"Tell me, did you know it was me when you saw me?" Aloe spoke softly yet with incredible violence at the old lady feeding the birds before her.

"What are you talking about, dearie?" The old lady with wizened eyes responded slowly, each word a monumental effort.

"Rani," the Mother of Plants instantly cut the charade, too tired to continue putting on masks. Forever.

The old woman's eyes shot open upon hearing that name, but there was still no realization inside them. Instead, she uttered the moronic sentence: "Oh, you are that beautiful woman from the other day. Yes, you are."

"Rani-al-Sadina," Aloe spoke again.

No longer opening, instead her eyes closed into a squint. "I have not been referred to by that name in a long time."

"Answer my question."

"What question, dearie?"

"Do you know who I am?"

"I do not think so, no. Are you a reporter? I like newspapers, but I am afraid I do not like to be interviewed."

Tired of the decrepit woman's antics, Aloe grabbed her by the collar, scaring all the birds she had been feeding with the gesture. But beyond that, the scare was also too in those old eyes. The colossal woman was not being exactly forceful, the old woman's feet were still on the ground too, yet the fear lingered. An impossible level of intimidation with the simplest of gestures.

"Naila was right, you are just a cowardly woman," Aloe uttered with the utmost venomous disdain.

"Naila?" Finally, some semblance of intelligence sparkled in those disgusting eyes. "You…" Intelligence, clarity, color, life… all of those things appeared in the woman's eyes, but most important of all, recognition. "No… it cannot be…"

"It absolutely can." The emerald eyes of the dark-skinned woman met with those wizened eyes of lavender, no longer a royal, vibrant purple.

"You are…"

"Come on, speak up. You know the answer."

The old woman softly yelped as the tall woman's grip on her collar became tighter, but finally after some pathetic seconds, she uttered a single word.

"…Aloe," Rani spoke.

Aloe liberated the collar of her dress, and the pathetic excuse of a human dropped back to the bench. Rani let out a dry grunt and led a hand to her back. A hint of tears and fear gathered in her eyes. They had almost recovered their former color.

"H-how?" The former emir asked between pants.

"Naila had the modesty to be polite and speak herself first, but you… you do not deserve any answers, Rani."

"I…" Rani coughed, only to then draw a pained smile. "I suppose I do not."

The Mother of Plants scowled at her, but it was obvious that the woman before her was but a shell of her former self. And that irritated her to no limit. Keen listeners would have heard a noise similar to wood cracking as Aloe calmly sat down on the same bench.

"How does it feel to be old?" The druid asked a handful of seconds later. The ambience had calmed down enough for the birds to gather again and scoop up the pieces of bread Rani had dispersed beforehand.

"Rather awful," the old woman responded, but now with regained cadence. She sat straighter and almost looked above her shoulder.

"It really is you, huh…" Aloe added with a tired groan. I'd recognized that air of superiority anywhere. That disgusting and sick attitude.

"I could say the same," Rani responded, her eyes now fully regained their old splendor as they shone like amethysts. But there was no vitality behind them.

No one had told her this, but with her deep understanding of the vital arts and vitality, Aloe could tell this was the normal cycle of vitality. Like with beauty, time would take its toll, and it would mercilessly erode one's vitality. Both mentally and physically, Rani was but a shadow of her former self. Her vitality was only slightly higher than that of the average pilled citizen.

"Why are you old when Naila is not?" This was Aloe's best attempt at striking conversation, and even she didn't know why she was doing it.

"How is it that you have the right to ask me questions and I do not?" The old woman said in jest.

"You owe me." The Mother of Plants' spiteful words sent a visible shiver down Rani's spine, and her purple eyes also reflected that fear. The fact that the woman even considered jesting in this situation was threatening the druid's stability.

"I… suppose I do," she responded like the spineless coward she was. "Well, Naila had had her second stance since young. As young as Aaliyah, as a matter of fact. But I… well, I could not handle well the idea of aging, of feeling that weak and ugly. I was forty-something by that point and I knelt down before Naila so she would grant me a second stance as I had the suspicion she knew how."

"Do you have no shame?"

Rani, who had been looking at the horizon until then, turned to face Aloe. "What does shame, and pride too, matter when your life is at stake?"

She had, of course, misinterpreted the real question behind the druid's words.

"And she gave a longer life to you just on a whim?" Aloe's emerald eyes tried to meet those purple eyes, but Rani avoided her gaze.

"I would not say it was a whim. I had been a… useful and loyal subject. Most of her success was thanks to me. In exchange for making one of her children suitable for the role of Emir of Sadina, she granted me my second stance, making me capable of living this long. But unfortunately…"

"You did not have as much vitality as her by that age, so you aged faster than her," Rani nodded at Aloe's words in a tired gesture. "Whilst Naila only seems to have aged by twenty-five years, you look like you have aged by forty."

"I could have done some things to slow it down but…"

"You were scared." Now, she didn't only avoid her gaze, but Rani completely turned her face away, instead, she chose to focus on the birds.

Both women knew what tactic she was talking about. If she had decided to give birth to children, the loss of vitality from her cycle would have been compensated. Even if Aloe had no previous knowledge of this, she only needed to focus her attention on one of the tens of pregnant women in Sadina to realize why that happened. Once a child was conceived, the vitality growing inside of the mother was no longer hers. The mother was only the host to the parasite, and it gave food and survival, but never vitality. Never the lifeblood of her existence. It was the baby, once having been born, that would nurture their vitality into a Haya once they were more or less of age.

"So Naila has told you that…" Rani added with a sigh.

"She has told me many things, but there are some that I can only hear from your very mouth." The tone of the Mother of Plants was slow but constant, creeping one could say, with the tightness of vines that could trap prey easily if unaware. "Tell me, Rani, did you keep our promise?"

"What promise are you talking about?"

The druid squinted and the surrounding temperature seemed to drop along with her eyelids. "You know perfectly what I am talking about."

"Ah, that promise…" The old sultanzade corrected herself with a nervous chuckle. "I… did maintain it."

"Elaborate."

"You were announced as an assassin, but I hoped you would come back, so I kept that maid around without laying a finger on her. I thought having her around me would entice you to come back after everything you did to protect her, but of course, you never came back…"

"You are quite daring for a coward by saying those words," Aloe said gracefully, charmingly. "You always weaved words in that way, now making it seem as if it was my fault that Lulu needed protection." It was the slightest of twitches, but Aloe noticed. It was when she had uttered the name. "You did not remember her name," she added grimly.

"I…" Whatever excuse was about to come out of her mouth, it withered before it could blossom. "Yes," she sighed, "I had forgotten about it."

"Why does it not surprise me?" The vegetable woman rustled the ivy she had for hair. "You know, your half-brother had claimed her beforehand, and she did not mind it as much. Everyone knew being a maid in the palace was not that different from being a lady of the night, but… Lulu did not enjoy the company of women. And you forced her either way."

Rani didn't defend herself.

"Do you even feel guilty for everything you did? Just not to Lulu or the rest of the maids, but also to me. What do you have to say about that."

The old woman became paralyzed for a moment, a difficult endeavor for her body was beleaguered with occasional tremors, yet she failed to respond. That silence was more than enough confirmation for the Mother of Plants, how that woman decided to ignore all of her disgusting and nefarious acts across the centuries, but she continued talking either way.

"Naila also has told me about how you wanted to impregnate me," the former emir kept avoiding her gaze. "Tell me, Rani, did you have had a child, ever?"

"No…" The old woman tightly grabbed the skirt of her long coat. Her wrinkled hands trembled more frantically, no longer the product of age but a guilty consciousness.

There was a shame in her words, "How can a woman live two centuries and not produce offspring?" her mannerisms said. But Aloe cared not for that. Women had no obligations and the fact that Rani thought that disgusted her.

Disgust.

That single word neatly summarized those feelings she had when she looked at Rani. She was feeble… oh, so feeble… It seemed pathetic and impossible that she had been once intimidated by such a woman. A thought that made that disgust transfer to herself. Disgusted at her own incompetence. At her weakness.

"One last question," Aloe said as she stood up. "Were you ever infatuated with me? Truly infatuated? Just not an obsession for out of debauchery or fear?"

"I…" the weak woman started, her voice and posture trembling, "do not know…"

Even as she stood before her, the old cultivator avoided looking at her. The druid put her soft hand beneath the wrinkled chin of the woman and raised her. Their eyes met. Cracked amethysts against irradiated emerald. No sane person would compare those eyes to normal gemstones anymore, both sets were broken, one with time and one from time.

"I should kill you," Aloe spoke softly with the loving tone of a mother. Though the lips – the smile – that uttered those words couldn't be that of a mother, let alone a person.

"Then why are you not doing it?" Rani spoke slowly, her voice was coarse and it threatened to crack at any moment, and most importantly, her eyes were coated in abject fear.

Aloe felt many things upon seeing that terror. Those had been the eyes that had tortured her, the eyes that had allowed her torment by sheer virtue of existing, the eyes that had decided to claim her because their owner was the biggest coward of them old.

And it frustrated Aloe to no end that from all the feelings violently exploding inside of her body none were of joy. Then she realized that perhaps nothing she was feeling was emotions.

But she knew other things.

She could read Rani's face more easily than ever.

Not everything should be solved with death, violence, and blood. The druid told herself. Especially when someone is aching for it.

"I do not know," the Mother of Plants spoke softly with a smile drawn on her face before letting the sultanzade go. Her touch lingered for the shortest of moments, but that was enough for the druid to remove a trickle of foreign vitality that lingered inside of her.

The old woman's head hung down as the druid walked away. One didn't need the sense stance to hear the agony and cries of the bicentennial woman sitting on the bench. She hadn't been hurt physically, but she would now know of a fear greater than pain, the feeling of being incapable of fighting time and turning into dust.