Red

Two

Ana takes a few hesitant steps towards the Guardian. He is very young, "too young to be the Guardian" she thought. Young, but very built and he has glowing tattoos running down his forearms as if his skin looks cracked. His brown hair is disheveled, but yet it is like that on purpose. His jawline could cut something if at the right angle.

"Well I guess I will introduce myself first since you are clearly not speaking," The Guardian begins, full of arrogance. "I am Zephyr Greddy, Guardian of Sential." He motions to the chair in front of the desk, "please have a seat, recruit." His mood seems to shift quickly as he becomes very intrigued by her, almost in a distracting way.

"Thank you, Guardian. I am Anastasia Lockert, Ana for short," Ana says walking to the desk. She sits down and instills her good posture. She wants to look focused, even though she is clearly distracted with the being that is sitting in front of her. As the Guardian pulls his seat in to be closer to the desk, his foot taps her's.

"Sorry," the both say at the same time. The Guardian clears his throat and begins pulling up Ana's stats on the desk screen. Ana looks down at that top of the desk, as information flys by until it stops at her profile. The Guardian reads over everything briefly before speaking to Ana once more.

"You are quite the recruit. You show promise to my forces and I mean my forces." Ana is not sure what that means, however she continues to pay attention to what the Guardian is saying.

"No one has ever shown me efforts like yours on their first day, even in training. Your actions are quite exquisite compared to anyone I have ever brought on board to my team. I will take this into consideration when making assignments for the troops tomorrow. Now as for your reason to be here, I would like to know. It is unlike females aged like you to decide to give their life to the Sential Crest."

The Guardian is right. No one in Ana's recruiter troop is like her. Ana is the anomaly. Women within the Sential usually stick to the economics of things. However Ana has a very good reason as to why she is there, sitting in front of the Guardian that looks like he is only a few years older than her. She has the reasoning of keeping her parents' marriage legal and their future bright.

"Sir, I am here for a reason I am not quite sure I would like to discuss with you right now. However, it is for good intentions and I will continue to do everything in my power to complete any and all quests given no matter the circumstance. You know, sometimes people just don't know what to do with their life. We don't know what our purpose is here in Sential, but we are here anyways. I am here because I need to fight for something that means the entire world to me and if that is not a good enough reason for you, then I am truly sorry for failing you."

Ana grips her thighs tightly, as her adrenaline pumps through her blood. The Guardian shows no expression on his face as he just stares at Ana. Ana does not move or shake. She just stares straight back at him as if the two are trying to burn holes through each other's bodies.

"Very well done, recruit. You have officially made promise that by tomorrow, you will be given two days worth of quests. If you continue to strive for the rest of the week, I will let you know personally, which position you will be ranking to be fighting by my side. It was a pleasure, Anastasia Lockert."

The Guardian stands from his chair holding out his hand. Ana reaches for his hand as she stands. They shake once and slowly let go.

"The pleasure was all mine," Ana says, just letting the words slip off of her tongue. "The pleasure was most certainly all mine," Ana thinks as she turns to walk out and away of the overwhelming presence of the Guardian.

Ana does not know what to think of anything. She becomes very overwhelmed with this new information bouncing around inside of her head. Ana feels as if she is on top of the world compared to anyone else she knows.

She hurries back to Commanders' Quarter so she would not miss out on the evening meal. Ana is actually surprised at how fast dusk is approaching, even though there is only six hours of daylight a day. She thought she only spent minutes or even seconds with him, and it was not enough to satisfy her. She is going to need more conversations in the future if she is going to be apart of his forces.

After a while, Ana finally reached the Commanders' Quarter. She goes straight to the eatery and grabs the most appetizing things, throwing them on her translucent tray. She puts her palm on a reader at the end of the line to check out. Ana continues to sit in the corner by herself, hoping no one else would sit with her. She is not in the mood to discuss her or anyone else's day today. She is certainly not going to discuss anything near or along the lines of the Guardian. She can never discuss that information at a place like this, it could ruin her.

Of course, due to Ana's luck a girl who Ana has never seen before sits down at the table with her, going on about being an outcast.

"They don't like me. They treat me differently around here, as if I'm not going to make it. Could you hand me some sauce," the girl asks Ana. Ana looks at her, giving her the savory sauce that's next to her. The girl kept prepping her food as she rambles. "They hate females being here. We all know they think we don't belong here. That's why we're by ourselves in the back corner while they all point and whisper about us. I should've known people like us are never going to progress in this."

Ana stops to process everything she had just heard. She places her fork down and swallows her food. She takes one more good look at the girl who has stunningly blue eyes and jet black hair. "She looks appealing and that's why" Ana thinks to herself. Her mind goes back to earlier when she had turned in her quests. "Those guys must've talked down to her especially if she couldn't finish her quests. But who is she to say 'we' when she doesn't even know me?"

Ana stops thinking as she opens her mouth to spill her thoughts. "I don't even know who you are, but I am willing to give you a tip for your quests. Do them hardest to easiest, trust me you'll get them done faster and get rare resources before others. Another thing, don't let those assholes be condescending towards you. If you want to be treated like the rest of us here, you're going to have to act like the rest of us, which leads me to my final point. Just because I'm female does not mean I'm like you."

Ana leans closer and lowers her voice, "and between you and me, I am pretty sure we are better than most of these guys anyways."