Winged

Chapter Two: Part II

Sapphire

The brown gloop spotted with orange and pale red bits was plopped unceremoniously on Sapphire's tray, some of it flying into the air as it was splashed. The Flightless lunch lady squinted her beady eyes at Sapphire as she moved down the line, sliding her tray along.

    "Thanks." She said, offering the woman a small smile. The lunch lady sniffed and grunted what Sapphire assumed was you're welcome and waved her along. Grabbing a bottle of iced water as she walked by the fridge, she paid for her lunch and scurried over to where Chaos was sitting with his friends.

    "That's so unfair, how come you get a better lunch than I did?" Sapphire exclaimed as she sat down, staring unbelievingly at Chaos's lunch consisting of a thick creamy cheddar broccoli soup and breadsticks next to a somewhat presentable sloppy joe.

    Chaos shrugged, taking a bite out of his breadstick, he offered Sapphire his other breadstick, which she snatched out of his hand quickly.

    "The lunch lady thinks he's cute." A small voice commented from across from them. It was Miranda, the mousy girl who warned Sapphire to be quiet in the library before. Sapphire glanced up, startled at her voice.

"I overhead her." The girl added after a moment of pause.

"Thanks for that info." Asher B., the second Asher in their academy composed of seventeen different Ashers, muttered from the other side of Chaos. Since every year there were hundreds babies abandoned on the doorsteps of Ashra Academy for the Noble Flightless, children of the Winged nobles discarded because they were borned shamefully Flightless, the Sisters had grown tired of naming them. As a result, babies abandoned in the same month was given the same name. Coincidentally, in the month of Asher, seventeen boys were abandoned and named Asher A. B. C. and so on. The girls abandoned in that month were all named Ashleigh and thankfully, there were only three of them.

"You're welcome." Miranda, apparently not getting the sarcasm, whispered behind a curtain of her brown hair.    

Asher B. rolled his eyes, stabbing at the layer of cheddar dried on the surface of his soup. "What happened to the bun of your sloppy joe?" He commented, gesturing with a fork at Sapphire's lunch.

"She forgot." Sapphire swallowed the last bite of her stolen breadstick and gulped down a few sips of her water.

"She forgot mine too." Lindsey, the short haired girl sitting next to Miranda looked up from her tray and said. There was a smudge of brown sauce on the side of her cheek but Sapphire stayed quiet.

Sapphire picked up her plastic spoon and scooped up a slippery portion of the insides of the sloppy joe. She squinted at the pale red bits, which she deemed to be onion, and the orange bits of what seems to be carrot. "Is this even edible?" She said but she shoved the spoon into her mouth anyways. It tasted okay, she guess, slightly more saltier than usual and a little bit rubbery.

"The Winged are eating salads with cucumbers carved to look like flowers and drizzled with homemade sauce made by professional chefs a few floors above us. How come we get the leftover food?" Asher B. complained, pulling a piece of bread from his soaked bun. He looked at it for a few seconds as if it will turn into something else if his stare is hard enough. The bread didn't budge and he sighed, shoving it into his mouth.

"They probably have better food than that." Lindsey stopped eating, resting her sauce smudged cheek on her palm, probably getting the sauce on her hand too. "I'm betting on fried calamari from those really expensive and rare squids from the deep ocean. Or perfectly grilled chicken decorated with edible plants."

Lindsey was close. Having a sister who eats lunch in the Winged dinner hall, Sapphire knew for sure there was something close to perfect grilled chicken and those edible plants she mentioned.