Wings of Fire as Humans: Jade Preparatory Academy

Chapter Fourteen: Sundew Oakleaf

Sundew Oakleaf tapped her foot impatiently on the tile floor of the main hall of Jade Preparatory Academy as she craned her neck toward the front of the ridiculously long line.

"Stop that," her mother, Belladonna, ordered. "We don't want to draw attention to ourselves."

"No one can hear it anyway," Sundew shot back. "Everyone's talking." This was, in fact, true, and it made Sundew want to claw someone's face off. The room was filled with chatter in multiple languages, though near Sundew the chatter was mostly in Common, because none of the lower-status races wanted to be caught by the Kypseli authorities speaking their native tongue. Sundew and her mother, however, were speaking Foglian, which was earning them repeated surprised looks from the people around them.

"We're already drawing attention to ourselves," Sundew reminded her mother. "We're speaking Foglian."

"So we don't need to draw more attention," Belladonna countered.

Sundew gritted her teeth. Arguments with her mother were impossible to win. She rather pointedly continued tapping her toe.

Belladonna sighed. "Shut up," she ordered Sundew rather suddenly, straightening to attention as a Kypseli guard came over to them.

"Do I hear you two speaking Foglian?" the guard asked, suspicious.

"What?" Belladonna asked, looking startled. "Why would we do that?"

"That is what I am wondering. Might I remind you that speaking, learning, passing on, or otherwise mentioning the language of a race beneath the rank of Two is prohibited under Clause Four of Her Imperial Majesty Queen Wasp's Declaration of Rights?"

Sundew heard Belladonna grit her teeth rather verbally. "We don't need to be reminded. We were speaking Foglian, yes, but it was a curse word I assume you would prefer I don't repeat in Kypseli or Common."

The guard sighed. "I will remember your names," he told them. "Belladonna and Sundew Oakleaf?"

Belladonna hesitated, then nodded reluctantly.

"This is your first offense," he told them. "The second will be a fine, and the third an arrest. It is only Her Imperial Majesty Queen Wasp's benevolence that spares you from those fates now."

"Her 'benevolence'," Belladonna muttered as soon as the guard was out of earshot. "I'd say more like 'malevolence'."

Sundew didn't agree. She didn't think it would be safe to, in case anyone overheard, though for once in her life, she agreed with her mother wholeheartedly.

It was odd being in a place where they couldn't do anything without someone watching. In her home, Cicada City, Sundew was used to hanging out with people from other races and ranks at school and going into the homes of the rich powerful afterward as she and her friends worked on projects together. That . . . would never happen here. She knew that she was in the Jade Winglet, and that there was a Kypseli - Cricket - and an Ua - Kinkajou - in the same dorm room. But she wasn't encouraged to be friends with them. Jade Preparatory Academy, much to Sundew's frustration, was a place of learning.

it was not a place they were encouraged to have fun.

And, though Sundew hoped this would change soon, certainly not revolution

A/N: Soooooo, I've decided that I'm going to update once a week, on Friday when I update my other stories, for at least the next thirteen weeks. (Thirteenis the number of chapters I haven't released but have written in my other stories, so I'm going to try to have them all match).