Down on the ground floor of the cave, Simadger saw the intricacies of colonial life: the individuals who kept their entire system going. It was a unique and fascinating experience for her. She saw piles of eggs and larvae being carried around by hundreds of worker ants. For a moment, she glimpsed a handful of repletes with bloated gasters resting or barfing food back out to hungry ants.

Following Kesi to the queen of the dune ant colony, Simadger saw the advanced construction techniques of the colony. The ants strategically placed massive pillars scattered across the entire cave to support the cave’s hollow structure. Smaller structures carved out from the sandstone housed clutches of eggs or served as resting places for exhausted ants.

Unlike the above-ground towns and cities, there were no doors, windows, or fences to mark property lines. There were no blacksmiths, general goods stores, or butcher to sell products, just a stockpile of goods stowed away in several sandstone buildings and the grouping of repletes to feed the entire colony.

Kesi led Simadger to the far end of the cave. Carved into the wall was an open-air room with a dozen smaller pillars of a more decorative than functional purpose lining the exterior. Inside the chamber was a dusty yellow ant whose body was four times the size of Simadger. A line of workers formed behind her bloated gaster, catching eggs as they popped out of the queen.

The queen seemed almost bored and unbothered by her pregnant state. Her antennae flicked, smelling the pheromones in the air. Her head raised off the cushioned pillow and looked towards Kesi. “Kesi, my daughter, what brings you back to my chamber?”

Kesi bowed her head and kept her antennae stiff. “Mother, I brought a guest. Another dune ant from a different colony.”

The queen’s demeanor ruffled as she sniffed the air around Simadger. “I smell the surface but see another ant. Outsider, why are you here?”

Simadger wanted to avoid causing issues, especially if being an outsider was already bad. “I’m looking for the colony I came from.”

Mother inched forward with strained effort and grunted in defeat. “Come closer so that I may know your scent better.”

Simadger obliged and approached the queen. The queen’s antennae felt up Simadger’s armor and face for a very long and uncomfortable minute.

“Not my colony,” Mother huffed. “However, you smell of a queen yourself, outsider.”

The remark surprised Simadger. “A queen? I can’t be though, I have no wings.”

Mother shook her head. “Queens can lose their wings without ever mating. You are long overdue to found a colony of your own. What you seek, your home colony, doesn’t exist anymore. I do not smell it. I do smell the odors of those surface folk you live with.”

Simadger slowed her breathing. If her home colony was indeed gone, that meant that Oakengrove and the others were the only family she truly had. “I serve Oakengrove and my companions are the others you smell.”

Suddenly, there was an audible hiss that escaped from the queen. “The father of the forest? How repulsive. A queen of so much potential bowing down to a tree.” Mother’s tone only exaggerated her disdain for him. “My darling cousin, you are much more capable than that treant will allow you to believe.”

Simadger leaned on her back foot, further made uneasy by Mother’s words. “I’m not sure I understand.”

The skepticism in Simadger’s voice seemed to offend the queen dune ant, but she didn’t act upon it. “Kesi, go fetch the drones. We have a successor queen before us.”

Kesi nodded her head and dashed out of the chamber.

Simadger slowly turned to face the queen. “I’m not sure I agree with what you’re offering, Mother.”

The queen ant held up her hands, dismissing Simadger’s hesitation. “My best sons will give you a lifetime of offspring to-”

“Now wait a damn minute!” Simadger interjected. “I did not come here to become some bloated whale and an offspring factory!”

Mother drew back her head and clicked her mandibles furiously. “You are a queen ant. You will uphold the natural order of our colonial life!” A purple gloss glazed over Mother’s eyes.

“Mental magic won’t work on me, witch,” Simadger said as she hastily turned her back to the queen to avoid locking gazes. She unsheathed her Khopesh as a dozen other worker ants quickly surrounded her.

“Once you have a mate, outsider,” Mother’s voice reprimanded her disobedience. “You will reject this heretical path you’ve gone down. This servitude to a god, and a fallen one no less, is no life to live as a queen. You’ve been longing for a mate, have you not?”

Simadger’s posture stiffened. “What I search for is a companion, not a one-night stand. I live for me, for my well-being.”

“Yet you sacrifice your freedoms to a master,” the queen dune ant scoffed. “Nonetheless, you’ll take one of my sons and found a colony. End of story.” She waved her hands. “guards, take her to the chambers.”

“Like hell I am,” Simadger held her Khopesh up high and said aloud, “Face the wrath of the light!”

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A bright white light flashed from her weapon, blinding everyone within the room, except the Queen and herself. All the worker ants crumpled over, dead from the blistering shock after effect, their eyes deprived of their natural colors and their optical nerves destroyed.

Simadger turned and pointed the Khopesh to Mother, “Try that again, I dare you.”

Mother slowly clapped her hands, mockingly. “A dune ant who uses the power of Solar himself. Perhaps then Oakengrove is instead worshiping you.”

“No one worships me.” She refused to call the queen ant by her assumed name. It felt too disgusting to even consider her a cousin. “I live for myself and with or without your help, I will find my home colony.”

“Then by all means, traitorous wench, whore yourself out to the surface dwellers, see how well they treat you,” snapped Mother. “Know that you will never be a queen.”

“Fine by me. I got better prospects than a closet-dwelling child factory.” Simadger lowered her weapons, turned about, and walked away with an angry stomp.

On her way out of the cave, Simadger crossed paths with Kesi, who had four male drones following sheepishly behind her. “Why do you look so angry?” Kesi asked.

Simadger then realized she was still holding her weapons. She sheathed the Khopesh and slung the shield over her back. “Mother…” she made a puking gesture as she said the name, “and I didn’t see each other as equals. I’m leaving.”

Kesi confusedly gestured to the males behind her. “Wait, what about them?”

“If they want to live free of the colony life, they can follow me, else, I’m not interested. I extend the same offer to you, Kesi.” Simadger said as calmly as she could manage.

“I couldn’t possibly leave. The colony needs me,” Kesi protested.

Simadger grabbed Kesi’s hand. “Look around you.”

Kesi turned and scanned the room behind her, leaning to get a glance around the males who were silently and patiently waiting for commands.

“Do you know your sisters by name? Do they know yours?” Simadger asked.

Kesi hesitated. Her mandibles clicked together erratically and with a shrug of the shoulders, she answered. “I know some of them, but when you have over five thousand siblings, you kinda forget their names.”

“My point exactly,” Simadger argued, “They won’t miss a beat without you here. I know a place that’s a lot better for you, for me, and possibly, even them.” She gestured to the idle males.

“Where’s that?” Kesi inquired.

“Back home, in the forests northwest of here, where we, along with many others, are equals,” Simadger explained. “It’s a trek away, but it’s worth it.”

Kesi turned around to address the male drones. Their lanky figures made them look almost zombie-like with their uncanny, idle sways. “Do you want to go with Simadger?”

The four males nodded in unison.

Hours passed on the surface, and the sun dipped below the horizon. Within the vast expanse of the desert, they’d stumbled into an oasis with flourishing life clinging to the water’s edge. Simadger called for a nightly respite at the oasis as the search for another ant colony came to an inconclusive end for the day. Food in the region was scarce, and Simadger had limited rations - too limited for all of them.

Kesi had rummaged through bushes, looking for berries or insects to chow down on. As if by intuition, Kesi dug through the dirt, revealing a massive child-sized grub dormant within the dirt. She picked it up and held it high above her. “Food!” She proclaimed excitedly.

Simadger looked away from her arrangement of rations and eyed the helpless grub. It wasn’t the type of meal she was used to, and she didn’t have a portable kitchen to even try to turn it into a meal. “Are you sure that thing is edible?”

Kesi spun around on her heels and cradled the grub, “Yeah, these things are insanely rare, so they typically get reserved for Mother, but this one is ours. I heard these grubs are as juicy as they are meaty. Plenty for all of us.”

Using the Khopesh, they chopped up the grub into mostly equal portions, giving the head to Kesi, who seemed much too eager to eat its face. The uncooked meat tasted cold and slimy, almost repulsive to Simadger’s more refined sense of taste. Still, she scarfed it down with only a few gags to threaten the meal. Once they were all done eating, Simadger turned to the males to ask each of them a question. “Do you four have names?”

The males looked at each other but said not a word.

Kesi chimed in as she swallowed the last bite. “Oh, the males don’t speak. Never have. They don’t get names either. They rarely live long enough for it to be justified.”

“How long do they live for then?” She asked.

“Uh…” she held onto the tone as she thought about it. “From egg to larva is about a few months, another couple of years to fully develop, a month to harden the exoskeleton, so that puts it at twenty years.”

Simadger’s jaw fell open. “That’s it? I’ve been alive for years. I know that much. Surely your life isn’t so short.”

Kesi hopped in her seat. “Nope! I’m on my nineteenth birthday. Mother said you were a queen, so how many birthdays have you had?”

Simadger lifted a finger but stopped herself. She didn’t actually know. “If I knew, I could tell you. Although, I’m sure I’m way older than you. How old is your mother?”

“I know she’s at least a hundred. Never asked her, though.” Kesi leaned back against the tree and looked upwards at its palm leaves. “I couldn’t imagine what it must be like as a drone. You never speak your mind, you’re born, you mate, and then you’re dead before dawn.”

Simadger rubbed the back of her head as she looked at them. Their apparent lack of self now made sense. They existed solely to establish the next colony, but we’re not required to raise it. If these males were full adults, then their bodies were on a death timer and Mother was trying to put them to use before they died. “Has there ever been a male who didn’t mate and lived past twenty?”

Kesi’s attention was broken away from counting the veins on the leaves above her. “Not that I know of. The males I’ve known, and I’ve met a hundred of them, all died by then. Their bodies just aren’t made like ours.”

That begged another question. “What about you and your sisters?”

“The oldest worker I know was almost thirty.” Kesi stated. “Most of the older workers do the raids against the surface dwellers, so most don’t live past seven or eight.”

Simadger then gestured to the males, “Have you ever considered taking one of them for yourself?”

Kesi shook her head and waved her arms frantically. “No, no, no, I could never. We reserve the males for the next wave of queens. No worker may partner up.” Her head then lowered as she redirected her gaze to the grains of sand loosely strewn about the hardy grass. “Not that it would be a fruitful pairing, anyway. Workers can’t become queens.”

Simadger scooted closer. “You’re free of the colony,” she paused, “of Mother’s restrictions. You can do whatever you want.”

Kesi looked up toward her, “Can I?” She then looked towards the males who were just swaying side to side idly. “I can’t. It’s not my place to.”

“I’m not saying you have to do it now or ever. I’m just saying that you’re free to pick your partner whenever. Hells, it could be an orc or an elf if you wanted.” Simadger said, trying to cheer her up. “Perhaps you’ll be the first of your sisters to live past thirty.”

Kesi’s eyes seem to light up at the thought of growing old. “To be thirty? That would be amazing.”