Julia’s room was bright with morning sun. Some of it was bursting its way through the window straight into her eyes, which protested at the harsh amounts of light trying to break its way through her eyelids. She tried to roll over, to pull covers over her eyes, but the light always seemed to try and pull her eyelids up. She didn’t want to wake up; yesterday was a long day.

The more she hid from the light, however, the more her mind kept prodding at her, trying to tell her that she had to wake up for some reason or another. She protested at this just as much as her eyes protested to the light. She could sleep for just a little bit more time. It was probably still really early. The sun was just coming up earlier because summer was slowly approaching. 

She shot up out of her covers, remembering why she had to wake up. She checked her clock, and realized she was supposed to wake up thirty minutes ago. Not horrible, she could have slept in more, but she needed to get going. The ceremony was today, and she couldn’t miss it. 

She got dressed quickly, quicker than she thought possible, although you could tell it took her seven minutes flat to get into her clothes and tidy up a small amount with a quick glance at her hair and the sparse amount of makeup. She then raced downstairs, to where her Mom, Dad, and sister were scrambling about the house, getting breakfast ready, getting themselves ready, and chasing Lily around the house to get her ready as well. 

“You’re late Julia!” Mom announced. 

“I know, I know,” Julia said to herself, walking briskly to the kitchen.

“Breakfast is already made,” her Mom yelled from the other room, “Fill a plate up and eat, you need to be out of this house in twenty minutes.”

“Yes Mom,,” Julia said. She did what her mother told her, although not quite to the pace that she would have liked. Julia gave it about thirty minutes that she had to be out of the house, not twenty. She watched her father roll his eyes. He was thinking the exact same thing.

“So,” her father said, “Are you ready for today?”

“Not at all,” Julia said. 

“Well that’s comforting,” he said. “I don’t even think I’m ready. My daughter is leaving the house. It’s going to be weird without you here.”

“You have Lily,” I said.

“It’ll be a while before she’ll become as cool as you.” He smiled, and walked into another room to do fatherly things.

Julia sat there, eating in silence, with only the bustle from her parents in various different places in the house to remind her that she needed to hurry at least a little bit, and that she had to be somewhere at a specific time.  She finished up her breakfast, realized that she probably got out of bed and got dressed a little too quickly, went to fix her uniform and hair up, put on a little bit more makeup, and then started to head out. 

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As she walked out the door, she yelled a goodbye to her parents, they poked their heads out from the various different rooms, said goodbye in return, and she ran out the door.

Verdigris was a grand city, shaped like a cone, with the outer stretches of the town made up of low rise suburban housing, with the height of buildings getting progressively taller the closer to the center you got. The tallest building in the city was the Verdigris Tower, where the Conclave, and most of the government as a whole, did their work. The tower loomed over the entirety of the city, and unless you were in an extremely tight ally or inside a building, chances were you could see the tower in some capacity. 

The rest of the city was bathed in a beautiful forest green. Every nation had their own color to make it easier to identify who was who in battle, and Veridia had adopted green as their color. Once, only extremely patriotic citizens had adopted the use of green as an act of loyalty to Viridia and the conclave, but the adoration for the particularly vibrant and beautiful shade of green Virida was known for spread, and the adoption of the color had become nearly universal.

Lights decorated buildings with the Viridian Green, storefronts' neon signs were lit up with the shade, occasional porch lights were tuned to the shade, and no matter where you stood in the city, there was something giving off that shade of green within your eyesight. 

Julia jaunted through the streets of Verdigris which were ever tightening the closer she got to the center of the city. It was early enough where the streets were rather barren of people, but late enough to where street vendors were already set up and ready to sell you their wares. Julia had made this walk a few times before, and knew to keep her eyes forward and not to react to somebody calling her name unless she absolutely knew the voice. She had spent too much money the first time she had come out to these streets. She knew better now, gladly. 

The sounds of the morning announcements sounded through the town and echoed against the concrete walls. This morning it seemed to be the crisp voice of Bobby. She spoke to the passively listening ears about local news, new policies put forth for voting, a mention of yellow moving further north into Viridia than last week, a bold move for their kind, recent moves from the Viridian army into red’s territory, pushing further into the continent, and the Shadow Verdancy appointment ceremony later that day. 

That’s me! Julia thought. She had been chosen for the chance to be a Shadow Verdancy, or government officials chosen by one of the Concalve to help and shadow that Conclave member, and while a ceremony was held that made it sounds like it was a surprise for the Shadow Verdancy to be chosen, but in reality she had known she was going to get the appointment for a few weeks at this point.

She had not known which Verdancy had chosen her, and it was customary to not know, however she had an idea. It was the person on the loudspeakers, repeating the announcements she had just made. Bobby, which was not her real name, had regularly inquired into Julia's work as a political student, and, according to her headmaster, Julia's knack for leadership and charismatic personality had caught Bobby and her scouts' eyes, and soon after hearing about this from her headmaster, she received the letter saying she was invited to the Verdigris Tower for the Shadow Conclave appointment ceremony. 

Julia's thoughts raced, thinking about how the ceremony would go, if her family would be able to get in to see her, if her family would even be there, and as soon as she had left her house it seemed, she arrived into the central district of the city. Here the buildings were the tallest, the green was the most vibrant, the screens the brightest, displaying footage of the wars overseas, which were not wars as much as petty squabbles nowadays, and the Verdigris Tower as menacing as ever. She stopped in the middle of the road, which was now much more populated with people making their way to work, and took a few deep breaths. She mentally made the switch to start talking and thinking in Modern Standard Verdanka, the standardized language used within the eyes of the government across Viridia, and, in theory, the entire country, and continued her walk. 

Julia was nervous now. She didn't know why.