Queen Fina (3/3)
Several hours later, the fake Ant wakes up, stretches, and looks at the girl whose face "she" had stolen. With an apartheid look on her face, the fake Ant grabs the little child by the wrist and drags her across the ground.
Little Fina's face is pushed into the dirty ground as she's dragged across the floor, yet she doesn't wake up. Helpless and limp, she's pulled into the endless Void to join the faceless stranger.
The moment little Fina's body completely leaves her soul Realm and disappears into the blackness, her soul Realm goes completely dark and disappears forever…
… and another pair of bronze eyes joins the numberless host.
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"Where's Fina?" a mature Ant woman with red hair calls out frantically. "I saw her go to bed. MOTHER! MOTHER!"
"What're you calling mother for?" one of the other Ants asks as she rounds a corner with a basket in hand.
"Fina's missing! Her room is empty!" the red hair woman nearly screams in a panic.
"Who's Fina?"
"Fina?" the red haired Ant pauses. "Who's Fina again?"
"That's why you should stop drinking every night," the other Ant laughs.
"Haha, you're right," the red haired woman smiles awkwardly. "I must've had a bad dream or something."
After the two Ants leave each other, they both forget they even had this conversation.
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-Queen's POV-
Just as the Queen sees her younger self be pulled into the Void, her Name's vision suddenly falters and goes dark. Either there is nothing to see in the Void, or she subconsciously doesn't want to remember what happened next.
Seeing her vision about to end, the Queen thinks to herself, "NO! I'm this close to getting another name. I HAVE to look!"
She then stares deep into the black abyss and tries to remember…
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-Fina's POV-
They say that having your soul rent once is the most painful thing an intelligent creature can experience.
Deep in the endless abyss, countless voices assault Fina's mind, screaming in chorus things like, "I'm tired! I want the ability to sleep!" "No! I want memories of eating. I seem to have forgotten the taste of meat." "Give me her face! I don't have one of those yet!" "You can't have the face! I've been without one for much longer than you." "At least give me her eyes. They have a pretty color."
The voices are so diverse and chaotic… and much more powerful than her own. They all seem to have conflicting desires, yet all of those desires include taking a piece of HER.
And so, just like that, the little Ant girls' soul is rent in 10 million pieces, and she screams in such complete agony the entire time that the pain doesn't go away until even the ability to think is taken from her.
…For obvious reasons, the little child's memories cut off here; she was, in a literal sense, destroyed completely from the soul.
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One could say that countless years pass in the Void, but Time doesn't exist here, so such a statement is meaningless. The only accurate thing to say is that at some point, several of Fina's Soul fragments find each other, starting with her mind at the center.
Once enough of her consciousness is collected, she seemingly wakes up in the void. She becomes aware of herself, though she has no recollection of her past or identity.
Just like that, Fina (if you could call this "Fina") becomes just another voice in the Void, screaming to be whole again.
Periodically, fresh souls join the numberless host in the Void. Fina herself feels that all of these souls have things that she's missing. "A body? I want one of those. How come the others have eyes, while I'm blind? I want a destiny; I feel so lost without one. I want… I want…"
However, unlike the other fractured souls here, this little Ant girl feels repulsed by the idea of absorbing parts of souls that don't belong to her. "Ew. Is that an old man's soul? I can't imagine wearing HIS face. I want MY face. Wait… what IS my face? Where is it?"
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Picky as she is, Fina's Soul fragment instinctually recognizes pieces of herself… and she's drawn to them. Over and other again, she finds that other entities here have hoarded her fragments for themselves in their own desperate bid to be whole again… and this infuriates Fina. "NO! Those eyes are MINE! GIVE THEM TO ME!"
Alas, none of the other entities here are willing to give up what they have taken.
Eventually, little Fina has a bright idea. She starts joining the others in their periodic hunts, whenever a newcomer joins them in the Void. She joins in with the rest of the ravenous wolves, and she takes some Trait for herself.
She then carries this stolen trait with her and trades it away for something of her own. "You said that you want eyes. Fine. I have a pair of eyes on me more beautiful than mine. You can have them if you want... if you return what I've been asking for."
Needless to say, an eternity may have passed by, but Fina eventually recovers more and more of herself. Soon, she has a discernible face again, and her hair is back to its original color and length. She even has a pair of beautiful hands as well as her original Desire to eat good food.
Still, mostly whole as she is, her soul doesn't look the same anymore. Instead of looking like a whole person, her soul appears to be held together by thin stitches.
With herself being rent in 10 million pieces, some of her fragments were diced too small and damaged too much to really function the same as they used to.
For one, all of her memories have been disconnected, as well as parts of her personality. In fact, most of the 10 million fragments have their own consciousness, weak as they are.
The largest of Fina's Soul fragments is cunning and ruthless, while the kinder and more childishly curious parts are divvied up between the rest.
Of course, in order to protect herself and keep her soul whole, she ends up having to keep certain Traits she's stolen from the "newly initiated" souls for herself, like the ability to hoard an endless amount of mana and the ability to revive the dead.
Without great power, she'd have just been defeated and ripped apart again by other greedy Soul fragments.
Once Fina is somewhat whole again, her soul Realm reforms, and a familiar protective bubble envelops the place.
Fina looks up one last time at the countless bronze eyes as they look at her enviously. All of them had desperately wanted to be whole, yet seeing someone finally achieving this for herself is… painful… and unacceptable to them.
Unfortunately for them, Fina is now a complete and balanced soul. These fragmented and Unwhole entities can't touch her without their Featureless master present.
Alas, that Faceless creature seems to come and go without pattern or thought behind it.
And so, just like that, "Fina" lays on the grey grass as she watches her Soul Realm slowly start to reform around her.
Unlike before, where her soul Realm was a vibrantly alive forest, the trees in her Soul Realm are disheveled looking, and some are even uprooted from the ground and toppled on the floor. It's as if a great storm had swept through the place and wreaked havoc.
Despite her Soul Realm looking like a mess, the little girl looks up at the sky and sees a golden ball.
Out of instinct, the girl reaches up to touch it with longing in her eyes, though she's not quite sure why she wants this.
After all, her soul is in pieces right now – barely being held together with a weak force. Some small fragment of herself remembers why she wants to see the sun, but the other parts are completely oblivious.
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Many years pass by, and the little girl finally figures out how to leave her Soul Realm. Once she does, she finds herself in deep, dark tunnels.
She explores the tunnel network for a while, and she finds remnants of what used to be the clothes, beds, and furnishings left behind by her old Ant tribe.
Sure, one of the millions of Soul Fragments inside her realizes what this place is, but the rest are left to wonder.
Unsure of what this place is, the lone Ant explores the long abandoned tunnels, only to find no exit. For some reason, her instincts tell her that there must be an exit.
She doesn't even get to explore for very long before she starts to feel a pain in her stomach.
"What is this? What is this pain?" The child really has no idea what these feelings are supposed to be. "Maybe I'm feeling painful because I'm lonely… but… What does it mean to be lonely?"
Out of instinct, the little girl uses her Reh Name to try calling on some companions.
Yet… instead of her Ant tribe answering her, she feels the countless Fragments in her soul stir awake and leave her body.
Before her very eyes, the child sees countless identical versions of herself spring from the ground, and they're all looking at her expectantly.
Comically, all of these clones look at each other and start asking, "Who are you?" "What's your Name?" "I'm Fina." "Fina who? What a weird name?"
Then, they all look over at the one who had summoned them, and they all ask telepathically, "What is your name?"
"Name?"
"What should we call you?" they correct.
"…Call me Mother. Yes. I made you all. That means I'm your mother."
One of her fragmented memories speaks up, "If you're our mother, then that must mean you're also our Queen?"
"What's a Queen?"
"Dunno."
Yes. "Queen" sounds good. Let's go with that.
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-Queen's POV-
…The Queen snaps awake from the vision, and she unexpectedly has tears streaming down her face.
All her loyal swarm… "So I never really became a Queen Mother like I always wanted."
Indeed, little Fina had wanted to grow up and become a mother herself… but these millions of Ants can't even be called her children; they're herself!
What's truly agonizing about this vision she's seen is that despite having millions of companions around her, she's still alone.
The Queen abruptly shakes her head of such pointless thoughts. "No. I've gained the memories I have lost before, since Advancing my Reh Name seems to have pulled my soul back together a little tighter."
"Besides knowing all the skills I had forgotten before back when I was 'Fina', like speaking aloud and cultivating my magic, I've learned that I'm not some nameless, unknown creature destined to lurk in the dark. Yes. I have an identity, a name, and a face. I have a tribe, and a destiny to reach the surface and see the sun for myself!"
Indeed, throughout all these wars, the Queen had never seen the surface for herself; she'd always sent her "children" to fight upstairs for her.
"Yes," she thinks, "I may have lost my memory before, but now I know that I'm MEANT to reach the surface bring my swarm to prosperity as its Queen."
The Queen then stands up and goes towards the window looking out of her makeshift throne room, and she looks over the rolling, ashy plains.
"More importantly, I now understand the true extend of my Reh Name."
Looking down at her Ant "children" as they play and dance with each other in the streets, the Queen thinks, "They're not my children. They're me. That means…"