To Atta's relief, her crown was too light to sink.

To Atta's dismay, her throwing arm was stronger than she'd realized.

The crown floated a good ten inches from where she stood on the bank of the puddle. Atta groaned as she assessed her surroundings, hoping to find something long enough to stretch across the water and pull the crown back to her, but the clover trunks were too thick and there weren't any twigs in sight. Did she really have to do this?

That question was answered by the mental picture of her mother's face if she came home with a bare head.

Atta took a deep breath and rose slowly into the air, her very non-waterproof wings buzzing behind her. Okay. This is fine. You can do this. Just fly over, grab the crown and go. Easy. You don't even have to touch the water. She wasn't aware if her comforting words were confined to her mind, but it didn't matter. Everyone in the colony knew about her habit of talking to herself.

She was halfway there when a sudden movement in the corner of her eye caused her heart to leap in her chest. Atta flew a little faster, trying her best to ignore the sense of terror gnawing at her insides. It's fine. You're just being paranoid again. Just get the crown and get out of here.

Her fingertips had just grazed the crown's top when it happened again. This time, there was no denying the movement. Atta watched in frozen fascination as something that looked like a rolled-up tube of grass sticking straight out of the water grew closer… and closer… and closer...

And then she saw a pair of eyes beneath the surface.

Atta didn't even have time to react before she felt water splash over her and saw her crown inches from her nose, gripped by a bright blue hand.

"Didja lose something, Princess?"

The reflex came so naturally it stunned her. Atta's hands flew to her mouth as Flik clutched his nose, repeatedly saying he was sorry even though he was the one who'd just been punched in the face. Boy, was she learning her own strength today.

"Flik!" she squealed, equal parts annoyed and apologetic. "You scared me! What are you doing in there?"

Her victim's voice sounded decidedly more nasally when he spoke. "I'm so sorry, Princess! I just wanted to go for a little swim to test out my latest invention."

Now it was one hundred percent annoyance. "What invention?"

There was unmistakable pride in Flik's voice even as he nursed what was quite possibly a broken nose. "I call it the Underwater Breather," he said, holding up the tube Atta had seen earlier with a flourish.

"That piece of grass lets you breathe underwater?"

"Yeah! Wanna try it?" Flik's eyes lit up as he extended his treasure towards Atta. When she didn't take it right away, his confidence visibly faltered.

"Oh, sorry… guess that's kinda gross, huh?" he said, retracting the tube and absently rubbing the mouthpiece with his palm. "Totally get it, especially with that weird sickness going around the anthill. If you want I can make you a whole new one!"

Atta laughed. "No, no, it's not that. I just prefer to stay up here where it's dry. Not a big fan of water and… wet." She sounded like an idiot.

"Ah, gotcha."

A moment of uncomfortable silence followed, broken only by the gentle swishing of water against Flik's arms as he moved them in circles to stay afloat. Her crown bobbed beside him, and Atta realized with guilt that Flik must have dropped it after her knuckles made contact with his face.

This was the longest conversation Atta could remember having with the odd boy since three seasons ago, when they were assigned to work on a science project together in elementary school. They had gotten along pretty well in the beginning, probably owing to the fact that they were both loners in their own rights: a shy queen-in-training who spent a lot of time with her royal tutor and a geeky kid who spent a lot of time doing weird, dangerous things by himself. Atta had even thought maybe they could stay friends after the project was over.

However, when the school science fair ended with an emergency evacuation thanks to the secret ingredient Flik had added to their baby fungi when his partner wasn't looking ("It was supposed to make them grow faster, not explode!"), any desire Atta had of maintaining their friendship vanished. The evacuation was kind of funny, but the failing grade was not.

And the lecture she received from Mr. Cornelius the next day was really not. The memory alone was enough to make Atta's face burn even now. "How can you expect the colony to have any respect for you as a queen if they can only think of you as the princess who almost killed them with mushrooms?"

"Um… Princess? Do you want this back?"

Atta was snapped back to the present by the sight of a soggy crown waving back and forth before her face.

"Oh… yes, thank you," she sighed, taking it from Flik's hand and giving it a few good shakes. Tiny droplets flew off, making ripples in the water. "Mother would've killed me if I lost another one."

Flik cocked his head. "How'd it end up here in the first place, anyway?"

"I, um… I threw it."

"Oh."

Another pause.

"Bad day in princess school?"

Atta started at the question. She'd forgotten how bold her former partner could be. And not in a rude way. More in a completely-lacking-social-skills way. Her first instinct was to paste on a queenly smile and sarcastically deny the idea that there could be anything less than delightful about being yelled at by a stooped old man for three hours straight, but then she saw the genuine worry in Flik's eyes and felt a lump rise in her throat.

"You could say that," she whispered instead. Tears sprang to her eyes and she quickly turned her face to scrub them away. She wouldn't give Mr. Cornelius the satisfaction of making her cry twice in one day, especially in front of another ant her age. Even a weird one like Flik.

It grew quiet again, which seemed like as good a time as any for Atta to make her exit and spare what dignity she had left.

And then Flik's voice piped up. "Do you want to talk about it on dry land?"