Violet POV

"You excited for school?"

My dad, Cloud Pine, asked from across the table covered in birds and cloud-plants from the garden. My mother, Sunset, tuned in, her pink-orange cloud spots flashing curious yellow and green, contrasting against her pure white scales perfectly. I shrugged, tossing my storm petrel from talon to talon. "I guess," I mumbled, but my light purple cloud spots flashed a sickly green involuntarily, revealing my nervousness.

My mom didn't seem to notice. "Honey, don't frown. You're so beautiful, and that just ruins it," she fretted, pushing the cloud violet flower I'd picked for today back from my eyes to where it hung on my ear. I nudged her hand away indignantly and sighed. My father rolled his eyes. "Kids these days." He bit into his seagull, his favourite bird. I preferred petrels, but whatever. Seagulls were too tough and scrawny, petrels were nice and lean.

I hastily took a bite of my petrel, savouring the juicy flavours, more so with the grinded pepper from our cloud-vegetable garden in our front yard. "Why are you nervous?" My father asked tentatively. I shrugged, not meeting his eyes. I wasn't about to tell him I was nervous since I felt like I had zero social skills and wouldn't make any friends.

The reason behind this was because the only friend I'd ever had, Asteroid, had stabbed me in the back. We'd been best friends for ages, since we were less than half a year old. Our parents had been really close beforehand, so we hung out a lot. We played together, made trouble together, laughed together, did basically everything together. But when preschool rolled around, everything changed.

Asteroid was suddenly acting... Weird. She didn't hang out with me as much, and was suddenly too "grown up" for playing with the carrots we dug up from the neighbor's garden. She was no fun, and I hated it. She made newer friends, too, and left me with nobody. I wasn't that bothered, since I was a complete introvert, but I still felt a little hurt. She came over less and less, and soon I saw her about once a month. Then one day I came to preschool and everyone looked at me scathingly. No joke, everyone literally glared at me. Do you know how intimidating that feels? A bunch of two year olds staring you down like you killed all their parents.

I later found out Asteroid'd spread a rumour that I'd tried to kiss her without consent. Although that might not sound like much, everyone in the Cloud Kingdom is super homophobic, and trying to kiss someone who doesn't want to is considered as bad as assault. If I wasn't so young, I could've been arrested. I tried to convince everyone it was fake, because it was, obviously, but they didn't buy it. Why would perfect Asteroid lie?

But that was the end of the year, two years ago. I was four now, I'd moved to the south of the Kingdom, and was out of preschool. And I was going to a public school, down on the land. I'd be fine. Surely.

"I--okay, I'm nervous. I guess I just don't want to have the Asteroid problem happen all over again," I replied to my dad. He nodded and smiled sadly. "I'm sure that won't happen. You're a smart, beautiful young girl, you'll be just fine." My dad stroked the side of my face. I rolled my eyes inwardly. My parents had too much faith in me, it was almost comical.

I had a very small self esteem, so small I thought walking down the hall at home was embarrassing. I was always so self conscious all the time, going out in public was a huge struggle. I had anxiety, too, to top it all off. Going to school tomorrow would be horrible on my mental health.

After dinner, I helped clean the dishes emotionlessly. It was such a plainative task you couldn't have a conversation in your thoughts if you tried. You're just blank. After that I stalked down the hall to my room, the birch floor panels creaking slightly. My room was a large space, with a big bed of the softest violet colour you could find, so light it looked white at first glance.a butterfly net hung around the bed, more for decor than to keep out the bugs that roamed the cloud land.

In the right corner, next to a huge window that sat across the room from where I stood at the door, there was a bookshelf that stretched to the ceiling, filled to the brim with books I'd read once, sometimes twice, even thrice. Any librarian would be jealous at the selection. Most of them were of the series "Wings of Fire," a series of books about the creator ten tribes, written by the CloudWings.

There were more series, like Harry Potter, written by scavengers and translated into dragon by our most skilled translators. I found that series very interesting, since I didn't really ze there could be another species as smart as dragons. I found the entire topic of scavengers fascinating, actually. Such odd little creatures.

There's another thing I'm excited for-learning about scavengers, where they came from, what they look like. That'd be so cool to learn about. Wow I am such a nerd. Wish me luck!

A/n sorry for the short chapter 😐