Inherently Innocent

Bleeding From Their Wounds

With half of her two kidnappers gone, Liliac only had Aloe to ask. And Thyme, since that guy was apparently so knowledgeable in the story of the wild.
But first, it was time to bathe in silence, peeking out of the water only to see the birds land and catch their prey.
Aloe had their eyes closed, both green palms pressed against the earth, and twitching brows as if they were arguing. Liliac had the feeling that by touching the ground, she could have heard Aloe's thoughts. That's why she started to comb her hair with both hands.
Trying to seem distracted, she focused on two ishine near the entrance. One had red hair, or rather flowers. Petals overlapped on his head close enough to look like human hair from afar, but not similar enough to fool anyone. The other one had brown braids and skin in the tones of old bark.
Liliac tried to read the red one's lips. Her focus on their mouth made his face seem like a blurry picture, but a famous one at that. One she could have seen some other time. But before she could pinpoint it, the ishine called her out.
"What are you looking at?"
She looked at Thyme as a scapegoat. The boy was too busy talking to the little blonde girl with cookies, the distraction wouldn't work.
"Are you talking to me?" Liliac whispered.
The two ishine kept on talking, quieter for a while before the red-headed one stopped and stood.
"I know you. What's your name? What did you do?"
Liliac didn't answer. She turned to look at Thyme, who had picked up on the interaction and was prepared to move.
"Answer. What's your name and what did you do at the program?"
Liliac didn't answer.
"You're the Host's damned pet. You're the tattletale that got me and countless others back in there for years after we managed to get out, aren't you?" The red petals were closer. Liliac realized this wasn't an ishine. He was a nymph. And she knew him. Golshan was not a liar.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Liliac was.
"Don't you lie to my face. Friends have died because of you, family has died because of you!"
"I have no idea what you're talking about," She repeated.
He raised a hand and quickly moved Liliac's hair away from her face, showing her torn eye and confirming her identity.
Thyme stood and pulled the nymph's wrist.
There were no more words. No more talking. Just a clicking of the tongue and unusual silence. Liliac couldn't even hear her own heartbeat. For some reason, she wasn't scared. However, she was surprised.
The boy sat down again, looked at by both Aloe and Liliac, but determined to look only at his own hands.
"You didn't have to do that," Liliac slid a hand closer to Thyme before regretting it and moving it close to her chest again. She fixed her hair over her face again.
"Is it true?" He hurried to ask.
The people around them were not looking, but Liliac felt their ears sharpen to listen.
"I told you, I don't know what he means. There have been tattletales, backstabbers in the program, but I've never done any of that. We were all just trying to survive."
And sometimes telling on others helped live a day more.
Sometimes telling the Host of an escape plan made the pill amount be reduced.
Sometimes holding on to someone as they were about to cross the door prevented minutes underwater.
She remembered Golshan. The nymph that never stopped fighting. He started in the working area, simply forced to work the fields, but with each little rebellion, he was moved to harsher places. Drug experiments. Body limit tests. The ishine feel less pain than humans, you shouldn't feel guilty.
"Then he must have mistaken you for someone else. I guess a lot of nymphs have purple hair."
"Yeah, I guess," Liliac breathed again when Thyme believed her.
How many others down here were like Golshan? How many others would raise their hands or weapons when they recognized her? She had to get out of there before that happened. Back to the Host. Maybe if she told him of Horizon Hill, she would be forgiven. Of everything.
"Is everything ok? This is the first time I've seen you smile down here," Thyme laughed while speaking, invading Liliac with a sense of shame.
"It's nothing, I just thought about... how you defended me I guess. Not much of that back at the Program," She hurried to invent.
Thyme bit his lip. "How was it there? If that's not too painful a memory, I mean. I just heard stories of it, but I was there for two days, and only got to work in the fields and do some unconscious blood drawing."
Liliac couldn't understand how Thyme chuckled with his words. Or maybe she could, considering he knew nothing.
But how could she describe Program Imaginaria?
“Well,” She started but immediately stopped to look for words. “It depends on a lot of things. Firstly, what kind of nymph you are, that’s the base that decides what you do.”
Those with a gift with plants were usually quickly assigned to agriculture. Made to cultivate the fields all day to feed the settlement. Those with animal-related abilities had similar fates. Maybe they dealt with cattle, but the roughest were often taken for experimentation.
“Some are made to work. Some are studied to find how the ishine works, and how their mix with humans works. The more dangerous they deem you, the worse this is. If you hadn't escaped, you'd probably be taken for body limits tonight.” She dug her nails under each other, “I went in when I was seven, so that’s…” Liliac started counting with her fingers, but before she could find the result, Thyme cried out.
“You’ve been there for nine years," He spat out, enraged.
Liliac was surprised he had done the math that quick but managed a silent nod.
Oh. He was thinking she was weak.
Well, but she was, wasn’t she? No matter if she acted or not, she had no knowledge of how her ishine parts worked. By nymph standards, she was weak. And by human survival instinct, she wasn't the best escapee either.
“How did they… find you? Why did they send you?” Thyme leaned in. Liliac knew he wasn’t faking his interest.
“I wasn’t born this way, but one day it just… I remember being at school and a kid telling the teacher. Then I was…” Liliac started digging under her skin. She felt herself covered in mud, dirty, dirty. But no matter how many layers of dust she peeled off, her skin was still covered. She was still dirty. Everyone else could see there was nothing covering her.
Thyme hugged her. His shirt immediately went wet under her face.
Was she crying? What the hell?
“Damn, what is this?” Liliac pushed Thyme away and cleaned her face.
She wasn’t trying to hide her emotions, she wasn’t trying to seem stronger. She had genuinely not felt the tears built up. She barely felt them falling down her cheeks. These were not her emotions.
“It’s ok if it hurts you. I mean, I can’t even imagine all the pain you could have gone through. Don’t worry, you can talk to me about it. Was it the labour? Experiments?"
Liliac frowned. She didn't speak it, but she concentrated on her thoughts escaping her eyes. Was he really asking her that?
Aloe opened their eyes with a frown.
"Tone it down. You don't know how many nymphs a tale like that can hurt just by listening.”
"What about you, Aloe? Have you ever been in the program?" Thyme turned his face to speak to the ishine but kept on leaning toward Liliac.
The girl hid her face in her hands, not in shame but frustration. A hint of confusion blended in.
"You're kidding, right? Only nymphs are allowed in. Ishine imprisonment times have gone by, they ended with a loud bang against a wall,” Aloe ignored Liliac’s actions. “Ishine are shot on sight. We aren't of use to them anymore, they don't trust us in the least. At least they can guilt-trip and manipulate the nymphs to help them sometimes, but none of my kind would do such a thing. And I guess the experiments work better when you already know how half of the genetic stuff works. Starting from scratch on us would be too much work you can’t afford to waste time on."
Liliac couldn’t keep up. Why was this happening? Guilt? Regret? No, there was no use for that.
“Can I go out?” Liliac asked Aloe, but she stood up before she got an answer.
“Stay around the entrance. Take Peony with you, and come back soon,” The ishine pointed to the door and signalled to the blonde girl.
Liliac would have rather gone alone, but she wasn’t in a position to argue.
“Wait, I’ll go too,” Thyme stood up, but Aloe pulled from his pants.
“Thyme, a word.”
The nymph and ishine stayed behind, while Liliac and Peony slithered up through the tree’s roots.

She wouldn’t have been able to escape. Not only would the others below soon realize, but she had the little girl with her. And there was nothing to make sure the Program wasn’t treating her as a traitor.
No. She had to make sure they still needed her.
Wind travelled through the branches above, flowers falling wherever it went. The moment it moved past Liliac’s face, she was reminded of the tears. Why were her cheeks cold and wet?
The memory of her parents? Why should she care for them when they didn’t care for her? The memory of school, of her last friends? The memory of human life. The memory of a normal life.
“Have you gone to school?” Why did she ask that?
The blonde girl shook her head.
She was too young, 9 years at most. If she had been in the program, Liliac would have seen her.
No school, no Program.
“Have you lived your whole life here?”
Peony nodded with hesitation. Her head turned sideways, she grinned. Her hands started gesturing, but Liliac shrugged. She didn’t know any sign language.
“Your mum worked at the Program, right? How did she end up with an ishine?” She was a tattletale. Two were playing. “How’s your mum called?” Liliac sat down, showing her best smile.
Peony frowned and shook her hands. Right, they couldn’t communicate.
“Ok, I’ll say different names and you nod if I’m close. Sarah. Lily. Emma. Elma? Ilma. Ylva?”
The girl nodded frantically. Ylva it was.
Liliac knew no names. They were all Guards. Even the Host was just that to her, the Host. But the Host surely knew the names, and he could surely find the traitor Ylva.
“I don’t think I met her, but she must be a lovely mother. Working for the Program, but leaving her daughter safe, right?” Liliac tried to be ironic, but not hard enough so that the child could tell. Just enough to satisfy herself.
The child laughed in her innocence. Liliac cried some more.