“Pound?” Wren exclaimed. “As in Chadwick Pound?”

If Wren’s eyeballs could get any further out of his head they’d be lying on the floor by his feet.

“Ah yes, I’d heard you had a run in with my younger brother. I’m sorry about that, he wasn’t meant to attack you.” Max responded, scratching the back of his head guiltily.

“Meant to? What was he meant to do?” Wren asked, confused.

Max’s eyes widened in shock and his face turned beet red as if he said something he shouldn’t.

“Oh nothing. Just it’s not right to be starting fights with people in their first week at the academy.” He recovered.

“Riiight.” Wren said, suspicious. “Well anyway, nice to meet you. And thanks for this.” He lifted up the tray of wings.

“No worries at all. I’ll see you around Wren.” Max said backing away. He turned and re-joined the rest of his friends leaving Wren to go on with the rest of his lunch hour.

~

Highly confused and a little surprised, Wren made his way through the cafeteria crowd, making sure to avoid anyone who wasn’t looking where they were going. He got outside and found where Carlos and Liam were sat before popping a squat, placing his food down and joining them.

“What took you so long?” Liam asked.

The other two boys hadn’t stood on ceremony and were chowing down into their lunches. It was a sight to see. Two sixteen-year-old boys, hands and face covered in sweet and sticky wing sauce. If Wren wasn’t so jarred from his interaction with Max then he would have laughed at the two.

“I just had the weirdest chat.” Wren remarked.

“With who?” Liam asked.

“I think you mean ‘with whom’.” Carlos corrected, being his annoyingly grammatically correct self, much to Liam’s frustration and Wren’s amusement.

“With whom?” Liam relented.

“Max Pound.” Wren stated.

“Max Pound? As in Chadwick Pound?” Liam asked.

“I said the same thing.” Wren laughed.

“You didn’t go starting anymore altercations did you? You do not need that right now.” Carlos said.

“No not at all. That’s why it was a weird chat. It was actually kind of pleasant.”

“Pleasant how?” Liam said, raising an eyebrow in disbelief.

“Well it was just normal. Nothing like his brother. Although he did say something weird about that.”

“Weird how?” Liam said.

“Are you just gonna keep repeating the adjectives I use as questions?” Wren said, turning to Liam.

The boy pushed his glasses back up his nose with a clean pinkie finger and apologised sheepishly.

“Anyway! What did he say?” Carlos swooped in.

“He said that Chadwick wasn’t meant to attack me.” Wren told them.

“Okay? What’s so strange about that?” Carlos asked.

“Well it kinda implies that Chadwick was meant to do something else.”

“I dunno about that. Maybe he was just apologising for his brothers behaviour.” Liam mused.

“Maybe, but it didn’t come across that way.”

“If you say so. You’re the one that was there.” Liam relented. “What did he look like? Can you point him out from here?”

Wren swept his head around him looking for the second year. The space outside the cafeteria was a lot fuller than it usually was. There were recruits everywhere, most of whom were second years as Wren could not recall ever seeing most of them in his life. He couldn’t see Max anywhere.

“No, but do you remember that boy who was hugging Instructor Penn this morning?”

“NO!” Liam exclaimed.

“That was him?” Carlos asked, a lot calmer than Liam.

Wren only nodded in answer.

“Oh I see how it is. You see Max hugging your crush this morning and then when you speak to him everything sounds weird and suspicious. That sounds about right.” Carlos said a small smirk appearing on his lips.

“What? No. That’s got nothing to do with it.” Wren rebutted.

“Then why are you making such a big deal out of this? You literally had a conversation with the guy, that’s it.”

“I’m just saying that it was strange. The whole family is strange. Isn’t that right Liam?”

As soon as he was mentioned he held his hands up in surrender. They were still covered in the sauce from the wings.

“I’m staying out of this.” He said.

Wren narrowed his eyes and looked at them both in disbelief.

“I can’t believe you. You’re both assholes.”

He stood up quickly and stormed off without giving either of them a second look.

“Wait, Wren, aren’t you going to eat that?” Liam called after him.

His plate of Dusk Vulture wings remained untouched on the floor.

~

Wren knew he was being unreasonable. He knew that Carlos had only been teasing when he’d made that comment about Max and Anastasia, and it wasn’t even that that really set him off. It was the fact that they didn’t seem to believe him when he told them that something weird was going on. He’d thought that he’d made some progress. That he finally had some friends. Well, sort of friends. But that idea swiftly came crumbling down as soon as he Carlos spoke.

He’d let go of his prejudices against Legacies in regards to Carlos and Liam. He’d really made an effort. He’d forgiven Liam for his ignorance, he’d warmed to and accepted Carlos despite their rude introduction. But it just hadn’t seemed to be enough for them. They were more than happy to believe that Max was honest, that there was nothing wrong. But Wren knew deep down something wasn’t right.

So he walked. And just kept walking. He didn’t really have any idea where he was going or what he was doing, but he knew that he needed it. He needed to cool his head.

He ended up once again by the wind room. He didn’t even mean to go there, he just kept going until there was no more path left to go down. He approached the edge of the cliff and sat down, his legs dangling over the edge. A few clouds were drifting along a couple metres below him and he watched them for a while. They looked so peaceful, just slowly travelling through the sky, going to wherever the wind took them.

He looked down at his forearm and studied his band. It glowed like it always did, bright and green. He brushed his fingers across it, feeling for where his natural skin ended and the band begun. He couldn’t tell the difference, it was a part of him, like it had always been there. Like he’d always been an elemental.

So why did he feel so out of place?