Negative outlook
Aquila was not impressed with the muggle world it being a cold hard place for an 11 year old to survive in, she was not impressed by the red faced man that had dragged her to an orphanage after trying and failing to get her to talk about her family or say anything other then her name for that matter either and she was most certainly not impressed by the filthy orphanage filled with filthy muggle.
As a matter of fact she rather disgusted and put out over the whole thing. The muggles were condescending and arrogant for all of there worthlessness. The very idea that she should do anything the tight faced woman at the orphanage said was almost funny.
The living conditions were horrible. They took away her robes and gave her ugly common clothes. Running hot water, sweet smelling soap, and any kind of perfumes were non existent. It was no wonder the place smelled. The muggle children had the nerve to talk to her, the muggle adults had the nerve to try and make her talk to them. Also the poor food made her stomach turn and anything they had that was edible was gone before she could eat her fill of it.
It wasn't long before she was feed up with being filthy and began to bath in cold water each day, they would only heat water once a week for the children to bath in so most of the barbarians only bathed then. It made her feel better to be cleaner then the creatures around her, it separated her from them and that was well worth the discomfort of cold water.
She was forced to share a room with two other girls of whom she loathed. They soon learned not to bother her. While she would not be so uncivilized as too physically assault them, her words torn into them without remorse.
Her roommates were ugly, filthy, and would never amount to anything if they didn't die on the streets they would be good for nothing other then warming the beds of the ugliest servants. She told them as much. She would have told them that she longed watch them die if not for the fact that they were not worth the trouble making threats would bring.
It was a dark time for Aquila. She had too much Black pride to kill herself and so she suffered. She suffered for months alone surrounded by the beasts and just looking at them made her skin crawl and then, then she came across a boy talking to a snake.
For the first time in months she smiled.
Tom's point of view.
Life was dull. An endless routine. Stupid predictable people concerned about stupid predictable things. Tom spent most of his time reading away from the other children. Not that there was much to read here. Books were a rare luxury here thou there was a few for the children's schooling. Mostly he stole the newspapers or a magazine if there was one from the adults.
He wasn't lonely because he liked to be alone, never mind that before he had discovered that the snakes could talk back he had attempted to have intelligent conversations with his peers a few times. He had realized that it was impossible to talk to them; they were stupid and boring and could not offer Tom anything to hold his interest. He soon grew to hate them. He was better then them, smarter, and different somehow. It wasn't just his smarts that made him better he could things that they couldn't do.
Tom didn't understand what he could do, how he could hurt people without touching them, how he could control animals without training them, how he could look at the world with logic and realize how pointless the other children's games were and how little they had to laugh and smile about.
Tom could see the world clearly for all that he didn't understand it, but he had a feeling. A feeling as thou he was waiting for something and maybe when that something came he could understand.
He didn't know that the something or rather the someone was already here until she looked at him, eyes sparkling with delight and began to talk.