Aloe had completely expected the news that came from the mouth of Xochipilli's uncle. The vitality she had felt was similar to Xochipilli alright, but not fully. It lacked a half. Whether that half was that of his mother or his father, she couldn't tell. And because she couldn't find better matches, she had guessed something had gone wrong. Her gut instincts were that one of her parents had perished, not both of them. Even in her dark and pessimistic thoughts, she had been too na?ve.

  Xochipilli had gone catatonic upon hearing the revelation, so she squatted next to him and switched to glamour to help him. Her paranoid mind thought of sleeping him with the Dream Spores and infiltrating his mind, but alas, it was not needed as he snapped out of his lost gaze a handful of seconds later.

  What he did next, shook her to the core.

  "I'm sorry. I'm sorry for lying! I'm so sorry for lying, Aloe!" She could tell what the boy had remembered, yet his first thought was to apologize to her with tears in his eyes. It… disgusted her. How far and deeply had she twisted the mind of this poor boy to be the forefront of his thoughts?

  A monster… she whispered to herself. But at the same time, as horrible of a person as she was, she knew that she couldn't leave the child in that state.

  "Oh, Xochipilli." Aloe pushed his head into her bosom. "You need not to apologize for anything."

  The boy instantly calmed down, almost to the point of unconsciousness as he rested on her chest. Such was the power of the charm stance. It was abhorrent, yes, but it had its utility.

  "How many people of your village are in this plantation?" Aloe asked the child's uncle.

  "Not many… goddess." He replied with a hint of confusion and awe.

  Perhaps the man didn't see her as a goddess as Xochipilli loved to do, but he had seen her switch from a woman of their kind to a plant-like being to a paragon of beauty. Yes, as wizened as the man was, as worried as he was about his nephew, he was still a man. Or rather, a human. The charm stance didn't discriminate between genders. For a magic that boosts fertility, it sure does not care about the clear limitations in reproduction.

  The Mother of Plants didn't linger in the mature man's stupefaction. It was a given by now.

  "I need numbers," she added.

  "We are… six? Yes, that sounds about right." The Tecolatan's eyes lingered a bit too much on her as he spoke.

  Aloe snapped her fingers. "I want you to call everyone and group them up. You are leaving this place now."

  "Leave? Leave how?" Xochipilli's uncle protested. "They have wicked men that move faster than eyes! Escape serves no use!"

  "Faster than eyes? Try faster than thought." The vegetable woman gifted him a predatory smile and the man backpedaled at the sight. "Now make yourself useful and gather your fellows. But make no mistake, I will not rescue everyone. I am no saint. I am only here to help those of the child's village and no one more. Have I made myself clear?"

  "Very much so… goddess." The man's eyes lingered for a moment before he dashed away in search of his fellows.

  Aloe spent the rest of the time caressing poor Xochipilli's hair. The child nuzzled on her bosom like a cat would, and she very much was willing to indulge him. Even in her static and locked position, Aloe was completely capable of keeping track of every being on the Cottonpull plantation. There were a handful of cultivators here and there, some normal Ydazi people, and then the rest were captive Tecolatans working the earth.

  Between her vitality sense and her enhanced sense of smell and hearing, she could see more than most even with her eyes closed.

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  It took Xochipilli's uncle a while to gather all the villagers, especially without raising suspicion, but the man managed to do what he had been commanded to.

  "Are these all the villagers?" Aloe asked the man. Xochipilli had fallen asleep in her embrace, so she carefully carried him in her arms.

  "Yes… goddess…" The child's uncle responded with incertitude. "Are we going to escape now?"

  "Sure," she lazily commented and stood up. Her glamour aspect towered all over the group of Tecolatans. None were particularly tall, but she would be taller even if they were. "Follow me."

  There was no pretense on her step, no doubt. Aloe simply walked toward the Evergreen. The Tecolatans doubted her, their use of their own tongue in whispers was confirmation enough, but they still followed. No one could go against her, after all.

  Their small convoy gathered quite the looks from the rest of the workers on the plantation, and before they could leave the place, a couple of cultivators stood in their way.

  "Mind ya' telling us what's going on here, ma'am?" A rough-looking man said. He carried no weapons, but his vitality was in the early two digits, so he wouldn't need any against defenseless workers.

  "Are you aware that these slaves are of illegal nature?" She casually asked.

  "Ma'am, I've asked a question. You would do well in answering it." The cultivator furled his arms and donned the strength stance.

  "So have I." The Mother of Plants responded unamused, and her eyes shone in emerald. "You would do well in answering it."

  "Yes," the cultivator's companion responded, his heartbeat irregular and his visage reddened.

  "What are you doing?" The first cultivator slapped his companion, but he failed to react.

  "Are you assassins?" She asked whilst ignoring the cultivator that hadn't been enthralled.

  "No, fair lady." He responded and he seemed he was going to bow at her at any moment.

  "What have you done to him, wicked wench?" The cultivator bolstering the strength stance shouted, but she heeded him not.

  "I see…" She dismissed them with a sway of her hand, a whisp of orange air coming out of it, and a moment later the cultivators collapsed unconscious on the ground.

  A handful of whispers in a foreign tongue were spoken at her back, but she continued walking forward. A kernel of indifference oppressed her. She could do many things with the plantation, its owner, the guards, and the captive workers but she… just didn't care.

  After seeing Xochipilli's sorrowful expression, it was difficult to care. She just felt like she had to accomplish her mission as soon as possible, lingering here made no sense to her.

  It took the villagers a solid minute before they kept following her. By then she was already at the sorry excuse of a fence that the fields were enclosed by. She just hopped over it without much thought. The Tecolatans behind her struggled to climb the structure, but it hadn't been much of a challenge. The fence was a deterrent. A suggestion. It wouldn't stop anyone from escaping if they tried, but it was a reminder that they were trapped.

  Her mouth turned sour at a memory that flashed through her eyes, but she didn't stop moving.

  And with that, the rescue was done. A simple matter, anticlimactic and sour. The challenge had been finding Xochipilli's fellows, after all, not liberating them. Only once they were inside the Evergreen did the villagers deign to speak.

  "Goddess," Xochipilli's uncle talked to her, but there was no longer doubt in her voice. For a reason, that felt oddly good. "What are we going to do now?"

  "For starters," she said without bothering to stop, "I'm going to bring you to the World Tree."

  "The World Tree?" He asked and shared some looks with his fellow villagers. "I don't know much about these lands, but they mentioned how that blue tree is filled with monsters. Is it safe?"

  "If you call my daughters monsters, you should start worrying about your safety, yes." The Mother of Plants impassively answered, her eyes locked with the child peacefully sleeping in her arms. There were still traces of tears on his cheeks, and that repugned her.

  The man stopped in his tracks but seemed to get the memo. "…I understand, goddess. But I must ask, for the security of my countrymen, what are we going to do at the World Tree."

  "My daughters will provide you with lodgings and food, but I cannot promise much more. If you want to do anything else, it must be done by your own hand."

  Xochipilli's uncle conversed with the rest of the villagers in their language for a good while before he directed to herself once more.

  "So rescuing other Tecolatans and returning to our homeland is off the table?"

  "It is not," she answered. "You can do that. But it must come out of your own efforts."

  "What efforts?" The man protested. "We are but seven exhausted people! We don't have the strength these 'cultivators' possess! We cannot fight!"

  "Why is it always fighting?" The Mother of Plants commented with a gaze lost on the heavens. This far away from the World Tree the canopies of the forest were thin enough that she could still see through them. "Always the sword, never the quill. Maybe that is why we have reached this point."

  "They were the ones that brought the sword down on us!" The child uncle's shouted.

  "In that, we agree," she turned to face him. "They have wielded the sword for far too long." Her eyes burned emerald alongside with determination.