Inherently Innocent

Withering Petals

Thyme wanted to trust easily. These people had freed him from the Program, from every horrible tale he had heard of the place. But at the same time, he couldn’t help but feel like everything was far too sketchy.
Hiding underground only by the light of the fire. Why was everyone just sitting around, being miserable? Did they not have anything to do? Every attack to the settlement was surely planned there, so why were they not planning?
“Why did you call me?” He asked Aloe.
“What do you think of that nymph?”
“Liliac? She’s cute, but not my type.”
“What? I… no, that’s not what I meant,” The ishine touched a few aloe vera flowers that surrounded their head. Thyme assumed it was an embarrassment gesture. “Do you think she can be trusted?”
Thyme wanted to trust her.
“Yeah. Definitely. She’s just hurt. Being in the program for nine years, it must be a shock to be free,” Thyme argued against Aloe’s implicit accusations but knew it wouldn’t be enough to tell them to trust his gut. “Listen, if we can’t trust a fellow nymph, who can we trust?”
The ishine crossed their arms and laid against the dirt wall.
“Careful how you speak, we haven’t decided if we trust you.”
What a warm welcome.
Thyme kept on thinking about his own question. If they couldn’t trust a fellow nymph, who could they trust? Thinking nobody was suitable was not something Thyme wanted to believe. He liked trusting people and having trust reciprocated. But just like you cannot control who you love and who you hate, you cannot force anyone to trust you.
“What would I have to do for you to trust me?”
“Well, I don’t know,” Aloe looked to their side, searching for someone to consult, “Maybe break some more people out of Program Imaginaria eventually.”
Where was Liliac while they had this talk? And why did he care? Purple flowers, he envisioned, by the entrance to the hidden place. A story he didn’t yet know. Another story chained, and his mind jumped from link to link.
“What’s the story of this place? Of Horizon Hill?” Thyme asked and sat down, but after Aloe only answered with a frown, he kept on adding, “I need to know where it comes from so I can know where to take it. So I know how to help you.”
The ishine raised a hand to their head, pressing down on their flowers. A way to relieve stress.
The only voices heard were the quiet distant whispers of tired nymphs. Nymphs just as confused, and with as many questions, but too little energy to ask them. Too little time to understand the world they were born into.
Then Aloe took Thyme’s hands, and the nymphs disappeared.

The day was warm, and the air was fresh. Further on the horizon, a new structure arose. One grey with metal, or too brown with clustered wood. Whatever it was, it had not been crafted by the hands of time and earth. It was an alien figure, of no known species. At least not until some thirty summers prior.
Humans. Simple primates who used to only live in myth. But now they invaded home. And they had been sent to attack.
Thyme's brain fought back against the story. He was watching a life that was not his, through the eyes of this ishine. But he soon grew tired and fell back into the tale.
This was their opportunity to prove their worth. As just a simple ishine, one of the hundreds if not thousands of the same kind, they were expendable.
Attack the humans and return. Or just turn into a flower that adorns their sidewalk. The latter was more possible, but that didn’t matter to them. Dying was not something to fear, what was to fear was failing. Dying for nothing. Dying with having done nothing. But they were shivering.
That was unacceptable, that was what made their whole body tremble. They looked down at their hands, green and unmatured. Still a child in comparison, but ready to do their duty.
And there they were, in front of the fence. Far too perfect to be nature’s creation, but far too fragile to be of the stars.
They breathed in and placed a foot on the fence. But a desperate voice called out.
“What are you doing?”
A human. They recognized the speech. It was far more different than communicating with insects, or birds, or plants. They all had different languages, easy to understand to the ishine mind, but human speech felt painful to hear. Like the sound of an iceberg breaking, and knowing not if it would grow back in time for the next summer.
“You know they’ll kill you if they find you here, don’t you?”
They turned to look at the human. Her dark face moved to scan the ishine through the fence. Her eyes narrowed and analytical.
That was it. Death for nothing, was it then? The human crossed the fence, her hands tightly gripped around the metal with the strength of a lifetime of training. It was her natural habitat, it wouldn’t be a fair fight.
The mammal took the ishine’s hand in a swift movement, and against all odds, started running. Running away from the fence, away from her protection, away from her home. Into the wilderness of a small forest, into unknown lands.
“Why…”
“Because they will kill you, I said!” She grabbed the ishine by the wrist tighter until they were under the shade of a blooming tree. Only then, she let go and stopped to breathe.
The young human probably had barely started to grow hairs under her armpits and in her legs, but she had gone out of their settlement like no other human had been seen. With no equipment, with no team.
The two locked eyes before they started breathing synchronized.
“I thought,” The ishine started, but they couldn’t find words to finish the thought.
The human pointed at their head, moving her finger around to signal the flowers.
“I know those. Aloe Vera flowers.”
“Won’t you be killed if you’re seen out here?” The ishine insisted. It was an odd act of kindness, a reckless one with certain consequences.
“Can I call you Aloe?” The human smiled, her lips rolling over her teeth to show pale gums. For other primates, that would have been a threat, but for some reason, this human was being kind.
A name. Most animals didn’t have one. A few had distinctions, but the concept of a name was odd, almost unnatural.
“Aloe,” They nodded, “I like it.”
“I’m Juniper. Don’t worry, I don’t want to hurt you.”
The two smiled while purple flowers started to rain. It was silent, maybe odd, but overall comfortable.
Some questions were exchanged, but by then, Thyme started to open his eyes and the image faded.