Chapter Text
Mizzen awoke to the sound of ripping fabric and a strangled voice that sounded nothing like own bursting from her jaws, screaming horrible things that would ordinarily never cross her mind. Her arm burned with exertion, her fingers ached, but she had no control over her body. Her limbs were like wrathful parasites, moving on their own and sapping the life out of anyone who came within reach; tearing into them, ripping their guts apart, and ruthlessly moving on after it was over.
She managed to still her arm. Force her clammy fingers to release the handle of the knife. Fill her lungs with air. The relief of seeing a torn-up pillow pinned under her knees and not an corpse was so overwhelming, all she could do was—for the first time in…months, years?—laugh. A tearful laugh that bordered on panicked hyperventilating, but a laugh nonetheless. A laugh that quickly dissolved into terrified sobbing, because, try as she might, Mizzen couldn't remember when she picked up the knife.
She collapsed back into bed, smothering her face in the remnants of her pillow and letting the sobs wrack her body. She flung the knife across her cramped bedroom, lodging it in the wall with a precision she didn't have before. It was too early to get up, but she didn't trust herself to sleep anymore. Instead she lay in silence, trying desperately to get the image of that Ant from her dream's face out of her mind. It was hard when she'd been forced to see it up close again the mere evening before.
She was supposed to be free now. Everyone had promised her as such. Yet every night she'd feel just as helpless as ever, just as much of a slave to her unconscious as before. She was a monster, no matter how many people told her she wasn't. No, she hadn't been in control of her actions when she tore apart the bodies of defenseless citizens. No, she hadn't been in control when she stung and bit and clawed at anyone who got too close. But she was in control now. There was no crown polluting her mind, no outside forces making her the violent creature she still was. Nothing made her pick up that knife except for her own mind conjuring up dreams of unarmed soldiers. She was programmed to kill, and there was no reprogramming her. She would be trapped here for the rest of her life, never able to safely be with her friends and family again. She wasn't even sure how many of them were still alive.
Mizzen was glad to be freed from the Wasp King's control, but she desperately wished she'd been freed a second, two seconds, three seconds sooner, so she wouldn't have to watch herself lunge forward and stab that Ant's throat. Every night she tried to consider a world in which it had happened differently.
But that's not what happened, and no matter how much she tried to convince herself that she could go back to change it, she knew it was fruitless. And given how vicious she still was, maybe it was the universe's way of showing her who she really was: a barbaric animal.
Once her tears ran dry and the wailing died down, Mizzen sat up, running her claws through the collar of bristles over her neck. Gnarled clumps of unwashed fur tangled around her fingers and refused to budge no matter how hard she pulled. Heaving a sigh of defeat, she slowly brought her hands away from her neck, swinging her legs over the side of the bed and sifting through unorganized piles of junk she promised herself she'd sort through tomorrow. Tomorrow always turned into next week which turned into the week after that, but she'd get there eventually. Her head kind of hurt today. Maybe tomorrow.
A quiet thought crossed the back of her mind: "There's still blood in your fluff."
She combed through her bristles again, feeling their stiffness, how they were caked in…something. The logical part of her was saying it was just the regular grime that accumulated when she didn't groom herself, but a louder voice was saying, no, no, that's blood. That's her blood. You need to get it out. You'll never be clean. You're a filthy liar.
She covered her antennae as if someone was right beside her screaming and quickly slunk away, making her way to the bathroom, ensuring that she remembered to pick up the knife on her way out. She hid it in her arms in case any of the staff saw her and assumed she had ill intentions. It wouldn't be out of the question, given she'd just violently maimed her own pillow in an unconscious murderous rage, but in all reality, her intentions were completely innocuous. All she wanted was to be clean for once.
Mizzen hated how quiet the halls were getting. Months ago, she used to barely be able to squeeze through the halls from how many bustling wasps were rushing by in both directions. Now the only sound was her echoing footsteps. She might like the solitude if not for what it represented—she was irrevocably, painfully broken. Everyone else had healed and moved on from this little facility, a shabby thing thrown together in a span of a few weeks, meant to give the wasps who couldn't live on their own after the war a place to stay and be cared for. Everyone but her. The war ended over a year ago. Mizzen was the only one there anymore aside from the staff, who only stayed because she did. She didn't know if she'd stay much longer—she'd no confidence she'd do well on her own, but after last night, she wasn't sure if she could dare look any of the staff in the eye ever again. She was mooching off the kindness of those who didn't know better.
Knotted clumps of bristles fell into the sink, coating the white porcelain in a layer of prickly ashen fur. Slowly, carefully, she sawed through her greasy fluff, cutting off another large chunk. And another, and another, until all that remained was a choppy, rather ugly stretch of fur around her neck that scarcely reached an inch in length at its longest. She took a deep breath, but it hitched in her throat. There was still blood in her fuzz. She couldn't see it, but she was certain it was there. It hadn't been washed out when she was rescued and cleaned of her wounds. She had to get those last bristles out.
She pressed the cool, rusted tip of the knife against her collar. Not hard enough to cut her flesh, she made sure. The blade nestled deep in her fuzz, hugging the roots of each individual bristle, she slowly glided through, and—
The sight of a blade in her claws, pressed up against someone's throat—even in the context of as something innocuous as a haircut—broke her. Her knees gave out, she curled up in a ball on the floor, her mind stopped working. She might have started screaming. She wasn't sure—her voice hasn't felt like her own, lately.
How long did she stay like that? She couldn't tell. She was not longer in the bathroom, but in the middle of a flaming field, gripping a bloody spear, staring down in horror at the corpse pinned under her feet. Hands were grabbing her, dragging her off. Her throat hurt from screaming. People were assuring her that she was fine, that she was just going to be brought to the hospital for treatment. She couldn’t breathe.
An Ant came in—Lucille, one of the staff members who was more often than not a little nervous around her—circling her crumpled form like a vulture. Even without looking at her, Mizzen could feel the anger in her gaze, the unforgiving grief of someone who had their sister so brutally killed at the hands of a cruel animal like her. Panic boiled over, but before she started screaming again, Mizzen calmed herself, held her breath, kept her eyes open and staring at the ceiling listlessly, and let her limbs fall limply to the ground. Her memories of her life before the Wasp King were fuzzy, but she remembered one command clear as day: play dead. If she ever found herself in a situation where she had no hope of fighting back, just play dead. Nobody would attack a dead wasp.
"Mizzen, are you okay?" Lucille asked hurriedly. Mizzen's chest was burning from how long she'd been holding her breath.
"Mizzen? Mizzen!"
Just stay down. Ignore Lucille. She wanted nothing to do with Lucille ever again.
Lucille crouched down, grabbing Mizzen's neck and running her claws over her throat. It was all she could do not to cry. She could hear Lucille huff a sigh of what sounded like relief as they sat back, letting go of her. The sink turned on with a hiss, and she was pretty sure Lucille started cleaning up the piles of bristles all around the basin.
"Mizzen," Lucille said again, "sweetheart, I’m not here to hurt you. It's just me."
Don't cry.
Lucille knelt next to her, wiping her sweaty face with a cool, damp cloth. "I'm just making sure you're okay. I heard a scream. Did you have another flashback?”
A single tear slipped down her cheek, but she couldn't muster the courage to move a muscle. That was enough of an answer for Lucille.
"Alright. Deep breaths. Do you want me to leave you alone for now?"
Somehow, Mizzen gathered the strength to just barely shake her head no, and say in a tremulous voice, "I’m sorry." She didn't dare look her in the eye.
Lucille smoothed Mizzen's antennae back as she helped her off the floor. "You didn't do anything wrong. I was just worried sick about you." Lucille caressed her choppy fuzz. "I thought maybe you’d done something to hurt yourself. Thank Venus you didn’t. Why did you cut your bristles?"
"Blood," Mizzen choked out. "Blood in my fuzz. I had to"—she found herself beginning to hyperventilate—"get it out. It wouldn't go. It wouldn't go! I had to cut it! There's still blood everywhere! There's blood on my—my—m-my arms, there's…"
"Hey, it's okay," Lucille assured her. "How about I help you get the last of your bristles shaved off? Then you'll be clean."
Mizzen shook her head frantically, backing away and pressing herself into the corner. "No," she whimpered. "You're gonna cut my throat."
Lucille, for all her patience, seemed genuinely taken aback by that. "What? No, I’m not. What makes you think that?"
"B-b-because"—Mizzen tugged at her antennae, forcing the words out of her throat—"you hate me! I killed her! And you want to kill me as revenge! I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please don't hurt me! I didn't mean to! I’m so sorry, I don't want to die! I’m not ready yet!"
"Mizzen, what are you talking about?"
"The ant in the picture," she sobbed, rocking back and forth. "I was l-looking for you last night because I was having trouble sleeping, and I—I went into your room, and I saw a picture of you and and someone else. An ant."
"My sister?" Lucille said faintly. "What about her?"
"I killed her!" Mizzen burst. "I killed your sister! I’m sorry, I’m sorry, it was—it"—she gasped for breath, trying not to faint—"I told you in o-our last session about how when I w-woke up from the crown I was killing someone. It was her. I recognize her face. I'm n-not crazy, they have the same face and the same markings, a-and…I'm so sorry. I spent all of last night feeling like I was gonna throw up I felt so bad. I know you won't ever forgive me, but—"
Lucille went pale, her face sobering in a way Mizzen had never seen before. Before Mizzen could choke out any more apologies, Lucille pulled her into a hug. Mizzen could feel tears running down her cheeks. She really was a monster, wasn't she?
"Mizzen, sweetie, I do forgive you. There’s nothing to even forgive you for. It was never your fault."
"Yes, it was."
"Mizzen." She tilted her chin up, gently kissing her tears away. "Mizzen, you're just a kid."