Inherently Innocent

The Planets Stare Back

Thyme was suffocating. He could breathe, his lungs worked perfectly, but he was suffocating. He wanted to claw the branches away, but he could barely move the tips of his fingers and had to stop when his nails started bleeding. Then he started shouting.

"Liliac! Golshan! Juniper!" He screamed, "Peony. Where's Peony? She's just a child!" A branch slithered between his teeth, blocking his words into meaningless screams.

Thyme tried to orientate himself but could only feel movement. He was being carried, or rolled away. Maybe lifted. He couldn't tell any specifics besides movement.

He breathed in and out faster than he could absorb the oxygen. His eyes closed and opened against his will each time everything started to fail. He wouldn't die that way.

His eyes opened to the dark once more. He forced his breath to stop, to restart properly. After a few breaths, he had the idea.

He couldn't order the branches to move, he couldn't reach the earth to guide it. But he could try to talk to his chains, if only to see what was happening outside.

He buried his bloody fingers between the branches and begged. He begged the branches to tell him what was happening outside, he asked to be told, he ordered it! But no one could force nature to speak.

Thyme wasn't in a position to talk. He was silently screaming, and nature didn't want to get screamed at. As a nymph it was even harder to use his guidance with such an altered mind. But losing his freedom and his guidance at the same time was only a vicious cycle of spiraling down.

He cried.

Maybe he had fallen asleep, or fainted. Thyme couldn't tell how long it had been since Liliac had hugged him, but he could tell he was sweaty and thirsty, his cheeks were greasy and wet. He was too warm to want to move. Fortunately, the movement had stopped. Thyme was now kneeling, still surrounded in branches and roots, but forced by his living coffin to kneel.

The scratching of wood started sounding as the roots moved apart. Thyme closed his eyes, expecting to be blinded by the light. But there barely was any. They were in an open cave, the only incoming light came from behind them.

"Lee! Peony!" Thyme started shouting names again until he felt a hand crawl from behind and press down on his forehead.

Quiet. He heard the thought.

He turned his head to meet an ishine. Standing taller than any previous ones he had seen except his mother, with dark grey skin and the palest golden eyes, the ishine kept a neutral expression. They had no hair, no flowers on their head. All around the entrapped nymphs stood other similar ishine, with the same features, same attitude. If Thyme hadn't cried all his tears before, he would have cried at the resemblance all of those held to his mum. But his mother was more lively. Her skin had more colour, her bare head was always adorned with picked flowers. She smiled. There wasn't an inch of a smile in that cave.

Ishine. Of course it was the ishine, but seeing them this way brought conflicted ideas to mind. Thyme knew the ishine could be good, warm. His mother was the best he could have known. Aloe and Dera could have their cold moments, but they knew how to share their little personal moments. These ishine were not talking.
Horizon Hill had found the mountains and their ishine, those they were searching for. But was it worth it to find them like this?

"Let us go! We just want to talk. We need help so we can all be safe!" Thyme shouted.

Aloe and Dera walked forth from behind him. Only Aloe looked into his eyes, filled with guilt.

There was only a single thought in his mind. They had betrayed Horizon Hill.

"Let us go right now!"

"Thyme, please, keep quiet. We're doing all we can," Aloe walked closer, lowering their head.

"Where's Juniper? Where's Liliac?" Thyme desperately looked around, seeing as the other nymph's heads slowly appeared from behind the roots. Liliac was awake, with her loose hair falling in front of her eye. She mouthed it's ok before letting her head fall forward. Her free eye shook from ishine to ishine, afraid, but not showing it as much as Thyme. Golshan and Juniper were both asleep, or maybe they had fainted. Their heads rested uncomfortably over a weak neck. Xochitl was nowhere to be seen. Her guidance was focused on plants, roots and branches. Thyme feared she was still inside a complete wooden cocoon.

Peony was awake, silently crying inside her smaller living chains.

"She's a child! We're children!" Thyme cried out.

"Thyme, I need you to shut up right now." Aloe placed their green hands on Thyme's shoulders. The flowers around their hair looked thinner and dry. "I'll talk with these ishine so they understand us. They don't trust half-humans, or full humans," They looked at Juniper with worry, "But they might listen to us ishine. I need you to trust me."

"You love that word around here. Trust. How can I trust you after this?" Thyme showed his teeth. He was certain the ishine had betrayed the nymphs. Half-human, after all, was enough to want to exterminate them.

He was starting to hate his current attitude, but had no way to change it. His blood was boiling too hot, his skin was turning too warm. It was beyond him to choose how to act mean or kind. Right then, he had to survive.

Aloe sighed. "I wish you had another choice."

The ishine turned around.

Dera, the teacher ishine, placed her hand on Juniper's forehead and closed her own eyes. Aloe, clearly deemed young by the others around them, walked forth with their head up and proud, hiding their fear. They extended a hand for a mountain nymph to take. When the two hands met, Thyme closed his eyes. The nymphs' fate was in those hands. In those treacherous, deceiving hands.