House Wolf Rising

Fay never planned on becoming an Obsidian.

He was born as an Brown, a servant, in the second (as in second-lowest) caste of society. Browns never had any social mobility - nor were they supposed to, it was by design. They lived as janitors, maintenance guys, cooks, and butlers, had to sustain themselves on minimal salaries, and were virtually slaves to the higher castes. Paying for an education and the surgical procedures required to become a different color was nigh impossible. Well, not quite impossible - there were a few in the second caste who had managed to do it, although the higher castes did the best they could to stamp those stories out lest they inspire more to try.

But even then, they usually only managed to rise up to the third caste, to become Blues, Greens, Yellows, or Oranges - Pilots, Programmers, Doctors, or Engineers. They secretly saved up for years, used loopholes to escape their households, sacrificed sleep and food at whichever school they made it into, and then finally graduated and received the surgery to upgrade their physical body. Do that twice, reaching the fourth caste? Unthinkable.

And yet here Fay was, trying to do exactly that.

He didn't have the money for a Blue, Green, Yellow, or Orange education. Instead, he built up his body physically, and managed to pass the tests needed to become a Gray. Grays were security officers and unofficial military. Technically they were part of the third caste, but most regarded them as a little below the other colors, brutes without brains, and their lives were consequentially worse. Why become a Gray when you could be a Blue, Green, Yellow, or Orange? However, it opened up a unique way into the fourth caste - becoming an Obsidian, an elite fighter or bodyguard for the elite. Fourth caste.

Fay sat slumped at his desk, scrolling through his options. Becoming an Obsidian required someone from the fifth, sixth, or seventh class to personally pick him. That meant he needed more than good test scores, rankings, or skills - he needed a good social standing, for everyone to already consider him refined and an unofficial Obsidian. Most of that he had covered - he moved to a richer district, had better clothes, attended weird parties that he didn't actually like. But to really be considered part of the Fourth caste you had to assert dominance over a lower caste, or at least fake it. You had to enslave someone who was Pink, a color in the second caste. A prostitute.