Zero
Zero flopped down on his bedroll with a grunt, and rolled his shoulders stiffly. Everything hurt. He grumbled under his breath as his neck popped before blowing a black curl from in front of his nose. He needed to cut it, but there wasn’t nearly enough time for that, so he just let it hang in his face.
“How do you still have the energy to study Sev? We’ve been training and studying since before dawn!” he questioned. He ran a freckle-covered hand over his face before looking over at the other boy.
His roommate- Seventy-Six- was sitting on his bedroll with a book open in his lap, and scrolls weighted open around him as he jotted notes on a piece of parchment next to him. It was a nightly occurrence for them, almost a ritual. He was ingesting five different sources of information at once and Zero was honestly impressed he wasn’t even mildly overwhelmed by it.
“The placement exam is literally tomorrow, Zero. Just cause you’ve already got a guaranteed spot as a caretaker and don’t have to worry about-” he started, voice clipped with stress as he pushed his glasses back up his nose.
“The odds of me being a caretaker is slim to none, Seventy-Six. We both know that. I’m the top of our class in hand to hand, blades, and strategy. If anything I’m guaranteed a combat position in a cohort, if not leadership.” Zero interrupted bluntly. He was getting tired of that assumption- he worked to hard for it to even be considered.
Sev didn’t respond for a long minute. He ran a pale hand through his raven-black hair where it hung straight over his brow. He needed a hair cut, too, Zero noticed. He scanned Zero’s face with his dark blue, almost purple eyes before frowning. It put a crease between his thin eye brows, and he narrowed his already kind of narrow eyes before taking off his glasses to study him. That was a kind of stupid move for him though, since he was virtually blind without them, so he slid them back on his face.
“Yeah, but you’re a healer, Z. Healers basically never get combat positions no matter how good they are in fighting scenarios!” Sev argued after the pause. Zero only held his attention for a moment before Sev, the nerd he was, went back to studying. He flipped through the pages of one of the book, darting his eyes over the words while jotting down notes.
He spoke as if he was just stating a simple fact to an incompetent child. ’If only he knew…’ Zero thought, not bothering to respond. He couldn’t respond, he wasn’t allowed to deny it.
He didn’t feel like arguing a point he was forbidden to make anyway, he did enough arguing in general. He especially did not want to argue with the guy who could sneak into his dreams if he found so much as a reason to. So instead he just flopped his head back on his pillow to stare at the ceiling and disassociate.
The Guild of Shadows- a small village nestled in the crook of a very thin ravine- was secluded, strict, and a kingdom of its own if you thought about it hard enough. Run by a small council of five- The General and his four cohort members- everyone had a job.
Caretakers were healers and, well, care takers. They made sure that everything around the citadel, the little village they lived in, was kept in good condition. They cared for the youth under five, the landscaping, the maintenance of weapons, and the cleaning, cooking, and repairs needed around the town. It was a highly underappreciated job, and one that everyone participated in to some degree.
Scholars were a smaller off-set of care takers. They maintained the libraries, and acted as teachers for any and all non-combat related classes. There was a separate council for them, made up of five elders- one of which would report whatever they discussed to the General. They very rarely had any of the Solstices- people with magic like Seventy-Six and Zero- assigned as Scholars, but one or two wind or weather wielders would be to help maintain climate in the older parts of the libraries.
Scouts were a sort of mix between combat and non-combat. They were tasked with running ahead of a battle party to search for roadblocks, enemies, or new encampments. Typically, they had to try and avoid getting in fights, or getting found in general, but it didn’t always work out that way. Because of that, they did have some combat training in hand to hand and close-range weapons. They were also in charge of watching the area around the ravine for any wanderers or strays, and reporting their presence to the ground soldiers.
The Citadel’s main goal was to stay undetectable. The General and his cohort would occasionally go on diplomatic missions to the surrounding kingdoms, but the location of the Guild’s home was a closely guarded secret. No one actually knew where it was unless you were raised there.
Archers were the ones who were tasked with making sure encampments or parties weren’t killed while they were asleep or engaging in battles- which was rare. They would post themselves behind the front lines or in the center of a camp at a higher vantage point- whether that was in a tower, tree, or in a crack in a tall rock- and make sure no one got the jump on them.
Ground soldiers were the ones making sure everyone was safe, as well as being in charge of more physical matters- such as setting up camp, packing up, and moving. They were typically the more brute force factor.
Stealth Soldiers, or assassins as they were more commonly referred to, were the wild cards. They took part in all of the different roles, lead cohorts- teams of five people; one ground soldier, two scouts, an archer, and them self- and had the most solo missions out of all of the different jobs. They were trained in surveillance, combat, and tracking, making them perfect for spying, assassinations, and leading operations.
All roles were important, but the thought of being non-combat made Zero want to claw his own skin off. He didn’t like violence- hated it even; but the thought of watching the people he grew up with- his friends- going into combat, or a fight of any kind without him there to protect them clawed at the back of his mind like a bleed.
It wasn’t really something he had to worry about though, his magic was literally made for combat after all. However, he couldn’t tell anyone that. He was one of the Guild’s- one of the General’s- best kept secrets.
He heard his name come up in conversation more often than not. His hearing was too strong to miss the way teachers and caretakers whispered about him behind his back. How healers murmured in discomfort at the idea of them joining them. How soldiers grumbled about ‘ambitious little shits’ like him ‘coming for their spots’. He also didn’t miss how the higher ranking men and women who worked closer to the inner ring gave him strange looks- mostly of the hostile variety- when they saw him on his way to lessons with the General.
Because of the fact Zero had been brought in by the General himself when he was two, he was one of the Citadel’s favorite gossip mills. Normally children weren’t brought into the guild after they turned one, and then they were typically given a number after the most recent. Zero was not only brought in a year after the cut off for his age group- meaning he shouldn’t have been taken in- but despite being on the younger side of the bracket, had been named the name he had been.
Well- for now. They got new names at their induction ceremony into whatever role they were assigned after their assessment.
‘It all just makes perfect sense!’ Zero thought sarcastically, his eye twitching slightly.
It didn't, but he wasn't in any position to argue, so he kind of just had to get over it.
Not to mention he just generally didn't care all that much about it. He didn't find things like that important enough to waste his energy trying to figure out what the point behind it was. He opted to just roll with it, since that was the only thing he could do. Maybe one day he would find a way to care, but that likely wasn't going to happen any time soon.
For now, though, he knew he had to be up at an ungodly hour in the morning, and it would be a rather smart idea to get some sleep.
So he closed his eyes and tried his best to get some sleep. It wasn't easy with Sev's muttering to himself as he read and made notes, or with the constant shifting of papers, but he made it work.
