Inherently Innocent

And Run By My Side

Liliac had never seen a river. The settlement was right next to one towards its east, but Liliac had never left the settlement before. She had not been of age to explore before it all.

She had thought she would have seen herself on its reflection, could have dived down to her shoulders, or swim from one side to another. In reality, she could not do much more than jump it with little effort. The river was as thin as a door, opaque, and fast. Anyone could have called it dirty. It possibly still held some of the poison that had forced humanity to leave the Earth for Mars in the first place. Yet there grew weeds and trees all around, feeding from the river. Liliac's pants got brown and dirty when she kneeled beside it.

Birds sang, the water raced, the nymphs dropped their bags and took a deep breath. Liliac moved her hair away from her eye, trying to feel a bit more sunlight go into the withering nerves of her blinded eye. The Host wasn't there to scream for her to cover it.

An ishine settlement. An ishine home.

Thyme sat loudly beside Liliac, dropping his bag with a thud. The birds didn't stop singing, but Liliac couldn't hear them anymore.

"How are you feeling?" He asked.

"Wither off," Liliac let her hair down again.

And Thyme did leave. He didn't insist, he just smirked sadly and started to walk away. But he was interrupted.

An agitated ishine with yellow petals around its hea stood in front of him with a broad smile. Liliac found it off putting how the almost-plant beings had teeth, but she hadn't thought of the alternative, worse, option yet.

"Humans!" It cheered.

Thyme chuckled nervously, cheering along without correction to please the ishine.

"Please don't hurt us," Liliac mumbled.

Thyme turned to look at her with a loudly concerned stare, startled at the fact that she would even ask such a thing.

"You look very different from one another," The ishine took Thyme's hand into its own. Liliac would have pulled her own away, but the boy just smiled.

"We're nymphs, but yeah. All humans and nymphs look different. You ishine too! Some have flowers on their heads, others have moss, some have nothing, right?" Thyme said.

"But that's because we're different kinds of ishine. Some of us take care of the trees, some of the animals, others of the river..."

"Well, a long time ago when humans were spread around the world, they had different appearances because of their surroundings. Even if we're all piled together now, we keep some of those traits."

The ishine squinted its eyes, curious.

"Do lots of humans have purple hair? I don't think I've ever seen an animal with that fur. What kind of ishine was your parent?" The ishine slowly approached Liliac. The girl already envisioned how to push its hand away.

"I don't know." Liliac turned her legs so her feet were straight on the grass.

"Want me to show you?" The ishine's golden eyes glimmered. Liliac could almost smell the excitement it was feeling, the eagerness to teach this poor little idiot just how everything worked, because of course she was too stupid to figure it out by herself.

"No."

It would attack. It would grab her wrist and shove her away. It would start to read her mind.

"Alright. What kind of ishine was your parent?" The ishine turned to ask Thyme.

"A mountain range nymph! She taught me a lot about guiding. That's how Aloe called what I learnt, at least," Thyme answered.