Variegated (boyxboy)

     Matthews looked around him at the distant view of the town below the airship, taking in the monotonous rusty, wet colours of the uneven buildings. Dull, yellow square lights decorated some of the constructions and dark waves of smoke leaked up the chimney of houses and bakeries, the foam reaching to tangle with the clouds around the airship.

     He then glanced at the newly made friend, William, sitting next to him on the roof of the ship's huge balloon, watching as the scarf wrapped around his delicate neck waved in the powerful wind. The accessory was striped with two shades of dark grey, much like Matthews's large shirt.

     It was a rule that all of the kids living in the Airship Orphanage wore one grey striped item each, it was like an ID card of sorts, and therefore no kid could wear the same item as another. It personalized them.

     Matthews had only been in the airship for a few days now, so he was still confused as to why he had been brought up there after his parents didn't return home. Sure, one of the two headmasters had explained him, but he didn't pay attention throughout the entire hour of conversation.

     "William, why are we up here again?"

     His young friend let his eyes absorb another definition in the dictionary he was holding, and then gingerly traced a finger along the bookmark and set it between the pages, closing the document.

     "Remember the gentlemen that showed up at your door and took you to an institution in which they offered you an intelligence test?" he spoke, his child voice standing in contrast with his fluent vocabulary. After waiting for Matthews to nod, he continued.

     "That is called an IQ test. They offer those to each child that remains without parents. If you were to have the average intelligence, you would have went at an orphanage down there." he pointed to the distant view. "But since you proved to be clever enough, you have been brought up here on this airship, where every 'genius' child is kept. The goverm- government wants to keep us up here so that we won't be stupefied by the average, and so that we receive special education in order to help in scien- sci- scientific studies when we grow up."

     William squinted at the words he had yet to master, and opened the dictionary once again to glare upon them. Matthews looked down at him and pondered the information. "But I do have parents."

     Will shook his head, attention still on the book. "No, you wouldn't have been here if you had. They don't tell us what happened to our mothers and fathers, but I suspect they died." he shrugged, flipping the page.

     Matthews nodded, and continued looking around. He hadn't had that much of a bond between himself and his parents anyway, they were the rich couple with a trophy child sort of family. Besides, he liked it here better. There were kids all around him and he managed to make a friend.

     Other than that, he loved the airship. It was like an endless realm of adventures for a kid like Matthews. The dominating colours of the many secret places he'd find were grey-brown, dark maroon and rusty yellow, like the inside of a big, old clock. Still, the main areas involving the hallways, study rooms, dinning rooms and bedrooms were fancily designed like the inside of a hotel.

     "I think I'm going to go explore." Matt stated after a few more minutes as he eyed the trap door they got there through.

     William nodded and reached slender fingers to tighten the scarf around his neck with a shudder.

     "Why do you keep coming up here anyway? It's cold and windy." Matthews spoke, taking off his black coat to put it around the smaller kid's shoulders. William didn't respond, instead raising his thumb to suck on it as he frowned at the pages.