Wings of Fire As Humans

The Best Things In Life-Glory

Glory was only a few weeks in and was already ready to graduate. At this point, even being homeless, money-less and otherwise alone in the world sounded better than any more Year Twelve. This thought was such Tsunami-esque drama, that Glory had to internally chuckle. She was currently sitting on her bed, in her tiny attic room, sketching, when her message tone went off. She picked it up, to see a message from Sunny on the WhatsApp chat.

Sunny : Hey guys, do you want to meet up at the treehouse this afternoon? In like 20-30 mins?

Clay: Sounds good. I'll bring foo
Clay: *food

Starflight: I don't know, I have homework

Sunny: Starflight noooo

Tsunami: ill be there, who cares about homework
Tsunami: NOT ME IS WHO

Starflight: I care, you ridiculous woman

Tsunami: ur such a nerd, starflight

Clay: don't be mean, guys
Clay: also i love how glory is just leaving us on 'read'
Clay: like we're being too silly for her to deal with currently

Glory: accurate statement
Glory: although this is semi-normal behaviour for us

Sunny: ANYWAY
Sunny: We're good to go for 4:30, right?

Clay: 👍

Tsunami: ofc

Starflight: homework...

Sunny: Great, I'll be there in 15 to pick you up, Starflight

Glory couldn't help laughing at her friends, and their weirdness. As much as she liked to work solo, and do things on her own, she knew that having these four improved her quality of life immensely. Sure, she couldn't exactly describe any of them as normal, what with Clay's inability to register any interpersonal connection as anything other than 'friendship' (case in point: Peril, who didn't just want to be friends with him, and certainly no one else thought that she would be a good friend for him, but Clay took one look at this lovestruck, violent, delinquent and thought 'friend). And then there was Tsunami, who when it came to emotions was basically
the opposite of Glory, in that she completely lacked subtlety and the ability to hide her feelings. And there was Starflight, who was a very well-intentioned nerd, and also hopelessy, desperately in love with Sunny. Sunny; sweet, lovely Sunny, who never believed anything bad about anyone (or at least as far as Glory could tell), and who the whole group had silently agreed to protect. Glory placed her sketchbook down, and headed down the stairs, past the rows of bedrooms, until she reached the ground floor. 

The orphanage coordinators were sitting out the front, having a brief cup of tea. There was Asha, the kindest and warmest of them, who was really the one you wanted to talk to if anything was going wrong. Dune, who was complaining about the brownies being too sweet, was the one Glory could most relate to, because he was usually in a bad mood and took a clinical, unemotional approach to everything. And then there was Webs. Sunny had always said that Webs was a bit of a superhero, managing to juggle the orphanage, part-time history teaching and raising his own family, and Glory may have been inclined to agree with that analysis if Webs wasn't such a wet blanket. Tsunami had always claimed that the fact that Riptide and he were related was one of the greatest mysteries of the world. Speaking of Riptide, he had also dropped in, to take a bunch of the little kids to the nearby beach for a swim. As he only lived a few houses away, and his father was usually at the orphanage, Riptide tended to come around to help out every now and again.