Not my greatest chapter, but I was determined not to miss my writing anniversary even if it does fall during midterms. I do love living within walking distance of a store that sells donuts, first thing this morning I headed to the store for long johns, I think those are pretty my official anniversary food.

It's hard to believe how much my life has changed in the last year, from living with my grandparents in town to having my own apartment on the edge of a National Forest and other than the math I'm loving college. And to think when I started writing this story I thought going to college would be impossible for me and now I'm an archaeology major and even on the Dean's list.


The next few months passed by without any major incidents, although a new exterminator had shown up in the Nickle's nationhood. Doreen had told Ann that anyone who wouldn't pay to have their property treated had been given the chance to enter a contest to win a free treatment. No one who knew about the ants was surprised when everyone who hadn't been willing or able to pay for the extermination won getting it done for free. Before the extermination started a few dozen ants and wasps had retuned with Doreen to search the area to ensure there weren't any other sentient colonies left. A handful of other insects that had been effected by the chemicals in the ground were warned and helped to leave the area, but it seemed Zoc's colony was the last one surviving from the lab. Fred had been against the idea of having chemicals that could kill anything in their yard where the kids played, but Doreen convinced him the kids were old enough they understood to be careful until the correct amount of time had passed and even planted some termites around some wood in their yard to convince him. Everyone hoped that if the entire neighborhood was exterminated at once that the government would stop looking for the ants and, at least for the time being it seemed to have worked.

"Ann, it's time to wake up," Zoc said lightly kissing Ann on the cheek.

"Go away, I could barely sleep last night because of the cramps in my legs," Ann said pulling her pillow over her head.

"But we need to get read to leave," Zoc said pulling the blankets off of Ann and beginning to gently massage her legs.

"I'm too fat to go out, none of my clothes fit," Ann complained.

"Well that shouldn't be a problem, you've gotten quite good at magically adjusting your clothes," Zoc said then rested both hands on her round belly, kissed it then added, "and you are not fat, you are gorgeously pregnant."

"I still don't want to get out of bed," Ann replied.

"Are you sure? Don't you remember what today is?" Zoc asked.

Realization hit Ann and she finally pulled the pillow off of her face, "What if we find out something's wrong, what if it's horribly deformed or-"

Zoc pressed a finger to her lips, "I'm sure everything will be fine," he reassured her.

"But what if it's not, Mary said the heart beat didn't sound quite right," Ann replied.

"She also said it could just be because she's not use to the sound of an ant's heart. Everything will okay, and even if it's not, waiting to find out won't make any difference and once we do find out that everything is alright then we can stop worrying so much," Zoc pointed out.

A little while later they arrived at Mary's clinic where Mary was already waiting to let them in.

"Are you sure this is safe?" Zoc asked.

"Its six a.m. no one else comes in until eight, it'll be fine. This is just something I can't come to your house to do, but everything will be fine," Mary assured him as she led them into a room.

A few minutes later Mary had coated Ann's belly with gel and Ann was holding tightly to Zoc's hand, all of them feeling a mix of excitement, but also fear about what they would see.

"I'm sure everything will be fine," Mary said giving them a reassuring smile, then pressed the wand to Ann's belly.

Her smile faded when what appeared on the screen looked like a shapeless blob with too many limbs, even for an ant.

"It's bad, isn't it?" Ann asked fighting back tears.

"Just hold on, give me a second," Mary said as she moved the wand, as the angle changed the blob split in two and she let out a relieved sigh then smiled, "It's not bad, it's twins, one was in front of the other," she told them.

"Twins?" Ann asked trying to hide the chill of fear that ran through her. In every nightmare she had had about the government taking her again she had always had twins.

"Yep, see one here looks like it's basic body shape will be human and the other looks more ant, definitely twins and definitely not identical," Mary said.

"Do they look healthy?" Zoc asked.

"Yes, they both have good strong heartbeats, I'm not exactly an expert on mutant ant anatomy yet, but from what I have learned, I'd say all the organs and stuff are developing normally," Mary replied.

When they got home Zoc said, "Why don't you rest while I get us a proper breakfast."

"Really? It's not even eight a.m. and you're already telling me to rest?" Ann said irritably.

Zoc rested his hands on her shoulders and said, "I'm not trying to be annoying and baby you. You did say you hadn't slept well last night."

Ann sighed, "I guess you're right, I just feel so helpless and useless with trying to take it easy all the time."

"I know, but you're not helpless and you're certainly not useless, you're taking care of our babies. Their very lives depend on you, I'd call that as far from useless as you can get."

Ann smiled, "You really are the most wonderful man on earth," she said kissing him before settling herself on the couch with one of the diaries.

December 25, 1831

Papa gave George and I a house for Christmas, it's entirely too big and fancy for the frontier, but papa loves to design and build fancy houses especially when he can use magic to build them. He says out here no one will know how long it took him to build it and it's well hidden in the forest, so no one will see it for a long time. It's not like we get any visitors out here and I do love it, it's fancier than any house I've ever seen before, it even has a balcony off the bedroom for watching the sunrise.

January 1, 1832

A new year and new neighbors, they showed up last night in the middle of a blizzard and asked if they could take shelter in our barn. Well no one travels west in winter so George was suspicious of them, sometimes I forget he can't sense the presence of others of my kind. Much like my own family they were accused of witchcraft, they had planned to try to hold out until spring, but their home was burned, so they headed out in the late fall hoping that their magic would be enough to get them through. They hadn't expected to run into anyone else of our kind, but now Mr. Orr says if we don't mind they'll settle nearby. Of course we're all thrilled to have neighbors whom we don't have to hide our true identities from.

Ann set the diary down, she had heard the name Orr before, she was sure of it. A second later she flew off of the couch when she realized where she had heard it and she rushed into the library.

"That was a short rest, is everything alright?" Zoc asked.

"Yeah, I just may have found something that explains a whole lot if I'm right," Ann replied as she pulled the book containing the government files out and started flipping through them, then said, "I was right, I mean I'll have to find out the first names from the diary and trace the family tree, but I think I know why you have magic and most of the other ants don't."

"You found something in those old diaries that connects to the lab?" Zoc asked in disbelief.

"I think so. You know when they created your ancestors they combined human and ant DNA using the mutagenic chemical to stabilize it. They got the DNA from several different humans and one of the humans they got it from was named John Orr and back in the 1830s there was a family of dragons in the area with the last name Orr. Its very possible that the reason you and so many members of your family were able to use magic is because some of that dragon DNA got passed along with the human DNA," Ann told him as she grabbed her genealogy bag, wrote down a few notes in her notebook then left the room.

Zoc darted ahead of her and snatched her shoes away before she could get to them and held them away from her.

"Zoc, give me my shoes," she told him trying to grab the shoes.

"One, you haven't had breakfast and you're supporting three people now, you need to eat. And two the library and court house don't even open for another hour," he pointed out.

Ann crossed her arms stubbornly, "Oh fine be logical about it," she said jokingly then kissed him on the cheek before walking back into the library to look at her own local history books.