The palace, the place where he failed is in tightly guarded ruins. The marble interior is split, both jagged and torn by the craters of a golden meteor shower, one that nearly, but not quite, cost Komugi her life. Pouf smiles at the memory, and then at himself. Such foolish sentiment! And it has dragged him back here, to the sight of his failure.

Nothing will go wrong this time, he tells himself, certain of the future.

The new queen, the untainted one, wiggles in his grasp. Pouf watches with interest, as the mouth opens and a thin slice of noise comes tumbling out, not quite the wail of a human infant but a wail none the less.

The thoughts inside however, the ones that prompt the mouth to open and close, that cause the wail to cut out and then renew itself with the passing of time – those are harder to distinguish. They register light and warmth, hunger and cold, and respond accordingly with a pleased hum or an indignant stutter of fury, one that registers closely to a wavelength of pain. Pouf is more than familiar with this last one. He has caught hold of the sensation time and time again, when capturing prey for substance.

'Come,' he says smoothly, 'I will keep you safe.

For some reason the child wails louder.

Ah, thinks Pouf, perhaps it is the unfamiliarity of my voice? That human female, as I recall, used to stutter...He makes a face; surely he will not lower himself to such an indignity!

The child's cry reaches a crescendo.

'H-hush,' tries Pouf.

The child does not stop crying. But Pouf registers surprise beneath the blur of uncomplicated thoughts. Surprise and perhaps...wariness?

Pouf flies away quickly before the guards, flimsy soldiers that they are, notice. And congratulates himself warmly. He arches up, into the cold updrafts of air. He does not know how sturdy the new queen's lungs are, how much they can take before the air becomes too thin for them to swallow down. So he stays out of the clouds, deciding to swoop low among the lines of the trees, their branches passing in a whisper above his hair.

He presses onwards, until, starting with a trickle, new thoughts press into his mind, foreign ones with the distinct clarity that separates them from the animal rabble that rustles in the bushes below. Humans.

He smiles and dives headfirst into a nearby village. There is confusion, of course. Yells. The firing of some guns and maybe even the throwing of some kitchen knives. But in the end he drags away a woman, drags her into the overhanging shadow of the trees and away from the thick colour of blood that smears her living room floor with the colour of rust. She trembles in his grasp, the drooping bulge of her stomach heaving in time to her frightened breaths. In, out, in out –Pouf watches the tender line of it flare out into his sight before it wobbles, loosened with the brash purple wrinkles that speak of a weight that once hung within.

'Please,' the woman begs, 'my child, my child...'

She reaches out to Pouf, even though he clearly has no baby to hand to her. At least not her own.

'Feed her,' he demands. 'And your baby will be returned to you.'

The woman sniffs and her hands, though trembling erratically, manage to force themselves into a careful stroking motion, pressing down upon the feathers that puff out of the blankets in Pouf's arms. She sniffs again, but this does nothing to prevent the snot running in a stream down to her mouth. Pouf has to rein himself in sharply. But the twitch of memory, of an unpleasant, well-loathed face irks him, makes his mouth tighten into a thin line.

With trembling fingers, the woman reaches up to her blouse, flinching slightly at the crust of blood she has to flick off the buttons. She peels away the material with a rigidity speaking of shock, her motion cluttered with jerks and sudden heaves of breath. She is almost robotic by the time she bends down to push a brown, round nipple into the queen's mouth.

And even though her breasts are fatter than Komugi's and the taste slightly more acidic (Pouf can register surprise and bitterness, welling up inside the mind of his charge) the queen sucks. And then swallows. Soon she is gulping down the milk, behaving like the baby she really is.

Pouf purses his lips thoughtfully. The king never had a childhood, so to speak off. This will require a great deal more work.

'Please,' the woman begs tearfully. 'My baby...give him back...'

Pouf stares straight through her. The woman's baby, of course, is still where he left it. On the stairs, lying in a puddle-like curl with a small hollow where its brain should be. She had stepped right over it a few minutes ago, her eyes landing on the floral adornment of her wallpaper as though her child had not just been dashed below her like the unruly drape of a curtain. Human shock, thinks Pouf, is a useful thing.

With her eyes fastened on the trees around them, the woman carefully tugs her nipple away. And no sooner than she has done so, Pouf's teeth jam into her shoulder.

Well, he thinks to himself. Would you look at that? I'm still rather hungry myself.


There are things to entertain a child. These are necessary, Pouf reads, because time, to a child, drags on without end. It does not fly for them, unless filled with pleasure.

At first, he tries bribery. He flies out and picks only the most succulent of meats, the fattest of limbs from children who run to him with exhilaration in their eyes, muddy fingers outstretched to try and trace out the colours of his wings. He tries to wean his child, (no, he reminds himself, the queen, the one I will not let down this time) into them, dripping blood into her wailing mouth.

It works, to varying degrees, but still, much to Pouf's displeasure, she prefers milk. Personally, he blames Komugi's genes.

But still, the child grows. She does not turn away from human meat, but she also does not tear into it with gusto. She is fond of colour but cannot paint, preferring to splodge the blood of her playthings into the ground.

'Ssshia...' she trails off as her tail, a fluffy, unkempt thing swishes nervously along the ground. 'Sshiaraoff,' she attempts again, her tongue twisting the pronunciation as it drags along the roof of her mouth. She pauses then, flushing miserably.

The sight is enough to rouse Pouf into a miniature rage. 'Your Majesty,' he says coolly, siphoning his rage off into the taunt quiver of muscles that hold his wings. They shake slightly, as quickly as a hummingbird's as he continues. 'As I have stated before, you may call me Pouf.'

The child (no, thinks Pouf keenly, almost desperately, the queen), frowns. And ducks her head towards the floor. 'That seems disrespectful,' she says softly.

Pouf stares at the small being before him. In moments like this, when he sees the queen huddle into a downtrodden mess of nerves and self-doubt, he becomes aware that this is not Meruem before him. There is no self-righteous conviction to hold this small frame steady. Instead there is only a small, quivering voice as she speaks, violet eyes she sometimes likes to run along the line of the floor, half-hidden behind a rakish line of feathers, instead of a hard turtle-like shell. And a tail with no barbed end, hanging fluffy and low like a fox. It strikes Pouf once again, that this queen does not possess the body of a warrior, though it is at least one that is far stronger than a human. No, this form is...it is...something perhaps human hunters might like to stuff and mount on their walls; they seem unbearably fond of things with feathers and fur-lined tails, rather than those who possess hardened skin and scorpion-like limbs.

'Would you like to go hunting?'

The queen perks up immediately. 'Oh yes!' She says the thrill of anticipation running right through her bones and making her tail stand on end. 'I love it when they try to run away!'

There is a slight ache there, nestling inside Pouf's heart as it witnesses the same manic light in his charge's eyes, the very same as the luminance that once flowed through Meruem's.

At least, he thinks, there is enough chimera-ant in him for him to behave accordingly.


The queen grows. She feasts. She demands. And occasionally, she listens.

Don't listen to their pleads, Pouf tells her. The words of the weak hold no merit to those of us who are strong.

The queen listens. She eats, despite the screams. And tries to crush down the strange feeling she gets, when the flicker of pain in their eyes becomes steady, taunt and heavy alongside the fear. Somehow, to her, the hunting is more fun than the actual killing. Floppy limbs, she finds, do not make for good sport.

Humans live in family units, Pouf sneers another time. That is because a human individual is a weak thing, a lonely life that desires social interaction; but that is an illusion, something the subconscious hides behind. Really, it is a base need for survival. A human life lengthens if surrounded by other targets for predators like us to choose from.

The queen is not quite as accepting of this. She crawls and prowls through the outskirts of towns, seeing laughter, and the muscles it shakes, both actions that shimmer out through the lights in people's windows in a great visual display of love. She notes how smiles seem to herald these noises in beforehand, how their size grows in accordance to the fondness they have for the others around them.

Strange, she thinks, human are strange. I have never laughed, not even once.

Before him, beyond the barrier of glass, a child stretches their mouth open, showing the small lines of their milk teeth glowing dimly within. To the queen, they are like pearls under muted light and she reaches up with a finger, tucking it under her lip to trace the outlines of her own teeth. They are not so dissimilar, she realises with a start; there are varieties to the structures inside his mouth, molars and canines, slow-moving grinders for plants and sharp, jagged peaks for tearing meat into small strips.

She takes her finger away, stunned. Why has she never paid attention before? Ants don't have teeth, at least not mammal-like teeth.

Inside the room, under the harshness of artificial light, the child starts to shake. And then laugh, though the sound is dimmed slightly, under the weight of the queen's thoughts. Her eyes move to the child's belly, watching it tighten and then jiggle, a slave to the laughter that erupts from the chest. Unbidden, her free hand slides down to flow over the curve of her own stomach. And then she frowns.

I must look very stupid right now, she thinks. Annoyed, she straightens, her face bearing the full force of the light inside as it spills out of the glass in front of her. The family don't notice her. But they will if she remains a few vital seconds more. She grimaces and turns away. And in the time the family start to turn, start to notice the green bobbing into the corner of their eyes, she is already gone.

I'm not hungry anyway, she thinks to herself rather crossly, not realising how strange a thought that is, for a Chimera Ant queen. But then again, she is a rather strange queen in general.


'Shia-Pouf,' she calls as he arrives back at the abandoned shack where they have made their home, 'please come here. I have questions.'

Her servant bobs into view, her face pitched and gaunt, the way it always is whenever the queen calls out his name in two unnecessarily broken pieces. 'Yes?'

'We have teeth!' The queen gestures wildly, both hands reaching up to yank the corners of her mouth into an elongated grin. Gums exposed, she looks like a clown pulling a funny face.

Pouf twitches. 'Um...yes,' he manages.

The queen lets go of her mouth, wincing slightly as it adjusts back to normality. 'I.. 'she starts, then shakes her head, looking annoyed at herself. 'Ants don't have teeth, do they? They have...knives for mouth. Mani...mandi...mandy...mandyblues.'

'Mandibles,' Pouf corrects gently.

'Yes!' The queen sticks her arm out wildly, a finger pointing firmly at Pouf in obvious glee. In the face of such enthusiasm, Pouf can do nothing but smile. But still...it tugs at him that Meruem would have never done such a thing. That motion, the reactionary nature of it, that was more in line with the actions of...Pouf shakes his head before he can complete the thought.

'We are chimera-ants,' he says grandly, 'at our core, at our very base, we remain insects. But our shape is arranged according to the meals of our ancestors. And human features have been particularly useful for the course of our biology. Especially their brains.'

'Hmm...' the queen pauses, sucking on a finger lightly. Pouf reins back the urge to reach over and wipe away the trail of salvia she leaves hanging against her chin. 'Which queen birthed me? By which I mean...what did she look like? Like you? Did she have a lot of human features?'

The world comes crashing to a halt for Pouf. But he recovers admirably, with barely a trace of distress crossing over from his mind to his face.

'You are a queen, born of a king,' he says tensely. 'So there are no soldier ants to welcome you to this world...just the loyalty of one who could not protect your father.'

'Huh,' the queen blinks. 'A generation removed, huh?'

'Something like that, yes.'

The queen grins. 'Well, thank you for being here, then!'

Pouf blinks. Then he hunkers down slightly, his wings curling round him with a pleased shudder. 'You are very welcome, your Majesty.'

The queen turns, leaving to explore the world in a way Pouf has always wished she wouldn't. And yet, watching her back and the way her tail swishes as the queen lets out a pleased hum in a thoroughly human habit, Pouf doesn't have the heart to reach out and stop her. For deep within the residence of his own, something glows with a steady, surly warmth.


A few days later, the queen's milk teeth start to fall out in a very undignified way. They hang, they slip and they slide, anchored to her gums with the last remaining shreds of grisly muscles. The queen curses and tears them out, flecks of bloods decorating the floor as she winces and bites back pained yowls. Pouf hovers over her anxiously, offering both a bowl of water and a pair of slender tweezers that shimmer before the queen's eyes with a silver gleam that seems to mock her.

'I donlt nod a dontest,' she spits out, specks of blood accompanying every word.

Rather grandly, Pouf whips out a tissue and wipes the away the red that rings the queen's mouth, ignoring the few drops scattered on his own chin. 'Certainly not,' he says amenably. 'I merely wish to assist however I can.'

The queen frowns. 'I-' then cuts off with a choke.

'Careful,' says Pouf, twisting the queen's chin to the side, with a gentle grip. 'Your adult teeth are coming through. I would advise you not to talk.'

And indeed, within minutes, white barbs sprout thorough the queen's gums. It is close to half an hour before they are fully erect, standing stiff like the walls of a castle.

Pouf smiles to himself. While the casting off of a child's milk teeth is a human process, the fact that they were all thrown off at once, to be replaced within an hour instead of mere months...why it seems to match a shark-like habit, rather than the evolutionary nature of a monkey.

'Oh, gud,' says the queen, before hesitating and finally, finally deciding to take the water Pouf practically thrusts into her hand. She swallows and tries again. 'Good. I can actually talk. How horrifying to be without something similar to a sense!'

'Indeed,' says Pouf drolly.

The queen flinches, wiggling her tongue into the contours of her new teeth. 'Feels strange,' she says after a while. 'I feel bigger, somehow.'

'You have always been big,' says Pouf grandly. 'Why, even a fool can see it!'

The queen gifts him with a smile and Pouf almost faints.

'Oh, that reminds me!'

Pouf watches curiously as the queen dashes off, to the small wardrobe, half-hidden in a corner of the room. 'I found this while digging through the trash!'

'Your Majesty!'

'I know, I know, you don't like it. But humans throw away such odd things!' she turns round, presenting her treasure with a triumphant flourish. But then she frowns. 'What is the matter, Shia-Pouf?' she demands irritably, upon seeing his servant's face turn gaunt and thin. 'You're turning the colour of chalk.'

Pouf straightens up immediately and offers a shaky smile; it is not perfect but it the best he can do on such short notice. 'Ah,' he says, unrolling himself into a bow with a flourish of his hand. 'A thousand pardons, your majesty. I just...it seems strange to allow such frivolous activities to take up your time.'

The queen stares down at the board before him, admiring the way the grooves are chiselled into the wood, as though some divine hand placed them down there. The pattern, the squares...she finds the symmetry of it all pleasing and carefully sweeps a hand across, to remove what little dust there it there. Behind her, Pouf shudders.

'I have never before played a human game that seems so...structured, 'she says. 'And I find myself curious.' She looks up at Pouf slightly, her face settling into a pouf reminiscent of young child. 'Shia-Pouf; play me.'

Pouf turns an interesting shade of green; almost the exact shade, the queen remembers with no small delight, as the time she commanded him to drink sour milk. She almost claps her hands together with delight as her servant sits down in front of him.

'I know the rules,' Pouf says, in such a small, stilted voice that the queen has to frown and lean over slightly to hear him. 'I can teach you, if you wish.'

Still bent over the board, the queen finds herself gazing down for a second , watching the squares and the way they darken under the intermingling of shadows she and Pouf throw across. How does it feel, she wonders, to play against an opponent, where the only deadly strikes are against their spirit?

'Show me,' she says, beckoning with an impatient snap of her fingers. She tries to ignore the way Pouf flinches; so what if it was something she picked up from watching human teenagers play in the streets?

'Very well,' Pouf says after a moment, the clinking of the pieces being the only thing to betray the begrudging movements of his hands. 'I believe the counters are arranged in a manner like so...'


Author's Note: Oh Pouf. It seems you are doomed to repeat your mistakes.