that… my body has forgotten to react to it. I fear that I cannot feel shame any longer."

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  "That is sad." By all accounts, the child meant his words, but at the same time, he didn't fully comprehend them as a glint flashed in his bright red eyes.

  "Perhaps," Aloe affirmed. "But shame has been a limiting factor for me. If I hadn't been as constricted by it… perhaps everything would have been different." She grabbed the young druid by the shoulders and met his gaze. "Xochipilli, remember this. There are awful people in this world, and they take more pleasure when the people they monstrously consider prey look more defenseless and uncomfortable. Those are the greatest scum that there is."

  "I'll take that into account," Xochipilli nodded dutifully.

  "Good job," she caressed his hair in response. "But now tell me about your stay with the dryads…"

  Xochipilli had not much to tell her as he spent most of their stay on the World Tree sleeping, but the dryads had given him a feast of fruits before going to sleep, which had been on a hammock made with one of the ter'nar's massive leaves. He only had to add that all the dryads had been very polite with him.

  "I'm glad to hear that," Aloe smiled as she heard him recount his events.

  They didn't take as much time on the way back to Sadina as she carried Xochipilli on her shoulder. So small and adorable was the boy that he fit on a single shoulder! She only did so now that she had gathered a bit of experience with Aleahilhahiba, and she no longer feared she would turn the child into a paste.

  Much.

  It was early afternoon when they reached Sadina, so they stopped in the cheap hotel room they had rented to change clothes before stopping at an open-air restaurant. Roads were so wide in the new Sadina and buildings so thin that it was almost the norm for any sort of shop in the food and services businesses to have a small outside space reserved for them.

  Aloe had to slightly pad her chest with some spare cloth to avoid any unforeseen consequences – though they were much expected – when she changed into her favorite dress. After they were done with their meal, the next stop was a tailor to buy a few sets of underwear. She bought some for Xochipilli too just in case.

  Once the weapons of mass destruction that were the female breasts had been contained, they stopped by one of those washing shops. Expensive as they were, they couldn't walk around in dirty attires, and Aloe feared she would damage their clothes if she were to clean them herself. As a woman of her age, she was no stranger to washing her own clothes, but she had always worked with rough textiles, never something this fine and delicate. Whenever she wore expensive attires in the palace, those had been handled by the maids, and her current dress felt even more expensive than those.

  A single day they said they needed at the shop, so she and Xochipilli spent the rest of the day gathering some information. They weren't exactly competent at the task, especially when their only clue was one of the many cotton fields near Sadina, but after their information gathering and Aloe's own escapades, they narrowed their options a lot.

  Enough for her to investigate them on the same night.

  After Xochipilli fell asleep, Aloe marched under the mantle of the night to investigate their last options. She had already seen cotton fields full of Tecolatans, but she had yet to detect that hint of vitality that may bound those people with Xochipilli.

  It was also hard to identify the 'essence' of one's vitality. It was trivial to determine how much vitality one had, but it was a hard and conscious effort to distinguish it between different people. It didn't help at all that Aaliyah's vitality constantly bombarded her from the Evergreen and brought interferences.

  Swift as a dweller and silent as a disease, Aloe scratched the possible fields of Cottonpull until she found a hit.

  The sun was threatening to come out, but she felt an essence similar to Xochipilli's, and even though she kept herself at bay prowling through the perimeter of the field, she was able to detect Tecolatans. Up to her knowledge, she had found them.

  She watched Xochipilli peacefully sleep until the child regretfully woke up. Once the drowsiness had disappeared from his system, Aloe notified him of the news.

  "I've found a field containing people with vitality similar to yours."

  The child remained silent for a moment, pensive. She had thought he would jump in expectation and glee, but his visage was tarnished with a taint of sorrow.

  "Will my parents be there?" He asked with a diminutive and crushable voice. Yes, crushable is the utmost perfect of epithets. Any word seems capable of flattening the child into the ground.

  "That I cannot confirm," and yet Aloe didn't force hope into him.

  It was one thing to have one's hopes crushed, but it was devastatingly more visceral when those hopes had been granted by another person. Having another person's hopes that you believed in being crushed was always far crueler for the heart than one's own.

  "I understand," the boy nodded slowly.

  "You are strong, Xochipilli," she caressed his hair. Far stronger than me. "Well, shall we get going?"

  "Huh?" The young druid's face tilted in confusion. "Going where?"

  "To the fields, of course, you silly dweller!" Aleo chuckled.

  Then the boy's eyes finally glinted with hope as he would finally be able to accompany her. Ah, how horrible I am… Aloe kept to herself as she had subconsciously fed the flames of hope to the child by manipulating him. She didn't know what it was, if her experience, her talent, or this horrifying stance, but molding people to her whims was uncannily easy. And it made it worse knowing that it was a young child's hope he was toying with.

  As horrible as her life had been, at least everything had happened to her when she was an adult. Being played with one's hope as a child felt worse than everything she had gone through, but she kept telling herself it was all worth it for that shining gaze.

  All for that blazing hope.