Being submerged in still water, you come to realize that it becomes hard to know you're touching water. You gain a sensation of normal, almost like when you walk outside and know there's air on your hands. Yet you can't feel it. It's uncanny how easy it is to forget you were submerged in the first place, soon you open your mouth to breathe and the water fills your lungs, releasing the last thing keeping you from sinking to the bottom of your watery grave.

Habits are a lot like that. I never knew I was dying in my daily rituals until two cloaked figures entered our small seaside town, one dreary morning in the 178th reign of the Kumihedin. The sky was blanketed with thick gray clouds and yet they couldn't fully blot out the sun that persisted in its light just behind them. No rain had fallen, but I remember the fresh salty smell that wisped over the cliffs to reach our small village. No one had paid it any mind, after all, weather was predictable, habits were predictable, even people were predictable ever since the Kumihedin began her rule. You knew your neighbors and your neighbors knew you, where you'd be and where you were going, everything was plain and simple; orderly, until two black cloaks snapped their echoey snap, billowing out in the harsh Clifton wind.

The world stopped around them, they didn't belong, they weren't in the system, they weren't one of us. Everyone gave them confused glances as they hurried past, they feared for their lives, nothing like this had ever happened in nearly two centuries. The streets were soon empty, everyone at their tasks in habitual diligence, no one dared to break the system, so the cloaks made the first move. Unfortunately, they chose me.

"Excuse me, but would you know what happened to the Bull Barrel's Inn?" The man who spoke had dark hair, pulled away from his face in a tight bun that looked as if all it wanted was to escape the leather strand's grasp, but his beard told the story of his age. A gristly silver gray mass of curls with only the slightest tinge of black where the newest strands grew.

I hesitated, my voice catching in my throat, wanting to answer despite my best efforts to deny its freedom. "I-I'm not sure I know of the place which you speak." I stuttered and silently cursed my vocal cords for their betrayal.

"Hm... Are you sure? It was always our favorite place to visit when we came to Wyclef." He sounded disappointed, his baritone voice rough like gravel, but then I realized the name that he'd said.

"Well there's your problem sir, this isn't Wyclef, this is Clifton." I tried to smile politely, but as I watched his periwinkle eyes bore into my dull brown ones, I could tell he knew the name had stirred something inside me. My stomach clenched, and my heartbeat sped up as a vague sense of recognition tried to ignite inside me. I quickly looked away. And as I watched from the corner of my eye I saw him share a glance with his companion. She seemed younger, but the coarse skin on her hands and the scars along her face, told me she'd seen far more than I ever would in a lifetime. I caught her slight nod before she pulled the cowl of her hood further around her face and the man cleared his throat.

"Well, it seems we've made a mistake, sorry to bother you miss- erm, what did you say your name was?" For a moment I'd been taken aback, I'd never had my name asked of me, people just simply knew it. It took three swallows before I was able to tell him what it was.

"Astrayna"

He smiled warmly, "Thank you for your time Miss Astrayna." With a slight bow from both of them, they wandered off through the center of town until all I could see of them were their dark cloaks still billowing in the wind. However, their presence never left my soul.

Later that evening as we were preparing for supper, Mother rushed over and gave me a warm squeeze. "I'm so glad they left; they didn't belong here at all." She closed the curtains with a shiver and turned back to the table where we were eating our usual 12th day meal. Twelfth days were always the favorites, before it reset to 1 the next morning. It was always a day of reflection but it was also the time for a new beginning, the day the Kumihedin told us what was next. I poked my salmon around my plate, my stomach was still knotted and I wondered if there was even room to eat with the complex folds my stomach had coiled into. Mother reached over and placed a comforting hand over mine.

The twins made their usual faces at each other, tongues out and wagging. I did my best to suppress a laugh as I joined the playful banter with my tongue on my nose. Meanwhile Father carefully placed the crystals into their proper places within the runes at the center of the table. When he was finished he gave us a sidelong glance then smiled, winking at the three of us. With Mother at the foot, Father at the head, and the twins, Sial and Sarish, on either side of Father I was the only one with an empty space across from me. I'd never wondered about it until today, but somehow the vacant place made me feel more unsettled than I'd ever known possible.

As Father took his seat and the crystals began their glimmering show of light, I fought to untangle my worry. The 12th day was supposed to be a day of peace. Life was peace, worry had no place in it. Lots of families had three children, making the table unbalanced. Lots of people traveled between lands and cities. I must have not been paying enough attention last 12th day to hear Kumihedin announce their arrival. I took a deep steading breath and shoveled a bite of the seasoned fish into my mouth as each of our crystals dimmed, notifying us that our purpose was ready to absorb. I carefully picked up my crystal, realizing for what felt like the first time, that it too was periwinkle, much like the eyes of the cloaked man, and placed it under my tongue.

As usual, the eyes of my siblings and parents glazed over as they received their purposes for the next twelve days, soon my consciousness faded as well. When I opened my eyes again, I watched the next twelve days dance before me in a ghostly play, each action imprinted inside me so I would be ready for what would come. For a moment, I almost forgot the cloaked pair that had intruded on our tranquil little village until I saw the flash. It only lasted for the time it took to blink, but I saw it. I saw the images change. Almost as if things were liable to change. As if my life was no longer set in stone like the cliffs of the village, but was being written by the waves of the Dark Sea below.

I carefully swallowed, hoping that the fear, knotting my stomach tighter than before, didn't show on my face. My Father smiled down the table at us and I envied the peace he felt. "Looks like quite the busy 12. I'm so proud of you Sial, you too Sarish. I can't wait to hear all about your new duties. I'm surprised you could even be diligent Sail, the fishermen have told me about the dead fish incident." Sial looked away guiltily, "I'm also glad to see that shepherding is working out well for you Sarish." Sarish smiled back at him.

"It's been good father, the sheep are soft and kind and we never have to go near the cliffs." Though they were twins, the interests of the two boys couldn't have been more different. Sarish was deathly afraid of heights, preferring to lie low and avoid the dangers involved with troublemaking. Sial, however, was a prankster with a talent for mischief and trickery. He could often be found disrupting the lives of the neighbors with his outlandish gags. Never a surprise, but always a nuisance.

My father's eyes turned to me, their deep blue gaze causing me to shift uncomfortably in my seat. Had he seen the flash too? Then the creases in his eyes turned upward, lighting up his old tanned face. "I can't believe it; my own little bird is leaving the nest. Congratulations daughter." He shook his dark oak curls and went back to his meal, the grin on his face stretching from ear to ear.

Mother brushed a stray wave of my frizzy hair from my eyes. Her pale hands were soft, so unlike the worn hands of the cloaked female. I looked up into my mother's eyes, such a rich green that I almost fell into their loving warmth. On the 9th day Syntyche would propose and I'd be betrothed for our wedding on the next twelfth. "You'll make a lovely wife; it will be nice for you to be able to plait your hair. Keeps it out of the way, especially from tiny hands." She winked at me and I looked at the long plaits of her pale cream colored hair. Plaited hair was a sign of womanhood, a sign of purpose and marriage.

When I was young, I'd envied the ease with which my mother had gone about her day. She didn't have to blow frizzy, wrinkled curls away from her face when the wind blew strong. I gently pulled on a strand of my own hair as my anxiety eased at the prospect of finally learning how to tame the dark ebony monster that was my frizzy tresses.

When we were finished with our meal, I cleared my place and gently traced the familiar grooves of the mahogany table. In order from oldest to youngest, we each filed along to the fireplace behind Father's seat and completed the simple ritual of scraping our leftovers into the bright orange flames. We then filed up the stairs to the left of the brazier and got ready for bed. As usual, the boys fought over who's nightclothes were the ones on the floor and eventually sorted out that, as always, it was Sial's. I smiled as their equally curly hair, jumped and danced while they pushed and shoved for the space at the wash basin and I gently brushed out the knots in my hair before sliding into bed. It wasn't long before the spirit of sleep found me.