Ansel titled his head to regard her when she spoke again. He blinked, then looked back at the computer he was working on.
“I prefer the mechanical so in that case it would be I who would pity you. Perhaps we shall have to disagree. I can like the machines, you can like the people. It could work,” he nodded as he continued with his work.
How long had he been here? How many years had it been? He paused, his hands frozen, thinking.
“Forever?” he questioned, “Honestly, some of the years tend to blend together. I’m sure it’s in my personnel files, buried… somewhere. It would be easier to tell you about the students that became rangers that made a mark on the world before it caught up with them.”
He remembered them, the ones that had died to save the world and the others that the world left broken. Perhaps he didn’t remember all of them as clearly as he liked, but he had mourned them in their departure, whatever form it had taken.