Stuff Of Legend

Chapter 2

         The great thing about prison: at least you know you're getting a meal. It may not technically be editable, it may not even be food, but the prison calls it a meal so, whatever. This is what Piper thought as she pushed around the supposed to be mashed potatoes on her tray. She's pretty sure it's just wet sand that they call mashed potatoes though. She hasn't even been there for 24 hours, only about half that, and she already feels like part of the prison family again.

She has only been to this prison twice. The first time it was because she punched the police chief in the face and kicked the deputy in the balls, trying to escape arrest for stealing and the second time she was in the wrong place at the wrong time for a drug raid on a house she was staying at. Each time she planned to escape, but before she could pull off her plans, Sylvia came and got her. The funny thing about King's Valley prison is that it's not too far from the town. It's not in either mountain, but it's still in the valley region, just about fifteen miles from the edge of town. Also, the prison is for both women and men and children. Not much separation either, only in sleeping areas. At this moment in the lunchroom, there were about 27 men, 18 women and 6 children. This was just her lunch period, and she was here early, who knows how many other people will come through the doors to eat crap.

Prison feels like home for Piper for the fact that these are the places she grew up most in. She didn't stay in for too long, but enough for people to know her name. Even now, she recognizes a few faces. None of the children, but some of the men and women she recognized from the dump, others from bars, and others from junkie houses. But all of them were poor, no one rich stayed in for long; they were typically bailed within their first day or so. But it wasn't just the prisoners she remembered, but also the guards. The police station and prison guards normally swap jobs so she has seen most people's faces.

The prisoners don't get treated the best, many are beaten or touched or worse and Piper knew that out of everyone, she just had to watch out for the worst of the worst.

She was too occupied with looking around at everyone else that she didn't notice the tall, skinny girl with pink and purple hair sitting down in front of her.

"I was wondering if you would come and see me or not," she said, playing with the "food" on her tray too.

"Hey, Moon," Piper said.

Moon Poole. Yes, that was her actual name. Both Piper and Moon have always tried to figure out what her parents were smoking when they named her that. Moon's entire family hasn't had the best rep, from drugs to rape to anything else illegal; no one was surprised that Moon would end up in jail. She ended up here because she was too loyal to her druggie boyfriend's cartel. Well, ex-boyfriend. She became a dealer for him and got caught for it. He didn't bail her out and she didn't provide names for a shorter sentence, so she got put in for three years. She was here when Piper was first arrested. They didn't talk much during that time, but when Piper came back again, they were cellmates and bonded over the little time they had together.

Moon was skinny like Piper, but not as much. You could see Piper's rib cage, but you couldn't see Moon's. Piper always tried to guess what Moon's original hair color was, but Moon never said. Probably because Moon doesn't even remember, she's dyed her hair so many times. It's mainly a light purple, but has light pink tips all around. Moon's family smuggles in food dye to Moon and she dyes her hair herself. Her eyes are a bright brown and she has holes in her eyebrows for an eyebrow ring. She also has a cross tattoo on her right wrist and the words Live Love Die on her left arm. She also had a snake tattoo curling up her leg, but it's covered by clothing.

All of Piper's tattoos are coverable. She doesn't particularly like tattoo. Her tattoos are symbols of some part of her life when she needed them. The red ribbon tattooed on her ankle, bleeding red at the tips was required from her first gang she was a part of. The Japanese number five on the bottom of her foot was from the last cartel she was associated with. Her neck tattoo was a more conflicting part of her life, the skull a permanent reminder of a lost past life. The only tattoo she even likes on her is the flying bluebird on the left side of her stomach. She loves poetry very much, and got the bluebird based off the poem of the same name by Charles Bukowski.