Important note for my readers: FF has been spotty lately, so if at some point this website becomes inaccessible, Lost and Found along with several of my other stories are also posted to ao3 under the username Nomadimouse :)
Carry on!
- fbw
Before this moment, Flik hadn't even known the anthill had a library.
The official name of the place where he found himself standing was 'The Royal Archives,' according to Atta's terminology. But in his mind, any room whose contents consisted primarily of books qualified as a library.
And this room perfectly met those qualifications.
Flik rotated slowly in place as he took in the endless piles of leaf scrolls spilling from shelves carved into the walls around him. He'd always loved reading as a kid, but books were hard to find when you grew up among ants who were seemingly allergic to any form of imagination. Being surrounded by them now was the fulfillment of a long forgotten childhood dream.
"Focus, honey. We have a mission."
Atta's gentle reprimand brought a flush to Flik's cheeks. He turned to see his wife giving him a knowing look, her hand resting on the bump that seemed to have grown impossibly bigger since he'd last seen it.
After her brief moment of emotional vulnerability with Manny, Atta had quickly snapped herself back to a posture of business. She and Flik moved from the council room into their private chambers, where Slim and Francis met them to deliver an update on the investigation.
Just as Flik assumed, the team had made little progress in the short time since Dot's disappearance. They'd conducted interviews with every single ant in the colony — children included — and the majority of them had nothing helpful to offer. The few who did simply confirmed what they already knew: a strange group of insects had broken into Flik's workshop and made off with his materials.
Of the hundreds of ants they spoke to, only one of their interviewees had something new to share. That was Clover, the lead Blueberry Scout and Dot's closest friend in the troop.
She'd gone out early that morning in search of a location for the Blueberries to host their upcoming spring picnic, shortly after the time Dot had been sighted entering the clover forest with Aphie. After settling on what she deemed to be the perfect picnic spot, Clover had noticed a loud buzzing coming from above her.
"Apparently the sound reminded her of grasshopper wings, so she tried to hide," Slim explained, relaying the antling's story to them with his usual exaggerated hand gestures. "Once she was somewhere safe, she looked up and saw our circus wagon flying through the sky above her, carried by an enormous insect she claims was twice the size of Dim. There were other insects flying next to it, most of which she didn't recognize, but she did say a couple of them looked like ants."
"Poor thing was a mess trying to tell us what she saw, especially when she heard about Dot going missing," Francis said, shaking his head at the memory. "I think she feels guilty for not telling someone about it sooner. But who could blame her?
"She's a kid. She was terrified."
While Clover's story corroborated their theory about how the thieves had transported the circus wagon, it didn't give them much more of a clue about who the thieves were and where they may have taken Dot — assuming the kidnappers and the circus wagon-stealers were one and the same. All the ants in their colony had been accounted for, so none of them were suspects in the case.
Even if one had been missing, the only Ant Island residents with the ability to fly were Atta and Dot. Meaning that if the insects Clover had seen with the wagon were ants, they would have had to be from a different colony.
"A different colony!" Atta gasped.
Flik, Francis, and Slim swiveled their heads in unison to look at the queen. She looked back at them, her eyes shining.
"Don't you see?" she cried excitedly. "We've had tons of ants come here from other colonies since Flik started sharing his technology! If we go back through our records of visitors from the past four seasons, maybe we can find something that will help us."
Francis and Slim looked at each other warily. Even Flik, much as he wanted to be in full support of his wife's idea, doubted the probability of their success with this particular strategy. The group seen leaving the workshop and now fleeing with the wagon was composed of multiple species, so who was to say they even lived in an ant colony?
And if their plan was to steal from the prince consort and kidnap the queen's little sister, why on the Island would they have shown up as visitors and risked having their presence documented?
Flik took a deep breath, preparing to break this reasoning to Atta as gently as possible, when he felt his hand squeezed by another. Then he looked into a pair of piercing blue eyes and saw something in them that changed his mind.
And that was how he'd ended up here in the royal archives, a room as big as the anthill's main bunker and uncannily quiet due to how far below ground the original architects had built it. It was accessible only through a series of tunnels connected to a secret passageway, the entrance to which was hidden behind a large painting of the Queen and her daughters that hung above Flik and Atta's bed.
Since Atta oversaw the colony's bookkeeping efforts with the help of Mister Soil, it had never occurred to Flik to wonder where their records were stored. After recovering from his moment of childlike enthusiasm upon first seeing the room, he couldn't help but feel a little hurt that his wife had kept something as cool as a secret passageway in their bedroom from him.
Now, however, wasn't the time for petty grudges. After receiving thorough instructions from Atta, Flik began his task of poring over the files of every ant who had visited their island in the past year. There were close to three hundred files to skim through, as ants were by far the most common type of visitor they received — and not only because they made up a heavy percentage of the Bug Realm.
After the uprising against Hopper and his gang, Ant Island had become a legend of sorts among neighboring colonies, a testament to the power in numbers as well as the value of ingenuity. In Atta's words, everyone wanted to meet the ant who had the guts to challenge Hopper and the brains to see it through (even if his initial strategy, the fake bird, had gone down in literal flames). It was a humbling experience for Flik to leap from local outcast to world-renowned hero in such a short period of time.
It was also thanks to this newfound heroism that they now sat before a seemingly endless list of leaf scrolls, learning all they could about each visitor in the hopes of stumbling upon a clue related to Dot's kidnapping.
Though she didn't track every detail of every bug who stepped foot on their shore, since that would include thousands of visitors who came just to enjoy the circus, Atta did have Mister Soil record basic information about anyone who met with Flik about his trading system. This included their name and the name of their kingdom; their species; an estimate of their height, weight, and wingspan; a rough sketch of their physical appearance; and any other personal details they shared that seemed pertinent.
Mister Soil, apparently, had a very generous definition of the word 'pertinent.' By the time he reached his thirty-seventh scroll, Flik's excitement over their secret library had considerably diminished.
When the words before him began blurring into an unreadable ink smudge, Flik allowed himself a long overdue blink before glancing at his partner in crime. Atta sat beside him at the small table in the center of the archives, her features illuminated in the soft blue glow of the mushroom lamp above them. She was wearing the reading spectacles he'd made for her, which magnified her already large eyes to a humorous size, mumbling incoherently as she examined the file in her hand.
Before Flik could get Atta's attention, her concentration was interrupted by a yawn so big it looked almost painful. She rubbed her eyes and then looked sheepishly at Flik.
"Believe it or not, reading about how the prince consort of Isla Hormiga designed an entirely new tunneling system for his anthill isn't as riveting as it sounds," she joked, twisting her mouth into a smile.
It didn't quite reach her tired eyes.
"Atta…" Flik said softly, reaching to cup his palm around her shoulder.
Instead of leaning into the gesture, Flik's wife flinched at his touch. It was a movement that would have been imperceptible to anyone else, but he knew her well enough now to know when his attempts at physical comfort were no longer comforting.
He knotted his open hand into a fist and lowered his arm. "I can do this on my own, you know," he continued. "It's been a long day, and you still have more meetings to attend this evening. You should go take a nap before the next one starts."
Atta's shoulders stiffened at the suggestion. Flik had known before saying it that she would be resistant to the idea of letting herself rest while everyone else continued their efforts to locate her little sister. She and her mother had been exactly alike in that way.
Flik pressed on. "I know it feels like you're giving up by taking a break, but that's not true. You need to be at your best during this investigation, and doing that means you need to take care of yourself…for you, and for her."
On the word 'her,' Flik gestured towards his wife's thorax. A genuine smile crept into her eyes.
"You mean him," she countered, folding both hands over the little mystery inside her stomach.
It was a silly, pretend argument they'd been having since the start of her pregnancy. Flik desperately wanted a girl, one he secretly hoped would be just like Dot with slightly less sass. Atta, on the other hand, longed for a boy after so many seasons spent with only a sister.
To Flik's dismay, her smile vanished as quickly as it had appeared. "And I'm fine, Flik. I need to keep doing this. For her."
On 'her,' Atta motioned at the amber winking at them from beneath the flap of the satchel Flik wore. Dot's crown was tucked safely inside, nestled among the tools and other essentials he kept strapped to his thorax at all times.
A lump formed in Flik's throat as he pictured the crown's owner, scalp bare and eyes teeming with fear. He could hear Dot's voice as if she were in the room with them now.
Help me, Flik.
He let out a sigh of surrender. "Okay, then. I'll get back to reading about how the chief engineer of Antropolis designed an even newer tunneling system that can apparently rival Isla Hormiga's."
The corner of Atta's mouth twitched. Before a laugh could escape her, both she and Flik were startled by a knock from the room's entrance. They turned to see both Manny and Cornelius hovering just beyond the threshold, grave expressions carved into their weathered faces.
"How did they know about the royal archives?!" Flik whispered indignantly.
The minister spoke first.
"Pardon my interruption, Your Highness," he said, bowing his head. "If I could borrow your attention for just a moment, there's something I need to show you."
Atta shot Flik a furtive look, which he returned. It was impossible to miss the sense of urgency undergirding Cornelius's calm words.
"Of course, Minister," she said, rising from her seat beside Flik. He winced at the creaking of her joints in the process, a sound he didn't remember them making prior to the start of her pregnancy.
Once she reached the doorway, Cornelius crooked his left arm and pointed his elbow toward her. She looped her arm through his — a fluid motion she'd probably practiced with her tutor countless times as a royal-in-training — and the two of them began their stroll to wherever he was leading her.
Manny watched them go, seemingly waiting until they were out of antennaeshot. Then he turned towards Flik and bowed just as Cornelius had.
"May I enter, Prince Consort Flik?"
Flik winced again, this time at the uncomfortable formality. "I've told you already, Manny, you can still call me Flik," he reminded him, his tone verging on a plea. "And of course you can come in."
Manny straightened again and nodded, though Flik doubted his request would make a difference. Respect for authority — especially in the royal sense — seemed to be ingrained in the mantis's exoskeleton.
"Thank you, Your Highness," Manny replied, immediately confirming Flik's hypothesis. He stepped into the room and paused, taking a moment to absorb its contents as Flik had, then proceeded towards the table.
Once he reached it, he closed his eyes and took a breath so deep, Flik could hear the rattle of his lungs.
"The purpose of my visit," the mantis began, "is to seek your permission to begin training an army."