Reina's first word is "no."
It's her only word, actually. It's the answer to every question and command—Reina, come over here; Reina, are you hungry?—and even to the things that don't merit a response, the random objects and sounds that catch her attention; she refuses the birds outside the window and the carpet on the floor and the very air that flows through her lungs. She denies the tallness of the chairs and the warmness of the offered milk, the fresh smell of rain and the rhythm of her heartbeat.
Sometimes, she just stares at the bedroom wall with a low, guttural noooooo riding out on her breath, and when Colt tries to move her, it hitches up into an ear-splitting shriek that simply refuses to stop. Even after her voice gives out, the wrathful hiss of air persists until she falls asleep.
It is only then that Reina is peaceful, and Colt can hold her the way that he wants. Curled into a petite bundle, she fits so perfectly in his arms, so warm and yielding against his chitin. She buries her head in his elbow's nook, and the no that slips past her lips is but the wispy sigh of a sleeping child.
Only two more months before she reaches adulthood, the scientists estimate.
Two months left: This time, she watches a cluster of butterflies; Colt has painted the wall with a garden scene so she at least wouldn't be staring at nothing at all.
"Reina," he quietly entreats. "Don't you want to do something else?"
"No," is her monotone reply.
"Not even for a sandwich?"
This makes her turn. "…Okay."
"You have to tell me about some of the pictures on the wall," he instructs. This is what he's been told by every wet nurse, psychologist, and pediatrician: make the education a game. Children like games.
"Uh…"
"What's the one in front of you?"
"Butterflies."
"And to the right?"
"A flower."
"Do you know what kind?"
She glares at the tulip with mounting frustration. "…No!" she finally bites out, angry tears building at the corners of her eyes.
"Shhhh, Reina," he anxiously hushes. "It's just a tulip, alright? A tulip shouldn't make you cry. You can still have your sandwich."
She ducks the hand that makes to wipe away her tears, however.
"Kite wouldn't care if I knew a dumb flower."
Colt blinks.
It was undeniably a milestone, one so long overdue he'd come to doubt when it was even supposed to occur. It was the first full sentence she'd ever uttered, the first concrete opinion ever put into words, and the first statement made not as a direct response to provocation from someone or something else. At long last, she was speaking like a person, like a chimera ant with all the makings of a person. Colt had concluded that more things would have to change in her strange condition before she could make such strides, but this linguistic maturity had apparently already been developed—simply walled up behind the name of Kite. And it would've been cause for celebration if not for the question that stood in the way.
"…Who?" he asks, his beakish mouth curving into a frown. Besides Colt, she has only met the doctors who survey her growth, and Kite is not a name among their roster.
"He wouldn't care about a bunch of names," she hiccups. "H-he wouldn't care at all!"
Still in awe at her sudden verbosity, he puts forth once more, "Who's Kite?"—but she won't look up from her feet. Colt kneels down to her height and waits for her to peek at him. "Hey. Reina. Who is Kite?"
She slowly raises her chubby hand, extends a short index finger, and points it at herself.
"You're Kite?" he asks and tries to smile. "I thought you were Reina."
She freezes up, eyes wide with some strange emotion, and then shakes her head so furiously that her ponytail comes loose, and a few stray hairs get stuck in the tracks of snot running out her nose. He reaches out to her once more, but she shrinks away from his touch.
One month and three weeks left: Dr. Takeshi has decided that Kite is an imaginary friend: a mental construct made to keep her company. The reason she points at herself could be because she simply has nowhere else to point; or perhaps it's because she, on some level, knows that Kite isn't real—that he emanates from her own mind, existing only as a part of herself. Colt's human memories do not include experience with this concept, but he comes to believe that the latter explanation is true.
In any case, she is attached to Kite. Far more so to him than to Colt.
"Kite said I don't have to listen to you," Reina asserts as she stands her ground against the encroaching towel. Kite is whatever she wants him to be, filling whatever role she wants filled. But of course, under Kite lies Reina's own disjointed shadow. By Kite, she means herself; she is the one who says she doesn't have to listen. It is easier, perhaps, for her to exist through the buffer of Kite's name. All Colt sees is a crutch, one that he hopes she outgrows soon.
"Well, Kite should know that all big girls need baths."
And yet, in the invocation of Kite, always does she become more real, somehow. More present. More hateful. More variably responsive—and, strangely enough, more understandable.
"I'm not 'a big girl,'" she growls, seething at the perceived condescension. "And I don't need a bath!"
Like Kite was a lens through which she could focus all the distant, abstracted fragments of her restless soul.
"You're a little smelly," Colt patiently contends. He drapes the towel over the back of an armchair, rethinking his plan to catch her in it. "Reina. It's gonna get cold."
"No," she protests as she backs up from him. "No—!"
"Reina!" Colt yelps as he rushes to her fallen side, having tripped over a stuffed giraffe. Reina clutches at the back of her head, a snarl of pain engraved on her face, but she still dodges his hand when he tries to help her up. Always, she has hated to be touched.
"Damn," she curses through her wince. "Goddamn."
And Colt's train of thought screeches to a halt. From the dozens of parenting books he's read, he knows he should take her aside to explain why swearing was wrong, but the more he sees the pages fly through his mind's eye, the less it all adds up. She's almost done gathering herself up off the floor when he finally asks, "Where did you hear that word?"
Reina freezes, almost as if she realized her mistake. "U-um," she stutters, caught in a rare state of uncertainty. Their gazes stay interlocked through the awkward silence, right up until the moment she forgets her hesitation.
"Kite said I don't have to tell you anything!"
Through the concept of Kite, Reina more fully comes into herself.
This is not beyond what Colt is willing to accept.
One month, two weeks, and six days left: "Who do you take us for? Of course we haven't been swearing around her," Dr. Takeshi assures.
One month and two weeks left: Reina doesn't get out of bed no matter what he offers or how much he prods. Her face stays buried in her frilly pillows, coral-red hair splayed out over her profile, and she flinches violently when he turns on the light.
Dr. Fikayo declares it a migraine as he clicks through a slideshow of MRI scans: monochrome slices of brain whose smooth, floral contours betrayed none of the chimera ant's crude stitchwork—at least, so it seemed to Colt's uneducated eye. A simple migraine, something that lots of people deal with sometimes.
"She wasn't crying, at least," Colt cautiously observes.
"Of course not. She passed out from the pain," Fikayo explains, and all of Colt's nerves are on fire.
"How do we make her better?" Colt questions perhaps a little too forcefully, because Fikayo cocks an eyebrow at him.
"Easy, there, tiger," he drawls. "It's most likely just a growing pain. Some parts of her brain are under strain from how fast other parts are developing, but they'll all catch up in time. Give her a day of bedrest and plenty of water, and then we'll see about prescribing some medication."
But one day later, Reina's still huddled in bed. Colt uses his sudden excess of quiet time to read up on migraines and other neurological missteps—cluster headache suicide statistics—aneurysms and tumors and strokes.
Kite, Colt hears her murmur, once, and despite knowing that no such man exists, he prays for Kite to comfort her.
One month, one week, and five days left: "Seems like she's fine, now," Dr. Fikayo concludes. "What did I tell you? Just a growing pain."
Colt nods along, but something doesn't feel right.
One month and one week left: Reina isn't sleeping. She doesn't acknowledge it, but the bags under her eyes are a deep purple, and she zones out of conversations even more often than usual. Naturally, she refuses all attempts at discussion and turns her nose at any medication she's offered. He tries to spike her food, once, but she smells the change and throws the plate at his face.
But then, one night, Reina has an inexplicable change of heart: she creeps out of her room, pads over to Colt's side, and gently shakes his shoulder.
"Colt?" Reina whispers furtively. He's up in an instant, equal parts eager and alarmed. This is the first time she's ever come to him for anything.
"What is it?"
Her tiny throat bobs around a quiet gulp, eyes downcast and watery. "Can you… can you make him go away?" she asks in a small, small voice, and Colt's hands twitch with the urge to take her into his arms.
He does not, because he is mostly human, and he is able to learn.
"Who's bothering you?" he whispers back. "Tell me what's wrong."
"Kite," she whimpers. "He won't leave me alone."
Relief and helplessness, a bad taste in his mouth. "Reina…"
"He's just so big, so everywhere—and, a-and every time I see him, he gets a little bit closer. And he just stands there, watching me; he doesn't have eyes, but I know he sees me. Just stands there, watching, following closer and closer, and I—" Her voice cracks into a dry, throaty sob. "I just want it to stop."
"Sweetheart," Colt tries so hard to explain. "He's not real. A part of your imagination. It's all in your head."
"No," she begs, grabbing frantic handfuls of her pajama pants. "I'm not lying; he's real! He's here! And you h-have to help me, please…!"
"Reina, there's nothing I can do for that," he weakly pleads.
She runs back to her room.
One month and six days left: "I'M KITE," she screams, she sobs, she wails. "I'M-KITE-I'M-KITE-I'M-KITE-I'M-KITE—"
One month and five days left: Is she hallucinating?
"It doesn't seem like schizophrenia. Even so, I'm not sure how she'd react to antipsychotics," says Dr. Takeshi.
Could she be remembering her past life?
"The only reason some ants can do that is because human brain matter was cobbled into theirs. Reina had a live birth as a fetus, did she not? So her brain grew on its own, without anybody else adding to it," says Dr. Fikayo.
One month and four days left: Morel garbles out something over the phone—a winded, confusing explanation that seemed to suggest that Reina was, in fact, a twenty-eight-year-old man named Kite.
This time, Colt is the one who hangs up.
One month and three days left: "Reina—"
"Kite," she stubbornly corrects from behind the bathroom door.
"Reina," he repeats; historically, Colt has always played her games, but this was one he refused to entertain. "You have to come out at some point."
"Why should I? You want 'Reeeeeeina,' but this is Kite."
Colt curls his talons against the wall. "Does it matter?"
There's a period of silence before the door cracks open and a purple eye glares suspiciously through the gap. Then, with a startling lack of fanfare, she throws the door open and strolls out without a care in the world. "Of course it does," she scoffs from over her shoulder, haughty in the feckless way of little girls. "Figures that you wouldn't get it."
She takes off for the parlor down the hall, where all her toys lie strewn about.
"Reina is a beautiful name," Colt whispers. It was so quiet that he was sure she wouldn't hear, but then she stops to look back at him.
And what she sees must be noteworthy, because no words come out of her open mouth. Her own face gains an uneasy air of both revelation and incomprehension, as if met with something totally new. It's a guarded, careful regard, and for once, she does not argue.
One month and two days left: "Do you want to go for a blimp ride, Reina?" Colt asks.
She takes a breath and purses her lips.
"Sure."
(There's a curious space of pliancy that follows hesitation born of uncertainty. In the momentary absence of any stronger characteristic, one might interpret it as kindness.)
One month and one day left: She has come to learn remarkably fast, so fast it's like she's simply remembering the material. Regardless, Colt makes the perfunctory stops at all the major tenets of a good education.
She's a growing chimera ant. Of course she learns quickly. This is nothing Colt wouldn't expect from her.
"It's time to practice your math. Estimations, this time."
Surprisingly, Reina almost always plays along. She doesn't enjoy it—she doesn't enjoy anything—but it seems she has come to grimly regard it as necessary, this almost-remembering.
"Fine, but I want a turkey sandwich," Reina proclaims as she makes her way to the table. She no longer needs any help to get into the chair; physically, she resembles a human eight-year-old.
Colt simply does what he is told, gathering the ingredients from the kitchen and bringing them to her for assembly—a favorite task of hers, for some odd reason, to put together her meals.
So Reina makes and eats her sandwich, but after Colt returns from washing the plate, he finds her looking down at her tail, a hand clenched around it.
"Why do I have this stupid thing?" she questions.
Colt chooses his words carefully.
"You're a chimera ant, remember? Which means—"
"I hate it," she viciously spits. "It's awful."
Colt doesn't know how to respond to that, so he says nothing. At the sight of his indecision, her eyes narrow with a frightful daring—
—and she swings a carving knife down at the length of her tail.
All he can do is shout her name as he darts toward her. He presses his claws against the wound; the blueish blood is so wet on his talons, spilling down his front, spurting everywhere so disturbingly fast. Reina stares in awe at her mess and raises the knife for another chop, but Colt tears it out of her hand before she brings the blade down. And that's when she realizes their situation.
"No, get off me—NO—NO!" she shrieks, blue-faced with fury. Colt simply hoists her up against his chest with one arm, still holding the gash with his other, and stumbles toward the phone. She puts up the best fight she can muster, kicking and thrashing every step of the way, but Colt has no trouble handling it; he has carried humans far more resistant than she.
One month left: Fikayo stitches her up, and… that's it. Colt had expected her to be assigned 24-hour surveillance, at the very least, but the Hunter Association couldn't be bothered to regard more than the bare minimum of the late Chairman's provisions: amnesty, sanctuary, and basic healthcare. Reina is Colt's project alone.
Four weeks left: He catches her ripping out chunks of her hair.
Three weeks left: She tries to jump out the fourth-story window.
Two weeks left: For the first time ever, Reina emerges from her bedroom at six in the morning—an unheard-of earliness—which is the first thing Colt notices. The second is the stillness of her face, a half-lidded deadness rooted in her formerly emotive features, like a corpse unwillingly brought to life. She walks past him into the kitchen and pours herself a bowl of cereal, not looking up at him once.
"...Reina?"
She shakes her head while she chews but still doesn't address him, her focus unbroken from the cereal. A few minutes later, she swallows the last spoonful and mutters, "Enough of this, Colt."
And yet he must try. "You're confused. You're confused, and you're sick, but that's okay. We can work on it."
She pushes her chair back, stands up, and finally meets his eyes; her eyes are cold, cold with a depthless apathy, uncanny in the shadow of their previous character. All her lively obstinance, that violent insecurity, the self-destructive flights of fancy—disappeared?
"I don't expect you to understand," she tells him, and Colt doesn't want to ponder as to what she means by that. So stony, her face. So distantly merciless, a savagery toeing the edge of spite but not quite over the line. Cruel, but only carelessly.
"I can learn," he claims, because he still has two weeks left. It's okay if things are wrong at the moment, because he still has time to make it right.
"Doesn't matter. I'm done, here," she replies. "And you're no longer useful to me."
"Reina," he begs. "Please."
"No," she says, walking out the door.
And the dream ends just like that.