“Hopefully,” Evie chimed with a business-like yet uplifting tone to a small group around her, intertwining her robotic arm with one of a Puppet that extended out of a Backpack on the ground. “We’ll be able to send more seed bomb models to other rural areas in Northeastern India by late Summer 2723, where we have more batches planned.”

 

She received a symphony of agreements and acknowledgements from the group, who wore the same shirts and similar looks as they were either glued to the whirring Puppet on the ground or the now fully revealed forest that inhabited Evie’s robotic arm due to her sleeveless top. Evie was always aware that her choice to have a prosthetic was strange since most nymphs could easily manifest another out of thin air with little to no repercussions. 

 

The dryad was cognizant of the nymphs’ standing compared to humans regarding the supernatural. They were capable of countering or even overwhelming human militia and heavy artillery with ease during the Fallout. However, she remembered when she stepped back into the flow of the recovering and evergrowing world after spending decades and years in a tree—back to her true roots away from a world she helped raze. She realized that even though the main goal of the race was to revitalize the global economy after the war, most nymphs stood in different states of mind. It didn't seem like there was a collective anymore, despite the gratuitous mannerisms they all shared.

 

Deep inside, more abstract cogs were driving for differences in even the smaller regions of what they came to understand as a ‘personality’. It couldn’t be denied that distinction existed in a familiarly homogeneous pact; they weren’t all the same anymore. Some strove to perform smaller remedial works in horticulture-driven settlements, and some strove to go bigger or even still question what it was they needed to do. 

 

She stepped back into this changed world years ago on Indian soil, and suddenly, with the torched stump that was her right arm in mind, she realized something: she didn’t want a new arm. She felt emotions on that day of revelation: disingenuity as she remembered the lives she took, dejection from her patheticism as she fled from consequences after the war, and a pounding urge for redemption as she remembered that she was a nymph and always had to meet a standard.

 

Mother Nature’s standard for nurturing.

 

Some nymphs who forgo limbs in war may have taken the easier way out and regrown them, unlike Evie. The fact that even this minimal margin of dissimilarity existed was a clear indicator that they had the capacity to break away from each other—the opportunity to defy the natural order. Just like she had done during the preliminary days of the fallout. 

 

Back then, when she saw no value in human life, she felt the most satisfied.

 

“The Arunachal Pradesh state has given us the green light to expand the operations in this region”—she gestured for the group’s chattering to lower a tad—”and monsoon season is around the corner. These are peak times, so keep up the good work. Thank you!”

 

Was she even satisfied now?

 

As the team dispersed to get back to managing the Puppets in this viridescent expanse, Evie slumped against the rich bark of a tree behind her and sat in the serenity of what felt like home. She had called more than one place home, and she wished to blame it on this weird feeling of greed that’s been pricking at her like thorns. However, she couldn’t help but be enamoured of the resplendent sea of rice paddies that sanctified the valley, watching humans and nymphs of different cultures swim through the fields as they sweated and huffed at horticulture development. She caught glimpses of remote-controlled Puppets taking to the skies, leaving compost seeds over clay earth in their wake. It was a golden sight.

 

This was a land she helped cultivate years ago before she was taken into Miami for the first SPC projects a decade ago. She needed to work herself to the bone to pay for her deeds in the war. With only one arm back then, she felt she was finally paying for what she had done. This was true justice, and she had to break herself to do good.

 

Though there was still a void. Was this part of her punishment? No more running away.

 

“Enjoying your time in Ziro Valley?” a feminine voice sounded from behind the tree. “You look calmer than you usually are.”

 

Evie smiled warmly, sitting down firmly and curling her legs into herself as a petite, honey-toned woman took a seat next to her.

 

“Hey, Ananta—”

 

“Look at you all happy! What are you smiling at, Eve?”

 

“Just a bit of nostalgia, I think.”

 

The coworker who aided her on this outing stretched her legs forward and breathed a sigh of relief.

 

Evie wanted that more than most.

 

“Ah, I see. Fair enough,” the other woman would reply, trying to match Evie’s humble aura as they simply enjoyed the silence.

 

This was peak time; she felt greedy for an answer once more.

 

“Ananta?”

 

“Hmm?”

 

“Is it wrong to be greedy?”

 

Silence.

 

“Eh? What?”

 

“Is it—”

 

“What—why do you ask?”

 

Evie knew she didn’t talk to her as much, but being desperate for an answer, she needed to be truthful even more. She needed to talk more. She needed to elaborate more. So much more had to be done.

 

“I… I’ve been wanting a lot of things lately.” Evie admitted, swallowing nervously as if she had committed a felony.

 

“Ah, well, depends on what it is,” Ananta replied with an unsure look on her face, scratching her jet-black hair in thought. 

 

“It’s somewhat… sappy?” Evie turned towards the Puppet Backpack near her feet and then back at her right arm, frowning solemnly. “My mind’s been in a jumble. It hurts.”

 

“I know this is the last thing you want to hear, but you overwork a lot—”

 

“I get an earful from Willo every day.”

 

“You’re not a robot, Eve. Enjoy life like you are doing now.”

 

Out of the few initiators of the attacks years ago, she only knew that she survived. She watched the others die. She couldn’t clarify that, though; she was too deep in the heat of bloodlust. If she was going to tackle her sentient thoughts, she needed to avoid being too passionate. However, she wanted to cherish everything she had experienced, so that would augment that passion to dangerous levels.

 

It hurt again.

 

“How can I enjoy life with all these worries in my head?”

 

Ananta blinked at the question, tilting her head at Evie.

 

“Wow, uh… this is—”

 

“I-I apologize if I’m dumping everything on you,” Evie stammered uncharacteristically, a shocking sight that caused Ananta to hone in on the conversation more.

 

“Ah… I see. You are more discomposed than usual.”

 

“Sorry—”

 

“No, don’t apologize for having worries, Eve. It’s normal.”

 

“But I want too much.”

 

Ananta placed a hand on Evie’s stiff shoulder and gave her a reassuring smile.

 

“Well, I know you’ve been living under a rock for some time due to your unhealthy overworking—”

 

“Not with that again—”

 

“You’re a nymph; you’re not some machine, Eve. You can’t have everything or do everything. That’s absurd.”

 

Evie took time for granted. She neglected the thought of death in this long life of hers, but now faced with the epiphany that she couldn’t do everything, she remembered. She should’ve died those years ago in the war, which would have put a halt on this life she soon came to regret. Though she lived, and for some reason, she didn’t want to die. She began feeling sentimental and spent what seemed like endless moments around the human race. If this was a sign of weakness, then this wasn’t the perfect form she was meant to maintain as a nymph.

 

Though, at the moment, she liked being weak. When she began thinking and thought that she could take on the world back in the Fallout, she became demented and abused her power. 

 

Now, in peak times when the golden rays of the sun bathed the paddies, she felt knocked down a peg. Despite her ceaseless guilt, she began to think that maybe she wasn’t as powerful as she thought she was. She wanted to work arduously, regardless of her tiredness. She wanted innumerable desires, regardless of her mortality.

 

So is this a good sin? Denying this order…

 

She wasn’t sure if what she was feeling was right or if this was the answer she needed. But it felt comforting. If this cherishing she wanted was wrong, then she’d selfishly do it. 

 

Instead of not valuing time itself for what seemed like her whole life, she breathed in the utopian zephyr she always failed to take in and exhaled.

 

Feeling just a bit of relief to keep her confusion desirably staunched for some time, she relaxed and let the few drops of rainfall nourish the green and silver of her right arm.

 

–

 

The grey-haired billionaire breathed the utopian air, gazing out of the open panes of his luxurious office at a display of the unfurling cityscape and mushrooming greenery.

 

“We are in splendid times!” the slim man blazoned, spinning on his heel towards a hyperfocused and gleaming Willo. “Don’t you agree, Swoboda?”

 

“Of course, Mistah Goldmann!” Willo fastened his flimsy tie before kneading his palms together like a beggar. “Business is perfection, as always—”

 

“No, no, forget that for now. Three days ago was the 500th anniversary of the Fallout—”

 

“Indeed it was, sir!” Willo exclaimed, recovering from his slip-up of being too formal. This was the way of a yes-man: adapt to the conversation and the detours with no questions asked. This was truly how business worked.

 

“We’re in an era of prosperity, all thanks to when this race shook hands with the nymphs!”

 

“Agreed, sir!”

 

“Also, thanks to the war for happening!”

 

“Yeah! Wait—no, not…” 

 

Willo shortcircuited as the older man fell into a fit of thundering laughter, joining in awkwardly near the end.

 

“I’m only kidding, Swoboda! It’s all calm—”

 

“Oh, good to know, sir, because—”

 

“However, there is some truth in my statement—”

 

Willo swiftly crossed his legs and formally leaned into the desk, resting his sharp chin on his folded, firm hands.

 

“What twisted truth do you suggest, sir?”

 

“Oh, nothing of the sort,” Goldmann chuckled lightheartedly, easing Willo to loosen up with a hand gesture. “I’m just saying that without the war changing visions and minds, we wouldn’t be where we are today.”

 

“That’s true—

 

“In addition, without the nymphs, the human race would’ve died off years ago.”

 

Willo unlatched his hands and folded them onto the table, the statement piquing his intrigue. Living a secure life where he married a nymph, had a hybrid son, and was cherished by a nymph that acted as a sibling to him—he couldn’t think of where he would be mentally if it wasn’t for the other race being customary in his life. 

 

“Well… they are supernatural. So it makes sense, I suppose,” Willo stated, assuming an assertive tone. “All wars become history, and said wars act as wake-up calls and precursors for the future.”

 

“So, generally speaking, this utopia we’re seeing may have just been a product of some… divine intervention?”

 

Willo nibbled his ring fingernail inattentively, delving into the question with a broad mind. He recalled the many nymphs he had encountered in his life but filtered them down to people he had close to him now. 

 

Beck’s a hybrid and, by technicality, a rare male nymph. He is sharp and witty… but he can also be lazy and, well, too sharp. Phenomenal son that takes after me.

 

He tapped a finger against the desk.

 

My dearest Rhea needs no explanation; she’s perfect. She can be a bit clumsy and worrisome, but those things just make her cuter.

 

He tapped once more.

 

Evie has been a bigger sister to me my whole life. She’s an absolute wreck.

 

He tapped, then chortled at the thoughts in his head, earning a fazed look from Goldmann.

 

“Is something funny?”

 

“No, no— sir, it’s nothing.” Willo shifted forward with a goofy yet charming grin and got up from his seat with his hands in his pockets. “‘Divine’ wouldn’t be how I would describe them, in my opinion.”

 

“Then what?”

 

Willo strolled next to Goldmann, his cocoa eyes engrossed by the world beyond the window—a world in which he has come to love regardless of the familial loss he felt years ago.

 

Once again, he felt like a puerile innocent.

 

“In a way, they act just like humans—not perfectly, but they are close. I reckon it’s just a curse of being born on this planet, but they aren’t gods, that’s for certain,” Willo replied with wonder in his speech. “The intervention from them was good, don’t get me wrong. It opened the human race’s eyes; however, from what I’ve seen at least, we’re all in the same position on this Earth. That’s what makes us equal in a way.”

 

Goldmann breathed a sound of understanding, nodding as they both stared out into a refreshing, leisurely silence.

 

“Swoboda.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“You’re a shameless suck-up—”

 

“Goddamn, sir, you didn’t hold back any punches,” Willo rumbled in defeat as the older man roared in amusement.

 

“Do a better job at hiding it—”

 

“I’m sorry—

 

“No need to apologize. I like seeing the real you. You get incredibly chummy when you talk about your family, isn’t that right?”

 

Willo scratched his slicked-back hair with a clumsy snort, remembering how he always thought that Evie was effortless to read. They rubbed off on one another in many ways, whether it be their constant bickering or their shared affinity for sarcastic humour—they were tight-knit, and he didn’t want to lose that, same for his other relations.

 

“Yes, sir. I’m a bit of a sappy little guy,” Willo joked.

 

These were truly his happiest times.

 

It all felt right.