We get our food and sit down at the table Cole and I always sit in (the one in the corner, away from the other students), having gotten our food at last, and Ayla sniffs her veggie burger thoughtfully. Cole is still in his line, probably having trouble with his maggots. Gross.

I have two burgers on my tray, some falafels (yum!) and a ton of other food, and Ayla keeps glancing at it and then at me, as if wondering how it's possible for anyone to eat that much. I feel a bit self-conscious, but then again I eat this much all the time and it's still not enough. The nurse always tells me to eat more, seeing as five of my ribs are clearly visible and I'm basically skin, bones, feathers and evil grins.

All of a sudden, Ayla's eyelids droop and she closes her eyes, leaning forward with a confused and unhappy expression.

"Did the coffee wear off?" I ask. She nods, slowly this time, and groans. That had to be the most dramatic caffeine crash I've ever seen, seeing as only a few seconds before she was super hyper and chatting crazily to me about different kinds of bark. "I feel so tired all of a sudden," She grumps. "How do I make my energy come back?" She asks, looking up at me with wide eyes. "I recommend you eat your burger, so your body has some actual energy in it-not coffee." I smirk. She responds by taking a bite from her veggie burger uncertainly and then promptly gagging.

"This-" She splutters, "Is incredibly disgusting!" She spits out a mouthful of half-chewed veggie burger onto her tray and sets the uneaten portion on top of it, giving it a disgusted coffee-crash look. I raise an eyebrow at her. "What am I supposed to eat now?" She grumbles. I laugh and hand her my apple and a falafel. I hate veggie burgers too, and understand her disgust.

Cole walks up with his squirming trayful of maggots at that point and Ayla's eyes go huge when she sees it. She inches away from him as he sits down, looking irritated.

"I had to wait forever," He grumps. "Apparently some had gotten out and they had to catch them before they gave me any." He frowns at the squirming mass before him and Ayla turns a faint shade of green, covering her mouth with one hand.

"Y-you're not going to eat that, are you?!" She asks, incredulous, her voice a horrified whisper. Cole doesn't respond, choosing instead to just blink innocently and place a huge, live maggot in his mouth, swallowing it whole. Ayla covers her eyes and cringes, gagging. "I'm sorry, but that's very gross," She gets up and comes around to my (more cramped) side of the table. I scoot over to give her room, but my ridiculous height means I take up a lot of space anyhow. She bites into her apple, careful not to look at Cole eating his maggots, and chooses instead to stare at me while I eat to stop herself from seeing his food. It makes me uncomfortable and I find myself trying to have at least some manners so she isn't grossed out by both our eating habits. Our table is awkwardly silent as we much food and I find myself wishing Ayla would start her caffeine-induced babbling again, just to break the silence.

"So," I say after eating a hamburger that was literally dripping mustard (yum) in like two bites. "What do you want to know about the school?" I ask, opening a milk carton and taking a long drink. Ayla stops staring at me creepily for a second to think. "Well," She says, stretching out the word. "I would like to know, first off, what the name of this school is." I stare at her, dumbfounded, a dribble of chocolate milk running down my chin. I burst out laughing, and so does Cole after a few seconds. "Are you telling me," I gasp, "That you don't even know that the name of the school is?!" I wipe the milk from my chin, snorting.

"I only got here today," She points out, munching on a piece of apple and inspecting the falafel warily.

"Still," I continue. "Doesn't it make sense that it would be one of the first things you found out? It's Crossroads Academy, by the way," I go to take another sip of milk but realise I drank the whole thing already, in one gulp no less. I frown at the empty carton and crush it in my hand, wishing I had more.

"Well," Ayla says a bit more quietly, "My parents kind of dropped me off here forcefully without much notice. I didn't really have a choice, or time for much before I came, actually," Her mask of complete happiness fades and I can see she's just been acting this way to convince herself everything was fine. I know, because I do the same thing most of the time, but with indifference or troublemaking or anger instead of happiness.

"What happened?" I ask in what I hope is a compassionate tone, which is hard to accomplish when I'm trying to get a disgustingly chewy piece of meat out from between my teeth. Cole has been silent this whole time, and I can tell he's not about to interrupt, seeing as he stares at us from under his hair worriedly. He knows this sort of topic is a sensitive one for me, and apparently it is for Ayla as well. She takes a moment to answer, looking at the floor. "I'm a bit of a disgrace to my family, actually," She says, even more quietly. Her words are nearly lost under the babble of voices in the cafeteria. "I was told I was going to be married to a boy from another elven kingdom when I turned sixteen, but I hadn't even met him. It rarely happens, because most families know better than to do that to their children, though it isn't outlawed. The only reason my parents did it was because of how wealthy the other kingdom is." She says bitterly. "So, I refused, and they sent me off here for reasons I don't know, and maybe never will know."

I sigh. "Yeah, I know how that feels. My relatives refused to take care of me when my dad died, meaning I'm stuck here, but I guess they had a reason for it. They thought I was gonna turn out like my mom and hurt someone," I touch the scars on my arm and frown at the table. "It's horrible to be cast aside by your family, trust me I know that, but if that stuff is happening to you then I honestly believe this is the best place for you to be. Your parents can't tell you what to do as long as you're here, and it's a good place to get away from the situation in. Anyways, this place can be pretty fun at times, and there truly are some good people here."

Ayla looks up at me, face solem, her hair covering one brilliantly green eye. "...You know, I think I may have misjudged you," She says, and I feel my face turning into a confused scowl. "While I first met you, I thought you were sarcastic all the time for no reason, and you always seemed mad at me. You kept making faces behind the Principal's back when he said something normal or even nice. I thought you didn't want to have to deal with me, and maybe you don't, but you're not an insensitive person like I thought you were before. You're much nicer than most people have been to me lately, despite having just met me. I apologize, truly and sincerely, and hope I never misjudge you again. And, also, thank you for making me feel better." She says sincerely. Really, I'm used to people thinking I'm a mean person, because I guess in a way I am sometimes, but I feel flattered that she sincerely cares about other people enough to clear up what I've been wondering, which was what she thought of my attitude. She did kind of act towards me like I was gonna start insulting her at points, though I never would have, and never did.

So maybe I'm not as tough and insensitive as I would like to be. Big deal.

"It's his eyebrows," Cole says blandly after a few seconds of silence, licking his plate with his small, purplish, catlike tongue. I turn and stare at him, caught off guard, with a grape halfway to my mouth.

"...Eyebrows?" Ayla asks. "Why are you talking about eyebrows?" She makes a confused face while tilting her head, obviously relieved that he finished his maggoty meal. Cole sets down his plate and picks between his sharp teeth with a toothpick he pulled from his pocket. "The reason everybody thinks he's so mean spirited is because of his eyebrows, and his attitude of course. Just take a good look at them when his face is in a neutral expression-they're always tilted like he's mad." He grins around his toothpick and I frown more deeply. If there's one thing Cole likes to do, it's make jibes about my eyebrows, for some strange, unknown reason.

Ayla pushes the hair covering most of her face behind one of her long, pointed ears and turns towards me to better scrutinize my eyebrows. I lean away from them both, purposefully putting my face into my best scowl. "Come on, be a good sport," Ayla whines at me. "Pleeeeease?" Unable to refuse after she was so nice to me, I kick Cole under the table before sighing dramatically and putting my face into a neutral expression. Cole gives me the glare of death and Ayla cocks her head as she stares at me. She wears a thoughtful expression and eventually stands up on the bench to be closer to eye level with me. She puts a hand up to her chin, her face a foot from mine, and I feel my feathers and hair raising in alarm and my eyes go wide with nerves. Personal space, I think. Please.

"Is that really your neutral expression?" She asks after what seems like forever and backing off a bit. I breathe a sigh of relief that my own personal space bubble is back, and take a huge bite from my second hamburger. "Yeah," I mumble. I glance over at Cole, who is giving me a look I'm pretty sure I have no idea how to read. I raise an eyebrow at him, reminding myself to ask him what it was about later.

We finish our dinner (Ayla eats most of my grapes once she finishes her apple and falafel), chatting about this and that, and eventually it comes time for us to leave the cafeteria. We all dispose our trays in a good mood, and even Cole seems more comfortable around Ayla. I had originally thought showing around a new student was going to be pretty boring, but I enjoyed making a new friend, and I feel like she'll become a part of our small, close friend group eventually. Lily was right when she told me something last time I saw her. She said: 'You try and act tough, Crims, but let's be honest-if people are friendly towards you for long enough, your shell of unfriendliness cracks open and your big, clumsy, stupid, lovable self is revealed. You're like a feathery puppy, but grumpier.'

I snort at the thought as we show Ayla where the Girl's Dorm is again, and instruct her to just tell the girls she's new and needs a place to sleep. We also specifically told her fighting any of the girls in there is not allowed, to which she looked confused and we had to explain to her that 'showing her dominance,' as she called it, wasn't looked well upon in the Earth dimension. It was ages still before everyone was confined to their rooms because of curfew, but we decided we should give her some time to settle in. Not only that, but there's only so much touring you can do of a school before it gets old, and trust me, it got old for me ten seconds in.

Anyhow, I had some important mischief I wanted to attend to before curfew involving Luther Jones.

Very, very important mischief...