The Ocean was dark and cold.

Those weren’t the worst of the feelings they felt.

They were also lonely. Lonely and bored.

With the departure of the others, the Ocean had stopped feeling joy.

For what the more intelligent beings on the planet described as millennia they had spent their time in the same cycle.

Being the ocean, meant to die.

It meant to live.

And it meant to repeat that cycle forever, as long as there were oceans.

They had to follow the pattern of what it governed after all.

Like most days Liana spent her days helping her father. His job as a tanner was in her modest opinion disgusting. Handling dead animals, well she didn’t like it.

They were so nice when they were alive after all. And they were too smelly when they were dead.

But she guessed that they had to make a living somehow, and it was in line with her father's trait. Which he had from birth on.

So she helped him, in her generosity she thought and giggled.

She knew that her father had his reasons for wanting her help. It was to help her improve her physical attributes, and it showed.

After having started helping out with the physical labor in the shop Liana had improved her physique by two points. Her agility only by one, however.

It was now as good as most boys, besides the ones that actively trained. Her father kept insisting on her raising her attributes but Liana didn’t care much about that.

Life was good and she enjoyed playing with her friends. Cora and Evelyn were so much more fun than toiling along with her father.

She knew though, that working had been worth at least something. Today her father had promised to buy something nice for her with the money she had earned.

And she knew what she wanted.

She was gonna have the most amazing dress there ever was. The color of the sky after a thunderstorm and the dress would be super good for playing hide and seek as well.

For she was invited to the Sanonbourgh twins birthday party. She had spent the first of her two years of education with the twins in the same classroom and they had gotten along just splendidly. Well until they left to be tutored at home after the one very mandatory year of school.

The second year - which she was currently enrolled in - was still important and taught a lot about life. Most importantly though, at the end of the year, each of the students interested would get access to one requirement for combat classes.

The party celebrating the twelfth birthday of the twin pair would be their first meeting after almost a year and was expected to be a huge event.

That was because right about that age you unlocked your skills and unlocked your trait. Which were the foundation of one's class in the future.

Those things weren’t as important as they had once been she learned in school but it was a tradition of the old noble families and the wealthy crowd preferred to imitate the old blood.

Thinking about gaining traits and skills elicited another giggle from Liana.

“I am gonna be twelve soon, too” and with a smile on her face, she continued the work with her father.

For the rest of the afternoon, she mostly helped her father with many minor chores, such as repositioning barrels and removing waste, or gathering the various items her father needed.

Always burdened just to what she could manage.

In the later part of the day, when the soaking of skins remained the last ongoing crafting process did they leave Narder’s shop, making their way to Clothier’s Street - the main place for common and slightly higher grade clothes.

“Liana, how have you come along last month. Would you mind sharing your status with me, so I can see your progress?” Narder - her father - asked. The questions had started two weeks ago, in regular six-day distances.

“Yepidy yep,” and with a wave of her hand, he saw her information in front of him.

She had waited for dramatic effect, though her father seemed utterly unimpressed. Opposite her mother who she had made swear to not tell her father.

Name: Liana

Skill unlock: Pending

Status:

Physique: 5 Agility: 6 Reaction: 4 Flow: 3

Attunement: -

Traits:

In Rhythm

“Great, you are really close to unlocking your skill slots now. When did it say pending first, ” he asked after checking over the status quickly. And as in an afterthought he added “You gained another physique, that is great.”

“Ohh, uhm a couple of days ago, but mom said that the skill unlock pending part always appears around one month around your birthday, and we learned that in school too,” Liana answered.

“Your mom is right, yes. But this just shows us that you are so grown up already,” an with that he swept her up in a long, warm, and from the work slightly smelling hug.

“You should have told me sooner. You should know that once it appears you qualify for gaining skills, and those are important, more important than helping me”, he said, the last few words just uttered silently under his breath.

All Liana knew to do was to hug him back harder, she didn’t like making her father sad.

His face lighting up he looked down at her again.

“But that means you know what your Trait is and what it does, don’t you. Come on, don’t tease this old man, show me,” he said.

[In Rhythm] - You move in the Rhythm of the world.

“I don’t know what it means and neither does mom. It unlocked yesterday, right after school.”

“Well, we better find out. What do you think. Should we head to the keepers after we have gotten a nice outfit for you? I think we should.”

“That would be great. Even Mr. Tosien didn’t know what it means,” she answered, gripping her father’s hand and skipping towards Clothier’s Street.