Work Text:
The moment Mizi's mother has finally passed out from bloodloss (and shortly after died, though already having been presumed dead by anyone that could successfully identify she was a human to begin with), was the moment Mizi became alone. Since then it was debatable whether she truly ever not been.
"Mother" transformed into a title used to refer to a pink and hazy segyein made out of what Mizi could only assume to be layers and layers of soft and silky fabrics. Mother and her entourage put her in tank and endlessly tapped on the glass, which only mildly frightened her. They never got bored of her little reactions to things: a tasty meal, "The way she opens her mouth is so cute! Look at her chew!", a passing jellyfish, "That's not food, sweetheart. Silly thing.", some sort of other creature, definitenly not just in passing, "Oh dear, it's stuck to her head. I think she's crying- the way she pouts is adorable! Huh, is that blood?"
In small children, boredom tends to arrive quickly, frequently and easily- even in a child like Mizi, who had many pink drapey things fussing over her at any given moment. At first she would get overwhelmed and burst into tears. No one took any notice- that is to say, everyone noticed how cute it was, but no one bothered to think why, or whether they should get her to stop. Once she got used to it, her days spent with Mother&Co ranged from mildly annoying to painfully dull. They'd occasionally leave her to her own devices, and those were the moments when she remembered something kinder, more human, and much too complicated for her to understand why it made her heart beat so violently.
Mizi began to have massive reactions to the smallest things. At first her tantrums were just loud, but somehow they tuned her out. Then she tried to pester them by gently tugging their tassles. This slowly escalated to furiously thumping her tiny, fat fists into their plump petticoats. They didn't seem to feel that, either. In her frustration, she turned her rage inwards and began to hurt herself. Once she helf her breath as long as she could, and the funny colour she turned made them giggle.
At this point the vague idea they were doing something wrong in regards to keeping a pet human graced one of their minds, and they proposed buying her a tv. That was the first time she'd seen another person since she became alone. Despite every round ending in a participant getting brutally shot, Mizi idolized them in their ornate outfits and with their harmonious vibrato. The possibility of someone seeing her instead of watching her was just too enticing for a lonely little child with literally nothing else to think about. The way she desparately pointed at the tv and failed to articulate herself correctly was too cute to ignore.
The first thing Mizi noticed about Anakt was how small everyone was. It took her some time to realise they, and her, would have to grow for several years before they could fulfill her dream of singing together on stage. That dream didn't matter so much now that she was already surrounded by people. Some kids were talkative and pushy, clearly having grown up with other pets. Many were quiet, shy or strange; saddeningly unsure of how to greet eachother. Mizi realised she fell into the latter category, so she steeled herself and began imitating how her idols acted in those interviews- all polite and smiley.
First she approached the talkative kids and let them take the lead. They all seemed to like her, and eventually they drew in a few quiet kids too, and before she knew it she'd smoothly slotted herself into the social hierarchy. At this point she decided to help out some of the quiet kids, and her eye caught on a little girl with short black hair. When she tapped her on the back and met her with a friendly "Hi, I'm Mizi! What's your name?", the deer-in-the-headlights looks she recieved was enough to convince her that this girl was just as cute as she was.
She made a few more friends. An incredibly shy boy who turned beet red around her. She could tell he thought she was cute, but he wasn't overbearing like Mother&Co and she appreciated that. Again, she wanted him to know her before liking her, but every attempt she made was met with a shy flusteredness that she couldn't wrangle, so she gave up on Till.
There was also his rather stoic stalker, Ivan. At first she couldn't make heads or tails on him. Most people were scared away by his eerie staring habit. The signs of someone who liked looking at but not seeing Mizi were vacant in him- in fact, all he did was see, albeit in a cold, analytical and dissecting way. Eventually he learned how to smile and talk nicely to others, at which point he was upgraded from "friend" to "good friend."
Sua was her favourite from the beginning. They forged a deep bond thanks to their mutual understanding of the isolation unique to them. They made sure to know eachother primarily, although Mizi privately chided herself for occasionally looking at her too.
That was why Sua's remark was so devastating:
"Must be nice."
The entire bond made up of their mutual understanding fractured, because suddenly she misunderstood. Suddenly the pain of that loneliness, that true loneliness that had haunted her like a suffocating tumour since her true mother's death, returned. The immediate, visceral pain shot through her throat, leaving her speechless, then surged down to her fingertips.
When Sua replied to the slap with gentle touch, the hypocrisy to sunk in. It felt like a mutual betrayal but that mutuality reconnected them. The hugged and made up, because it didn't matter if neither truly forgave the other; there was no one else to return to.