Page 23

It wasn’t hard for Anlesa to realise something unusual was happening soon in the town.

People were trying to finish up their required work for the month faster, and Jen was being called out more regularly to help the town chief with reporting and checking documents just to ensure everything happened faster.

“Dad, what is happening?” Syrus (Red) asked as George shoved the boot onto his foot.

“Oh.” George paused in a moment of shock, realising he was a complete buffoon. Thankfully for him, his daughters don’t know he had told himself every morning to inform them but got distracted every single time for the last week.

He scratched his head, “We have someone coming to the village… well the other town to perform an attribute ceremony or something, it has a proper name and everyone aged six and above who hasn’t been checked yet will have their attribute revealed.”

“Everyone? Even me?”

“Yeah, they only come every four years to do the deed. Well, we still need to go to Ihere where the whateverthethingiscalled will be performed. So sorry, you do have to do it as well even if your attribute has awakened.”

“Who is coming to perform it?” Anna asked.

“I don’t really know, I think the Aurora Church? I’m not really religious so I don’t know much about churches and that sort of stuff, best ask your mother. But be careful when you do, if you sound too interested she won’t tell you and will make it a full lesson instead.” He warned.

“Yeah… I know…” Eva (Lilly) sighed, knowing their mother all too well. On the other hand, Luna (White) became deadly silent.

They had some collective knowledge of what an attribute ceremony was. It was just something to check what attributes kids would have. Depending on the country the age when this took place varied. From Lilly’s home, it was standard practice to have it performed during school at age ten during the school semester. Luna mentioned her’s was checked at five, and Syrus only got it properly checked during her teens–going out of her own way to do so–after she had already awakened then.

George started to leave to go to work but he asked, “Do you want to come today as well?”

Luna quickly replied, “Not today, we are just going to chat for a bit.”

“Well, that’s fine, you know where to find me if there is any trouble.” He waved goodbye.

“All good, Dad, take care.”

“You too, love you.”

“Love you too, bye.”

With George finally gone, Syrus asked aloud, “Everything good?”

Anna (Luna) turned around and walked towards their room, “No, and we need to do some preparation and planning.”

[Can we make sure only one of our attributes is visible for the ceremony?] Luna (White) questioned.

[Don’t we want to use two gifts?] Syrus (Red) asked.

[Yes, but no reason to let the world know we can use two attributes as a child. We can reveal it when we are a teenager.] Luna (White) replied.

[It’s more that you don’t want the church to know right?] (Syrus)

[Yes… Do you have a problem with that?] (Luna)

Syrus laughed, [None whatsoever.]

Lilly (Eva) said, [To answer your question, Luna, I believe so, but I have never tried it. I kind of understand the theory, but…]

[Don’t worry guys, I’ve got the plan sorted.] (Syrus)

[Oh, you know how to do it?] (Luna)

[Yeah, I picked up a method. There were these annoying bastards who picked up people's location by tracking gifts. So it was kind of an open secret taught to each other on how to hide one’s attributes. I just need to do that, with an extra bit of fiery spice.] (Syrus)

Syrus added a vital bit of information, [However, you two need to make sure you aren’t in the body during the process. When any of us our in the body, our respective attribute I don’t know ummm–]

[Activates, turns on, awakens?] Lilly gave a quick few suggestions.

[–Yeah, wake up, that’s a good one. Thanks, Eva.] Anna (Syrus) gave herself a thumbs for Eva. Eva was ever so slightly embarrassed by this action and didn’t reply back and so Syrus continued, [So it’s best if I’m the only one around. I can also flood our system with Fire which should be a good extra layer of protection!]

Luna only nodded and closed the window of their room to stop the breeze coming in. After that, they sat on the bed.

Lilly asked, [By the way, why is everyone trying to finish up work if it is just an attribute ceremony for the children?]

Luna scoffed, [Realistically it’s a church demand, ‘Ensure everything is done before we arrive, we don’t want any distractions’.]

[Wow, dicks.] (Syrus)

[Do churches make requests like that?] Lilly asked.

[Were there not any where you lived?] (Luna)

[Not particularly…]

Syrus chimed in, [Anyway Eva, from my experience nah. I mean, I can’t really say I knew any BIG churches or religious stuff. Most were small travelling groups that had a holy site somewhere. Nice enough but could be annoying at times. There was this one extra annoying small group that kept spouting end-of-the-world crap and tried to force that on people and maybe people would’ve believed them if the date didn’t keep changing each year after nothing happened.]

Anna’s (Luna) eyes widen in shock, [Were there really no central pillars of religion?]

[Well, one of the nearby countries I actually visited and fought against did have one. But honestly, it was kind of weird compared to some of the other ones. Not for any bad reason, it was just based on the first king's legacy and moral teaching. I guess because of that, they don’t really try to spread outside the country and it mostly is used for public holidays. I might’ve downplayed the size of the other religions by calling them ‘small travelling groups’, some did have churches all throughout the countries where I lived.]

[Huh, well that’s interesting…] Eva muttered.

There wasn’t much to do now, so Syrus jumped off the bed to do some simple exercises.

Syrus asked, [So what are we supposed to do besides that plan?]

[The best we can do is not cause any trouble and have the ceremony pass without any issues.] (Luna)

[Fair enough.] Replied Syrus, in the middle of her first push-up. At the peak of the second, she asked, [Want me to accidentally burn the priest?]

[...] (Luna)

[Hello, Earth to the Moon?]

Lilly sighed, [She needs to say no, but wants to say yes…]

“Hehe, I know.” Laughed Syrus.