Chapter 50: Understanding
Colt X Reader
Genre: Identity Crises
Requested by: Irene
I had been reading the files of the last survivors of the Chimera Ants species for some times now. With chairman gone and everything in chaos, this was the only instructed work which I could follow. There is a saying, you don't value your teeth until you realise they aren't there anymore. Same thing with Order: everything seems fine until everything is not fine. My late night session had been extending for quite some days now, because there was one file I couldn't put down. As a human, the entitled supreme specie walking on earth, it is almost frightening to see something as close as us. Strength does not bother us; we are physically weak to many creatures, but what we triumph about is our intelligence. When it is at par with something which is not remotely human, it creates a vortex of fear inside the hard-wired pride of us. The file I couldn't put down wasn't someone who was highly ranked like Pitou or Meruem. He is one of the foot soldiers, loyal to the Ant-queen till the end, and one of the first to turn to the humans.
Colt.
And the scariest part of him was his more than human conscience.
So I decided to visit the facility at the very next day, unable to kill my curiosity.
When I walked into their bunker, I almost expected a restraining padded cell all around, and him sitting at a corner, resentful and withdrawn. But the scenario was entirely different when I opened the door. I was grateful that my association did not treated them as test-subjects, like they do with most things, and a pang of sadness spread through my soul for the Chairman displaying his last graceful empathy towards them.
'Hello Colt...' I greeted him softly as he tore his sharp eyes from the glass window towards me. He stood up from the sofa and bowed slightly as a sign of acknowledgement. 'How are you holding up?' I asked. 'Better, because no one forces me to do anything against my will.' He answered softly, gesturing me to sit down beside him, 'it is still confining. Living in a room all the time, but... the humans around here are good. They... aren't hostile, if that's what you mean.'
'That is not what I meant...' I smiled at him, 'they are not foolish, they know who needs a little hostility, and you are not one of them.' I assured him.'Then what makes this a social visit?' He asked cautiously, 'I am not sure I am fit for human company anymore...' I could feel his voice retreating, and I didn't stop him. I need to hear him out, I felt a burning urge to understand everything that comes out of his mind. I could hear pain and isolation, a decaying of hope, and something which made him more far away from being human than what I expected him to be.
'What makes you say that? That you are not fit for human company anymore?' I asked, and he slowly glanced out the window, staring out at the setting sun, as if it was dying with all the remaining hope inside him.
'I don't know how you humans do it—I mean,' he looked at my way, and tried hard to grasp the words, 'you do have your so-called leaders, but somehow you don't really follow them. What I have understood about you that you have everything we have—in fact a lot less than we have, yet, you don't feel the need to be...' his eyes narrowed in confusion and loss of expression, and my voice automatically filled him in...
'Flocked?'
He looked at me with an apprehensive look, I was speaking his mind, and I plucked up the courage, 'no, not all of us feel the need to be flocked. In fact we are—especially Hunters—are quite autonomous, self-reliant. Orders, follow-ups, these things, to privileged people, are choices—not always compulsions. I can only imagine what it is like to be a soldier out of path.'
'You don't say...' he voice broke with a fume of frustration in his heart, 'When the queen was alive, I was so young and so sure. The ambition was the next order; to obey my mother. Some ants walked away, calling on Free Will, but I didn't understand it, even a little bit—what is life without being bound to something you love and respect so dearly...' Colt's eyes moistened, 'we should be able to protect the weak and cherish what is ours... don't we? And I didn't find it necessarily after the King arrived... certainly not with you.'
'Maybe you don't understand half the things you see...' I said discursively, 'you see things as purely black or white... the human world, the real world is not like that. It is not always order and obedience or subversion and emersion, or dominance or submission— nor is it good or evil. Things are...'
'Complicated?' he mumbled quietly.
'Yes... things are complicated—and flawed—and faulty—and ruined and rotten.' I said with such a disgust that I didn't know I had, 'but they have a possibility to change, to morph into something so very special that you won't know that it was... complicated' I got up on my feet and reached down to my bag and pulled out a file.
'This is-' he asked hesitantly, 'is that what I think it is?'
'Yes... I am afraid so.' I said quietly 'I couldn't think of anyone else. You may not agree, or hate to agree, but you do share many similarities of characters...' I said softly, and he looked at me with disbelief 'I cannot fathom something like that. I know we had our differences, but I certainly will not be compared with that boorish brute that leaves his mother right after he mortally wounds her. I would never hurt my queen-'
'That was his animal instinct Colt...' I said, 'I was referring to both of your minds...'
'Our minds?' he asked.
'Yes... you both are curious, inquisitive and confused. But at the same time your intelligence, your perception makes you almost... philosophical.' I added, and called a valet to fetch me some books, which of course, I had not had with me. I had handed him very specific books, which might help to clear his confusion, and I left him there with a polite goodbye.
...
The conversation which halted abruptly at that time, was already been bothering my mind to be rejuvenated. When I repaid him another visit, I found him immersed in the world of knowledge and information that might soothe his aching.
'Hello Colt—am I interrupting something?' I replied defensively when he did not return my greetings.
'No actually... _, your timing is impeccable.' Colt rose from his reading table and beckoned me to sit beside him. 'I wanted you to ask something, but I didn't know when you will come, so I have-' Colt went about rummaging around to room, and came with some heavy books with numerous bookmarks.
'I see you've been busy...' I added amusedly.
'Yes, yes—about that...' he flung open an illustrated edition of Jerome's Bible and pointed out at St. Michael's picture, banishing Lucifer to hell.
'What kind of creature is this?' he asked curiously, 'he seems to have wings like mine, and yet he looks like you... and the creature in his feet, seems to have inflamed skin, like some of us in the nest... If they are like us, then they must be new in the evolution scale, and yet, the author states it was Before Creation...What is Creation? What book is this? It makes no sense!'
I laughed out loud at his words, and he seemed to be thoroughly offended by this.
'What's so funny _? I asked you a question, not to be ridiculed thus!'
I stopped my laughing after a while, and only a smile remained. His questions were exactly like mine when I was younger. The first time I saw the Bible, I asked all sorts of questions: to my dad, teachers and then sneaking into the church, the Father. I assuringly answered him, 'Colt, they are not creatures. They are a mythical being called Angels. He... ' I pointed at Michael 'is the firstborn of God. God-' I rummaged to explain him religion 'is something—pardon, someone, whom many humans believe, have created everything. You know, when men didn't know anything about life, like you were few weeks ago, they started to imagine how things were created. They saw something and imagined something else residing in it-'
'Oh... like symbolism?'
'Yes... and God was the supreme symbol of light and creation. The first thing he created was him: Saint Michael.'
'What about the other one...' Colt pointed, 'the red one.'
'Oh he...' I went on explaining 'he was Michael's little brother, Lucifer. Their names meant: Godlike and Lightborn.' I told him as he listened to me captivatingly, 'in Bible, they represent the Good and the Evil, like you understood the world, Michael is the good son, who obeyed God to banish Lucifer in a place called Hell—which I will explain later—and Lucifer was banished for not obeying his father when God said he should love humans.'
Colt's forehead curled up in confusion, and I called him out 'what's the matter? You don't understand?'
'I do actually... and it's kind of scary the way I understand.' He mumbled quietly, 'When you are like angels... superior in power and stature, it is hard to love or even acknowledge something lower than you... If God said pet humans, then perhaps Lucifer—or whatever he is—wouldn't have been brutalised by his brother.'
His thought threw me in a deep confusion, he started to question things even I didn't think about it, until now, so guessing the obvious I asked, 'do you find yourself in them?'
'I don't think I find myself anywhere...' he asked, 'Michael won... didn't he? And Lucifer... Lucifer was defeated, and punished... but then why-' I now understand what he was trying to say, to him, his "God" was his Mother, the Ant Queen. He was the good son, and the Ant King was Lucifer. He was trying to relate himself to gospels, which many people take up blindly without question. He wasn't searching for answer, or looking for Faith. He was asking the very reason for his life.
'Maybe the way you understand them is the reality of Faith.' I said, 'it is okay to be confused. Most people don't find these kinds of answers all their lives and they live with it. Sometimes not knowing things is the preparation for the later understandings in life.' I added, 'but I want to tell you something Colt, that no matter how isolated you think you are, you are never alone. Even if you are, then it is for a reason.' I said with a firmness of belief.
'What is that?' he asked quietly, 'because I do not know where to start-'
'Colt...' I quietly rolled the single syllable in my tongue, 'you are named after a man who was famous for making Guns. Samuel Colt.' I said in a storytelling manner, 'great man he was, a genius, a craftsman, a golden heart, and yes... terribly, terribly alone. ' I added, 'and yes, despite his isolation and perpetually dangerous job, he left a mark which still benefits us today. Guns kill people, yes... but they never do until the person behind it pulls the trigger. You, Colt remind me of a Gun. You feel that you need to be pupated, commanded, subordinated, but that's not your reality anymore.' I grabbed his shoulder and gradually stroked the back of his wings, gently and soothingly, 'you are free now, and to many people, it is only a dream. This is the thing you should cherish.'
With my words, his wide eyes glistened with moisture and turned into pearls that rolled down his cheeks. For a moment I thought I was not seeing a creature last of its kind, but a human. I gently wiped his tears away and he looked at me with eyes full of wonder.
'You are good_.'
I was feeling a bit emotional at 29th September AKA Catholic St. Michael's Day (which I ironically don't celebrate).because this is my half-century in this series, I thought why not do something which I never done before? If any Catholics are out there, please read and review and let me know how I handled it.
Obviously, I support all the religions out there, but as I said, I was feeling a bit emotional.
I liked writing this, and I borrowed a lot of ideas from a particular show I am watching now, Supernatural. Colt's inquisitive mind was a mix of Meruem and Castiel (an Angel from the said show.)
Inspired by: St. Michael's Day.
R&R&R
